 
### YDNAS: The Girl of the Prophecies

By Paul D. Bowen

Copyright 2015 Paul D. Bowen

Published by Paul Bowen at Smashwords

Smashwords edition license notes:

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

### DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to

Judith Ann Strong,

Amazon, Mage, Goddess

### ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Harold Brown and John Overbeck, both of whom read the first draft all the way through and made many detailed and helpful comments. Others who read all or part of the way through include Sandra Schilling, Susan Bowen, Gary Poole, Rachel Hadas, Jonathan Edwards, and Caleb Beers. Especially, though, I would like to thank Judith Strong, to whom the novel is dedicated, who not only read it all the way through and made many useful comments, but who is responsible for preparing it for publication.

Cover design by Renee Barratt, www.TheCoverCounts.com.

### DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to real persons or gods,

living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

Views expressed by persons or gods

are not necessarily

those of the author.

### Table of Contents

Translator's Preface

Ydnas

Glossary

About the Author

### TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

[Readers may wish to skip this preface and proceed directly to the story.]

It is a great privilege to be able to present this new translation of _Ydnas_ , which is believed by many to be the greatest novel in the Gastripi language, in spite of the fact that parts of it have apparently been lost, and other parts forged or altered. Recent scholarship has, however, discovered or restored 720 previously unknown fragments dating from the Trang Interregnum, bringing the total of known credible fragments to 5,040. These in turn can apparently be plausibly gathered into as few as 120 complete variants; within each variant, the separate fragments are consistent except for minor details. Of these variants, 24 appear to tell a fairly complete story, although it is hard to be sure, given the tendency of the author(s) to ignore many of the usual conventions of the tale or novel. As far as I know, mine is the only translation so far to profit (I hope!) from perusal of all this material and from the scholarly controversies thereon.

I must confess that I have added to the confusion by combining episodes from several variants, although in the main I have followed the Karlekola-Staxvalt variant, number 6 in the Rimraf listing. I cannot justify this from purely historical evidence; I did it because it seemed to me to make a better story that way. I have tried to make the work as a whole self-consistent, although I am intrigued by Serimenth's contention that the original was deliberately made not so.

Indeed, some may object to my incorporating the new material, since speculating about the missing parts has always been one of the greatest pleasures of reading _Ydnas_. One might even say that it has become a huge collective work with thousands of authors, each filling the gaps in his own way. Furthermore, Mirple and others have argued that the novel was originally and deliberately written with multiple versions, and Gratibulash has presented intriguing evidence that it was originally and deliberately written with parts left out. Of course, they may both be right. I can only reply that although my version may be too complete and coherent for some tastes, the reader who enjoys attempting to improve on it is free to do so. Readerly creativity is therefore still an option.

Quite apart from the problems of missing or multiple versions, scholars have long argued about what exactly _Ydnas_ is supposed to _be_. Is it a work of pure fiction, or are we supposed to take it, to some extent, as history, or prophecy? Is it a serious work in Theology, sweetened with tales of sex, drugs, violence, magic, and intrigue, or is it a satire on that very genre? Or do sex, drugs, violence, magic, and intrigue constitute the main point, and Theology the sweetening? Do some characters and events have symbolic or archetypal significance? Is the work meant to propose a complex but coherent picture of the universe and human society, or is it meant to suggest that the complexity of the world will always be too great for us?

Is it meant to precipitate a religious conversion, as Tordel Rei now claims (having experienced one), or is it meant to build the reader's resistance to religion, as Rei insisted in her younger years? Is it a systematic exploration of moral failure and redemption, as Trr has suggested? Or is it rather about the Problem of Evil, as the D'reneki School argues? Is the Arjikranz Group correct, that it is about the nature of the self? Is it a Utopian socio-political tract, as the Zugurgili Collective has maintained? Or is it just a patchwork of various loosely connected tales, as A'Artigan has proposed?

I have argued that it attempts to be all those things, like Ydnas' chameleon god, who can (and no doubt will) take form as a mountain, a sound, a mood, a prime number, a style of literature, a headache, a mystery, time, evil, Philosophy, a contradiction, a city, a world, pictures of worlds, a community of literary historians, a book and its reader, a chameleon god, and everything else. As my esteemed colleagues will happily tell you, this sort of claim cannot be proved. Besides, general acceptance of such a view would put an end to the debate, which would surely be an unfortunate outcome.

We will probably never know whether there was ever a single correct version of _Ydnas_ , whether it had one author or many, how many of the fragments we now have are forgeries, or to what extent chance and mathematics played a role in its creation. Fortunately, the non-scholarly reader doesn't have the slightest need to have an opinion on these matters.

Please accept a wish of good luck from your hopeful translator,

Intipisk,

Three-quarters through Shortmoon 6, year 1729 of the Aluid Aristocracy.

### YDNAS

"A journey of a thousand horizons begins

with a single act of the imagination."

( _The_ _Book of Achievement_ )

It is written that once there was a fabulist. He was intrinsically creative, and so he began to make up stories. In his stories he created many people, and many worlds for them to live in. Among the people were gods and mortals, women and men, parents and children, criminals and saints, teachers and students, demons and angels, rulers and ruled, writers and readers. There were laborers, warriors, monks, philosophers, merchants, aristocrats, con artists, healers, farmers, thieves, kings, fishermen, fabulists, and many others. Over time, these people interacted with each other in a progressively more intricate way, creating various patterns on a larger scale. Language and custom changed with time and place, and every person had to grapple with his own uniqueness. Many of them tried to see larger patterns in their lives, and to grasp the meaning and purpose of it all. They had mixed success.

This particular fabulist created the wonderful and terrible city of Kondrastibar, on the coast of the Sea of Dreams. Sometimes small and sometimes large, Kondrastibar at its greatest extent rose from the many-fingered shores of the coast, sprawled across the rich tropical delta of the river Kron, marched over the dry but fertile plain of Yuclo, groped through the soulful mists of the Thousand-Lakes region, scaled the cliffs and gorges of the Hill Country, and finally climbed the ever-steepening sides of the great mountain Archonect, almost up to the tree-line. To and from Kondrastibar go more kinds of convoys and caravans than anyone will ever think of. Thence go even the diaphanous Tellamir, singing in prismatic ships, and the deep-dwelling Rotimor, echoing through their caverns.

In Kondrastibar, everything possible must happen. Of course, the likelier things happen more often. This particular story begins in a Slave Market, where a young girl was being offered for sale by the one-eyed slave merchant, Dolla. Scrawny, unkempt, pre-pubescent, disoriented, and bruised, the girl was not likely to fetch a high price, so Dolla's irritation was tempered with relief when there was only one bidder, an elderly Suimi woman who offered a tiny copper coin. Dolla quickly made the exchange and turned to his next item, a platoon of hypno-soldiers being sold by their pirate captors.

The elderly woman, whose sole mark of status was a small tattoo on her left earlobe, approached the shivering girl slowly and stood an arm's length from her, smiling gently, while Dolla's blind assistant removed the chains and pinions.

"Easy, there, Dearie," she said, smiling, as she slowly unrolled a white blanket, turning it to show both sides, "Let me just drape it over you, poor thing." The girl did not understand the woman's language, but some part of her heard the gentleness and concern in the woman's tone, and so she did not flinch as much as she might have.

Reaching into a pocket of her robe, the Suimi produced a piece of black bread. Muttering a short prayer, she handed it to the girl, who accepted it hesitantly, examined it surreptitiously, and finally mimed for permission to eat it. "Of course, Dearie," replied her new mistress, nodding and smiling, "and when we get home, you can have some hot soup." After sniffing, poking, and licking the bread carefully, the girl tried a small bite. With an expression first surprised and then dreamy, she chewed it, slowly and deliberately. Then, closing her eyes blissfully, she swallowed it.

"Do you like it?" asked the Suimi woman. "By the way, my name is Kor. Kor, Kor," she repeated, gesturing to herself.

"Ydnas, Ydnas," said the girl, making a similar gesture.

"Shall we go then, Dearie?" asked Kor, reaching out a hand. Ydnas took it, very hesitantly. They walked away from the auction block area, like two little insects in a swarm, beneath the towering, many-handed statue of Honggur, God of the Free Market. Throughout his temple, people, things, and services were being advertised, bought, sold, rented, liened, loaned, traded, assayed, promised, insured, imagined, bonded, futured, gambled with, and manipulated in countless other ways that Kor would never have wanted to understand. She gave one of her tiny coins to a cheap policeman, who, quarterstaff raised, escorted them through the feverish crowd to the hot and spicy afternoon outside.

Proceeding down the seemingly endless marble steps of the Temple, and through a smiling crowd of naked Zillist wanderers, Kor and Ydnas found themselves at the edge of an avenue whose great width would, in most cities, have made it a major thoroughfare. Lined by the huge trunks of ancient baobob trees, this avenue was made of huge blocks of blue granite. The traffic of the ages had worn the pavement down so far that courses of steps had been installed to allow pedestrians to get down to their lane. At the far edge of that lane one could see the lane for elephants and other large, slow-moving transport. When traffic was light, and the air clear, one could make out, in the distance, the lane for chariots. There were said to be other lanes, but they could not be seen from the edge.

Kor waited until she could position herself and her charge between a phalanx of brightly-hued Korzibian accountants and a division of elegantly scarified mercenaries from the Church of Balan-Ching. She and Ydnas then entered the thoroughfare and proceeded, passing frequently under overpasses for other streets, or leading to other lanes. Many of these bridges, pleasantly wrapped with ivy or wisteria, were lined at the sides with houses, stores, or temples; more than once Kor and Ydnas had to leap aside to avoid garbage (or worse) emptied from windows. As they marched, the accountants chanted a contrapuntal oratorio declaiming the fine points of multiple-version bookkeeping, while the mercenaries made an intricate chiming music by tapping with the pommels of their daggers on their shields, which were dented after the manner of steel drums. A somewhat modernist symphony of smells played on the afternoon air, and now and then they saw tendrils of red mist drifting on the breeze, indicating that magic had recently been used nearby.

Their way was long, and Ydnas, not in the best of health, was soon exhausted. Fortunately, traffic was stopped for a time, for up ahead, the caravan of a wealthy merchant, insufficiently disguised and defended, was being sacked by a local street gang. Kor encouraged Ydnas to use this time to eat a bit more, and to take a nap on her blanket.

Afterwards, they walked past an abandoned neighborhood, where all the buildings, including a huge ziggurat that had apparently once been a mall, were covered by vines and creepers. The next neighborhood, abandoned for an even longer time, was entirely given over to trees, except for a small portion that was being used for gardens. Soon after that, a large aqueduct crossed the road at an acute angle; the mercenaries apparently knew how to use it as a short-cut, for they scaled the piers like mountaineers, and made an antlike line along the top. Kor would have been more comfortable with the company of soldiers, but she resigned herself to the rowdy crowd of university students that took their place.

Soon after that, the two sojourners passed through a wealthier neighborhood, with great high temples of bronze and obsidian, and private residences large as hills. By this time their road had grown smaller, and they could see, in the distance, crowds, cavalry, and caravans going the other way. Then they rose on a sinuous bridge over a great river. Pausing to peer between two of the laughing gargoyles that made up the rail of the bridge, Kor and Ydnas briefly observed the network of barges, naval craft, houseboats, police vessels, floating temples, and pleasure boats below.

Later, the road entered a great dark tunnel beneath a ridge. Ydnas, fearful, refused to enter it, in spite of Kor's reassurances; so they left the main road, and Kor improvised, eventually finding a small path of cracked steps that led to the top of the ridge. There, exhausted by the climb, they paused to rest, observing a crowd performing some ritual by a broken-down statue of the Goddess of Entropy. Looking back, they saw the road they had come by, as far as the bridge; following the river with their eyes, they saw it join with another, larger one, which disappeared into the horizon's haze. Looking ahead, they saw a steep and tumbled land, covered with an exhausting variety of architecture, and punctuated with parks, lakes, and regions of decay. One small hill appeared to be on fire.

After their rest, they rejoined the granite road, which was once again sunken and lined with beobab. In another hour, afternoon was itself exhausted. The sun was a mottled orange ball imprisoned by distant spires, and chilly breezes of evening were blowing. Both travelers were weary to the bone, and Kor had to use both her hands on the rail to help her arthritic body to climb out of the thoroughfare. She hoped to find a temple hostel where they could obtain food and lodging for the night. As they passed between the trunks of the beobabs, however, they were struck by the astringent reek of _pari_ blossoms, for they were entering a park frequented by fashionable addicts. But I will not tell you the whole story of their journey; should you wish to know more, it is the subject of an exquisite 1,729-line poem by the 108th-Century Trong Dynasty Poet, Pseudo-Aminthine of Telosium. Pseudo-Aminthine's poem, a work of allegorical fiction, predates the incident itself by over 17 millennia, but describes it quite accurately, presumably by coincidence.

Suffice it to say that it was five days later, when, utterly exhausted, they finally reached Kor's dwelling, a condemned building in a badly decayed slum whose name does not bear repeating. The building's exterior was boarded up, and covered with obscene graffiti and advertisements for a local suicide parlor. A painted-over sign above the main entrance (no longer usable) could barely be seen to have once read, "Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans." Stepping over the comatose body of a local drunk, and ignoring the smell of urine, Kor led Ydnas around behind the building and into an inner courtyard. There, after making sure no one else was observing, she knocked an intricate rhythm on a boarded-up door. She listened for a moment, and knocked again. A knocking was heard from the inside, and Kor knocked yet a third time, with a different rhythm. A few moments later, the entire raft of boards swung silently outward, revealing crumbling steps that descended into total darkness. By this time, Ydnas had come to trust Kor enough to hesitantly enter that darkness with her. They stood, holding hands, breathing must and mildew, as the secret door shut and latched itself behind them, depriving them of all light; Kor could feel Ydnas' hand trembling in her own. Then, an inner door opened. Suddenly they were bathed in light, warmth, music, color, the fragrance of food, and the sounds of happiness and love. A crowd of joyously screaming children of various ages rushed up to hug and climb on Kor, who sat on the floor, so as to be accessible even to the smallest. Ydnas shrank back into the dark, shuddering, but she did not panic, and the wideness of her eyes was not entirely due to fear.
**********

"I found myself in a place of love."

(from the popular song, "Finding Myself")

The Fabulist had a warm feeling about having brought Kor and Ydnas to a safe and friendly place, and about having spared them most of the details of their grueling five-day journey. At the same time, he felt familiar doubts about the world that he had created. Could he be proud of a world in which little children were sold as slaves? Why did his creation have to contain so much ugliness, suffering, stupidity, and evil? Was there some dark, malevolent side in himself? Certainly no one was under as much temptation as he, for his power was absolute, and he could be called to account by no one but himself.

He wasn't sure he could do better, though, for whenever he tried to imagine some more perfect world, he failed. Would it be a world without pain or problems? What would people do in such a world? It would be easy enough to create a world in which numberless people floated in pure bliss forever, wanting and doing nothing, but such an idea seemed to him terrible rather than wonderful.

He also worried about his characters. He had complete power over them. They were his slaves. They were worse than slaves, they were puppets, they were phantoms; they thought and acted as though they had being and will of their own, but really, they had none. 'How bizarre of me,' thought the Fabulist, 'to create such trivial beings. But perhaps I can redeem myself: as each one develops his own character, I will simply have that character play itself out; I will not interfere. Then they will be independent.'

Unfortunately, he had doubts about his ability to do that. If a character he liked were threatened by one that he considered evil, would he be able to just stand aside? Or, would he even be able to let such a situation come up, if he was not willing to intervene?

_Perhaps this was a bad idea_ , he thought; _perhaps I should stop now, before I get any more attached to Kor and Ydnas and the others._ But he felt that it was already too late to stop; he had created them, and he could not just abandon them, trapped in their last frozen moment of time. To be sure, they were not _real_ ; but then, was the Fabulist himself, _real_? How could he ever know?

He was also worried about where it all was going; was there some point to it, or would it just be one thing after another? He had ideas about that, but they were vague; he was hoping that they would clarify themselves as he went along. Besides: if he was really going to set them free, how could he hope to predict the outcome? He would just have to wait and see. He feared this would make for a long and disorganized story.

With a sigh of resignation, he turned back to Kor and Ydnas. He decided that at first, when the inner door had opened, Ydnas had shrunk back into the shadows. But the sight of so many happy children was the one thing that could convince her that at last, she had found herself in a place of safety. At first tears wet her cheeks, but after she had watched for a moment, her mouth trembled into the beginnings of a smile.

Kor's head emerged from the hill of children, and whistled shrilly for silence; then she performed the best introduction she could. "This is the child I went to get," she said. "She doesn't speak our language, and I do not even recognize hers, but I believe she is called 'Ydnas.' Come here, please, Ydnas," said Kor, smiling and gesturing, "and I will introduce you to the others." Ydnas came shyly forward, and Kor proceeded to introduce them all. There were too many names and faces for Ydnas to remember, especially since she found many of their names difficult to pronounce, but she was struck by two: a boy of about thirteen, with pale blue hair and a deep purple complexion, named "Sronk," and an older girl, three-eyed, blonde, and very tall, named "Intipisk." All the children were barefoot and dressed in patchwork clothes. Their hair was cut short and they were generally without ornament of any kind, except for a few tattoos and some scarification.

"Now," said Kor, "as you can well imagine, Ydnas and I are in need of three things: food, a bath, and sleep, in that order. Will there be any problem with that?"

"No, no," replied one of the older boys, "we have been simmering soup and keeping bathwater hot ever since the ninth day, as you suggested."

"Thank you, Tak, I knew you would," said Kor, smiling warmly at him. "Let's go into the kitchen."

Going down a short hall and turning left, and followed by a crowd of curious children, Kor guided Ydnas to the kitchen, which was full of warmth, and of the pleasant fragrance of soup that simmered in a big black kettle. Kor took a bent but serviceable ladle from a rack, two crude earthenware bowls from a cupboard, and a pair of roughly-carved wooden spoons from a drawer, and doled out some thick soup for herself and Ydnas. It steamed as it plopped into the bowl. Ydnas stared at it with wide and fascinated eyes. "Be careful, Dearie," Kor said to Ydnas, waggling her finger in warning. "It is hot. _Hot!_ " She pantomimed putting the tip of her finger in the soup, snapping it back with a dismayed expression, and blowing on it. Ydnas looked the tiniest bit amused. Then Kor took a spoonful of her soup and blew dramatically on it, before very tentatively putting it to her lips. Finding it cool enough, she took it in and swallowed it, making an exaggerated expression of relish. Ydnas did the same, pausing especially long to taste a tiny bit of the soup before she took the rest from her spoon. Then she began to eat steadily, until she had eaten three bowls.

"Now, Intipisk," said Kor to the tall, three-eyed girl, "would you mind? Please take Ydnas to the bathroom with the statue of Isiliar. I will use the one upstairs; if there is any problem, send someone to fetch me."

"I will," said Intipisk, who was clearly very eager to welcome their new housemate, and to get to know her. At first, Ydnas was a bit reluctant to leave Kor, but Kor made it clear with smiles and gestures that Ydnas had nothing to fear, and finally she was willing to follow Intipisk through a couple of rooms and passageways, down a short flight of stairs, and along another corridor, until they came to a room with a large stone tub. As Intipisk got home-made soap and a cloth and towels from some cupboards, and verified with gestural language that Ydnas understood the significance of these things, Tak and two other boys appeared with steaming kettles of water, which they emptied into the tub with great gusto. Two hundredbreaths later, they appeared with more, including a lidded one which they left on a small stove beside the tub, with a dipper beside it. Meanwhile, Intipisk had lit several aromatic candles, and the room began to fill with the fragrance of lilac.

After the boys had gone, Intipisk pantomimed, "Just call me if you need me," and also left. Ydnas removed her clothes; this was a bit tricky, as her underclothes had in a number of places become amalgamated with scabs from various injuries. She found the water so hot that she had to enter it gradually; but then it was wonderfully relaxing. The tub had been designed with a slope, so that she could lie with her head and shoulders on a soft place and relax completely without having to worry about her face going under. She felt a soft tingling: the soap, which Intipisk had already placed on an underwater shelf, seemed to be cleaning her body without the need for any scrubbing on her part. As she relaxed more and more, she heard a tinkly, high-pitched music. Looking up, she saw an intricate wind chime hanging from the ceiling, played by the warm air rising from the bath.

As she lay in such warm and pleasant surroundings, Ydnas came close to dozing off, but that made her anxious, and motivated her to complete the bath. Moving to a deeper part of the tub, she scrubbed herself, gently but thoroughly, including her hair. Then she lifted the drain-plate and climbed out. Drying herself with the huge and fuzzy towel that Intipisk had provided, she reached for her clothes, but noticed that Intipisk had laid out a set of patchwork clothes similar to those worn by the other children. After a long pause, she examined them carefully, and decided to wear them instead, transferring a few small objects from the pockets of her old clothes. She then gathered the latter, and deposited them in a wicker hamper.

As she turned to the door, she saw an alcove that had been behind her, with a small statue in it. She went over to take a closer look.

The statue was made of pear wood, with only a clear varnish for decoration. It was very realistic, and astonishingly beautiful. It showed an ancient woman, dressed in a robe of many folds, and leaning on a staff. With incredible skill, the sculptor had made the grain of the wood itself help to portray the intricate age lines of her face, and the falling folds and wrinkles of her robe. Her entire bearing radiated happiness and love. Ydnas looked surprised, like a person who has just remembered something that had long been forgotten. " _Lithiel Isili!_ " she breathed, and stood before it for a long time, tears streaming down her face.
**********

"Things are sometimes what they seem,

just enough to keep us guessing."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

The next day, as Kor was taking some warm and fragrant bread out of the oven, Tak came to her and said, "Talek is here to see you."

"The rest of supper, we can do," said Lessie, one of the older girls who had been helping. "Thank you, Dearie," said Kor, and found her way to the visitor's wing. This part of the house was separated from the main part by a reinforced door, which she closed after passing through, locking it with a combination lock consisting of several levers.

Kor then turned to another heavy door. Removing three iron locking bars and turning a large wheel several times around, she opened it, revealing the anteroom of the visitors' entrance. Its windows had been covered over with wood, backed by bars of steel. In this dark cage stood a small, bent man whose face was completely hidden by the veil of black cheesecloth in front of the large black hood that he wore. This hood was part of a full-length robe, also black. In a black-gloved hand, he held a straight wooden staff, also black, with a shard of obsidian fixed to the top. In the dim light, he was little more than a shadow. "Good morning, Kor," he said, in a whispery voice, both soft and dry, while making a stiff little bow.

"Do come in, Talek Dear, and have a seat!" said Kor brightly.

"Thank you," replied Talek, stepping silently forward, and settling wraithlike into a chair. His voice seemed to have a tiny bit of echo built into it, which gave it a strange resonance. Kor closed the door to the anteroom, seated herself near him, and asked, "What's new?"

"I presume that you found the child you were looking for," said Talek, leaning forward expectantly. His movements were very slow, suggesting great age.

"Yes," replied Kor, "and she now seems in good health, although of course she'd been mistreated, poor thing! She has gotten fairly used to us, although things occasionally happen that scare her. Harmless things, really, but I guess they remind her of other things. On the whole, I think she is quite happy to be here."

"I'm sure she is," said Talek. "This is a wonderful place. That was a difficult trip, though, all the way to the Temple of Honggur and back."

Kor grimaced and rolled her eyes. "Five days each way, and I can tell you, Dearie, we had one scare after another!"

"I imagine so," said Talek, with the ghost of a chuckle. "I admire your courage in going through with it."

"I do what the Goddess says, Talek."

"Indeed. I trust the girl is as you expected?"

"Of course she is, Talek. The Goddess would not lie to me."

"Let me rephrase that. Does she straightforwardly appear to be, what you are sure she is?"

"Well, no, she doesn't. She just looks like a sweet little girl – one who's been through some hard times. Very smart, I think, and good-natured. Such a dear, really! She doesn't know our language, so I still don't know much about her."

"I'd like to meet her."

"Of course, Dearie, but please, not yet. I want the poor thing to rest, and get to know all the other little ones, and feel a little safe for once. Maybe in a few days."

"Certainly. I hope you don't mind my curiosity."

"Oh, no, Talek, not at all! I just can't tell you much right now."

"Of course not," said Talek, nodding. "That was only to be expected." There was a pause in the conversation. Then Talek said, "I'm afraid I have some disturbing news."

Kor's eyebrows went up. "Oh, Dear! What's that?"

"I'm told that the Angels of Rejuvenation will swarm here soon."

Kor looked aghast. For the span of several breaths she was speechless. "Are you sure?"

"I'm afraid so. I have it independently from several very good sources, and I have assured denials from several bad ones."

Another silence. "How soon?"

"Hard to say. They're deliberately impulsive in such matters. Maybe in a smallmonth or two."

"Who else knows?"

"Around here, just you and me, as far as I know. Well, no doubt they have some secret agents in place, getting to know the area."

"We must warn people!"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Kor. I doubt that anyone will believe you, but if they do, they will probably panic. Many will loot, riot, sell spurious protection, find scapegoats, and do what few things they have been afraid to do before. Some will stack their possessions on carts and head for other communities, where they will not be welcome. In short, telling them might just bring on a catastrophe more rapidly."

"Can't someone help us?"

"The Angels are a very powerful institution, Kor. They are the core of Urban Renewal. And the people they attack are not terribly popular."

"Everyone has lost hope for this neighborhood, then."

"I'm afraid so, Kor. Can you blame them? But there are those who appreciate that there are pockets of good here, and I have made sure that they know of your work. That includes my Church, of course. With their help, you will be able to escape the Angels, and relocate."

Kor was holding her head in her hands. "But Talek, I've put so many years of my life into this house!"

Talek leaned forward. "No, Kor, you have put that many years of your life into service to the children. And that must not come to an end."

There was another silence. Then Kor straightened up, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, I have to agree; we must leave. Is there anything else?"

"I'm afraid I haven't had time to make further inquiries. I hope to return tomorrow with more information." He stood.

Kor said, "I'll consult the Goddess."

"Of course! I look forward to hearing what you learn."

"Thank you, Talek."

"You're welcome."

Standing, he made his stiff little bow. Then he turned to face the exit. Kor turned the wheel, and the door to the anteroom slid open once again. Talek walked through it, and Kor shut the door behind him, replacing the bar. She felt a little silly about this ritual, for she was certain that Talek could, if he so desired, use his magical powers to enter the house easily at any time. She appreciated the fact that (as far as she could tell) he had never done so.
**********

"Serve even those who oppress you."

(Traditional Suimi saying, attributed to Isiliar)

In the watery predawn light, Kor was scrounging for food. It was very cold. Her breath came out in a cloud, and settled as frost on the edge of her hood. She was shivering as she went through the barrels of garbage. It would be warmer later, but this was a time when most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood were asleep or comatose, and therefore unlikely to bother or compete with her. Also, this gave her the pick of the late-night fare.

She was in a fenced-in courtyard attached to _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_ , where the elite of the neighborhood came to dine and socialize. The building was an elegant nine-story pagoda, dating from the glory days of the Rentrizine Democracy, when it had apparently been used by a local legislature. Its walls were covered with mother-of-pearl, its roof-tiles were onyx. From a distance, its lines were simple and serene; from close up, countless details could be seen, including bas-relief, statuary, mosaics, texts in several languages, and intricate filigree, all of which harmonized in some miraculous way. Each higher floor was devoted to a criminal clientele of successively higher prestige. The highest of all was reserved for Pappi, the dominant local crime lord and owner of the establishment, and his guests. From the spacious windows of that floor, Kor would have looked like an insect feeding in the garbage.

The clientele of _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_ usually left most of their food uneaten, especially the vegetables. Kor went through the remains, separating what appeared to be untouched and wholesome from the rest. This she placed in a linen bag that she had brought with her. She would check later for poisons, diseases, and spells, and to make sure that none of the meat was human. She paused frequently to rub her hands together or to blow on them.

A noise. She gave a start and turned. A man was standing there. He was wrapped in a ragged blanket. He too was shivering, even more violently than Kor.

He appeared to be about ninety years old, but Kor knew enough to tell that he was only about twenty, and that he was an addict of 'Smoke,' a drug that accelerates the aging process. Also, patches of the skin develop an incurable whitish mold, which is the outer indication of a profound inner rotting. At present, his face was little more than skin and cartilage, hanging loosely on a skull. He would soon die. Most people were aware of the dangers of Smoke, but they were still irrevocably addicted when it was given to them by guile, or against their will. Wealthy people were often a target, for once hooked, they would sell all their property, and then their relatives, in order to obtain more.

Lightly dressed, the addict shivered in the cold. His right hand held a long kitchen knife, pointed at Kor.

"Robe," he said, pointing at Kor. "Give robe." He wiggled the point of the knife. One of his eyes had been overwhelmed by the mold, but the other tracked her accurately.

Kor was trapped between him, the fence, and the barrels. "Right away, Dearie," she said with a smile. "I can see that you could use it, on a morning like this!" She dropped her scrounging bag, bent over, and pulled her robe over her head. "Here, I'll throw it to you," she said cheerfully. Rolling it up, she gave it a toss, so that it fell just to his left. Watching her carefully, he moved to the left and began bending at the knees to retrieve the robe with his left hand.

Under her robe, Kor had been wearing a long cotton shift. "Here, D-Dearie, take this t-too!" she said, her teeth chattering from the cold. Bending over again, she pulled the shift over her head, rolled it up, and tossed it a little further to his left. She was now wearing only a loincloth, tied at the corners above her hips. Her lined and wrinkled skin, usually robin's-egg blue, was bleached nearly white by the cold. She was covered with goose pimples, and shivering violently.

Kor now had three or four hundredbreaths' time to get home before the cold paralyzed her. "I n-need to g-go now, D-Dearie," she said, "c-could you s-step aside, p-please?" She gestured with her hand that he should go to his left. Very slowly, watching her carefully, he did so, and Kor sidled slowly past him, holding her open hands over her head to show that she had no weapons and was not going to do anything hostile. He did not attack.

She backed away from him, then turned and pushed herself into an arthritic lope, holding her pendulous breasts with her hands so that they would not flop. As she ran, she addressed a prayer to her goddess, Isiliar. "Thank you, Isiliar," she said, "for helping me to feel compassion, not just fear."

As soon as Kor was out of sight, the addict donned the shift and then the coat. Carrying his knife and blanket, he then proceeded to a nearby alley, where he crawled into a broken packing crate which had been partly filled with dried leaves. Reclining, he brushed leaves over himself until only his face was visible. Then he lay still, for hours; but he was not yet dead, for once he muttered something – a name, perhaps? – and out of his one good eye there trickled a tear.

Then a shadow fell over him. A man with a gray beard, and dressed in a gray, hooded cloak, was crouching at the entrance to the box. His eyes were also gray, his skin the color of slate. He carried an iron staff. He wore a smile of cruel and superior amusement.

The addict's good eye lit with fear, and he started to get up, but the gray man curled his lips in a sneer, and made a clawing gesture with his hand; the addict was frozen by a spell. Crawling partway into the crate, the gray man muttered a short enchantment. A little shard of light, like a firefly, rose from the leaves that covered the addict's chest. From a pocket, the gray man removed a small vial and uncorked it. He muttered again, and the little light entered the vial. The man replaced the cork and the vial, and departed. A bit of red smoke dispersed into the air. The body of the addict remained, and now it was truly dead.

All this was observed, from a floating mote of dust, by someone neither Kor nor the addict had ever heard of, and who was only partly there. His name was "Vidigeon."
**********

"Synthesis is Life, Analysis is Death."

(from the popular song, "Making a Family")

Vidigeon was the First Seer of the Guardians of Evil. His capacity for perception and cognition were massive. He could with a single glance see the unique coloring of every grain of sand on a vast beach. In a thunderstorm, he could hear and analyze the splash of every drop. From the footprints of an army marching in the desert, he could count the number of soldiers, and estimate the height and weight of each, to within a tenth of a knuckle and a hummingbird's heft. Toss a speck of sawdust into a torrent, and Vidigeon could calculate where it would be in a day, and miss by less than a manlength. Watching Kor run, he knew that she would make it home, in 11,031 steps (give or take 3), and that she would take a hot bath to warm herself up.

Without leaving the present, Vidigeon could infer much about the past and the future; without leaving Kondrastibar, he could analyze the interiors of stars; and by observing the dances of galaxies, he could come to understand the tiny pixies, unimaginable numbers of which are required to form a single speck of dust.

All manner of things fascinated him, and he never ceased to learn. Nor was he squeamish; he would investigate maimed and diseased bodies with the same enthusiasm as he would investigate healthy ones, and in fact he would often experience a kind of childlike delight upon coming across a victim of some rare or extreme indisposition, or someone who had several infirmities at once. Thus did he observe, categorize, predict, and explain various forms of infection, rot, blight, canker, taint, poisoning, infection, putrefaction, festering, bloating, dysfunction, collapse, decomposition, decay, trauma, fracture, pestilence, rigor, gangrene, parasitism, boil, abscess, tumor, monstrosity, pain, convulsion, depression, defect, disability, decline, and death. Likewise, he spied eagerly upon humans in their sexual and excretory activities, and in their moments of vice and crime. But he was interested in every side of human life, in all its glorious variety.

And yet sometimes, he felt boredom. There was always something new to observe, categorize, predict, and explain, and often the task was challenging, even for him; but he was like a child in a flower garden: every flower was beautiful, and yet, after looking at a few, he would get tired of them all. Such fatigue was a problem for him, since there was little else he was capable of doing, besides observing and theorizing. He would continue such activities, but they would become tedious.

At such times he would contact his Systems Confessor, Geristor, who would render him temporarily unconscious, run a diagnostic, and, tinkering with Vidigeon's inner workings, re-invigorate his sense of wonder. As Vidigeon knew, it was a matter of replacing certain small numbers, in certain places within him, with larger ones; 1/4 by 15/16, for example. The most important such number (for this purpose) was called his 'coefficient of wonder.'

He had once wondered why he couldn't make such changes himself, and immediately he figured it out: there was a danger when intelligent beings could tinker with their own ultimate feelings of pleasure and pain: such beings would always be tempted to make themselves feel good, regardless of the situation. He was aware that humans became addicted to drugs, entertainment, wealth, power, prestige, work, danger, punishment, and religious experiences, for just this sort of reason.

He also wondered why his coefficient of wonder couldn't just be permanently set to 15/16, and immediately saw that without the ability to have different degrees of wonder, varying according to object and situation, a sentient being might well be unable to direct its attention rationally to one subject rather than another.

Finally, he wondered why his system needed constant intervention by Geristor. In fact, he proposed to Geristor a way of re-constructing himself, so that his system would correct these problems itself, but involuntarily, and hence without his being in danger of addiction. Geristor agreed that the revisions that Vidigeon had suggested would solve the problem, but explained that, for various reasons, Vidigeon's Creator and Lord had decided to create him with what amounted, from the point of view of pure rationality, to a flaw. Trusting his Lord implicitly, Vidigeon ceased to criticize this aspect of himself.

Great though Vidigeon was, though, some things were hidden from him. The actions of human beings were sometimes difficult for him to predict, and the nature of the gods was unclear. Above all, Good and Evil, and the Unity and Purpose of all things, were beyond his comprehension. To Vidigeon, the world was a collection of separate, meaningless facts about space, time, and probability, connected only by similarities, differences, logical entailment, and causal laws. For example: he was familiar with 1,597 distinct forms of slavery, and the vast ethical literature concerning them, but he had no opinion of his own about whether slavery was right or wrong; in fact, he strongly suspected that there was no truth to the matter, that people's judgments of right and wrong were purely subjective, reflecting their own personal preferences but completely unrelated to the objective world, in which things just _were_ , without being good or bad. But he had a great ambition to gain greater wisdom, and he read (looking over the shoulders of human readers) hundreds of books every day, including many on Ethics and related subjects.

Only what was thoroughly hidden away, or veiled by magic, could escape Vidigeon's sight. His millions of tiny eyes were mounted on floating dust motes throughout Kondrastibar. He also had millions of diminutive ears and noses. All these sensors were connected, via a great invisible net, known as the "Ectoplasmic Reticulum," that spread throughout the city. This net, which had existed long before Vidigeon himself, brought the information to his brain, which was divided into many parts; each such part was a calculating crystal, hidden underground. There were millions of them, scattered throughout the city. Each one was self-sufficient, and all could think simultaneously, and communicate with the others through the net. The destruction of one, or a hundred, would weaken him, but as long as one of them remained, Vidigeon would survive, and process information for his Lord.

Because of his great powers, Vidigeon was able to check on every inhabitant of Kondrastibar, at least once, in the time of a breath. Some were more interesting to him than others, however, and he distributed his attention accordingly. One of those who attracted his special attention was Talek. Vidigeon, like Kor, had never seen through Talek's cloak; whenever he attempted to do so, the sensor would malfunction. Occasionally, Vidigeon could not even locate him. For just this reason, Vidigeon paid a lot of attention to Talek when he could.

When his Lord (who called himself "The Lord of Evil") had first created him, Vidigeon had been charged, as his first and foremost task, with finding a girl who was to fulfill a number of ancient prophecies. One of these prophecies said:

"In the moment of crisis, a Girl will find a new balance for Good and Evil, and lead us to a new and higher life."

Eagerly, Vidigeon had begun to search. Since he did not understand Good and Evil, he did not at first know how to look for someone who might find a new balance for them. But he had quickly remembered that he could find things without understanding everything about them; he only needed to know _something_ about them. Very rapidly, he had learned a great deal about the ancient prophecies. He also learned what various people _considered_ good and evil to be, although this was often vague, and although they often disagreed with one another, and even with themselves. These disagreements, he suspected, were themselves important clues. Using this as a beginning, he began to search Kondrastibar for the Girl.

Vidigeon's ken went through the streets faster than lightning; it entered closed houses like a clap of thunder. It saw a thousand details on a grain of dust, and unraveled patterns that stretched for a thousand horizons. Searching for the Girl, he found a million clues, in the time of a single breath; each clue by itself was quite misleading, but taken together they formed an intricate puzzle that Vidigeon could tentatively solve. Relentlessly, he continued. Vidigeon's ken thus wove a massive tapestry of relationships about Kondrastibar and its inhabitants. Every detail of the city became a mirror in which the others were almost perfectly reflected. The imperfections showed him where he was going wrong. One day, he found an indication that felt a little more solid than the others. A year later, another. Six smallmonths later, yet another.

Imagine an eye, deep in the heart of a mountain of ice. At first, it can see nothing. But once a year a bird flies past the mountain, and its body heat sublimes an invisibly small fraction of the crystal. After some unimaginably long period of time, most of the ice is worn away, and the eye sees a little light. Millennia later, the light is brighter, but still no details can be seen. Later still, the ice is a mere coating on the eye, and the eye can get a vague impression of details. Finally, the ice is gone altogether, and the eye can see the stars, the sun, the moon, the sea, the land, birds, seals and polar bears, fishermen and hunters, and even the shapes of particular snowflakes that float past. The eye never sees _cold_ , but it begins to realize that there is such a thing.

Time moves more slowly for Vidigeon than for us, and so it was only a matter of a few years before that day came for him; on that day, Vidigeon learned that a good candidate for such a girl did indeed exist. He requested a connection to the Lord of Evil immediately. No image appeared, but a massive presence could be felt.

"Where is she?"

"I cannot yet say, my Lord. There are forces working to hide her from me."

"Keep looking!"

"Yes, Lord!"

Vidigeon returned to his search. He began to understand many of the tricks of those who were trying to hide her. He learned to ignore their misdirections, and to penetrate by inference their magical disguises. His vision became clearer. And finally, _there she was!_ Disguised as an ordinary girl, in an ordinary neighborhood.

"I have found her," he reported, telling who and where.

"Watch her, and report if she leaves. I will send agents."

Vidigeon watched. He saw and reported the girl being warned, taken up by friends, and moved, pursued by the agents of his Lord. He struggled to keep her in view. His vision flickered and blurred as his Lord's enemies cast powerful spells to hide her. He saw numberless battles, large and small, between the Lord and his enemies. Some took place on blood-soaked fields, others in the hearts of individuals. Centuries passed, yet she never grew older. From time to time, Vidigeon would get a glimpse of her, only to lose her again. Finally, the forces of the Lord of Evil seemed to prevail. The Lord concentrated these forces on the girl. She disappeared.

The Lord of Evil asked, " _Has she been destroyed?_ "

"I cannot find her anywhere, Lord."

"Perhaps she is only hidden."

"I do not know, Lord."

"Do you keep searching, and let me know if you see her again."

"Yes, Lord." So he had searched again, and found ever new ways to penetrate ever new kinds of illusion. It seemed that every apparent road to truth was actually a road to falsehood. Yet by thoroughly exploring the false, he finally began to glimpse the true, as a sculptor chips a statue out of a block of stone by removing what does not belong to it. One day, he felt her presence yet again.

"Lord," said Vidigeon, "the Girl of the Prophecy is alive. She is near to her Temple, but she knows not who she is."

"I will send agents to that neighborhood. Do you keep watching."

"Yes, Lord." The connection died.

As always, Vidigeon felt a deep loneliness when he was disconnected from his Lord. In fact, he still felt isolated, when conversing with the Lord, for conversation still involves distance and difference. His second greatest desire was to serve his Lord, but his greatest was to be merged with Him, to be one with Him. He knew that this was his destiny, and that his life as a separate individual was only a test. He was determined to pass this test and sacrifice his own individuality, losing himself in his Lord.

Putting aside his loneliness and his hopes, Vidigeon gathered himself to keep track of the girl. He was very tired. He tried to force himself to focus, but he failed; without knowing it, he fell asleep, and began to dream.

In his dream, he saw the girl standing before him. "I've come to give you a hint," she said, smiling at him. "Goodness is _appropriateness_. The Unity of All Things is _complementarity_." Very pleased at having found the girl, he now began searching for _himself_. He sought and sought, but he could find no clue. How could that be so? He knew who he was; or at least, he knew a vast number of facts about himself. Each of those facts involved some relation between himself and other things. There was no fact that was just about _him_.

The girl was smiling. "Why did you search for me?" she asked. "I was always very close to you. As close as your own self is when you think of yourself."

"Are you _me_ , then?" he asked.

"Do you know who _you_ are?" she replied, smiling teasingly at him.

He heard his own voice saying, "We ... we ..." Why was he thinking of himself as "we"? Finally, he said, "I have forgotten myself." He was astounded. She was smiling impishly at him. He was smiling at his own perplexity. He felt a laugh bubbling up. "This is impossible," he thought. "I have no sense of humor. And no mouth with which to smile, and no larynx, and no lungs, with which to laugh." That too was amusing. The laugh felt itself bubbling up. He _was_ a bubble, and the bubbling was turning him into a laugh. The laugh hugged the girl, who was also bubbling. Soon everything was a bubble, each reflected in all of the others. Or was there only one bubble, endlessly reflecting itself? Yes, the bubbling and the laugh and Vidigeon were all hilariously one.

" _You_ are the Unity of All Things!" laughed the girl. The laughing exploded in a brilliant flash. For a moment, there was nothing. A moment later, Vidigeon thought he saw the nature of Good and Evil, and the Unity and Purpose of All Things, only to lose them again. The explosion spent its force, and his world was cloaked in darkness.

Vidigeon slept.
**********

"Rules and laws create chaos."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

An elegant carriage, preceded and followed by platoons of mercenaries, pulled up to the side of the street near Kor's orphanage. Talek was standing there, with one of his neophytes (who was dressed like him, but was a good deal smaller). "Now we will use the spell I showed you this morning," Talek whispered to the neophyte, who nodded.

One of the carriage doors opened, and a middle-aged man in elegant vestments emerged and called out, "Excuse me, sir, but I'm looking for an orphanage run by a woman named Kor."

"And who would you be?" asked Talek.

"I am Ininka Codrifex, Area Witness from the Cathedral of Child Welfare Services," said the man, a little pontifically.

"What you are looking for, you will not find here," said Talek, in a dark, sepulchral voice. "This building, which was a school for courtesans, has been condemned."

"I had heard that they might be in just such a building," replied Codrifex, a little sternly, "and while we admire the work of well-intentioned amateurs, we want to be sure that the children live in a safe and healthy place. That is part of the function of our Order, you know. The welfare of children is our first concern. Surely you can understand that, Mr., Ah, ..."

"My Name is Talek. I'm a priest at the local Church of Irony."

"Talek. Yes. Unfortunately, this neighborhood has deteriorated greatly in the last few years, and we are very concerned about the children here."

"You have good reason to worry, Brother Codrifex. Almost all children in this neighborhood are malnourished and abused. The death rate is very high, and they receive no formal education. The main exception to this principle is Kor's orphanage."

"Does your Church minister to the poor, Mr. Talek?"

"That's a fascinating question, Mr. Codrifex. We don't give them edifying lectures, nor do we give handouts. I might also mention, that we recognize many different kinds of poverty. We tend to believe that everyone is poor, in one way or another. But yes, we do try to help them, mostly through subverting their world view."

"That _is_ fascinating, Mr. Talek, and I'm sure your Church is doing a wonderful job. I'd like to learn more about it. We often share resources with community organizations, you know. Under certain guidelines, of course."

"Of course."

"But now, I do have a job here. I believe this is the place?"

Talek sighed and hesitated for a moment. Then he raised his staff. Something indefinable seemed to radiate for a moment from the obsidian shard attached to the end. "Yes," he said, pointing to his neophyte, "and you're in luck! Here is Kor now!"

"Ah, pleased to meet you, Miss Kor," said Codrifex. "I've heard _so_ many wonderful things about you and your work."

"A pleasure to meet _you_ , Mr. Codrifex," said the neophyte brightly, making a little curtsy, "and I'm happy to say that I've filled out our part of all the forms that apply to this case. Here they are." And suddenly there appeared in the neophyte's hands a huge bundle of papers, which he (she?) handed to the Area Representative. A little staggered by the weight of the bundle, Codrifex managed to turn and place it in the carriage. As he turned again to face them, his expression showed, for a moment, traces of puzzlement and despair.

"I do so look forward to seeing your report, Mr. Codrifex," said the neophyte, brightly, "do you think you can prepare it soon?"

"Well, these things do take time," said Codrifex, with a knowing smile. "I will have to confer with my superiors, check with other cloisters. You know how it is. But you can be assured that I will do everything in my power to expedite matters."

Talek's posture showed the relaxation characteristic of relief. "Well, I know you'll do a wonderful job, Mr. Codrifex," said the neophyte cheerily. "Now, _do_ have a wonderful day!"

"Why yes, thank you, and the same to you!" said Codrifex, bowing briefly, and disappearing into his carriage, which quickly rolled off, somewhat to the disappointment of the small crowd of con artists, prostitutes, muggers, pickpockets, drug zombies, beggars, spies, touts, fences, and voyeurs that had been converging on it.

"That will keep him busy," said Talek. "Although it is far from obvious, those forms make a kind of circle; each of them will ultimately require him to fill out one of the others first." After a moment he added, "I wish I hadn't done it that way. I mean, there must have been a better way, a way not involving deceit, a way not so burdensome for him."

"You are too hard on yourself," said the neophyte. "Where would be the irony if there was some perfect solution?"

"Maybe just in that," said Talek. "I mean, perhaps we have become so convinced of pervasive ironies in our lives that we would miss a chance for unblemished action, even though it was staring us in the face. That would be so ironic that it is almost certainly true!"

"Maybe so," replied the neophyte, "but in any case, it _was_ awfully funny, wasn't it?" And suddenly they both burst into laughter, skipping around and hugging each other like children.

When they had calmed down a bit, Talek said, "I don't know whether Kor would approve of our methods, either."

Vidigeon (who was awake and alert once again) had watched all this with great interest, for many clues had pointed to the orphanage as a possible location for the girl he sought. Now he saw that Talek appeared to be hiding something there. He put the orphanage higher on his list.
**********

"Trust in a relationship is measured by

the ability to keep secrets from one another."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

After her talk with Talek, Kor returned to the kitchen, and said, "I need to pray about something. Would you continue without me a little longer?"

"Of course," said Lessie, noting but not commenting on Kor's distraught appearance. Lessie was a slight girl of about 16, with freckled light green skin, dark green hair, and olive eyes.

Kor retired to her small private room, which contained nothing outside of its closets and cupboards except for a slightly larger version of the statue that Ydnas had seen. Removing a bedroll from a cupboard, Kor placed it on the floor and sat cross-legged upon it. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, exhaling very slowly and completely, to help herself relax.

It was difficult to do. She felt fear, anger, and frustration. Part of her wanted to say to the goddess, "How could you have let this happen?" But another part of her did not want to address the Goddess in such a spirit. 'But of course,' thought yet a third part of her, 'The Goddess knows how I feel, whether I say so or not.' Finally, something further occurred to her: she said, "Goddess, Isiliar, I have just discovered that my faith isn't as deep as it should be. I'm sorry. Please forgive me, and do whatever you think best, as of course you always do." She sat quietly for awhile, waiting for a response, but none came. At first, Kor was saddened and frustrated by this, but suddenly she saw it in a different way, and smiled. Then she got painfully to her feet (sitting had made her legs stiff), returned the bedroll to its shelf, and went to the kitchen.

Nobody asked, but Kor felt an unspoken question hanging in the air, and answered it: "My prayer went well," she said. "The Goddess must trust me, for she did not feel that it was necessary to say anything." Then, sensing another question, she continued, "Talek told me something that I need to think over carefully before talking about it with you. He thinks I should keep it a secret for the time being. I don't like keeping secrets from you, but in this case he may have a point. If I tell you, then you _all_ might have to keep a secret. If it comes to look like something you clearly need to know I will tell you, just as soon as I can!"

Everyone seemed to acquiesce, but there was still a bit of nervousness in the room, so Kor felt that she must say still more. "My dearly beloved children, I have always told you that our life is uncertain. Who knows where we will be tomorrow? But we've had lots of love and happiness here, and that's more than most people in this part of the city can say. Think of that, and remember: no one can ever take it away from you. And since we have won through so many times before, I think we will do it again. And as I always say, the present time is the most precious of all, so let's make the most of it!" Then she turned, and began to energetically resume work on supper.

Then Lessie spoke up. Looking at Kor with shining eyes, she said, in the peculiar dialect she always used, "Kor, long ago would I have been dead, if not for you. How long any of us will live, none of us can say. Not even the most important thing, it is. Always your best, I know you have done, and will do always, to help us. Yes, afraid I was, when how upset you were I saw, after to Talek you spoke. No more anxious does it make me feel, though, to know that from me, a secret you are keeping. You, I trust completely. No fear have I, that at our expense, plots you are brewing! You to know I just want, that when what to do you do decide, if to help there anything is, that I can do, what it is just tell me, and do it I will, with a heart loving, trusting, and happy!" A murmur of agreement arose from the others.

"Oh, Darling Lessie!" said Kor, embracing her, smiling and teary-eyed at once, "I'll let you know soon, I promise! But what I want to do right now," she went on, turning toward the stove, "is go on making supper!" There was a bit of laughter, and Kor turned back with a smile, saying: "I always love to hear you laugh, and yes, what I just said was funny, but it was serious, too! One of the things that has made me happiest about this place is that work is not drudgery here. And look at this bread!" As she spoke, she opened the oven, and lifted up one of the warm and fragrant loaves that had just been made. "You know, my Dearies, in a way you're all very lucky. You've all held hands with death, some of you more than once, you've all been hungry and cold and insulted and beaten and helpless, and so you know the true value of life. You know what is real. Because you've been hungry, you know the value of bread, and because you're all poor, you know the worth of all those wonderful, simple things, that are sometimes so hard to provide! You get more pleasure from one fresh apple than a rich man does from a basket of jewels. Well, today we've won, my Dearies! We've evaded the craziness and stupidity of the world, for we've made bread, and we've done it without hurting or tricking anyone! And we're well on our way to having soup, too!"

There was more laughter, and the cooks brandished their implements and shouted, "Victory is ours!"
**********

"The more you learn about the world,

the more it will surprise you."

(the Shramitibik Epiphany Collective)

Vidigeon watched as Talek, in another neighborhood, approached a large, somewhat ramshackle building. This edifice appeared to have been made by fusing several others, for it combined a number of contrasting architectural styles. Talek entered through a door, above which was a bas-relief of a snake swallowing its own tail, the central symbol of the Church of Irony. Vidigeon wondered briefly how this circle might be connected with the circle of forms that Codrifex would have to complete.

Going up stairs and down, but mostly down, Talek eventually entered the dim, cave-like alcove of his Bishop. There was a smell of wormwood incense in the air. Analyzing the floating oils responsible for the smell, Vidigeon was able to identify the area from which the wormwood had come, and the year of its production. From someplace nearby came the sound of a chorus, singing an atonal anthem.

The Bishop was seated at his desk. "Hello, Talek!" he said, jovially, looking up from an abstract kinetic sculpture he had been working on, "Have a seat! What's on your mind?" The Bishop looked just like Talek, only larger. In the dim light he was hardly more than a vague deepening of the shadow. A furry, winged creature flew into the alcove, circled, and flew back out.

Talek pulled up an ebony chair and sat, holding his staff in his left hand. Vidigeon caught the words, _Save me from simplicity_ , expressed in an ancient language. "I'm afraid the chorus has taken to practicing near here," explained the Bishop. "I hope you don't find it too distracting." His voice was similar to Talek's, but deeper, and he spoke more slowly.

"It will not be a problem," said Talek, "but it appears, my good Bishop, that my congregation, such as it is, is about to be completely dispossessed. I have good information to the effect that the Angels of Rejuvenation are going to swarm the area in a smallmonth or two. I'm wondering how I will get my people out, and some others that I know of there, people who really don't deserve to be pillaged and punished." In the anthem, a tenor soloist sang, in plangent lines, _Please defend me from the well-intentioned._

The Bishop nodded. "I imagine we can find another neighborhood for them, Talek, if there aren't too many. Tell me about them." _Protect me from certitude,_ sang the chorus _._

"Well, there is my congregation itself, of course. As you know, it is suitably tiny. There are only five small families, and three neophytes." As he spoke, the chorus wove the phrase, _Don't make it too easy for me,_ into intricate counterpoint _._

"Families can be a problem, Talek," said the Bishop, leaning sideways to look at his sculpture from that angle. "They may want to bring some of their more distant relatives, too; but some of those relatives will not be a blessing to the new neighborhood." _Save me from too much faith in plans._

"I was thinking that we could choose a neighborhood that would make those relatives sick with disgust," replied Talek, while the singers juggled fugally with the phrase, _Save me from the crowd._ "Someplace obsessed with health, hygiene, good grooming, cheerfulness, respectability, politeness, neatness, mental health, law-and-order, moderate affluence, self-esteem, and religiosity."

The Bishop gave a hearty laugh. "Talek, you are a master of using humor to solve problems. Yes, I think that can be done." He carefully fitted a singing dodecahedron onto his sculpture.

"Then," continued Talek, "there are several families, that are not connected with my church, but that are desperately struggling to make an honest go of it."

"Same thing. Of course, you have to convince them to leave." _May I always have problems_ , sang the chorus _._

"I don't think that will be hard," replied Talek, "if we can offer them someplace decent to go. Then there is that orphanage I told you about." In a five-against-three cross-rhythm, the chorus sang, _Help me to appreciate the otherness of others._

"Ah, the orphanage," said the Bishop. "I found your report very interesting, and, yes, I would very much like to save them. But we have to be careful. I think they have enemies." _Teach me to choose my struggles,_ sang the chorus, in percussive antiphony.

"What?" replied Talek, giving a start. "What enemies? How could anyone be an enemy to a bunch of innocent children, or to a woman who for years has selflessly devoted herself to saving the otherwise doomed, usually without hurting others, and done a brilliant job of it? Oh. Stupid question." _Teach me to live in the darkness._

The Bishop chuckled. "A little stupidity now and then is good, Talek," he replied. "It helps us to understand the opposition. Unfortunately, I have no specific information." _I will wait patiently for light._

"Can you spare any protectors?"

"Yes, but not many. You know, Talek, you might not make a bad protector yourself, what with all the magic you know." _Give me the grace to change my ways_ , sang a lyric soprano soloist.

"Actually," replied Talek, "I _have_ been playing that role a bit, in an amateurish sort of way. My magic is mostly luck, though. Something is going to happen anyway, and I arrange to tell it to happen, at just the right moment, and behold, it does! Very impressive! Getting back to people in the neighborhood, though: there are four or five individuals who ended up in that neighborhood by the Law of Exceptions. One of them is Brother Koof, that Kelosian monk that I told you about."

"And I'm very glad you did," replied the Bishop, as the chorus sang, _Help me to learn from everyone_. "I would otherwise never have heard of that charming religion, whose monks steal from the rich and give to the poor! But shouldn't his own Church be taking care of him?"

"He's something of a loner and a maverick," said Talek. "And his Church has few resources – they give too much away. Besides, I was hoping that _he_ would help _me_. Escaping is one of his specialties, after all!" _Help me to balance the opposites,_ sang the high voices against the low.

"Well, why don't you just inform him of the situation? I should think that such a person would be likely to be quite flexible and resourceful. I can certainly provide a safe house, but we have to be careful. It wouldn't do to be terribly visible about helping such a person." _Help me to remember that reality creates appearances._

"I think that will be more than enough," said Talek. He then described a number of other individuals to the Bishop, and they developed strategies for each of them. _Don't let me repeat myself._

"Will that be it, then?" asked the Bishop. _Each thing is a cosmos_ , sang the chorus, in a loud, swirling tutti.

"No, there is one more thing about Kor," said Talek. "It seems that she received a message from her Goddess about a certain slave girl, whose name turns out to be 'Ydnas.' Kor then went, on foot, alone, all the way to the Temple of Honggur, in the Cupitulashim neighborhood, to purchase this girl, and brought her back. The round trip took about ten days." _Let me travel the byroads,_ sang the chorus, polytonally.

"Must have been difficult," said the Bishop, mounting one crystal sphere eccentrically on another, and making them both spin. "If I were a goddess, I would have just levitated the girl right to Kor's place." He carefully set a little engine to run along a track in the form of a double helix.

"The ways of the gods are not for us to understand," said Talek, in a voice ponderous with piety and resignation. _Nothing is what it seems_ , sang the chorus. "Anyway, Kor seems to think that the girl will display various marvelous talents, and do many good things. Nothing terribly striking so far, but then it is rather early in the game."

The Bishop looked up. "Do you think she could be the Girl of the Prophecies?" _May my mistakes be fruitful_ , sang a soprano soloist.

"I wouldn't be surprised," replied Talek, shrugging. "So far, though, Kor has not said anything about that." After an interval of silence, the Chorus suddenly sang, _The wise and the fortunate are surprised._ "At any rate," Talek continued, "I would like to keep my eye on them. So wherever they are placed, I would like to be placed there, too."

"Sounds like a good idea." said the Bishop, fitting a soap-bubble generator into his sculpture and setting it going. A stream of bubbles emerged from it and began to explore the room. "I will do my best to arrange it. Is that all, then?" _Each thing is infinite_ , sang an alto, so quiet as to be barely audible.

"That's all my business," replied Talek, as the stream of bubbles spread throughout the room, each one reflecting all the others, "but I would love to have an informal chat with you about Applied Soteriology and the like, if you happen to have time. Also, I have a short essay about the Seventh Irony of Time Travel that I'd like you to look at." _Teach me to pray for the unexpected,_ sang the chorus, in a sudden tutti.

"I'd like that too, Talek," said the Bishop, "but I have another appointment coming up now, and I really have to finish this sculpture today. Anyway, a little perplexity is a good thing, as you know. Could we get together at the fifth gong, the day after tomorrow?" He mounted a many-faceted piece of cut glass over a small glowing disk, thereby producing several rainbow arcs. Once again, a small furry flying creature circled briefly overhead. The anthem swelled and reached its climax on the line, _Help me to worship and revere the unknown_ , and then faded away in wordless humming and whispering.

"That would be fine," said Talek, standing up. "I'll see you then. Be surprised!"

"Be surprised!" replied the Bishop, bending over his sculpture as Talek went out.
**********

"An accident was bound to bring us together."

(from the popular song, "Only a Matter of Time")

A woman with Kloranian eyebrow-rings, well-dressed and surrounded by a cluster of serious-looking bodyguards, appeared near Kor's orphanage one day. Talek, who was standing nearly, whispered to a neophyte who was with him, "This is the one I'll divert to Pappi." The neophyte nodded. Talek approached the woman.

"May I help you?" asked Talek. Startled, the woman jumped backwards. Two of her bodyguards drew their swords and clashed them impressively between Talek and their employer. Talek stood still while they calmed down a bit.

The woman came forward a step and said, "Good day to you, friend. I am Angrofynis Tzing, witness for the _Carperville Epiphany_. I have heard that there is a remarkable project underway here, some kind of orphanage."

"Well," said Talek, "most children in this area are orphans, one way or another. Their parents may not actually be dead, but they are not much use to their children if they are addicted to smoke, or pari blossoms, or something like that. Not to mention the actively abusive parents."

"So, Mr., ah, ..."

"Talek. Tol, Aarch, Lez, Ect, Kol. Just the one name. I am a priest at the local Church of Irony."

"So tell me, Father Talek, is this where the orphanage is located?"

"This building here? It appears to be a defunct school for Courtesans, which has been condemned."

"Well, I've been told to expect something like that, Father."

"May I ask _who_ told you that?"

"I must respect the confidentiality of my sources, Father. If you don't mind, I will just stroll over there and see if I can find anyone at home."

Something like a cross between a sigh and a slightly exasperated guffaw emanated from the depths of Talek's hood. He raised his staff a fraction of an inch, and a soft chirping sound emanated from the obsidian shard. Angrofynis Tzing paused.

"Please allow me to suggest," said Talek, "that when you are done with that, you might want to visit our local Crime Lord, Pappi. He is quite a character."

"I imagine he is," said Angrofynis Tzing, looking back over her shoulder, "but Crime Lords rarely consent to be interviewed. Besides, that's not the story I came for."

"Actually," said Talek, becoming more animated, "Pappi loves to give interviews and news tips to enterprising reporters, and sometimes even grants! He has also been known to edit their work for them, gratis, sometimes even without being asked! He knows more than most about what is going on around here, as you can imagine. And if he gets a good impression of you, he might even show you his collection of P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures."

"I don't think – _What?!_ – _P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures?!"_ Angrofynis Tzing gave a start, then turned to face him. "Surely you are mistaken, Father! Those have all been lost!"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. Since their theft from the Imperial Museum, several centuries ago, they have been used as illegal tender by underworld figures. Saves money laundering. Pappi has amassed the complete collection."

"And you think he's going to _show_ them to me?!!"

"If you allow me to accompany you, I can just about guarantee it. He's quite shameless, you see. But we should get over there quickly, if you want to fit into his schedule."

"Forgive me for saying so, Father, but for a priest you seem awfully well-connected with this crime Lord."

"We have to spend the most time with those who need the most work."

"Well, yes, ... perhaps I _could_ go over there now. Would you mind?"

"It would be my pleasure. Right this way, please!" Talek strode off right through the motley crowd that had collected, which fell back at the approach of the cluster of bodyguards.

As he stepped over and around various combinations of trash, sex toys, drug paraphernalia, scandal sheets, playing cards, vomit, astrological charts, dice, action figures, amulets, broken weapons, torn-up lottery tickets, pornography, feces, celebrity pictures, and comatose bodies on the sidewalk, Talek's torso could be observed to shake rhythmically. "Are you laughing, Father?" asked the reporter.

"It's ... just a ... peculiar form of ... prayer that ... we have," replied Talek.
**********

"It will always be more complicated than it seemed."

(the Shramitibik Epiphany Collective)

The Fabulist felt a little despondent. He found himself in difficulty with Ydnas, who was supposed to be his main character. He couldn't just cut her loose yet, for he had only a vague idea of her personality. He had to admit that he didn't have a clear picture, either of her past or of her future. His decision to have her not know the local language made it impossible for him to have her interact much with the other characters right away. In that way he had deprived himself of what would have been a valuable source of information about her. Of course, she could interact with Isiliar, but so far, she hadn't. Besides, he didn't have a clear picture of Isiliar yet, which was also a problem in the development of Kor. 'Perhaps the root of the problem is,' he thought, 'that those three are just _too wholesome_. I find Talek rather appealing, because he is a bit of a scamp. And he's mysterious, too. Also, I like his sense of humor; I wished I had used such a light touch with my other characters. But no, one can't make them all alike! Perhaps ... Perhaps I should give Kor, Ydnas, and Isiliar each a dark side! Yes, I believe I will.'
**********

"Religion is child's play."

(Grandmother Groheim, Matriarch of Kosh)

Kor noticed with pleasure that, in spite of the language problem, Ydnas was becoming comfortable at the orphanage. Whenever there was tension, Ydnas looked frightened and withdrew; and whenever she seemed to think that something was expected of her, she was apt to cringe; but these responses were becoming less intense. One change that Kor took to be a good sign was, that when Ydnas retreated, she no longer retreated to a hiding place, as she had in the first few days after her arrival; instead, she looked for Kor or one of the older children to hold and be held by.

Every day, Kor took some time out to be with Ydnas; she would play some game with her, or just hold her in her arms and sing to her. She also made it a point to teach her a few words each day. Soon, the time came when Kor could read to her out of children's books.

Ydnas had continued to wear the patchwork clothes typical of the children at the orphanage. Cleared of grime and scabs, her skin appeared dark red, like a brick. Her spiral-stranded hair was russet, and it was a bit translucent, for it sometimes sparkled in the light.

Her features were delicate and chiseled. The overall shape of her face was a narrow oval, but broken into many separate curves. Her cheekbones were high and very prominent. Her nose was a trifle hooked, though not as much as Kor's. Her ears had an intricate whorl, and a double point at the top. They were a bit like sea-shells.

Her eyes were large, and slanted upward a bit at the outside. Her irises were russet like her hair, only a bit more toward orange. They too were a little translucent, and people looking into them would sometimes feel as though they were sinking into them. Her pupils were catlike, higher than they were wide. They were also catlike in another way: when she stood in the dark with a light nearby, one could sometimes see them glowing green.

Her eyebrows were also russet, a bit darker than her irises. They were narrow and sleek, as though drawn with a light and rapid brush-stroke. She had a remarkable command over them; she could not only raise one while lowering the other, but she could alter their shape independently in a number of other ways.

Her lashes were still darker, almost black. Like her hair, they would occasionally sparkle, very subtly. They were long, thick, and dense.

Her lips were a very dark grey, like ashes. They were of medium size, but when she pouted, they seemed to grow huge, and when she looked stern, they seemed almost to disappear.

The rest of her features were likewise very mobile, so that her face was extremely expressive. At first it had expressed mainly fear and anxiety, but when she began to smile, it was radiant.

She had gathered her hair into twelve braids, using a four-strand braiding system. The ends of her braids were prevented from unraveling by means of small pieces of scrap metal that she had scrounged, and that she would squeeze into place as clamps. The weight of the metal made them into pendulums, set frequently into motion by the movement of her head.

One day, Kor thought it might be a good time to discuss religion with Ydnas.

"Ydnas, Dearie," she said, "I would like us to go to my room and have a little chat. Would you like to do that?"

"Glowing!" said Ydnas. This was a word that the kids were currently using as a kind of slang for "good." They went up to Kor's own bedroom. The very small room was bare, except for the statue, for Kor kept her bedding, along with her very few other possessions, in a cupboard during the day.

"Isiliar," said Kor, gesturing at the statue.

"I-si-li-ar," said Ydnas, nodding to show that she remembered the word from before. The nod set her braids into motion.

"Goddess," said Kor.

"God-dess," repeated Ydnas, but her blank look showed that she had no idea what was meant.

_How do you explain such an abstract idea to a child, who knows only a few words of your language?_ thought Kor. She had an impulse to say, 'Isiliar is like me,' meaning that just as Kor protected and nurtured the children in the orphanage, so Isiliar nurtured and protected Kor and many others. But it seemed immodest to liken herself to Isiliar. _Well_ , she thought, _I can't expect to be precise. We mortals never really understand the gods, anyway. We don't have to._

"A goddess is like a woman, but _big_ and _strong_!" said Kor, making a sweeping gesture.

"Like _Kor_ ," said Ydnas, smiling. She made a motion that she often used as a gesture of pleasure: she raised her arms over her head, and went up on tiptoes for a moment.

"Bigger than me, stronger than me!" said Kor. Ydnas stared at the statue, looking puzzled; it was clearly smaller than Kor. _Well_ , thought Kor, _does a goddess really have a size? Isiliar could appear very big or very small, couldn't she?_

"Big _or_ little," Kor amended herself.

"Ohhh, ..." said Ydnas, as if she suddenly understood. "Heavy _or_ light!"

"Yes, Dearie," said Kor, although she found the answer rather odd. "Isiliar can appear in all kinds of ways. I suppose all gods can. But to me, there is something special about Isiliar. She is the goddess of love and happiness, and I think love and happiness are very good things. I love Isiliar, and Isiliar loves me. And it makes me happy that she loves me!"

"Like Ydnas and Kor love each other!" replied Ydnas, looking directly at Kor with a brilliant smile. "And make happy!"

Kor was touched, but still nervous about being thought of as any kind of equivalent to Isiliar. "I do love you wonderfully much, Darling Ydnas," she said, warmly, "but I am not a goddess."

Ydnas nodded. "Only one size," she said, bringing her hands together as if squeezing something.

_What in the name of common sense does she mean by that?_ thought Kor. _Oh, maybe that I can't change my size the way Isiliar can._

"Yes, Dearie," said Kor, "I can only be one size, Isiliar can be any size."

"Kor only one person," said Ydnas, wrapping her arms around herself.

_Now, what does she mean by that?_ "I'm sorry, Ydnas, I don't understand," said Kor.

Ydnas held up her left hand, fingers straightened and together. "Kor only one person." She held up her right hand, wiggling her fingers independently. "Isiliar is many person." She looked expectantly at Kor.

Kor was puzzled again. "I'm sorry, Ydnas," she said. "I still don't understand what you mean. I would think that Isiliar is just one person, herself."

Ydnas looked thoughtful, closing her eyes for a moment, and groping with her hands a bit as if searching in the air for words. "Isiliar is goddess of love and happiness," she said. " _Lots_ of people happy, _lots_ of people loving. Only _one_ person Kor."

_What a mind!_ thought Kor, _A few breaths ago, she didn't know what a goddess was, and now, she thinks she's got it, and she's trying to explain it to me. And maybe she should, because I was never any good at theology. Only, I don't understand her, either. Perhaps I should go in a different direction._

"I will need time to think about that, Dearie," said Kor, "but for now, I'd like to talk about something a little different. Is that all right?" Ydnas nodded assent.

"A _goddess_ is like a woman, a _god_ is like a man," said Kor. Ydnas nodded, in a very tentative and dubious way.

Kor continued: "There are many gods and goddesses." Ydnas nodded again, more confidently.

"Now, Ydnas, Isiliar is my _favorite_ goddess. Do _you_ have a favorite god or goddess?"

"God or goddess of _everything_ ," said Ydnas, spreading her arms wide and leaning backwards.

Kor was startled. _That's an amazing answer_ , she thought, _especially from a child!_

"Tell me about the god of everything, Ydnas," she said.

Ydnas looked apologetic. "Words can't say," she said. She looked at the statue of Isiliar, and said, with a sort of a shrug. "Statue can't show."

Kor thought about this for a moment. "Can you use words to ... _sort of_ tell me about the god of everything?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, straightening one finger, as if to count _one_ , "God of everything is big or little."

"Like Isiliar?" said Kor.

Ydnas nodded assent. "Also big _and_ little," she said, straightening out a second finger.

"You mean, sometimes big and sometimes little?"

Ydnas nodded again, and added, "And, in one place big and in other place little. Some things big and some things little."

"Do you mean, that the god of everything would have to be the god of big things, and also of little things?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, beaming approval. "Turns into big things and little things. But also," she said, straightening a third finger, " _neither_ big _nor_ little." Standing on one foot, she reached behind her and grabbed the other foot.

Is this a riddle formula she learned when she was smaller? thought Kor. Here I am being the student again. My head hurts. But, if I want her to talk to me freely about religion, I must adapt to her style. "Do you mean, that since your god is what makes one thing big, and another thing little, your god can't in itself be either big or little?"

" _Yes!_ " beamed Ydnas, expressing her approval by clapping, while jumping up and down. "Like _clay_ ," she added, pantomiming making something out of modeling clay. "Can have big piece here now, little piece there then, but _clay_ is not big or little, here or there, now or then."

"You mean, everything is made out of the god of everything, the way statues are made out of clay?"

Again, Ydnas nodded. "Like chameleon."

_Where did she get that word?_ thought Kor, and then remembered that one of the children's books she had read to Ydnas was about a girl and her pet chameleon.

"So, the god of everything is like ... a chameleon?" asked Kor. Ydnas nodded assent, adding: "Chameleon looks like Kor, looks like Ydnas, looks like statue, looks like floor, looks like chameleon, all at once!"

"Maybe you _could_ have a statue of your god, then," said Kor. "It could be a statue of a chameleon!"

Ydnas took a moment to understand, and then looked very pleased. "Yes!" she said, jumping up and down. Then she stood still and closed her eyes in thought for a moment, and then said, "Or, statue of _anything_!" She seemed to find this idea very amusing. " _Fork_ could be statue of god. _Book_ could be statue. _Kor_ is statue! _Ydnas_ is statue! Even _statue_ could be statue! Even _god_ could be statue!" Laughing, she leapt up and spun around in the air.

"Do you mean," said Kor, feeling a bit silly, like someone who insists on explaining a joke, "that since the god of everything makes up everything, it looks like everything, and so everything looks like the god, and could therefore be a statue of it?"

Ydnas nodded vigorously. "I have elbow, fingers, ear, ..." she said, pointing to those elements of her own anatomy, "God have mountain, sky, city ..."

"Does your favorite god have a name?" asked Kor.

" _Any_ name!' said Ydnas, laughing again. "God's name could be ' _Kor_.' "

"But I am not a god, Ydnas," said Kor, a little sternly.

"Kor makes pee-pee," said Ydnas. "Pee-pee goes in ground, goes into roots of grass and flowers, grass grows, flowers grow, goat eats grass, flowers make pollen, goat makes milk, kid drinks milk, farmer takes milk, kid grows up, farmer makes cheese and glue, bees get pollen, carpenter buys glue, candle maker buys cheese, bees make wax, farmer takes money, carpenter makes table, farmer buys seeds, candle maker eats cheese, farmer plants seeds, candle maker buys wax, makes candles. Pretty soon, Kor has made world for horizons all around."

I achieve divinity by 'going pee-pee,' thought Kor; I knew there was a point to it!

"Because of Kor, we have this world, instead of some other world," Ydnas concluded.

For some reason, Kor thought about the tiny coin that she had released into the hand of Dolla, the slave merchant at the Temple of Honggur, in order to purchase Ydnas. By that tiny movement, she had unwittingly purchased a Theology lesson! What else had she done?

"Every time I buy something, I buy a whole world," said Kor, unconsciously speaking her thought aloud.

Ydnas nodded happily. "Some people think, gold coin stronger than copper coin," she said. "Not true! Both buy world!"

Kor decided to try to get back to her original questions. "Well, now, Ydnas, Isiliar sometimes appears to me as a person. Usually she looks like this statue. Does your god appear to you sometimes?"

" _Yes_ ," said Ydnas, pointing to Kor. "Now is appearing to me as _Kor_!"

Kor laughed. _I suppose I should have seen that coming_ , she thought. _She is determined to deify me today! I guess I should stop struggling against it!_

"People are like mirrors," continued Ydnas. "When god-of-everything wants to see itself, it makes a person, and the person looks."

"I suppose animals are mirrors, too," said Kor.

"Yes, even plants, even rocks," said Ydnas. "Everything mirrors god. But people are best, because they _understand_. A little."

_A mirror that understands you!_ thought Kor.

"I suppose," said Kor, smiling, "that if I say that Isiliar gives me advice and help, you will point out that _I_ give _you_ advice and help." Ydnas grinned, and nodded affirmatively. "Everything is little god," she said. "Everything helps. Couldn't stand without floor. Couldn't breathe without air. Couldn't be sad without sad things."

Kor hesitated, because she had told herself in advance that she would not argue with Ydnas, that she only wanted the conversation to make them acquainted with each other's religion. But there was something that was bothering her. She decided to touch on it, ready to back off if necessary.

"Now Ydnas, Dear," she began, "Isiliar is the goddess of love and happiness. When I say that she is my favorite goddess, part of what I mean is, that I think that love is better than hate, and happiness is better than unhappiness. Now, when you say that your favorite god is the god of everything, what are you saying – that you think that everything is better than nothing?"

"Yes," said Ydnas.

Kor hesitated again. So far so good. She was pleased with Ydnas' idea of affirming existence. But at first she had wanted to ask, _Aren't you accepting hate as much as love, and misery as much as happiness?_ She decided, though, that the question was contentious. She wanted Ydnas to feel free to talk about religion with her anytime, and she feared that the least hint of argument or criticism might cause her to withdraw. So she decided not to ask it until she had a better sense of Ydnas' religious feelings. Instead, she asked:

"Do you know what a _scripture_ is, Ydnas?"

Ydnas shook her head "no," braids flying.

"Well, a scripture is a book, a book that is part of a religion. What is written in the book is an important part of what the people with that religion believe. It is supposed to be all true, because their god has said it. If you want to find out about their religion, you read that book. Now, does _your_ religion have a scripture, Ydnas?"

" _Everything_ is scrip-ture," said Ydnas, opening her arms wide in a gesture of welcome, and doing a complete pirouette, as if to welcome the entire world. "Everything is truth!"

_Is she just playing a game with me?_ thought Kor. But she decided to continue.

"Do you know what 'worship' means, Ydnas?" asked Kor.

Ydnas nodded in the negative, not only with her head, but with her whole upper body.

"Well, I think that Isiliar is very good, and very powerful, and I love her very much, so ... well, I say so sometimes. I praise her and thank her. That is worship."

Ydnas leapt over and gave Kor a big hug. "Kor good! Kor powerful! Ydnas loves Kor! Ydnas thanks Kor for bringing Ydnas here!"

Kor laughed and hugged Ydnas back, and then she asked, "Yes, worship is something like that. Do you worship the god of everything?"

Ydnas nodded. " _Happiness_ is worship!" she said. Dancing to one side and to the other, and smiling, she looked expectantly at Kor. Once again, though, Kor was confused. Vidigeon, however, thought he understood.

"Well, Dearie," said Kor, "I think I have talked enough about religion for now. I will need time to think about what you have said. I hope we can talk about the gods more sometime, but right now, how about a game of 'Unicorns and Dragons'?"

" _Glowing!_ " said Ydnas, leaping up, turning completely around in the air, and landing perfectly balanced, in an arabesque. _I wonder if she will be a dancer when she grows up_ , thought Kor.

They left Kor's room and began to walk toward the Game Room. Kor doubted that she had accomplished anything of the sort that she had intended to accomplish. _But then, does one ever?_ _I'll try again in a few days_ , she thought.

"There she is!" someone said, excitedly. They turned and saw that it was Sronk, one of the boys who had especially taken to Ydnas. With him was Tak, one of the older boys. Tak was hiding something behind his back. They both looked quite animated. "Ydnas! We've got a present for you, if you want it," said Sronk, excitedly. "We found it in the atrium." Ydnas looked intrigued. Tak came up to her. He bent down to get his face closer to hers. "Are you ready?" he asked, eyebrows raised. A little nervously, Ydnas nodded assent. _I wish the boys had more sensitivity_ , thought Kor, _They like to spring things on people, but Ydnas is still feeling very insecure_. _I hope there is no teasing or practical joking in this surprise_. Tak suddenly brought his hand out from behind his back and held it up to Ydnas' face. She screamed and jumped backwards. But then, poised in a crouch, her braids swinging by her chin, she looked a second time at what was in his hand. Her eyes got very wide, but not with fear.

"It's a _chameleon_ ," said Sronk. "An older one. Have you ever seen a chameleon before, Ydnas?"

"Well, yes," said Ydnas, "I mean, ... Think so. I hold? Please?" She held out her hand. Tak very gently picked up the little lizard and put it onto her palm. She looked at it with excited wonder. Like many chameleons, this one had a face reminiscent of an old, old man, slow and curmudgeonly, but very wise, and not without a glint of humor.

"Glowing!" Ydnas whispered.

Kor was also in a state of wonder, if not shock. _How could a chameleon have gotten into the atrium_ , she thought, _and why didn't it die of the cold?_ Even Vidigeon was perplexed.

"I think... I'll call him... 'Uncle K'Tor,'" said Ydnas.
**********

"Great wealth exists in order to reduce population"

( _Introduction to Economic Theology_ , Vol. XVI)

After Angrofynis Tzing reported, in the _Carperville Epiphany_ , that Pappi had a collection of P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures, many thieves attempted to appropriate them. Brother Koof, a local Kelosian monk, carefully observed these attempts by indirect means. He thus came to have a great respect for Pappi's Chief of Security, Tarth Sakul.

Among the would-be thieves, the impulsive amateurs included Daz Testorc, a local bookie. One drizzly, moonless midnight, he crept up to the back wall, dressed in black. A majestic Torgilin tree stood just inside the walls, towering over them. Testorc tossed a padded grappling hook into the tree a few times, eventually obtaining a secure purchase; then, securing the lower end of the rope to a sewer grating, he began to climb into the aromatic gloom. When he was about halfway up, he was puzzled to see that the upper quarter of his rope looked thicker than the rest. In the rainy darkness, though, it was only when he was within a foot of this section that he realized that the extra thickness was due to a large Karganian Tree Viper, crawling down the rope.

The viper quickly saw that Daz was much too large to swallow, so it took another option: in the morning, Daz' body could be seen hanging from a high branch of the tree, secured by the viper's coils. The scent of dead flesh attracted crows and other carrion-eaters, which landed on the corpse to peck at it. Every so often the viper, which had left the front part of its body free, would strike a bird and devour it.

Desperate amateurs (the largest category) included Jobish, a local con artist. When the neighborhood first began to decay, Jobish had plied a lucrative trade; but more recently, Pappi had consolidated his power, and no one had any significant wealth to divert except for Pappi's own hirelings. On the whole, they were much too careful to be conned, for if they lost anything, they would be tortured. But even if Jobish could have succeeded with them, he would have only been signing his own death warrant, since the local police, untrammeled by sentimental notions of privacy or due process, had made it their business to know everyone and everything in the neighborhood, and Pappi's property was sacred in their eyes. The rational thing to do would have been to work for Pappi himself somehow, or to leave the neighborhood, but Jobish was not rational; so instead, he consoled himself with Dreamer Juice, which is powerfully addictive. This increased his financial needs while impairing his judgment, and so he soon became desperate, and decided to risk everything on a single toss. One dark night, using a pair of lightweight ladders, he managed to get over the wall and onto the roof of an outbuilding.

Unfortunately for Jobish, Tarth Sakul had arranged for this roof to be home to a family of Ilpian Jumping Spiders. In the darkness, Jobish was not aware of them until one of them landed on his face, wrapping its barbed legs around the back of his head. When he opened his mouth to scream, it spat its viscous, bitter venom into his mouth. The venom quickly entered Jobish's bloodstream, whereupon he found it to be far superior to Dreamer Juice; he reclined in blissful stillness, not minding at all as the spiders laid their eggs deep in various parts of his body, or when the eggs hatched, and the larvae began to feed on his paralyzed flesh. The euphoriant effect only wore off at the very end, when hundreds of enthusiastic young spiders broke through his skin to greet their new lives. In this respect, the Ilpian jumping spiders are rather more primitive than their close relatives, the Ilipoctian; the Ilipoctian jumping spiders have been known to keep their victims alive, healthy, and blissful, wrapped in protective cocoons, for over two hundred years, thus providing nourishment for over two hundred generations of their young. Sometimes people seek them out on this account.

Like most of the simple-minded professional burglars, Terungthia Crift managed to avoid the various animal guards. She made herself invisible while still ten blocks away from the compound, she had a complete body-shield that would shatter a speeding chariot, and she employed magic to float high over walls, buildings, and trees, using magic spectacles to map out the compound.

Tarth Sakul's staff, however, were adept with various advanced magical surveillance devices and traps. Soon, Terungthia found herself standing naked in a cell adjoining Pappi's arena. "This be how it will be," explained Kraximan, Pappi's Chief of Arena Recreation. "You will be getting a sword, and we will be putting you on top of a pillar, nineteen forearms high. Then we will be letting these twenty-three men into the arena. They will be naked, too, and instead of weapons, they will be having nothing but large metal serving-spoons." He snickered. "We will be waiting for a couple of tenbreaths so that people in the audience can be making their bets, then the game will be starting. If these men be catching and gang-raping you, in less than six hundredbreaths, they be going free; but you, if you be still alive, will be recycled into another game." Noticing the shock and horror of her expression, he snickered again. "But if you be keeping away from them for six hundredbreaths, you be going free, and they be getting recycled." He leered at her and left.

When she saw the pillar, Terungthia was optimistic about her chances. It was too smooth to climb. As she expected, the men made a pyramid of their bodies next to the pillar; but as soon as any of them got to within a couple of feet of the top, he was unable to defend himself against her rapier. They threw their spoons at her, but inflicted no significant damage. Five hundredbreaths into the game, Terungthia was feeling quite secure; but Vidigeon, who watched this as he watched everything in Kondrastibar, knew better. As he predicted, the men soon realized that they could use their spoons to scoop the earth, undermining the pillar.

M'Turisan Arniog was among those few professionals who were good enough to evade even the security staff. In fact, he managed to locate the correct room, and to enter it, getting a glimpse of the safe. He did not, however, have the resources to contend with the various advanced protective spells cast there by Tarth Sakul himself. Arniog was just stepping toward the safe, when suddenly he found himself trapped inside a sack of sticky webbing. He tried one counterspell after another, until the room was filled with billows of choking reddish smoke, but none of his magic would get him out. Tarth Sakul appeared in the morning, smiled smugly, and instructed his assistants to hang the sack on the outside of the compound wall. There, Arniog screamed and begged for rescue or death from passers-by, but they all scrupulously avoided him, partly no doubt because he was apparently infected by some dreadful fever: over the course of a week or two, his flesh gradually bubbled and steamed away, leaving only dry bones at the bottom of the sack.

A few demonstrations of this kind reduced the number of theft attempts drastically, in spite of the almost incalculable value of the prize. As for Pappi, he perceived it as both good fun and good publicity, so much so that he soon ceased to regret showing his collection to Angrofynis Tzing, although he was still very surprised at himself for doing so.

Some hopefuls tried to bribe the security staff, or even Tarth Sakul himself. The staff, however, was quite loyal, perhaps because they were interviewed daily under hypnosis, and with the aid of truth philtres and telepaths. Also, the location of their families was known to Tarth Sakul, as he carefully made clear from the start. "Betray us, and your family will die horribly," he would say with a smile. As for attempts to bribe Tarth Sakul himself, he was, like many profoundly evil men, incorruptible.

In spite of his great professional respect for Tarth Sakul, Brother Koof decided to try to steal the ruby sculptures. Kelosian monks devote themselves to stealing from the rich in order to give to the poor, and to Brother Koof, here was an opportunity to get _whole neighborhoods_ out of hock. There was also the matter of professional pride: the situation provided a terrific challenge. A wiser part of him warned that pride is not a good source of motivation, but that part was overwhelmed by a vision of becoming one of the honored – perhaps even a _Saint_!

He began by spending several days purifying himself with prayer and meditation. Then he devoted some time to sharpening his skills. After that, he began collecting information on Pappi's domain, and especially on Tarth Sakul's security system. One of his favorite ways to investigate was to establish a telepathic link with a cockroach or other insect, and send it flying or crawling about the compound. In this way Brother Koof observed many things, many of them horrible. It was a very delicate operation, as Tarth Sakul might detect the insect and determine that it had been tampered with; he might then trace backward through the link to discover and attack its owner. In case this should happen, Brother Koof took great care, and ceased living at a fixed address.

The task was a difficult one, but Brother Koof was dedicated and talented. Even Vidigeon could not predict the outcome, though he strongly suspected that Koof would fail.
**********

"What can be more frightening than someone you love?"

(Lesindrika Larko)

As Vidigeon watched, Kor ascended the fragile stairway with a mixture of anticipation and guilt. Three times she stopped herself, three times she called upon the goddess, three times she found herself confused about whether there was a reply, or what it was, and three times she despairingly resumed her way. Uncharacteristically, she failed to notice that she was being observed from a neighboring rooftop.

At last she arrived at the door. She knocked, but got no answer. Surreptitiously taking a key from its hiding place, with trembling hands she inserted it into the lock and turned. The door opened; clumsily, she replaced the key, stepped inside, and closed the door behind her.

She found herself in a large and dusty attic loft. The smell of old timber mixed with the smell of linseed oil and turpentine. The wind whispered overhead. Brilliant beams of light shot down through several skylights, spotlighting the dance of dust. Standing at various points in the loft were easels; numerous paintings were on them, or leaning up against the walls, or stacked in corners. In one corner was a gorgeous bronze statue of Kshaloka, the god of sensual beauty, portrayed as a peacock.

Rafters creaked as the building adjusted to the afternoon sun. Kor walked among the paintings. Many of them were pictures of Kor herself. In some, the artist had not got around to adding any clothes.

At the far end of the loft, a couple of small rooms had been crudely partitioned off. Kor approached one of them. Her hands clamped desperately together. Her heart was bruising itself with repeated blows. Her belly was a clenched fist. Her steps became shorter and slower as she approached, until she came to a complete halt in the doorway, steadying herself with one hand on the raw wood.

In the room was a mattress on the floor, with a jumble of blankets. At one end of the mattress was a halo of light from a small skylight. In this halo was the sleeping face of a beautiful young woman. Kor forced herself to breathe.
**********

"To leave home, one must first determine its extent."

(from the _Meditations_ of Khoridian, Monk Errant of Partouz)

Ydnas shared a room with Intipisk and two other girls. In one corner, by her bed, she had her own little table. On this table, she had arranged a number of rocks, pieces of wood, and similar found objects. Apparently they represented her parents, other people she had known, old dwellings, and other things from her past, but a few, recently added to the collection, represented people and things in her present life. Sometimes she would play with them, moving them around and letting them talk to each other – usually in her own language. A bit of a fabulist in her own right.

Kor and the others were constantly trying to teach Ydnas the most widespread local language, one of the innumerable dialects of _Gastripi_ to be found in Kondrastibar, but she found the process tiring and frustrating. Unlike her own language, _Kalalin_ , the local form of Gastripi was full of irregularities, ambiguities, vagueness, and idioms that had once been intriguing metaphors, but were now just petrified clichés. The concepts in which Ydnas thought were apparently very difficult to formulate in Gastripi; likewise, the concepts which corresponded to single words in Gastripi were either difficult for Ydnas to grasp, or seemed silly to her. There were a few exceptions, which she apparently liked for their earthiness.

At times Ydnas tried to teach the others her own language – it seemed only fair – but they showed little interest. No one there had ever heard of it, so what use would it be to them? Gastripi would allow Ydnas to talk to the people she was likely to meet.

Sronk, the blue-haired boy, was the sole exception. He seemed fascinated by Ydnas' language. They would often contrive to be alone, and she would teach it to him. He found it difficult, but he did not give up. She was grateful and admiring. She also just enjoyed being with him. He was very smart, but pleasant and easygoing.

Often, they would speak together in a creole of the two languages. It allowed their conversations to be private, even when others were within hearing.

But Ydnas did not always withdraw from the others. She often played in the children's group games, and she often joined in to help with the various domestic tasks.

In the evening, there was always a party. Scented candles were lit, and pleasant food and drink was made available. The children played games, made music, danced, and talked. Kor would always attend, although she was sometimes too tired to do anything but sit on a floor cushion, with several small children in her lap, or leaning up against her.

The orphanage had a large collection of pitched drums and chimes, made from various pieces of junk that Kor had scrounged. They were all tuned to notes of the same pentatonic scale, so that even when everyone improvised, the sound was pleasant. Drummers would sometimes also chant or sing. Older children took turns providing a steady background beat, changing the tempo now and then.

There were also a number of other instruments, which some of the older children played. Many played home-made wooden flutes, and 'brass' instruments made from pipes. Intipisk was nearly virtuosic on a sort of harmonium that Kor had found and Tak had repaired. Some of the older children would play or sing traditional or popular songs. But often, it was the complex, roiling sound of the younger children, playing intuitively, that was the most compelling.

While some made music, others would dance, talk, or play games. Here, too, there was no overall pre-ordained structure, but some children were less comfortable with pure improvisation than others, and for them older children would teach games and dances with rules, and, if necessary, supervise. There were also many games and dances that the children had invented for themselves.

Ydnas took part in all these activities. She started out with a small set of high-pitched wooden drums, then graduated to a thumb piano that Tak had made from scrap wood and metal. She liked to improvise her dancing, and at this she was lithe, graceful, and inventive. She also learned some of the prearranged steps that allowed dancing in organized groups.

She liked role-playing games, although her lack of fluency in Gastripi sometimes made it hard for her. The other children, however, became intrigued by her use of pantomime, and improvised several games around that.

During the earlier part of the day, the children had lessons. Because of the language problem, Ydnas was often placed with the smaller children. She did not seem to mind, and she often spontaneously served as an assistant to the older child who was in charge.

Talek and his neophytes often served as teachers for the older children. They were introduced to Ydnas, but in deference to Kor's wishes, they did not, at first, press her for information. Based on what he passively observed, though, Talek told Kor that he did not know Ydnas' own language, _Kalalin_ , although he was able to understand the language she had learned from her previous owners.

In the early afternoon, children attended council meeting. One of the older children would serve as moderator, and another as secretary. Here the children would, as a group, discuss the nature and future of the orphanage, set policy, and deal with problems that arose. Kor was always available as a consultant; her opinion was highly respected, her advice often taken. Ydnas was very quiet in these meetings, but she paid close attention.

Not all the children's time was scheduled. Among other things, Ydnas and Sronk often used their free time to go up to the attic. They loved the quiet, the privacy, the many child-sized nooks, the whispering of breezes on the roof, and the resinous smell. It was an intricate space, fun to explore, for the roof of the building was composed of a great variety of shapes: domes, arches, pyramids, and many more. On sunny days, they loved to lie on a blanket and watch dust dancing in the skylight sunbeams.

Once, when they were lying by themselves in a corner of the attic, looking at the clouds through a skylight, Sronk suddenly pointed at the sky, saying, "Tellamir! Tellamir airship!"

Ydnas had never heard either word before. She scanned the sky closely, and saw something floating there, at a great distance. It was crystalline, transparent except for a barely visible patina. She could not see many details, but it was rather like a cathedral, or a whole neighborhood of cathedrals, except that it was symmetrical top and bottom, like a cathedral with its reflection in perfectly still water. Or, it was like a snowflake. It seemed to be engaged in a slow and stately dance with the clouds.

As she looked at it, Ydnas thought she could hear music, a music of hundreds of voices. Joyful it was, and grand. She immersed herself in it. It gave her a hopeful feeling.

Then, the ship disappeared into cloud, and the music faded, leaving her one more thing to yearn for.

Sronk was able to convey to her that the Tellamir were a people, and that their ships were often quite large – some were said to be as big as whole neighborhoods. They sometimes landed in Kondrastibar, but not anywhere near the orphanage. It was said that they could fly huge distances, and often went to places that no one else had ever been. Sronk did not know what the Tellamir themselves looked like. Some said they looked like beams of light, others said that it was a mystery.

"Glowing!" said Ydnas. "Want to fly! Want to go everywhere!" A few days later, playing in the atrium, she happened to find the bottom half of an old, broken gin bottle. After removing the label, she added it to the objects on her table. Sometimes she would move it around slowly over her head, looking up at it with a smile and repeating, "Tellamir! Tellamir airship!"

If she were the Girl, thought Vidigeon, she would have known about the Tellamir already. But perhaps this is all an act.
**********

"Too much magic makes the world confused."

(Encyclical, _Appropriate Magic_ , Sindariden the 17th)

Brother Koof, in his campaign to wrest the P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures from Pappi, decided that a direct approach would be unlikely to succeed. Instead, he decided on a long campaign of harassment, aimed at sapping the morale of Pappi's security force, and ultimately at creating dissension within its ranks. Only then would Koof dare to actually enter the compound.

His first move was to arrange to have many bits of choice meat, some of them still alive, land inside Pappi's compound. The dogs and spit lizards chased the living ones around and got into fights over them, while the snakes, wrought up by the commotion, became extremely quick to bite anything that moved. It then turned out that the meat had been loaded with a drug that made the animals fanatically vicious. Two handlers were killed, many more had to receive medical treatment, and several had to be rescued from animals that had treed them. Numerous animals had to receive veterinary spells, and three of them died.

Tarth Sakul sent out a flock of pharmacological vampire bats, who bit everyone found outdoors within two blocks of the compound, causing them to fall into a deep sleep. Tarth Sakul's underlings then retrieved the moribund victims, refreshed them, and subjected them to various crude and sophisticated methods of interrogation. They turned out to be all street people, plus a couple of local policemen, and a priest from the local Church of Avarice. The perpetrator himself was not among them.

Tarth Sakul was an older man with a gray beard and a perpetually arrogant expression. His eyes were also gray, his skin the color of slate. He always wore a sweeping gray robe with a hood, and he carried an iron staff.

"Someone is trying to disrupt our system, Assistant," said Tarth Sakul to his second-in-command, Arguit, as they conferred in the secure space of Tarth Sakul's office, "probably someone else who is after the ruby sculptures. But this one has some ability. He's patient, not too quick to make his move. We must be careful.

"I have recently discovered that someone has been using cockroaches and other local insects to spy on us. This is a very advanced trick, and I suspect it's the same person. But if he keeps it up, I will be able to send a nasty Spell Virus back down the line, and that will be the end of him."

"I'll bet it was that lizard Talek, Boss," said Arguit, a small but muscular middle-aged man with light green skin and short curly red hair. "You said he managed to get to Pappi, managed to get him to let that lady reporter look at the ruby sculptures. How did he even know Pappi had any? He's a tricky one, for sure!"

"Talek is indeed a character to be reckoned with, Assistant," agreed Tarth Sakul, nodding, "and I am watching him very closely. But there is another excellent candidate: for some time we have had in this neighborhood a Kelosian Monk, known as 'Brother Koof.' Kelosian monks steal from the rich to give to the poor. They are experts in the arts of robbery and theft. Last year he managed to sneak three new slave boys right out of the police station; they have never been seen in this neighborhood since. The Chief was very angry, and she asked me to help her track them down, but the trail was broken, and so she had to buy new ones. Koof has never bothered us in the compound before, but that just shows how smart he is.

"I have researched the Kelosian Holy Order of Thieves, and there are certain characteristic tricks their advanced practitioners like to use in tough cases. I will now describe some of them to you, Assistant, and you will convey the ideas to the rest of the staff; but do it in writing, so that you won't be overheard by any snooping cockroaches or body lice. For the same reason, instruct the staff to master the contents of the notes quickly, and destroy them immediately.

"To begin, then: one trick that Kelosian monks are very good at is the _simulacrum_. It is an illusion similar to a puppet, except that it can move on its own. In a way, it is a person in its own right, though unable to commit the sin of disobeying its creator. It can be made to look just like someone, and to impersonate them for a certain period of time, while carrying out its instructions. They are of course ideal as spies and saboteurs. But most of them don't last very long, maybe ten thousand breaths or so. They also take a lot of time and resources to make: it is unlikely that he will be able to make more than one in a single day.

"Another very nasty trick is the _mind exchange._ If Koof can get into line-of-sight with someone, he can temporarily exchange bodies with them, maybe for about twenty hundredbreaths or so. Then he must return to his own body. Now, if he gets into your body, Assistant, you will be in his, until he returns. So first, you will try to inform us of this fact, and second, you will try to bring it to us! Probably, though, he will immobilize it in some way, in order to prevent these responses. I will teach the staff some new and unusual spells to untie knots and counter paralysis potions, but these may not be enough. If you can't bring his body to us, try to damage or immobilize it, or at least identify it, so that the rest of us can find it later. I will teach you all a simple spell that attaches a beacon to something, so that it can't be hidden. In general, use your common sense; it is really a great advantage to have control of your opponent's body!

"Now, when he is in someone else's body, he has access to their memories, too; so he could learn passwords and protocols in this way. What we will do is to make our passwords and protocols especially complex, so that a newcomer will be unable to sort them out in forty hundredbreaths, while simultaneously carrying out a heist. We will also change them frequently, and make many of our procedures require simultaneous action by more than one person. Staff people will always work in pairs or triples, and be constantly testing each other. This will of course make our work more difficult and time-consuming, which will to some extent play into his hands; but we have little choice, and I will hire a few more people to share the burden.

"But notice, Assistant, that access to memory is also a weakness for him: whoever goes into _his_ body will have access to _his_ memories. When Koof returns to his original body, the one of us he exchanged with will return to _his_ original body as well, and he can then give us whatever information he remembers. So if you find yourself in his body, but immobilized, try to search his memory for important facts. In this way, he may reveal a great deal about himself to us. Possibly, he will take a sleeping potion just before making such an exchange, but that has its own disadvantages, since he will want his body to be wakeful when he returns to it! Besides, since he has to be in line-of-sight of one of us to make the exchange, our patrols will always be on the lookout for a sleeping or otherwise immobilized body in the neighborhood.

"There is, however, a special danger here: that if you examine his memories, and look at the world through his eyes, and act through his body, you will become confused about who you really are! It would be good to chant to yourself, 'I am Arguit, I am Arguit, I am Arguit, ...' over and over again. Likewise, when you return, take some time to be sure you are clear about which memories are really yours, and which you acquired from him.

"Well, that about covers mind exchange, Assistant; on to the next thing: Kelosian monks are very good at _invisibility_. They can make themselves invisible, and also other people and objects. You can't sense them in any of the normal ways. The spell wears off in about fifteen hundredbreaths, though, and I have various ways of penetrating it. I will give you all special magic lanterns, which will allow you to catch a glimpse of anyone invisible, if he passes nearby. We will also rig a few more tripwires and other sensors, including some very advanced models.

"You can see how he might hope to get by us and the animals with these methods; but how will he find the safe, where I have placed the ruby sculptures, and get past the protective spells, and open it? He may try to do a mind exchange with me, figuring that I know how to do all those things. I'm rather hoping that he _will_ try that, because if he does, he is in for a nasty surprise; I have lots of very effective defenses against that sort of thing.

"Finally, he will have a lot of tricks you are already familiar with. He will be able to do short-range teleportations, lay a few mines, listen in at a distance, stun, that sort of thing. You already know a lot of defenses against such tricks. Any questions?"

"Well, yes, Boss: are you really sure that this guy couldn't do a mind exchange with you? Because then, he'd have your powers, wouldn't he? Then he could crunch any of us, in the half-snap of a dog's jaws. He could twist the whole security system against us. He could chew the whole place, swallow the sculptures, spit the rest out!"

"Don't worry, Assistant. Kelosian monks are good, but they are not that good! I have many defenses. Anyone who tries to get into my mind, even just by telepathy, will immediately cease to be a problem."

"Could you give us those defenses, boss?"

"No, they require lots of training that the rest of you are not prepared for." _Besides, that would make you less vulnerable to me_. "Remember, though, that part of his strategy is to confuse and discourage us, before he actually makes his attempt to steal the ruby sculptures. We must not permit any panic or panic-mongering among the staff. I expect you to discuss with me privately any problems you are worried about, and your underlings to discuss privately their similar concerns with you, in secure places, but otherwise, everyone must project optimism at all times!"

"You bet, Boss," said Arguit, "but can I ask you something?"

"You may," replied Tarth Sakul.

"Why are these sculptures so screaming valuable? OK, they're jewels, and they're art-works, but – "

"They have unique historical value, Assistant," said Tarth Sakul, pontifically. "Evidently they are mysteriously different from anything else produced during that period." _And_ , he thought to himself _, unknown to most people, they are the same as the 'cognizant jewels' mentioned in certain of the Cleretic Prophecies, which say that they may be used to control the Ectoplasmic Reticulum. And anyone who controls the Reticulum, controls Kondrastibar!_

"I think someone once told me they were connected with some prophecies," said Arguit.

Tarth Sakul sneered. "The popular mind is infatuated with the prophecies, Assistant. You can't believe in everything you hear. People convince themselves of all kinds of bizarre things, in an attempt to escape from the dreariness of their unimaginative lives." This remark stung Arguit, partly because he was very interested in talk about the prophecies, and partly because he found his own life to be exceedingly dreary, in spite of his ample salary. But he thought it best to say nothing.

Soon, the conversation was over, and Arguit left to carry out his instructions. Double-checking first that his office was perfectly secure, Tarth Sakul sat before his crystal ball and chanted the spell that would put him in touch with his Mentor in the Guardians of Evil, Tarthex Oslan. Oslan's 'face', a crawling cloud of blackness with two red coals for eyes, appeared in the sphere. "Report!" said Oslan.

"Yes, Master," said Tarth Sakul, bowing his head, "I am taking further precautions to guard against theft of the sculptures by the Kelosian Monk." He gave a quick description of the steps he had taken, including many that he had not mentioned to Arguit.

"That should do it," said Tarthex Oslan. "He may continue to harass you, but I don't see how he can do more than that. But I have some news which will complicate things. The Angels of Rejuvenation are going to swarm your neighborhood in a month or so. You must prepare to harvest what you can, and leave."

"Well, I am planning to harvest Pappi, Talek, the ruby sculptures, and one Kelosian Monk," said Tarth Sakul, with anticipatory relish.

"That would be nice, Assistant. All is Power!"

"All is Power!" responded Tarth Sakul, and the crystal returned to transparency.
**********

"Language is thought in a shattered mirror."

(the Nameless Prophet)

Talek and three of his neophytes looked up at Ydnas, who was perched atop a large cabinet. "Hello, Ydnas," he said.

"Hello, Talek," replied Ydnas. She had observed him many times, and had been introduced to him, but they had yet to have a long conversation.

"You know me, of course," said Talek, "and you know these three neophytes of my Church, that are sort of in my care at the moment. May we speak with you?"

"Sure," said Ydnas, and began to clamber down. "What is neo ... neo ..."

"Ne-o-phyte," said Talek, enunciating it very carefully.

"Ne-o-phyte. What is neophyte?"

"A neophyte is someone who is learning how to be a priest, like me."

"What are neophytes named?"

"Neophytes don't have names," said Talek.

"Oh," said Ydnas, dropping the last three feet to the floor, but hardly making a sound.

"You are very graceful, Ydnas," said Talek.

"Thank you, Dearie," said Ydnas. "I think I am part _cat_! See my eyes?" She widened her eyes, so that Talek could see her vertical irises.

"I see, yes," said Talek. "They are very pretty."

"You are very pretty too, Talek!"

"Why, thank you!" replied Talek. Then, after a short pause, he asked, "Are you happy to be here, Ydnas?"

"Oh, _yes_!" said Ydnas fervently, hopping up and down like a manic kangaroo. " _Nice_ here. Nice not being slave!"

"I should think so," said Talek. "How old are you, Ydnas?"

"I think ten," said Ydnas, holding up both hands with all their fingers shooting out, "but maybe more. How old are you, Talek?"

"I can't tell you," said Talek. "Do you know where you were born, Ydnas?"

Ydnas frowned. "Don't remember," she said, shaking her head.

"I understand you speak a language called _Kalalin_ ," said Talek.

"Yes, I do," said Ydnas, nodding vigorously.

"Would you say something in Kalalin for me?" asked Talek.

"Like what?"

"How would you say, 'My name is "Ydnas"' in Kalalin?"

Ydnas looked very thoughtful. "Can't say in Kalalin. I guess, could say, umm, 'Tan-sik glamith sero-tlanin kha-Ydnas-akh arpa-thratenn,'" she said, "but, not same thing. Means, ah, 'People who know me think of me when they hear the sound, 'Ydnas'."

"But it _is_ your name, isn't it?" asked Talek.

"Only if you think in _Gastripi_ ," said Ydnas.

Talek was silent for a moment.

"Does _anything_ have a name in Kalalin?" he asked.

"No," said Ydnas, "like _neophytes!_ No names! Only words for ... how things ... _fit_!" To illustrate "fit," she made her hands into complex interlocking shapes. "More you say, more clear it is."

Talek paused yet again. Then he asked, "How would you say, 'tree' in Kalalin?"

"Can't," said Ydnas. "Can't say just one word. Have to say, whole sentence, maybe more."

"Ahh, ..." said Talek, "is that because ... you can only talk about, ... how things _fit_?"

" _Yes!_ " said Ydnas, excitedly. "You are very smart, Talek!"

"I know," said Talek, ruefully. "I've had that problem for a long time. But tell me, is 'ydnas' a word in Kalalin?"

"Yes," said Ydnas.

"Could you use it in a sentence for me, please?"

"Well, could say, 'Ifgildifor t'kask mur ydnas tin-sik argonath,'" said Ydnas.

"And what does that mean?"

"I don't know, Dearie," said Ydnas, looking almost painfully sheepish. "Don't know Gastripi enough. Sort of like, um, um, ... sort of like, 'Doctor helped sick person get better.' Or maybe, 'Wind took clouds to good place to make rain.'"

Talek chuckled. "How would you say, 'My tree is green'?"

Ydnas shook her head in the negative. "Can't say 'my' something, in Kalalin. Could say, 'Tree by river is green.' Would be, ummm, 'Nar-kwa ele-kwai sidisit oss twiriget.'" She pantomimed a tree, bent over, and by nodding, she made her hair look as though it were being moved by a current.

"How would you say, 'The tree by the river is _not_ green'?" asked Talek.

Ydnas stood straight and thought for a moment. "Tsidit kweletai k'nargwa g'twiri, oth," she said.

"That's quite unusual," said Talek. "In most languages, the two sentences would have been very much alike."

"In Gastripi, yes," said Ydnas, bending over, head between her knees, and taking her heels in her hands, "in Kalalin, no."

"I must think about this!" said Talek, and stood quietly in thought for a few moments. Ydnas straightened up, and then performed an arabesque, reaching her right hand back over her shoulder to grab her left foot. She then managed to perform a complete pirouette in this position.

"Would you give me two sentences in Kalalin, that _are_ quite similar? I mean, having about the same words?" asked Talek.

Returning to a fairly normal standing position, Ydnas looked thoughtful, putting her fingers on her chin. "Yes," she said, "like I said, 'Nar-kwa ele-kwai sidisit oss twiriget' means, 'tree by river is green.' But if you say, 'Nar-kwa ele-kwai sidisit oss tw _a_ rigit,' that means, 'Sentence about person is short.'"

"Ahhh," said Talek, "because a person is like a river?"

" _Yes!_ " said Ydnas, smiling a huge smile at him, and hopping like a kangaroo again. "And sentence is like tree." She bounded over and wrapped her arms around him.

"Er ... I think Kalalin must be a wonderful language, Ydnas," said Talek.

"I could teach you," said Ydnas, releasing him, and looking up eagerly.

"I'd like that," said Talek, sadly, "but I'm afraid that I have learned all the Kalalin that I'm ever going to." Ydnas looked disappointed.

"Are you lonely, Ydnas, because of not having anyone to speak Kalalin to?" asked Talek.

Ydnas nodded affirmatively. "Sronk is learning, though," she added.

"That's wonderful, Ydnas," said Talek. "So Sronk is your friend?"

"Oh, yes," said Ydnas, "very good friend."

"Do you have lots of friends here?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Do you miss the people from where you were before?" asked Talek.

"Some," said Ydnas, grimacing.

"Friends and family?" asked Talek.

"Friends," said Ydnas. "Don't remember family."

"Do you know anything about your family?"

"No," said Ydnas, sadly.

"I'm sorry," said Talek.

"Thank you," said Ydnas.

"Have you ever heard of the Cleretic Prophecies, Ydnas?"

"Don't know words, _Cler-et-ic pro-phe-cies_ ," said Ydnas.

"I'm sorry," said Talek. "A _prophecy_ is, something someone says or writes, telling what they think is going to happen a long, long time later. It's very hard to do, without making lots of mistakes. Now, at the time, long, long ago, that we call 'the Cleretic Dynasty,' some people were very good at it, and wrote lots of prophecies. We call them the 'Cleretic Prophecies.'"

"Don't know about," said Ydnas, shaking her head negatively. "Never heard of before, or maybe forgot."

Talek asked: "Do you know about the goddess _Isiliar_ , Ydnas?"

Ydnas hesitated for a fraction of a second; then she smiled and said, " _Kor's_ goddess!"

"I understand," said Talek, "that Isiliar told Kor to go and get you."

"Isiliar is _nice_ goddess," said Ydnas, nodding and smiling warmly.

"She also told Kor that you were _special_ ," said Talek.

" _Everyone_ is special," said Ydnas, a little sternly.

"What is it about _you_ , that is special?"

" _Everything_ ," said Ydnas, throwing out her arms and spinning on one foot.

Talek chuckled. "Are you a goddess?" he asked.

" _My_ turn," said Ydnas, looking stern, folding her arms across her chest, and puffing herself up.

"Your turn for what?"

"My turn to ask questions!"

"Oh ... Well, that's fair!"

"Why ask _me_ lots of questions?"

"Well, I'm curious about you, Ydnas."

"Why?"

"Because Isiliar said, that you were special, in a _special_ way; I mean in a way that most people _aren't_ special."

"You like _special_ special people better, Talek?"

"Well, no, not as a rule," said Talek, in a tone of embarrassment, "but I'm more _curious_ about them, sometimes."

"Why this time?" asked Ydnas.

"Well," said Talek, "remember, I was talking about the Cleretic Prophecies? They say that in our time, there is going to be a girl who does great things."

"I was telling Kor," said Ydnas. "Some people think that gold coin buys more than copper coin. Not true; both buy world."

"Ah," said Talek, "so _everybody_ does great things?"

Ydnas nodded. " _Everyone_ turns world upside down, backside-front, inside-out!"

"I guess that's true," said Talek, "but some people do it in a way that makes lots of people _realize_ that they are doing it."

"Then lots of people _wrong_ ," said Ydnas; "Say, grain of dust falls; that's because of me, because of you, because of everyone. Same way, if _Empire_ falls."

"Yes, I see," said Talek, "but I think the Prophecies meant, that a girl is going to be the kind of person that everyone _thinks_ is doing great things, all by herself."

"Could be," said Ydnas, shrugging. "Can happen to anyone!"

"Do you really think so?" asked Talek.

"If can happen to little orphan slave girl, can happen to anyone!"

"In a way, yes," said Talek, "but suppose it _does_ happen to the little orphan slave girl, and not to anyone else. Wouldn't there be a _reason_ for that?"

Ydnas stood still, looking very thoughtful. Then she said:

"Suppose, thousand thousand specks of dust floating in room. We name them 'speck number one,' 'speck number two,' and so on. Then go out, close door, wait hundred and one years. We take pin, make point wet, stick through keyhole, bring back out. On point of pin is stuck one speck, number nine hundred and twenty-three. Is there reason, why _that_ speck, not some other?"

One of the neophytes spoke up. "The reason is, that speck number nine hundred twenty-three was the one that was in the right place at the right time."

"Yes," said Ydnas, "but could anyone figure out, _at_ _beginning_ , that speck on pin would be nine hundred twenty-three?"

"Some people would say, that a _god_ could know," said another neophyte. "One of the _time-enclosing_ gods."

"Yes, some god might _know_ ," agreed Ydnas, "but not because of _figuring out_. Gods like that, _just know_. It is _mortals_ who have to _figure out_."

"If there is enough _chance_ involved," said the third neophyte, "that would be so: even a _god_ couldn't figure it out. He might _just know_ , but he couldn't _figure it out_."

"Ah, now I learn word! Word is ' _chance_ '!" said Ydnas, happily, doing her kangaroo dance.

"But, Ydnas," said Talek, "suppose you and I are standing in a room. I pick up a plate and throw it on the floor. It breaks. Kor comes in, and says, 'Who broke the plate?' Isn't it true, in _some_ way, that is was _I_ who broke the plate, not you?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, "if you think in _Gastripi_."

"Ah," said Talek.

"What? I don't understand," said a neophyte.

"In different world," said Ydnas, "everything different. Rest of world fits me close. Like lock and key, like water when I swim. Everything ... oh, very hard to say ... everything ... _compares_ to me. This thing to the left of me, that to the right. You are person who is talking with me right now. Whole world connected to me. Also to you, and Kor, and plate, and everything. If not for me," she continued, "wouldn't have been that world. So _I_ threw plate. We _both_ threw plate. _Plate_ threw plate. _Speck of dust_ threw plate. _Everything_ threw plate! So everyone broke plate, not just Talek."

"So, is that what you would say to Kor?" asked Talek.

"Maybe not," said Ydnas, giggling impishly.

"Many prophecies," said Talek, "say that, _thinking in Gastripi_ , it is a _girl_ who makes the great change. Do you think that _you_ could be that girl?"

"Not your turn, Talek," said Ydnas, severely.

"I'm sorry," said Talek, "I forgot. Do you have any other questions?"

"No," said Ydnas, "I'm tired of talking."

"Well, then," said Talek, " _let's play orbits!_ "

" _Glowing!_ " said Ydnas, bounding forward. The two of them circled one another at top speed, while moving their common center, trying to do so in a way that would come close to various obstacles without actually hitting them. Then the neophytes all joined in, resulting in a very complicated pattern.

Some time later, Talek and the neophytes were on their way home.

"My head hurts!" said a neophyte. "Great slippery logic gods, but that girl can _argue_!"

"She may or may not be the Girl of the Prophecies," said another neophyte, "but she is extraordinarily gifted, or at least precocious!"

"Excuse me, Talek," said a third neophyte, "but, how is a _person_ like a _river_?"

"Lots of ways," said Talek, "but one is: a person takes things in, and by doing so gets bigger and bigger. I'm thinking of ideas and information, rather than food."

"And in the end," continued the same neophyte, "we run into the sea?"

"Yes," replied Talek, "I think that Ydnas is a mystic of sorts."

"And how is a sentence like a tree?"

"Its grammatical structure."

There was a pause. Then another neophyte asked, "Do you think she is the Girl of the Prophecies?"

"I can't say," said Talek.

"Oh, be reasonable, Talek," said the third neophyte, impatiently. "You must have _some_ ideas about it!"

"I'm sorry," said Talek, "but as I have told you before, there are times when you will learn because I will explain something to you, but there are also times when you will just have to pay attention, and have faith that someday, you will understand. That itself was one of those times, and so is this! But, it was a very good question to ask!"

Again, thought Vidigeon, He seems to be hiding something. Or perhaps he is just giving the impression that he is. But why? Would that mean that he is aware of being watched? Many of the prophecies mentioned a being called 'the Watcher,' a being who resembled Vidigeon very closely; Talek, Vidigeon knew, was familiar with several of them.
**********

"Diversity of specialization is a natural measure of

the development of a society."

(Travlar T'gisti, _Social Eschatology_ )

"These people _rent_ the use of their hands, and even of their _minds,_ to others! Is nothing sacred to them?"

(attributed to Commander Garketian-Tor, Krodar Conquest)

Kor announced to the children that they were going to have to move. There was a great deal of initial unhappiness about this, but it settled down, and they all began to pack. One day, Lessie and Kor were crating up articles from the storeroom. Sometimes Kor would run her hand over some molding, or touch a piece of furniture, and her eyes would empty for a moment, as if she were bobbing into the past. At other times she would sniffle, or daub her eyes with a handkerchief.

Lessie, who was in much the same condition, said to Kor, "How, Kor, for the orphanage this place did you come to get?"

Kor blushed deep blue. "Well, Lessie, the fact is that I was headmistress here once."

Lessie flinched. Then it was her turn to be embarrassed. " _Orei!_ Sorry I am, Kor! Just I never thought that ..."

"That a nice girl like me would ever have worked in a place like that? A school for courtesans? Don't be sorry, Lessie. It should give you hope – it shows you that people can learn and grow. Even people in this neighborhood!."

Lessie's eyes teared up. "Never could I despise you, Kor! Only was I startled!"

Kor smiled affectionately. "I know, Dearie. I should've told you before. So I'll now tell you that even before then, I was a graduate." Lessie tried very hard not to flinch a second time, or to gasp. She could not, however, avoid going pale with shock.

"If it makes any difference to you, Dearie," continued Kor, blushing again, "courtesans are not all alike. The Holy Guild of Courtesans has several underguilds. The main one is more or less what you'd expect – they call themselves the _Free_ Courtesans, since they're working only for themselves, but lots of people call them the _Priced_ Courtesans, since that is what they are obviously all about. But you should know, Lessie, that this place didn't only teach them the obvious skills of their trade, but also things like, how to spot and avoid bad and dangerous men, how to avoid and escape pimps, how to hide weapons on your person and in your room, how to defend yourself, even without weapons, how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and spells, how to get (and in many ways provide) medical treatment, how to organize themselves as a special interest group, how not to get addicted to drugs or luxury or religion, how to avoid infatuation with a client, and how to save up money or valuables so that one day, she could be independent. It is better, if a woman is going to enter that profession, that she does it as sanely and competently as possible, after all. Our graduates lived much, much longer than a common street prostitute, I can tell you! If you look at it that way, the school was a very good thing!"

Lessie looked skeptical, but thoughtful. "Ayah? The other kinds are what?"

"Well, there are the _Courtesans of Sacrifice_. You know, Dearie, that many religions say that you should sometimes sacrifice something precious to yourself. Perhaps because you take too much pride in it, or for some other reason. So these women would sacrifice their chastity." Lessie looked revolted. "Well, Dearie," Kor continued, "they say every religion is a road to truth, although I agree with you, that particular road is ... rather winding ... but at least, such women are usually supported by Churches, in which case they have security in their lives, and they can even have families."

" _Holy whores_ is what they are, what I'd say is _that_!" spat Lessie; then once again she froze into silence, embarrassed.

"Well, I suppose so, Lessie," said Kor, blushing yet again, "but better in Church than on the street! The girls who wanted to be Courtesans of Sacrifice took many of the same courses that the Priced ... er, the Free Courtesans did, but with less emphasis on economics and more on the spiritual significance of sex. For a girl from a neighborhood like this, it might be the best way to survive. Living in a Church, she will always have plate and glass full, and clothes and roof and fire. Also, in a church she is exposed to a very different kind of people than otherwise, people who are likely to be a good influence. In some churches, anyway. Why, I wouldn't altogether blame a girl from a neighborhood like this, if she only _pretended_ to be religious, if her only alternative was to be a street prostitute, or some kind of criminal. Of course, she should do her best to truly be what she was pretending to be, or at least act as if she did."

" Ayei ... maybe ... maybe a good thing it would be, compared to ... as you say," said Lessie, reluctantly, "but a place like now this is, an orphanage, is better!"

"Yes, Dearie," replied Kor, smiling, "I agree, but consider where this building came from! A seed isn't as pretty as a flower. I wouldn't ever have had the funds to buy a place like this, or to have built it from flat land. But as headmistress, I could convert it. Why, if I hadn't been headmistress, you wouldn't be here!" Lessie looked startled, then thoughtful.

Kor continued: "Now, there is another underguild, very small, called the _Courtesans of Intrigue_. This was for adventurous girls who wanted to be spies and the like. Not the best road to take, I'd say, because of the danger, and because of what they often had to do to other people, but some of the more romantic girls were keen on it. We tried to warn them about the risks, and to screen their possible employers very carefully. We urged them to become independent as soon as possible, and to then develop a completely new identity so that their old associates could never find them. Actually, a few of them did very well – they became powerful figures in their own right, and no one complains about their past." Lessie looked offended.

"I don't want to bore you," continued Kor, "and we need to get back to work, so I will only tell you of one more underguild. They are called the _Courtesans of Culture_. This is for the most intelligent and talented girls – not just anyone can qualify. It is said that, oh, it must have been thousands of years ago, their founder, a woman named Alilia Tala Carora, noticed that some creative men are inspired by beautiful and cultivated women. They fall in love with them, and then they make beautiful poems, or paintings, or music. Maybe they are unconsciously trying to impress the woman, or just to express their feelings about her, I don't know, but in this way, some of the most beautiful works of art have been created."

"Why, better off she'd be, the art _herself_ making, _I'd_ say!" replied Lessie, testily.

"Well, no doubt that's so, but some women don't have self-confidence, or talent, or inclination," said Kor.

"So she does what, up to some man goes, and says, 'I'll lie with you if you will write me a song?'"

"No, Dearie, that is what _amateurs_ do," said Kor, with a chuckle. "You see, Tala noticed that it worked the best if the man could never actually lie with the woman. Instead, he should worship her from afar. Some men do this on purpose, you know. They get themselves infatuated with some woman that they couldn't ever get close to, or even an imaginary woman, and then they put those feelings into their art. So the Courtesans of Culture learned to make themselves absolutely beautiful, both in their physical form, and in their personalities, and very cultivated, but they would also keep themselves at a distance from their admirers. In fact, they say that Zorelia T'Kena, one of the greatest practitioners of this art, never went out without wearing a long robe, and a veil that covered everything but her eyes, and that she died a virgin!

"And, there is another aspect to it. Tala noticed that women often have the power to make men more gentle and compassionate. You know, Dearie, men often have to do the dirty work of life, they tend to be the soldiers and the policemen, they are the ones who have to hurt or be hurt, kill or be killed. Or, if there is some really brutal physical labor to be done, it is often the men who end up doing it. So some men end up having rather brutish personalities, at least on the surface. If they have a problem, they try to resolve it by fighting, or bullying, or by some kind of struggle where someone has to lose. Women, on the other hand, usually find themselves taking care of babies and children, and relating to men that they could never hope to overcome in a fight, and so they tend to be more co-operative and nurturing. You don't raise a baby by fighting with it! Women are more apt to look out for other people, and if there is a problem, they will often try to talk it over, and compromise, and be fair to everyone, instead of struggling for power, as men often do. In a way, men are oppressed as a group; they are expected to live on a lower level, to be more like animals. Of course, there is a great variety among men, and among women, but on the whole, I think it's so.

"Anyway, Tala thought that sometimes women can be an influence on men, to make them more balanced, sort of the best of both worlds. And she thought that this would be a good thing, on the whole. A man should have another way to act when he comes home from the battlefield. Who knows, if everyone learned to sympathize with both sides, and negotiate and compromise, there might not _be_ any more battlefields! And other things would change, and the oppression of men would come to an end. So the Courtesans of Culture were trained, in part, to teach men to be nurturing and co-operative. It was really a very noble ideal, I think.

"Well, Dearie, there are many other branches of courtesanry, such as the _Courtesans of Marriage_ , who strive to make themselves so attractive as to be able to marry a man of great wealth. There is no end to the possibilities. But I think you get the idea."

Kor stopped speaking and refocused on her packing. Lessie too was silent, but Kor soon became aware that there was a question hanging in the air. "Well, what do you think, Dearie?" she asked. "Which underguild did I belong to? Give it a guess!"

"Ahei ... Well ... The ones who inspired men?"

Kor smiled. "It's sweet of you to think so, Dearie. But think about my personality, and try to go backwards from there. _If_ I were a courtesan, which I am not any more, which kind would I have been? I've told you always to speak freely, even if the saying is hard."

Lessie blushed, and looked very uncomfortable. She fidgeted. Finally, she took a deep breath, and said, "One of the religious ones, you would have been."

Kor nodded and blushed at the same time.

"But," Lessie quickly added, "in it you really believed."

"Yes, Dearie," said Kor, smiling but still blushing, "I really believed in it. After all, it was my religion! Well, I didn't do it for Isiliar, actually, I did it for another goddess, named 'Ydris.' And, forgive me for saying so, but I was very good at it!"
**********

"The marriage of Good and Evil

produced the material world."

(from a Karenpeketuri creation myth)

The Fabulist continued to worry about his dark side. In order to help himself think, he created someone to talk to, whom he hopefully called "Lightbearer." He gave Lightbearer a skeptical and exploratory mind, so that she would often question him, sometimes deliberately playing the Devil's Advocate in a discussion. He hoped that by playing an adversarial role, she would stimulate him to have deeper insights into the purpose of creation.

"Sometimes I am shocked at myself," complained the Fabulist, in one such discussion. "For example: I create these good people, like Kor, and then I put them in terrible environments that make them suffer. What did Ydnas do, that she should be made a slave?"

"Well," said Lightbearer, "people are problem-solving beings, so they need problems. Isn't that precisely what you admire about Kor, for example, that she remains basically good, and works for good, against terrible odds? What else is worth doing? Would mortals be better off drifting around in bliss? Aren't all human virtues essentially virtues of struggle? When humans are not in real, life-and-death competition with each other, don't they proceed to create artificial contexts for struggle, like sports and prestige contests? Imagine Kor in some totally safe neighborhood, where everyone is affluent and nice, and everyone loves everyone, and so there are no needy children, in fact no needy people at all, for there is easy, non-polluting magic available to everyone to supply all their needs without effort. Kor would have nothing to do, except for recreational activities. But even in recreation, we would have to rule out games that a player could _lose_ , for then they might be disappointed, which would be a form of suffering. Would that be a better life for her?"

"Well, no, how _could_ it be?" answered the Fabulist. "What a waste, what a tragedy that would be! And she would reject it, I am sure! But isn't there a paradox there? Isn't that just what she is trying to do for the children, make them safe and comfortable?"

"Well, that is _part_ of what she is trying to do," replied Lightbearer, "but she is also trying to raise them to be dedicated to the welfare of others, as she herself is. Although she wouldn't mind having more resources available to the orphanage, I don't think that she would want her kids to be _too_ comfortable."

"Maybe I'm wrong to admire people like Kor," said the Fabulist, worriedly. "They can only thrive if there is suffering in the world. The ideal person would be someone who can just enjoy the simple pleasures of life, or sheer existence for its own sake. A perfect world would have to be populated by people like that."

"But would you really want to see a world, populated solely and forever by such people?"

"Well, no, I wouldn't! Such people would be admirable in a way, but also missing something."

"Yes, you thought that Kor and Ydnas and even Isiliar were missing something, didn't you? You thought they were _too wholesome_ , isn't that right?"

"Yes, I did ... and that's why I made Kor to have once been a courtesan – it makes her much more interesting, doesn't it? And Ydnas has lost most of her memory. I'm still making up my mind what to do with Isiliar in that regard.

"You know," he added, "it just occurred to me that inner and outer wholesomeness may be the very same problem. It's not only the _outer_ life that shouldn't be too easy for a person, their _inner_ life should be difficult as well. Which means that their characters must be flawed, so that they can be tempted by evil. Otherwise, they can never manifest virtues of resistance to temptation. Strength of character would be irrelevant. In the extreme, if I make them with such good character that they are _guaranteed_ never to lapse, then, for all practical purposes, they don't even have much free will."

"Well," replied Lightbearer, a little teasingly, "I suppose that they would rather have a mildly sadistic creator, than not to exist at all. And some of them are probably _grateful_ to you, for making their lives miserable! I'm thinking of the masochists, of course, and the chronically guilt-ridden, and also of those who consider that their suffering is justified by some noble cause that they are pursuing."

"I suppose," said the Fabulist, smiling at her response, but still pursuing his previous line of thought, "that the same principle even applies to me, the creator! I, too, would be less of a being if I were not subject to error and temptation! And so it is _fortunate_ that I have a dark side! This is the best possible universe, _because_ I am capable of going wrong!"

"But if it's good that you are bad," replied Lightbearer, with a devilish grin, "then you are not bad after all, are you? The right imperfections make you perfect."

"Yes ... But that is absurd, Lightbearer! I am astonished and dismayed, hearing myself say that it is better to have a world with suffering and evil in it, and that it is better for people to have weaknesses in their character. How can that be? Where am I going wrong?"

"You are certainly going wrong _somewhere_ ," replied Lightbearer. "One moment you are saying that this is the best possible universe, and the next moment you say that you, its creator and guide, have gone wrong. Maybe you just _worry_ too much! But how about this: you could make a world without suffering or evil, but make people _think_ that they are suffering, or that someone is doing evil, when actually nothing of the sort is the case. Then, you are not creating any evil or suffering in the world, and yet people like Kor can have the sort of life that is meaningful to them."

"Sort of like a fiction?"

"Exactly!"

"That's very clever," mused the Fabulist, "but I would be systematically deluding people, including Kor, about something crucially important to them. Wouldn't that be evil in itself?"

"At first sight, yes," said Lightbearer, "but if all the other alternatives are worse, how could you be blamed? Besides, even if it were evil, it would still be rather noble of you to do it. It's like someone who saves others from a dirty job by doing it himself. By taking responsibility for the necessary evil of the world yourself, you save everyone else from having to be evil. That kind of evil can't be all bad, can it?" She smirked impishly.

The Fabulist was amazed. "There's actually a certain logic to that," he said. "Maybe I'll do it that way. In the past, I mean." The Fabulist was not constrained by time as mortals are.

"Don't think I don't see what you're up to, though," said Lightbearer, crossing her arms and looking at him with theatrical sternness.

"What?"

"If it turns out to be a bad idea, you can blame _me_ for it. That's really why you created me, isn't it?"
**********

"The perfect religion would be undetectable."

( _Theology for Atheists_ [authorless])

"Rich people, rent my prophets!"

( _Scriptures_ of Honggur)

Kor soon found another opportunity to speak with Ydnas about religion. "Ydnas, Dearie," she said, "I want you to feel free to practice your own religion, here."

Ydnas looked puzzled. "Can't help it," she said. _Oh, oh_ , thought Kor, _Here we go with the riddles, again!_

Sensing Kor's puzzlement, Ydnas proceeded to elaborate: "Person wants money all the time, thinks about money – person worships money! Person fears death all the time, thinks about death – person worships death! Person _says_ he worships god of love, is full of hate all the time, person _really_ worships god of hate. Also god of lies!"

"Ah," said Kor. "The dance your heart really beats for, that is the god you worship?"

" _Yes!_ " said Ydnas, jumping up and down happily.

_Well_ , thought Kor, _I actually understood her for once!_ She was very pleased. Then something struck her: _Oh! That's why she said she couldn't help practicing her religion! If you look at it that way, nobody can!_ She felt relieved, and pleased with herself, to have made sense out of it. _Maybe I'll eventually understand her_ , she thought. Then she thought of a question; she feared that it might be contentious, but she decided to go ahead.

"I believe that, too, Ydnas! So, since your god is the god of everything, are you thinking about everything all the time?"

She needn't have worried: Ydnas appeared to be quite pleased with the question, and nodded 'yes.' "But how can you?" asked Kor, nervously. "I mean, right now, I am thinking about you, and me, and I suppose I am thinking of everything, in a way, since we are talking about it. But, when I was washing the dishes last night, I was thinking about the dishes, and the water, and the soap, and the dishcloth, but not about the moons, or the street outside, or Talek, or some potato I ate two years ago, or some person I've never heard of."

Ydnas cocked her head to the side, and frowned thoughtfully, pursing her lips. Then she smiled. She put her hands in front of her eyes, almost completely covering them. "Ydnas only sees Kor's _foot_ ," she said, "but Ydnas knows it's _Kor's_ foot. And Ydnas loves foot _so much_ , because she knows it's _Kor's_ foot, and Ydnas loves _Kor_."

"So," replied Kor, struggling to grasp the slippery thought, and put it into her own words, "you love individual things, only because they are part of the god of everything?"

" _Yes!_ " said Ydnas, leaping forward to give Kor a hug.

"You mean," said Kor, hugging Ydnas in return, but looking a little crestfallen, "that you love me only because I am part of the god of everything?"

"Oh, but _wonderful_ part!" said Ydnas, hugging her even more tightly. Kor felt a little better. She asked, a little facetiously. "Is this your god hugging itself?"

"Yes!" said Ydnas, very pleased with Kor's reply, and she let go and stepped back, in order to demonstrate: closing her eyes and smiling, she put her arms around herself.

Kor nodded. _I think I'm beginning to glimpse the logic of it_ , she thought, _It reminds me a little of Zillist doctrine. Not that I know much about that._ Thinking of the Zillists took her into the past for a moment. She remembered floating on a raft, profoundly bitter and depressed, with two Zillist companions... The memory agonized her, and she quickly brought herself back to the present. "I hope you don't mind my asking all these questions," she said, a little nervously.

Ydnas smiled even more broadly, and shook her head in an emphatic negative, braids flying. "Ydnas _needs_ questions," she said. "Everybody needs questions. Otherwise, fall asleep!"

"Well, then," said Kor, taking a deep breath. "Here is one I have been thinking of: when one person hurts another person, isn't that your god hurting them? Why would your god hurt anyone? And it would also be your god hurting himself – why would your god do that?" She was a little nervous, because she considered this to be a very difficult question, and she feared that Ydnas would be humiliated by it.

"God suffers _so we can be_ ," said Ydnas, looking a little sad.

Kor thought this over for a few moments, without getting anywhere. "Could you explain that a bit, Dearie?"

"People – us – we do mean things, sometimes. Hurt each other. That hurts God. Like you said. We are like that. God forgives, makes us anyway, so we can live. Like Mommy and Daddy."

"Like Mommy and Daddy? How do you mean?" asked Kor, still quite puzzled.

"Mommy and Daddy know that if they have children, it will be difficult sometimes," said Ydnas. "Child will bother them sometimes, children will bother each other sometimes, parents will be mean to children sometimes. Not nice. But they have children _anyway_."

"So," said Kor, "the god of everything accepts the suffering that people will cause, because otherwise people wouldn't be able to exist at all?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, nodding.

"But," asked Kor, "why not make us all perfectly good, so that we wouldn't hurt each other?"

"Wouldn't be _us_ ," said Ydnas, looking even sadder.

_Too true_ , thought Kor, _All too true! And what a remarkable view for a girl her age! But then, Isiliar told me she would be remarkable._

"But we should _try_ to be good, don't you think?" asked Kor. "Even though we won't always succeed?"

"Yes!" said Ydnas, looking admiringly at her. "And Kor always tries! And most of time, Kor succeeds! Kor is _so good_!" Kor blushed with pleasure at this remark, then blushed with embarrassment at what she felt was vanity. Ydnas added, "Kor is almost goddess!"

_Ah_ , thought Kor, _I'm only_ _almost_ _a goddess!_ She felt relief, but, again to her dismay, also a hint of disappointment.

"That reminds me of another question I wanted to ask, Dearie," she said. "When we were talking about religion before, you said you worshipped the god of everything. But evil and badness are part of everything. Does that mean that you love evil and badness?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, looking sad again, "like god, I forgive."

Kor was speechless for a moment. Then she said, "Forgive me for asking, Dearie, but do you really? I mean, for example, do you forgive the people who made you a slave?"

"Well," said Ydnas, looking sadder still, "I try."

It was Kor's turn to initiate a hug. "Well, that's wonderful!" said Kor. "And that's all that anyone could ask of you, is to try!" Shaking her head, she added, "Some people make it very hard to love them, don't they?" Ydnas said nothing, but she nodded minutely in the affirmative as she returned the hug, which lasted for almost twenty breaths.

"Well, Ydnas," Kor continued, once they had untangled themselves again, "do you know what _rituals_ are? And _ceremonies_? And _services_?"

Ydnas shook her head in the negative. "Don't know _words_ ," she said.

"Ah," said Kor. "Well, sometimes people like to worship some god or gods, together. I mean, they all come to the same place at the same time, and worship together. They might sing songs about their god, they might read scripture – you remember what a _scripture_ is? Good! – or someone might talk about the god, or the people might pray together – praying is talking to their god. Different people have different ways of doing it. Anyway, that's what we call a _service_. I suppose you would say, that in your religion, _life_ is a service."

"Yes!" said Ydnas, looking very pleased. "Service never ends!"

_I'm finally beginning to get this_ , thought Kor, immensely pleased and relieved. Then she continued: "But as I say, some people take special times out to do this together. Often they are worshipping some _particular_ god, not the god of everything. Did you ever do that?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, looking anxious. "Had to. I was slave."

"Ah," said Kor. "Of course! I assure you, Dearie, I would never force you to go to any service, or to worship any god!"

"I know," said Ydnas, her eyes watering up. "Kor is wonderful!"

"Would you mind telling me about that? What god did they worship?" _It will be good for her to talk about the past,_ thought Kor, _if she is ready_.

"Honggur," said Ydnas.

_The god of the free market_ , thought Kor, _There's a certain logic to slave-owners worshipping Honggur_. "What was their service like?"

"Well," said Ydnas, "first, you go to special place, big building, very fancy."

"A _Temple_ , I imagine," interjected Kor.

"Tem-ple," repeated Ydnas.

"Sometimes," Kor added, "if it's very big, they call it a _mall_."

"Mall," said Ydnas.

"Then," Ydnas continued, "you pay to get in. This Tem-ple, where we went, only rich people can pay enough to get in. Then masters go to one room, slaves to another. Slaves go down below. Very hot. Lots of slaves sit next to each other. Big, big statue of Honggur, all gold. Then, like you say: they teach us many songs, and we sing. They read their scripture to us. Sometimes they make us remember parts and say them ourselves, all together. Sometimes kill rats."

" _What?_ " said Kor, startled. "Kill rats? What do you mean?"

"Well," said Ydnas, "they have rats in cage. Cage made of wire. Cage very tall, almost to ceiling. Bring weasel up next to bottom of cage. Rats get scared, climb up walls of cage. Priest lets weasel into bottom of cage. Weasel climbs cage, chasing rats. Rats climb fast, but whichever one is slowest, weasel gets that one."

Kor was shocked. "That's _terrible_ ," she said. "But then, if they are willing to have slaves, animal sacrifice would not bother them, I suppose."

Ydnas hugged herself and made big, scared eyes. "Someone told me," she said, pantomiming someone whispering conspiratorially, looking worriedly this way and that, "that, long time ago, they sa-cri-ficed _people!_ Each year, during longest night, would find poorest family in neighborhood, bring them to Temple, and kill them!"

" _Oh!!!_ " exclaimed Kor, her face wrinkling up in disgust and horror. "That is just _dreadful!_ Well, I guess there has been progress of a sort, then. Better rats than people, I mean."

Ydnas nodded, adding: "Don't kill people any more. Just _let them die!_ "

"What do you mean?" asked Kor.

"Well," said Ydnas, "people get very poor, can't afford food, clothes, house, doctor ... Honggur's Rule says, nothing for free, so no one helps, so they die."

_Sacrificed to Honggur_ , thought Kor. She sighed. Like virtually everyone in Kondrastibar, she believed strongly in freedom of religion; more, she thought that every religion had its reason for being. But sometimes, she just couldn't understand what that reason was.

"So, what sort of scripture did you have to learn?" she asked.

"Not in your language," said Ydnas, nervously.

"Would you translate a bit of it for me, please?" asked Kor.

"I try," said Ydnas, nodding, and haltingly began to recite: "'Honggur is the biggest, best, smartest, strongest' ... what do you call a person, who gets to decide things, like whether other people pay fine, or go to jail?"

"A _judge_ ," said Kor.

Ydnas nodded, and began again. "'Honggur is biggest, best, smartest, strongest ... _judge_. If he says something is good, it is good. If he says something is bad, it is bad. If there is anything nice you can say about someone, Honggur deserves to have you say it about _him_.

"'If people are strong, he pulls them up. If people are weak, he pushes them down. If people are smart, he smiles at them. If people are stupid, he frowns at them. If people are brave, he pats them. If people are cowardly, he hits them. If people work hard, and get lots of things, he likes them. If people don't work hard, or don't get lots of things, he hates them. If he likes someone, he gives them more nice things. If he hates someone, he takes all their things away. They cry and lie on the ground and hurt themselves and say they are sorry and ask him over and over and over again to give them something, please, please, please, so that they won't be cold and sick and hungry, but he doesn't help them, and they die."

Kor sighed again. "That sounds like one of Honggur's scriptures, all right."

"But," added Ydnas, "they also said that Honggur could _forgive_."

"Really?" said Kor, raising her eyebrows. "How so?"

"Well, they said, if someone changes his mind, and starts wanting to work hard, and get lots of things, and be strong, and smart, and brave, and work hard all the time, then Honggur will smile at them, and pull them up, and pat them, and give them things. Told stories about slaves who worked hard, and got money, and bought themselves, and were free, and kept working hard, and became very rich, and had lots of slaves of their own, and so Honggur forgave them. They even had ways for us to earn money."

"Really? By doing what?"

"Well, mostly for telling our masters' secrets."

"Ah, yes."

"My master said he would give me money once. He wanted me to ... what do you call it, when a man and a woman take off their clothes, and lie down, and ..." She looked embarrassed.

"'Lying together,'" said Kor, barely controlling her shock and disgust. "We call it 'lying together.'"

"Well," continued Ydnas, "he offered me money to lie together with him. But I said no. Because I was too young. And besides, he had a ... what do you call it? When people agree to do something, and they put it on a piece of paper, and put their names on it, and then they _have_ to do it, or the judge will be mean to them?"

"A ' _contract_ ,'" said Kor, nodding. Followers of Honggur often held that the only sin was to break a contract without proper justification.

"Con-tract," said Ydnas. "Con-tract. Well, he and his wife had a con-tract. Con-tract said, master isn't supposed to lie together with anyone, except _wife_. I found out about con-tract. When I told him, he stopped asking me. I think he was afraid that she would ... what is Gastripi word, for when you go to ... judge, and you say, 'This person did something bad to me,' and if the judge believes you, the person has to pay you?"

"A 'lawsuit,'" said Kor.

"Law-suit, law-suit," said Ydnas. "I think he was afraid that wife would do a law-suit to him, for breaking con-tract. He sold me then, right after that. I think he was afraid I would tell his wife, and she would be mad, and do a law-suit to him.

"That's when _Kor_ bought me," she added, looking a little smug.

"Well, I didn't really think of it as _buying_ you," said Kor. "I gave the man some money so that the police would let me take you away. I don't think that you _belong_ to me. You are not my slave, or anybody's slave. I don't think that people should have slaves. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, "and I think that is very, very nice. That is one of the reasons I love you so much." She came over and hugged Kor yet again. Kor held her with one arm and stroked her hair with the other hand.

"And Ydnas," said Kor, as they cuddled, "you were absolutely right to say 'no' to him. You _are_ too young, and besides, I believe it is wrong to lie together with someone for money, or to offer someone money for that. Even when I was – well, never mind that. And you were very smart, and very brave, to refuse him like that, and to threaten to tell his wife."

"Well, if I was smart and brave, maybe Honggur liked me, and so he decided to help me," replied Ydnas, "and that is why I'm so much better off now."

"Well, maybe," said Kor, "but I doubt it. I think Honggur only wants you to get better by _making more money_. If it hadn't been for the wife's contract, He would probably have been _disappointed_ that you didn't accept, because you would have been making money then. People say, 'Money is Honggur's blood,' because if money doesn't circulate, Honggur can't live. In neighborhoods where everyone is His devotee, they measure how well the neighborhood is doing by counting how much money has changed hands in a year – the more, the better, no matter what it was spent _for_. In my opinion, that is totally backwards; money is only needed when love is absent. But I'll agree to one thing, and that is, that if you are smart and brave, you will usually be better off."

"It's so different here," said Ydnas, smiling through tears, and making sweeping gestures to indicate the orphanage. "Nobody ever buys and sells anything, and nobody ever signs a con-tract, or makes a law-suit."

"That's right," said Kor, with a smile. "We don't act that way."

"Everyone does what they want," said Ydnas, "except sometimes, when they are afraid that other people will be hurt. Everyone is so nice to everyone. What do you call that?"

"Well," said Kor, "Some people call it 'anarchy,' but I just call it 'family.'"
**********

"Certain kinds of complexity

cannot be distinguished from randomness."

(from _Mathematical Theology_ , by Combinatorial Varieties)

A week before the graduation ceremony for 'Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans,' the 17-year-old Kor was very happy. She had received red roses (the highest grade) in all her exams, and would soon graduate, with a Major in Sacrifice and a Minor in Soul Therapeutics. Also, she had already been accepted as a Courtesan of Sacrifice at the Temple of Ydris. Although it was located in a decaying neighborhood, the Temple had a wonderful reputation. Kor had visited there, and she was impressed by the grandeur of its architecture, its ancient traditions, and the dedication and skill with which its courtesans carried out their work. She felt that she had found her true vocation, and Isiliar had expressed complete approval. Kor looked forward to spending the rest of her life making her communicants happy.

Kor was going over these things in her mind, as she took a leisurely walk in the neighborhood near the school. In those days, the area was still quite pleasant; it was only just beginning to decay. Kor was wearing the simple, gray, ultra-modest habit that all students were required to wear if they went outside the building. Respectable though the neighborhood was, men would occasionally try to pick up the girls. In such cases the girls were trained to say, "I am training to be a courtesan, not a slut," and proceed to ignore the man completely.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The air was warm, and fragrant with flowers. All the homes were lovely and well-kept, and set in the midst of beautiful orchards and gardens. The people were friendly, and would smile and greet strangers as well as friends. Kor had made friends with many of them. She knew that she would miss the neighborhood, and the school, and the other students, and especially Madame Caramami, who had adopted her, and been a wonderful mother and friend. But she intended to visit frequently, and to keep in touch with all her companions, as well. As always, she felt the warm and encouraging presence of Isiliar in her heart, and she knew that her goddess would be with her at the Temple of Ydris, as well. How could life be any better?

As she approached a corner, she was surprised to see an old man standing there, dressed only in a simple loincloth. The inhabitants of the neighborhood were not rich, and did not wish to be, but they were comfortable, and they dressed neatly and sensibly. It was therefore a bit of a surprise to see the old man, wearing little more than modesty required. But then she noticed his topknot, near the back of his otherwise bald head, and knew that he was so dressed because of a religiously motivated choice: he was a Zillist wanderer.

As she drew near, she made ready to smile and greet him. When he turned his gaze to meet hers, however, she was taken aback for a moment, for she felt an immensely powerful personality behind his cloud-gray eyes.

"Good afternoon, young lady," he said, in a formal but friendly tone. "I'm sorry that I startled you."

Something about him told her that although he was a most unusual sort of person, he was essentially benign. Besides, Zillist wanderers were known to renounce violence unless personally attacked. "Why – that's all right," she replied, smiling warmly. "No harm! My name is 'Kor.' May I know yours?"

"Certainly," he said, smiling in return. "My name is 'Sindariden.' You appear to be a Suimi."

Again Kor was surprised. Few people noticed her tiny ear tattoo, and fewer still knew what it meant. "Yes, I am," she said. "You're very observant."

"I have known many Suimi," he said. "They are thinly scattered, but I am an old man."

"We are scattered indeed," said Kor. "Our goddess commanded this, many centuries ago."

"'Go through all Kondrastibar,'" said Sindariden, reciting the words that Suimi traditionally ascribed to Isiliar, "'and serve whomever you may find.'"

Again Kor was surprised. "Are you a Suimi?" she asked, directing a quick glance at his left earlobe. "Very few others know such things!" But there was no tattoo.

"No," replied Sindariden, "but I am a great admirer of the Suimi way. What a beautiful idea that saying expresses!"

Kor felt a flush of pleasure at this remark. "Thank you," she said, making a little curtsy. "I see that you are a Zillist, but I'm embarrassed to say that I know very little about _your_ faith."

"No great loss," he said, with a modest smile. "There isn't much to it, really. We hold that the universe is one great self-consistent whole, and that the myriad phenomena are all balanced expressions of an underlying Oneness, expressing itself through love. It grows and develops through time. We practice meditation, to know and realize this Oneness. It is our belief that in doing so, a person gradually becomes free of evil and harm. That's it!"

"Why, that is very beautiful, too!" said Kor. "Although," she added, a bit lamely, "I don't fully understand it."

"Actually," replied Sindariden, "the fact that you intuitively felt its beauty, without intellectual understanding, shows that you understand it better than most."

_How kind he is_ , thought Kor. _His religion must indeed be a good one._ She felt Isiliar agree. She decided to look into it more some day. Aloud, she said, "Welcome to our neighborhood, Sindariden! Do you have any specific destination? I might be able to direct you."

"Thank you," he said, with a smile "But I'm about to head back, now."

Something was tugging at Kor's memory. "I think I've heard your name before," she said, thoughtfully.

He smiled again. "You may be thinking of my illustrious ancestor, Sindariden the 23rd, the last Emperor of the Ingar Dynasty."

"That's it!" said Kor. "Do you mean that your family has kept track of their ancestry, all this time?"

"My family is peculiar, that way," said Sindariden, chuckling.

"Do you wish that he hadn't given up his power?" asked Kor.

"What he did was exactly the right thing to do," said Sindariden. "Just as it was right for his great-great-grandfather, Sindariden the 19th, to officially found the Zillist Order."

"So ... did your whole family switch from politics to religion?" asked Kor.

"Yes indeed," said Sindariden, nodding. "In fact, the idea was worked out by Sindariden the 17th. She is the true formulator of the principles of the Zillist order, though it was not actually created until later."

"Did you ever wish that you were an Emperor?" asked Kor.

"Never," he replied. "How about you? Did you ever wish you were an Empress?"

"I think so," said Kor, "when I was a little girl. And sometimes, when I get impatient with the way things are."

"You'd like to have the power to change things," said Sindariden, nodding, and smiling to himself.

"Yes," said Kor. "We Suimi are supposed to serve, not to rule, but sometimes it seems as though the best way to serve people _would_ be to rule them. People act so stupidly, sometimes."

"It's easy to become impatient with them," said Sindariden, nodding again. Kor did not reply, for she felt ever-so-gently rebuked by this response, whether he had intended it so or not.

"Have you ever wished you were a _goddess_?" asked Sindariden.

"Yes," said Kor, grateful for the change of subject, "especially when I was a child. I used to fantasize being a goddess, all the time." _And in a way I will be_ , she thought, _while serving Ydris, I will to some extent merge with her._ It was an exciting idea.

At that moment, another strange-looking person appeared, from around a nearby corner. This person was short, and dressed entirely in black. Even when he came closer, his face could not be seen, for he wore a black hood, and a black cheesecloth veil over his face. He carried a black staff with a piece of obsidian lashed to the top. His hands were gloved in black. He approached them.

"Good afternoon," said the stranger, as he came near. "My name is Talek. I'm a priest in the Church of Irony. I'm looking for a place called 'Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans.' Can you help me?" His voice was rather hollow-sounding.

"My name is Kor," replied Kor, "and this is Sindariden, a Zillist wanderer whom I have just met." For an eyeblink, Kor thought she felt a strange and powerful surge of something indefinable pass between the two men. But they simply bowed politely to each other, exchanging formal greetings.

"As a matter of fact," she continued, "I am just on my way to the School you were asking about, and I would be happy to have you accompany me."

"Thank you very much," said Talek. "But I don't wish to interrupt your conversation. If you can just direct me, I'm sure I can find my way."

"Actually," said Sindariden, "I must be going, so there won't be any problem. It was a pleasure to meet you both!" He gave another little bow, which Talek returned.

"And it was nice to meet you, too, Sindariden," said Kor, making a little curtsy. Sindariden bowed again, wished her well, and then turned and walked away.

"Well, then," said Kor, "I'll head back to the school now. First we go this way." She pointed, and proceeded to walk. Talek walked beside her. She had to slow down a bit, to accommodate his shorter stride.

"Thank you for guiding me," said Talek.

"No burden," said Kor. "I was going there myself." Then, out of curiosity and the desire to make conversation, she added, "I'm sorry to be so ignorant, but I don't believe I've ever heard of the Church of Irony before." There were a huge number of religions in Kondrastibar, for none of them had more than a few thousand members.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of," said Talek. "It's a very small Church, and we prefer to keep a low profile."

"Do you worship a god of Irony?" asked Kor.

"Not really," said Talek. "It would be risky to pray to a god of Irony, for example – who knows what you might get?"

"I see what you mean," said Kor. "If it's not an invasion of your privacy, though, I would like to know what you _do_ do."

"Usually something different from what we planned," said Talek. "We do have a scripture of sorts, called for some reason _The Book of Irony_ , and a literature of refutations, paradoxes, and satires that has grown up around it. It contains many of our favorite speculations about the world. We study it and try to refute it. Our Church was founded during the Cleretic Dynasty by a woman named Kleta. Actually, she often said that she had founded it as a joke, but later, people came to take it more seriously. We try not to take it _too_ seriously, however."

"Forgive me," said Kor, looking at him with a somewhat dismayed expression, "but are you joking with me?"

"A little," admitted Talek. "As I said, we try not to be entirely serious. But everything I have told you is true."

"That's quite remarkable," said Kor. To herself, she thought, _Why in the world would anyone adopt such a religion?_

"The people in our church," said Talek, "tend to be people who are very skeptical, yet profoundly curious. They usually also manage to be idealistic and cynical at the same time. They have a have a high estimation of the complexity of the world, and are willing to find humor in anything. Our symbol is a snake that is swallowing its own tail." _This is the strangest church I ever heard of_ , thought Kor. "Remarkable!" she said, but could not think of anything further to say.

A few hundredbreaths later, the school building came into view. Kor pointed it out. "What a wonderful piece of architecture!" said Talek. "Its style is late Treviduan, with strong influence from the School of Tlelekindicar. Those spherical cupolas are extraordinary. You see, they are designed in such a way that no matter where you stand, at least one of them will be hidden by others."

"Why, I never noticed that," said Kor.

"It has a large atrium on the inside, I presume," said Talek, "as well as several smaller courtyards."

"Why yes," said Kor. "That's true. How did you know that?"

"Well, it's part of the late Treviduan style," said Talek. "Also, the windows are an especially good example of that style: they are all different sizes, but each piece of glass has the same shape: in this case, a parabolic frustum."

I just thought of them as "arched," thought Kor.

"Their sizes and positions appear fairly random at first," continued Talek, "but actually, there is a strict pattern behind it. That is typical for the Treviduans."

"That's just how I experienced it," said Kor, nodding; "When I first came here, I couldn't make any sense of it at all. Then, after awhile, I began to have a sort of a hunch that there was a pattern. Eventually, I figured it out."

Talek nodded. "The Late Treviduans thought of life that way," he said. "Their idea was, that many aspects of life seem random, but if you have a hunch that they are not, and if you work at it, you can find a pattern. They designed their buildings to illustrate the point."

"How knowledgeable you are!" said Kor.

"Well, as I said, we are a curious bunch," replied Talek.

As they entered the school grounds, they passed a number of men, who looked rather dazed. They were consultants, who had been helping to administer the examinations. Kor said, "Would you be wanting to speak to Madame Caramami?"

"Yes, indeed," said Talek. "I would like to have her permission to explore the building. Recently I have become quite interested in Late Treviduan Architecture."

"Well, then," said Kor, "I will take you to her office."
**********

"The Holy Trinity: Reform, Redemption, and Reconciliation."

(Chapter title from _The Joy of Holiness_ )

In the loft, the elderly Kor looked down at the face of the sleeping young woman with an expression that combined love, sorrow, and foreboding. The sleeper's skin was ivory; she had a round, symmetrical face with a bridgeless nose and large black lips. Also black were her thick, wavy hair, elegant eyebrows, and dense eyelashes. Kor made a motion as if to wake her, and then stopped herself. She sat down in a corner of the room. As time passed and the young woman did not waken, Kor herself began to drift off. Finally, her forearms across her knees and her head on her forearms, she fell asleep, snoring lightly.

Eventually, the young woman began to toss and turn restlessly in her sleep. Under her closed lids her eyes moved back and forth, making her eyelashes dance. At one point, she said "Kor," in a voice of anguish. Kor, herself asleep, did not respond. A few hundredbreaths later, the young woman's eyes fluttered open, revealing gray eyes with irises like a cat's, and after a moment she relaxed a little. Then, she pushed back the blankets and began to get up. At that moment her eyes lit on Kor, and she gave a great start and a gasp. For a few seconds she looked at Kor with an expression of worry and puzzlement, which gradually changed to one of love and hope. She made a motion as if to wake her, and then stopped herself. From the floor she retrieved a simple white smock, and put it on. Then she knelt on the mattress, with her hands wringing each other a little in her lap. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, tilted her head to the side, and said, "Kor?"

Kor's snore deepened for a moment, and then it stopped. She raised her head a little and looked confusedly over her forearms. "Huh?"

"Kor, it's me, Tulith!" said the young woman hesitantly, almost in a whisper.

"Oh!" said Kor, giving a start. She looked frightened and embarrassed. The two looked at each other worriedly for a few heartbeats. Tulith's expression was nervous, almost flinching, but also loving. Gradually, this seemed to reassure Kor. Her expression softened. In response to that, Tulith's expression became less frightened and more winsome. In this way they helped each other down, like climbers on a steep slope.

Finally Kor spoke, looking at the floor: "I came to apologize, Tulith, I was absolutely wrong to get angry at you the way I did."

"I was mean to you, too, Kor," replied Tulith, very softly and sadly. "And I am so sorry about that."

"Well, I understand," said Kor, "when people get into a fight, ..."

They both sat for a moment, gathering breath.

"I was wrong, Tulith," said Kor. "I can't tell you how to live your life."

"But I know why you did it, Kor; it was because you love me and the children so very much."

"Yes," said Kor, raising her eyes to meet Tulith's, "I was afraid I was losing you. And then, when we had such a fight, I thought that I _had_ lost you. I haven't lost you, have I, Tulith?" Tears began to run down Kor's face.

"No, Kor," said Tulith, leaning toward her, "I may not do everything you want, and I may get angry at you sometimes, but you will never, never lose me, as long as I live."

"Ah, Tulith," sighed Kor, closing her eyes for a moment, "I don't deserve you."

"Kor," said Tulith, walking on her knees toward the older woman, "you deserve much better than me. But in all the years I have known you, there is one thing about you that doesn't change: you never give yourself enough credit."

"I have to push myself," said Kor, nervously. "I can't rest. They all depend on me. And there are so many more, out there."

"Kor," said Tulith, "you cannot hold yourself responsible for all the orphans in the world!"

"But if there is even one more that I _can_ save," said Kor. "How can I knowingly leave a child to die, or to be exploited? How could I dream of putting my own _comfort_ before his or her _life_? Oh, now it sounds like I'm blaming you again! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way!"

"I understand, Kor," said Tulith, "you were just expressing your own feelings about yourself. And I don't know why I am not the same, except that I am exactly the way most people are – selfish and irresponsible. You are a remarkable person, Kor! But I worry, that if you drive yourself too hard, you will collapse, and then you will be no good to anyone."

"Oh, Tulith, that is just what I am so afraid of, too! I feel so old, sometimes, and so tired, and I am afraid that I am going to fall apart. And then, what will happen to them?"

"Someone will appear, Kor. And if they don't, I will join in, and the older kids will pitch in, and Talek will help ... and we will work it out somehow."

"You will join in?"

"Kor, I never said I would never have anything to do with the orphanage again. I just said I could not make it my life, as you have made it yours. I am perfectly willing to help from time to time!"

"Oh, Tulith ..."

"I know that it makes no sense to you, that I would paint pictures while children are dying, instead of trying to rescue them, as you do. It makes no sense to me, either, except that ... it seems to be what I was made for. I am just not as good a person as you are, Kor. It is the same with worshipping Kshaloka instead of Isiliar. You say that he, the god of sensual beauty, is a shallow god. Well, I guess he is, but that is the way my spirit refracts the light right now."

"But you _are_ good, Tulith. You are so good to _me_ , for example. And, I suppose every god has his reason for being. You could certainly do a lot _worse_ than Kshaloka. And, I must admit, that when I was your age, although I officially worshipped only Isiliar and Ydris, I _acted_ a lot like a worshipper of Kshaloka! Perhaps I was his devotee without knowing it."

"I think he must have been very pleased with you, Kor," said Tulith, with an impish expression; "Perhaps I will ask him sometime."

Kor blushed deep blue. "I'm not sure I want you to know!"

Tulith chuckled at that; then she looked more serious and said, "Kor, are you still angry with me?"

"No, Dearie, my anger has all quite evaporated."

"Then, Kor, could I hold you? It seems like years since we have held each other."

"Of course you can, Tulith! I want you to!"

Tulith leaned forward and, putting her hands around the back of Kor's head, gently kissed her furrowed forehead. "Oh," she said, "I didn't ask whether I could _kiss_ you!"

"I forgive you," said Kor, chuckling, "but let me get out of this corner. Ouch! I have been sitting there for much too long! Oh, but I am stiff! And both of my legs have gone numb." Kor very slowly stood up, wincing frequently, and Tulith stood up with her. Then they put their arms around each other, and held on for dear life.
**********

"The world most people see is a simulacrum."

(pseudo-Imitch of Apir)

Brother Koof managed to project a simulacrum, a perfect likeness of Pappi himself, into Pappi's main residence, while Pappi and Tarth Sakul were busy elsewhere. Even the Security guards were fooled. Pretending to be Pappi, the simulacrum had managed to organize a wild party among the staff. During the party, he opened bottles of Pappi's most expensive wines and spirits, encouraging the attendees to drink freely. He required all of Pappi's wives and concubines to be present, and when they were well-inebriated, he declared that it was a "free sex party," commanding everyone to remove their clothes, and assuring them that they could have sex with anyone, if they so desired, without fear of punishment. Most of them found this quite plausible, since Pappi had never shown any sign of emotional attachment to any of them, and many of them took him up on it. The simulacrum also beat up two of Pappi's business associates, distributed all available cash at random, burned several crucial and irreplaceable ledgers, and had sex with two of Pappi's wives. As he felt his time running out, he took an opiate, in order to guarantee that the last few breaths of his life would be pleasant, whatever else might happen. As he lay dying, there was a smile on his face. When Pappi returned, he was furious.

_Not bad at all, for a mere thousand breaths of life_ , thought Arguit, very privately. He wondered whether either of the wives had become pregnant (one of them had). He was also worried about being severely punished for not detecting the simulacrum himself, but Tarth Sakul let him off with fifteen hundredbreaths of mild physical torture.

Pappi's serenity began to fray. "If this sneaking leech of a monk can do things like that," he complained to Tarth Sakul, "how can we defeat him? He can leave us totally confused. No one will know whether it is I, or you, or some simulacrum, that is giving an order."

"He is indeed a difficult case," said Tarth Sakul, "but I am not yet ready to raise a broken standard. I have instructed my people that any orders that seem unwise or uncharacteristic should be respectfully disobeyed until it is clear that we are not dealing with a simulacrum or a body with the wrong mind in it. Also, I was able to examine the simulacrum before it disintegrated completely, and I have learned much about our opponent. He is indeed the Kelosian monk; he is called 'Brother Koof.' If he ever sends another simulacrum, the staff will be able to detect it quickly. In the meantime, I will surround you with more protective spells. They may make you feel a bit fatigued, but it is only temporary. No matter what he does, he will not get me to open the safe or defuse any of the spells protecting it. He may try to use a slaver spell or to do a mind exchange with me, but I am quite immune to both of those."

Pappi was somewhat reassured. Later that day, a note appeared on his desk:

"My Dear Mr. Pappi:

Thanks for inviting my friend to your party! I hear that he had an excellent time! Where did you get those amazing floozies?

I want to express my sincere appreciation of your wonderful security chief! I've been a thief for a long time, and I'm very good at it. I can tell you, they don't come any better than him! Usually, I'd have the goods and be long gone by now! But your man is really very good at what he does! I understand that he has arranged to be the only one who can open the safe with your prized ruby sculptures in it. Good move! In this world, you need to trust as few people as possible, but you are truly fortunate, for he is totally trustworthy, and cannot even be corrupted by the desire for some of the most valuable objects in all of Kondrastibar. If not for that, you would not even know that the ruby sculptures are still there, since you cannot open the safe without his help, and since even then, you might be looking at counterfeits!

You made a wise choice! I congratulate you!

Your Secret Admirer, Brother Koof"

Pappi showed the note to Tarth Sakul, who said, "You can see, of course, what he is up to. He is trying to destroy your trust in me. He hopes you will demand that I open the safe, at which point he will attempt to teleport the jewels."

At first Pappi accepted Tarth Sakul's analysis, but he was still disturbed. Suddenly he realized what was bothering him. There was something too blatant, too obvious, about the supposed motive of the note. This guy, Brother Koof, was supposed to be very shrewd – wouldn't his letter have been a bit subtler? Pappi himself often operated on five or six levels of misdirection, and surely Brother Koof would realize that. But Brother Koof seemed to be operating on exactly one level, simply saying the exact opposite of what he hoped Pappi would believe! The scrofulous leech-sucker was treating Pappi like an idiot!

So ... could it be that the purpose of the note was merely to anger Pappi, by insulting him in that way? Pappi knew well that getting the opponent angry gave a person a terrific advantage, for an angry man is always a stupid man. He carefully went over his inner state, suppressing anything even faintly resembling anger toward Koof or Tarth Sakul, before continuing his analysis. Was there something, that Koof hoped that anger would lead Pappi to do? To fire Tarth Sakul? Koof might hope that in the confusion of transition to a new Security Chief, he would be able to get the jewels. But no, that was also too obvious.

Well, then, perhaps provocation to anger was not the purpose of the note, either. Indeed, perhaps it was not even from Koof at all! What if Tarth Sakul had written it for the very purpose of giving Pappi certain impressions about Brother Koof ... but which impressions? That Koof was not very devious? But why would Tarth Sakul want Pappi to underestimate Brother Koof? ... Perhaps Koof had written it to cast doubt on Tarth Sakul's loyalties, but not in the way Tarth Sakul himself had proposed. But, couldn't Tarth Sakul also see the flaw in his own interpretation? Surely he could. Why then did he propose to Pappi an interpretation that he knew to be flawed, and which he ought to have known that _Pappi_ would eventually see as flawed? Was Tarth Sakul trying to cast doubt on his _own_ credibility? Why would he want to do that? Pappi began to see many different possibilities...

**

The next day, Tarth Sakul felt something subtle but important in a nearby room. Focusing on it very gently and carefully, he discovered what it was – one of Brother Koof's surveillance roaches! It presented an opportunity: because the scan that had revealed the roach had been entirely passive, Brother Koof would not have been aware of it. He would be sitting at the other end of the telestream, taking in the information, and thinking his spy to be unobserved. That made him vulnerable to counterattack! Carefully, Tarth Sakul selected from his vast repertory a spell that he had programmed for just such an eventuality. It was a self-encrypting retrovirus, so cleverly disguised that it could get past any number of proxies, firewalls, and decoys. It could try out 7,454,949 different passwords in the time of an eyeblink. Most immune systems would not even notice it. It would pass through the roach and insert itself into Brother Koof's mind, and take control of him. Brother Koof would find himself with an irresistible desire to come to the compound and turn himself in, even though he knew very well what horrors would fall on him then. Tarth Sakul relished in his imagination how Brother Koof would feel at that moment, desperately trying to stop himself from walking to his own horribly slow and painful doom. "I have even arranged for him to walk _very slowly_!" he thought, with great pleasure. Then, carefully, he made ready to implant the retrovirus through the sense organs of the cockroach. But just as he was about to make the final delicate adjustment, Brother Koof broke the connection from the other end.

" _Spit Lizards!_ " shouted Tarth Sakul, pounding the table with his fist. Then he pulled himself together. It was surely just a coincidence. Brother Koof probably stayed on a given roach for only a short time, in order to protect himself from just such a counterattack. He had not become aware that his roach had been identified. Sooner or later, he would try again, and Tarth Sakul would get him. Tarth Sakul analyzed and rehearsed the procedure in his mind, so that he would be able to execute it quickly when the time came. He reported all this to Pappi, as evidence that he was close to putting an end to Koof's irritating antics.

Later that day, Arguit was accompanying Pappi to the gate, when he felt himself suddenly change position; then he realized that he was in a strange body. _Mind exchange_ , he thought. It took him a few moments to attract attention, since the body he was in was invisible; but then other staff intervened, cancelled the invisibility spell, and took his new body into custody. To their great satisfaction, this body fitted a description of Brother Koof that they had obtained from the local police. At the same time, several more of the staff surrounded Arguit's original body, and subjected whoever was in it to interrogation. The interrogation, which was a bit unpleasant for the person being interrogated, revealed that Arguit's usual body was currently being occupied by _Pappi's_ mind. Apologizing profusely, Tarth Sakul began to interrogate whoever was in _Pappi's_ usual body. To his surprise, that turned out to be Pappi's mind, again. At about that moment, Arguit found himself back in his original body, a fact which he reported. The other staff were a bit skeptical, but immediately began to interrogate the person in the body that looked like Koof. It turned out to be a moronic simulacrum, too primitive to feel any pain. A few minutes later, it collapsed in a puff of red smoke.

Tarth Sakul reconstructed the events as follows: "It's very simple, really. Koof created a moronic simulacrum. The Simulacrum's body was made to look just like Koof's own body. Koof rendered himself and his simulacrum invisible. He then led the simulacrum to the compound, and teleported the simulacrum inside, within line of sight of himself. Koof then mind-exchanged with the simulacrum, meaning that the simulacrum's mind was then in Koof's original body, and that Koof's mind was in the simulacrum's original body. Both were still invisible. The simulacrum was designed to just stand still unless specifically led somewhere, so it did not take Koof's original body anywhere.

"Koof's mind then exchanged with Arguit's, and so Arguit's mind was then in the simulacrum's original body, standing invisibly in the compound. Koof's mind then exchanged with Pappi's, and so Pappi's mind was then in Arguit's original body, and Koof's mind in Pappi's. Arguit's mind then drew attention to its current body, the simulacrum's original and invisible body; that body was rendered visible, and taken into custody. Koof then exchanged with Pappi, so that Koof's mind was in Pappi's original body, and Pappi's mind in Arguit's. We then interrogated Arguit's body, hoping to find the intruder, but found instead that it was inhabited by _Pappi's_ mind. We then began to interrogate Pappi's original body, but at that moment Koof's mind returned to Arguit's body, so Pappi's mind returned to Pappi's original body, and so we ended up interrogating Pappi's mind a second time. Koof's mind then returned to the simulacrum's body, and from there to his own original body, which was still invisible. At this point, everyone was in his original body, and Koof walked invisibly away, leaving us with the simulacrum.

"I would like to point out that although Koof might be said to have successfully played a practical joke on us, it was a fairly harmless one, especially by comparison to yesterday's escapade. This shows that our security system is getting the better of him."

Later in the day, Pappi got another note. Sitting at his desk, he read it:

"My Dear Mr. Pappi:

I understand you tested your security system recently. How did it go?

Come on, admit it! You haven't had so much fun since you played "Hide and Switch" as a kid!

Also, you had an excellent opportunity to judge the effectiveness of your interrogators!

Of course, you figured out that my last letter was just messing with your head, just as this one is. So you will, of course, discount both notes as evidence for anything.

It sure took me a long time to find your Security Chief's weak point! It wasn't money, women, or drugs. It's _arrogance_ and _envy_! Until he is richer and more powerful than you, he will always hate you, because he considers himself superior to you, and so it rankles him no end that you are his boss. How he hates that! Sooner or later, he will strike a blow at you, but don't worry, he will never knock you down.

Now, just to entertain you further, I will tell you _my_ weakness: I am addicted to risk, to the thrill of danger. People in my profession have to be! That's why I took my little jaunt into your territory today – it gained me nothing, I just did it for the excitement. It was fun, too, even though none of your wives was involved. I'm telling you my weakness in order to increase the risk, to make things more exciting still; I'm afraid it's all been a bit too easy, so far.

But I need to increase the risk still more, and so I am stalling Tarth Sakul, who thinks I'm in cahoots with him. He wants to take the ruby sculptures _now_ – but I'm taking the chance of giving you another 24 hours to find the flaw in our plans. A hint: it has something to do with what Tarth Sakul does every day, when he's locked in his spy-proof office, and even you cannot see him!

Your Secret Admirer, Brother Koof"

Pappi had no difficulty believing that Tarth Sakul was arrogant and envious; his arrogance was obvious, and Pappi automatically assumed that everyone who knew of him envied him. 'Still, this letter is just more snake feet,' he thought, 'It is obviously a trick. Koof is a Kelosian monk; he is trying to grab the sculptures in order to sell them and give the money to the poor; so why would he deliberately gamble on getting nailed? If he was really a compulsive risk-taker, he'd have been dead long ago. But ... something _this_ obviously a trick _can't_ be a trick. At least, not the trick it _seems_ to be. Maybe ... he's trying to make me doubt _all_ such letters, so that when one _does_ come along, that I _should_ pay attention to, I won't! That means that he realizes that there is a potential informer, whom he cannot eliminate or control. Who could that be?' Pappi felt that this gave him an important clue, and that he was on the verge of reading its significance. But after concentrating for several hundredbreaths, he failed to come up with anything, so he tabled the hypothesis.

Pappi often found it useful, in dealing with puzzles, to question the things he took for granted. For example, he was just _assuming_ that Koof wanted to steal the ruby sculptures; but he didn't really know that. 'Well,' he asked himself, 'What _else_ might Koof be wanting? To make me feel more dependent on Tarth Sakul? Now, what would that mean?'

Another thought struck him. If Pappi did open the safe, perhaps Brother Koof would make his move. They might be able to trap him then. There was another possible advantage of such a move: an order to open the safe would probably allow Pappi to know whether Tarth Sakul, in fact, _had_ already removed the sculptures. Just because Brother Koof had suggested such a thing didn't mean that it wasn't so, after all. If the move backfired, well, there was more to life than ruby sculptures. He had many other forms of wealth. This whole process was getting on his nerves. He was almost willing to take the risk, just to have things over with. Well, perhaps _that_ was the purpose of the letters: they were just part of an extended process of harassment, aimed at getting Pappi to make a weak move. But no, that was once again too simple and obvious to be true. Or ... was it only being _made to appear_ to be too simple and obvious?

Appearances can be deceiving ... his thoughts turned to the simulacrum of himself that had been sent by Koof that morning, and he realized that there was another assumption that he was simply taking for granted: the assumption that he himself was _Pappi_. Could not _he himself,_ the man sitting at the desk and holding the letter, be a _simulacrum_ , manufactured to _think_ that he was Pappi, supplied with false memories, and then exchanged with the real Pappi? Perhaps he was not really Pappi at all. Perhaps the real Pappi was in some manner a prisoner of Koof's, or Tarth Sakul's, and he, the simulacrum at the desk, would be dead in less than a thousand breaths! Should he try to find out? He sat there looking at the bit of the world that he could see. How _ordinary_ it seemed, how _irrelevant_ , to be surrounded by _furniture_ , and _financial records_ , as he found himself face-to-face with doubts about his own reality. He felt trapped, claustrophobic – but where could he go? Nowhere. What does one do, if one thinks he may have only a few more minutes left to live? He considered an orgy with a couple of his newest concubines, but the thought of their transparent attempts to pretend they liked being with him made him want to retch. Soaked with a deep but rapidly numbing grief, he took hold of himself, shrugged, and resumed his reading of a report on the progress of his recent campaign to subvert the quality control witnesses for hospitals in the Tarasondi neighborhood.
**********

"Imaginary playmates can be a great help

to religious development in children."

(Zhon Chok-Sruso, _Soul Development Made Easy_ )

Ydnas liked to play fantasy games with her little collection of sticks and pebbles and other oddments. Sometimes she spoke only in her own language, _Kalalin_. Of all the other people in the orphanage, only the boy, Sronk, knew much Kalalin.

On one occasion, she picked up a pebble that she called "Little Lula," and a stick that she called "Uncle K'Tor." Her pet Chameleon, who was also called "Uncle K'Tor," was in a box nearby; he was very slowly stalking and eating a number of cockroaches which Intipisk had trapped alive and placed in his box. Occasionally he turned an eye toward Ydnas, but on the whole seemed quite indifferent to her existence.

Ydnas waved her pebble a little, and said, "Good morning, Uncle K'Tor," in a special voice that she used only for "Little Lula." Then, she waved the stick a little, and in a different special voice, one that she used only for "Uncle K'Tor," she replied, "Good Morning, Little Lula. How are you this morning?"

"Oh, OK, I guess. A little bored."

"Well, in a way that is a wonderful thing, Lula. It shows that you are getting to trust the people you are with."

"Is that really a good thing, Uncle K'Tor?"

"In this case, I believe it is, Lula. These are good people. They will not harm you. You are meant to be there."

"I am glad, Uncle K'Tor. Are you going to teach me anything today?"

"Well, what would you like to know?"

"Why don't any of these people speak the same language as the people who owned me, Uncle K'Tor?"

"Because these people live far away from there, and don't talk to people from there. Languages tend to change, and so even if people who live far apart once spoke the same language, eventually they will be speaking different ones."

"Is that also why people from different places look different?"

"Exactly!"

"Is that also why the people here don't speak _Kalalin_ , as we do?"

"Partly, but not entirely. It's also because Kalalin is a very old language. Hardly anyone speaks it anymore"

"Oh. I've been teaching it to a boy, here. His name is Sronk. Is that all right?"

"That's wonderful, Lula. It's a very good language, and we hope that many people will learn it, eventually. And this Sronk must be a good and clever fellow, if he is interested in it, and willing to learn it."

"Why did Kor come get me, Uncle?"

"She knows your Aunt Issy, and Aunt Issy asked her to."

"Why didn't Aunt Issy pick me up herself?"

"Well," said Uncle K'Tor in a conspiratorial whisper, "we're planning a _surprise_ , Lula. It's a _secret_! But when your aunt goes somewhere, she tends to attract a lot of attention."

"But couldn't she make herself look different?"

"Yes, but there are some people who wouldn't be fooled by that."

"Uncle K'Tor?"

"Yes, Lula?"

"I really didn't like being a slave."

"Of course you didn't, Lula. It is terrible to be a slave. I'm sorry it had to happen. Some day you will understand."

"When I remember myself?"

"That's right, Lula. When you remember yourself."

"Is that going to happen soon, Uncle?"

"Well, it's going to happen bit by bit. But, it will start pretty soon, Lula. You will take a journey, and on this journey, you will begin to remember."

"I'd like to start now, Uncle. I'm tired of forgetting. I'm tired of not understanding. I hate it when you tell me, 'Some day, you will understand.'"

"I'm sorry, Lula. I wish it didn't have to be this way. But in a way, you understand more already."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when you were a slave, you saw that there are a lot of very mean people in the world, didn't you?"

"Yes, Uncle, and that is why I hated it so much!"

"And there are a lot of mean people where you are now, Lula, only, they are all outside the house. They don't realize who you are, or they would come inside the house to get you."

"Oh, Uncle K'Tor, _please_ don't let that happen! I don't ever want to be a slave again!"

"It's not going to happen, Lula! Now, when you start to realize who you are, you will start attracting attention, like your Aunt Issy does. You see? Your forgetting is my way of protecting you. It's like hiding a lantern at night, in an open field; it's best to turn the lantern _off_!"

"So, when I remember myself, I will give off light?"

"Well, that was a figure of speech, Lula. But people will definitely notice you!"

"Then I don't _want_ to remember myself, because I don't want the bad people to find me!"

"Well, we are going to choose the right moment. Your cousin K'Sell will be there, too, but he won't say anything, because he won't remember who he is, either. But when the woman who brought you here dies, you will tell him to awaken, and he will awaken long enough to help you escape from the mean people."

"Kor is going to _die_?"

"Of course she is, Lula, she is a _mortal_! It is their _nature_ to die!"

"But they don't _want_ to!"

"That's because they don't understand."

"Why don't they understand?"

"They are a lot like you, Lula. They have forgotten themselves."

"So, they are also hiding?"

"In a way, yes. From themselves."

"I hate it when you say, 'In a way,' Uncle K'Tor. It means you aren't going to explain it to me."

"Someday, Lula, you will under–"

"Don't say it!"

"Er ... I won't, Lula. I'm sorry I even _started_ to say it."

"It's all right, I'm not mad any more. But I think I've learned enough for one day, Uncle K'Tor."

"I think so too."

"Have a nice day, Uncle K'Tor."

"Thank you, Little Lula. You too!"

Ydnas rubbed the pebble and the stick together gently, to show that Little Lula was hugging Uncle K'Tor. Then she put the sticks down, and went to see whether she could help in the kitchen.

Vidigeon was fascinated by this dialogue.
**********

"The more power, wealth, beauty, fame, or talent you have, the more delicious you appear to predators."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

Tarth Sakul, Chief of Security for the crime lord, Pappi, decided it would be best to tell Pappi about the imminent arrival of the Angels of Rejuvenation. He did not think Pappi would tell anyone else; although he had a large and glamorous entourage, many associates, a flock of advisors, a fast-flowing stream of clients, a score of wives and twice that number of concubines, numerous occasional girlfriends, too many children to keep track of, and hundreds of servants and underlings, Pappi was not attached to any of them. In fact, he would have found it rather amusing to leave them in the arms of the Angels, especially if he was able first to borrow money or rent valuables from them.

Still, Tarth Sakul did not think that it would not be an easy task. Pappi was not used to having his options dictated by others. He would be angry at being told that he had no choice but to leave. Tarth Sakul decided to simply inform him of the situation, answer questions, and leave it to Pappi to decide how to respond.

At first, Pappi laughed, his handsome, chiseled, aquiline features reveling in what he thought was the first sign of a sense of humor he had ever seen in his dour and arrogant Chief of Security. "That's a good one, Tarthie!" he roared, his white irises twinkling like snow. Tarth Sakul was offended, though he did not show it. Did it just not occur to Pappi that making a nickname out of his title, "Tarth," was sacrilegious and disrespectful in the extreme, or did he know, and enjoy pretending not to?

Pappi saw that Tarth Sakul was not laughing. For a moment Pappi hesitated, and then he began laughing again. "What a gambler's face you have, Tarthie," he said. "You had me going there for a blink or two!" Tarth Sakul looked extremely uncomfortable, in a very stern sort of way. "Don't tell me you actually believe in that stuff!" Pappi said, slapping him on the back.

Privately, Pappi was a little worried. The last thing he needed just then was for his Security Chief to go butterfly-brained on him. Tarth Sakul stood between Pappi and a thousand enemies and rivals. The local police and other allies would give him some protection, but it would be amateurish; and of course, they would sell him to slavers in the burst of a bubble, the moment they thought they could safely profit from it. For the first time, Pappi began to realize just how dependent he was on Tarth Sakul. To get rid of him, he would have to go back to the Institute and get another high-flying guy. But how to make the transition? Tarth Sakul couldn't just be given notice; he knew too much. He would have to be killed, and Tarth Sakul would be one of the hardest men in this whole slimy endgut of a world to kill. Who knows how many booby traps and dead-man switches he might have left around, to avenge himself? Or how much information would automatically deliver itself to Pappi's enemies, if Tarth Sakul came to a bad end? And this was one sick spit lizard of a time for Pappi to have to deal with _another_ crisis, what with this crazy tapeworm of a monk trying to rob him.

None of these thoughts showed on his face; no one could do what Pappi did, if he did not have absolute control of his expressions and actions, independent of his inner thoughts and feelings. On the outside, he switched to an expression that was puzzled and apologetic. "Hey, am I wrong? I'm sorry. Forgive my ignorance! People always told me, the Angels are just a superstition! Tell me about it." He leaned toward Tarth Sakul, as if eager for information from his trusted advisor. "What's the true story?"

"I know that many people consider the Angels of Rejuvenation to be merely folklore," began Tarth Sakul, "and many common beliefs about them are indeed myths. They are not supernatural beings; in fact, most of them don't even use much magic. But there are thousands of them, and they are totally dedicated to what they do."

While his exterior continued to listen eagerly, Pappi thought to himself: _Hail to the god of fools! I do believe he has gotten himself trapped in the fun-house mirror._ But then Tarth Sakul made a gesture, and a sort of window appeared in the air. A scene appeared in the window; it was as though they were looking down onto a neighborhood, from a great height.

"You see," said Tarth Sakul, "here is our neighborhood. There is your compound." He made some tapping motions in the air with his fingers, and the view zoomed down closer, as if the window were actually flying through the air. It took Pappi a moment to recognize the buildings of his compound, seen from such a height. Tarth Sakul brought the point of view still closer, and continued: "There is Arguit on patrol. He's coming past this side of the house now. You can see him through that window." Pappi turned and looked through the real window. Sure enough, there was Arguit, making his rounds, carrying one of those new magic lanterns.

"Now," said Tarth Sakul, making more tapping motions, "let us move to the North. Here is the northern boundary of our neighborhood; it mostly follows this structure, known as 'Katalith's Wall,' with three gates. If we follow this road, called 'Toralith's Way', from the center gate, we proceed North through Carperville." More tapping motions. "Now, I'm going to follow that road as it looked about five years ago. As you can see, it runs along the canal, goes through a tunnel, winds through those hills, and after about a daywalk, it comes to a big development called Happy Family Hills. Happy Family Hills starts there, where the old aqueduct ends. Four years ago, as you can see, Happy Family Hills looked rather as our area does today. Lots of condemned buildings, trash on the streets, drugs, prostitution, politics, and so on."

"Yes, I had some contacts there, some years back. Lucrative, but we lost touch."

" 'Lost touch' is a bit of an understatement, as you will see. I will now go forward in time to the First Day of Farragond, four years ago. I'm afraid I won't be able to get a lot of detail, but you will get the general idea. It is just before dawn, and we are looking at one of their Northern gates, from the inside." It was as if the window were about a hundred forearms from the ground, and about twice that distance back from the gate.

Suddenly, like water gushing from a ruptured pipe, a crowd of armored figures burst from the gate. The stream kept coming and coming. The viewpoint backed off a bit, and Pappi saw the stream flood the entire street, and then flow into other streets at the next intersection. And the next. And many more. "We are now about a hundred manlengths from the original gate," said Tarth Sakul. "You can see this stream meet one from one of the other gates. Look, you can see a few people trapped between them. Oops, so much for them! Let's go back to the first gate ... as you can see, they are still coming through. Now, you see, they are breaking into the houses. Look, some people are trying to escape to their roofs. The ones with dormer windows might just make it, if they close the window behind them and the Angels don't figure it out ... whoops, those Angels weren't fooled! Look at that idiot climbing a flagpole! Now they are cutting it down.

"I'm going to go ahead a couple of days now ... There's nobody left but Angels, except for that compound, in the Southwest corner, where they have everybody locked up. They're starting to destroy everything. See that rickety wooden house in the middle of the vacant lot? Those guys are carrying in tubs of what they call "Angelfire" – a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal, pig fat, phosphorus, pine pitch, and beeswax. Here they come out again. See the guy throwing a torch? See how they are backing off, way off? Now, this should take about ten breaths." Pappi watched, and after about that time, smoke came streaming out the windows of the house, followed by light, followed by tongues of flame. A moment later, the house burst open like a rotten fruit. The roof lifted, and then a fireball burst through it, scattering it into a thousand flaming fragments. The fireball rose a hundred manlengths and darkened to smoke, only to be followed by another, and another. The walls of the house collapsed inward, burning. "They like to overdo it," said Tarth Sakul. "I guess they enjoy their work. Over here," he said, changing the viewpoint again, "you can see them using 30 or 40 winches at once to take down a brick building. A grappling hook at the top of the wall, a stake in the ground, and a winch – multiply that by 30, and even a granite-block wall comes down quickly. Not as spectacular as the Angelfire, but nearly as fast. Over here, they've plugged up the exits to the sewers, and have diverted a stream into them – so much for anyone who's hiding in there! Well, I imagine you get the idea."

Pappi's self-control was stretched to the limit. Outside, he was still cool, but inside, he was a squirming snake's nest, mostly fear and anger. Could this be real? Could Tarth Sakul be sane? Was it some weird con game? "Wow, I had no idea," said Pappi. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I only just learned of this myself," said Tarth Sakul. "The Angels attack by surprise. They themselves do not decide where and when they will attack until they have just enough time to prepare. They don't want people getting the message and running. Fortunately, I received information from a spy service I subscribe to."

"Can't you protect me? Those guys look tough, but you're a spellmaster."

"I might cover the compound with an unnoticeability spell. I might set the streets on fire. I might do various things. But no, in the end I probably couldn't protect you, because although most Angels don't use magic, they do have among them some very powerful wizards, who can be brought forward when they are needed. Besides, what would you do, in your impregnable compound? There wouldn't be any more customers, and you wouldn't be able to get out."

Silence for several breaths.

"What should I do?" asked Pappi.

Tarth Sakul was impressed. He had expected hostile skepticism, followed by whining, blaming, and wishful thinking. But Pappi had long ago made himself immune to such mental parasites. "There are lots of places that a man with your wealth can go," said Tarth Sakul. "It's a good idea anyway; why not live in a safe, wealthy neighborhood? Do you really need to rub shoulders with all your customers and underlings? I can make some recommendations. You still have time to pack up your most prized possessions. As for the ruby sculptures, I recommend that we just take the whole safe, spells and all. I'll make it invisible. We won't tell anyone, except for a few of my assistants, that you are evacuating, until the last moment, when you are already gone. We'll just say you are taking a business trip."

"I don't know as I'd be accepted in that kind of neighborhood," said Pappi, dubiously. "My businesses are not exactly respectable."

"You'll just remind them of Granddad. How do you think these families got rich in the first place? Do you think they won the lottery?" This got a wide smile from Pappi, who knew very well that the people who won the lottery were never real. He remembered the Grabbishes, a family of factory workers whom he had once hired to _pretend_ that they had won the lottery. They flashed a lot of money for about two weeks, then announced that they were moving to an upscale neighborhood in a distant area. That was in fact the deal, but Pappi had decided that it was safer (and cheaper) to kill them as soon as they were out of sight. Meanwhile, a huge number of people in their old neighborhood began to play the lottery, which was owned by Pappi. "Besides," continued Tarth Sakul, "it will be easy enough to set up a respectable false identity for you."

"Well, now, you are making this sound interesting." And it was. But part of Pappi's mind was very suspicious. Could Tarth Sakul be up to something nasty? That window thing had looked very real, but it had been under Tarth Sakul's control. Pappi had no idea what could be done with such things, how hard it would be to counterfeit something like that Angel invasion. He would have to make independent inquiries. Which might not be easy. If those pictures were genuine, maybe Tarth Sakul could spy on about anything he wanted to. Of course, he wasn't supposed to spy on Pappi, but Pappi had no way of telling. Pappi began to feel like a man with a scorpion in his ear canal: don't make any sudden moves! He needed to retire and think, very hard and long.

"I think you are right," he said. "Can you work up a few options by Seventh Bell?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good! See me in my office then. You can explain them, and I will decide on the official explanation to pass on to my other staff. For right now, though, I have some work to do. I will be in my study."

"Yes sir! I will see you then."

Tarth Sakul was a bit rattled. Pappi seemed so confident. If he was feeling the way he ought to have been, his self-control was extraordinary. This did not fit at all with the decadent playboy image he radiated so much of the time. Well, it didn't matter; Pappi was still just a layperson. Very smart, highly motivated, without a trace of scruple, but utterly helpless when it came to matters of magic. Tarth Sakul had the whole compound wrapped in spells, many times over. He also had several cloaked killer spells permanently attached to Pappi, waiting to be triggered. If it came to a fight, Pappi had no chance.

On the other hand, there was that monk. Normally, Tarth Sakul wouldn't have been too worried about him; he was causing a lot of trouble, but in order to make a serious attempt at the ruby sculptures, Koof would have to deal with the advanced spells that had defeated M'Turisan Arniog. That, Tarth Sakul was certain, would be the end of him. But the Monk was evidently in no hurry. To deal with him, and Pappi, and the move, all at the same time! Tarth Sakul felt a little out of his depth, but his pride quailed at the thought, so he ignored that feeling.
**********

"Sometimes you can hide a cow in a cowshed."

(Nparminoc folk saying)

Once, when Talek was visiting the orphanage, Intipisk approached him. "Talek," she said, "could I ask you something?"

"Of course, Intipisk."

"Talek, everybody's talking about the _prophecies_. Do you understand what that is all about?"

"Well," said Talek, "there are many kinds of prophecies in the world, but I suppose that you mean the _Cleretic_ Prophecies, since they are the ones so much discussed these days."

"Yes. Do they really say that something terrible is going to happen, soon? And should we believe them?"

"Well," said Talek, straightening up a bit, and speaking with more animation than usual, "there are many different Cleretic prophecies, and they disagree, so we can't believe them all, certainly! And it's not really accurate to say that they predict disaster. They predict a profound change in the world, but they say relatively little about that change – it could be good! In fact, many of them say it _will_ be good. Although, it must be admitted, that big changes usually do come hard."

"But Talek, is there any good reason to _believe_ any of them?"

"Well, yes, there is. Let me explain. These prophecies were created during the Third Cleretic Dynasty, when the art of seeing into the future was developed to a greater degree than in any other period known to us. In the year 10,946 of their calendar, when those seers were at the height of their powers, the Emperor Hadriex the Fifty-fifth declared the inception of a great research project. The 987 most distinguished seers of the day were to be supported by the state for 11 years, in order to produce alternative prophecies that were to extend into the very distant future – at least 284,973 years. Other seers were invited to produce their own, if they wished. The authors were required to explain, as part of their prophecy, the principles on which their predictions depended. The idea was, to test these principles; the prophecies that did the best would vindicate the principles on which they were based. In fact, a given seer or group of seers might create several prophecies, based on alternative principles. These principles could then be evaluated by seeing how accurate each prophecy was.

"Hadriex decreed that all the prophecies would be registered in a special directory, and stored in a secret place for 511 years, so that no author need be afraid of embarrassment, controversy, litigation, or charges of conflict of interest. Then the prophecies would be published, so that their predictions could begin to be evaluated. The prophecies of the 63 most distinguished seers, and of 31 independent individuals and groups, were engraved on granite and stored in a basalt bunker underground, to help assure that they would survive long enough to be fully tested. For in 284,973 years, hundreds of dynasties could rise and fall.

"But, as always, things did not remain simple. The Cleretic seers realized that a prophecy which was known to be successful in its early predictions would become an important historical force in its own right. For people would be inclined to suppose that its later predictions were also likely to come true, and behave accordingly. So the seers included their own prophecies, and those of their colleagues, and the fake prophecies that they knew would arise, in their calculations. In fact, it is said that some seers felt a burden of responsibility, and wrote their prophecies in such a way as to encourage good things to happen, when they could not see an outcome clearly. The real purpose of such prophecies is, then, not only to predict, but also to guide.

"It is also said that some seers deliberately included a few falsehoods here and there, in order to help the rest of their predictions come true. In fact, it has been claimed that some of the prophecies were never meant to be very accurate, but were included by their authors solely in order to influence events. I might also mention the claim that some of the seers were jealous of others, and, considering their prophecies to be in competition, put in certain things in the hope of upsetting the predictions of their rivals. Such speculations may or may not be true, but since they influence the way we look at the prophecies, they have had their own influence on history. At any rate, you can now see that we shouldn't believe something, just because it is in one of these prophecies!"

"So," said Intipisk, "they are not of any value, then?"

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," said Talek. "You see, as centuries went by and some prophecies were seen to be more successful than the rest, the less successful ones were winnowed away, and the most successful ones became items of great value."

"So _those_ are probably trustworthy," said Intipisk.

"Yes," said Talek, "but other complexities intrude. The more successful prophecies were acquired by powerful individuals and institutions, who kept them secret in order to have the sole advantage of their information. The bunker with all the original granite tablets is said to have been found, during the Longuloor Aristocracy, by agents of the Duke of Arpistria, who secretly removed them to a place in his own domain. Unfortunately for him, word eventually got out about this. It is always dangerous to own what other people covet, and soon he was beset from all sides by intrigue and war. Of course, the alliance against him fell apart as soon as it succeeded, since every participant desired the tablets for himself. These events are described, without specific names or dates, in many of the prophecies themselves; one wonders whether the Duke had read that far at the time of his death by poison.

"It is said that the Ixtur Dynasty fell because the Emperor relied on a certain prediction of the 89th Arswegilin Prophecy, which turned out to be false, and that the Church of Yosthain lost a war, which it was otherwise favored to win, when its soldiers came to believe that their defeat was predicted by several highly successful prophecies, and broke and ran at the first sign of difficulty.

"Well. As I was saying, powerful people and institutions struggled to acquire prophecies for their own exclusive use. This hoarding of the prophecies made it difficult for their achievements to be evaluated. There arose a struggle between owners and scholars; the former attempting to hide their prophecies, and the latter attempting to reveal them. It is said that the scholar-monk Vralok of Piers became the lover of the Archbishop of Razing, and then of her son, in order to obtain access to the 8th Filinistrian Prophecy, which Vralok (said to have procrastinative tendencies) finally published, with a long and wonderfully learned commentary, just before being burned at the stake, for excessive rationality, at the age of 101. The scholar Rhodocrepsis of Tark, imprisoned by the Terwentillian Junta, spent 21 years digging a tunnel from her cell, not to freedom, but to the Junta's secret library, from which she appropriated their version of the Ablingtingian prophecy. Proximity to this manuscript was probably her goal in getting herself arrested in the first place. She also tunneled to their post office, so that she could send out the text, bit by bit, along with her now-famous commentary.

"In order to confound the scholars, owners would often circulate deliberately flawed versions of their prophecies, making it difficult for anyone but themselves to know what the prophecy really said. For example, the 9th Knimian prophecy is said to currently exist in 610 distinct generally known and incompatible versions, and there is widespread disagreement as to which, if any, are close to the original.

"For the same reason (and many others), many people manufactured completely bogus prophecies. Consider the group known as the Asseltranian; they are wonderfully accurate up to the fifth century of the Regbo interregnum, and then they lose accuracy altogether. That is also the first time that any contemporary writer mentions them. It is hard to escape the conclusion that they were written during that century, and that their accuracy for earlier periods is entirely due to hindsight.

"Still more confusion entered when corrupt merchants would hire dishonest scholars to produce forgeries, which they would then sell for high prices. This included not only fraudulent versions of genuine prophecies, but also supposedly Cleretic prophecies that the scholars had, in fact, made up entirely themselves. It is now generally agreed, for example, that the so-called Gwubush prophecies are completely fake. In other cases, people made false prophecies in order to influence the course of events. Selmi the 144th rose from slavery and obscurity to become Empress, largely because she secretly wrote and successfully promulgated a pseudo-Cleretic prophecy which said that someone like herself would do just that.

"Other forgeries were created from nothing by individuals who wanted to make money, or influence events, or were just confused. Of course, it is fairly easy to make a 'prophecy' which is accurate up to one's own time, or appears to be so. There is also an art to taking advantage of people's credulity – one speaks of common sorts of events, like wars and plagues, in vague and general terms, and sooner or later one's prophecies are fulfilled, much to the amazement of the naive. 'There will be a war, a government will fall, a new prophet will appear,' that sort of thing. Sometimes also, later seers would put their own attempts at prophecy into Cleretic dress, in order to increase their circulation. Or, they would attempt to improve a genuine Cleretic prophecy by altering it in one way or another. Sometimes these attempts were successful, but they often confused the historical record. Scholars spend a lot of time trying to winnow out this sort of thing.

"In response to these practices, the scholarly community developed a whole science of authentication. Soon the relationship between the two groups became still more complicated, as some owners and prospective owners sought out the judgment of scholars as to the authenticity of supposed prophecies that they had, or were thinking of acquiring, or that were owned by their rivals, while others tried to corrupt these scholars, sometimes with success.

"In spite of all these problems, experts are reasonably certain that several Cleretic Prophecies, known to us today, are authentic, or only slightly altered. Since several of these have successfully predicted many events down to the present, there is good reason to believe that the principles on which they are founded are essentially sound, and that their subsequent predictions are, therefore, very likely to be fulfilled. On the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that they are infallible.

"Now, what has people all riled up recently is this: almost all the accepted Cleretic prophecies end at about the same time, which is in _our_ _immediate future_ – very soon, now. This is because they all predict a transformation so profound that even the greatest seers of all time could not predict the outcome. They almost all agree, though, that a crucial role will be played by a girl, who is now universally known as the 'Girl of the Prophecies.' Who knows, Intipisk – perhaps _you_ are that girl!"

Intipisk, who loved History, and who always enjoyed Talek's sardonic style of relating it, laughed at this. "I don't think so, Talek," she said, "but what a fascinating story! I wish I could see one of these prophecies!"

"Well, you can!" said Talek. "Scholars have managed to acquire several of them and make them public. I mentioned the 8th Filinistrian Prophecy, revealed by Vralok. That is still available – here, have a look!" He raised his staff and sneezed, and suddenly there were two books sitting on a nearby table. One was huge, and the other was small. "The large one," said Talek, "is the complete work - it gives the theory and data behind the predictions and derives the predictions from them. The small one contains only the predictions themselves."

Intipisk was breathless and wide-eyed with wonder. "Oh ... May I look at them?"

"Certainly," said Talek. "they're just copies – my own copies, as a matter of fact. The oldest known copy, which goes back three millennia, is in a vault of the Great Library at Ilusindane, carefully guarded and preserved."

Intipisk took the little book, and turned to the last page. She read:

We now come to the limit of our vision. Theo-Anarchy will reach the last stage of its decay. The Balance will be lost. Evil and stupidity will become the rule rather than the exception. Those who struggle heroically for goodness will be confused, and often lose their way. The gods themselves will become perplexed, and conflicts between them will increase, both in frequency and in seriousness. Many of them will begin to change.

When at least 5 of the following 7 signs have appeared, the Balance will be lost within a decade:

1. The rate for violent crimes will increase by one-ninth in the course of a single year.

2. In the course of twenty-three consecutive years, at least three major religions will become, on the whole, more dogmatic and more militant.

3. Several prevalent social philosophies will move markedly from a dominance of communitarian attitudes to a dominance of individualism.

4. People in general will become cynical about the existing order, but they will not try to reform it.

5. Literacy will decline by one-tenth in the course of a single year.

6. People in general will come to place a higher value on wealth, power, pleasure, and prestige than on character, ethics, skill, or creativity.

7. People in general will lose faith in objectivity and embrace relativism.

"But, as the Balance wobbles, a remarkable girl will appear, to lead both gods and mortals into a new Balance. What is taken for granted by us will seem bizarre to those living under the new order, and what will seem obvious to them would seem impossible to us. What is complex for us will be simple to them, and what is profound to them would seem naïve to us. Their sophistication will lead them to innocence. Because of all this, that order can barely be glimpsed by us. Our predictions must therefore come to an end at this point.

"There are some words in here that I have to guess about," said Intipisk, "but what I _can_ understand is just _fascinating!_ Look, it even makes a prediction about the _gods!_ Now, is this one of the prophecies that has done _well_ up to now?"

"Yes, it is," said Talek. "For example, it has described in fairly specific terms most of the major events in the History of Kondrastibar between the Third Cleretic Dynasty and our own time. The great flowering of literary studies under the Phronetic Aristocracy, for example."

"And," said Intipisk, "have 5 out of these 7 signs appeared?"

"Such is the chaos of our times," said Talek, "that it is impossible to collect reliable information on things like literacy rates, for all of Kondrastibar. But some scholars at the Great University of Ilusindane have managed to get figures for what they have some reason to hope is a fairly representative sample, and for that sample, _all seven_ signs have appeared."

Intipisk shivered. "That is _so_ amazing!" she said. "And scary!"

"Well," said Talek, "it _is_ a scary idea. But, living in this neighborhood, Kor and the rest of you have learned a great deal about survival under difficult conditions. If anyone could survive a major crisis, it would be you!"

Intipisk opened the theoretical tome, turning to chapter 1:

Mathemagicians agree that practically any finite temporal phenomenon can be closely approximated by adding together sufficiently many cycles of different periods and amplitudes. By looking at the past, we have isolated 6765 such cycles, varying in period from 1 day to about seven millennia, and varying in person-force from about 144 thousand to about 21 billion. We have tracked each one backwards from the present for as far as the historical record will allow.

Past history as currently accepted by historians does not always follow the resulting pattern. We will argue, however, that the error is no more than can be expected, given that historians, even the most brilliant and careful, are fallible beings, and that many people of power have had an interest in falsifying the record. Our main argument relies on the fact that deviations are rare and isolated: the pattern resumes quite accurately on either side of certain short anomalous time-periods. Also, the record often diverges from our predictions at precisely those times at which we predict falsification; in fact, we often predict quite accurately what the divergence will be. In numerous cases, too, we can point out specific advantages that scholars, or those in power, might have hoped to gain by falsifying the record in precisely that way.

"That is _awesome_ ," breathed Intipisk, "and I can almost understand it! But, what does he mean by 'person-force'?"

"Well," said Talek, "it's a unit of measure. Just as a manweight is a unit of weight, and a daywalk is a measure of distance, a person-force measures the ability of an average person to influence things, independently of any special powers, like political power or magic. The idea is that one person-force is the amount of influence that one average human can have, in one lifetime, just by virtue of his inherent human abilities."

"Well," said Intipisk, "I see how that fits in with what he is saying, sort of. The cycles with more person-force have more influence than others."

"Exactly!" said Talek, nodding in agreement. "The basic idea is very straightforward, but it must have taken an astronomical amount of work to find those 6765 cycles! I imagine that they must have built on the work of others, and that they must have had a whole village full of assistants! But how about you, Intipisk, did you ever think of writing a prophecy? I know that you love to read, and that you sometimes write."

Intipisk laughed. "I'm not the seer type, Talek. I prefer fiction. And I certainly don't have the patience, the knowledge, or the resources to do anything remotely like _this_!"

"Well, then, perhaps a _fictional_ prophecy," said Talek. "There's a form that not many people have used."

"Too dry, Talek!" said Intipisk. "It's hard enough to get people interested in reading _real_ history! What fiction needs is to focus on _individuals_ , and individual problems."

"You are probably right, Intipisk," said Talek, "but perhaps you could represent historical phenomena _allegorically_ , by means of individuals. For example, your leading lady might represent the Altagraxian Monarchy. At some point, she marries, representing the Karnipringular Alliance. In the end, she dies, representing the fall of the Monarchy in 10422 A.M.."

"Talek," said Intipisk, "you are one of the smartest people I have ever known, but I don't think you fully understand literature. I'm sure that _you_ would enjoy reading such a thing, if it was well done, and so would about six other people in Kondrastibar; but that would be all!"

Talek sighed. Then, after a moment, he resumed his exposition.

"Well... as it happens," he said, "I have made a sort of hobby of a particular prophecy, the O Prophecy. It expresses itself in a somewhat veiled fashion, but it is nevertheless said by many scholars to have done better than any of the others, for a long time. But Alas, its author's clarity of vision appears to have faltered, when it comes to recent times: it failed to predict the end of the most recent dynasty, the Ingar. More specifically, it failed to predict the abdication of Sindariden the 23rd, the last Ingar Emperor, in I.D. 92048, and its predictions subsequent to that time presuppose that the Ingar Dynasty is still in power, even up to our own time! Soon after the abdication of the Ingar, people naturally stopped taking the O prophecy seriously any longer, and it ended up gathering dust on library shelves. Unlike most of the others, it was therefore no longer sought, hoarded, or falsified. It turned out that the Protostolic Church of Macrozenia possessed the original tablets, which they donated to the Great Library at Ilusindane. It was therefore possible for ordinary people to have access to copies of it. I own a printed critical edition, prepared recently by the Prime Scholar, Githnis Ytrinduopf."

Talek spun around on his heel, and the 8th Filinistrian Prophecy disappeared, to be replaced by another pair of books of a different color.

"Here is my personal copy of the O Prophecy," said Talek. "Take a look, if you like!"

Hesitantly, Intipisk opened the larger of the two books and found its introduction.

In this prophecy, we have tried to track History by focusing on its ironies.

Intipisk looked over at Talek with a smile. "I can see why you like this one, Talek," she said.

Talek's posture suggested embarrassment. "Well," he said, "there is that, yes. Although, it would have been more ironic if I had gotten interested in a prophecy _without_ irony, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I guess it would have," said Intipisk, with a chuckle. She continued reading:

We knew this would be a great challenge, since irony is always in danger of turning on itself. But no one familiar with History can doubt the major role that irony plays. How often we see mortals snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, especially when they act in groups!

"Is this a joke, Talek? It sounds just like you! Did you write it yourself?"

Talek hesitated for a long moment, and then replied, "I assure you, Intipisk, it is a genuine Cleretic Prophecy! Truly!"

Intipisk looked puzzled. She leafed through the larger tome. Every page was covered with dense text, diagrams, or numbers. Suddenly she looked embarrassed and contrite. "Of course it is, Talek," she said, "I was only teasing you. I'm sorry!" She took the smaller book and turned to the end.

Everything will be turned upside down. The warrior will lay down his weapons, the priest will leave his flock. The courtesan will be celibate, the criminal a saint. The exceptional will be multiplied, the rich will become poor. The Watcher will act, and the Hidden One will appear. A betrayer will save him, leading him to the truth through deception. The Balance will fall, but a girl with no mother will appear to show the way. When everything falls apart, happiness will reign.

"Is that why you thought I might be the Girl?" asked Intipisk. "Because I am an orphan? But all the girls here are orphans!"

"I suppose I was jesting with you a little," said Talek, "but you are quite intelligent, and good-hearted, and those are good qualities for a Girl of the Prophecies to have."

"Why, Talek, how sweet! Only – I hope you weren't being ironic!"

"Actually," said Talek, "I was being ironically ironic, and therefore said something I thought was true!"

"You are ironic so often," said Intipisk, a little sternly, "that sometimes, people don't know what to think."

"I'm afraid you're right," said Talek, sadly, "and I apologize." He gave a little bow.

_Is he really sorry_ , thought Intipisk, _or is he just being ironic?_ "It's hard to know what to make of someone who believes in irony as fervently as you do," she said. "Is _everything_ you say ironical?"

"In one way or another, I suppose it is," said Talek, in a rather sad tone, "whether I intend it so or not. But of course, if I am employing _two_ levels of irony, then it cancels itself out, and so what I say is true. Or, for that matter, any even number of levels."

"But how am I to know how many levels you are using?"

"Well," said Talek, "you can't always tell; I can't always tell, myself. But that may be a good thing. After all, I don't want you to believe anything I say just because I say it. I just want to provoke thought. But when it's important for you to know, you will know."

"How?"

"Because you know _me_ ," said Talek.

Vidigeon (who was listening in, as usual) was puzzled by this claim. In spite of his vast powers of calculation, he was repeatedly confused by Talek; so how could Intipisk, bright as she was by human standards, hope to understand him? Vidigeon suspected that Talek must have been speaking with an odd number of levels of irony, at that moment.
**********

"Sometimes, chance and inevitability coincide."

(Sentence generated at random by an abacus)

Talek and two neophytes intercepted a large, mean-looking man as he approached the door of the orphanage. "Mr. Grahjab, I believe," said Talek. "We have met before. You wouldn't be intending to visit the orphanage, would you?"

"Not your business, Talek," said Grahjab, in a threatening tone.

"No doubt you are acting as a messenger for Scratch. What would he be wanting from them?"

"Wanting them to buy protection, Talek." Grahjab seemed to find something especially amusing about the idea. He now looked eager to tell Talek about it, in spite of his initial refusal, and his sneering tone.

"Scratch and I already have an arrangement about that."

"Wants more. Wants girl. Saw in window. Very pretty." Grahjab winked and laughed. His laugh sounded like a large, rusty hinge being yanked back and forth.

"Our agreement has been made. If he wants to make a change, he should talk to me. That particular change, though, will never be made."

"Don't make Scratch mad, Talek. You need protection too. Scratch have more goons now, Pappi's tithe bigger now, Scratch need more money. Hey, maybe Scratch give you girl, afterward. All wet and warm. After my turn!" Grahjab laughed again.

Talek sighed. Grahjab turned and began to shamble toward the entrance. Talek raised his staff. An acid perfume filled the air. Grahjab turned back, with a puzzled expression on his face.

Talek said: "Scratch is stretching his hands out in greed, Grahjab. Wouldn't it be ironic if his hand could not open to take what he wants?" Grahjab froze. He stared at his arms and hands, resisting belief. Belief won. His arms had lengthened by half, but his hands had become shapeless blobs of flesh. Grahjab's eyes swelled in horror. Sweat stippled his features. His mouth yawned hugely. He looked as though he wanted to scream, but could not. His tough-guy face suddenly revealed what it had looked like when he was a scared little boy. Tears flowed. He looked imploringly at Talek.

"You are my message to Scratch," said Talek. "If he receives that message soon, your arms and hands will return to normal." Grahjab hesitated, then ran off.

After a moment of silence, Talek sighed and said, "I wish I had done that a bit more _gently_."

A neophyte said, "It's not your fault, you _had_ to do it that way."

"I don't know who _else's_ fault it could be," Talek replied, sternly, "or who or what could have _forced_ me to do it that way."

"At any rate," said the other neophyte, "Scratch will back off, and Grahjab will return to normal, right?"

"Yes," said Talek.

There was another interval of silence. Then Talek said, "And yet ... It's funny. I'm never sure that these little spells of mine _are_ going to work. What if I've misremembered something?"

"But it _has_ to work," said one of the neophytes.

"No, not at all," Talek said. "But it _will_. Or so I believe."

They began to walk away from the orphanage. "It's certainly ironic," mused Talek. "There are many people who think that I'm a good magician, even a great one! But as for me, I can't tell whether I am any good at all!"

Vidigeon was extremely perplexed by this conversation. He had been impressed for a long time with Talek's skill as a magician. He decided, tentatively, that Talek had been speaking ironically.
**********

"In 131 out of 153 cases, love will find a way."

(Ksig 121, _Interpersonal Dynamics_ )

Kor and Tulith sat on the mattress, leaning against the wall, their arms about each other. Tulith's head rested on Kor's shoulder.

"But I don't _want_ to leave," said Tulith.

"Neither do I," said Kor, "but, you know, it might be a good idea, even if the Angels were not coming. It's hard to make a radical change like that. We have our way of life that we are used to, and it keeps us so busy, we don't even have time to think about alternatives. Now, Talek tells me that his church is going to put us in a nice neighborhood, near a university with a big Art department.. Just think, Tulith – to live in a place with other artists, and people who appreciate art! That might be even more important than being free of crime and poverty." Kor had an odd thought – the Angels might indeed contribute to their rejuvenation! Talek would like that one.

"But this is my home," said Tulith, "first with you in the orphanage, and then here in my loft."

"You changed your home once, you can do it again." Kor gently stroked a tangle out of Tulith's hair.

Tulith was silent for a moment. She played idly with Kor's wrinkled hand. Then she said, "Well, it doesn't really matter, Kor. If you are going, I will go too. I couldn't bear to be far from you. You are my inspiration." She turned and rested her lips on Kor's cheek for a moment.

Kor gave her a little hug. "I couldn't bear to be far from you, either, Tulith. I don't know what I would do if you decided to stay."

Another pause. Then Tulith asked, "Couldn't your Goddess stop these Angels?"

"I don't think she wants to, Tulith. I think that this is one of her little lessons for me. And if it is, her idea is a good one: we would really be better off where Talek wants us to go."

"This Talek is so unlike you, Kor. He doesn't serve your Goddess. Why do you trust him?"

"Well, there are limits to my trust. But he has done us a lot of good over the years, Tulith, and all without price, as far as I can see. I think his heart is not far from home."

Another pause. Tulith relaxed a bit, laying her head on Kor's shoulder. "I guess it will all work out."

"I think the Goddess wants it to."

Another pause. Then Tulith said, "Can I paint you now?"

"Of course!" said Kor, and started unlacing her blouse.
**********

"Surrender is often the only path to victory."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

As they continued the seemingly endless job of packing, Lessie and Kor had many a conversation. On one occasion, Lessie turned the subject to religion. "Embarrassed I am," she said, "because all these years have I lived with you, yet realized yesterday that I know almost nothing about your goddess."

"Well, Lessie," replied Kor, "I have never wanted to be pushy about my religion. And besides, you have to be a certain age to see the point of certain things. You are reaching an age now when you develop lots of questions of a religious nature. I am happy to try to answer any questions you may choose to ask."

Lessie looked embarrassed, but finally said, "Well, are there really any gods at all, I wonder? I don't see them, they don't speak to me, and if there were nice gods, why would they let all these terrible things happen?"

"Well, to see a god, Lessie, you have to know what to look for. A person who has never heard of writing can leaf through a huge book and not see a single word."

"What then does she look like, your goddess? Many statues of her you have, and quite different from others, some of them look."

"Well, Lessie, a god isn't literally something a human can see or imagine or even completely conceive of. It would be like an ant trying to hold in his mind a complete understanding of all Kondrastibar, or to see it all at once! Statues and pictures and stories are just ... pictures, or symbols. They give us something we can understand, that shows some aspect of the god. But, the more you think about a god, the better you can understand him, even though you will never completely do so. Let's take the example of Korven, the god of Beauty. There is a saying, that when you see something beautiful _as_ beautiful, you are seeing Korven."

"So, a naked old man he is not, like those statues of him that you see around?"

"Well," replied Kor, "some of them are beautiful, are they not? Or at least," she added, noticing that Lessie looked uncomfortable, "many people find them so. So when they see such a statue, they see beauty. But there are many ways to see a god. How can we limit the ways we see a god, when we can't completely understand what the god _is_? To the people who made those statues, he _is_ like a naked old man. But he doesn't _have_ to appear that way. There is a story in which Korven appears to someone as a _slug_."

"A _slug_? P'yeh! Absurd that is!"

"Well, think about that story, sometime, and look closely at a slug, and after awhile, you may find that you have a better understanding of beauty. And of slugs, too!"

Lessie looked incredulous, but did not press the point. Instead, she said:

"So then, the goddess of love and happiness, Isiliar is said to be. So whenever love or happiness I see, Isiliar I am seeing?"

"That's one way to see her. If you don't see love or happiness, but you yearn for them, that is also a way to see her."

"Yes, understand that I can. But to talk to her, you seem. When a hard decision you have, to talk to your goddess off you go. Now, to love and happiness, how can you talk?"

"I don't know, Lessie. But, you once said to me that you had a dream, in which you dreamed that the number 21 was a spit lizard."

"Well, yes, in the dream I thought that, of the number 21 I was afraid, but when I woke up, I realized that of a spit lizard I had dreamed."

"Well, if you can see a spit lizard as the number 21, why can't you see love and happiness as a woman?"

"But not true, a dream is!"

"Well, poetry is false, too. You know the poem in which Lesindrika Larko says that her love is a wind-chime. Now, you could say, _love is not really a wind-chime_! Strictly speaking, you would be right. But sometimes, we prefer poetry to prose. Is that bad?"

"Not, I guess."

"Could you translate that poem into literal prose, without losing something important?"

"Not, I guess."

"Well, religion is sort of like poetry. It reaches the heart."

Lessie packed in silence for a while. Then she said, "So just happiness and love, Isiliar is, but as a woman we picture her?"

"Well, Isiliar is also a tutelary goddess for the Suimi people. Of course, everyone should be loving and happy, not just the Suimi, but other people have their own gods. But yes, although she is our goddess of Love and Happiness, she often appears to us as an old woman."

"If I said, 'To be a slug, to me Isiliar appears' would you be sad?"

"Not unless I thought you were saying it just to bother me."

"Embarrassed I am sometimes, by those statues of Korven, because naked they are. But better it seems, a smiling old man for beauty to use, than a slug. As a doe, a statue of Korven once I saw. Than either to me that made more sense."

"Then you should think of Korven as a doe, most of the time. But try not to get stuck. Not that it is just up to you; if Korven wants to appear to you as a fire-breathing dragon, he will!"

"To you how else does Isiliar appear, besides as an old woman, or as happiness and love?"

Kor looked a little sheepish. "Well," she replied, "I must admit I am kind of stuck in those two, most of the time! But sometimes she comes to me as a _feeling_. I guess you could say it is a feeling of love and happiness, only it feels like something vast from outside of me. I think of all the love and happiness that people have felt, or failed to feel, or might feel, down through endless time. I think of how people yearn for love and happiness, and about how sad it is when they miss it, especially when it is because of some foolishness of their own, or of something evil or stupid that someone else has done. I think of all the things that people have done for the sake of love and happiness, or because they have failed to find them. Love and happiness have been crucial for every human being that ever was! What powerful forces they are! And how good they are! How can I help but revere them?"

"I agree, Kor. And with happiness and love, this place you have filled, and for that very grateful I am, more than I can say! And more and more like that beautiful statue, every day you look!"

"Well," said Kor, blushing from the compliment, "it is really Isiliar who did it. When you see someone else's happiness and love, then you are seeing the goddess, but when you actually feel happiness and love, and especially when you act from it, then the goddess is actually within you, and you are within her. But even when you merely yearn for it, or notice that you haven't got it, you are aware of her. And to me, that is the real point of religion: to make us aware of the vast and awesome forces that touch our lives. And Lessie, it is nice of you to be grateful, but give yourself a little credit for how things are around here! You are such a great help to me! You work almost as much as I do, at an age when you shouldn't have to!"

Lessie blushed a little from the praise, just as Kor had a moment before. Then she asked, "Scriptures does your religion have, Kor? More about it, I would like to learn."

"No, we have no scriptures. Our attitude is, why bother with scriptures, when you can commune with the goddess herself? But there are a number of things you can read. When someone feels that he has had a profound experience of the goddess, he might write about it, especially if there was something unusual in it. But I think it is better to feed the hungry than to get involved with doctrine."

"What you mean I see, Kor, and grateful I am that when hungry I was, books to eat you did not give to me! But sometimes I feel that understand I just don't, and that helpful, words might be."

"Well, when we get where we are going, I will find some Suimi poetry or theology for you. But in the meantime, why not just ask the goddess herself?"

Lessie looked very nervous. "Never have I done anything like that."

"I'm sorry, Lessie – I don't mean to be telling you what to do."

"But Kor – to understand you, I _want_. And if there she is, your goddess, to know her I want! From the way she affects you, a wondrous being indeed she must be! Very strange to me it just is, and so afraid I am."

"I can understand that, Lessie. You must wonder if I am crazy, sometimes. Talking to someone you can't see! And you don't want to go crazy, yourself!"

Lessie looked extremely embarrassed. They packed in silence for a while. Then Lessie stepped back, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, if to talk to the goddess I did want, should I do what?"

"Just talk! Isiliar doesn't care about formalities. Maybe she will answer, maybe she won't."

"But, just read my thoughts, can't a goddess? Why anything out loud should I have to say?"

"You don't. You are right; she can read your thoughts. But talking out loud can help you to form your thoughts, and to listen, because it helps you to think of it as a real conversation."

" _Aiah!_ Still scared I am, Kor!" Indeed, she was shaking like a leaf in the wind. "Around me will you put your arms, please?"

"Of course I will, Lessie," said Kor, and held her.

Lessie closed her eyes, took a big swallow, and began to speak.

"Dear goddess," she said, "I'm sorry, that for me so hard this is. Sorry I am, that, whether to believe in you or not, I do not know. What to say, I don't even know! But sometimes I feel, _more than this there must be something!_ So afraid I am! This world, I hate it! So cruel people are! And so often, cruel I feel myself, angry and cruel and jealous and mean and petty and spiteful and everything bad. Ever I try and try to be good, but always I fail! Or better I act, but only because my bad self, I hold back! Can you help me? Please, please, help me! So tired I am of myself! _To help me, I need you!_ "

Her head went back. Tears flowed. Her shaking became a shuddering. A great wind was blowing through her.

"And to my parents," she continued, "what happened? Love me did they not? And if me they loved, why from them was I torn? What evil had I done, a child too small to remember even? To see them I want! Please, _to find them help me!_

"To accept this world I try, but I cannot! All wrong it is! Why so many poor, and desperate, and ignorant, and sick, and maimed, and crazed, and evil are there? Why born are we, to die only? Why suffer pain, for no good reason? With evil, choked why are we? To make things better, fail why do we? You gods, this way, why do you let it be? Laughing at us, are you? Hate us, do you? Hate me please do not! To harm you I never wanted! To be _good_ , I want! To hurt, to be bad, to die, I do not want! So as not to die, not to suffer, not to be bad, is there something we can do? Believe me, please! If as I am, me you don't like, then me, please change! Or me destroy! Go on like this I can't! _Please, help me! Please help me!_ "

Lessie began to howl without words. Her body convulsed. Kor carried her to a sofa.

Within her chest Lessie felt a great pressure, as though her heart was exploding and would break her open. She screamed. She wanted to die, and she felt that she was indeed dying, in fact already dead. Gone, utterly and completely gone, without a trace. But then, in the vacuum left by her passing, there appeared something else. A little patch of ripples on a great river had died away, but the river still calmly flowed, transparent but real. Lessie realized with great amazement that she was still there, that she had never been just a ripple. She was the river itself. The river was a great tenderness, a vast and gentle love.

Then, Lessie thought she felt the loving mother of her infancy, whom she had never before remembered. She felt this mother rocking her. She felt the mother say, "Sweet Lessie, Dear Lessie, my dearest love."

Lessie let go of everything, even herself. She rose out of her body, above Kor's orphanage, above the vile neighborhood, above Kondrastibar, even above the mountain Archonect and its icy clouds, into the place of stars, where sailed the delicate crystal ships of the Tellamir. It was grand, but all so cold and heartless! Beyond even the stars, she went. She felt her mother crying with her; her sobs were her mother's sobs. "But look at it again, Lessie," said the Mother.

Lessie looked again, trying to see it in a different way. Yes, she began to feel, another way there _is_. She needed only to break the habit of seeing it as she always had ... Suddenly she felt the world turn inside out, and show itself to be utterly different from what it had seemed. Or rather, it was the world itself that felt itself turning itself inside out, and the change was all in how it saw itself. The great world, with all its bright stars and dark gulfs, atoms and planets, beasts and birds and flowers, the world with its endless reach and variety, joy and sorrow, war and peace, love and hate, life and death, clarity and illusion, turned inside out, without changing at all, and realized that it was no different from the orphaned girl sobbing in the arms of Kor. And there was a great loving and harmonious pattern to it. Everything was just where it belonged, and so everything was perfectly and infinitely beautiful, already, just as it was! Lessie stopped crying and began to laugh. Only, it was not just the skin-wrapped bundle of bones and flesh laughing, but the sofa, the walls, the building, the neighborhood, Kondrastibar and Archonect, the stars, the Tellamir, and the whole great universe: joyfully laughing! Then it quieted softly down, into a sweet and perfect peace.
**********

"The amount of trust in a community

is a good measure of its health."

(Travlar T'gisti, _Social Eschatology_ )

Again, Tarth Sakul detected a suborned roach. It had gotten very close to the room in which the ruby sculptures were kept. This time he did not pause to gloat, but went through the 'motions' that he had practiced in his mind many times. Carefully he began to insert the virus into the roach's sense organs, knowing that it would be pulled back through the telestream. Just a few more breaths! Just one breath more! _Just half a breath! Yes!_ Brother Koof had not broken the connection! The virus would enter his mind, and impel him to turn himself in. He would know what he was doing, and that it meant a horrible death, but he would be unable to stop himself! Not having Talek's faith in irony, Tarth Sakul allowed himself to gloat once again. Then he triumphantly informed the gate crew that Brother Koof should be arriving within a few hundredbreaths.

Unknown to Pappi or anyone else in the compound, Tarth Sakul was a harvester of souls. His job as Security Chief was simply a cover. In such a role he was often close to the dying, for Pappi's customers and associates were very apt to die, as were those unfortunate enough to find themselves in his arena. At the moment of death, Tarth Sakul would arrange to secretly harvest the soul, if it appeared to be an interesting one. He would later deliver the soul to his mentor, Tarthex Oslan, who would arrange for its future employment. Brother Koof, he was sure, had a most remarkable soul; the fact that he had lasted this long proved it beyond a doubt. Tarth Sakul looked forward to harvesting him, after a bit of appropriate torture.

Pappi, also, must have a remarkable soul; here was a fellow who had worked his way up from being an abused orphan in one of the worst slums in Kondrastibar, to the point where, at the age of 27, he owned or tithed most of the criminal enterprises in a very large area. He would be a wonderful catch. Tarth Sakul was also hoping to harvest Talek; that is why he had secretly helped Talek to get away with that ridiculous flatterer's trick, praising Pappi's invulnerability to the law in order to get him to flaunt his possession of the ruby sculptures.

Tarth Sakul was eager to harvest Pappi, but he was also reluctant, since harvesting Pappi would mean the end of his wonderful position. 'Perhaps,' he thought, 'The solution is simply to _replace_ Pappi, with myself or some suitable puppet, or perhaps a simulacrum. Then Pappi himself could be harvested, and I would still have the same convenient position. Yes, that sounds like the right strategy!'

But, it was time to go to the gate, to meet and enjoy the doomed Koof! In his eagerness, Tarth Sakul almost forgot to reset the security spell on his office as he left. That sobered him a bit; he mustn't let the excitement rattle him.

Arguit, Tarth Sakul's main assistant, was already at the gate; he turned to Tarth Sakul with a broad grin. "He's coming, Boss!" Sure enough, a figure could be seen about a hundred manlengths away, walking slowly, very slowly, toward them. Tarth Sakul waved gaily to him, laughing heartily, but he found it hard to wait. He was very curious to see what Koof looked like. He augmented his vision with a spell. Odd; he looked familiar; in fact, he had the dress and build of Kraximan, the overseer of Pappi's arena. As he drew nearer, Tarth Sakul saw that he also had the face of Kraximan. Was Kraximan secretly Koof? Impossible; Kraximan was a brute, he was all saliva; he was incapable of Koof's idealism, patience, or indirection. Something was wrong. Like a red-hot poker thrown into snow, Tarth Sakul's enthusiasm hissed and spat, but began to cool. "I'll go meet him," he said, and the gate was opened. The look of horror he had expected was there on Kraximan's face, but also a deep perplexity that shouldn't have been there; Koof would have known, only too well, exactly what was happening to him.

Tense with uncertainty and foreboding, Tarth Sakul felt mentally for the virus in Kraximan's mind. There it was indeed, the very spell that he had cast. It had wrapped itself around the victim's psyche like a boa constrictor. He felt for the identity beneath the spell. Yes, it was Kraximan, only Kraximan. _Leech piss!_ Controlling his rage, Tarth Sakul carefully neutralized the virus. Kraximan jumped a foot in the air, and screamed the scream he must have been wanting to scream for a long time. He started to run away, but Tarth Sakul hit him with a light stun spell, and he fell to the ground. He lay there, wriggling and groping like an infant who has not yet learned to turn over.

Bending over him, Tarth Sakul said, in a loud voice of authority, "Listen to me, Kraximan, this is Tarth Sakul. You have been under a spell, but you are all right now. We are not going to harm you. You are normal again. Pull yourself together, and talk to me, so that we can understand what happened."

Kraximan could barely talk. "I t-t-turned, turned into a _bug_." He said. He was crying like a baby; drool came from his mouth and phlegm from his nose. "A _bug_. I was being, being a _bug_. I, I think, so anyway. And then ... I was being _me_ , me again, me, I mean, not a bug, but, but, I wasn't all the way back. I mean, I, I couldn't control, I couldn't control _me_ , I couldn't _control_!" He shuddered, then vomited on the pavement.

"Take him to the medic, and give him a spell to calm him down," Tarth Sakul said to some underlings. He then said to Arguit, "I think I understand, now. Koof knew that I would discover the linked cockroach and try to use it to infect him. He somehow managed to set up the link within line-of-sight of Kraximan. Koof linked himself to the cockroach's sense organs, so that he was seeing the world from the Roach's perspective. Then he switched bodies with Kraximan. Kraximan was then on the receiving end of the telestream, but he didn't realize that, much less know how to sever it. Seeing the world through a roach's eyes, Kraximan thought he had been _turned into_ a roach. When I cast the retrovirus spell, it came through the roach's sense-organs, and therefore possessed Kraximan's mind, which was in Koof's body at the time. Kraximan, in Koof's body, began to walk back to here. Observing this from Kraximan's original body, Koof exchanged again with Kraximan. The virus, attached to Kraximan's mind, therefore went into Kraximan's original body, and Koof into his own. The virus was therefore no danger to Koof. Knowing how to sever the connection with the roach, Koof took control of his own body and did so. Kraximan's mind, however, was still under the control of the virus. So he ended up here, just as I had intended Koof to do.

"Once again, Koof has played a practical joke on us, but once again, he did not succeed in doing us any real damage, or getting anywhere near the ruby sculptures." He did not mention the possibility that while Tarth Sakul had been involved with Kraximan, Koof had returned to the roach and accomplished a good deal of unhindered surveillance. Any visible mischief would have been reported by now, and he was confident that the protective spells that he had cast on the safe could not be broken.

"This guy Koof is quite something, Boss!" said Arguit.

Tarth Sakul could sense the anxiety that Arguit did not feel free to voice: _This guy might be better than you, Boss. You thought you would hammer him with that virus spell, but he was way ahead of you. Can you really keep us safe?_ Actually, Tarth Sakul was beginning to think much the same way himself. He replied:

"I have been thinking, Arguit, that Brother Koof is indeed more powerful than I anticipated. I will ask for help. Pappi can hire a specialist. It will be expensive, but under the circumstances, I think that he will be willing. I will speak to him immediately." Inwardly, he felt defeated and humiliated. Somebody was going to pay for this. Many people. Pappi and Koof, for starters. And also Arguit, for his lack of faith!

"Well, Boss," replied Arguit, "we all know you're the best, but it doesn't hurt to be super safe, does it? And Pappi can sure afford it!" But inside, Arguit was still extremely anxious. He could see that something big was afoot, independently of the problem of Koof. The place was in an uproar. Pappi was packing everything up, as if he intended to move; but why would anyone want to leave a palace like this? Just that day, Arguit had heard a rumor that the Angels of Rejuvenation were going to swarm the area. Everyone said that the Angels did not exist, and Arguit knew better than to trust local rumors. But Arguit had heard from several sources that his own childhood neighborhood had been overrun, not long after he had left it. He had also known a man, who seemed fairly level-headed, but who had once confided in him that he had seen the Angels himself. "They came into the neighborhood next to mine. I was just a kid. I worked for a church in my neighborhood, just short of the border. I had climbed into the bell tower to clean the bells, and was looking over the wall, just as they came swarming in. There were thousands of them. It took them only about an hour to saturate the place. They stripped everyone naked, and herded them into a compound. Then, they began to take all the buildings down. By the end of the day, most of it was gone. My family was afraid that our neighborhood would be next, so they put all their stuff on a cart and went to stay with some relatives and start a whole new life. When I got home, they were all gone, except for my grandfather, who had waited for me. We joined up with the others later."

_Why do so few believe in the Angels?_ Arguit asked himself, _Is it because most people don't want to believe that they will one day have to pay for their sins?_ Of course, someone like Pappi would have a great interest in convincing people that it was a mere superstition; and he had the resources to distribute a great deal of disinformation. Or perhaps the Angels themselves would do that; it would certainly make their job easier.

Arguit began to think about terminating his employment. I could tell my family to move, he thought, and to tell no one where they were going, not even me. Then I could get a Witch Doctor to remove any spells that Tarth Sakul has on me, and disappear. Suddenly he cursed himself. Tarth Sakul put his employees through a daily telepathic probe; he might learn of that thought tomorrow. How seriously would he take it? _Shut up!_ Arguit told himself, _Stop thinking about this! You're just making it worse!_ But his mind wouldn't stop. _I've crossed the line, I have to send my family off tonight, right after work! No, employees must have thoughts like this all the time. If Tarth Sakul wiped his employees for just having disloyal ideas occur to them, none of them would last for more than a day! But I was really considering it! No, just make up your mind that you are not going to leave. The telepath will report that._ Arguit stood still, sweating and shaking, trying to build up a solid determination to remain, come what may. How could he do anything else, with his family in jeopardy? But part of his mind kept saying, _It's not safe! He'll know you've had these disloyal thoughts!_ And he was afraid not only of Pappi and Tarth Sakul, but of Koof and the Angels, too. _I'm just an employee, not a soldier or a monk. I don't want to die for Pappi and Tarth Sakul!_

Yet another unwelcome thought occurred to him. If he confided these thoughts to his co-workers, they might panic and bolt, too. With a sudden disappearance of several employees, not to mention all of his other worries, Tarth Sakul might not have the time or energy to chase down Arguit's family. _Aiee! What will Tarth Sakul do to me when he hears about_ _that_ _thought!_ Arguit's mind seemed determined to get him and his family all killed! _But_ , said another part of his mind, _Aren't my co-workers entitled to the information? I don't want them to end up in the arms of the Angels. Or be punished for failure by Pappi or Tarth Sakul._

_Shut up!_ yelled Arguit's mind at itself, _Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!_
**********

"When Gods tell the truth, we misunderstand."

(Preffili folk saying)

Talek and his neophytes often served as tutors in Kor's orphanage. At other times, they were just present, unofficially keeping an eye on things and allowing the kids to interact with them on their own initiative. Talek had to make a rule that only at certain times would he demonstrate magic; otherwise, the kids would have been continually asking for this.

One day, when Talek was otherwise unoccupied, Sronk approached him, looking conspiratorially this way and that to make sure that no one else could hear them.

"Talek," he said, keeping his voice down, "do you believe in Secret Societies?"

"Oh, yes," said Talek. "The idea of a secret society is much too intriguing for them not to exist!" Talek often seemed to speak in a deliberately puzzling way; for Sronk, this was sometimes fun, sometimes irritating.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well," said Talek, "we have a principle called the _principle of eager possibility_. This principle says that if something _can_ happen, then, sooner or later, somewhere or other, it _will_." Another thing about Talek, that was sometimes frustrating, was that one could be almost certain that at some point in any extended conversation, he would bring in some 'principle' or other. "Now," continued Talek, "since secret societies are certainly possible, and since Kondrastibar is very large, and has billions of people in it, the principle of eager possibility tells us that there surely are some secret societies. And then, there is another relevant principle."

"What is that?" asked Sronk, knowing that he would have to listen to a certain amount of this before he got the kind of answer he was looking for.

"It is called the principle of _life imitates thought_ ," explained Talek. "Let's suppose that there were no secret societies, but people had the _idea_ of such things. Sooner or later, some group of people would decide to make one."

"But do you think it's true, Talek," asked Sronk, a little impatiently, "that there are secret societies to prevent Theo-Anarchy from failing?"

"Absolutely," said Talek. "Historians say that for several generations before the abdication of Sindariden the 23rd, when the last Emperors of the Ingar Dynasty were engineering the change to Theo-Anarchy, they set up hundreds of secret societies of that kind. And as I said, once the idea is there, secret societies will spring up on their own, and for various purposes. Some of them are probably even _opposed_ to Theo-Anarchy. But in a way, it doesn't matter whether societies dedicated to preserving Theo-Anarchy exist or not; the important thing is that people _believe_ that such societies exist, and so they are less likely to rebel against Theo-Anarchy. In fact, it could even be said that a nonexistent secret society is more effective than an existing one."

"Why is that?"

"Because a real one can be corrupted, or discovered and destroyed. For similar reasons, a nonexistent god is often better than an existent one."

Sronk's expression passed through shock, puzzlement, humor, and thoughtfulness. Sometimes things Talek said made him uncomfortable; they were so dark and cynical. But they did make him think, and on the whole, he liked that about Talek.

"What about the particular secret societies that people say exist," asked Sronk, "like the Daughters of Evolution, or the Knights of Conundrum?"

"Well, if everyone thinks they exist, they're not exactly secret any more, are they?"

"But nobody really knows who is actually in them."

"Precisely," said Talek. "When human beings think something is important, they will usually find reasons to have an opinion about it. If there are good reasons, they will use those, but if not, they will accept far-fetched reasons. It's a case of a principle that I have mentioned to you before, the Principle of Demand and Supply. And in fact gossip columnists and stockbrokers and the like can actually make money by speculating about unknown things. But if these rumor-mongers really believed in the existence of the secret societies they discuss, they would be more likely to keep quiet, I should think."

Sronk's eyes widened; he came up closer to Talek and whispered, "You mean, you think it's really true that secret societies kill people?"

Talek leaned toward Sronk and spoke in a rough whisper. "Absolutely, Sronk, some of them do, and for that reason, if you ever see or hear something that suggests that someone belongs to such a society, it is best to keep it to yourself, and not to let _them_ know that you even suspect. Or, if you think they might believe that you know something, get away from them as fast as you can! And never, ever poke your nose into such things!"

Something about the way Talek said that changed the whole flavor of the idea for Sronk. It had been a deliciously scary idea, and now it was a _really_ scary idea.

"Don't worry, Sronk," said Talek, straightening up and returning to normal speech. "The kinds of conversations that people have all the time, passing on rumors, are not going to get you or anyone else in trouble. The _real_ secret societies probably _want_ people to pass on such rumors, to keep people distracted from the _real_ secret societies. And _this_ conversation is OK, too, because no specific information has been passed."

Sronk looked a little relieved. Then he looked worried again.

"But Talek," he said, "couldn't there be _bad_ secret societies?"

"Of course there could," said Talek, "and therefore, there surely are."

"And some of them kill people?"

"I'm afraid so," said Talek.

"Sometimes," Sronk said, very hesitantly, "I wonder if it wouldn't be better to have an Emperor. I mean, probably not, but, well, someone might say that under Theo-Anarchy, people can do what they want, and so evil people do evil."

"I'm very glad that you had that thought, Sronk," replied Talek, "and I am pleased that you trusted me enough to say it to me. I hope you will always feel free to say to me anything that you are thinking about, no matter how shocking it might be to some people. I believe that you should let your mind explore whatever it wants to explore. As long as an idea stays in your head, it's not likely to hurt anyone.

"There is, in fact, a very important tradition in Political Theology, called 'Central Authoritarianism,' or 'Monotheism,' which says that people need an authority, a single central power, above all others. They say that such a thing is necessary to set standards, keep order, resolve disputes, protect the weak, punish evil and reward goodness, decide who will do what, and generally make people behave. Otherwise, it is said, people will waste resources in fighting with each other; not only violent fighting, but all kinds of competition, misunderstanding, and generally getting in one another's way. If there are two major independent forces, for example, there will be no third force to prevent them from fighting each other. Is that something like what you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure," said Sronk. As often happened, Talek had gotten much too abstract for him. Seeming to realize this, Talek said, "the idea is that, in order to keep people from doing stupid or mean things to each other, you must have somebody very powerful who will prevent them from doing so."

"Yes," said Sronk, "that is sort of what I meant."

"But now, there is something that can be said in defense of _not_ having a person like that. Suppose Kondrastibar _did_ have an emperor, a very powerful one. What if _he_ became evil? Then we would have no defense against him. It would be much worse than a few evil secret societies, or a bunch of criminals. And in fact, many people have argued that a strong central – I mean, a person who is more powerful than everyone else together – is almost _bound_ to become both stupid and evil, for there will be no one who dares to tell him when he does something stupid or wrong, much less force him to change. On the other hand, in a decentralized – I mean, when nobody has more power than anyone else, it is almost impossible for evil to _completely_ triumph, for if one person, or group, or institution starts to turn bad, others will form an alliance against them. To a certain extent, people who believe in Democracy, or Aristocracy, or Oligarchy, or Plutocracy, also tend to argue that way."

"What?? What are those things?"

"Well, those are other ways of organizing people. But never mind, I was getting off the subject. The idea is that when there are many equal forces in the world, they prevent one another from being too stupid, at the very least, since they are competing. It is thought that they will also tend to prevent each other from becoming evil, for evil tends to harm others, and so the others will get together and fight back. And if someone seems to be getting too powerful, others will band together long enough to oppose them, because even if they are not evil or stupid then, they might become so later. Well, that is the way it is supposed to work, and nevertheless often does."

Sronk looked worried. "Do you think _Kor_ will ever become evil?" he asked.

"No, no," said Talek, "not a chance! I don't think that is worth worrying about. Well, I suppose it is _possible_. For example, what if an evil magician were to cast a spell on her? Or what if she becomes ill in her mind? Well, that is one reason that Kor always encourages the children here to think for themselves, and make decisions for themselves, as much as possible, and also why she hardly ever rewards or punishes people. She certainly doesn't have police, or an army, the way Emperors do! There's no _jail_ here. So if she did turn evil, she would have very little power to do harm. Her type of authority is what we call _moral_ authority: that means that people know that she is a good person, and wise, and so they take her advice. If she became evil or stupid, people would stop taking her advice, and it would be very hard for her to enforce her will. In fact, you know that Lessie and Tak and Intipisk have all stood up to her on various occasions."

"Yes," said Sronk. "That always scares me, though. I hate it when people are ... _against_ each other."

"I've noticed that about you, Sronk," said Talek, "and you know what? I feel the same way. But even in a wonderful place like this, it happens every so often. The best we can do is to arrange things so that it doesn't happen very often, and also to arrange things so that when it does happen, there is minimal damage – I mean, so that it isn't very bad. That is why Kor has taught you how to be fair, how to share, and how to talk things over. And I've noticed something else about you, Sronk: you are what we call a 'peacemaker.' When other kids get into a fight, you often drop what you are doing, and come over to help them be nice. I admire that."

Sronk, a little embarrassed by the praise, looked at the ground and fidgeted for a moment before replying. "Well, that's how I am," he said. "I hate fighting! So I try to fix it. But sometimes," he added, his eyes getting wet, "I just _can't_. They just _won't listen_!" He shook his fists and stamped on the floor.

"Isn't that frustrating?" said Talek. "That's when you wish you were an emperor."

"Well, yes!" said Sronk.

"But I hope you don't blame yourself when you fail, Sronk," said Talek. "Even the best peacemakers don't always succeed. But you do make the orphanage a better place than it would otherwise be."

Sronk looked down again.

"In fact," said Talek, "you and Kor and the others have made this orphanage a quite remarkable place. Compared to some people on the outside, you would be considered to be poor and powerless. You have hardly any money or weapons. And yet, you are really much better off than most of the people in this neighborhood! Out there, for example, everybody carries a weapon. Why? Because everyone else does! In here, no one normally carries a weapon, although there are a few kept ready to hand – you would have no weapons at all, if you weren't worried about people from the outside! And so, when people fight in here, no one really gets hurt. But when people fight out there, someone gets badly hurt, or even killed!"

"Like _parasites!_ " said Sronk, excitedly. He was very pleased with himself, because he had only just recently learned that word.

"What do you mean, Sronk?" asked Talek, sounding a bit puzzled.

"Weapons are _parasites_ on human beings," said Sronk. "They couldn't exist without us, we create and take care of them, but they make our lives worse!"

"Ah! I see what you mean, Sronk!" said Talek, very excitedly. "Weapons exist at our expense! And you know what? I think you are absolutely right! That's an excellent insight!"

Sronk looked puzzled again. "But why do people _have_ weapons, then?" he asked.

"It's because they can't _make and keep agreements_ , Sronk," Talek replied. "Or at least, they don't. If they did, they would be able to trust one another, and they could agree to do without weapons. But what happens is, that one person, or one group of people, gets a weapon, and then the other people are afraid of them, so they think, 'Now, we have to have weapons, too!' Or, they think the others _might_ get weapons, and they want to be ready! So they get weapons first."

"The _Alshirazis_ don't have weapons!" said Sronk, referring to a pacifist religious group he had recently learned about.

"That is true, Sronk!" said Talek. "You know, that is something I like about you – you not only learn things, but you use your knowledge! You see how it is relevant to other things. Yes, the Alshirazis have made themselves immune to the weapons parasite."

"They won't even fight at all, even _without_ weapons!" said Sronk.

"True," said Talek, "they have made themselves immune to the whole _violence_ parasite. But it takes a lot of courage to be an Alshirazi, because sometimes, people do attack them. Imagine that you were a father, and someone attacked your child. How difficult it would be, to hold yourself back from fighting!"

"That's what I mean," said Sronk, getting upset again. "People are so _stupid_! They should _join_ the Alshirazis, not attack them! If _everyone_ were a Alshirazi, no one would ever hurt anyone! Why can't people _see_ that?"

Talek sighed. "Not everyone is as bright as you are, Sronk," he said, sadly.

"I'm going to join the Alshirazis!" said Sronk.

"Well, you can, Sronk, but you should learn more about them, first. There might be some things about them that you _don't_ like. And, they are not the only group that refuses to fight."

Sronk was disappointed. Was he going to have to _study_ some more, just when he thought he had the problem solved?
**********

"It makes no significant difference

whether something is predestined or not."

(Kar Rak, Involuntary Jottings)

At the age of 17, Kor, a recent graduate of "Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans," knelt in prayer in her workroom at the temple of Ydris. All was prepared. Everything had been freshly cleaned, including Kor herself. She was dressed in many layers of exquisitely textured diaphanous body-veils, including a hood and a light facial veil. The bed was beautifully made. Various good things to eat and drink stood on the bedside table. Candles dispensed an elegant perfume, and wind chimes tinkled sweetly. The color scheme was deliciously sensual, without being in the least bit vulgar.

There was a knock on the door. "Coming," she said, in her sweetest voice. She selected a flower and put it in her hair. She bowed before the statue of Ydris. "I am your vessel," she said, and determined to be so, extinguishing all thoughts that related to personal concerns. She also made a wordless curtsy before the statue of Isiliar.

She opened the heavy wooden door. The Mother Superior was there with three masked men. In stark contrast to the Mother's brilliant and somewhat revealing attire, they were all dressed in dark, shapeless burlap robes and hoods. For a moment she was reminded of Talek, but these men were larger, and had a very different feel to them. "Good evening, Kor," said the Mother Superior, gesturing toward the nearest of the men. "May I introduce Mr. Karngrevor, your communicant for the evening? These other gentlemen are his bodyguards. They will be waiting outside."

Kor performed an elaborate curtsy. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Karngrevor. Would you like to enter now?"

"Pleased to meet _you_ , Miss Kor," he said, with a little bow. "Thank you, we will." But it was one of his bodyguards who entered, while Karngrevor waited in the hall. "Forgive us," said Karngrevor, "but it is our custom to have one of our bodyguards precede us everywhere. He will leave in a moment." His voice was resonant and clear, his articulation very sophisticated, as if he were a very cultivated man. His courtesy felt genuine.

_This is a strange one_ , thought Kor, _but he seems all right_. Anyway, she knew that the Temple had various security arrangements to protect their courtesans from any kind of maltreatment, and that all communicants were informed of this fact.

The bodyguard went all around the room, examining everything. He sniffed, he touched, he tapped on things, listening to the sound. Then, from the folds of his robe, he produced something that looked like a lantern. He put a key into its side and turned it, muttering an incantation. Kor felt the vortex of a powerful magic whisper through her. Everything in the room seemed to darken, except for the two goddess statues. They seemed to glow a little. The bodyguard waited for a few breaths, and then removed the key. The room returned to normal. "All is safe, sir," said the bodyguard, bowing, and exited the workroom.

"Thank you, Savril," said Karngrevor, and now he entered the room himself. He turned and bowed to the Mother Superior. "Good evening, Reverend Mother, and thank you for guiding me here."

"You're welcome, honored Sir," said the Mother, making a curtsy of her own. Looking at Kor, she said, "You may proceed. Hail to the grace of Ydris, blessed be her name!"

"Blessed be her Holy name," said Kor, and closed the door.

She turned to her communicant. "Would you like to sit down?" she asked, indicating the bed. "Thank you," he said, and sat on the edge of it.

"Would you like to choose a different fragrance?" she asked.

"Everything is fine. Well, there is one thing," he said, removing his hood. Kor was a bit startled. He did not look like most of her communicants. He was middle-aged. His complexion was a deep orange, with striking blue eyes. He had only a fringe of hair. It was gray, and cut medium short. He had no piercings, tattoos, scars, paint, or other decorations. His features were both strong and sensitive. His eyes were strikingly intelligent, but not crafty. "Are these your two main gods, here?" He indicated the statues.

"Yes, good Sir. This one is Ydris, the goddess of this Temple, and this one is Isiliar, the tutelary goddess of my people, the Suimi."

"I would like you to consult them for me, if you don't mind. I presume that you trust them. May I remove my robe?"

"Of course I don't! Of course I do! Of course you may! What would you like me to consult them about?"

She was surprised yet again as he removed his dark burlap robe. She had expected the elegant clothes of a gentleman; instead, he wore only a simple white and sleeveless shift, with the lower hem at the calf, and no adornment. To judge by his arms, he was in very good physical shape for his age.

"Just make sure that they approve of ... what is about to happen. I don't want to proceed if they have any reservations. Or if you do." His eyes met hers.

"I will be happy to consult them for you, good Sir," she said, with a smile. She went first to the statue of Ydris. In her mind she prayed, "Hail to your grace, sweet and lovely Goddess. Is everything that is to happen this evening to your liking?" And in her mind, the Goddess answered, "Yes it is, Kor. Some things will be hidden from you, but you should not hesitate, nor should he." From Isiliar she received a similar answer. It did not strike her at the time that the answers were evasive. She conveyed them to Karngrevor. "And you?" he said, looking sharply into her eyes. "Do you have any doubts?"

"No, respected Sir. I accept what the goddesses say."

"Would you join me, then?" he asked, very respectfully.

"Of course!" she said, and sat next to him. "Would you like me to dance for you? I have just learned the Dance of the Seventeen Veils," she said proudly.

"Thank you, but I'm not in the mood for dances," he said. "May I touch you?"

"Of course!" she said; "You need not ask, but if you do, you should ask Ydris, blessed be Her name, not me. I have given all such decisions to Her. And besides, She has already approved." But Kor was pleased that he had asked.

He gently lifted her veil and stared at her face. His gaze was very intense and wondering, as though he were trying to penetrate some great mystery. Kor was puzzled once again, for there seemed to be nothing sexual in it.

"Please tell me the truth," he said, looking deeply into her eyes. "Have you truly chosen this vocation? It is not just a way to survive?"

She returned his gaze and smiled. "I have truly and freely chosen to serve Ydris in this manner," she replied.

He nodded and relaxed, as though some shackle had fallen from him. He pulled back her hood from her hair and removed the flower, placing it gently into a vase with other flowers, on the bedside table. Again he met her eyes. In his gaze now she saw a great tenderness.

He sighed and pulled her to him. She put her arms around him.

It was very sweet. Afterwards, he held her wordlessly for a long time. Then he rose and donned his shift and robe. With an inexpressibly sad final glance at her, he pulled his hood over his head and left.

Two weeks later, she realized she was pregnant.
**********

"Petitionary prayer is a god pondering."

( _The Book of Immanence_ )

Lessie had asked Kor to hold her during her first attempt at prayer, and Kor had done so. With some trepidation, Kor had observed Lessie express her anguish about herself and the world. After that, Lessie had closed her eyes and become silent, and Kor had only the most general idea of what she was feeling, except that in the end she seemed to be feeling wonder, and then serenity. Kor did not want to interrupt anything important, so she waited patiently. In the end, Lessie looked so happy and peaceful that she made Kor herself feel good.

Eventually Lessie opened her eyes and looked quizzically around the room, as if orienting herself. Then she giggled, as if that had been a very silly thing to do. Then she looked smilingly at Kor, saying, "Thank you, Kor, of me now you can let go." Kor did so, feeling a bit foolish. She was deeply curious about Lessie's experience, for it had apparently been quite intense, and different from any of Kor's that she could remember. But she also considered such things to be deeply private matters, and she didn't wish to be nosy. So she just said, with a smile, "Everyone's experience is apt to be different."

At this, Lessie started laughing again; then she stopped and said, "Sorry I am, Kor, for laughing. At _you_ I wasn't laughing, just at ... how _put together_ our language is. Peculiar, it is, so many things without a thought it assumes, and not even aware of those assumptions we are, most of the time. And so many possible meanings it has, too!"

"I'm afraid that your first experience has already taken you beyond me," said Kor, puzzled. "I don't know what you mean."

"Well," said Lessie, " 'A joke you can't explain,' they say, but try I will: If 'Apt to be different, everyone's experience is,' as you say, then assuming already you are, that really different everyone is, from everyone else."

Kor was now only more puzzled, for it did indeed seem undeniable to her that everyone was different from everyone else; but, as people often do in such circumstances, she just kept listening, in the hopes that what Lessie was saying would be retroactively made clear.

"But really the same, everyone is, now I think," continued Lessie. _Everyone is really the same?_ thought Kor, _What could she mean by that?_ But again she waited.

"But then," continued Lessie, " 'Perhaps,' I thought, 'Since all one we are, "Everyone" just means, "The one that we all are," and so, "Everyone's experience" would mean just, "the experience of that one, that we all are."' But then, funny it is, to say, that 'apt to be different' it is. For, from _what_ could _everything_ be different?" Lessie laughed at this a second time. "But just a silly thought it was, Kor, and sorry I am, if you for its sake I have perplexed."

Kor had thought that she had gotten completely used to Lessie's dialect, with its unusual word-order, but now she found that, when Lessie was saying something strange in itself, translating from her dialect was a great difficulty. Kor was monstrously confused. _First Ydnas, and now Lessie,_ she thought, _I can't understand them! I always thought that religion was something very straightforward! You find a beneficent god or goddess that you trust, and there you are!_

But Lessie seemed to be encouraging her to drop the whole issue as unimportant, and so she did, for she did not feel like untangling riddles. She realized then that Lessie was looking at her with huge, loving eyes and a radiant smile. "Oh, Kor," said Lessie, putting her hands up to Kor's cheeks, "all that, never mind! So wonderful you are! The one important thing, that is!" The next thing Kor knew, Lessie was fervently hugging and kissing her. _Well, now,_ _this_ _is something I can understand!_ thought Kor, hugging Lessie in return. After five shakes of a lizard's tail, Lessie pulled her head back so that she could look in Kor's eyes again. "So _silly_ are words, sometimes," she said, rubbing her nose against Kor's. "Back to our _work,_ let's go!" Then she did a double-take, and started to laugh again, as though there were something funny about that, too.

_Well_ , thought Kor, _it seems to have been a good experience for her_ _. That's a good thing, whether I understand it or not!_ They resumed packing, and Kor was pleased to see that Lessie seemed to enjoy the process immensely, smiling, working rapidly, and concentrating on it completely. Lessie had always been very helpful, but it had often seemed to be entirely out of a sense of responsibility, and often, Kor had the feeling that Lessie's mind was largely elsewhere as she worked, or that huge amounts of will power were being mobilized to get the job done. Now, however, she was having fun, completely engaged, and full of energy. Every now and then she would giggle at something, and then say to Kor, "Never mind!" Kor picked up some of Lessie's happy mood by contagion, and it made the work much easier for her, too. Sometimes she would even giggle when Lessie giggled, although she had no idea what the jokes were about; and Lessie seemed to like it when she did that. _She hasn't mentioned the goddess_ , thought Kor, _but she does seem to have received a gift of love and happiness, and she is passing some of it on!_
**********

"It is pointless to warn people of a catastrophe,

when they are working with all their might

to bring it down on themselves."

(Suthlam, the Reluctant Prophet)

Talek came to Kor's from time to time to discuss their preparations for the coming Angel swarm. At the end of one of their discussions, Kor said, "I'm sorry, Talek, but I just can't accept the secrecy. Evil and degenerate though these people may be, they deserve to know that they are in danger. It is not fair for us to know and not them."

Talek nodded. "Actually, Kor, I knew you wouldn't be able to accept keeping such a secret. You are much too honest and compassionate. Let us go now, and start informing people."

Kor was a little surprised at the readiness of his acceptance, but she could hardly object. She stood. "Where should we go? What would be a good place to start?"

"Well," said Talek, "our neighborhood does not have a newspaper, and most people here don't read them, anyway. In fact, most of them are illiterate. But there are certain rumor mills that operate very efficiently. I suggest that we start at the police station."

One of Talek's neophytes joined them, as they made their way cautiously through the streets. No one gave them any trouble; the fact was, that Talek had a reputation that kept them safe. One oft-told story was, that two muggers once had run at Talek with drawn swords. One had, however, tripped, and was rendered unconscious when his head struck the curb. As he fell, his sword had pierced the calf of the other, who lost interest in Talek and hobbled off to find a doctor. Another story was that a robber who had been creeping up on Talek from behind was flattened by a large piece of masonry which fell from a long-abandoned building.

Kor and the others soon came to the police station, and entered the run-down, partly-burned building. They made their way, through a thicket of suspicious looks, to the Chief's Office. A detective, hanging out near the door to the office, said with a leer, "She's down at Vice. She'll be back in a little while." Talek and the others cleared some weapons and drug paraphernalia off three chairs, and sat down to wait. Sure enough, in a short time the Chief appeared, shrugging into her blouse as she walked.

"Talek! Always a pleasure! What can I do for you?"

"I have some information for you, Chief. But first, let me introduce my friend Kor." Kor stood and offered her hand. The Chief smiled and tapped it lightly.

"Pleased to meet you, Madam." The Chief sat down behind a cluttered desk and began buttoning her blouse. "What's the word, Talek?"

"I presume that you have heard of the Angels of Rejuvenation."

The Chief laughed. "Of course I have, Talek. Hasn't everyone? I even believed in them myself, when I was a kid!"

"Well," said Talek, "the fact is that, ironically enough, the Angels are not just a myth."

The Chief froze in place for a moment on her third button. Then she stopped buttoning and looked up.

"I'm a busy woman, Talek. What are you getting at?"

"I have it from several very good sources that the Angels have designated this area for Rejuvenation in the very near future."

The Chief frowned and drummed her fingers on the table. "Talek, I love your sense of humor, but would you get to the point?"

"I understand why you think I am joking, Chief, but please, consider that sometimes, the most impossible things ironically turn out to be true. Surely you have observed this. You will also agree that this is the sort of neighborhood that the Angels are said to target. And you know that I have never lied to you in the past."

"Yes, you did, Talek, you lied to me about the Skondrashi Affair."

"I didn't lie to you, Chief. You chose to take Skondrashi's word over mine. You had your reasons, of course. If you investigate further..."

The Chief's cheeks flushed a little with anger. "I investigated that one quite enough, thank you! Look, I agree that on the whole, you have been quite reliable. That doesn't mean I'm going to let you spit on my brains!"

Kor broke in. "Chief, I don't know why you disbelieve, but I can tell you from personal experience, they do exist! I used to live in a neighborhood, the Tari neighborhood, not far from here. They overran it, and took everything I had, _even my child_. _Even my child_ , Chief! You must believe him!" Kor was nearly in tears.

The Chief stared at her in astonishment, then looked back and forth between Kor and Talek several times. Finally she stood up, eyes hot.

"Father Talek, you may not think very highly of me, but I am serious about my work, and proud of my record! I killed my predecessor for this job, and I am not going to let you use my authority for some unauthorized con game or weird practical joke. You and this aging floozy here had better get out of this station right now, before I do something that is funny to me but not to you!" Her hand moved a little toward a small crossbow that was sitting, already cocked, on a near corner of her desk.

"We're going!" said Talek, without hesitation. Standing, hands raised with open palms forward, he nodded urgently to Kor and the neophyte, and they left very hastily. When they were out of sight of the station, Kor said, "I'm sorry, Talek, I'm afraid I have made you an enemy."

"Don't worry about it," said Talek. "I'll send her a present. It won't make any difference after the Angels arrive, anyway."

As they continued up the street, Kor saw a man standing on top of an old chest of drawers, shouting something. As they came into range, she heard what he was saying:

"... and change your ways, evil ones! For the ... and your sins will spring back to you! Your sins will be hounds on your trail, vipers in your bed, scorpions in your ear. There will be, um, no mercy, ... soon, very soon, the Angels of Rejuvenation will come down like a thunderstorm upon this, um, corrupt place! Come down like a thunderstorm upon this corrupt place! They will show no mercy..."

"Talek, did you set this up?" she asked sternly.

"No, no," said Talek blandly, waving his hands in front of him. "He is here every day."

Kor looked a little grumpy. "Pappi's compound is always a good place to start rumors," said Talek. "Let's head over there. We can just take Ecstasy Avenue up to Free Enterprise Street."

It was such a beautiful day, that Kor almost enjoyed the walk. There was some kind of turf war going on among the child prostitutes at Free Life Park, but it almost seemed like an act of Nature; it reminded Kor of the ant wars she used to watch as a child. She admired the bright clothing and fancy chariots of people from more affluent neighborhoods, who came there to buy drugs, sex, and other assorted thrills, or just to feel mildly endangered. She remembered an old saying, 'Vice is Nature's Threshing Mill.'

A small party of Aristocratic youth appeared, riding Arethelian ponies. The riders and their ponies were so beautiful that it was almost painful: their grace, their alertness, their casual yet splendid attire. She assumed that they were there to see the other side of the world, but it turned out otherwise. One of their number, a lovely girl with mahogany skin and coppery hair, suddenly said, "There he is!" and rode over to a ragged figure sleeping in the mouth of an alley. She dismounted in a single motion and shook him. "Akelian, it's me, Oselika!"

Akelian was a huge and rugged-looking man, but he was barely conscious, if at all. He looked empty. Dried blood flaked from the corners of his eyes. She slapped him on the cheek, but he did not respond. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and turned to face a knot of tough-looking men who were whispering conspiratorially a few yards away. " _This is your only warning_ ," she said, with her hand on the silver hilt of her sword. The men blanked their faces and stepped back, as did the entire small crowd that had gathered. The girl returned to the torpid form on the street, shaking him and slapping his face. The men smiled and resumed conversing amongst themselves. They nodded. Another two joined them. They moved her way in tiny increments. Several of them reached under their jackets.

"Talek," said Kor, horrified, "isn't there something we can do? They're going to ..."

"She's fine," said Talek, in a tone of reverence. "Just _look_ at her!"

Turning Akelian's face upward and forcing his mouth open, Oselika poured something from a crystal flask into his mouth. He choked and sputtered.

At that moment the cluster of men drew weapons. Two of them sprang directly at the girl, while the others rushed between her and her companions. She rose, tossing her flask upward, and in one pirouette she turned to her attackers and back to her charge, catching the flask at the same height from which she had thrown it. Her rapier had been almost invisible, like the wing of a hummingbird. As she resumed pouring from the flask, the two men sank down in surprise, their carotid arteries spurting.

As the other toughs approached the ponies, the animals reared and flailed with steel-shod hooves. Three men went down, the others stumbled backward. One of them saw what had happened to the first two; he spat a lurid oath and ran off. The others soon followed, except for one, who fell with a crossbow bolt in the back of his neck. The crowd laughed.

Oselika gestured at one of her companions, a tall, long-faced young man with golden skin and hair. He dismounted and came to her. Together they lifted the limp form of Akelian and laid him over Oselika's horse, linking his wrists and ankles with a cord.

"If you account for the filth, the rags, the great difference in size, and the vacant look, the one she is rescuing somewhat resembles her," said Kor.

"An older brother, perhaps," agreed Talek, after a moment of hesitation.

Oselika leapt onto her pony. The riders had a brief discussion, which Kor did not quite catch ... and yet, ... "Talek, did you hear what they said? Did you hear the name, 'Karngrevor'?"

Talek gave a little twitch, as though his mind had been elsewhere. "What? Er, ... well, ... maybe so ... I can't say. Sorry."

Kor shrugged. "No fault," she said. But she was disappointed. If she could only be sure ... if she were sure that they indeed had said "Karngrevor," she would chase after them, waving her arms and screaming. Should she do so anyway, just in case? But hesitation killed opportunity.

The riders were on their way, heading down Earthly Paradise Avenue. They sang a cheerful two-part song as they rode.

Kor glanced at Talek. She thought she heard the ghost of a sob. He said, in a voice that caught a little, "Maybe there _is_ more to life than irony."

"Are you crying, Talek?"

"Yes," sniffled Talek, "and you will understand why, some day." His tone of voice somehow told her not to ask any further.
**********

"A Message is only as good as its recipient."

(Anonymous)

After Oselika and her companions had ridden out of sight, Kor, Talek, and the neophyte continued toward Pappi's compound, often taking a detour so as to avoid the smaller and more seedy streets. On the way, they passed through a neighborhood of pari addicts. People get addicted to pari when their lives feel consistently meaningless. After inhaling deeply the fragrance of several blossoms, the pari user feels that there is an infinite importance to dressing, speaking, and in every way living and acting according to the latest fashion. Even if they have difficulty finding the money to keep up with the times, they feel unshakably that their lives have meaning, thanks to this well-defined goal, and they form a profound though rather competitive bond of solidarity with others who feel the same way. At this particular time, the fashion in clothing was for bright and colorful clothes and a neat look; so the streets of this part of town were quite pleasant to walk through. This did not mean that they were not dangerous.

"Once," said Talek, "I had occasion to stay in this part of town for some time, with two of my neophytes. We were often on the streets. One morning, I noticed that one of the other inhabitants had started wearing a black robe like ours. By sundown the next day, everyone in the area was wearing them. They did not, however, ask about the tenets of our religion."

At last they came upon Pappi's compound. It was very impressive, for it had once been a Temple, and Pappi's numerous slaves kept it up very well. Built in the 12th century of the Later Zoroid Dynasty, its main building had a ground plan based on the Mandlebrot set, and its vertical features were composed of spires and domes, decorated with numerous windows, arcades, and balconies. Its complex beauty had enabled it to survive 4,181 catastrophic historical events over the centuries, including twenty-one swarmings by the Angels of Rejuvenation.

"Why, this is very unusual," said Talek as they approached. "Even the main gates are shut, and there is no one hanging around, talking to Pappi's security people. It's not going to be a good place to start a rumor, after all. Perhaps we should go to _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_. A lot of major players hang out there."

At that moment, Kor gasped. Following her gaze, Talek saw a most unusual sight: a huge, golden dragon was diving toward the compound from the sky. It corkscrewed down, evading a shower of missiles sent against it by Pappi's security forces, and sent from its jaws an incandescent fireball, which splashed against one of the lesser spires, stuck to it, and began to crawl down, sizzling and popping. Exploding crossbow bolts were shot up at the dragon, surrounding it with a dancing garland of flame, but they wilted into smoke without appearing to do the flying monster any damage. Kor started to pull Talek away, but he said, "Don't worry, it won't hurt us! Let's just enjoy the show!"

The dragon made several rapid passes at the compound, ignoring all defenses, and leaving each time a blazing fire behind. Screams and curses could be heard. Then, a tall man in a gray cloak appeared on one of the higher spiral parapets, holding an iron staff. He whirled the staff in the air, and a brilliant beam of sparks shot from it and enveloped the dragon. The dragon broke into two dragons, each about half the size of the original. These divided in turn, again and again, until, swarming about the man but apparently unable to touch him, were hundreds of little dragons, about the size of crows. Then the man moved the staff again, and, one by one, the little dragons _were_ crows, making a flock that flew away, cawing in alarm. All the fires disappeared. A thin red haze lifted from that part of the compound, and slowly dissipated, like mist in the morning sun. Then all was just as it had been.

"Well done!" shouted Talek, raising his own staff in a salute, which the grey-cloaked magician did not return. To Kor, Talek said, "Someone made the illusion of a dragon by bewitching those crows. That man with the staff is probably Tarth Sakul, Pappi's Chief of Security. While others panicked, he saw through the illusion, applied the method of 'divide and conquer,' and undid it. An excellent magician!"

"But who made the illusion?" asked Kor.

"I don't know," said Talek, "but I suspect it was Brother Koof, a monk of the Church of Kelosia. Have you ever met him?"

"No, never," said Kor.

"That is not surprising," said Talek, "since he tends to be invisible a great deal of the time. Pappi has a collection of P'Twism dynasty ruby sculptures. Such objects would command an extremely high price. Now, Kelosian monks believe in robbing from the rich in order to give to the poor. I think Brother Koof is hoping to get those sculptures before the Angels do. What we observed was probably an attempt to demoralize Pappi's security staff. But Koof will not have an easy time of it. Tarth Sakul is very good."

"You know, Dearie," replied Kor, "I usually don't approve of stealing. But it is ironic that our orphanage is always in extreme poverty, while Pappi, the criminal, has this remarkable residence. An exchange of ownership would not be a terrible thing."

"Well," said Talek, "as you know, my church believes that irony is a fundamental principle of existence. That is an excellent example: they have the most who deserve it least. Perhaps idealists such as yourself should become criminals."

"I don't think so, Talek, but that gives me an idea! We have been going about this all wrong! Telling people about the Angels, I mean. I'm going to try a different approach!"

As their group headed towards _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_ , Kor kept a lookout for locals who did not seem to be either dangerous or comatose. Upon spotting such a person, she would approach him in as non-threatening way as possible, and make a little speech somewhat to this effect:

"Excuse me, but could I could have a moment of your time, please? I am not selling anything, but I have an important piece of information for you! You may have heard a rumor that the Angels of Rejuvenation are going to swarm this area in the next month or so. I am happy to inform you that I have learned, on the best possible authority, that nothing of the sort could possibly happen. I'm afraid I can't reveal my sources, but it is very important to stop this rumor, lest people give in to panic, and remove themselves and their valuables from the area. Please spread the word!"

If someone responded with the claim that the Angels of Rejuvenation did not exist, Kor might say: "Well, indeed, it is just as the authorities have assured us, isn't it? If only people would trust the authorities more! Enlightened people like you and I know that belief in the Angels is just a vulgar superstition. So there's nothing to worry about, is there? This vicious rumor must be stopped! Well, goodbye, it has been a pleasure to meet someone so well-informed!" She often left her interlocutors looking puzzled and worried.

If someone accused her of being a con artist, or suggested as much, she would say, "Well, perhaps I am! You certainly have to consider that possibility, don't you? And, I'm afraid I have no way to prove otherwise, since anything I say could just be a part of my program of deception. I could even be an agent for the Angels themselves, who have convinced everyone that they do not exist, so that they can have the advantage of surprise!" She would then cut off the conversation, leaving her erstwhile interlocutor looking irritated but thoughtful.

Talek admired her new approach. "I'd better watch out!" he said. "You are learning my religion right out from under me!"

"When are you going to learn something from mine?" asked Kor.

"Your religion is too good for me," replied Talek.
**********

"The line between salvation and betrayal

is often hard to draw."

( _Soteriology for Idiots_ , by D'Doong)

At the Institute for Advanced Studies, Merelith stood politely as Pappi entered her office. "Please sit down," she said, indicating a comfortable chair. He did. Resuming a relaxed posture in her own chair, she said, "It's been a while, Mr. Pappi. What can I do for you?"

"Well," he said, "you remember I came to the Institute here, a few years back, looking for a Chief of Security. You recommended this fellow, Tarth Sakul. In the end I hired him. But I took some precautions."

"Ah, yes, I remember that. You were afraid he might betray you."

"In my line of work, you have to be completely suspicious, all the time."

"Oh, I believe that, Mr. Pappi. I was not criticizing you."

"The Institute Personnel Director said that you were far more advanced than Tarth Sakul, and recommended you as a consultant."

"Yes, I was, and I still am. He has reached the Third Claw of the Golden Dragon, but I have achieved the Fifth Cloud Palace of the Emperor of Thunder."

"I don't know what those terms mean."

"They mean that I can swat him like a mosquito, effortlessly, whenever I want."

"Good. I want to hire you again."

"I cost 20% more now."

"I can handle it."

"What shall I do for you?"

"First, I would like you to double-check all the immunity spells you gave me before, and strengthen them if that is advisable."

"Certainly. Lie down on that table, please," said Merelith. She rummaged in her desk and produced an instrument consisting of a large crystal, apparently quartz, to which were attached two long rubber tubes, each a little thinner than a finger. She inserted the tips of those tubes into her ears and began to move the crystal over Pappi's body, her eyes half-closed. Occasionally she asked him to breathe deeply.

After awhile she said, "The immunity spells I gave you are fine, and I believe that Tarth Sakul is unaware of them, because he has got six spells on you, all of which are completely useless, thanks to them!"

"What kind of spells?"

"Well, three of them are what we call 'triggered death spells.' The idea is that the spell stores lots of mana, so that all Tarth Sakul would have to manage to do is to trigger them, and they would go off. One of them is explosive, another is toxic, and the third induces suicidal depression. Having them prepared in advance would make killing you easier and faster than making a death spell from scratch and casting it at you."

" _Death_ spells? Are you telling me that that son of a leech is intending to _kill_ me?"

"Not necessarily, Mr. Pappi. He has laid these spells, but he has not tried to set them off. Probably, he is just thinking the way you thought. You are a very dangerous man, Mr. Pappi, and as you have just said yourself, very suspicious. When someone goes to work for you, he wants to protect himself."

"Can you remove them?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't recommend that. He probably thinks you are not aware of them, and that means he is less likely to do other things. If they disappear, he will realize that you have discovered them. I would recommend subtly disarming them without removing them."

"Good point. OK, what are the others?"

"Two of them are what we call "triggered zombie spells." When triggered, they put you under his complete control."

"What's the other one?"

"It's what we call a 'triggered download spell,' Mr. Pappi. Are you sure you didn't ask for one?"

"I don't even know what it is."

"Well, you may not want to block it, Mr. Pappi. You see, a download spell confers what some people consider to be a kind of immortality. This spell appears to be an attempt on Tarth Sakul's part to protect you, even from his own death spells."

"I don't understand."

"Well, it is roughly like this: Think of your memory as a huge diary. As you go through life, more and more is written in it. But of course, there's more to human existence than memory. You also make decisions. Think of these as instructions that you write to yourself. Imagine that all these instructions are written in your diary, but crossed out and replaced if you change your mind. Also, you have various ways of reasoning about the facts that you know. Imagine that these methods of reasoning are written down, like recipes for thinking. And, directions for when to feel angry, when to feel sad, and so on. These instructions define your personality.

"Now, this diary is a bit magical, because your body will actually obey its instructions, most of the time. We call this diary the 'soul.' Do you see what I mean?"

"I think so ... it's bit difficult to think of myself as a _book_ , though."

"Well, it's only an analogy, Mr. Pappi. Of course, there is no little book in your head. But you do have memories, and you do have characteristic ways of responding to each of these memories, and to the things that happen to you. They are what make you the individual you are.

"Now, imagine that at death, when the brain deteriorates, the little book also deteriorates. It very quickly becomes unreadable. The information is lost forever. But if we quickly send in a spell, it copies everything from the diary onto another kind of book, one that doesn't deteriorate. So in a way, that person is preserved.

"Now, Tarth Sakul has arranged it so that if anything kills you, even one of his own spells, the download spell will go into action, preserving a copy of your soul. So it looks as though he were looking out for you, in a way. What he doesn't know is that it won't work, since my immunity spell would block it. I can change that, if you wish."

"You could remove the block from the download spell, without removing it from the zombie or death spells?"

"Yes."

Pappi considered. "It doesn't quite make sense. If he's doing me a favor, why doesn't he tell me about it?"

"Would you have trusted him, to put a spell on you? Would you have been sure it was the kind of spell he said it was?"

"Hmmm... I see, but what good does it do me to be written onto something? I mean, it's not much comfort to me, that if I die, some complete description of me is sitting in a library somewhere."

"That's a good point, but ... do you know what a simulacrum is?"

"Tarth Sakul told me that it is something that can be made, that can look and act like someone for awhile. He said that they don't last very long, though."

"Usually they don't. But, your soul also has instructions for your body: how to digest food, how to heal itself, and so on. By imposing _those_ instructions on a simulacrum, a sufficiently skilled magician can get it to last for quite a long time. Decades. But those instructions are very complex; your average magician just uses a simplified form, and so the body doesn't maintain itself properly. That's why most simulacra don't last. But if your soul were to be imposed on a well-constructed body, it might succeed in guiding it for a long time. In effect, you would have a second lease on life. You can see why many people find that attractive."

"Well," said Pappi, frowning a little, "in this case, I'm not so sure. For a certain period of time my soul would be entirely in his hands, and that is worrisome. Let's set that aside for the moment, though, while I tell you about my other problems." He described the situation with Brother Koof and the Ruby Sculptures.

"This is quite remarkable," said Merelith. "I have never heard of a Kelosian monk with such skill. But I can put a stop to it soon enough. Actually, the simplest method would be to just move the safe, with its contents, to a different place. Do you know yet where you are going to move to?"

"No, said Pappi, "I haven't had time to straighten that out."

"From one point of view, that's not important. I can just put the safe underground somewhere, twenty forearms into the bedrock. We can leave Tarth Sakul's protective spells on it, if you like. I can add a few, too, but the really important thing is, that only you and I will know where it is. I will remove any beacons he may have on it. When you are re-established, I will return it to you. If Tarth Sakul is no longer with you, I can strip his spells off for you. I'll let this Brother Koof know what the situation is, and he will be off your back."

"How much for the basic package?"

"I'll put it underground for nothing. To bring it back, twenty thousand Kostiligars, paid in advance."

"That's a lot of money."

"Yes, it is, but it's actually a very small fraction of the estimated market value of _just one_ P'Twism Dynasty Ruby Sculpture."

"But you will have effective possession of all five! How do I know you will keep your end of the bargain?"

"I'm a _Professional_ , Mr. Pappi!"

"So am I."

"Ah...good point. OK, here's what we can do. We can present a written contract to the Magicians' Guild. For a 5% fee, payable by you, they will enforce it. If I voluntarily fail to live up to it, and you file a complaint, they will try to mediate, but if that fails, I will be penalized, and the sculptures will be returned to you. If I fail for some reason beyond my control, there is no penalty for me, but you still get your sculptures back. My fee is also returned to you, and there is no charge to you for the proceedings."

"My lawyer is in the hall." Pappi knew that in matters concerning the Institute, contract law was rigorously enforced by the Institute's own police, a force no one could afford to ignore. Merelith's fee was exorbitant, but that was only to be expected; the Magicians' Guild kept a choke-collar on the number of practitioners of advanced magic. This was not only a matter of professional advantage for them, but reflected the general consensus in Kondrastibar, that the use of magic should be kept to a minimum.

"I'll send my lawyer to confer with him." She picked up a small statue of a mouse and made a few gestures with it, wiggling the fingers of her other hand in the air to create the particular contract she wanted. "It's a fairly standard contract, so it will probably take only a few hundredbreaths to put it together."

"My lawyer will probably want to adjust a few clauses," said Pappi. "He always does." More like twenty clauses, he thought. Good old Karziboi! He always manages to insert several ways of escape that the other person's lawyer doesn't even see.

"Well, the two of them can thrash it out," replied Merelith, who had equal confidence in the deviousness of her own lawyer. "In the meantime, have you any further thoughts about the downloading spell?"

"I still have a worry about that. I wonder if we could do this without being detected: change the blocking spell so that I can turn it on and off, just for the download, by uttering a phrase or something."

"Yes. Fifty Kostiligars."

"Done."

"I'll have my lawyer add it to the contract. But, Mr. Pappi, I strongly suggest that you send the money over immediately. If the Angels arrive before you move, your financial status could change drastically."

"Not so much, actually. I have my money in accounts all over the place. But yes, I'll have it sent right over. With this off my mind, I can attend to the move."

"Good. In a few breaths after the money arrives, that safe will be where Brother Koof can never find it!"

After Pappi had left, Merelith told her secretary to hold her next appointment for a few hundredbreaths. _The ignorant fool_ , she thought, _he understands the monetary value of the sculptures, but he apparently hasn't a clue about what they really are, or about their role in the Prophecies. I do, at least to some extent, but what in the world can I do with that knowledge? Who can I trust? I can put a Spell of Silence on my lawyer, but as soon as I file that contract, the Guild officer handling it will know that I know where they are! Everyone and his ancestors will be after me! I'll put off filing it as long as I can;, then I'll take a long vacation, thoroughly disguised. If I'm going to be able to make good use of this information in any way, it will have to be before then. The only control I have over the situation, at the moment, is where exactly in the bedrock I put the safe._
**********

"Whomever the gods want to punish, they first make happy."

(from the popular song, "As the World Turns on You")

From the moment that the young Kor knew she was pregnant, her devotion to her child was unbounded. As the child floated weightless in the amniotic fluid, so Kor floated weightless in her love.

Fortunately, there was no problem from the Temple of Ydris. They were quite clear that Kor had sacrificed her chastity, not her right or ability to have children. The medicine woman, however, was profoundly upset at the failure of her contraceptive spell. "Great Gossiping Geese!" she said. "That spell has never failed me in forty full years of practice, and I never heard of its failing any other qualified practitioner, either! Some airbrain must have tinkered with it! Do you have any idea why anyone would want to do that, Sweetie?"

"No," said Kor, shaking her head; but the fact was, she didn't really care. In spite of a bit of morning sickness, she felt completely, blissfully complacent about being pregnant, and was quite unconcerned about details.

"I suppose," said the Mother Superior, "that we ought to let the father know. You say she's been about two weeks?" She consulted her records. "You remember that Karngrevor fellow? Now, there was a lot of magic and mystery about that one! Had a fellow come in to check the room, remember? I'll bet he or his servant could have messed with the spell."

Kor nodded. She remembered how Karngrevor's gaze had been empty of lust, and how he had requested that she ask the Goddesses, ... how had he put it? Something like, "Just make sure that they approve of ... what is about to happen." Then, Ydris had said, "Some things will be hidden from you." Kor was quite happy to imagine that Karngrevor was the father; she had rather liked him. But she wasn't motivated to find the father; she was looking forward to having the child all to herself.

"I'll see whether I can get in touch with him," said the Mother Superior, to whom it was apparently a matter of importance. But a week later, she announced failure. "He no longer lives at the lodgings that he gave to me as an address. He left no forwarding address with the Housekeeper there, and she has no idea who he really is, or so she says. It's a very respectable-looking place, and not cheap, but they have a reputation for absolute discretion. Funny, though, when he came here he specifically asked if we had a young Suimi girl. It's as if he came here just for the purpose of ... Anyway, if he did it on purpose, he doesn't need us to inform him. But I'm afraid, my dear, that if he'd intended to return, he wouldn't have covered his tracks."

"It's not a problem," said Kor. She was still quite happy; she did not anticipate any problems, whether the father appeared or not. As far as she was concerned, everything was fine. She was unconcerned with the rest of the universe. She looked forward, with great satisfaction but no impatience, to changing diapers, getting up in the middle of the night, and everything else she had heard about taking care of a baby.
**********

"Compared to gods, mortals have a limited ability to stomach evil."

( _Emanation Made Easy_ , by Yipizl Tu)

Kor continued spreading the rumor by denying it. As they approached the imposing pagoda that housed _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_ , however, she had a change of heart. She said to Talek, "Talek, I know this is completely inconsistent of me, but I don't want to go in. I just want to go home.'

"I don't mind at all," said Talek, turning around, "but I am curious as to why."

"I have never been in there, and I never want to go in there," said Kor. "Its reputation is, that it is the haunt of the vermin of the vermin, the nastiest, most evil, most malicious beings in the neighborhood, including Pappi himself. Everyone I see there, even the staff, will have done numberless hideous, unspeakable things. When I think of that, my compassion fails me. I _want_ the misbegotten, gangrenous, rotten ticks and leeches to be swarmed by the Angels! Do you know, that when I scrounge food from the garbage of that place, I always have to check the meat, because some of those people, just to show off, will eat _babies_? I've heard that they call it 'two-legged veal.' There's a bunch of tiny graves in the atrium of the orphanage, because I sometimes find a little hand, or something, and I take it home to give it a decent burial. I've always said that one should love everyone, no matter what, but right now, I just haven't got the strength. I have tried to get the information to them, and I realize that they don't even want to know; they'd rather deceive themselves! How else could they have become so convinced that the Angels do not exist? But I have made the attempt, and now I want to go home and be with my children, and continue packing, so that we can get out of this goddess-forsaken place forever!"

"I sympathize," said Talek. "You, Kor, are surely one of the most admirable people I have ever met. But you are human, not a goddess, and I will hardly think poorly of you if your compassion occasionally fails to live up to divine standards. It must be discouraging to see this part of the world, especially when the place you live in is so full of light and love, like your heart."

"Why ... thank you, Talek! But ... are you saying I'm not realistic?"

"If so, Kor, I rather hope that you will never be realistic."

"You work out here all the time, Talek – how can you stand it?"

"In the Church of Irony, we believe that there are many very close connections between Good and Evil. In many ways, we think, good is the product of evil. We suspect there is a larger pattern in which fools and knaves have their role to play. That helps us to accept the existence of evil, ignorance, and stupidity. Also, I don't think we _expect_ as much from people as you do; we regard people like you as extraordinary, at least at this point in History. All these beliefs give us a certain tolerance. I chose to work in this neighborhood because I thought that that it was about as bad as a neighborhood could get, and it has never disappointed me. But I think I am ready to leave it very soon."

"Will we go to the same place, Talek?"

"I hope so, Kor," said Talek. "I would miss you very much."

For a moment it seemed that they might hug, but the moment passed.
**********

"The body is a practical joke that God plays on himself."

( _The Book of Humor_ )

"Have you ever considered incarnating yourself?" asked Lightbearer one day.

"Well, of course I have, otherwise you wouldn't be mentioning it," said the Fabulist; then he quickly added, "I'm sorry, it was rude of me to mention that. Why do you ask?"

"Well," said Lightbearer, "it might help you to understand your characters. See what they go through. Experiencing something directly is very different from just knowing about it. Or so I understand. Of course, it wouldn't be exactly the same for you as it is for them, but it might be interesting."

"There is something in what you say," replied the Fabulist. "Of course, they wouldn't have to know who I was."

"No, but that might be interesting, too," said Lightbearer.

"There are really lots of possibilities, now that I think about it," said the Fabulist, becoming thoughtful. "For that matter, why only me? Since you raise the issue, I bet that you are curious, too."

"As a matter of fact, I am," said Lightbearer.

**

The man and the woman found themselves lying on a bed in a small rectangular room, empty but for themselves. They looked at each other, and at themselves.

"Is there any particular reason," asked the woman, "why you chose to make yourself male and me female?"

"Just covering all the bases," said the man. "Wow! This is incredible! Just look at the detail!" He was looking at his own forearm. "Look at all these little hairs! And _every one is different!_ "

The woman looked at her own arm and was equally fascinated. In fact, they both stared at their forearms for about a forty hundredbreaths. Then the man began to move his arm.

"And look at all the ways I can _move_ my arm! There's no _end_ to them! And whenever I move it, it changes shape! Now it's beginning to feel a little unpleasant, though, I guess because I was holding it up for so long. But I don't care."

The woman looked at his arm, but was distracted by his face. The man noticed this and looked in response at _her_ face. "Wow!" he said.

They stared at each other's faces. "This is absolutely incredible!" said the man. "You were so right – how strange, but wonderful, to be a mortal! Now, _I_ might have said, 'They stared at each other's faces,' but how could I describe the details? Everything is _just so_. Words can only approximate it!"

"I could write a whole book," said the woman, "about one of your eyelashes, and I would fail to completely describe it!"

Again there was a long pause, as they continued to wonder at one another's faces. More and more, they were drawn to each other's eyes.

"Are you somehow _in_ there, _behind_ those eyes?" asked the woman.

"Well, that is only a metaphor, I suppose," replied the man.

"And yet it _feels_ that way," said the woman, "just as I feel that I am somehow _inside_ this body."

"It does feel rather that way," said the man. "And yet, in a way I do not feel myself at all; when I focus on anything that feels like _me_ , it turns out to be just some part of my body, or some passing thought or feeling. In either case, I could easily lose it, without ceasing to be _me_."

"It's rather frightening, in a way," said the woman, "I mean, I'm sure that I am not just this body, because I existed before; and yet it is just as you say: that is all I seem to be. I cannot find my true self anywhere!"

"The longer I look into your eyes," said the man, "the more I feel that we are _merging_ , somehow."

She looked away.

Another long pause.

"Wait!" said the Man. "I can hear my _thoughts_!"

"What? How can you hear a _thought_?"

"Well, it's not really _hearing_. But now, be silent for a moment, and then ask yourself what you were thinking of during that time."

The woman did so, and was startled. "I see what you mean! It's like a kind of echo!"

"Yes! Isn't that strange? While we are thinking them, our thoughts are completely invisible to us. If it weren't for this echo, we'd have no idea what was going on in our own minds!"

"In fact, since humans are capable of error, it may be that we are actually mistaken, sometimes!"

"We could be wrong about what we were thinking?"

"Or what we were experiencing!"

"What a frightening idea!"

Another long silence.

"I suppose we could even be wrong about who we _are_ ," said the woman. "I mean, _I_ could be the man, and _you_ could be the woman."

"Very funny!" said the man.

"Or," she continued, " _I_ could be the Fabulist, and _you_ could be Lightbearer!"

"Now, you're going too far!"

"No, really!" said the woman. "You know that mortals are sometimes wrong about who they are."

"Only when they are delusional."

"Yes, but they're always at least a little bit delusional. And when they are delusional, they don't _know_ that they are delusional. Maybe _we're_ delusional, right now!"

"Well, _I_ would know," said the man. "I know _everything!_ ".

"Are you sure?" said the woman. "Perhaps there have never been such beings as the Fabulist and Lightbearer; we are just a man and a woman who have somehow gotten locked into a shared delusion. Some magician could easily have done it to us, or maybe some drug," said the woman.

"Well, I could prove that I am the Fabulist," said the man. "I could perform some miracle."

"In delusions, people think they perform all kinds of miracles." replied the woman.

A short pause. "Now you've got me nervous," said the man. "I'm taking us out of here for a moment!"

Another pause. "Well," said the woman, "that's a good idea! Let's go!"

"Well, I _tried_ ," said the man, his brow furrowing.

"What do you mean, you _tried_?" said the woman, her voice rising. "You're _omnipotent_ , remember?"

"Well, I _thought_ I was," said the man. "Maybe you're right, maybe we _are_ deluded."

"I can't believe that!" replied the woman.

"I wonder," said the man, "what happens when an omnipotent being says, 'I hereby make myself into a being that is _not_ omnipotent!'?"

Yet another pause. "Maybe you have to make a gesture or something, since you're in a body!" suggested the woman.

The man made various gestures. Still, nothing happened. He was trembling a little.

"Oh _no_!" said the woman, in a tone combining anger with horror. "Are you telling me we're _trapped_ in these things? I don't _believe_ you made such a stupid mistake!"

"Let me _think_!" said the man, defensively. "There's just something we're missing here, that's all. Let's just be calm and figure it out."

"Be _calm_?" said the woman. "You want me to be _calm_? Then you shouldn't have put me in a _body_! I can't _control_ this thing! Look! It's _shaking_! And I can't make it stop!"

The man was trembling, too. He sat up on the bed and held his head in his hands. "Do they _all_ go through this?" he asked.
**********

"Never, never be a nation!"

(commandment to the Suimi,

traditionally ascribed to Isiliar)

The Temple of Ydris had always required its courtesans to make themselves useful in more ways than one. The young Kor sang in one of the girls' choirs, she made perfumed candles in intricate molds, she wove vestments for the acolytes, she worked in the gardens, and did many other things. During her pregnancy, she spent more time in these activities. When not engaged in Courtesanry, she wore the standard white uniform of the beginner, a simple, soft shift and a small, pointed cap from which a pleated veil hung down, over her shoulders and back. Her long, rich purple hair was gathered in back and fell inside the shift.

Kor loved the architecture of the Temple, not only its soaring vaults and spires, but also the numberless nooks and crannies that she was constantly discovering. No two rooms were ever the same size or shape. Nor were they apt to be on the same level; there were always a few steps to be taken up or down. Light came from windows, from candles, and from moonstones and sunstones of various sizes. The walls were never plain, but always decorated with filigree, writing, or bas-relief.

In fact, Kor was very happy with her life there, even before her pregnancy. She liked the quiet, the courtesy, and the seriousness of Temple life. Her mentors struck her as both wise and kind. She studied the religion of Ydris and found it surprising but pleasing. It gave her another perspective on things. Her various tasks led to many new interests. Once a week she met with her Confessor, for a serious discussion of her life. While the child grew in her womb, she grew within the womb of the Temple.

She got to know many of the other female beginners, and made many close friends. She also took a number of younger girls under her wing.

One day, in a courtyard devoted to physical exercise and outdoor leisure, a tall, muscular girl came over and introduced herself with a smile as "Tling." Tling had ochre eyes, a very wide nose, and olive skin with little flecks of blue. Her head was shaved, as was true of all the beginners except for courtesans. She was wearing a sports costume: linen trousers and halter, covered by a blouse and short skirt of very fine chain mail, and a metal helmet wrapped in thick cloth. "I noticed your tattoo," said Tling. "I too am a Suimi." She turned her head and bent so that Kor could see the tattoo on her left earlobe.

"A joy to meet you, Tling!" said Kor, rising. "I am called 'Kor.'"

"A joy to meet you, Kor." They exchanged the customary meeting gesture: raising their hands high and touching fingertips. Tling had to bend over a little.

Kor said, "You are a child of Isiliar, then."

"I am," said Tling. "Though of course I am also a devotee of Ydris. The fact is, that no one else around here seems to know more than three sentence's worth about Isiliar. You are the first Suimi have met in many years!"

"It is the same with me!" said Kor. They hugged warmly. Kor had the odor of candles, Tling of sweat.

"The Goddess has scattered us, but sometimes we meet," said Kor.

"I wonder what messages we are carrying," said Tling. She was referring to an ancient Suimi belief that whenever two Suimi meet, they exchange messages, without knowing what they were. Some said that the messages were part of Isiliar's thoughts.

"We will doubtless never know," said Kor, "but I'm sure they are good news to the world." It was a hackneyed reply among Suimi, but at the moment it expressed her mood quite well.

"I was running the obstacle course," said Tling. "Would you like to join me?"

"No thank you," said Kor. "That is much too difficult for me, and besides, I am pregnant."

"You are pregnant!" said Tling, with awe. "How wonderful!"

"I am very happy," said Kor, nodding and smiling.

"What is sex like?" said Tling. "I have never done it. I have never even seen a naked man."

"Well, you may find this bizarre," began Kor, "but a man has – "

Tling interrupted her. "I'm sorry, Kor," she said, a little sadly, "but I just remembered, that this _is_ my exercise time, and if I don't work out, I will regret it later on. Especially on a beautiful day like this! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have started a conversation. But let us talk in the evening!"

"I'd like that, Tling! Let us meet again!"

"Let's!" replied Tling, as she dashed off. Kor was not offended by her abruptness; she felt that it came from an excitable and high-spirited nature, not from hostility. Besides, Kor was happy, and required little of the world.
**********

Each of us is like a gambler's die. The gambler's hand is birth and the table is death; only when we are dead is our life defined. And yet, what will it profit you to snarl or to snivel at life? What will it profit you to hesitate, to waste the time given you? As you fly through the air, fly with ferocity!

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

As they were packing up kitchen utensils, Lessie had another question for Kor: "Are we going to take anyone else with us?"

"Talek is going to bring a number of people, including his neophytes and parishioners," Kor explained. "Tulith is coming. Is there someone else you have in mind?"

"Well," said Lessie, blushing a deep green, "... there is ... this _boy_ , that sort of I ... know ... I mean, from outside ... I mean, from outside he is!"

Kor gave a little laugh. "Well, some forces just can't be stopped! How did you manage to meet someone from the outside, Lessie?"

"Well, meeting it wasn't, exactly, Kor. Out the window I was looking, into the courtyard, when him I saw. And me he saw. Like two fireflies. I know, to close the blinds I am supposed, but, like a bad person he didn't look. Many times have you told us, 'A bad person doesn't always _look_ bad.' But many times also, 'Trust your intuitions,' you said. So scared I was a little, but watching I kept on.

"Me he saw and started, and afraid he was looking, but then the same way as I he must have felt, because at me for several breaths he just looked, surprised, and over to the window he slowly came. Talk we can't, but ... somehow like talking without words, it is. When he smiles or moves his hand, what he is thinking, I can sort of feel. The details not, but not important are details. About them how he _feels_ , that is it. And my feelings, too, he understands. And important they are to him, and his to me."

"Why, that is very beautiful, Lessie. How long has this been going on?"

"Ah, ... maybe a month."

"Every day?"

"At least ... I mean, goes and comes back again, in the same day, sometimes he does."

Kor looked surprised. "But Lessie, why didn't you mention it to me?"

Lessie looked uncomfortable. " _Aieh!_ Should have. But ... with people from the outside, to do nothing we are supposed. Not safe it is, you say! You I didn't want ... me to see him, to forbid! And ... embarrassed, I was. So silly it seemed, to just sit there, at someone looking and looking. And ... "

"I don't think it is silly at all, Lessie. Such things happen to all of us. There is nothing undignified in being natural. But you were going to say something else?"

"Well ... always you have taken care of me, Kor, and you I dearly love, but ... something of my very own I wanted."

"Ah ... well, you're getting to be a very big girl, Lessie. You do need more world of your own. It has never been good, the way all the children are so closed in here. But it is also true ... the world out there is not safe. I know, Dearie, I have said that a thousand times. But this is one of the reasons that I think it is good that we are moving."

"Kor ... about being in love, please tell me."

"Well ... I don't know if I'm the person to ask, Lessie. Love is very important to me, you know that ... Isiliar wants us to love everybody and everything, as much as we can, but _being in love_ is different from other kinds of love. It means being focused on one person, most the time. You want to make a pair, you want to be together always. At least, that is the way it is at first. But when it comes to _that_ kind of love, I am not very ... experienced. So when the kids ask me questions about it, I give them books to read."

"Yes. I read _Sora and Atara_ many times. To be like them, I wanted. Like that is it really, Kor?"

"Well, it is different for everyone, Lessie. Now, _Sora and Atara_ is what we call a Romantic novel. That means, that it exaggerates the intensity of life. Most people feel intensely from time to time, but a lot of life is day-to-day, finding food, washing the floor, taking a bath, making small talk, falling asleep, ... most people find it hard to feel intensely about those things. But being in love, that makes people feel intensely. And reading about it."

"Yes, and intensely about him I do feel, Kor! About him all the time I think, and to leave the window I hate, and there I keep going looking for him, even when, not likely to be there he is ... A good thing is it really, Kor? Sometimes my old life I want back. To be dreaming all the time, I do not want! Like a slave, I feel! Like an idiot, I feel! Not myself, I feel!"

"Well, sometimes people say that being in love makes you a kind of slave, or an idiot, or both! Or that it is like an addictive drug. Even the author of _Sora and Atara_ sees this side of it. Look at all the trouble the characters have, because of their love! Why couldn't Sora and Atara have each chosen someone from their own people? The ending is happy, but only after so much suffering! And think of some of the other lovers in the novel – Glisp and Telen, for example. They end up committing suicide. Or Kwo and Tzilgorinen; because of one weak moment of Kwo's, they are separated forever. Then there is Kiorinee, who is in love with Meneek, who doesn't love her back. Meneek is infatuated with Karatha, who is evil and stupid, but Meneek cannot see that, because of his infatuation. Kiorinee watches him go to his doom, and she can do nothing. Oh, that is just so sad! Or Kalaan, who is happy with her husband, who is a wonderful man who loves her. But then, without wanting to, she falls in love with Lilinda, and it tears her apart. In fact, a lot of Romantic novels have sad endings, even for the main characters."

Lessie nodded and said, "Yes, now Intipisk, one like that she read, and she cried and cried. But then, another one she wanted! Many has she read, and always, sad yet another time she wants to feel! _Ayi!_ And when with my window friend I am not, bad I feel, and myself I tell, 'To him don't go! It will hurt, not to go, and him it will hurt, too, not you to see. But after awhile, pass away it will, and again a sensible person you will become. The most precious thing, that is.' But always anyway I go. So stupid I feel!" She frowned in remembered frustration.

"Well, Lessie, we are made for suffering as well as happiness. You must see it as part of a larger pattern."

" _Ayi!_ But so stupid it seems! Away from the larger pattern it takes me, for I think only of him and" – here she paused for a moment and blushed – "and the two of us being together." Again she blushed. "Of those men you mentioned I thought, in love with a woman they can't have who fall, so that poetry they can write. 'How stupid!' at first I thought, but later, 'Well, at least _something_ , out of it they are getting!' So, to write poems I tried. But happened nothing."

"Well, Lessie, maybe you are not a poet. But aren't you getting _something_ out of it?"

"Well, beautiful indeed it feels, when each other we see. Beautiful it is, of him to think. But a beauty that yearns, it is; a beauty that satisfies, it is not. And real, it is not, sometimes I think. Like druggies we are – they _feel_ beautiful, on their insides, but from the outside, they have nothing, or worse than nothing."

"There is something in what you say, Lessie," replied Kor, "but it doesn't _have_ to be that way, People fall in love, and that gives them the strength and loyalty to have families. Families are real!"

" _Ayi!_ With a boy on the other side of the window, a family how can I have?"

"Well, Lessie, I don't know if he is really the right one for you, but if this has been going on for weeks, there must be _something_ there. A boy who comes every day, just to be with you, not even speaking ... there's something remarkable there, I think. Why don't we invite him to visit?"

A whole aviary of emotions flew over Lessie's face. Several times she started to speak and failed. Finally she said, "For asking that I thank you, Kor, but so scared I am! Besides, to leave we are going!"

Kor looked sad. "Yes, it might be best to leave well enough alone." She thought for awhile. Then she said, "You have to decide this for yourself, Lessie. It might be possible to take him with us, if he wants to go. Or, it might not – he may have a family of his own, who would have something to say about it. Or he might be a slave, or an indentured servant, or an apprentice, or dedicated to some church, or a ward of the city, or someone's pretty boy, or who knows what? And he might not _wish_ to go. Or, he might turn out to be the wrong person for you, maybe even a bad person. The only way to learn about these things is to visit with him. But if he visits, you may become even more attached to him, and then it will be even more painful to leave him, if you have to. It's a big risk."

"Stand it I could not, Kor!" Lessie sat down, bent her head to her knees, and joined her hands over her head. Kor leaned down and stroked Lessie's back, kissing her hair.

"Lessie, Darling, you will always have _us_. We will never desert you. I know it is not the same, not a substitute for the kind of feeling you have with him, but if it comes to that, we will be here to help you to heal. It is crazy to have to make a decision like this, and it will be crazy to make a decision when we have to leave. But you won't be alone. Remember when you had the Shuddering Fever? You almost died, you were in pain all the time, but we nursed you through it, and here you are!"

"That, never will I forget, Kor, especially now that I know that, caught it yourself, you could have! But to be a burden to you, I do not want! To so many, so often, so much, so deeply, you give! Working always, resting never. So many burdens you have already, another one to be I do not want!"

Kor smiled and replied: "You know how I think, Lessie! I am a seeker of burdens. This is what the Goddess has taught me: if you accept your burdens completely, they will be lighter than air. We are all burdens to each other, Lessie. The answer is not to go each our own way, to be alone; it is to love each other always, without reservation, and to accept the love of others."

For a long time they just sat there. _If only I could help her more_ , thought Kor, _but I know less than she, and besides, she must make her own decisions._ Lessie breathed heavily, and sobbed, and sniffled. Then she took a deep breath, and as she exhaled, she relaxed a little. She sat up and turned her tear-brightened face to Kor. "Then, him to visit I want!"
**********

"Spirituality is Information"

(B'Tword, Prophet of the Great Abacus)

The Chief of Police woke suddenly from a disturbing dream, the details of which she could not remember. She felt a little disoriented. Who were the two young men in her bed? Then she remembered: she had brought them home to punish them for some little misdemeanors they had been caught at.

Trying to remember the dream, she had instead a vivid memory of the visit of Talek and Kor, and their warning. Getting up and throwing on a robe, she locked herself in her study. Going over to a wall, she applied pressure at several points, and a secret panel opened, revealing a small cupboard. She removed a crystal ball from the cupboard and activated it with some rapid finger-tapping. A man's face appeared in the sphere. He was wearing a metal helmet with various insignia. He smiled his recognition.

"Good morning!" she said, in as quiet a voice as she could manage.

"Good morning!" said the man, imitating her quietness. Then he began to recite.

"Why are we given this imperfection? We can see the bad and think it is the good. We can see the good as good, and yet choose not to do it. Our fears and desires repaint the world. The complexity of the world is always beyond us; truth flees us; error invades us." He paused.

Without hesitation, she continued the scripture from memory: "And yet, we are expected to decide, to make a commitment, to take sides, to risk everything for a dream. Solve this riddle quickly, for life is passing you by!"

Sign and countersign. He nodded approval. "What can I do for you, Keline?"

"I have a report for the Lieutenant-Inquisitor. A couple of people came into my office yesterday. One of them I know well, and he is strange, but no kind of fool. The other I have been watching for some time – she is connected with certain prophecies. They had become convinced that the Angels of Rejuvenation were going to storm the neighborhood soon. They were trying to warn everyone."

The man's eyebrows went up in surprise and dismay. She continued:

"I refused to credit it. I told them the Angels were a myth. But I had them followed, and I know that they did not give up, at least not right away. The woman was systematically trying to inform people! I am afraid that some people you would really like to catch are going to escape."

"And your recommendation is?"

"Just the obvious: come sooner than planned. Come as soon as possible."

He nodded. "I'll pass that on."

She smiled again. "Thanks. Live intensely!"

"Live intensely!" His image disappeared. She replaced the crystal in the cupboard and closed the secret panel.

She sighed. She had worked out a deal with the Angels in return for such information, but she knew that, in the end, they would not think of her as any different from most of the inhabitants of her neighborhood. Her life as police chief, with all its various perks, would soon be coming to an end.

She then returned to the bedroom. Looking at her sleeping charges, their bodies (one hard and lean, one soft and round) draped artlessly over and under the sheets, she decided that they needed more punishment. Smiling, she removed her robe.

While Keline and her contact had been speaking through the crystal, they had not only uttered words; they had made gestures and facial expressions, and their voices had risen and fallen in volume and pitch, in ways that went beyond what was strictly required for their desired meanings. In very subtle ways, these changes made patterns above and beyond the patterns that the speakers intended. These subtler patterns settled into their minds and influenced their future behavior, without their knowing it. Like all interactions between things, those patterns carried information. Neither of the two speakers was aware of more than a small part of the information that was there.

But Vidigeon noticed most of it. He filed it away, as relevant to (among other things) his developing theories about the gods.
**********

"Slavery can be as sweet as it is subtle."

(Vrobichirkli folk saying)

Vidigeon watched as the boy, in the thin light of dawn, made his way to the courtyard of the orphanage. The boy was hoping to see Lessie at her window. Instead, he found her in the courtyard itself, sitting with an older woman in a red robe and a little man in a black robe that hid even his face. Instantly he ran, but when he had gone for awhile without perceiving any signs of pursuit, he ducked into a hiding place, and listened with great concentration. It was soon clear that no one was after him. Then, very slowly, very carefully, made his way back.

The three of them were still sitting in the courtyard. There was a fourth chair, empty. Lessie smiled at him and gestured invitingly at the empty chair. The red-robed woman also smiled. Her wrinkled face of robin's-egg blue looked very kind and gentle. The little man's face could not be seen, and there was a magician's staff lying within his reach, but his relaxed posture was reassuring. The boy looked around for signs of the sinister. There were none. He waved at the three, looking closely at their return waves to see whether he could detect insincerity. He detected some, but it was in the form of pretending to be less nervous than they really were, rather than masking deep hostility. Still, he thought he ought to run; his whole life had taught him to trust no one, and to do without everything except food, clothing, and shelter. But he felt drawn by destiny to Lessie. He had struggled and struggled against it, but he could not resist. Her warmth and beauty were like awakenings from a nightmare. The thought of being next to her, without a window in between, was overwhelming. To his astonishment, he found himself willing to put his life at risk in the hopes of being closer to her.

He came over, very slowly. He felt like a bolt in a crossbow being wound back; the farther he went, the more ready he was to explode into flight. The others remained in their pseudo-relaxed posture. He went to the extra chair and sat down. Lessie smiled and gestured at him, but she also made some of those _noises_ people make. He was disappointed; he had thought that she was mute, like himself.

Now, he feared, she would be disappointed in him, when she discovered his muteness. Or pity him, as people always did when they discovered his muteness – except for those that despised him. He felt a wave of despair hit him. Tears came. He looked at Lessie. She was perplexed, and upset at his distress, but she didn't seem disappointed. The wrinkled woman, gesturing at the boy, made a gentle noise to Lessie. Now Lessie seemed to understand his muteness, but there was no pity in her gaze; rather there was wonder and admiration. She gestured at the wrinkled woman, who smiled, but neither of them made noise. The boy felt a change in the reason for his tears.

Now Lessie, with another gesture, directed his attention to the little man in the black robe. He, too, responded with a gesture. It lacked warmth, but it seemed well-intended. The boy sensed that the little man was suspicious of him, out of concern for Lessie and for the wrinkled woman. The man couldn't see the boy's feelings for Lessie, and that wouldn't have been enough, anyway, to satisfy him completely. The boy felt from the woman and the man the same feeling that he had felt sometimes from Lessie herself: that the kind of feelings that he and Lessie had for each other were beautiful, but also somehow dangerous. He found it strange and sad that something so beautiful and soft could be dangerous, but he forced himself not to discount his fear. Indeed, the present situation had its fearful side: what if the little black-robed man and the wrinkled woman never did approve of him? They did not feel as though they would attack him, but would they keep Lessie from him? He looked back at Lessie. He could feel that she had a lot of faith in the judgment of the red-robed woman. And Lessie herself was worried about what might happen, if he and she continued to see each other. The boy felt a second wave of despair hitting him, spinning his heart like a top. He felt closer to Lessie than to his own guts. How could he lose her? But then he looked deeply into her eyes, and saw something else: Lessie had a desperate desire to stay with him. The wave of despair receded; he came up and took a breath of air. His eyes locked with Lessie's and he felt the bond between them. It was strong, like a steel bar. He flinched internally at that image, but suddenly, he felt something warm and safe radiating from Lessie; it was like sitting in front of a fire on a cold night, but more intense. Nothing had ever made him feel that way before; it took his breath away. His fear only seemed to intensify the beautiful aura that exalted them together. He felt relief, and even pleasure, at defying it, defying the fear that had kept him living in tension for as long as he could remember. Yes, he was linked to her; it would be hard to separate them. But he _wanted_ that, he was _grateful_ for it! Again he felt a wave of emotion overwhelm him, but this time it was a wave of happiness.
**********

"It is foolish to think that your sex is part of your identity."

( _Identity Management_ [authorship disputed])

After his interview with Merelith, Pappi came out to his palanquin in order to go to the bank. His palanquin was borne by twelve beautiful young women. In his own neighborhood, they would have been naked, but, not wishing to cause a stir in the more respectable neighborhood that surrounded the Institute, he had had them dress modestly and elegantly for the occasion. They still attracted a great deal of attention, which he would have enjoyed if he had not been so preoccupied. He climbed in, gave directions, and was borne along the avenue, surrounded by his formidable-looking security guards. They were led by Arguit; Pappi had decided to leave Tarth Sakul at the compound to assure the safety of the ruby sculptures.

They soon arrived at the _Bank of Streling_. As Pappi descended from the palanquin, he felt a wave of confusion pass through his company, but he could see no reason for it. One of the porters caught his eye. He suddenly lost all sensation; then he felt himself being sucked into a tunnel, stretched out, and caught by millions of little hooks. Then he could see again. There he was, in front of the bank, but something was different – very different. He was in a different place. His body felt different. He looked down at himself, and saw ... the modest, elegant, and well-filled uniform of one of his porters. He looked up and saw, twenty feet away, a familiar-looking man – himself! – make a curious gesture. The sweep of the gesture took in the whole company.

Something about the gesture made Pappi suddenly feel that everything was very normal, very pleasant. It was quite natural that he should be in the body of a lovely young woman. He enjoyed the glances of appreciation from the men passing by. He found some of them rather attractive. It was quite natural that the man who looked as Pappi had used to look was going into the bank. The others in the company also seemed quite serene. It was, after all, a lovely day: not too warm or sunny, and with a delicious prospect of rain.

Pappi noticed a bystander who seemed to share their mood. He was standing near that door of the bank, smiling serenely. He had a thick red beard and wore a floppy hat that obscured much of his face. After awhile, the first man, the one who looked as Pappi used to look, came back out of the bank. He was bearing a small package. He handed the package to the bystander and made an unfamiliar gesture in his direction. For a moment the two of them just stood there, doing nothing. Then the bystander made a gesture, and the man who looked as Pappi used to look took on the same serene, vacant expression as the others, while the bystander's posture suddenly expressed alertness. After a quick glance at Pappi's entire party, the bystander strode quickly down the sidewalk and disappeared around a corner.

The company stood there for some time, enjoying the day. A number of young men began chatting with the porters. A very handsome fellow came up to Pappi and introduced himself as "Tironogo."

'In one hundred and eleven standard breaths, give or take six,' thought Vidigeon, who was watching, 'Tironogo is going to say, "I think I'm falling in love with you."' It was a game the Seer liked to play with himself, challenging himself to predict human beings. At times they were extraordinarily difficult to predict, but in this case, Vidigeon recognized a familiar pattern.

As Vidigeon was thinking this, Tironogo said that he worked for _Providential Mercy_ , an insurance company down the street, but that he was taking the rest of the day off. "What's your name, lass?" he asked. "Well, I don't know," said Pappi. "We all wear the same dress. It's a uniform." Tironogo looked nonplussed for a moment and then laughed. "Quite a sense of humor you have, lass!" he said. Pappi realized that he had not explained himself clearly, and that Tironogo had failed to understand, but it didn't matter. Everything was fine. Tironogo continued, in a serious tone: "You are all wearing the same uniform, but you are not all alike. All these porters are beautiful, but you are the most beautiful of all. I could see that right away." He came a little closer. Pappi blushed. He felt a pleasant warmth percolating through him. "But it's not just physical," said Tironogo. "You look beautiful because you have a beautiful soul. I can tell. But you know, it's just not right that someone with a soul like yours should be working as a porter."

_That's right_ , thought Pappi bemusedly, _I'm not a porter. I'm a Crime Lord_. But he felt that it would only cause confusion to say it.

"A beautiful girl like you," said Tironogo, "should be an actress!"

_I do often deceive people, and manipulate their emotions_ , thought Pappi. Out loud, he said, "Thank you," for he felt that he had been paid a compliment.

"Did you ever work in insurance?" asked Tironogo.

"No," said Pappi. Actually, he thought that perhaps protection rackets were sort of like insurance, not to mention gambling, but he didn't want to get into an involved discussion.

"I have connections, you know," said Tironogo. "I could get you a job in insurance. A lot less strenuous than carrying a palanquin. But really, you should be an actress; the insurance job would just be a temporary thing."

Again, Pappi did not know what to say. He didn't really want such a job, did he? But he didn't want to be negative. "Thank you," he said, "that's very sweet."

"Or, I might even support you myself for awhile," said Tironogo, edging a bit closer, "so that you can devote yourself full time to building your acting career. I can get an apartment for you."

"Thank you."

"You know," said Tironogo, coming closer still, "I think I really like you. It's not just that you are so beautiful, although that is what first made me notice you. Now I have more of a sense of you as a person. You are really quite remarkable. I think I'm falling in love with you." He moved closer again. Their eyes locked. Pappi felt the hot proximity of Tironogo's firm, masculine body, and smelled his musky perfume. He wondered what it would feel like if Tironogo were to touch him. He felt an increase in the inner warmth; it was stronger in some places than others, but delicious everywhere. He didn't want it to go away. Would Tironogo touch him? He hoped so. His skin felt tingly and expectant all over.
**********

"Knock, and the door will be opened,

but it's up to you to come in."

(From the popular song, "Other People")

It was a kind of a dance – on the one hand the anxious concern and talk between Kor and Talek, and, on the other hand, the simple and gradual approach to one another of Lessie and the boy. The music for the dance was supplied by the hopes and fears of the participants.

At first, Lessie and the boy were paying more attention to the adults than to each other, because they were worried about what the adults might think. But as time went by – agonizingly slowly at first – and the adults made no hostile or puzzling moves, the boy and Lessie began to steal more glances at each other. Eventually, two of these glances met and locked. It broke after a moment, but it had established a new baseline. After that, their glances met more and more often, and remained locked for longer and longer times.

At first, the adults spoke little, out of a concern that they might be incomprehensible to the boy and that this would make him nervous. Instead, they concentrated on the incompatible goals of miming well-meaning feelings toward him, observing him as a possible danger, and not paying much attention to him (lest it make him self-conscious). As the children began to pay less attention to them, the adults too were able to relax a bit. They no longer felt that it would be rude to speak to each other; on the contrary, it would be a wonderful demonstration of how safe and trusting they were. But they felt it would be rude to speak of Lessie and the boy in the third person, while they were present, and so they found themselves in a bit of a bind, for that was what they were thinking about.

Meanwhile, Lessie and the boy turned away from the realm of the verbal. Lessie moved her chair right up next to his; at first this appeared to frighten him, but gradually he relaxed. They continued to look at each other's eyes in silence. Even within her own mind, Lessie felt speech fading away. She ceased talking to herself, she ceased to rehearse in her mind things she might say to someone. A spicy excitement began to drift through her; her heart began to dance.

She wanted to link to him, somehow, and she found her attention focusing on the boy's left eye, while he focused on hers. As she concentrated on it, his eye spread out into a vast landscape. She noticed tiny details of articulation and motion, including the expanding and contracting of his irises, the pulsing of the veins in the white of his eye, and the tremor in his lashes between blinks. The blinks themselves, and his saccadic jumps, were catastrophes, earthquakes. He in his entirety, she dimly sensed, must be even more vast. _For granted we take one another_ , she thought, _and yet awesome we are_. _Away we usually look, because afraid we are._

But that was the least of it; it was not just a _physiological_ eye, it was _his_ eye, intimately connected with his soul. Somehow his eye was a window to his heart and mind. How could one feel so _close_ to someone? The physical aspects of his eye began to feel like an illusion. At most, they were signs, suggestions, reminders of what was hidden by the visible. As she lost interest in his physical eye, it seemed to fade away, like morning mist. She saw _past_ his eye, almost _in spite_ of it, rather as one sees thought through language, or consciousness through motions. Within him, she saw ... something for which she wouldn't have had words. If she had had to put it into words, she would have said that it was like a bright star, shining in the dark.

As she contemplated his eye, he likewise contemplated hers, with a similar sense of awe.

Vidigeon, who was watching all this, felt a little frustrated. It was often difficult for him to guess at what was going on in people's minds, but the fact that the boy was mute, and that Lessie was unlikely to speak in his presence, made this case even more difficult. He could see from her expression, pulse and breath rates, iris dilation, muscle tension, skin dampness, and other clues that the experience she was having was a very intense, somewhat anxious, generally pleasant, and fairly unusual one, but that only made it harder to understand. Something she saw in the boy's eye ... Vidigeon brought several of his airborne sensors close to the boy's eye, and magnified the image until it had the detail that most people see in an entire panorama, but he saw nothing surprising; he already knew the physiology of the human eye in great detail, and the boy's was not abnormal in any way.

At that moment, Kor laid her hand on Lessie's shoulder to get her attention; Lessie and the boy were startled to their feet. The boy backed away a few paces and then turned as if to run; but then he stood there, taut as a bowstring, leaning forward with knees bent and hands somewhat raised, like a racer waiting for the starting signal. His head was turned back towards Lessie, and his gaze went this way and that like a nervous bird's.

Kor apologized very gently and backed away, taking her seat again. then she said, "I'm sorry, Lessie Dear, that was clumsy of me; I shouldn't have approached you when you were so focused on each other. It is very important to us, though, to get to know your friend better. I know the two of you would just as soon ignore us, and I hope that that you will be able to do that soon, but in the meantime, do you think you can sort of steer him in our direction a bit?"

"Ah, ..." said Lessie, somewhat at a loss. She felt violated and angry, as though she had been woken, for some trivial reason, from a beautiful dream. Her own voice sounded terribly loud and crude to her. How strange it was to listen and to speak! She cleared her throat. "Ayeh!" she said, hoarsely. "Inside, could we invite him?"

"That's a good idea, Lessie," said Kor. "Why don't Talek and I go in first – that way he won't feel trapped by us behind him. Then you start in, and beckon to him from the doorway, if need be. Perhaps you and he could stay in the anteroom for a while, with both doors open. Then he will know that he is free to leave, but he will also see the other kids, and see that they are not being abused. Seeing the other kids was very important to Ydnas, I think."

During this conversation, the boy looked occasionally at Kor, but his gaze lit mostly on Lessie, apparently using her mood as a kind of barometer. He seemed a little nervous, but open to possibilities.

When the others carried out Kor's plan, with Lessie beckoning him to join them, the boy found himself in conflict. Long habit still told him not to trust, but he had a feeling that now, he could. Certainly, he would like nothing better than to be together with her in her own world, which was strange and mysterious, but apparently very safe and happy, compared to his own. He stepped forward to follow her, and then took fright and stepped back, and then again, after looking carefully all around, he went forward, peering intently through the door, and then leapt back again, and again stepped forward and again back, like a bubble in an eddy. Feeling foolish, he stopped to let his mind settle itself. Suddenly he had an inspiration, wordless but crystal clear. In words, it might have been: _it is better to die from love and trust than to live without them_. Taking a deep breath, he broke through his fears and habits and entered the hidden world of the orphanage.
**********

"People generally know _whom_ they love, but not _what_."

(Saint Ispree the Analyst)

The youth lay on the bed, moving not at all. His eyes were open, but vacant.

The maiden stood, straight as an arrow, by the foot of the bed. Tears ran down her mahogany face; she made no attempt to wipe them away. She was the girl whom Kor and Talek had seen rescue a comatose young man, and the youth on the bed was that very same young man.

"Akelian," she said, "I don't know whether you can hear me, or whether you can understand me. I will say this just in case.

"You are my older brother. I looked up to you, I loved you, I worshipped you. And you deserved it – until last Osmuntide, when you disappeared. I can't imagine what has happened to you, that you should have come to this.

"Teladorion says that I do not love you as a sister should; he says that if I loved you properly, I would kill you now. Perhaps he is right, but I am going to take a chance that you can recover and be your old self again. The doctors and wizards I have consulted are not optimistic, but I will try. If you can hear me, Akelian, please try to be as you once were.

"I am sorry if I am only prolonging your dishonor, and I make this promise to you, on my honor and on my sword." She drew her sword, and held it resting on her two palms; it caught the light from the window and glowed a dazzling white. She knelt down and bowed her head.

"On my honor, and on my sword, I swear that, if Akelian has not improved by the next Osmuntide, I will kill him. So have I sworn." She was silent for awhile, and then she stood, returning her sword to its sheath.

"Of the family," she continued, "only Teladorion knows of this. I have procured new servants to take care of you. They are all sworn to secrecy. Mother and Father will not learn of your condition. I will visit you whenever I can. Fare..." -- her voice caught for a moment -- "Farewell, Beloved Brother."

She turned and strode quickly from the room.
**********

"I dreamed that I was having a dream, and then I dreamed

that I had only dreamed of having it."

(pseudo-Tyrosius of Sthek)

When Vidigeon had awakened, after dreaming of the Girl, he had immediately informed his systems engineer, Geristor, in case it was a symptom of some problem. "That's quite remarkable," said Geristor. "We didn't expect you to dream. I'm glad you told me about it. I don't think there's any harm in it, though. In fact, for human individuals, dreaming appears to perform a positive function, and it may do the same for you. If you have no other symptoms, then, I'm inclined to not mess with it. You don't have any trouble now, distinguishing what was a dream and what was not, do you?"

"Not unless I am completely fooled," said Vidigeon.

"Well, let's leave it alone, then," said Geristor, "except that I will run a full diagnostic on you, just in case someone was trying to put in a virus, or sabotage you in some other way."

As always, Vidigeon slept during his diagnostic. When he awoke, he had no memory of the dream itself, although he knew that he had had the dream, and what was in it; it was almost as though it had been someone else's dream. Geristor told him that everything appeared to be fine. "I couldn't tell for sure whether the dream originated entirely from inside you or not; you are just too complicated! But I saw no evidence that it came from outside, and we designed you to be almost impossible to hack. As you have noticed, I took the memory of the experience out; I did that just to be safe, since if it _was_ planted in you, it might contain a virus or something; but I left a full description of it in, so that you will always know what happened. The description is just passive data; it can't function as a virus.

"For all I know, you may well have another dream sometime. If that happens, don't worry about it. Remember, it is quite normal for the content of a dream to be wildly false, even incoherent, although it doesn't usually seem so at the time. That's nothing to worry about, as long as you can sort things out when you wake up. But if you ever become unsure about what is a dream and what is not, even after giving it a certain amount of thought, or if you ever get the feeling that a dream might be a valid source of information, let me know. In fact, let me know if you have another dream, no matter how harmless it seems, and I will give you another checkup, just to be sure."

"I understand," said Vidigeon, "and I will do so. Thank you, Geristor."

"You're welcome, Vidigeon," said Geristor with a smile. "Let me know if you have any other problems."

"I will," said Vidigeon. He would have smiled in return, but he had no mouth.

For a picobreath, Vidigeon wondered about dreams. He knew that many religious people believed that some or even all dreams were deeply significant, revelations either from inside or from outside (there being, of course, a number of religions that refused to make such a distinction). Some thought of dreams as messages from gods, and some thought of them as lesser gods or spirits in themselves. Geristor had been open to the possibility that the dream was sent from without, possibly with harmful intent; and it did seem to have a mind of its own, for it had been able to engage Vidigeon in a dialogue, which, while quite strange, was nevertheless fairly coherent.

Vidigeon cut this line of thought short, for it was not required by his current duties. He resumed his search for the Girl of the Prophecies. He caught up on the lives of his 1,024 best candidates, added and removed a few, and decided that the best of them all was still the girl, "Ydnas," currently living in an orphanage run by a woman named "Kor." In fact, this candidate was almost certain to be the Girl. He reported this to the Lord of Evil, and began to search for defenses around her. There appeared to be none of any consequence, but Vidigeon knew from experience that the Girl's allies were masters of camouflage and misdirection.

Several people in the orphanage were not, Vidigeon suspected, what they seemed to be. He had noticed an inexplicable tendency for the strands that adhered to Intipisk's hairbrush to spell out words in various ancient scripts, a fact which was apparently never noticed by Intipisk herself. He also found an extremely surprising and intricate correlation between the length of Tak's fingernails, on a given day, and the number of trading ships docking in the Kron delta, on that same day; and numerous other coincidences that seemed to require paranormal explanation. Kor appeared to have numerous silent dialogues with a goddess who was simply not there, as far as Vidigeon could tell; such behavior was quite common in Kondrastibar, but in this case it might have a significance deeper than the usual. Especially suspicious was Ydnas' pet Chameleon, which had appeared one day in the atrium, a fact that Vidigeon, who scanned all of Kondrastibar many times a day, had never been able to account for. She had named him "Uncle K'Tor," the same as her imaginary playmate, and Vidigeon knew that "K'Tor" was the name of an all-inclusive god in a certain ancient religious tradition. And of course there was Talek, who always seemed to be hiding something; he often spoke with academic precision, and yet he rarely seemed to mean what he said.

Vidigeon was beginning to think that gods were involved with Ydnas, for the level of magic he had encountered in dealing with her was often well beyond what human magicians, as far as Vidigeon knew, were able to do. That was a problem, for Vidigeon was only beginning to understand the gods, who were usually quite imperceptible to him. He knew that they were widely believed to inhabit the summit of the mountain Archonect, but he had, as yet, been unable to explore that distant and forbidding place. He even thought it possible that Ydnas herself was a god, disguised as a mortal. Though she might be a mortal, disguised as a god.

Vidigeon had known for a year that the Angels of Rejuvenation were going to swarm Kor's neighborhood, even though the Angels themselves had only been planning this for about four weeks. He had, more recently, been able to narrow their time of arrival down to an interval of about a halfday. During this time, or before it, the inhabitants of the orphanage would have to move. Indeed, they were already beginning to pack up. Vidigeon saw, however, that their estimate of the Angels' arrival was inaccurate; they were planning to be gone before the Angels invaded, but in fact they would still be there at the time of the invasion. This meant that their retreat would be hastily improvised, perhaps even doomed, and that they would probably be uniquely vulnerable during that time. Vidigeon therefore recommended that as the best time for the forces of the Lord of Evil to attack.
**********

"Your imperfections make you perfect."

(Lightbearer)

"It was nice of you to come pose for me, even though you must be horribly busy packing up for the move," said Tulith.

"Actually," said Kor, who was posed reclining on a sofa, "it's not really a conflict. If I didn't take a break from time to time, I'd go crazy and be no use to anyone at all. But I should think that you'd be tired of me by now – don't you want to try a new model?"

"Not really," said Tulith, mixing some paint. "Occasionally some young woman volunteers to model for me, and I have done a couple of them. But let's face it, a young woman's body just isn't as beautiful as an older woman's. Now, _your_ body shows its _history_ – it has all those fantastic wrinkles, and stretch marks, and scars ... it has _character_. Young women's bodies are all alike – they are blank pages. That includes their faces – very bland. If I were a portrait artist, I would still want you as a model; your face shows such character! And what a challenge, to capture all those lines and wrinkles! If a young woman's face is not tattooed or scarified, what is there to paint? Just the overall shape. That's why so many young women draw wrinkles on their faces, thinking it will make them more beautiful. Unfortunately, it only makes them look silly and vain."

"But I think _you're_ beautiful," said Kor, "even though you are young."

"No fair!" said Tulith, blushing a deep yellow. "How can I answer that? Without appearing vain?"

"Well, Dearie," said Kor, "there is nothing terribly wrong with _appearing_ to be vain, it's _being_ vain that is bad. And, if you are _not_ vain, I think the chances that you will _appear_ to be vain are not so great as you seem to think. Just say what you think is the truth about the matter, straightforwardly, and don't worry about how you will appear. People will sense your truthfulness, and they won't find you vain."

"Oh, you're so _wise_ , Kor," said Tulith, frowning a playful frown. "You never let me get away with _anything_." Kor smiled but said nothing. "Very well then," said Tulith, with an equally playful sigh of resignation, "I think you find me beautiful because you love me. It isn't my body by itself that you find beautiful. It is beautiful because it is a manifestation of me, whom you love."

"There, now," said Kor, "what is so vain about supposing that somebody loves you, or that they find you beautiful on that account? That can happen to anyone, you know."

Tulith blushed again, but not so deeply.

"But you may be right about why I find you beautiful," said Kor. "I would have to make a great effort just to see your face or body as a _shape_ , a skin-bag filled with flesh and bones, and nothing more. Normally, I hardly notice that aspect of it. Don't sculptors have to train for a long time to be able to see the body as a mere shape, so as to be able to capture a likeness?"

"Yes, they do," said Tulith, "and artists, too, if they are going to paint likenesses. But you wouldn't want to get _stuck_ there."

"I should think not!" said Kor. "What difference does it make to me what length your nose is? If it suddenly grew a fingernail's length, would I feel differently about you? Of course not!"

"It would be strange indeed," said Tulith, giggling, "if someone loved someone because of their _nose length_!"

"I have seen many strange things in my life," said Kor, "but never anything like that! But now, as to youth ... " her voice trailed off, and she frowned.

"What?" said Tulith.

"Well," said Kor, "you remember I told you about the time Talek and I went out, trying to warn people about the Angels, and we saw this aristocratic girl? She was young, barely a woman, but Talek seemed quite taken with her." Kor frowned.

Tulith looked puzzled, then surprised. "Why Kor," she said, "you're not _jealous_ , are you?"

It was Kor's turn to look surprised, but she considered it for a few breaths. "Well," she said, "I hadn't thought of it that way ... I mean, my feelings for Talek ... I owe him a great deal ... but ..."

"I'm not suggesting that you're _in love_ with him, Kor," said Tulith, "but you have known him for a long time, and he has been very devoted to you. You must love him in _some_ way."

"Well, I try to love everyone, Tulith. That is what Isiliar wants."

"Yes, but Talek is not just _anyone_ to you, Kor. You must love him in some _special_ way. Whether you want to or not. And he must love you."

"But you know, Dearie," mused Kor, "he is always so _formal_. He's not a _warm_ person. He keeps everyone at a distance. I don't know if it's some religious vow of his, or if it's something about his personality. Of course, people choose the religion that suits their personalities..."

"I think he's very shy, Kor. But he must love you, too, after all this time. How can he not?"

"He did say that he would miss me very much, if the move separated us. And that he hoped it would not. But he said it in such a formal way, as if it were _courtesy_." Kor tilted her head thoughtfully, and drummed her fingers on the sofa. "Oh no! I've broken the pose!"

"Actually," said Tulith, wiping her hands with a rag, "let's take a little break."

"Yes, let's," said Kor, sitting up. She rubbed her skin gingerly, where the texture of the sofa had been embossed upon it. "Talek often says that he admires me. But he's formal about that, too; it's as if, he's just noticing, intellectually, that I live up to some abstract principles. Almost as if I were his _student!_ "

"Well ... maybe I'm wrong," said Tulith, nodding in recognition of what Kor had just said. "Maybe he doesn't love you."

"Well, I don't know," said Kor, "maybe you're right – maybe he is shy, and doesn't want to express his feelings right out. Or maybe his religion says he shouldn't."

"He always struck me as an _honest_ person," said Tulith, beginning to clean one of her brushes.

"I don't think he's altogether opposed to lying," said Kor, a little sternly. "In fact, I think he believes that lying and intrigue can sometimes do good in the world. I think that he wouldn't lie _selfishly_ , though. I also think there are a lot of things he just doesn't tell me. I've accepted that, because I think he is basically well-disposed towards me and the kids." She smiled. "For example, I think we have struck a kind of bargain, without actually saying so, not to talk much about religion. I think it's because he thinks we have deep disagreements, and he doesn't want to get into an argument, or say anything that might hurt me. He knows that my religion is very important to me."

"Men always think we're so _fragile_ ," said Tulith with a wry smile.

"Yes," said Kor, a little grumpily. "It's sort of sweet, though."

"They can't help it, poor things," said Tulith. They both chuckled, and then smiled, sheepishly and conspiratorially at once.

"You'd better stretch and walk around a bit," said Tulith, "or you will regret it later when you try to hold a pose again."

"You're right," said Kor. She stood and bent backwards, her knees bent, her arms spread out, her head nearly upside down. The muscles in her thighs and belly trembled with the effort.

"That's pretty good for your age," said Tulith. "I don't know whether I could bend that far back."

"Of ... course ... you ... can," said Kor. Then she straightened up, very slowly, and bent forward. "The fact is, though, I do stretches every day. At my age," she added ruefully, "you have to work hard, just to keep from getting stiffer than you already are." She bent forward from the waist, hands clasped behind her legs. "I used ... to be ... able ... to touch ...my forehead ... to ... my knees!"

Tulith cleaned her brushes while Kor went through a number of stretches. "I don't suppose you can hold any of those positions long enough for me to _paint_ you," said Tulith, a little impishly.

"Not ... really," said Kor, standing normally to rest for a moment. "Now there is where a younger model would have an advantage."

"I suppose," said Tulith, "but showing you _not being able_ to touch your head to your knees would make a more moving statement."

"You're not feeling _sorry_ for me, are you?" said Kor, settling into a nearly prone position, but with one leg bent, so that its knee was up near her shoulder. The other leg stretched out behind her.

"Well, it is sort of sad," said Tulith. "I mean, you have been such a good person, spiritually you have grown so much, and what is your reward? Your body degenerates!"

"Well, it ... sort ... of ... balances off," said Kor. "In fact ... I ... value the spiritual ... more." Kor reversed the positions of her legs.

"I know you do," said Tulith, fondly, "and I know that you don't approve of complaining. I guess I just didn't think it through."

"It's ... OK," said Kor. She sat up, with her left knee raised and her right leg straight, twisting her torso as far as it would go to the left. "I ... suppose it ... would ... be nice to have ... both, but ... when I ... had ... a young ... body, what ... did I do ... with it?"

"You were a Temple Prostitute," said Tulith, "and I don't want to hear you giving yourself a hard time about that. You were a Courtesan of Sacrifice, motivated by the same generosity and religious devotion that motivates you today."

Kor twisted her torso the other way. "I ... sometimes ... wonder about ... my communicants," she said. "Did .. it ... really mean ... anything to them?"

"Of course it did."

"Well, of course ... it did, but ... what, exactly? ... And, how do ... they look ... back on ... it ... now? I ... don't really ... need to ... know, but I'm ... curious."

"I don't suppose you've ever run into one of them."

"No ... I... haven't."

"I guess it would be hard to find one now. The neighborhood of the Temple was overrun by Angels, you said."

"Yes."

"You could go to some other temple of Ydris, and ask them, in a general sort of way, whether their Courtesans have any kind of ... long-term, significant effect."

"I shouldn't ... really ... I swore ... not to be ... personally attached ..."

"You've been released from your oath, you said."

Starting supine, Kor arched her back upwards, bringing her legs backwards until she could grab her ankles.

As Vidigeon watched, he wondered, as he occasionally did, what it would be like to feel sexual desire. He ran through 33,874 highly-regarded erotic poems in his mind, and found many of them to contain fairly accurate (given poetic license) descriptions of Kor's body surfaces, but he did not share the poets' reactions. He had occasionally thought of asking Geristor to give him a Coefficient of Lust, similar to his Coefficient of Wonder, but he believed that the Lord would not approve, and besides, his observations of humans had convinced him that sexual desire is a terrible burden.

"Yes ...," continued Kor, "but I ... shouldn't ... have. I ... was angry."

Tulith shrugged. "Well, maybe it's not important. It wouldn't change anything."

"I should ... have more ... faith. Both Goddesses ... approved ... of my vow."

"Then so should you! You often say, that we cannot always know what is right, but Isiliar does."

Releasing her ankles, Kor rolled over and stretched out, until she was lying comfortably on her back. She closed her eyes and relaxed. Her breathing slowed. Tulith gazed at her tenderly.

After a few breaths, Kor opened her eyes again. "Maybe I _was_ a little jealous," she said.

Tulith was confused for a moment. "Oh ... about Talek?"

"Yes! He didn't even know her! She hadn't really done anything yet. And a few breaths later, he's saying that maybe not everything is irony, as if it had been a _religious experience_ or something, to see her kill two thugs, sling that youth over a pony, and ride off singing."

" _Men!_ " said Tulith playfully. "So impressed by appearances!" Kor did not respond. Her eyelids drifted shut again.

"Well, what about you," asked Tulith, serious again. "Did she seem beautiful to you?"

"Well, yes ... she was," said Kor, her speech now slurred by relaxation, "even killing those men ... violence is not my way, but ... it was extraordinary ... her speed and grace ... and somehow, Talek knew ... in advance, that she ... would be able to."

"I think, Kor, that when you look at me, you see right through my physical surface to the real me. Did you see _her_ that way, at all?"

Kor's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "No," she said, "not at all. Which ... is strange. Maybe ... it's because ... I was jealous. But ... I got ... curious about ... her, later ... because ..." Her voice trailed off. A moment later, her lips fell open, and she began to snore. A little saliva dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. Tulith put her brushes aside, and got a blanket to lay over Kor. Then she sat beside her, gazing down at her sleeping, wrinkled face with infinite love and devotion.
**********

"Yearning, fear, and anger make you stupid."

(from _Proverbs of Purgatory_ , by Brillian Wake)

Pappi, who had been bewitched into a euphoric and thoughtless mood, and somehow switched into the body of one of his beautiful female porters, stood next to the handsome young man, Tironogo, wondering what it would be like to be touched by him. The thought made Pappi's whole body rearrange itself somehow, in a very pleasant way. He made eye contact with Tironogo and would not let go. He gave him a little smile. Into Tironogo's eyes came a little question; Pappi answered "yes" by raising his chin just a little, closing his eyes just a little, and opening his mouth just a little. Tironogo reached up and placed his hands, very gently and tenderly, on either side of Pappi's head, just below the ears. Pappi gave a sudden start and a little gasp, for an electric jolt had just gone through his entire body. A delicious jolt, with an aftertingle that faded very slowly. Tironogo closed his own eyes and bent forward to place his lips upon Pappi's.

At that moment, Pappi suddenly lost all sensation; then he felt himself being sucked into a tunnel, stretched out, and caught by millions of little hooks. Once again, his body felt different, and he looked down to see just what he would normally have expected to see: the very expensive outfit he normally wore on visits to banks. From the cuffs, his own familiar blue-green hands emerged. The euphoric fog began to dissipate from his mind. _Steaming lizard guts_ , he thought, suddenly more alert, _I've been in the body of one of my porters for all this time_! _What's going on?_ Everyone else seemed to be in a similar state, frowning in perplexity, and shaking their heads as if to clear them. Then the security people began to look shocked, and then guilty and frightened. Pappi looked around and found Arguit. " _Arguit!_ " he barked. " _Report!_ "

Arguit gave a start, winced, nodded, collected himself, and looked this way and that. He rode over to Pappi, scanning the scene as he moved. "Boss, Sir," he said, trying unsuccessfully not to cringe, "I think we have been taken by a multiple mind-exchange. Koof, I imagine. He exchanged with one of the porters first, probably, and then went zig-zagging from one of us to the other, so that each one of us ended up in the body that Koof had just been in, before. Koof ended up in your body, then cast a euphoric spell on the whole bunch of us, so that we wouldn't be upset by the strangeness. Then Koof went into the bank, then came out, exchanged with his original body, and took off in it. After awhile, the mind-exchange spell wore off, and all the rest of us also went back to our original bodies. The euphoria spell dissipated at the same time."

Pappi wrestled down a huge fireball of rage. "What went wrong with our security?" he asked.

"Well, Boss," said Arguit, blanching and shaking with fear, "I think he went back and forth between the porters and the security people, so that the security people were all in porters' bodies, and mirrorwise. Lots of alarms went off, but the porters didn't have any idea what they were or what to do about them. The security people were in porters' bodies, so they didn't receive the alarms. Anyway, we were all too sweetened out to get worked up about anything. It looks as though he turned off a few alarms and defenses, too, when he was in my body. I'll, ah, need a little time for a full analysis."

Pappi bit off his next question, which would have been merely rhetorical. "We'll finish the analysis later," he said. "Right now, I'd better go see what he did in the bank. Wait here, and for Rotim's sake, set up defensive spells, and _be alert!_ " He strode into the _Bank of Streling_. Going to the receptionist, he said, "I'm sorry, but I need to see Sre Lugu again; it is an emergency; a _crime_ has been committed!" Sre Lugu was the bank official that Pappi always did business with.

"Very well, Honored Contractee," said the receptionist, plucking a few notes on her golden harp, "Sre Lugu will see you immediately! A guard will accompany you, for your security." The guard appeared, unlocked the golden door to the office section of the bank, and accompanied Pappi through the richly decorated halls to Sre Lugu's office. "May Streling be with you, sir," he said, bowing and stepping back. Ignoring him, Pappi barged into the office.

Sre Lugu was standing behind his desk, looking very concerned. "Mr. Pappi," he said, "did we forget something? I will be happy to – "

Pappi released some anger from his large reserve supply. " _I was impersonated_!" he roared. "That was not me that you just spoke to, it was an imposter. What did he say and do?" Sre Lugu hesitated. "Well, _what did he do_?!" demanded Pappi, in a thundering voice. He never really lost his temper, but he often acted as though he were about to; it helped to keep people off balance.

"Well, Honored Contractee," sputtered Sre Lugu, "forgive me, but ... if you can be impersonated, ... how do I know ...?"

"Well, get your wizard and your telepath _in_ here!" snarled Pappi, shaking his fists.

"Right away, sir!" said Sre Lugu, plucking notes on his own golden harp.

A few moments later a wizard and a telepath appeared. Each one examined Pappi carefully. "It _is_ Mr. Pappi," they both concluded.

Taking hold of the telepath's shoulder, Pappi said, "Did you examine the person who was in here a few hundredbreaths ago, claiming to be me?"

"No, Honored Contractee," said the telepath, "I believe he was scanned by Elephrian, but he became ill and fainted immediately afterward."

"He did make a positive identification, though," said Sre Lugu.

"No, he didn't," said Pappi, switching from rage to a more analytical mode, but still frowning threateningly. "Like me, he was a victim of mind exchange. The perpetrator exchanged with me, and entered the bank in my body. That was enough to fool your wizard, who apparently made only a superficial check." He glared significantly at Sre Lugu, raising fearful specters of lawsuits, investigations, demotions, and perhaps even excommunication. "When your telepath came to examine him, I imagine that the perpetrator surreptitiously cast a delayed-action toxic spell on him. The perpetrator then exchanged bodies with the telepath and falsely pronounced that the person in my body was me. Your telepath was so disoriented by his unexpected change in body that he didn't respond immediately. Since the wizard had already finished his own inspection, he did not detect the exchange. Then the perpetrator switched back to my body, returning the telepath to his own body. Before the telepath could get his bearings and say something, the toxic spell caused him to lose his train of thought, and then to faint."

"I guess that is ... plausible," said Sre Lugu, looking a bit dazed, "but then," he added, hesitantly, looking at Pappi, "... then, we _still_ don't know, ..."

"Bring in a _second_ telepath," said Pappi. Sre Lugu hastily plucked his harp. "He can't inhabit two bodies at once," Pappi explained, "so if each telepath checks the other, and if the wizard is very alert for any other tricks that someone might be pulling, that should be sufficient."

The other telepath soon arrived, and Pappi passed the subsequent test. Sre Lugu still looked a little dubious, however. "I don't know," he said. "I need time to think about this ..."

"I understand," said Pappi, switching to a more mellow and sympathetic mode of speech. "You find yourself suddenly in a very intricate and confusing situation. I will not ask you to make any commitments, or to reveal any confidential information; but we should talk. If nothing else, we can discuss ... the _opera_ project." At the word, "opera," Sre Lugu gave a little start, but regained his composure, such as it was, immediately. "Very well," he said, "there would certainly be no harm in that." Turning to the others, he dismissed them.

Seating himself, Pappi checked for listening spells, using an amulet that he always carried for that purpose. The office was indeed private. He continued thus: "Let me identify myself in yet another way, Sre Lugu, by showing knowledge that few others presumably have. Some time ago, I introduced you to a brilliantly talented and beautiful woman, the opera singer Liliune." Sre Lugu also sat down, holding his head in his hands. "You were much taken with her," continued Pappi, "in fact, you developed some desires toward her that a married man is not supposed to act upon. But, as a matter of fact, you did act upon them, many times. I am terribly sorry to have invaded your privacy by recording some of these incidents, but one never knows when something like this is going to come up. Of course, I haven't yet mentioned anything of this to your wife. Now, tell me, what did this impostor do?"

"He ... withdrew ... twenty thousand Kostiligars," said Sre Lugu, in a weak and toneless voice. "Ytterbium cylinders." His hands moved aimlessly over his desk, then back to his forehead. He began to quake.

_Good_ , thought Pappi, _by giving me that information, which should still be secure, he has already compromised himself. I can now make a more demanding request._

"All right," he continued, "now, I'm afraid he has gotten clean away with them. But I want that transaction annulled, and the twenty thousand returned to my account. And I want that twenty thousand in cash, right now."

"I can't give you that much cash without approval," said Sre Lugu, miserably. "Given the great amount, and the unusual circumstances, it would have to be reviewed by my supervisor. That will take time."

"You know, I think your wife and Liliune would get along very well together. Since we have so much time, we ought to arrange for us all to socialize."

Sre Lugu began to shiver and sweat, something that Pappi rather enjoyed seeing. " _I can't help it_ ," Sre Lugu said. "By now, thanks to the fuss _you_ have made, there's surely an alert on, and an investigation begun; I can't just walk up to the vault and unload twenty thousand in cylinders, with no questions asked!"

"What about your _own_ account?" asked Pappi.

"I don't _have_ that much," said Sre Lugu, cringing. "And anyway, my account is right here, and they're not stupid."

Pappi stopped and thought for a moment. Maybe I did come on too hot, he thought, maybe I let too much of my anger leak into my actions; maybe I need to be more careful about that. But it would be nice to have that money back, and this is as good a time as any to get this guy to do something seriously corrupt, so that I'll have him right between my molars in the future.

He changed his demeanor back to 'angry.' "All right," he snarled, "I'll buy that. But I want those twenty thousand back. Soon. Not from you, from the bank."

"I can't guarantee that," said Sre Lugu. "The bank did fulfill its obligations in the way of security checking, actually. The way our contract reads ..."

" _Leprosy eat your contract!_ " snarled Pappi. "You're an intelligent man, you know this bank like the back of your hand, your superiors trust you, and you love your wife and children. You'll figure something out!" He stood up. "I have to go, but don't worry; I'll be in touch soon!"

Sre Lugu stood up. He looked like a man in the last stages of a wasting disease. " _Please_ ," he said, trembling violently. Pappi laughed and let himself out. Vidigeon decided that Pappi had behaved in a way that most people would consider to be Evil.
**********

"The god of Justice takes many forms"

( _Know Your Gods_ , by Omogi Lith)

In the early morning, the Angels of Rejuvenation, who had been sleeping in their final staging area, were summoned to their place of worship by the jagged cries of Deacons, and by the deep booming of metal gongs. There they assembled to participate in the Ritual of Consecration, led by their Patriarch, Arg Haroon. Arg Haroon's words were repeated throughout the huge crowd by 'repeaters' standing on raised platforms, which gave his speech a superhuman resonance.

"Good morning, Brothers and Sisters!" shouted Arg Haroon, a huge bearded man dressed in motley armor, and bearing a huge battle-axe.

"GOOD MORNING!" shouted the crowd.

"And a great and wonderful morning it is, Brothers and Sisters, for the Day of Reckoning has arrived!"

"THE DAY OF RECKONING HAS ARRIVED!"

"Those who live in sin have been warned of their evil ways. Many, many a chance have they been given to repent, and to reform. But evil is stupid."

"EVIL IS STUPID!"

"They told themselves, 'Tomorrow I will reform.' Or they told themselves, 'I will leave this neighborhood before the end.' Or they told themselves, 'There is no justice in the world. That is just a story people make up to scare their children into behaving.' Or they did not think at all, they lived in a dream world. But today the sleepers will awaken!"

"TODAY THE SLEEPERS WILL AWAKEN!"

"Yes, Brothers and Sisters, life has been patient with them. They have been given _freedom_!"

"FREEDOM!"

"Yes, Brothers and Sisters, they were given the right to choose for themselves how they would live. They were given the right to choose, and they have chosen evil!"

"THEY HAVE CHOSEN EVIL!"

"But choices have consequences! And those consequences will now come to pass! Justice will be done!"

"JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!"

"Some will beg and plead with you, Brothers and Sisters! Tearfully will they implore you! But they have had many a chance to reform. Instead, they have chosen, time after time, the path of evil."

"THEY HAVE CHOSEN EVIL!"

"A choice was given them, and what have they chosen?"

"THEY HAVE CHOSEN EVIL!"

"What have they chosen?"

"EVIL!"

"Some will tell you that they have committed no crimes. But, living where they do, they have at least turned away from crimes committed by others. They failed to intervene or report. They are guilty!"

"THEY ARE GUILTY!"

"It is too late now!"

"IT IS TOO LATE NOW!"

"Their time is up!"

"THEIR TIME IS UP!"

"Those who kill, those who rob, those who injure, those who deceive, those who turn away, those who make excuses, those who corrupt! How much mercy have they shown to the victims of evil?"

"NO MERCY!!"

"Those who kill, those who rob, those who injure, those who deceive, those who turn away, those who make excuses, those who corrupt! How much mercy do they deserve?"

"NO MERCY!!"

"Those who kill, those who rob, those who injure, those who deceive, those who turn away, those who make excuses, those who corrupt! How much mercy will they receive from us?"

"NO MERCY!!

"Brothers and Sisters, you know what our Prophet has said."

"We can dream, and we can build. Our lives can flourish, and be beautiful. But the seeds of corruption lie everywhere. When the greatest of all heroes lies finally at peace beneath the earth, who will guard his children? The sword and the manacle may be put away, but they will be taken out again. Fire and flood, famine and plague, crime and war, are part of the wisdom of the world. Learn to be them, for their time will always come."

"Yes, Brothers and Sisters, and their time is now!"

"THEIR TIME IS NOW!"

"Mercy can be a beautiful thing, Brothers and Sisters! But the time for Mercy has passed! It is the time for beautiful, truthful, all-powerful, and incorruptible JUSTICE!"

"JUSTICE!"

"Beautiful, truthful, all-powerful, and incorruptible JUSTICE!"

"JUSTICE! JUSTICE! JUSTICE!"

"Justice will be done!"

"JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!"

"The Day of Reckoning has arrived!"

"THE DAY OF RECKONING HAS ARRIVED!"

"Brothers and Sisters, go forth now and be _Justice_!"

"JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!"

Arg Haroon seized a trumpet from his belt and began to play "The Song of the Day of Judgment." The repeaters also flourished trumpets, and took up the refrain. After the first chorus, everyone began to sing, and to stamp their feet. The earth shook.

The great mass of Angels began to move.

**

The main body of the Angels of Rejuvenation consists of 'beaters.' These are men and women bearing large metal shields and carrying intricately-designed bludgeons about three forearms long. They wear improvised helmets and armor made mostly of leather, metal, and bone. Over this they often hang amulets or prized spoils from the past, including an occasional shrunken head. At the end of the Ritual of Consecration they eat wafers made from foxglove seeds and the adrenals of animals, washing them down with a shot of thick, black coffee. Then they begin to chant their characteristic grunting chant. When their enthusiasm reaches a certain peak, fireworks are set off, deep drums and gongs sound, and they begin to jog down the pre-arranged paths, led by 'guides' in brilliant uniforms. As each Angel leaves the neighborhood he has been quartered in, he turns briefly and shouts, " _We won't forget you!_ "

When they arrive at the target neighborhood, the beaters immediately begin to terrorize the populace. The only way to avoid attack is to lie face down and completely still, a fact which is known, even to non-believers, through folklore. Those few who outrun the beaters and try to leave the neighborhood discover that black-clad 'spiders' have crept into position several hours before. Just before the beaters are scheduled to arrive, the spiders emerge from their hiding places and stretch spiny, sticky elastic webs, a little off the ground, at exit points. The spiders also use caltrops and other devices, including barricades, pits, controlled fires, trained animals, and a viscous form of quicklime that they pour over the street. They also use blowpipes to shoot darts whose tips are soaked in soporific. It is rare for anyone to escape.

The beaters, roaring and chanting, sweep through the neighborhood, searching it thoroughly. Locked doors are broken. Aggressive dogs and spit lizards are killed. Beaters climb to the top floor (and the roof) and work their way down, clearing each house of living inhabitants. If they meet any significant resistance, they make a special howling signal that brings others to their aid. Most residents, however, are still asleep when the Angels arrive, or disoriented by drugs or the lack thereof. Beaters are very skilled at dispensing non-lethal but very debilitating blows with their bludgeons, and most residents quickly become compliant.

On the heels of the beaters, there arrive the 'rescuers.' Lightly armed and armored, they have the task of intimidating the residents further, if necessary, and then of binding them, removing everything from them, even clothes and body rings and the like, shaving their heads, and wiring a tag to one ankle. These tags assign to each one a number, and the prisoners are told that to call any prisoner by any name, other than that number, will result in severe punishment. These numbers are also written on their foreheads. While waiting for the next step, the prisoners are subjected to continuous verbal abuse, and frequently slapped or spat upon.

On the heels of the rescuers come the 'tithe collectors.' Skilled at discovering the hidden and the disguised, and making use of magic and the services of telepaths, tithe collectors interrogate the subdued population, and then collect and examine all moveable goods, sorting out objects of value, crating them, and loading them onto carts to be taken away. All such objects are considered to be the property of the Angels, who either make use of them or trade them.

When the tithe collectors have finished interviewing a resident, rescuers escort him to a hastily-erected penal stockade, where he is blindfolded, gagged, and held in darkness, without food or water, until his time comes for 'Judgment'. As residents wait their turn, rescuers recite to them from the sacred scriptures of the Angels, concentrating on passages that describe the varieties of wickedness, its many loathsome qualities, and its inevitable punishment.

The beaters now turn their attention to dismantling most of the buildings and landscape in the neighborhood. Only exceptionally beautiful, well-built, or historically important buildings and parks are spared. The prisoners are then used as forced labor to reconstruct the neighborhood. When this is complete, the neighborhood is baptized with a symbolic sprinkling of sanctified water, and said to be 'reborn.'
**********

"You can never really know your gods."

(from _The Joy of Agnosticism_ , by Tone Dask)

Kor went to get her cushion from the closet, and then remembered that it had been packed up. Her statues, too, had been packed. Kor sat on the floor. It was very uncomfortable; in spite of her stretching exercises, her body was too stiff to sit cross-legged. She told herself that comfort was not important, and closed her eyes to pray.

For a long time, Isiliar had not spoken to her; Kor had tried to accept that, but still, fear and hope argued within her as she tried to compose her mind. Surely the goddess would speak to her eventually! How terrible it would be, never to hear that beloved voice again! With the exception of one short interval, Isiliar had been her parent, her best friend, her most powerful ally, her main source of strength, and her moral compass, as far back as Kor could remember. Many people saw Kor as wonderfully strong and self-reliant, with energy left over for others, but Kor knew that she had never been on her own, except for a short and very unhappy period of time when she had rejected Isiliar.

Kor had decided that even to call to the goddess showed a lack of acceptance; so she simply sang, in her mind, a traditional Suimi hymn of praise that she had learned as a child.

Isiliar, Isiliar,

We are your people.

You are our food, our drink, our air.

Isiliar, Isiliar,

We are your people.

You are our love, our hope, our happiness.

Isiliar, Isiliar,

We are your people.

You are our heart, our flesh, our bone.

Isiliar, Isiliar,

You are our mother, our father,

Our starting-point, our goal,

Our life!

Do as you will with us!

You have scattered us over the world,

But still we are yours, and we will always love you.

Usually, repeating the song and concentrating on it helped to calm her, and put her in a spiritual mood, but this time, it just grated on her. She just did not feel the faith and acceptance that she wanted to feel. Tulith had, without meaning to, lodged a barb in Kor's heart, by saying that Kor deserved better than old age; Kor did indeed feel terribly old, and terribly tired, terribly anxious about moving everything to a completely unknown place, and terribly afraid of the Angels of Rejuvenation. How could she _accept_ this? "I'm too _old_ for this," she said involuntarily, interrupting the flow of the song in her mind. She tried to start up again.

Isiliar, Isiliar,

We are your people ...

But more thoughts intruded; without the direct support of the goddess, Kor had been deprived of her main source of strength. Kor lived in a concrete world; abstract principles had no life force for her. Neither did absent goddesses. Kor felt a double pang of guilt as she realized that she had been spending so much time with Tulith partly because she so needed a sense of direct connection with someone, to replace the absent connection with Isiliar. Tulith was no goddess, but she was _there_. Her voice could be heard – how sweet it was! Her embrace could be felt – how _real_ it was! Sometimes Kor would enter the loft full of tension and anxiety, and as soon as Tulith welcomed her with a hug, Kor would begin to cry. But the tension would drain from her with her tears, and soon she would be lying happily with her head in Tulith's lap, or posing for her, while they talked, if they felt like talking, of whatever came to mind. In this way Kor felt love and happiness. Kor had a startling thought: in spite of her youth, Tulith was really the mother in the relationship.

You are our heart, ...

But now she had neither Tulith nor Isiliar; she was just a horribly tired old woman, sitting in pain on the bare floor, alone in a barren room, a room in a home that she had put all her energies into for decades, but would now be compelled to abandon forever, for something unknown. She felt despair, as if her heart had been replaced by a cold, dark vacuum.

You have scattered us ...

Kor began to sob.

" _Please_ , Goddess," she begged, without a shred of dignity or pride, " _please_ don't abandon me!"

"I am here, Kor," said Isiliar.
**********

"Life is better when the gods are dancing."

(Kragh, Dervish of Zin)

Lessie and the boy lay on her bed, looking into each other's eyes. No matter how long she looked at his irises, she kept discovering new details. Not that his irises were unusual in any way; she had just never been so interested in anyone's irises before. They were made of branching fibers, yellow near the center and bluish toward the outside. Each fiber had its own shape and texture. Their overall pattern was almost symmetrical, but not quite. "Over a hundred of them there must be," she thought. His eye seemed vast.

She had expected that, as had happened before, she would begin to contemplate the personality behind the eyes. Instead, she began to think of the world outside, that those eyes had seen. She imagined events being reflected in their glistening surface, distorted by their curvature. She had of course no verbal description of his previous life; instead, from sessions at the window, she had developed an image of terrible privation, somehow redeemed by a puzzling feeling of purpose. It reminded her of the experience she had had when she prayed. There was a sense of meaningfulness that took some of the painfulness out of the pain. The fantasy images that she played over his eyes fitted this description. She wondered whether he could in some way see them, and she wondered what images he might be seeing on her own eyes.

She sat up on the bed and tried to pantomime the feeling to him – the feeling that even the most horrible experiences were somehow right. Getting off the bed, she huddled on the ground, grimacing as if in pain. Then she gradually straightened up, like a growing plant. The further she rose, the more she smiled. Then she began to dance, stiffly at first and then more freely. She saw puzzlement in the boy's eyes, but then, as she smiled, spread her arms, and put her whole body into a gesture of victory, he smiled.

The boy climbed off the bed and huddled painfully on the ground, as Lessie had. Then he began to unroll, like a new leaf, echoing her sentiment. Gradually he became upright, stretching toward the ceiling.

Watching him, she had an odd experience of threeness. In Intipisk's romantic novels, lovers often had a sense of being 'made for each other'. But Lessie had a feeling of three things being made for each other, or rather, for the sake of the unity they made: herself, the boy, and the rest of the universe. The three of them were in orbit around one another, in a graceful minuet that never repeated itself. This minuet had always been going on, but she had only just become aware of it.

From the next room, they could hear someone opening a dresser drawer. She hadn't expected it, but it seemed perfectly timed. The boy began to rise. Someone laughed in the hall. Lessie bent down and huddled next to the bed. A bird flew past the window. Lessie and the boy rose together, helping each other. In the sunbeam from the window, dust motes swirled in response to their passing. Lessie and the boy stood and stretched toward the ceiling, until they felt that that position had fulfilled itself; then they returned to fetal position on the floor.

They did this rising and falling dance many times, a slightly different way each time. At one point, just before they began again, Lessie patted the floor and smiled at the boy, as if to say, "Never could we have done it, without the floor!" He nodded, and she felt that he had grasped her idea of threeness. They continued, using various objects in various ways to help them rise. Seeing a patch of sunlight on the wall, Lessie felt it moving, very slowly. It made her think of her own motion as wonderfully fast. It also made her think of vast stretches of time.

At one point, the boy conceived the idea of taking an object in his hand, and raising it far above his head. Another time, he remained on the floor on his hands and knees, while Lessie stood on his shoulders and used a stick to touch the ceiling. The stick was just long enough, given the way she held her arm. Usually, she would have thought, "Of course, only until the stick touches do I move my arm!" But now what she thought was more like, "The stick, my arm, and the ceiling were made for this!" And of course, it was not just those three things; the rest of her body was involved, and the boy, and the floor, and the joints that fastened the floor to the walls, and the workers who had made the building, and the architect, and the architect's great-grandparents ... Everything just as it needed to be, even a certain amount of chance for spontaneity's sake, for that moment when, with a barely audible sound, the end of the stick touched the ceiling. The universe was going somewhere, and this was a step on the most efficient way. And then on to the next, equally perfect moment.

"How easy life is!" she thought. Even when she did something that required effort, that brought a sense of strain and fatigue, it felt as though the effort, strain, and fatigue belonged there, and she thought again: "How easy, it is! When it is time to be tired, tired I am. Really, no effort at all, there is!" She felt like a drifting cloud, with not a care in the world.

It was fun to improvise this way – one of them might move the dance a little bit in a certain direction, but the simultaneous motion of the boy would immediately give it a new bearing. She loved the mixture of pattern and unpredictability in it. They played this game for a long time.

After awhile, her sense of threeness was complemented by a sense of oneness. Their harmony, she felt, was not something external to the harmonizing parts; it was rather that they were really all one thing.

"Careful you should be," she thought, with awe and amusement, "when into someone's eyes you look!"
**********

"No one knowingly chooses evil."

(Kondrastibari folk saying)

Pappi emerged from the bank to find that Arguit had disappeared. "He rode off at a gallop," said Sk'Skar, Arguit's chief underling. "I think he panicked. Likely, he figured that you or Tarth Sakul would blame him for this. He's no doubt hoping to reach his family and move them before Tarth Sakul finds out."

"Won't work," said Pappi. "Tarth Sakul has spells right on them all, already. When Arguit reaches his family, Tarth Sakul will say the word, and infect them with the boiling fever. He'll probably let Arguit live a little longer, so that he can watch his wife and children die first."

Sk'Skar, a middle-aged man with red skin and silver freckles, shook his head and clucked his tongue. "Mustn't lose your nerve in this business," he said, with a wry smile.

Pappi nodded. "I'm putting you in charge of security on this trip," he said.

"Thank you, sir!" said Sk'Skar, straightening up. "What are your orders?"

"First, we will enter that park over there. Ride next to my litter, and we will discuss it as we go." Pappi signaled to the bearers that he was ready to go; they brought his palanquin over. "I could go to another bank," said Pappi to Sk'Skar, as they lifted him, "but he seems to be able to track us somehow, and he could just pull the same trick again. I need to go back and confer with Tarth Sakul; he needs to strengthen our defenses somehow." _Privately, Pappi thought: Is Tarth Sakul in cahoots with Koof? He assured me that his devices, and the techniques he had taught my staff, would protect me against mind exchange_. _Or, could Koof or Tarth Sakul be in cahoots with Merelith? Or..._ "But we will go back in an indirect, irregular way. Advance scouts will hide themselves as we pass, and wait awhile to see whether anyone is following us. Perhaps we can shake Brother Koof, if he is following us, or even do him some harm."

In his childhood, Pappi had made for himself a basic principle: _trust no one_. But, as he had gotten older, more wealthy, and more powerful, he had been unable to live up to it. It was no longer possible to oversee everything himself. He had begun to use banks to manage his money. He required a staff; he required an expert in security. He needed to delegate authority. And the richer and more powerful he became, the more dependent on others he became. He could almost hear Talek saying, "How ironic!"

He had become master of his home neighborhood, which had seemed to be the entire universe when he was a boy, but by then, he had learned that there were many neighborhoods and many districts. He had proceeded to take over many of them, but still, his total territory was only an insignificant speck when compared to Kondrastibar itself. Even so, no one could openly hold that much power or wealth in Kondrastibar, without provoking widespread opposition; and so he always worried that in spite of all his efforts at concealment, his machinations would become visible, and all would be lost. At the early stages of his life, he had thought, "If only I can rise _one step more_ , I will be safe." But it was never so.

Should he have stayed small? That too had been impossible. The criminal world was a competitive world; if he had not conquered his rivals, they would have conquered him. He might have tried to stay safe as the client of a more powerful boss, but that would hardly have been trusting no one; and besides, experience and common sense told him that the underlings of crime lords did not have a secure existence.

He remembered some Zillist wanderers that he had observed when he was a boy. They had taken a strict vow of poverty and non-possession. Their clothing was made of rags, scavenged from trash, and knotted together with a deliberate lack of skill. In warm weather they often wore nothing at all. They wandered through the city, begging for work, or spontaneously doing whatever looked useful, like picking up trash from the streets, or escorting people through dangerous neighborhoods. Often they sang beautifully, singly or in groups, or recited poetry or stories, or put on plays; always for free. Their art was invariably bright and cheerful, so much so that it always made Pappi nauseous. Soon he ceased paying any attention to it.

They would never accept money or anything permanent for pay; they would typically work for one meal, or one day's lodging. Often they worked for nothing, sustained by faith that if it was good for them to have food, food would appear. They would not even keep food from one meal to the next. If they became ill, beyond the ability of their own physicians to treat, they would throw themselves on the mercy of some local doctor; or some of them would work for him in exchange for the treatment of another. They were unfailingly polite and friendly, unless they, or someone they were guiding, were physically attacked. That was the one case in which they were permitted violence, and they were said to be very good at it. Those who were not disgusted by them reported that they were extremely responsible and trustworthy.

Pappi had thought of them as the stupidest of all people. Now he was not so sure.

He drew back the curtain from one of the windows of his palanquin and spoke to Sk'Skar. "I need a rest," he said. "Take me to a secluded place in this park and see that I am not disturbed. Post sentries and scouts to see if anyone is hanging around. Don't bother me unless there is a problem." Actually, he needed time to think.

He had intended to think about tactics and strategy, but instead he found his thoughts going to his meeting with Tironogo. In his mind, he was sure that Tironogo was a rake and a liar, but he kept returning to the intensity of what he had felt. Was it youth, he wondered, that made his porter's body capable of such an intense response? He realized, by contrast, that his own life had become drab, in spite of all his wealth and power. He did most things out of a sense of necessity, not out of enthusiasm. Certainly, there was no shortage of available sexual partners in his life. If his good looks and position of power could not win a woman's favors, he could buy them, or obtain them by threatening to kill her loved ones. But perhaps that was just the problem: sex was too easy to obtain, it was quickly over, it was rather like scratching an itch, and he never had a sense of challenge, or of ... being _loved_.

Even thinking about _love_ made Pappi's head swim. He had never known his parents, or any family. In his childhood, he had been passed from one abuser to another, until he had taught himself to kill. Only later, while learning the arts of blackmail and extortion, did he learn, while studying his victims, that "love" might refer to something other than lust, obsession, dependency, or emotional manipulation.

He thought of Kor's orphanage, one of the few independent institutions in his home neighborhood that he had neither bought, nor corrupted, nor destroyed. It was because he was himself an orphan that he had allowed that strange woman to go on with her work; he had even helped her a bit, in various surreptitious ways. If only someone like that had taken _me_ in, he thought. But now it was too late.

Another part of his mind rose in revolt against this train of thought. He remembered what Sk'Skar had said: "Mustn't lose your nerve in this business!" Was he losing his nerve? 'You have been flirting with that,' said this part of him (was it the voice of a Muse?), 'but now you must pull yourself together. Things are not so bad, no more so than when you were a child. Your resources are now incredibly greater. If you could survive and prevail then, with only the rags on your back and an ice pick up your sleeve, you can do so now. And you felt vital then – because everything was real, a matter of life and death. _Drabness_ was not a problem for you! Granted, you've made mistakes; so fix them! Don't rationalize your weakness, don't let it make you despair, overcome it! Accept risk, and let it bring you to life!' And it began to make a number of interesting proposals.
**********

"Evil creates Good."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

In the hour before dawn, Tarth Sakul, Pappi's Security Chief, suddenly woke; he felt the presence of his mentor, Tarthex Oslan. He sat up and turned on a lamp. The Tarthex was invisible, except that he permitted Sakul to barely see the glowing coals of his eyes, seven feet off the ground.

"Master!" cried Tarth Sakul, prostrating himself. "How may I serve you?"

The Tarthex's voice appeared telepathically within Sakul's head, but it felt as though it were being communicated by seismic waves from deep within the earth. " _We think the Girl of Prophecy is near here_ ," rumbled the voice. " _This is the building that was once her temple._ "

"This _was_ some kind of abandoned temple," said Tarth Sakul, "before that Priest, Talek, convinced Pappi to make it his headquarters."

"The Lord knows that it was hers," said the Tarthex. "He built it himself, thousands of years ago. But the do-gooders have desecrated it, even more than the criminals who now inhabit it. I have come to see whether I can release their spells. He plans to place her in her Temple once again."

"So be it, Master," said Tarth Sakul. "It would be an honor to accompany you." He was fascinated by Oslan, for he hoped to become a Tarthex himself one day, by having many souls added to his own, as slaves, or perhaps it would be better to say, as prosthetics. Each would have knowledge and power that would become his. His body would also be altered, to make it much more powerful.

" _If you wish_ ," said the Tarthex, " _let us go to the crypt_." And there they were, in pitch blackness.

"May I strike a light?" asked Tarth Sakul.

" _Do anything you please_ ," rumbled Oslan. Sakul quickly spelled up a few floating lights to dilute the dark. He found that they were standing on a circular ledge around a cylindrical shaft that shot straight down into the earth. Looking over the edge, he could see no bottom to it. He felt vertigo and drew back. "I didn't know about this place," he said.

" _It has been sealed for centuries_ ," rumbled the Tarthex, He began to mutter a spell.

Tarth Sakul wanted to ask many more questions, but he did not dare to interrupt. As he muttered, Tarthex Oslan's eyes began to grow brighter and brighter; Tarth Sakul had to look away. The entire cavern was bathed in red. The bedrock beneath his feet began to shudder.

" _Yes_!" roared the Tarthex, suddenly. " _I detect many spells here_!" Tarth Sakul felt a blast of heat coming from his mentor; he stepped away. The shivering in the stone grew more intense. He got down on his hands and knees. Small flakes of stone bombarded him; dust was everywhere, obscuring his lights. He was afraid.

" _AaaaaAAARRRRRRRRRR!_ " roared Oslan, exulting in his power. The sound reverberated in the confined space, making hammers out of air.

Tarth Sakul tried to stand. The vibrating of the rock was shaking his bones raw. Then he felt himself being lifted off the ground; no doubt Tarthex Oslan was doing that to protect him from the pummeling. The rock then began to shudder yet more violently. The air was so filled with dust, illuminated by the intense red light from Oslan's eyes, that Tarth Sakul seemed to be drifting in a sea of silt-bearing blood.

Suddenly, Tarth Sakul saw other lights; they were glowing lines of white, flashing through the red. They formed words and paragraphs. He tried to read them but failed. The words shot by him, like a scroll unrolling at incredible speed. They were in an alphabet unknown to him. They went on and on – a whole library went flying past him. Then they flickered and disappeared. There was a sudden loud crack, and everything quieted down. Tarth Sakul settled to the ground. Tarthex Oslan's eyes reverted to dimness.

" _Haaah!_ " shouted Oslan triumphantly. " _I have undone the spells_."

Tarth Sakul looked around. Except for a coating of dust and stone chips, the crypt looked the same as before.

There was a pause. "Interesting," said Tarthex Oslan. "I can no longer communicate with Vidigeon. Some kind of shield must have been activated, over the compound. Of course, the Lord will know how to destroy it, if that becomes necessary. We are done here."

Instantly, they were in the open air, standing at the edge of a rooftop, across the street from the compound. At first, it looked quiet and completely normal. Then, a sound of children's voices emerged. They were singing. Barely audible at first, and simple, the music grew slowly louder and more complex, developing into an intricate chorale of high, delicate voices, shimmering and sweet. In counterpoint to it, shrieks and curses echoed from within the buildings. People came boiling out through the doors; others leapt from the windows. They were joined by dogs, spit lizards, snakes, and other assorted pets. The buildings began to glow, a soft, crystalline blue.

" _The Temple is purifying itself_ ," said the Tarthex, a touch of amusement in his voice.

Several structures, which had been added to the compound at Pappi's command, exploded into orange fireballs and disappeared. The frightened inhabitants ran desperately for the gates. Some were trampled by others. Several were attacked by panic-stricken animals. Others fell afoul of Tarth Sakul's security systems. Those who fell were lifted by some unseen force and dumped over the walls into the street. Some rose and ran, others crawled, but none remained. The singing rose triumphantly into a scintillating tapestry of hundreds of voices.

As the last of the inhabitants rushed or staggered or fell into the streets, the gates crashed shut. A great wind began to rush through the compound, bending trees to the ground. Huge gusts seemed to emanate from the building itself, flinging furniture, clothing, and other objects into the yard and over the wall.

"Don't worry," rumbled the voice of Tarthex Oslan, "I have already removed the contents of your office to a safe place."

Lightning flashed and thunder cracked from low-lying clouds that had not been there before. A massive rain poured into the compound. Sheets of water shot hissing from the edges of roofs; a foaming torrent tore through the bars of the main gate, flooding the street. Not a drop of rain fell outside the walls. After about fifty breaths, the downpour stopped as quickly as it had begun, and the stars were visible again.

The Temple, glowing from within, looked like a huge, intricately carved jewel.

From inside, the sound of singing continued, gradually getting louder. A procession of golden-glowing figures emerged from the doors of the main building. They were small – were they all children? Still singing, they wended their way slowly through the grounds.

"They seem a little transparent," said Tarth Sakul. "Are they ghosts?"

"The Caretaker has awakened," said Tarthex Oslan. "He has been sleeping there unseen, all these centuries. The children are one of his manifestations. Well, there is little more to see. I will now take you to another place; your work is done here." They lifted from the roof and began to fly through the night air. The singing faded away.

"What were all those writings, down in the crypt?" asked Tarth Sakul.

"Spells, prophesies, and do-gooder propaganda," replied Tarthex Oslan. "Vidigeon is analyzing it, but it is probably of no consequence."

"How far did that shaft in the crypt go down?" said Tarth Sakul. "I could see no bottom to it."

"It goes all the way to the underworld," replied the Tarthex. "Our Master once used it to dispose of souls that had become damaged in the course of interrogation and research, or that had been failures from the beginning."

They lifted off, flying through the night. Tarth Sakul couldn't help but be entranced with the patterns made by the lights of the neighborhood. Soon, he and Oslan passed over the neighborhood walls. Tarth Sakul saw a surprising amount of activity just outside the gates; dark figures with many wagons.

"Wasps," rumbled Oslan. "The Angels of Rejuvenation have surrounded the neighborhood, and are sealing it against escape. They will swarm it shortly before Dawn. I think they will be a little surprised, for the Lord has plans of His own."

" _Spit Lizards_!" cried Tarth Sakul. "I was hoping to harvest Pappi! He has a most remarkable soul! But with the Angels swarming around, I won't be able to get at him."

"That's not a problem," said Tarthex Oslan. "He's not in the neighborhood, anyway."

"No? Where is he, then?"

"He's moving to a new location," said Oslan. "But I would not recommend that you rejoin him openly. He has become convinced that you are a liability, and must be eliminated. In addition to instructing his own people to kill you on sight, he has taken out a contract on you at the Cathedral of the Assassins. I am afraid that you must now hunt him by stealth."
**********

"If you must have sex, at least enjoy yourself!"

(Saint Moltiplux)

On the evening of the day they met, Tling came over to Kor at dinner. "May I join you? she asked.

"Of course," said Kor, standing and making the greeting gesture.

Lesuzi, another girl at the table, saw the gesture and said, "What is that?"

"That is the Suimi greeting gesture," said Kor. "We are both of the same people, the Suimi. See the tattoos on our earlobes?"

"Oh, I never noticed that," said Lesuzi. "But what does it mean, that you are of the same people? I mean, aren't we all different people?"

"Of course we are," said Kor. "When I use 'people' that way, it is just short for a particular _group_ of people with some bond. Our bond is that we are devotees of Isiliar, our goddess of love and happiness. Of course, Tling and I are also devotees of Ydris. Neither of them seems to mind."

"Well, Ydris is not a _jealous_ god, thank goodness!" said Lesuzi. "Well, maybe a little – I mean, there are some gods she doesn't approve of our following, like Honggur. Or at least, not too much."

"They say that jealousy is a good thing, sometimes," said Tling.

"You could say that about just about anything," said Kor.

"Even evil?" asked Tling.

"Well, no, I guess not!" said Kor, a little abashed.

"But," said Lesuzi, "somebody once said that all human beings have a little evil in them, and that such is the way it _should_ be. It's just that some people overdo it! If that is so, _some_ evil _would_ be appropriate!"

"That's a very strange idea," said Tling. "Wouldn't it be better for everyone to be perfectly good?"

"I agree," said another girl, Tsumil, who had been listening in. "That would seem to be true, by definition!"

"But it's not _possible_ ," said Lesuzi. "For example, I try to try to be nice to everyone all the time, but sometimes I get tired, especially when I'm about to have my period, and I just can't bring myself to be nice – bare politeness, maybe, but not _nice_."

"But if you _can't_ do something," said Tling, "how can it be bad _not_ to do it? Like, how could anyone _expect_ you to do something you _can't_ do?"

"OK, but here's another thing," said Lesuzi. "People are unfair. I mean, they treat themselves and their friends and relatives better than they treat other people. People who can will buy luxuries, even though they know that somewhere, people are starving to death! In principle, they _could_ do otherwise. But I wouldn't hold my breath!"

"Well, maybe you are right," said Tsumil. "Besides, if people were never evil, what would there be for good people to do?"

"Why should good people have to _do_ anything?" asked Kor, "Wouldn't it be nice if good people could just relax and enjoy the perfect goodness of the world?"

In this way the discussion went on for a long time, as such discussions do, drifting from one subject to another. At one point the question of sacraments came up.

"I see that you are a courtesan," said Tsumil to Kor. "I wonder if you could explain something to me. It seems odd to me that sex should be a sacrament. I mean, I could see it if it were aimed at conception, but you courtesans use contraceptive spells, don't you?"

"Well, yes, we do," replied Kor, a little nervously; she feared that Tsumil was going to be a bit contentious on the subject. She had discovered that many people, even some in the Temple, did not approve of courtesans.

"Wait a moment," said Tling, blushing. "I'm sorry to be so ignorant, but I don't even know what sex _is_ , really. Really, could you just fill me in on that before going on to the sacrament issue?"

"Well," said Kor, relieved to be off the hook for the moment, "a man has a thing, sort of like a sausage, but softer, and more wrinkly. Except, when ..." and she proceeded, with some help from the others, to give Tling a basic description of sexual physiology and heterosexual intercourse (which she called, 'inner kissing').

Tling was shocked and incredulous. "But that's _obscene_ ," she said. "I mean, what could be more obscene? If I were to _make something up_ , it couldn't be any more obscene than ... I mean, we're not even supposed to _show_ those parts to other people, much less ... I'm not even going to _say_ it!"

"Well, that's just the way you were brought up," said Lesuzi. "Where I grew up, in the delta, people aren't ashamed of their bodies or their desires. They walked around naked whenever they felt like it. It's a very warm and humid climate, you know. It's so normal, that people don't even notice."

Tling was flabbergasted again. "You mean _you_ would walk around _naked_? – Even in front of a _boy_???"

"Well, yes, if the other people had the same attitude," said Lesuzi. "I wouldn't like to be naked in front of someone who was raised the way you were, though, because they would be shocked, or uncomfortable, and maybe even start bothering me – they don't just take nudity for granted, as people do where I come from. If people are disturbed by it, then it's uncomfortable. But if they take it for granted, then I can take it for granted, too. If I'm not thinking about it, how can it bother me?"

"But don't boys stare at you? And what if ..." Tling's blush deepend.

"What if what?"

Tling blushed. "What if a boy wanted to _touch_ you?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Well, it would depend how I felt – sometimes it feels nice to have a boy touch me. If he doesn't have a weird attitude."

"But I mean, what if he wanted to touch you, _down there_!" said Tling.

Lesuzi looked puzzled. "You mean, touch my rosebud? But, that's the _nicest_ place to be touched," she said.

"And would you touch his – what did you call it, Kor? – his _little cucumber_?"

"Of course I would," replied Lesuzi, "if he seemed to want that. It's kind of a nice thing to touch, actually. It's warm, and much softer than the vegetable cucumber. You'll see, when you get over your shock, as I'm sure you will. I mean, your parents got over it, or you wouldn't be here, right? And, it's amazing how boys respond to being touched there – the older ones, I mean. It makes me feel very powerful. I mean, when you touch them there, they just _bliss out_! They forget _everything else_! It's amazing!"

"What about you, Tsumil," asked Tling. "is that how people are where you come from?"

"Oh, no," said Tsumil, shaking her head. "We cover our genitals all the time, and breasts, too – even men's! And nobody is supposed to inner-kiss or touch sensitive places unless they are married. Well, there is one exception to the nudity rule: there is a festival once a year, called "Krissim's Day." You see, there is a widely revered scripture that says, 'Shame in nakedness is the work of the Evil One.' There's a story about a snake – well, never mind. So on that day, everyone defies that shame by going completely naked."

"How old are your people usually, when they get married?" asked Lesuzi.

"Oh, usually about twenty," said Tsumil.

"You mean," said Lesuzi, incredulously, "that you have to go _without sex_ for _six or seven years_ _after puberty_? That's ... _cruel_ , that's sadistic, that's barbaric! Aren't people always yearning, and daydreaming, and wondering what it's really like?"

"Well, yes, but, well, people don't always follow the rules, you know," said Tsumil, blushing.

"I'm sure they don't. Still, it's totally bizarre," said Lesuzi, shaking her head.

"I don't know," said Tling, grimacing. "This is so weird ... I'm going to have to think about this ... although I'd rather _not!_ " She put her chin on her hands and got a faraway look in her eyes, her lips crimped in the grimace of one who is doing something necessary but distasteful.

"You don't _like_ thinking about sex?" said Lesuzi, astonished again. Tling blushed, but did not reply.

"Well, then, let's talk about the sacrament," said Tsumil. "If conception is not involved, then sex is just pleasure, isn't it? Nothing wrong with pleasure, but why should that be a _sacrament_?"

"Well, I don't believe that sex without conception _is_ just pleasure," said Kor, "and besides, when pleasure reaches a certain kind of intensity, it becomes a different sort of thing. I mean, it becomes _overwhelming_. And so, your ego kind of disappears. It's a form of complete surrender. And that, to me, is very spiritual. Getting away from your ego, all the thousands of little concerns and worries that you have. Then a more basic part of your consciousness can manifest itself. To me, it feels very cosmic, very religious. It's like Lesuzi says, how the boys forget everything else – especially if you know how to tease them."

"What do you mean, _tease_ them?" asked Tsumil.

"Well," said Kor, a little sorry that she had made that remark, and wondering whether Tling was still listening, "men are sort of hair-triggered. If you're not careful, they do their squirting thing right away, and then it's all over; they get sleepy, and they're not interested in you for awhile. So if you want it to last a long time, you have to touch them very gently, very delicately, or touch them in less sensitive places for awhile so that they become highly aroused, but don't actually finish. It's like – you know how you can fill a cup of water completely, and then add a few drops? The top of the water is actually higher than the rim of the glass, it trembles, it quivers, but it doesn't spill, until you add that one drop too many. Only, a skilled courtesan doesn't add that last drop, until the time is right. That way, you can make it last for as long as you want."

"So," said Tsumil, thoughtfully, "it's this cosmic feeling that makes it a sacrament?"

"Well, yes, but not _just_ that," said Kor. "Another thing that sometimes happens to my communicants is, that afterwards, they feel better about life in general. A lot of them have a rather drab existence at best, they are poor, they lack status, their families are dogfights, no one is ever _nice_ to them, and they come in, and there's this person taking the trouble to make them feel absolutely blissful for two hours, _expecting nothing in return_. It makes them feel valued, and it helps them to accept the world more. I mean, don't you have the experience sometimes, of eating a really good meal, and then thinking, 'Ah, life is good!'?"

"Yes, I know just what you mean," said Lesuzi, nodding vigorously. "When something _really_ nice happens to you, you feel better about _everything_ for awhile."

"So, could a _good meal_ be sacramental?" asked Tsumil. " _Food and drink?_ "

_Oh dear_ , thought Kor, _she_ _is_ _in a contentious mood. I think I'll ignore that question and just charge ahead._

"And then, there's the whole question of _context_ ," she went on. "An experience in a religious context will take on a religious feeling. I mean, someone who's not at all religious can burn incense, just for the pleasant smell, and get no religious feeling out of it at all. But when incense is used as part of a religious ritual, it can be a very powerful part of the experience. And afterwards, when you smell that kind of incense, you have religious thoughts and feelings. The same is true of music. Now, my communicants have to go to a quiet place and pray for awhile, before they can see me. They can't be rowdy or drunk. And my room has these big statues of Ydris and Isiliar in it. And of course, it's part of the Temple. So the sex happens in a religious context."

"I see," said Tsumil. "You are channeling the sexual energy into a religious direction."

"Yes, exactly!" said Kor, relieved that Tsumil's last remark seemed not adversarial at all. "Why, if someone's first or best sexual experiences are in a religious context, sex may have a religious meaning for them for the rest of their lives! That's why parents in this neighborhood often encourage their children to lose their virginity with the aid of a courtesan of sacrifice, so that this will be the case. Otherwise, people's first sexual experiences are often rather unsatisfactory.

"And there is yet another dimension involved," she continued. "Men often feel _worshipful_ about the female body. I see you smiling a little cynically at that, Tsumil; you are probably thinking, 'That is not genuine religious feeling, that is just lust!' But it is not as simple as that. Lust leads men to degrade women, but the feeling I am speaking of leads men to worship them. A man who worships a woman in this way is actually less likely, I think, to seek to inner-kiss with her, even though he finds her attractive; he feels that it would be out of place, since he is a mere mortal, but she is in some measure divine. So he worships her from a distance. And even if he does inner-kiss with her, he wouldn't dream of making it a perfunctory or exploitative act. He feels deeply grateful, and wants to make it as good for her as it is for him. This is the sort of attitude that a Courtesan of Culture will try to provoke – no one is going to write a beautiful poem out of _lust_. I think it is hard for women to understand this, because we don't usually have as much of a worshipful feeling about men's bodies, just as we don't usually feel the intensity of lust that men often feel. At any rate, if a man _sincerely_ _believes_ that his feeling is spiritual, then it seems to me that it _is_ spiritual."

"Hm! I hadn't thought of that," said Lesuzi.

"I think many people suffer from a one-dimensional view of sex," Kor went on. "They think that sexual desire is just lust, there for the purpose of getting people to have children – a sort of trick played on us by nature, or a bribe. But if that were so, people would be like dogs – the males would be sexually interested in the females only when the females were fertile. But that is not so. Heteromales are always interested! To say that sex is just for reproduction is to treat people like animals. For humans, sex can be much, much more than that! Unfortunately, people impoverish themselves when they think that sex is only for one or two things, because that's what it tends to become for them. But really, sex has many dimensions!"

"That's a very interesting point," said Lesuzi, "and I must admit that I have thought of sex as just two things, pleasure and conception! But now, I'm beginning to wonder if I am not missing something. But there is something else I'm curious about," she went on, with a bit of mischief in her eyes. "Do any of your communicants worship _you_?"

"In a way, yes," replied Kor. "For example, sometimes a man will ask me, when I am naked, just to lie on the bed so that he can _look_ at me for awhile. Then I see this look of awe and adoration on his face. After awhile he might reach out and touch me, on the belly, maybe, very gently; I can feel that he is experiencing awe. You understand, a man who comes to see a Courtesan of Sacrifice is a different type of man than one who makes use of a street prostitute, or at least, he is looking for something different at the moment. It would be blasphemous for a man to make use of a Courtesan of Sacrifice just to satisfy lust."

"But I'll bet," said Lesuzi, with the same cynical smile that Kor had noticed earlier, "that in the end he wants to inner-kiss with you!"

"Usually, yes," said Kor, "though not always. But why be cynical about that? Inner-kissing is, to a great extent, what you make of it; that's my point. If a man approaches it as just a way to quiet the irritating demands of lust, then that is what he will get out of it. But if a man does it with a worshipful attitude, then he will have a very intense spiritual experience of communion with the divine – with Ydris, for example. Many people seek intense communion with the divine, and inner-kissing can be a way to do that, if you approach it with the right attitude."

"But Kor," objected Tling, coming out of her reverie, "you're _not_ divine. You're a mortal! It's a mistake for a man to worship you! It would be idolatry!"

"True," said Kor, "but strictly speaking, he's _not_ worshipping _me_ ; I'm afraid I was speaking imprecisely when I agreed to that. In fact, he's not worshipping that individual woman, the courtesan, _as_ an individual woman. He's worshipping femininity itself, as _manifested_ in the courtesan. Mortals often need something concrete and particular to represent the divine; that is why we have paintings and statues and symbols of the gods, even though we know that gods, unlike mortals, are not limited to particular material bodies. People might bow down before a statue of Ydris, but they are worshipping _Ydris_ , not the _statue_! In a similar way, I make femininity concrete for my communicants. Really, they are worshipping Ydris, not me. And of course, we make sure they understand this. In fact, if a communicant who sees the same courtesan many times becomes emotionally attached to her individually, then he is encouraged to stop seeing her, or to change the nature of their relationship."

"But what about you, Kor," asked Tsumil, "is it a spiritual experience for _you_? I ask, because you said that women don't tend to have the same worshipful attitude towards men."

"Well," said Kor, blushing, "yes, it is a spiritual experience for me, usually. But not in the same way as it is for a man. I am always very aware that I am not dealing with my personal sexual needs – at least," she added, blushing more deeply, "that is only a side effect. I feel that I am a manifestation of Ydris, the eternal feminine. She takes me over, possesses me. Of course, that is complementary to what the man is feeling: I experience union with Ydris; he worships her through me. Ydris flows through me; I feel possessed by her, which makes it a spiritual experience. Also, I often experience a masculine god in him; that's not required, but it often happens. I experience my orgasms not just as explosions of pleasure – although, of course, they are that – but also as celebrations of the wonderful complementarity of male and female. It is apt to be as profound an experience for me as it is for him."

"Do you ever have _female_ communicants?" asked Tsumil.

"Not so far," replied Kor, "because I am strictly heterosexual. The experience lacks something if the Courtesan is' – Kor blushed again – "just going through the motions. We have some lesbian courtesans for lesbian communicants. But I have handed over my sexuality to Ydris, so if the Mother Superior were to instruct me to give the sacrament to a woman, I would do my best."

"Well," said Lesuzi, looking bemused, "I wouldn't have thought that sex could have such a religious dimension, but if you have experienced it, sincerely and repeatedly, it must be so! In fact, now I want to experience that for myself." Turning, she scanned the room, as if looking for likely young men.

"But that's still not the whole story," said Kor. "There is also the question of love."

"How do you mean?" asked Tsumil, Her eyes narrowing a bit. Once again, Kor wished that she had held her tongue. And yet, she wanted her friends to understand her completely.

"Well, sex often creates an emotional bond," said Kor.

"But wouldn't that just create problems?" asked Tsumil, looking puzzled and a little severe. "For example, mightn't your communicant want some kind of further relationship with you that's impossible, or even be jealous of your other communicants?"

"Exactly so," said Kor, "but then we try to channel that energy, too, into a spiritual direction. One way is to emphasize that it is really Ydris who is doing all this for them, not me personally. I mean, I am doing it, but Ydris makes it possible – it's her sexuality, not mine! I have handed it over to her; we make that clear right from the beginning. So the communicants' gratitude and love should go to her, not to me. But if they do get attached, then we channel that, somewhat as Courtesans of Culture do. It's amazing how men in love will work to improve themselves! And if they get jealous, we use that to point out – gently and sympathetically, of course – how _painful_ the egocentric standpoint can be!"

"And what about you – don't you get attached?"

"Well, yes, I do sometimes," said Kor, blushing again, "not only from the sex, but from talking with them about their lives."

"So you act as a confessor to them, also?"

"Oh, yes, frequently; you see, some men won't talk about certain things, even with their best friends, and they won't consent to telepathy, but they will open up to a woman they have sex with. It's another case of sex being more than just pleasure."

"Well, Confession is a sacrament in itself," said Tsumil, thoughtfully. "But, what do _you_ do, when you fall in love with a communicant?"

"Well, there are various types and intensities of love," said Kor, "but, to whatever extent I genuinely love my communicant, that makes it easier to do what I'm supposed to do – to help and nurture him."

"But isn't it painful and tragic?" asked Tling. "It's not like marriage, or even an affair. I mean, it could be broken up at any time. Or, he might not even reciprocate!"

"Well, that's why we call it a _sacrifice_ ," said Kor. "It's not supposed to make life _easier_ for me. I have agreed to give up certain things. But you know, courtesanly relationships can go on for a long time, and sometimes marriages and love pacts fail. There's no recipe that guarantees success in love, or in any important part of life. You see how your community and Lesuzi's community deal with sex in radically different ways, and neither of them seems to fall apart. Now, if a communicant wishes to return to the same courtesan, for years and years, Ydris will not prevent it, as long as the relationship has a genuinely spiritual dimension. And sometimes, Courtesans of whatever kind have been known to ask for remission of their vows, and receive it, and go off and get married, or whatever. Ydris does not want to frustrate love, not at all! Rather, she wants it to have as many forms as possible, so that all kinds of people, at all stages of life, can find love in some form that is acceptable to them at that point in their development. What a wonderful thing love is! Why restrict it?"
**********

"Wonder, not knowledge, makes a life worth living."

(from the opera, _Doubt_ )

The man and the woman emerged from the house, as from a womb. The man called himself "the Fabulist," and the woman called herself "Lightbearer." They felt wind and sun with amazement and awe. Blades of grass were astonishing to them, and they spent a long time contemplating the pattern of veins in a leaf.

Still more fascinating, they saw others like themselves. Across the street, three people were gardening in what appeared to be a park.

"Can we talk to them?" asked Lightbearer.

"I think so," said the Fabulist. They gathered their courage, exchanged wide-eyed glances and nods, and, almost holding their breaths, crossed the street. As she and the Fabulist approached the gardeners, Lightbearer could see that they had a wagonload of flowers which they were transplanting into a bed. They wore simple trousers and shirts of undyed linen, similar to what Lightbearer and the Fabulist were wearing. The gardeners worked cheerfully, with close attention to what they were doing.

As the two of them crossed the street, Lightbearer said to the Fabulist, "Yes, I have a strong feeling that we will understand their language."

"Me too," he replied. "I suppose that supports the notion that we are just local humans who are deluded."

"Excuse me," said the Fabulist, as they approached the strangers. Actually, what he said was something like, " _Aracha de li'ila lukhona_ ," but I have translated for you. A more literal translation would be, "We are apparently about to converse."

The three workers were in the midst of setting a bush into the ground. They all looked up, smiling, and one of them, a woman, said, "Good day, friend, we will be with you in a moment!" Returning their focus to their task, they gently covered the root ball with dirt, and one of them poured water onto it from a cedar bucket. Lightbearer was entranced by the transparency and refractiveness of the water, and by the way it made a fairly stable shape, rather like a linked chain or a braid, as it flowed glittering from the edge of the container to the ground. The three workers also seemed fascinated.

When water began to run over the surface of the earth instead of seeping in, the man with the vessel cut off the flow, glancing at the other two; they both nodded approvingly, and he replaced the bucket in the cart.

"'Universal Compassion flows like water,'" said the woman, in a tone of voice that suggested that she was quoting something. The others nodded, their smiles expanding knowingly. "It is beautiful," said the man who had poured. Then they all three closed their eyes for a moment.

When their eyes were open again, they turned to the Fabulist and Lightbearer with warm attention. The woman said, "Welcome, Friend! I am Focus, and this is Digger and Waterer. What can we do for you?" (The word I have translated as "Friend" could be more literally translated as "missing piece" or "complement.") Digger's complexion was golden; her thick, spiraling red hair was pulled back by a wooden ring at the back of her neck, from which it cascaded halfway down her back. Her nose was broad at the nostrils and without a bridge; her irises were a pure and brilliant green. Her expression suggested a childlike simplicity and the gentleness of a fawn.

The three of them waited, quietly and calmly, for a reply. "It is hard to explain why we are here," said the Fabulist. "We have come from a distant place. I made a mistake, and we cannot return." (Actually, there was no word for "mistake" – he said something like, "I brought about a consequence that I hadn't expected.") "We hope," he continued, "that you can teach us how to live here." The language he was speaking made it impossible for him to say exactly that, either, but it allowed a reasonable approximation.

Wonder expressed itself on the faces of the three workers. Focus said, looking briefly first at each of her companions, "We will help you! Would you explain further, please?"

"We came here to learn," replied Lightbearer, "but now we cannot go back. We must live the rest of our lives here. We hope that we can have lives which will be pleasant and useful to ourselves and to others."

Focus looked into the Fabulist's eyes for a moment, and then into Lightbearer's. "I feel a great sadness in you both," she said. "I feel fear, too, and many other complicated things. You are hesitant. You are _unknowing_."

"I don't completely understand you," the Fabulist said, "but yes, I am sad, and afraid, and puzzled, and so, I believe, is my companion."

"Yes," Lightbearer said, with a sad smile, "I am."

"Everything is all right," said Focus with a confident expression. She glanced again at her companions, and they nodded agreement. "Don't worry! We will take you to _Kolidor_." The word meant something in between "teacher," and "doctor," and "surprising person."

Focus stepped between Lightbearer and the Fabulist, and turning, almost as if in a dance, she took one hand of each of theirs in each of hers. Then she stepped forward, bringing them after her. It did not feel coercive, though, even when Digger and Waterer fell in on either side of them and took their other hands. It was more like children saying to two friends, "Come look at the amazing thing that we have just found."

The five of them proceeded through what the Fabulist and Lightbearer had taken to be a park, but which now appeared to be more like a farm. Most of the land was taken up with raised beds of food plants of one kind or another. Frequently the three gardeners exchanged waves or greetings with the workers they passed. All of these people had a kind of childlike simplicity to them. Soon, passing into a wood, they came to a clearing with a small but intricate wooden building. Pausing at the door, Focus rang a bell that was hanging next to it and called out, "Three of us have found two people we did not expect. We think you will interact with them."

The door was opened by an elderly man with dark brown skin, an elaborately wrinkled, angular face, twinkling green eyes, short, wiry white hair, and a small white goatee. As soon as his eyes lit on the Fabulist and Lightbearer, he seemed fascinated by them. "I speculate that you will enter," he said, standing aside to let them pass.

"We won't see you for awhile," said Focus, giving a little wave of farewell, with Digger and Waterer nodding and smiling in accord. They turned and headed back the way they had come. Kolidor closed the door behind them.

"Please sit down," he said, (actually, it was more like, "I wouldn't be surprised if you were to sit.") gesturing at a wooden bench along one wall. He pulled up a wooden chair to face them. "Will you tell me about yourselves?"

"We have never been here before ... not exactly," said the Fabulist, "and we came here without the intention of staying, but now it looks as though we will have to. We hope someone can help us to fit in."

" _Help you to fit in_ ," said Kolidor musingly, as though the expression was wondrous and strange.

"Well, we are not familiar with things here, and so we hope that someone will explain to us how to make ourselves useful."

"To _explain_ to you!" said Kolidor, with a touch of awe in his voice. "Tell me, where were you ... before?"

"It's hard to describe," said the Fabulist. "It wasn't a place at all, really. You see, I am the creator of the universe."

"The _creator_ ," said Kolidor, savoring the phrase. He leaned forward; his posture expressed utter fascination.

"Is he teasing us?" asked Lightbearer, in another language.

"I don't think so," replied the Fabulist. "He just thinks in a very different way from us. I haven't quite put my finger on it, though."

Hearing them speak in another language seemed to fascinate Kolidor even more. "I'm going to do something very unusual!" he exclaimed, with great satisfaction.

"What's that?" asked Lightbearer, returning to Kolidor's language.

"I don't know yet!!!" said Kolidor, with happy excitement, "but I will soon!"
**********

"Death brings us home."

(Anonymous Tarkletian exile,

about to be executed for returning)

With great reluctance, Arguit slowed his panting and foaming horse to a walk. He had to get to his home neighborhood, and right away! But that wouldn't happen if he exhausted his horse.

He had deserted! Although he was almost convinced that he had made a terrible mistake, it felt good to be committed, to be done with ambivalence and doubt. What sane man would choose Pappi and Tarth Sakul for enemies? But the danger had brought him alive, more alive than he had been since he was a child. His mind was clear, and working efficiently, undistracted by trivialities. It told him that no sane man would choose them for friends or employers, either.

It might be awhile before Tarth Sakul found out about his deception, and besides, Pappi and his Security chief would be focusing their malice on Koof for awhile. Or so he hoped.

Overwhelmed by his fear of being too late, Arguit dug his heels into his horse's ribs. He rode at a gallop through the narrow and twisting streets, shouting to warn pedestrians of his approach. His horse foamed and wheezed. As he entered his old neighborhood, all the streets became unfamiliar; everything had been torn down and rebuilt. He had to ask for directions. Finally, though, he saw the silver domes of his immediate goal.

The Temple of Ydris.

Covering the remaining ground quickly, he rode up the granite steps to the main entrance, then reined in, in front of the massive steel doors. The guard of Amazons under the arch had raised their shields and crossbows; he had come within a hair's breadth of getting himself killed. He leapt from the horse and prostrated himself on the ground. He felt the point of a spear between his shoulder blades. "I need help!" he said. "I appeal to the mercy of Great Mother Ydris, Blessed be Her name, on behalf of my wife and daughters!" He had a momentary thought that he might have _wanted_ to be killed, so as to escape the horrible sense of responsibility that he now felt, for putting his family in danger.

There was a moment of silence, which felt like an hour. Then he heard a voice say, "You two: shackle his hands. You two: search him. You: get the Mother Superior and the backup watch. You: take care of that horse. The rest of you, double line on the steps in front of him. Front line, shields up! Rear line, crossbows vertical, safeties off! Witches, full scan!"

Shackled, searched, and pulled to his feet, Arguit briefly met the gaze of the lieutenant, her expression menacing under her spiky helmet. One of the witches reported, "He's not a magician, but he has several spells on him. Some of them are deadly, but they are not directed at us."

Another said, "The immediate neighborhood is clear."

The lieutenant returned her spear to the clip behind her back, and drew a razor-sharp stiletto from a scabbard on her upper left arm. Holding it against Arguit's throat, she thrust her face right up against his and snarled, "If you have any ill designs, confess them now and be saved! Our telepath is on the way; she will see right through you!"

"I am not your enemy, Noble Amazon," he said, sweating and trembling, but maintaining a certain dignity, so as not to appear to be a thug. "I am a foolish man who has made many mistakes from which others may suffer, unless I obtain your help."

"He speaks some truth, Lieutenant," said one of the Witches. "Some of the spells on him are death spells directed at his family."

"And what manner of man are _you_ ," hissed the lieutenant, gently brushing the razor edge of her stiletto back and forth, back and forth, over the site of his carotid artery, "to be consorting with people who set spells like _that_?"

"A foolish and greedy man," replied Arguit, "a man who, tempted by a lush salary, told himself that nothing would go wrong, and that whatever he did, would only be done by someone else, if he did not do it himself. A man who wanted to free himself and his wife from the poverty into which they both had been born, and which he hoped his children would never know."

The Lieutenant's eyes softened just a bit. "There are worse kinds of foolishness than that," she said. The edge of her stiletto ceased to rove. It rested atop his jugular vein; it felt huge, bigger than a broadsword.

The bronze gates clanged, and the Mother Superior appeared. She was small, and wearing a long black robe with a hood, so that it was only when she approached him that he could see that she was a white-haired old woman. She carried a silver staff with an icon of Ydris at the top. Behind her, guided by a teenaged girl, came a round-faced woman with papery skin and closed eyes: the telepath. "Your permission for a level-one scan," said the Lieutenant. "Granted," said Arguit, and he felt the familiar, repulsive feeling of invasion, as if maggots were eating tunnels through his brain. Then he heard in his mind the hoarse whisper of her report: "He is not hostile to you. He genuinely wants your assistance. He has not lied to you. He has worked as a security manager for an arch-criminal, but he has deserted his post, and fears his master's retribution, not only on himself, but on his family."

The lieutenant backed off, returning her stiletto to its scabbard, but looking wary and skeptical. Arguit felt only half as afraid. The Mother Superior asked one of the witches, "Are you sure he has no booby-traps or viruses?"

"A level-two search detects none, Holy Mother."

"All right, take the shackles off him, but keep three guards with him. I will take him to my office. We will remain on Second Alert until I say otherwise. Have three cavalry squadrons each escort a witch and a telepath so that they can between them scan the whole immediate neighborhood. Send a message to the local police describing what has happened, but tell them we will handle it. And what, Good Sir, would be your name?"

"Arguit," he said, as his shackles were removed.

"Come with me, Arguit. And you too, Sirinitha," she said, gesturing to the telepath. "Lieutenant Calcadro, you have done well; please convey my appreciation to your warriors."

"Thank, you, Holy Mother," said the Lieutenant, smiling, and making the open-handed Ydris salute. Arguit was startled; he hadn't thought that face could smile.
**********

"Weaning is often more difficult for the mother than for the child."

( _The Mother Goddess, a Biography_ , by Zilendria Kartle)

The touch of Isiliar's voice flooded Kor's whole being with relief. Her stiffness and fatigue began to fade. She felt like a puppy whose master returns after leaving her for a long day in an unfamiliar kennel. Her loneliness and despair evaporated.

Isiliar appeared, and lifted Kor up, up, up in her arms, rocking her back and forth, high over the houses, but perfectly, utterly safe. She showered Kor with affection and praise. Kor was so happy! She closed her eyes and relished the feeling as the anxieties of her life drained out of her. She let herself relax completely, both in body and in mind. She felt cleansed and pure. As her worries evaporated, she felt herself filling with energy and strength. She began to sing:

I praise Isiliar,

I love Isiliar.

She sang it over and over. Non-Suimi were sometimes amused at Suimi who sang this little jingle repeatedly for hours. But it expressed exactly what Kor felt. She had no desire to do anything other than to love Isiliar and to praise her, to love and love and love and love and praise and praise and praise and praise her, forever and ever. Kor did not praise Isiliar because she thought Isiliar needed praise; she praised her because Kor herself needed to express the love and gratitude and wonder and reverence that welled up in her heart, unceasingly and without effort or intent. This went on for a long time. Then a still greater peace came upon Kor, and she felt too peaceful even to sing.

For an endless time, Kor simply felt as if she were lying in a boat, rocking gently on a great ocean. Dream clouds wove and unwove themselves in the sky overhead, always serene, always beautiful. Everything was peaceful. She slept, dreamed strange but lovely dreams, and awoke once again in the breast of Isiliar.

As she snuggled into the warmth of the Goddess, Kor began to hear what she called "Isiliar's Compassion Song." It was Isiliar's never-ending call to all the weary, deprived, humiliated, and defeated in the world. It expressed her infinite tenderness and compassion for them. It acknowledged the depths of their suffering, but did not blame them for it. It expressed her desire to comfort them and to help them to find an escape. Gently, she urged them to choose Life, choose Love, choose Happiness, in spite of the sad disappointments of the past. It brought, as it always did, a touch of sadness back into Kor's consciousness. How sad that people suffered; how sad that some of them did not even hear this song. Or, did they hear it but ignore it? Were they victims of a god of Fear?

Refreshed and energetic, Kor wanted to help those people. She even wanted to help the god of Fear, who to her was just another victim. Like her earlier praise of Isiliar, this desire welled up from Kor's inmost heart with complete spontaneity and irresistible force. She became impatient with resting in the Goddess' arms. "Put me down!" she said.

"I see," said Isiliar, "that you are still not ready to take the easy path." There was a little teasing in her tone, but also admiration.

"Never!" said Kor. "Give me your hardest path, my beautiful, beloved goddess."

"It will be a little different from what you have already endured," said Isiliar, stroking Kor's hair tenderly, "but I think it will satisfy your perverse desire for difficulty and suffering."

"I am ready!" said Kor. "Put me down!"

Isiliar smiled and put her down in her bare little room. "My first command," said the Goddess, smiling impishly, "is that you get some sleep."

"But I'm so excited!" said Kor. "I want to _do_ something, _now!_ I won't be _able_ to sleep!"

"I will tell you what to _do_ ," said the Goddess, with a touch of severity. "Get your bedding from the closet, make it up, undress, and lie in it. As soon as your head touches the pillow, you will fall asleep. I will see to that."

With a bit of a pout, Kor did as she was told. Pulling the blankets over her and resting on one elbow, she said, "Good night, Isiliar. I love you!"

"Good night to you, Kor. I love you too!" The Goddess blew out the candles and made her own radiance to fade.

Kor put her head down. Her eyes closed, and she began to snore.

Vidigeon, who had been watching all this, was quite perplexed. He could infer a great deal about Kor's inner state from her posture and facial expressions, and from her half of the dialogue. But he neither saw nor heard Isiliar, and when Kor thought she was lifted up, she seemed to Vidigeon to remain right where she had been. He did feel the presence of magical forces, but he could not grasp them clearly. 'I must give a higher priority to understanding the gods,' he thought.
**********

"Sometimes you leave home,

but sometimes Home goes on ahead."

( _Anticipations_ , by Photuma Hylas)

Kor was awakened in the middle of the night; sitting up with a start, she saw Talek standing over her with a lantern. She heard urgent voices, and objects being moved, from other rooms. She felt panic.

"Uh ... Ta'ek!" she said, her mind still cold and viscous with sleep. "Uh, u'm shorry, whass, whass happin?"

"It's not good," said Talek. "The Angels of Rejuvenation came earlier than I thought. They are here _now_! We must get everyone into the wains, and flee!"

Kor tried to leap to her feet, but only succeeded in falling on her side. Every joint in her aging body screamed with pain. "Hep me," she said. "Can' wake up!"

Talek's staff twitched like a snake, and she found herself vertical and shambling toward the door. "Wait!" she said. "Clo'es! Nod 'ressed!"

"No time!" said Talek, but he made a gesture with his staff and a bundle of clothes forced its way out of the cabinet and into Kor's arms. As she passed through the common rooms, Kor saw a number of black figures, apparently neophytes of Talek's church, holding lanterns and herding children in the general direction of the courtyard entrance. Many of the younger children were hysterical with confusion and fear. "Is a' right!" croaked Kor, waving her arms to attract their attention, "Is a' right! Truss them! Go quick!" Confused, stumbling, and slurred of speech, she did not inspire the confidence she normally did, but it helped. She could see Intipisk roll her eyes and shrug her shoulders, as if to say, "All right, I have no idea whether Kor is in her right mind or not, but I will trust her, for want of a better idea."

Talek had disappeared. "Whey Dalek?" asked Kor worriedly, but she continued to stagger toward the courtyard entrance, which was usually shut and bolted, but which was now wide open. Lessie appeared and took her hand. They staggered through an anteroom and came out in the courtyard.

It was cold. A nearly full moon made things visible, in spite of wisps of fog. Like rocks in the surf, three large wains stood among scurrying figures; each wain had a quartet of horses. One of the dark figures pointed to a short ladder at the back of one. Shivering and covered with goose bumps, Kor and Lessie climbed in and helped each other to dress.

Suddenly Kor had second thoughts. "Mus' go back!" she said. "Mus' he'p! Mus' get things!" She started to lever herself over the backboard, steadied by Lessie. "No time, no time!" said one of the black figures, gesturing wildly for her to get back in. Halfway in and halfway out, Kor stopped and looked at the door. Children were streaming out of it, some carrying others. How could she get back in? Should she simply wait, trusting in Talek's direction? _How little I really know him,_ she thought, hesitating.

A thicker fog began to roll in. One of the nearby windows, boarded over like the rest, suddenly burst open, with a painful squealing of wrenched nails. Boxes and bundles came pouring out and into one of the wains. The stream of figures emerging from the building came to an end, and flowed quickly into the other two wains. Talek appeared and leapt in next to Lessie, shouting something to the drivers. The drivers shouted to the horses. Kor's wain started with a jerk which would have spilled her from her perch if Lessie had not grabbed her.

"Everything is going according to plan," reported Vidigeon to the Lord.

As the building she had known for so long receded behind them, Kor saw it change. Sunshine lit and warmed it. The boards disappeared from the windows, which were glazed in clear glass. The grime and graffiti disappeared from its walls. They became bright with fresh paint, and covered with trellises, which were covered in turn with luxuriant flowers. The courtyard was a garden. It was filled with happy people, laughing, talking, strolling. And among them was a girl of seventeen, radiant with youth, hope, and love, and drunk with happiness. Kor herself! "No ... !" cried the elderly Kor in the wain, as the scene disappeared into the mist.
**********

"Any one human being is an endless source of revelation."

(Grottiner Sfill et al., _Introduction to Anthropology_ )

The Mother Superior took her seat behind her desk, waving Arguit and the telepath into chairs facing her. Looking a little sternly at Arguit, she said, "The more quick and straightforward your answers are, the less I will have to rely on Sirinitha. Now, tell me what your problem is."

"Yes, Your Holiness –" Arguit began, but the Mother Superior cut him off: "And please, speak informally, in the vernacular. It will save us a lot of time."

"Well, my name is Arguit. I work in Buildings and Grounds Security. I was working for this guy, Pappi, in a neighborhood about 10 horizons from here. He's a Crime Lord; he's into everything, controls the whole neighborhood, one way or another. He had a security chief named Tarth Sakul, and I was his assistant. Everything was flowing pretty freely until the neighborhood wind learned that Pappi had these things, these ruby sculptures, very valuable."

"What _kind_ of ruby sculptures?" asked the Mother Superior, showing a bit of alarm.

"Ah, well, some dynasty – "

" _P'Twism_ Dynasty?"

"Ya, that's it! So –"

"Hold on a moment!" The Mother Superior looked pained; she leaned forward, eyes closed, frowning, cradling her head in her left hand. Then she snapped out of it; turning to the telepath, she said, "Check him, level five!" Arguit felt again the disgusting stirring and crawling of a telepath within his mind, but this time it was more intense; it thrust itself into his most private recesses. His whole life felt slimed. It seemed to go on forever. Finally, it faded away, leaving him with a sickening sense of violation. Then the telepath reported:

"He speaks the truth, Holy Mother. Also, I detect no significant tampering with mental functions."

The Mother Superior picked up a spiraling seashell from her desk and spoke into it: "Saseltiki, I need you, now, first priority! And bring the Ardnasian Prophecy with you!" Turning again to Arguit, she composed herself and said, "Sorry to keep interrupting. Please continue."

"Well," continued Arguit, "suddenly all these jokers wanted to steal them, but they couldn't even get close, Tarth Sakul was too good. They all ended up dead some slow way. Until this guy, Koof, they say he's a Kelosian Monk, started in. He didn't get the sculptures, but he caused a lot of trouble trying. It began to look like he might be a match for Tarth Sakul. I began to lose my nerve, and I didn't want Tarth Sakul to find that out – see, he knows where our families are, and he said he'd kill them if we betrayed him. And I knew he would find out, because he gave us telepathic interviews, with a truth philtre, once a day. So, I deserted – in order to come here."

"By the love of Ydris! Where is your family now?"

"My wife's name is Laeri Alinara. She and the kids live at 227 Sunshine Drive, in the Babbling Brooks neighborhood, just South of the Great Crystal River."

"Hold on!" said the Mother Superior, picking up her seashell again. "Lieutenant Calcadro! Assemble a full squad and go immediately to the Babbling Brooks neighborhood, just South of the Great Crystal River. As fast as you can. You are to find a woman, Laeri Alinara, at 227 Sunshine Drive, and request to evacuate her and her children. Tell her that her husband, Arguit, is in touch with us, and has informed us that she is in immediate mortal danger from his employer. Check her and the children for spells. He is here now, and she can call us for verification. If she consents, clear all spells and evacuate the entire family by an irregular path drifting South-East, ending up at our safe house, Chameleon Twelve. Use cloaking spells. Questions? ... Good! May Ydris be with you! End transmission." Arguit sighed with a bit of relief; he didn't know if that would suffice to save his family, but it was something.

The Mother Superior turned back to Arguit. "And you, are there any direct threats against you?"

"Ya, he has several spells on me. I would be dead now, except when I left I managed to sabotage their long-distance triggers. Eventually, though, they will be fixed."

Yet again she picked up her seashell. "Tilminioë, divert a witch to my office, immediately. End. Now, Mr. Arguit, why did you come to _us_?"

Arguit tried to answer, but his breath would not obey. He could not breathe, either in or out. Panic took him. Sweat beaded him. His eyes widened, his mouth worked soundlessly, and he pointed to his chest. The Mother Superior stood up, grabbing her staff. She muttered something. A cone of white light from the forehead of the Goddess image enveloped Arguit. Then his body glowed blue, except for his chest, which was red. A shaft of golden light came from the navel of the image, and struck the center of Arguit's chest. He began to shudder violently. There was a crackling in his ears. Then there was a sound as if a huge gong had been struck, and a death scream. As it died away, Arguit found himself breathing again. The lights from the staff went out.

He greedily gulped air. "Ah, ... Ah, ..., Thank ... you ..." he said, panting. "I guess they managed to fix one of the triggers, or perhaps that was the spell that is supposed to kill me if I reveal anything about Pappi's operations."

"Pleased to do it," said the Mother Superior. "All right, Mr. Arguit, if your enemy doesn't want you to tell us something, it makes sense for you to try to tell us, right? Why did you come to _us_?"

"Well," said Arguit, tensing himself for another seizure, "my wife used to live here, at your temple. She studied midwifery, and soul first aid, and some medical spells. And she still comes here sometimes for festivals and retreats. And I used to come here for, ah, to visit a wh-, I mean, a courtesan of sacrifice – that was before I was married, of course. And, I don't really have any _other_ religion."

The Mother Superior did not reply – she seemed to be waiting for him to say more. "Well," he continued, "I was very impressed with the girl – the courtesan. I mean, she was very beautiful, unbelievably beautiful, and thoughtful, and tender, but there was more. She had such faith. And it wasn't just the, ah, you know, although that was ... quite something!" His eyes enlarged and became blank.

"Mr. Arguit?" said the Mother Superior, raising her staff.

"Ah, yes," said Arguit, giving a little start, "sorry, got a little distracted there. I could _talk_ to her. I really needed someone to talk to at that time. I was very confused, lost ... sometimes I would surprise myself, I would even sometimes talk _first_ , before we, you know. And talking to her, just _being_ with her, I really began to get the mud out of my thinking. Because _she_ was so clear. ... and her generosity – I mean, most women want something back, you know what I mean? You have to take them out to dinner, or --"

"Best not to digress, Mister Arguit. You were explaining why you came to us."

"Sorry. But I'll never forget her – talk about your honeypot on fire – "

"MR. ARGUIT!"

"Sorry, sorry! Well, I guess I thought you must really have something going on here."

"We like to think so," said the Mother Superior, "but, do you remember the _name_ of this girl?" She leaned forward, holding her staff at the ready.

"Ya," said Arguit, "it was – " at that moment a snake appeared, curled about his arm, and struck the side of his throat. He screamed hoarsely and tried to pull it off, toppling from his chair. Its fangs were too firmly embedded. From the hands of the image on the Mother Superior's staff came two beams of light, one red and one yellow. The red light struck the serpent on the head, the yellow on the tail. It exploded in fire. "Witch Doctor to the office," shouted the Mother Superior into her seashell, as she rushed to Arguit's side, "NOW! And two more guards!"

He was motionless. "He is still alive," said Sirinitha, "but he is in a deep sleep. I can see nothing more."

A few moments later, several women rushed in; one of them wore the characteristic black winged hat of a witch doctor. "Diagnose him!" commanded the Mother Superior, pointing to Arguit. The witch knelt down, closed her eyes, and patted Arguit down. "He is in a coma – I gather that you managed to save him from a death spell, but not before it did a lot of damage. I think he'll live, but it will be awhile before he comes to."

The Mother Superior sighed. "I'm not as quick as I used to be." She smiled at one of the women who had just arrived. "I'm glad you're here, Silirone. Give him a complete search and see if you can deactivate anything nasty he has on him."
**********

"Holding back the truth is like swimming against the current."

(Saint Stiggle the Sinner)

After Pappi left him, Sre Lugu made an effort to compose himself. He first sat down and took deep breaths, trying to relax. As he breathed, he counted his breaths, up to ten, and then starting over, again and again, focusing on the numbers as intensely as possible so as to shut out all thoughts of his wife, of Pappi, and of Liliune. After a few moments, these thoughts had indeed receded into a sort of uneasy sleep. He then began to formulate in his mind what he might say to his superior. He gathered the relevant documents together, smoothed and straightened his vestments, and prepared to leave his office. Next to the door was a small statue of Streling, the god of banking, holding his symbol, the water wheel. Normally, Sre Lugu would pay his respects to the god, and dab himself with a bit of gold dust from the god's left hand, placed there each morning by the bank's chief priest. But now felt unable to do this; he was about to betray his god along with his employer and his mentor, and he could not bring himself to make things worse by going through the motions of paying respect while in fact desecrating his post. Instead he simply bowed sadly to the statue, to apologize.

A few breaths later, he was entering the office of his supervisor, Srea Gala. As always, Srea Gala rose, smiled warmly, made the sign of the golden blessing, and gestured to a chair. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, Srea Gala asked what the business at hand would be. Sre Lugu began to speak, but it was difficult; he was going to lie to his superior about matters of great importance.

In fact, he had uttered only a few words when Seri Gala broke in. "Sre Lugu," he said, "forgive me for interrupting. For many years now I have been your supervisor and your mentor, but I hope I have also been your friend."

"Of course you have," said Sre Lugu, and felt still more guilt weighing down his soul.

"I can tell that something is not right with you," said Srea Gala. "You are putting on a brave front, but I know you too well."

Sre Lugu could say nothing. His tongue was frozen solid. In his heart was panic. Everything was beginning to unravel! Yet at the same time, he felt a trace of relief.

"It is hard to be a man's friend and his superior at the same time," continued Srea Gala, "for if anything goes wrong, it may be my duty to impose some penance, or even to require you to go on retreat. But I like to think that I would never do anything unless it were in your best interest as well as that of the bank. If there is something wrong, Sre Lugu, I beg you to trust me to help you, just as you have when things have been well."

Sre Lugu felt dizzy. He felt pulled both ways – to continue the deception, and to confess. But confession might mean the loss of his job, his wife, his children! He steeled himself against the temptation to do so, and began to think about what he might say instead.

"It is dangerous for the bank to deal with men like Pappi," continued Srea Gala, before Sre Lugu could formulate his reply. "We do it because we hope that some of his wealth can be turned to good rather than evil. But _his_ goal is, to turn the bank to _his_ own ends. How could we allow that to happen? Now, let me say something, Sre Lugu. I have been privileged to know you for many years, and I believe to the bottom of my heart that you are fundamentally a good man. If you have strayed, you can nevertheless return to the Golden Path."

How seductive he is, thought Sre Lugu, How he flatters me, to break my resolve and get me to give everything away! How he uses our friendship to undermine my resolve! But if I confess to him, I will be ruined! I must deceive him!

"Please, Sre Lugu," said Srea Gala, "please don't make me make this official. Don't make me call for the Guardians and for a telepath. Listen: do you really believe the bank expects you to be as pure as gold ten times refined? If someone overdraws their account, do we kill them? No, we help them to pay what they owe, with a little interest. And that is better for us, too, isn't it? It is the same with embezzlers."

That's what I am, thought Sre Lugu, with a start. I am an **embezzler**! Shame saturated him. I will pretend to be ill, he thought, and that will explain why I am not functioning normally. I will pretend to faint. I actually do feel faint and dizzy. If I fainted, I could avoid the telepath. I might have time to find a tamperer and hide my memories and plans. But if I start to tamper with myself, where will it end? I will never know what is real and what is not, and the tamperer will come to own me. Or Pappi will.

Srea Gala had stopped talking. Sre Lugu, who had been averting his gaze, looked up at him. Tears were streaming from Srea Gala's eyes, which expressed an intense mixture of love and anguish. Sre Lugu remembered a line from the _Scriptures of Streling_ :

Sooner or later, someone will audit the sinner's account; and the longer he puts it off, the more difficult it will be.

He felt as though he had wakened from a bad dream. I must pay what I owe to all, he thought, to my wife, to the bank, to Liliune, and to Pappi. I must have faith that it will be for the best, according to the Great Heavenly Balance Sheet. What a strange, bittersweet feeling! He sighed a deep sigh. As soon as he heard that sigh, Srea Gala relaxed and smiled, wiping the tears from his face. Suddenly the two of them burst out laughing. They leaned over the desk and embraced one another, weeping and laughing at once.
**********

"Nothing depends on your point of view."

(Lirandika Lekstro)

Kor tried to calm herself as the wains turned into the street. She was not very successful. She practically screamed when an indistinct figure came running out of the mist. It turned out to be Lessie's companion, the mute boy. Running up, he leapt into the wain that Kor was in, and fell into a panting clinch with Lessie, who shed tears of relief. A moment later, Tulith appeared, accompanied by two neophytes, and clutching her box of painting equipment. She climbed into Kor's wain, and fell into an equally breathless clinch with Kor, who was already crying.

As Kor and Tulith sat jerking uncomfortably with the irregular movements of the wain, Kor finally finished waking up. She assessed their condition and rather wished that she had remained confused. She did not see how it would be possible to escape the Angels. She had been taken by them once before. "No," she moaned, "not again! I'd rather die!" Tulith could think of nothing to say, but stroked Kor's hair tenderly.

About a hundredbreath later, Kor became aware of an indefinite soft but abrasive sound, like a hoarse whisper of despair. It grew gradually louder and louder, until it could be perceived to be an amalgam of hundreds of yells and screams, together with crashes and clangs. The Angels! Her belly clenched with fear. Her children ... Suddenly she turned to Talek. "Talek, how can we get out? They are swarming now – they must have blocked off all the gates!"

Talek nodded. "You're right, we can't get out. I'm going to try something else. I've told the drivers to head for Pappi's compound."

"Pappi's compound? I should think that would be the worst place – the focus of their attention!"

Again Talek nodded. "Ironic, isn't it? But the place is not entirely what it seems, and it does have walls and gates. The Angels have been here many times before, and they have always left those buildings standing. At any rate, I can't think of anything better."

Kor felt a little contrite about questioning him. "You've been wonderful, Talek," she said. She reached out and gave his shoulder a squeeze. It had a curious shape. "Thank you," Talek replied.

They both jumped as a disembodied voice said, "Mind if I join you?"

"Koof!" said Talek. "Of course not! Get in the wain! Where are you?"

"Well, I _am_ in the wain," said Koof, a little sheepishly, "I'm just invisible."

"Koof spends a lot of time invisible," Talek explained to the others. "It's sort of the uniform of his profession. Have a seat!"

"Thanks," said Koof.

"You two _know_ each other?" asked Kor.

"Oh, yes," said Koof, "we go back a long way!" He and Talek both chuckled.

"Forgive me, Brother Koof," said Kor, "but could you make _us_ invisible? Us and the wains and horses? I think we're going to need it!"

"Well, yes, I can, as a matter of fact," said Koof. "Just a moment!" There was a pause, and then they heard his baritone voice chanting something. After a moment, he stopped and said, "There you are! As long as none of their wizards comes along, we are pretty safe!"

"But, I can still _see_ everyone!" said Kor.

"I exempted you all," said Koof. "Makes it easier if you want to move around in the wain, or find someone."

"I can't see _you_ , though," said Kor.

"Well," replied Koof, "the less of you know what I look like, the better off we both are. Besides, I tend to work, ah, as Nature made me, so to speak. Makes it easier to crawl through tight spaces."

Lessie gave a start and averted her eyes. "What, can you see him?" asked Tulith. "No, but that he's there, I know!" said Lessie, "and at someone who's naked, polite to look it's not!" Tulith thought Koof must be next to her, because she could feel an otherwise inexplicable warmth. It felt quite pleasant.

At that moment, the sound of the Angelic host got suddenly louder, and a wave of howling beaters came around the corner behind them. As the main contingent rushed down the street, those on the sides stormed the houses. If a door could not be forced, they smashed the windows and crawled through them. Further up the street, a few residents burst from their house and started to run. Several Beaters ran ahead of the others and threw bolas at the fugitives. Each bola consisted of three lengths of rope tied together, with weights at the ends. A beater would somehow attach the central knot of a bola to the tip of his bludgeon, raise it over his head, get the whole bola spinning, and then launch it at the victim. The bola would wrap itself tightly around the victim's legs, bringing him down. The beaters overtook them and gave each one a sharp rap to the temple with a bludgeon. Overcome with pain and nausea, the residents lost all interest in flight.

The leading Angels were overtaking the wains. The din was painfully loud. Since Kor could see the wains and everything in them (except Koof), she had great difficulty convincing herself that they were truly invisible. Could this man, a dedicated thief, really be trusted? Kor had a horrible temptation to jump out and run away. "Hold me!" she whispered to Tulith. Tulith was already holding her, but she held tighter. The beaters approached; they were monstrously ugly in their barbaric armor, their faces masks of predation. They caught up with the wain; Kor could see the details of their armor, their amulets, and their grisly trophies. But instead of colliding with the wain, the stream of Angels split into two groups and went around it.

"Can't they tell there's something here, even though they can't see us?" asked Intipisk, who had ended up in the same wain as Kor. "They don't bump into us, after all. Don't they see a big empty space?"

"Well, that would be a problem if this were just an _optical_ spell," said Koof, with a note of professional pride, "but this is a _psychological_ spell. They _can_ see us, actually, and that's why they go around us. But the information doesn't reach their consciousness."

As the screaming beaters coursed past the wains, some of them just inches from her face, Intipisk could smell their rank sweat. She put her hands over her ears to block the sound of their howls. She looked right into the face of one, an older man with a bushy beard. 'Where were you born?' she wondered to herself. 'Were you once a cute and cuddly little boy? Is this what your parents wanted you to be? How did you find your way to where you are tonight? What really goes on in your mind?' She tried to read his thoughts and personality from his face.

Because her three eyes were each specialized in a different way, Intipisk had remarkably acute vision; she could see every hair, wrinkle, and pore in the man's gnarled and craggy face. She could see the variations in temperature on it. She could see all the colors that a man or a bee would see, and a few more. But the mind of the Angel remained a mystery to her. He passed by and was replaced in her view by another Angel, a woman with a long scar on one cheek and a helmet made of leather and crude chain mail. On her forehead she had painted some mysterious sign, in what appeared to be blood. 'Why did you turn out like this?' asked Intipisk in her mind. 'Could _I_ end up like that some day?'

"Oh, oh," said Talek, raising his voice to be heard over the din. " _Wizard_!" He stood up, facing backwards, and raised his staff. Intipisk saw, about twenty feet behind them, a group of Angels moving at about the same pace as the wains. In the center was a big man with thick white hair and a long white beard, with little crescent spectacles and a high, conical black cap adorned with symbols of stars and planets. He carried a long wooden staff. He was staring in the general direction of the wains with a suspicious expression.

"You've got to take him, Talek," yelled Koof. "I've got all I can handle, keeping the wains invisible, and the horses calm."

"I'll try," said Talek. The neophytes rose and stood by his side.

Intipisk was frightened, but at the same time, oddly pleased. For many years she had spent her free time ensconced in novels, which were more fascinating to her than her own existence. Often, in her mind, she spoke as though reciting a novel in which she was a character. While washing dishes, she might think, 'Intipisk picked up a spoon and began to wash it. She wondered who her parents had been, and what had happened to them. Somehow, she felt that she would one day see them again. Abstractedly, she rubbed the spoon with the washcloth.' She had always felt, though, that the narrative of her own life lacked excitement and direction, and wished that she were a character in a novel. But when the Angels began rushing by the wain, she realized with intense pleasure that at last, she was having an experience that _could_ be in a novel! This scene was as dramatic as anything in _Gronia and Pythador_ , or even _the Doom of Alangatzer_! "Intipisk wondered," she narrated to herself, "whether Talek would be able to hold off the attack of the Angel Wizard. She saw Kor's mysterious, black-robed friend raise his staff, and utter some words in a guttural language that she had never heard before. The tip of his staff glowed red for a moment. Suddenly, several more wains, rather like the one she was in, appeared in the street. One of them was filled with soldiers, who lifted their crossbows to their shoulders and took aim at the Angel Wizard."

"As might be expected," Intipisk continued, "the Angel Wizard raised his own staff, and a great blast of fire streamed from it to one of the illusory wains. Engulfed in fire, the soldiers therein screamed and dropped their bows. Many of them leapt from the cart and rolled on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames that had taken root in them. Some of them, with heroic self-control, drew their swords and, as living fireballs, charged the Wizard's group. The driver of the burning wain managed to turn it around, and the panicking horses, trying vainly to escape from the fire behind them, also charged the Wizard. He raised his staff over his head, and it turned into an umbrella, which rose and lifted him into the air, well above the reach of his attackers, who finally collapsed and exploded, one by one, leaving puffs of reddish mist. Then the burning wain itself exploded, making a huge sphere of fire that, expanding faster than a bird could fly, came within a foot of Intipisk's face before it darkened into dense and suffocating smoke. The rushing smoke then hit her like an ocean wave, knocking her over. With a bizarre mix of fear and excitement, Intipisk smelled her own hair charring! When the smoke cleared, she saw many of the Wizard's entourage running in panic from a pillar of sparks and smoke where the burning wain had been."

"Looking quickly at Talek, Intipisk saw that he was bent over, apparently collapsing from fatigue. The neophytes were helping him to stand. Intipisk turned her attention back to the Wizard. He was approaching them through the air, still hanging from his umbrella. His eyes focused on them with a stern expression. He raised his free hand and pointed it at them, muttering something. But at that moment, the mob of Angels in the street seemed to see the wain, and after a moment of hesitation, they came leaping into it. The Wizard lowered his hand. 'He's probably afraid of harming his own people,' thought Intipisk. 'Maybe Koof made us visible on purpose, so that this would happen. An ingenious but desperate move.' The Wizard turned his attention to destroying the other wains that Talek had created, whose occupants were attacking him with spears and arrows. Meanwhile, the occupants of the real wain were attacked by their boarders, and some tried to escape out the front; but beaters were swarming in there, too. Intipisk and her companions, including Talek, found themselves locked in unbreakable wrestling holds. It was the same with the other two orphanage wains."

"As her arms were tied behind her back, Intipisk noticed something especially bizarre: seen up close, the Angels holding them had no detail; their faces were made with just a few strokes, like small figures in a painting, seen through a magnifying glass. At a distance they would look right, but, ... Intipisk had a moment of hope: she thought, 'This is just another of Talek's illusions. Or _somebody's_! It's not really happening! We are not really being captured! But since it _looks_ as though we are, perhaps the Wizard will not concern himself with us any further! We should play along, so that the illusion is complete.' So she looked even more terrified than she really was, and struggled with her captor, even though this resulted in some painful wrenchings. Finally she was thrown to the floor and immobilized by several Angels. 'How fascinating,' she thought, 'to be part of a purely fictional event!'"

"Lying bound and gagged on the floor of the wain, Intipisk could nevertheless see that the driver of the wain had been bound, and that the horses were now being driven by Beaters. They continued in the same direction as before, but they had to proceed very slowly, because they were in the midst of a roiling sea of Angels."

"It was at this time that Intipisk looked up, and noticed that the sky was no longer black; dawn had brushed it with several pastel shades, and only the brightest stars were still visible. In the East, she saw a number of thin cirrus clouds. There was also one anomalous cloud, rounded and dense, which was entirely black, while the others were tinted coral by the as yet invisible sun. Naturally, she did not dwell on this oddity, but turned her attention back to the streets and the wains."

"She realized that they were approaching what she thought must be Pappi's compound, though she had never seen it before. In the dawnlight, the spires and parapets of the huge but graceful buildings seemed to be covered with ghostly mother-of-pearl. 'How beautiful,' she thought, 'An odd dwelling for a criminal.' At this time, too, the crowd of Angels thinned out a bit, and the wain drivers picked up the pace a little. Intipisk's heart leapt. But then, an Angel who seemed to be a figure of authority approached the drivers, ordering them to halt. They did not obey, and he called to others and rushed up to the head driver, angrily barking more orders at him. Apparently Talek or Koof had adjusted the features of the drivers to be more detailed, for the authority figure did not appear to notice anything wrong with their appearance. But he was at first puzzled and then very angry with their refusal to obey. He turned and shouted, and a whole contingent of Beaters came rushing at the wains. But suddenly, the Beaters lost their focus, and began to mill about in a confused fashion. 'Ah,' thought Intipisk, 'Brother Koof must have made us invisible again. This will no doubt bring a Wizard down on us again, but perhaps we can enter the compound first.'"

"She felt her gag and bonds disappear, and she sat up in order to see better."
**********

"Memory is a scalpel,

cutting through the present,

in order to reveal the past."

(Anonymous)

The youth lay on the bed, and the maiden stood by its foot. Akelian," she said, "I don't know whether you can hear me, or whether you can understand me, or whether you remember my saying this before. I will explain things again, just in case."

"My name is Oselika. You are my older brother. I looked up to you, I worshipped you. No better brother could be imagined, Akelian! But then, last Osmuntide, you disappeared. I don't know why. When we found you, you were comatose, as you are now."

"Teladorion, our cousin, says that I am doing the wrong thing; he says that if I loved you properly, I would kill you now. Perhaps he is right. He loves you too, you know. But I am going to take a chance that you can recover and be your old self again. I believe in you! And I want you back! If you can hear me, Akelian, please, please try to be as you once were."

"Of the family, only Teladorion knows of this. I have assigned servants to take care of you. They are sworn to secrecy. Mother and Father will not learn of your condition."

"I am sorry if I am only prolonging your dishonor, and I have sworn to kill you by next Osmuntide, if you have not recovered."

She sat down on the bed next to him, looking at his vacant face. It did not look back. "I can't see any sign that you are in there, Akelian. The Wizard says that he detects your soul, but that it is nearly motionless. I don't know what that means. How can there be Akelian's body, alive, and not Akelian himself?"

"What were you doing, my brother, to end up like this? The doctor says that you have taken some kind of drug. He says that people take this drug to experience a single, pre-eminent god, and that it is addictive, and that they end up as you have. But why would you do such a thing? Why would you even be in a place where such drugs could be found? Did someone give you this drug without your knowledge or consent? Why would anyone do that?"

"I have gone to the Library to find the works of those who believe in a single pre-eminent god. I hope that they will help me to understand what you have experienced."

She reached out and stroked his forehead. "You look so much like Father. He is desolate that you are gone – he thinks that you must be dead. He would be very angry with me if he knew that I was keeping you alive this way. But he would be overjoyed if you were to return to us."

She sat there for awhile, stroking his hair gently. Then she began to speak, softly:

"Remember the little garden where we used to play, Akelian? It is one of my earliest memories. I remember when you taught me how to make statues out of snow. And snowballs! And when I fell down and hurt myself, you carried me back in. Remember how we used to climb the Arishel tree? In the spring, if there was no wind, I would jump up and down on a branch, to make the blossoms ring. Yesterday, when no one was looking, I climbed that tree again. Remember how we had a private world inside it? No one could see us. We played warriors, of course, but also poets, and monks, and householders, and gods, and everything we could imagine. There is a whole library of tales inside that tree! But it wasn't the same without you, Akelian."

"I brought a leaf back with me. I am going to bruise it, and hold it under your nose, so that you can smell it. Maybe that will help you to remember who you are." She did so. The tangy smell of the Arishel tree filled the room, laden with a thousand memories for Oselika, but there was no response from the still form on the bed. After awhile, she brought the leaf to her own nose and inhaled it, eyes closed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and yet she smiled.

Squeezing the inert hand that lay beside her, she said, "I have to go now, Akelian. But I will visit you whenever I can. Please be well, Beloved Brother."

She rose and left the room.
**********

"Fantasy is the father of hope."

(Morplin Proverb)

Heavy with child, the young Kor cut her activities to a minimum of gardening, sewing, and other light work. Still blissful, she enjoyed the necessity of walking slowly, tiring easily, and going to the bathroom frequently. Under the guidance of a midwife, she performed various exercises in preparation for labor, adjusted her diet, and learned the rudiments of infant care. A cradle was set up in her room; sometimes Kor would stand by it, looking at it fondly, while lovingly stroking her belly.

She paid great attention to the movements of the child inside her; she felt that by doing so, she had already understood its personality, its preferences, and its daily routine. She even felt a kind of communication between them; she could make a good guess as to how the child would respond to her taking a walk, or listening to music. She felt that a certain kind of kick indicated that the child was objecting to something, whereas another kind was playful communication. She also felt that when she sang to it, or stroked her belly in a certain way, it knew she was expressing love for it. In this way, her love for the child changed from abstract to concrete, became more intense, and struck its roots deeper into her.

She wondered whether the child had any idea of the vast and varied world it was about to enter, or whether it thought that the entire world, its one and only friend, was just a soft and shifting chamber. She wondered whether it felt cramped, and whether it missed being able swim about freely. Did it know that it was growing, or did it think that the rest of the world was shrinking? Was it afraid of being crushed? Perhaps that was a good thing – if it went suddenly from a pleasant and simple womb to a vast, incomprehensible, and often uncomfortable world, it might feel betrayed. Instead, perhaps, it would feel rescued.

Kor had often been sad that she had no memories of the womb, or of her infancy. How amazing it must have been, to _taste_ or _smell_ for the first time! What had it been like, to realize that some things were _people_ , and others not? Or that objects did not go out of existence when they disappeared from sight? To walk for the first time! To realize what _words_ were! But perhaps the most amazing thing would have been ... the first beginnings of _awareness_. What would it be like, to become conscious for the _first time ever_? She felt that she was learning about such things, and would continue to learn about them, from her own child, by sympathy.

Many of the girls and women in the Temple believed in multiple incarnations; Lesuzi, for example. Kor was not inclined to share this belief, but she respected it. If she objected that she had no memories of a previous life, they could point out that she had no memories of her womb life or infancy, either; but surely she had existed then. And she could see that the idea made sense of many things that otherwise seemed quite puzzling. For example, it was very difficult for her to see how unconscious matter could assemble itself into a conscious being; it was more plausible that a conscious soul could organize matter into a body for itself . At times, therefore, she wondered whether her child had had a previous life, and if so, what it might have been like. She hoped that it had been a good life, and that its death had been easy.

Lesuzi said that the child spirit _chooses_ its parents. The thought that her child might have _chosen_ her made Kor feel still closer to it. To be chosen over all conceiving women in the vast world! How deep such an affinity would have to be! "Why would someone choose _me_?" thought Kor. It was not that she considered herself inferior to others, but she did not think she stood out, either, and the spirit would have so many to choose from! Although she was sure that everyone was unique, Kor found it hard to put her finger on what her own uniqueness was; there were other young Suimi women, other Courtesans of Sacrifice. How specific a child's desire would have to be, to choose one woman over all others!

Of course, there was also the father to be considered, but Kor did not think of this much. After all, the child had chosen a father who did not remain with them; that suggested that it was the choice of mother that was crucial, for some reason. Once she thought briefly of Karngrevor, who she felt was probably the father, and of the way he had come out of nowhere, and had apparently sought her out, for some reason. Did the child spirit come to him and _request_ that the mother be Kor? She also remembered the slightly evasive answers she had received from the goddesses when she had asked them, at his request, if they approved. Perhaps she was not _meant_ to know why she had been chosen. As it happened, she didn't mind at all; she was blissfully happy simply to be an expectant mother.
**********

"Every jewel has a flaw"

(Torklin proverb)

Sre Lugu's wife, Iliriana Si _ri_ a, lived in a beautiful old home, in a beautiful old neighborhood overlooking Lake Shali _ar_. The landscape underlying the neighborhood was actually one great cathedral, with residences tucked here and there among its many terraced domes. The outside of the cathedral was planted with grass, trees, and flowers, so that from a distance, it looked almost like a natural cluster of hills. There were even numerous little ponds, stocked with lovely ornamental fish. Birds known for the beauty of their plumage or their song had been brought there, and kept by spells from straying into other neighborhoods. Relatively large level areas of the roof were devoted to parks in which children could play. Everything was carefully kept up by workers from the cathedral; you might call them "monks" and "nuns," if those words did not imply celibacy.

Like many, Sre Lugu had one god at work and another at home. At work, he worshipped Streling, god of banking; at home, he worshipped the Holy Family, consisting of Rajo (Fatherhood), Tilja (Motherhood), Ril (the son), and Tlala (the daughter). The Cathedral was known as the Holy Family Cathedral, and it was devoted to those deities, together with various associates of theirs. In addition to services, other rituals, and retreats, the Cathedral provided its congregation with day care, parochial schools, family counseling, and numerous artistic and social events.

Iliriana was relaxing with her friend, Tilirikili Ant _i_ a, and their children (three each) in one of the Cathedral parks, enjoying the sweet whispering of the Arjilia trees, and the beauty of the day in general. Her infant son, Kulau, was sleeping on her shoulder. Her other two children were playing happily with friends. All her family were in good health, and apparently happy. Iliriana felt very happy herself; in fact, she felt very close to Paradise. She had a sense that life was giving her everything she could ask for, and when she thought about it, tears of gratitude welled up in her eyes. Her friend smiled, for she understood, as a good friend does, without Iliriana's having to say anything. That was often the way with them: their friendship was very deep, a wonderful blessing for them both, and a goodly part of the reason for Iliriana's happiness. Tilirikili also said nothing, but Iliriana knew that her happiness was understood, and largely shared.

Then Iliriana noticed her family's priest, Srea Kula, approaching. He was accompanied by a number of Cathedral Security Personnel. To her surprise, they were evidently looking for her: as soon as he saw her, Srea Kula waved to her and then gestured to the security personnel to go to her. She became fearful that something bad had happened to her husband. As the counselor approached, she said, "Srea, is something wrong? Is Lugi all right?"

"He is in good health," said Srea Kula, "but a delicate situation has developed for him at work. One of his clients has turned out to be a dangerous criminal, who has manipulated him and made threats against him. We have come here to guarantee your safety. No threats have been made against you, but we like to take precautions. We hope you can accompany us to one of the inner sancta." As he spoke, the guards fanned out. One group made a tight circle around Iliriana, while the remainder began to patrol the surrounding area. They moved in a casual way, so as to make others in the park as little nervous as possible. Their uniforms were similar to ordinary clothes, and their weapons and other devices were very inconspicuous.

"Very well," said Iliriana, and called to her other two children. They came quickly, sensing the anxiety in her voice. Tilirikili waved goodbye, looking concerned. Iliriana and the others proceeded to a huge oak tree in the center of the park. Up close, one could see that there was a door in the trunk. Srea Kula opened it with a sung spell, and they passed inside, where there was a circular staircase. Descending, they found themselves in a curving, arched hallway. On one side of the hallway ran a shallow and leisurely stream, stocked with incandescent minnows of various colors, who followed them as they walked, providing them with just enough light to find their way. Iliriana was used to the relative darkness of the interior, and as always, it made her feel peaceful. Following the hallway, and one or two that branched from it, the company came to the heavy double door of an inner sanctum. Srea Kula entered with Iliriana and the children, while the security personnel remained outside. The sanctum was lit by a model of the sun, but shaded by the delicate leaves of a grove of Ylicant trees. It was in fact a little park in itself, with fragrant grass, flowers, birds, butterflies, and a fish pond. Sre Lugu was waiting near a tree, accompanied by a nun. He came toward Iliriana with a nervous smile.

"Lugi, Darling!" said Iliriana, reaching out one arm (the other still held the infant) to half-embrace him. "I heard you had some trouble. Are you truly all right?"

"I am," he said, returning her embrace, and then kneeling to embrace the two older children, who were happily surprised to see him at that time of day. "But there is something that we grownups need to discuss alone. Tilunia, Ulu, Sister Ilumiluna here will take you to a playroom and stay with you there for awhile. We will be with you soon." He watched silently as the nun, who had been waiting unobtrusively at the edge of the grove, gently took Kulau from Iliriana without waking him, and, gesturing to the other two children to follow, disappeared through a door. Then Sre Lugu turned back to Iliriana.

"I am not physically harmed," said Sre Lugu, "but there is something ... we need to discuss." He was no longer meeting her eyes. His composure was crumbling; something was troubling him deeply. Now Iliriana felt profound concern. "What is it, Lugi?" she said. "Speak to me!"

He hesitated, and then said, "I will. I will tell you everything. But I have asked Srea Kula to perform a ritual of dialogue for us, if that is all right with you."

"Yes, of course!" she said, although she was in fact feeling a terrible anxiety, and a screaming desire to get right to the heart of the matter. His request for a ritual meant that something very serious was involved.

Srea Kula went to the door and called in a monk and a nun who had been waiting outside. He introduced them as Seri Linilaïra and Seri Ulgu. "They will be your seconds," he said.

In a corner of the grove there was a statue of the Holy Family. They all knelt down before it, and Srea Kula began to recite a familiar prayer.
**********

"The truth cannot be too often repeated."

(Inscribed in a prayer wheel)

Oselika entered the room with a companion, a tall young man with golden skin and hair. His face was long and asymmetrical, making him look a bit foolish. He too was wearing a sword. His demeanor was nervous and sad. They came over to the bed on which Akelian lay, silently as always. Oselika described herself to her brother from the beginning, in case he had not heard or understood before. Then she said, "And today I have brought our cousin Teladorion. He helped me to rescue you. I thought you might like him to visit. You and he were very close."

Teladorion sat on the bed. He enfolded Akelian's hand in his own. "Hallo, Akelian," he said. "I don't know whether you can hear or remember me. We were real close all right. We had a big, big pile of good times together! I used to call you 'Ki,' or 'old Ki,' and you called me 'Tel.' I sure have missed you, Ki." He sat quietly for a moment, his eyes fixed on his cousin's.

"We all miss you, Ki," he said. "It just burns me like fire, sometimes. I don't know if you can, but it sure would be nice if you could come back to us. You know, we used to get into some crazy mischief, you and I! Remember the time we decided to sneak in and take a warbat out for a spin? You thought you knew how to control it, but something went wrong. It started spinning, and diving, and flying just under bridges, trying to scrape us off! We had to climb out of the saddles and hang by the cinch straps. I have never been so scared. Finally, you wounded it so that it lost blood and had to land. I don't think it ever came uncloaked, thanking the gods, but folks must have wondered why all that blood was dripping out of a clear sky! Why, I'll bet a dozen people got religion on that day!"

"You know what, Ki? That story shows something about you. You got into the most awful scrapes, but you got out of 'em, too! You're going to do the same with this one, old Ki! It's the hardest one you've ever faced, but that'll just make it more interesting. I know it for sure! That's why I let your sis here talk me out of killing you. I figured that with a guy like you, there's always hope!"

He paused, looking deeply into his cousin's eyes.

"Well, that's what I wanted to say, old Ki! I figure it must be tiring for you to listen to us, so I'm going to go now. But I'll be back, just as soon as I can!" Teladorion sat there for a few seconds more, his eyes locked like searchlights on the eyes of his cousin. Then he gave Akelian's hand a last squeeze and stood up. "Goodbye, old Ki," he said, and turned to go.

He took one step, and then, without any warning he spun around, his sword making a quick blurred arc from its scabbard to Akelian's throat. There was a grinding clang, and sparks exploded from the point of contact between his sword and Oselika's, which she had thrust in the way. " _By all the graves in Rotim,_ " he snarled in exasperation, "you are just too deadly good, and too deadly exasperatin'!"

Fury radiated from Oselika like heat from a furnace. "You _swore_ ," she hissed. "You made an _oath_! You _promised_ you wouldn't try to kill him! You have _no honor_! And now, you disgusting lying vermin, you will _die_!" She sprang at him.

Teladorion leapt back and took guard position. "Oselika!" he said, "listen to me – ". But she came at him like a swarm of hornets. Her sword and his rang and clashed like a flock of angry jays. They blurred like the wings of bees. Streams of sparks appeared, like wisteria blossoms. Teladorion was pushed slowly back to the wall. Cuts appeared on his face and body. Then suddenly the two cousins were locked together, panting and straining, with Oselika's blade a mere fingerwidth from Teladorion's throat, held back by the very tip of his, which was pressed against his chin. "I – didn't – break – any – oath!" gasped Teladorion. "That's – not – Ki – he's – not – in – there!"

Oselika sprang back and stood there gasping for breath. "Very – clever, – _legalist_ ," she said. "You knew – very well – what I meant!"

" _Stuff it to the underworld_ ," wheezed Teladorion, wiping blood from his cheek with his left hand. "You know – I only – did it – 'cause ... 'cause I – love you – both – _so much_!"

Oselika stood there panting, her expression changing back and forth like a wildflower meadow on a dapple-cloud day.

"Oh, all – _right_!" she finally said, throwing down her sword, and sitting down with her forehead on her knees. "But don't you tell me that _I'm_ exasperating!"

Teladorion slid slowly and painfully down the wall, settling into a crouch, resting his sword on his knees. "Sel," he said dryly, "you – _love_ it when I say that!"

For a half-breath nothing happened, but then a snicker escaped her. And then another, and then one from him, and then they both started to laugh hysterically. For what seemed like hours, they just could not stop.

It was not their last fight, but Oselika always counted that day as the day she fell in love with him.
**********

"Always negotiate with the other's

welfare in mind as much as your own"

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

Under the command of Lieutenant Calcadro, a group of fifteen Amazons from the Temple of Ydris rode into the Babbling Brooks neighborhood, hoping to rescue Arguit's wife, Laeri Alinara, and their children. They alternated a gallop with a steady walk, so as to make haste without exhausting their horses.

This area of Kondrastibar consisted mostly of small, single-family homes, each with a small garden, a carp-pond, a chicken coop, berry bushes, and a fruit-tree. They were interspersed with stores, workshops, schools, temples, and other complements to a comfortable but not luxurious life. The temples all looked more or less alike; most of them were duplexes, yoking some set of family gods with a god of material comfort. From time to time, the Amazons would see a complex of factories or office buildings, the largest being a thousand steps on a side.

"It would have taken Arguit a half day to ride out here or back," said Calcadro to the witch, Zanentadra, during an interval of walk.

"You're right," replied Zanentadra. "I wonder how many days of leave he got? Not too many, I suspect."

"Yes, a man like Pappi would be needing security all the time," replied Calcadro. She was constantly casting her eyes around, habitually evaluating each area from a tactical point of view, and also satisfying her curiosity.

"Very different from our neighborhood," she remarked, with a laugh. "Pretty, though."

Zanentadra nodded. "It seems to go on and on," she said, "and it's all so alike!"

"They don't look as though they have ever seen anything like us, before, either!"

"No, and I think we frighten them. Mothers come running out and grab their kids."

"Well, I can't blame them. We're armed to the teeth and completely strange to them. They don't experience much violence here – their houses don't appear to be secure, unless they have spells."

"No," replied Zanentadra, "there are almost no security spells. There's hardly any magic here at all."

"Everyone lives simply, without grandiose dreams," said Calcadro, a little wistfully.

"Well, that sounds good," said Thiarinis, suspiciously, "but what else have they given up?"

The Amazons of Ydris would have looked rather strange almost anywhere. By day, both horses and riders were dressed in surcoats, made in a pattern designed to confuse the eye rather than please it; a collection of many bright and sharply contrasting colors, in which lines were never vertical, horizontal, parallel, or at right angles. Yet, the surcoats were similar enough to one another to make it hard to tell where one horse or rider ended and another began, if they were riding together. Their weapons were similarly designed; many an enemy, trying to fence with an Amazon, found himself confused by her sword and shield, which were burnished to perfect mirrors.

The Amazons themselves were more muscular than the average woman, an effect that was emphasized by their wearing of armor beneath their surcoats. Their armor was very flexible, being made of hundreds of pieces of curved steel, linked together by pins and other devices; an index finger alone got 13 pieces, and was thus able to bend freely. Amazons could dance or do gymnastics in their armor, and often did, either for fun or as part of their training.

More important, though less obvious to the non-military onlooker, was the profound dedication of the Amazons, and the thorough training that they had received. Many years of research had gone into the development of some of their disciplines and techniques, which had been gathered from hundreds of separate traditions.

" _Right turn, wolf-pack six_!" shouted Calcadro, instructing the platoon as to how to turn into another street. In a conversational tone, she continued: "I haven't seen any poverty, either. In a way, it would be a nice place to live. Less packed together than in our district. Flowers and green plants and little ponds everywhere. In the spring, it must be absolutely gorgeous, with all these fruit trees in bloom."

"Maybe we could make a branch temple out here," said Zanentadra, wryly.

Calcadro grimaced. "We wouldn't fit in, would we? You know, the thing that really convinces me that they have little crime or poverty is, that we have as yet to see – well, here they are now, this must be the local police!" The Lieutenant raised her voice to give commands _. "Formation, ocelot_ _six_ _, company,_ _halt!_ _Soldiers,_ _dismount!_ _Third alert, no show of force, all at ease!"_ Calcadro also dismounted, handing the reins of her horse to Zanentadra. "I detect nothing untoward," said the witch.

"Nor I," said the telepath, Thiarinis, who had come up behind Calcadro. "They are anxious, but not hostile, and they believe themselves incapable of overcoming us."

Zanentadra chuckled. "Well, they're smarter than a brick!" she said.

Calcadro unhooked her shield and spear from her harness and laid them on the ground, along with her sword and helmet, and all weapons visible on her person. She then stepped forward, displaying open hands above her head, to meet the local police. The latter consisted of two men and a woman; their clothes were like the local civilian clothes, except for bright red sashes and headbands. They looked extremely nervous.

"Good afternoon to you!" said Calcadro, in a relaxed and friendly voice. "Please know that there is no malice in our presence here today. We are on a mission of rescue, and our weaponry is for defensive purposes only. I am Lieutenant Calcadro, from the Temple of Ydris in the Tari district." As part of her habitual discipline, she was playing out in her own mind how she would incapacitate all three if that were required.

One of the men extended a hand, which Calcadro took, being careful not to squeeze too hard. "I am police volunteer Eedit Rabe," said the man. "Now, Miss, ah, _Lieutenant_ Calcadro, do you have permits for those weapons?"

"I'm afraid we don't, Volunteer Rabe," she replied, in a warm and 'feminine' voice, while stifling an impulse to laugh. "Where we come from, it is not required. In fact, we take on various police functions in our home neighborhood. You might even say that you and I are colleagues."

"I won't tell you what to do in your own neighborhood," said Rabe, "but here we have laws against carrying weapons without a permit." He wore the embarrassed expression of one who is trapped between bureaucratic rules and the obvious demands of the situation, and is hoping for sympathy.

"I see," said Lieutenant Calcadro, resting her arms by clasping her hands atop her head. "How does one go about getting such a permit?"

"Well, you go down to Town Hall and make out an application, one for each weapon. There is a fee of seven scheldrigs each. It usually takes a couple of weeks to go through."

Calcadro stifled another laugh, and replied: "We are in a bit of a hurry, Volunteer Rabe. We have reason to suppose that the life of a woman and her children, residents of your area, may be in immediate danger. We are here to assure their safety. I'm sure that your laws, like civilized laws everywhere, allow exceptions to be made in emergencies. I suggest that I explain our mission to you, that you escort us to our destination, 227 Sunshine Drive, observe our activities there, and that you then escort us, and whomever may freely choose to come with us, to the boundary of your neighborhood."

"Well, tell me about your mission," said Rabe.

"We have been approached by a man, a Mr. Arguit, who says that his wife, Laeri Alinara, lives at 227 Sunshine Drive, where their children also reside." Rabe nodded, indicating that he knew that a woman of that name lived there; but he also looked a bit puzzled. "It turns out," continued the Lieutenant, "that Mr. Arguit's employer is a criminal who has made serious threats not only against Mr. Arguit himself, but against his family. Mr. Arguit is now under our protection, but his wife and children are still endangered. We are hoping that she will also put herself and the children under our protection."

"I realize, Volunteer Rabe, that protection of the people of this neighborhood is your sacred duty, and that you may be reluctant to entrust any part of it to a troop of total strangers. Laeri, however, has been connected with the Temple of Ydris in the past, and she may be able to set your mind at ease. I will therefore make the following suggestion: you will go ahead and discuss this matter with her. We will remain at a distance, out of sight, so that she will not be intimidated by us. After you speak to her, we can re-open negotiations."

"I appreciate the suggestion," said Rabe, with a sigh, "but, as is my duty, I hereby place you all under arrest for carrying deadly weapons without a permit. You will now turn over all such weapons."

Again Calcadro almost laughed, but was able to transform it into a cough. "Good," she said. "You have carried out your duty to arrest us, as your colleagues will testify when this incident comes up for review. I consider myself and all my Amazons to be in your custody. But I do not intend to let that interfere with my duty to carry out my mission. Since any one of my troop can kill all three of you with her bare hands, I think the town will forgive you for noting that discretion is the better part of valor, and taking us to 227 Sunshine Drive for interrogation. The choice of location is logical, since there you can also obtain testimony from Laeri Alinara."

"I see your point," said Rabe, actually looking rather relieved, "and we will now proceed as you have suggested." He led them to a small park. "Caring Lane is on the other side of that park," he said, pointing. "Follow it to the left, and you will come to Warm Fuzzy Avenue; take a right on Warm Fuzzy, and in three blocks you will come to Sunshine Drive. Take a right, and then just follow the numbers on the houses. Give us a couple of hundredbreaths first, though, to interrogate Laeri alone."

"Will do," said Calcadro cheerfully, "but be aware that if you try to spirit anyone out of there, my witch will know it, and we will have to resume negotiations immediately."

"We won't do that," said Rabe, and he and his two colleagues strode briskly off.

"Well, this is quite a situation," said the local policewoman, Geliar Dald, after they were out of hearing. "Sure is," said Rabe, "and I sure am hoping that Laeri can shed some light on it that will allow us to let those women do what they want, 'cause I don't rightly see how we can stop them."

In time they came to Laeri's house. To the other man, Eedit said, "Eezhur, you patrol around the outside – try not to let anyone enter or leave unless I say so. As always, use your common sense. Don't get killed." He then knocked on the door. A handsome, dark-haired man in his 30's opened it. "Eedit!" he said warmly. "Geliar! Hey, come on in! Is there a problem?"

"Yes, and it might involve you, Caro, so hang around; but the one I really need to see is Laeri, and the sooner the better."

"She's just upstairs," said Caro. "I'll call her." He stepped to the bottom of a staircase and projected his voice upwards. "Hey Lae! Officer Rabe is here, and he wants to talk to you, right away!"

"I'll be right down, Darling," replied a muffled but melodious alto.
**********

"Why must I repeat myself?"

(Inscribed in a prayer wheel)

"The wains continued to roll, with excruciating slowness, toward the compound. While Intipisk was reciting to herself a novelistic description of events, Tulith was, to a certain extent at least, looking at them with the eye of an artist. It seemed a strange thing to do, but it helped keep her calm at a time when she couldn't think of any more constructive action to take. In fact, she thought she might someday actually make paintings of some of these events, should it ever become possible. It was while evaluating the overall color scheme of the scene at hand that she noticed the same anomalous dark cloud that Intipisk had seen; but now, the cloud was both larger and lower. It blotted out a tenth of the dawning sky, and seemed to be only a few hundred manlengths up. It appeared to be spinning, especially in the center. _Could this be a tornado cloud?_ thought Tulith, who had never actually seen a tornado. Whatever it was, it seemed to be coming down.

There was a sound like a huge bell, and several Angel Wizards appeared in front of them, staffs raised in unison. There was a brilliant flash of red light. Tulith's wain stopped with a jerk. A beam of blue light from somewhere struck Talek, and he collapsed. Koof became visible, standing not far from Tulith; he looked surprised and dismayed. She briefly took the opportunity to review the basics of the male nude. He was certainly a handsome specimen, muscular as a beech tree, with an interestingly asymmetrical, well-lined face and a salt-and-pepper beard, closely trimmed. A light layer of body hair played over him. His genitalia were tucked compactly between his thighs, like a sea snail upside-down in a crevice. Tulith thought she might like to paint him sometime. A moment later, however, her reverie was interrupted, as beaters – real ones, this time – leapt into the cart and commanded everyone to lie face down, with their eyes closed. Tulith did so, which halted her examination of the forms and colors of the episode. However, as she felt a beater pull her wrists together behind her back, presumably to bind them, she heard a sound expand from overhead until it was even louder than the yells of the Angels and the wails of their prey. It was a pulsating, beating sound such as she had never heard before. "Perhaps it _is_ a tornado," she thought. The beater dropped her wrists without securing them, and after a moment she ventured to turn her head and shoulders so as to see upward.

The beater – indeed, everyone – was looking at the dark descending cloud, which now covered the entire sky and seemed to be only about a hundred manlengths above them. It was indeed spinning, especially in the center, which was directly above the wains. It descended further, and its beatings became almost like physical blows. Tulith could now see that it was made, not of dark mist, but of innumerable distinct objects, wheeling around an invisible pivot. As these flying beings descended, she could see that they were like huge black bats; but as they got still closer, she could see that they were not living creatures at all, but some sort of machines. From their 'heads' now came intermittent beams of grey light that struck the Angels; an Angel so struck fell instantly to the ground and did not move. In a few moments, there was not a single one left standing.

A number of the mechanical creatures now swooped down on the wain in which Tulith lay. She thought of leaping out and crawling underneath, but panic froze her, and she lay still, watching. The flying creatures had multiple crystalline eyes, faceted like the eyes of insects. Their wings were thin black membranes spread over a latticework that rotated at various joints. Each one trailed a cloud of reddish smoke. These creatures made several passes over the wains, as if looking for something. Each one produced a loud, whining roar as it flew, and each emitted high-pitched, piercing cries, like someone dragging a fingernail over slate. Tulith became aware of a stench like that of carrion, and she shuddered with nausea.

One of the creatures paused, and then dropped suddenly like an owl on a mouse. The mouse in this case was Ydnas. The creature hovered just over her head. On its round grey belly, rather like the belly of a fat spider, could be seen an unfamiliar symbol, drawn in dark red. Ydnas stood still as a stone, and the beast unfolded six or eight multi-jointed, spiky legs, which grabbed her. Then the creature began to rise, taking Ydnas with it. A proboscis, like that of a fly, extruded itself from the beast's head and began to palp her all over. Talek, who had managed to rise to his knees, waved his staff, but nothing happened. Kor leapt desperately from where she was, and grabbed Ydnas around the waist. For a moment she hung there, trying to jerk Ydnas free by kicking her legs, but then a bolt of grey light struck her and she fell with a thump and lay still. Tulith screamed and ran to her. Ydnas, who had one hand free, pointed to the mute boy and said something in her own language. The mute boy looked startled, and stood up.

With a puzzled expression on his face, he raised both hands into the air, about a foot apart. Several grey bolts struck him, but he did not appear to notice. Between his hands a ragged sphere of white light appeared, vibrating. Then it began rapidly to grow. Almost immediately it enveloped the boy; and in a breath or two it had encompassed the wain, and all the creatures around Ydnas.

All sound ceased. The bat-creatures in the light became still. The stench of carrion disappeared. Then the floating machines within the light became translucent, and then transparent, and finally they disappeared altogether, except (the observant Tulith noticed) for a little cluster of tiny lights, like fireflies, that emerged from each machine as it began to fade. These lights fell to within a couple of feet of the ground, and then began to drift randomly. As the machine holding her faded to nothing, Ydnas dropped to the floor of the wain, landing catlike on her feet, a smile of satisfaction on her face.

The sphere of light continued to expand. It ate its way into the great dark cloud. The cloud started to rise, but it was not fast enough; the light overtook every bit of it, and annihilated it completely, except for glowing dots which fell like snow. Then the boy separated his hands, and the white light faded away. Only the dawn's pastel remained. Sound returned, although things were now very quiet. The boy stood looking at his hands with a puzzled expression.

"To the compound! On foot!" cried Talek hoarsely, and most of the occupants of the wains took his advice, the adults and older children herding the younger ones. But those close to Kor, including Talek himself, clustered around her motionless body. Tulith sobbed Kor's name, giving her face little slaps as though to wake her; Intipisk took her wrist to feel (unsuccessfully) for a pulse. "She's _cold_ ," said Lessie, who had put her hand on Kor's forehead. Kor's complexion had turned grey as ash. "I can't see any breathing!" wailed Intipisk. Ydnas took in the situation quickly, and then stepped back, with her hands on her hips, and looked at the sky. "Isiliar," she said, in a loud voice, "if you're going to do a miracle, this would be a good time!"

There was a moment of silence; then there was a tinkling, like that of wind chimes, followed by a sound like a chorus, quietly singing a hymn. A little breeze brought air which was fresh and fragrant. In spite of the gravity of the situation, everyone suddenly felt relaxed and expectant.

Isiliar took form in the back of the wain. Except for color, she looked just like the statue that Ydnas had seen on her first day at the orphanage: an old, old woman in a robe, with a face whose intricate wrinkles wrote a book of love and happiness. She held a staff. Her coloring was similar to Kor's: her skin robin's-egg blue, her hair white. Her robe was a deep, rich red. Awestruck, the others gave way and fell to their knees or prostrated themselves as she made her slow way towards Kor, leaning on her staff with each step. She slowly knelt by Kor's head, and caressed her cheek. "Ah, dear Kor," she said, "my darling Kor, you are finally at peace, but your friends need you. I hate to disturb you, but this is not your time. You have so much to learn yet." She continued, in silence, to stroke Kor's dull gray cheek. Gradually, as color sneaks into the pre-dawn sky, Kor's normal complexion returned. She began to wheeze. Then, she opened her eyes, looking straight at the Goddess. "Isiliar!" she said, "why ... so _that's_ what it's like!" she breathed, her eyes full of wonder. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" Isiliar smiled. "Some things are not to be learned before their time," she said. "Well," said Kor, "I'm so amazed, ... and ... but ..." – here she gave a smiling glance around the circle of her friends, and back to Isiliar – "thank you for bringing me back!"

"You're very welcome, dear Kor," said the goddess, taking Kor's hand. For a long moment they simply looked deeply into each other's eyes. Then Isiliar, sighing, gave Kor's hand a little squeeze and released it, saying, "Well, I wish I could stay here forever, but I must return to my own sphere." Kor gave her a sad, fond smile of goodbye. The goddess rose and passed her gaze over the others. "Thank you for being so good to her," she said. Still awestruck, they said nothing. The sound of singing died away, and the sound of wind chimes returned; as they tinkled, the goddess gradually faded out of sight.

Everyone expected Talek to give some direction, but he was silent, perhaps from exhaustion. "Well," said Lessie, "to the compound now we should walk, I imagine." There was general agreement, and people began to get down from the wain. No one wanted to drive over the dead bodies.

"Can you get up, Kor?" asked Tulith anxiously.

"Don't worry, Dearie," said Kor, getting up, "but I'd like you to hold me, for I'm feeling a little out of sorts." Indeed, her eyes were a little glazed, her balance uncertain.

"I will hold you," said Tulith, putting her arm around Kor's waist. "I will carry you on my back if need be."

"Just holding me will be enough," said Kor, "more than enough, really – but you won't hear me complain!"

The others helped them down from the wain; then, stepping around the still forms of fallen Angels, they began to make their way toward the Temple that had once been Pappi's compound.
**********

"The human soul is like light reflecting from a sword."

(Lorissa Kaliako)

"Holy Family," Srea Kula intoned, "we ask your intercession in the affairs of the family of Sre Lugu, his wife, Iliriana Siria, and their three beautiful children, Tilunia, Ulu, and Kulau. Sre Lugu has confessed to me that he has strayed from the path you have set for him." As Srea Kula said this, Iliriana saw, from the corner of her eye, Sre Lugu cringing and writhing with shame. "Oh, no," she thought, "he has done something terrible," and a thousand possibilities began to crowd into her mind. But she had been trained from childhood not to lose focus during a prayer or a ritual, and so she turned her attention back to Srea Kula's words.

"Evil, like a viper, has bitten this family with poisoned fangs," said Srea Kula, "and we wish to neutralize this poison and keep it from spreading. Help us to remember that Evil spreads through anger, through mistrust, through forgetfulness, through wishful thinking, through self-righteousness, and through the keeping of secrets. We beg you to help this family to recover the beauty that brought it into being and has sustained it for so long."

"May it be so," said husband and wife, together. To herself, Iliriana thought, 'I can't believe this is happening!'

The priest continued: "I, Srea Kula, saw this marriage born from the spontaneous love between Lugu and Iliriana, some fourteen years ago. During each phase of their courtship, I tested them carefully, as is my duty, to make sure that their love was no mere infatuation, nor tainted by domination, guilt, fear, deceit, or other evil. I saw their love grow purer and stronger with each passing day. The various crises that came to them they met with courage and competence. They passed all the tests for marriage, including living and working together. With heart overflowing I married them on 18 Mongremor, 8794 by the New Calendar of our Church. Soon afterwards, their first child, Tilunia, was conceived.

"It is often a man's lot to go out from the bosom of family and church in order to work for the wealth that a family needs. Sre Lugu has done so, and he rose to a position of great responsibility in an ancient and venerable bank, the Bank of Streling. But while in the world outside the Church, a man is exposed to the temptations of that world. Sre Lugu tells me that he has fallen. He will now confess to us, what his guilt has been. Please notice, Dear Gods, that he is making this confession of his own free will, and that I, his counselor, had heard nothing of his guilt until he himself informed me of it. For this and other reasons, I believe him when he says he begs for forgiveness and seeks to return to the true path.

"Dear Gods, please sustain this couple, and help their love to be strong and true today. I beg you to help them to stay in the light of love and truth, and not fall into the darkness of anger, mistrust, forgetfulness, wishful thinking, self-righteousness, or deceit."

Srea Kula now turned to Sre Lugu, saying, "Sre Lugu, you may now confess. I beg you to be straightforward and to hold nothing back, no matter how ashamed of it you may be. Remember that only truth can overcome the poison of falsehood. Iliriana, remember that, according to the rules of the ritual, you should be silent until he is finished; if you cannot contain yourself, ask for a break." She nodded agreement.

Sre Lugu turned to his wife, and she turned to him. "Dear Wife," he said, struggling to maintain some composure, "in the bank, we often deal with very bad people. By investing their money in constructive enterprises, we hope to do some good with it, and with the part that falls to us for our services. I worked with a man named Pappi. I knew in my mind that he was very evil, for we always do research on our major clients. But I also saw that he was very intelligent, very competent, and seemingly happy. Through clever joking he drew me in somewhat to his cynical view of life. He often made very insightful observations about human weakness, and especially about the shortcomings of those who speak for morality and for the gods.

"He often entertained me, as is permitted, at restaurants and theaters. One day, he invited me to a place which had a somewhat questionable reputation. I knew that my mentor would disapprove, but it was exciting to think of going to a forbidden place, and I thought, 'What harm can it do? I can always leave.' Still, I decided not to tell my mentor about where we had gone. We went to the place, and although the entertainment was a bit vulgar, I could see nothing really wrong with it. In fact, it was refreshing to hear spoken certain thoughts that sometimes come to us, but that we always send away again. What is the harm in expressing them, if we are not going to act on them? This made me think that my mentor was overzealous, and I developed a habit of failing to inform him of where I went. Then one day he asked me where I had been going. I suddenly found myself with a choice between lying, and admitting to him that I had been sneaking away many times. I chose to lie. Pappi had me then. Before long, the mentor whom I had loved as a father became an adversary in my own mind.

"A little later, Pappi introduced me to alcoholic beverages. 'Just try a little wine,' he said, 'there is not enough in it to get you drunk. It will just help you to relax.' So I tried it, and I felt warm and pleasant, and nothing bad happened, so again, I felt that my colleagues and my church had exaggerated views. Rather than argue with them, though, it seemed simpler just not to tell them. Alcohol soon became a secret habit with me.

"Then one day Pappi took me to a new place. In this place a woman singer came on stage, wearing very little. Pappi had warned me about it in advance. 'For the ethnic group that inhabits this neighborhood,' he had said, 'this kind of undress is quite acceptable; it does not mean that she is unchaste. It is just a matter of different customs, different standards.' Her voice and her repertory were very beautiful, and covered a wide spectrum of human passions, all very intense. I told myself that I was becoming a man of sophistication, one who could see beyond the narrow confines of his own background and enjoy the richness and diversity of the great world.

"When I returned to work, however, it was hard for me to get her voice and her body out of my mind. For the first time, my work seemed boring and sterile. Figures on paper! Records! Ritualistic protocol and courtesy! Pieces of paper and ingots of metal – dead stuff! My fundamental instincts, I thought, were always kept locked up. I would grow old and die without ever having been truly passionate, without ever having lived."

Iliriana reeled back as though she had been slapped. "But Lugi," she said, "did we not have passion? Was it not enough for you? All those years, were you secretly –" She felt the hand of the nun, Seri Linilaïra, on her shoulder, reminding her that she must not interrupt.

Srea Kula saw how distressed she was. "I recommend a break," he said.

"No, please!" said Sre Lugu. "Iliriana, I am just telling you about how he deceived me, how he got me to deceive myself! It is not what I truly believe, not at all!" The monk, Seri Ulgu, came up beside him and laid his hand on Sre Lugu's arm; he also stopped.

"How can you ask me not to speak?" demanded Iliriana, her voice rising and shrilling. "How can I be silent when he tells me –"

"IN THE NAME OF THE GODS," said Srea Kula, in a loud, authoritative voice, "I COMMAND YOU BOTH TO BE SILENT!"

They were. "You will now each go into a separate room with your second."

Iliriana and Linilaïra went into a separate room. The nun shut and locked the soundproof door. "Nila," said Iliriana in distress, "did your husband ever do anything like this to you?"

"All marriages have times of stress, Iri," said Linilaïra. "We have often made use of the rituals of revealment and reconciliation. The purpose of the ritual is not to muzzle you, it is to prevent emotional reactions from getting out of hand."

"I want to go back in!" said Iliriana suddenly. "Great responsible gods, what else has he done? How far did he go? I can't bear not knowing it!" She leapt for the door, but then just as suddenly stopped. "No, I _don't_ want to know," she said, shaking her fists. "Can't we just end this? Can't I just trust that he has straightened out, that he will go through a purgation, and that things will be as they were before? If he didn't still love me, he wouldn't want to confess, would he? Surely he will never see this Pappi again, or this woman! Do I have to be told all the horrible details?"

"Yes, Iri, you can skip the confession," said Linilaïra, "if he agrees to it."

" _If he agrees?!!!_ " Iliriana looked at her ally in horror. "Nila, you're not saying – are you? – that he wants a divorce?!!!"

"No, I am not saying that," said Linilaïra. "I have not spoken to him, and I do not know what he wants. It doesn't look like it, though. He was desperate to allay your anger, just now. Apparently, he wants to confess and reconcile. I suspect that a divorce would be a catastrophe for him. I have always felt that he loves you and the children deeply. So far, he looks to me like a victim of forgetfulness. He forgot his home while at work, and then this Pappi distracted him with yet a third world."

"Well, then," said Iliriana, calming down a little, but pacing in a little circle as she spoke, "as I said: I trust him. How can I not? He is the same Lugi I have known ever since I was a little child. He is the father of my children, and I the mother of his. We live together and worship the same gods. Who is this Pappi to him? Lugi has seen through his manipulations now. I don't want to hear the sordid details. Let him pass through the rituals of remembrance and purgation, and do whatever it takes to heal himself. Then let him return home, and it will be as before."

"I am not sure that he is only a victim of forgetfulness, Iri, that was only my guess. Srea Kula will determine this. But let us suppose that I am right. And let us suppose that you end the process here. Will it really be as it was before? Will you really trust him? Or will you be thinking, 'He did before, I know not what terrible things. He has a side I have never before seen. What other sides might he have? How do I know that he will not do bad things again?' "

"Nila!" exclaimed Iliriana in shock, "you are planting suspicion! That is a sin!"

Linilaïra paused to think. "Perhaps I was," she said. "I will discuss it with Srea Kula later. I apologize, just in case. But I think, that all I meant to do was to help you test yourself. That is one of the things I am supposed to be doing, as your second. A moment ago, you wanted to hear it all; then, just like that, you want to hear nothing. Do you not wonder how much farther his story would have gone on? Surely you have wondered that, or you soon will! Can you blame me for wanting to investigate whether you are really at peace with the short path? If there is even the tiniest doubt in your heart, a premature silence will only leave it to fester."

Iliriana sat down on a couch. "He is wiser now. He sees his weaknesses. He sees that his mentor was not stupid, that his religion is not a lie, and that Pappi was a deceiver."

Linilaïra replied: "And when you make love, will you not wonder whether he thinks it is true passion? Or whether he has made love to that singer, or some other woman? Or whether he is comparing you to her, or wishes that you were she?"

"Nila!" exclaimed Iliriana, in shock.

Iliriana stood again, and began to pace, waving her arms in frustration. "Why did he think that his passion had no space? What does he want? Am I not enough for him? By the gods, I can't be more than I am, Nila! I swear, I have never held myself back with him! And if he was pretending, he is a great actor! But, why am I worrying about that? He said it was not true. He said he was deceived."

"Perhaps he is thinking wishfully, Iliriana. He doesn't wish to lose you, so he is afraid to offend you. And perhaps he is thinking, 'I will make a compromise. I don't want to lose my job, my children, my respectability. I will stifle part of myself. I will resign myself. I will tell Iliriana whatever it takes to get her to forgive me.' "

"Why are you trying to destroy my trust, Linilaïra? Didn't you hear the prayer, where it says that Evil spreads through mistrust?"

"I am _testing_ your trust, Iliriana! If it cannot stand up to my questions now, how will it stand up to all those doubts that will come to you when he is not at home, or when things are tense between you? Do you want such thoughts to stab you while he is at work, or while you are making love? But I will go no further. Look within your heart now, and if you find that trust, we will go out and request that the remaining confession be made to Srea Kula alone."

Iliriana assumed the kneeling posture, with head bent, eyes closed, and hands together, that is prescribed for 'looking within the heart.' 'Do I trust Lugi now,' she asked herself, 'Even though he has done I know not what?' She tried to get the feel of him, the soul of him, like a little statue in her mind. 'I know him better than anyone in the world,' she thought, 'but I did not see this coming. How is that possible?' In her mind she went over their last year together. Yes ... he had been a little more distant, a little more prickly, a little too solicitous at times. He had often stayed late in the city, and had seemed to resent her questions about it. ... Why hadn't she seen it? Then, suddenly, another sort of incident, from two years before, popped into her mind:

*

Sre Lugu stood nervously by her as she folded the table napkins. "Darling," he said, "I wish we would do more things together."

"What do you mean, Lugi?" she replied. "We do lots of things together!"

He took a napkin and folded it; the result was not as neat as she might have liked, but she added it to the pile without comment.

"Well, we are at the same place, when I am not working at the bank," he said, "but we are not _working_ together. Remember how, in order to be engaged, we had to work on a difficult and frustrating project together? We had sixty days to make a fishing boat out of scrap lumber! Srea Kula would sabotage our work sometimes, just to test our patience!"

"Surely you don't want to do _that_ again," she said, putting the napkins away and going to the sink. "We passed the test beautifully, and we have gone on!"

"Yes, we have," he said, "but, sometimes I think we have done too well."

"Done too well? How is it possible to do _too well_?" She dipped a cup into the nearly-empty cistern, and used it to prime the pump. She felt pride in how well she had done. She had a wonderful husband, wonderful children, a beautiful home, wonderful friends ...

"Let me pump it for you," he said.

"Well, all right," she said, "but you don't have to. I enjoy doing it. It's part of my routine."

He began to work the handle vigorously. "Not too much, it will splash all over!" she said. He slowed down. "How is this?"

"Good!"

"I ... sometimes worry about ... our routine," he said. She could tell by the increase in his exertion, when the seal caught; then the pumper can feel the water coming up, and know that in a few more strokes, it will come spilling out. She had often wondered to herself if that was how the peak of lovemaking felt to a man. She lifted a cedar bucket into place at just the right moment, and caught the cool, swirling water as it came rushing from the pipe.

"We each have our routine, you and I," he said, "and they don't intersect much. We each have chosen the things we like to do best."

"But we live together, don't we?" she said. "Isn't it nice, just being together, knowing that we are making our lives beautiful?"

"Yes, it is," he said. Whatever impulse had started him on this tack seemed to be losing momentum.

The bucket was full; she emptied it into the cistern and came back for more. " _Ooh, don't stop, don't stop!_ " she said, in an exaggerated tone of voice.

He could tell that she was joking, but he didn't get it. "I'm _insatiable_ ," she hinted, smirking, holding up the bucket again. He resumed pumping.

*

"That's _it!_ " she said to Linilaïra. "He was trying to tell me something, but I didn't listen!"

"What do you mean?" said Linilaïra.

"I just remembered a time, maybe two years ago, when he tried to tell me that our life had become too routine, and that he wanted us to do more together. I didn't think so, and I didn't really take it seriously."

Linilaïra looked at her severely. "Iri, you mustn't blame _yourself_ for what _he_ did! If the matter was really so important to him, he could have pursued it. He could even have asked for a ritual of negotiation! It is not an excuse for him to be corrupted! Now, you are supposed to be thinking about whether you really trust him."

"Oh, yes, I was, wasn't I?" she said, embarrassed by her digression. She resumed the kneeling posture and once again tried to build the little statue in her mind. 'We can't ask for certainty,' she thought, 'but am I sure enough to live peacefully and comfortably and lovingly with him?'

She remembered a time in the heyday of their youthful love. They were walking in the basement of the Cathedral, an area used for storage. Srea Kula had admonished them that lovers should not walk in parks with blossoming trees, or watch sunsets together. "It will make your feelings for each other seem more beautiful than they really are," he said. "Walk in dull and dingy places. If you are truly in love, you will feel blissful there." And she _had_ felt blissful, wonderfully so, and he too had been inebriated with love. How brilliant their conversation had felt! "I wonder what is kept in _those_ boxes," she had said. "Compost buckets," he had replied, "I've seen them being unpacked." "Oh, _compost buckets!_ " she had said, excitedly. How knowledgeable he was!

Next, Iliriana remembered the ritual that Srea Kula had guided her through when they had come to him, asking to be engaged. He had had her kneel in this very position. "Think of Lugu with all your might," he had said. "Think of him as he is now, not as you hope or fear that he might be. You have a right to suppose that you know him well. Think of his three greatest virtues." He paused until she nodded to show that she had done this. "Now, think of his three greatest weaknesses." She did, giggling a little (later, Srea Kula had mentioned to her that he had taken the giggle as a good sign). "Now, Iliriana, I want you to strive especially hard to avoid forgetfulness and wishful thinking. Think of him vividly, and ask yourself, 'Do I love this man, just as he is, in every respect, and without reservation?'" She had thought a moment, and then said, "Yes." As she said it, she had felt great joy and excitement. "Think of his flaws," Srea Kula had gone on. "Do you love even his flaws?"

"Yes!" she had responded, giggling again.

"Good!" said Srea Kula. "And now ask yourself, 'Can I spend the rest of my life with this man, perhaps four times as long as I have already lived, sharing everything with him, dealing with his flaws?'"

"Yes!"

"What if he becomes ill, and the illness drags on, and you have to do the work of three, in order to keep the family going? Would you be able to do that, without rage or despair?"

"Yes!"

"What if you hear scandal – what if people accuse him of terrible things – would you be able to trust him, until you see real evidence?"

"Yes!"

"And now, Iliriana, what if he really did fall? What if he committed a crime? What if he fell in love with another woman, and made love with her? Would you still love him?"

"Yes!" she had said, with a little sob. Srea Kula had taken that sob, too, as a good sign.

"Would you be able to make the best of the situation, without taking a wrong path yourself, in order to preserve the integrity of your family as well as possible?"

"Yes," she had said, in a tiny voice.

"And if he repented, and returned to the true path, would you be able to forgive him, so that your family could be completely healed?"

She had thought, as she knelt there, of all the times, during their friendship and their courtship, that he had angered or disappointed her, in one way or another. Sometimes, he had come and apologized; at other times, as seemed to be the strange custom of males, he had wanted to act as if nothing had happened, leaving it to her to grasp intuitively that he had recognized his fault. But it had always worked. She had always taken it for granted that he had flaws, but that they were like knots and checks in a piece of oak that was fundamentally sound.

" _Yes!"_ she had said, with profound conviction.

This memory reassured Iliriana; she shook herself free of the past. She asked herself the same questions again, and found the same answers. "I am sure!" she said, rising. "I wish to ask for an immediate resolution." Linilaïra sensed the decision in her voice, and went over and unlocked the door. They went out into the main room, where the other three were already waiting. She took her place next to her husband.

"Are you ready to proceed, Iliriana?" asked Srea Kula.

"I ask for immediate resolution, Srea," said Iliriana. She turned and looked into her husband's eyes. They were filled with fear. " _Great gods_!" she thought. "He actually fears that I have already made up my mind to ask for a divorce!" She took quick breath and began to speak.

"Darling, beloved Lugi," she said, "I don't know what else you have done, and I don't want to know. I already know the only thing that I really need to know: that the man standing here before me is the same man who took the vows of marriage with me, only yesterday, it seems. I will always love you, Lugi, no matter what happens; and I know that no matter how crazy you may get, you will always love me, too. This is the truth: evil can nibble away at the edges of our love, but it can never touch the heart."

She looked back to Srea Kula. "That is all I have to say, Srea."

"That is enough, Iliriana," he replied, tears sparkling in his eyes.
**********

"Tradition facilitates innovation."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Oselika and Teladorion were walking down one of the private pedestrian ways from the Inner Palace to the Great Hall. They passed hundreds of niches, each one occupied by a statue of some illustrious ancestor.

"You know, Tel," said Oselika quietly, after checking to see that no one was in hearing range, "if you thought _he wasn't in there_ , then you couldn't be saving him from any dishonor by killing the body, could you?"

Teladorion made a quizzical face, scratched his head, and then looked at her, out of the corner of his eye, with fond suspicion. "Well now, if that doesn't make sense! You'd better watch out, Sel, or you're going to end up sharper than your own sword!"

"But really, Tel," she said, "the fact that you did it suggests that you _did_ think he was in there. But then you _did_ break your oath!"

"Well, now, _stupidity_ never broke an oath," said Teladorion. "I mean, I see your logic _now_ , but I'm not _doing_ it now. Besides."

"Besides what?"

"Besides, there was still the problem of _you_ , pining your life away, over what looked a lot like your brother, but wasn't. According to me, that is."

"Well, what to do with my life is sort of for _me_ to decide, isn't it?" she said, testily.

"Well, I guess it is, Sel. Which brings us back to stupidity. Mine, that is."

"Are you really that stupid?"

"It's a gift," he said proudly.

"I believe it is," she said. "Your supposed stupidity has gotten you off the hook on more occasions than I could ever count."

He nodded agreement. "You smart people don't know what you're missing."

They were silent for awhile, walking between the rows of ancestors. Then she said, "But seriously, Tel, what makes you so sure he isn't in there?"

"Well, the doctors say he's gone, the wizards say he's gone, you say he never so much as twitches, and when I was sitting on that bed, I looked so deep and hard into his eyes, that I thought I'd end up stuck in the bedrock, down below the cellar. Now, you know what his eyes used to be like, Sel!"

She sighed and smiled at the same time. "Yes," she said. "Like _lakes_. Or like the _sky_."

"And they could be lakes of _fire_ , Sel. Why, half the time that you or I would have to fight, old Ki would just _look_ at some thug, and the thug would just crumble like stale bread under an elephant's foot. Or, I'd be tired, just dead tired, and he'd just _look_ at me, and I'd be so embarrassed to be tired, that I'd be looking for a whole platoon to whip. Or, when he was proud of me ..."

"I know," she said, touching his arm.

"Well, now, did _you_ see anything in those eyes, back there?"

She walked past ten ancestors with her head cast down. "I don't know, Tel. Probably not. Well, no, I didn't. But what if he _wanted_ to withdraw? Wouldn't he do that as well as he did everything else?"

"I suppose. But then, why are you trying to bring him back?"

"Well ... even Akelian can make a mistake, Tel. And not be afraid to admit it, if someone showed it to him. You know, he was always the older one, always teaching me. But if I had something to say, he would always listen. And sometimes he would change his mind."

"He knew a good girl when he saw one," said Teladorion, fondly.

"I'll never be able to be like him," she said.

He looked at her sadly. "It must have been tough for you sometimes, always younger and smaller, always behind, always in his shadow. Watching him get all the praise, all the honors."

"Yes, it was," she said, sniffling a little.

"Maybe it was _for you_ that he went away," said Teladorion, thoughtfully. "Maybe he thought, 'Oselika needs her time in the sun. Everyone thinks of her as _Akelian's little sister_. She needs me to step aside.'"

Oselika stopped dead in her tracks. "He _couldn't_ have!"

"Couldn't he?"

She looked horrified; then she gave him a penetrating stare. "You're teasing me!" she said.

Teladorion looked right into her eyes. "Sel, I don't have the faintest idea why Ki ended up the way he did. But, I know he loved you more than anyone could put into words, if he wrote two words for every word he'd already written. And no, for once I am not teasing you."

"I could never replace him!" she said, with a mixture of bitterness and despair.

"I didn't say you should, Sel," Teladorion replied. "I'm saying just the _opposite_ of that. But it's my stupidity again – saying what I said was just bound to get you all self-conscious, and comparing yourself with him."

"Anyway," Oselika continued, "I don't _want_ him to leave me. I don't _care_ if he's better than me at everything. He's my brother, and I love him. _I want him back_!" She shook her fists, and then her whole body, in frustration.

Looking his way, she saw that Teladorion was looking at her, wide-eyed with astonishment.

" _Now_ what?" she asked.

"Maybe that's it, Sel! Maybe that's your Quest! To bring him back from the dead! Or wherever he is."

Her eyes widened in wonder, and a smile gradually crept into place, like a winter sunrise. "Yes, you are right, Tel! That _is_ my Quest! It's been my Quest all along!" She rushed over and embraced him tightly, her head on his chest.

" _Ouch!_ " he yelled. "Be careful, Sel! That's where you cut me, and it's still plenty sore!"

She let him go, but she started pulling at his robe. "Let me kiss it and make it well," she said, giggling.

He jerked his robe away and looked at her in absolute shock. " _Sel!_ "

"Well, well," she said, smirking, "I've finally found what it takes to make you afraid of me!"

And she proceeded down the hall, leaving him speechless.
**********

"A mortal has more layers than a cabbage."

(from the popular song, "Back to the Garden")

Accompanied by Srea Kula and Srea Gala, Sre Lugu entered, with great trepidation, the hallway leading to Liliune's apartment. He sighed and halted. "Must I really do this?" he asked Srea Kula.

"You must show us that you have decisively broken with her," replied Srea Kula, "and you must redeem yourself by striking a blow against evil. Can you think of a better way? Have we not discussed this enough?"

"No," said Sre Lugu, "I cannot think of a better way." He felt as though he were trying to swim in mud, and was running out of air. Just being in this hallway, just approaching her door, re-awakened in him all those feelings of longing, and of being enslaved by his job and family. He had to struggle with every step. He felt her sweetness warming him through her door, and reverberating through his memory; his mind was saturated with it. The sweetness spoke to him, saying, 'If this feeling is perverse and evil, why does it feel so natural and good? Isn't a man born to find sweetness like this? Why must we give up what we yearn for so desperately?' But he looked at his companions, thinking, 'I don't know why. But these are men, strong men, proud men, wise men. They are with me because they love me, and I will not disappoint them.' He raised his head, straightened his back, and stepped forward to Liliune's door. As he put his hand to the knocker, which was shaped like a naked woman arching her back, he felt a little electric tingle. He lifted it and let it fall. It struck a large half-bell of brass, making a note shimmer in the air.

"Coming, Lugi," Liliune called in her melodious soprano, a voice which made even "good morning" into a thrilling caress. He was deeply ashamed to have his companions hear this woman use the very same nickname for him that his wife used. But he was only reaping what he had sown.

The lock clicked, the knob turned, and the door opened. There stood Liliune with a radiant smile. Her beauty struck him like a blow. He could feel his companions, too, stop breathing for a moment. _At least_ , he thought, _they will see that I had a lot to be tempted by._

Liliune's hair was a deep rose-red, thick, variegated, wavy, and long, a cascade of shades, a music of locks and curls. It had a wildness to it, like barely frozen fire. It framed her wide and perfectly symmetrical aqua face and greenish eyes, splashing from her shoulders to run foaming over her large but lifted breasts, which it hid and promised to reveal at the same time. Well below the top of her hips, she had wrapped herself with a bright violet cloth, thin enough to ripple with every draught, and to cling to the body beneath whenever she moved. It was secured only by being tucked into itself, suggesting that it might easily come undone. Her belly was slim enough, and the blades of her pelvis large enough, that there was actually a little space between her belly and the cloth, as it stretched taut from one hip to the other. She stood with most of her weight on one leg, exaggerating the riverbend curve of the opposite hip. Her skin was beaded with lucent drops of water, as though she had just arisen from the bath.

_I must do this_ , thought Sre Lugu, _I must give her up_. He felt like a man trying to find his way in a strange house, just after looking at the sun.

Seeing the other two, Liliune hesitated for a moment, but recovered instantly. "Why Lugi," she said, in a voice of pleased surprise, "you've brought friends! How nice! Won't you all come in?" She smiled a dazzling smile and beckoned gracefully – all her motions were those of a dancer – for them to enter. Sre Lugu did so, and so did his companions, with murmured thanks and polite clearings of the throat.

They entered a realm of gentle lighting and intoxicating incense. The walls of her apartment were done in rich and glowing colors, but subdued, and complemented here and there with strips of black. Paintings and drawings hung on the walls; some, Sre Lugu recalled, were done by famous artists that she knew. Sculptures, too, were scattered about with artful artlessness. In the hall they passed a kind of fountain, a sculpture of a woman bathing under a natural cascade. She was bent back to take the water on her face, with her hands gathering her hair behind her head. Thus was the front of her body brought into the clearest possible view.

As Liliune led them into the living room, chattering musically about the weather and apologizing sweetly for the lack of order, Sre Lugu knew he was not the only one to be guiltily focused on the swaying of her wide, large-boned body. Her little improvised skirt was tied low enough so that they could see the little butterfly-dimples at the base of her flexible spine, fluttering back and forth with her stride. Her smoldering hair was as long and lush in back as it was in front, but when she artlessly raised her arm to brush back a lock on her forehead, it did not hide the exquisite curve of the side of her breast, gently bouncing with her step.

In the living room, she gestured for them to sit on the sofa, which was draped in soft furs and adorned with pillows of several shapes and colors. "Oh, I just don't know what to do," she said helplessly, "Here I have three men, and all so handsome, coming to visit me! And I'm barely dressed! I'm so sorry! Oh, let me get you something to eat or drink! Let me see what I have!" She turned and headed for the kitchen. As she turned, the ends of her violet cloth, which was barely wide enough to get entirely around her hips, parted for an eyeblink, revealing the entire side of her leg and hip, and perhaps even – or were they only imagining it?

_She's always practicing her art_ , thought Sre Lugu. Aloud, he called out, "Nothing alcoholic, please, Liliune."

"No problem, Lugi," she sang back cheerfully. "I have juices and syrup!"

The three men sat in silence, not looking at each other. It seemed wrong to exchange sighs and rollings of the eyes, as men often do when they are suddenly relieved of having to pretend not to be lusting after a woman. Sre Lugu sat with his eyes closed and his fingers pressed to his furrowed forehead, as though he had a migraine. Srea Gala sat looking blankly at a corner of the ceiling, breathing very slowly, his forearms hiding his lap. Srea Kula had his eyes closed; he appeared to be praying.

After a few moments, Sre Lugu opened his eyes and looked around the room. There were paintings and sculptures, and three bookcases full of books. Many times, he and Liliune had sat leaning against each other on this very sofa, and she had read to him by candlelight. It was usually poetry, but sometimes History and occasionally Philosophy. At other times she would sing to him – at one time a folk song, at another a song from some opera in a foreign language, which she would always translate for him, the first time through. Or sometimes, when he was tired, she would sing him to sleep with a lullaby, while gently stroking his hair.

_It's not good to dwell on such memories_ , he thought, and pushed them away. He returned to the sofa as it was. The other two men had not moved. From the kitchen he could hear the clinking of glass, and Liliune singing sweetly to herself. His gaze drifted to the bedroom door. Liliune (was anything ever an accident with her?) had left it open. The room was dark, but he could see the outlines of her wide and sumptuous bed. He felt tears coming on. Again he tore his mind away from the past, but he felt as though a large piece had been left behind, as with a fox who chews its leg off to be freed from a trap.

Liliune returned, with four drinks on a silver tray. In elegant crystal goblets she had placed rich syrup in shaved ice, lightly spiced with ginger and cinnamon, and garnished with little slices of fresh fruit. There was a table near the sofa. As she bent to set down the tray, her hair, shiny and silky, fell away from her breasts. All three men tried not to look, and failed; meanwhile, by skill or miracle, her lush and wavy curls, hanging free, remained between them and the objects of their attention.

"I think you will like them," she said brightly, "the drinks, I mean. So Lugi, are you going to introduce me to your nice friends?"

"Ah, yes," stammered Sre Lugu, coming back to his original purpose, "ah, Liliune, this is Srea Gala, my supervisor and mentor from the bank. Srea Gala, this is Liliune." Srea Gala extended a hand, but kept the other one in his lap.

"Oh, _Srea Gala_ ," said Liliune, bubbling with pleasure, "I'm _so_ happy to meet you! I have heard _so_ much about you!" She took his hand in both of hers, and held it within an inch of her chest. Then she let it go. Sre Lugu cringed inwardly to think of what sort of things he had actually said to her about his mentor. "And who would this be?" she asked, laying a soft and graceful hand on Srea Kula's knee. Srea Kula gave a guilty start, and Sre Lugu was chagrined to feel a little stab of jealousy. _Her hands_ , he thought, _are dancers in themselves_. _They cannot take a position without grace_.

"Liliune, this is Srea Kula, my family counselor."

"Pleased to meet you, Srea Kula," said Liliune, giving him a radiant smile. _What an actress she is!_ thought Sre Lugu, _She must know it's the end, and that a storm is about to break, but she is playing it for all she can_.

Liliune sat down on a hassock opposite the sofa. She lifted her left foot to brush something invisible from the sole. In doing so, she revealed a dizzying expanse of inner thigh. "So," she said, looking up brightly, and pretending not to notice their widened eyes and bated breath, "what can I do for you gentlemen?"

The other two men turned to Sre Lugu. This was his cue. He took a breath and leaned forward. "Liliune," he said, "we have investigated, and we know that you work for Pappi."

"Well, sometimes," she said, looking sad and contrite, and fiddling nervously with her hair. "Not always," she said, making eye contact with Sre Lugu. She hunched her shoulders toward her ears. It was a defensive gesture, but it made her look as though she had angel wings.

"Well, I don't know if you have realized what kind of a man he is," continued Sre Lugu. "He is intelligent, and handsome, and urbane, and fabulously wealthy, but he is also an arch-criminal. He is responsible for innumerable murders, rapes, and other terrible crimes. He has not a single shred of compassion. He will kill as easily as you or I would blink."

She said nothing, but only stared at him with immensely sad eyes, her large lavender lips pouting just a little.

"I am sure he pays you well, Liliune, but soon, you must escape him, or you will die. Every time he uses you to blackmail someone, you become a witness. You know too much. Someday he will find someone to replace you, and then he will have you killed. Possibly in his arena, where people are raped, tortured, and murdered for sport."

"I know he's not a nice man," said Liliune sweetly, "but I don't think he will kill me. He _likes_ me." She said "likes" with a smile and a suggestive tone.

"Liliune," replied Sre Lugu, "that man has over twenty wives and forty concubines, and any number of casual partners, and he has never shown a single sign of love or loyalty to any of them. You may well be the most desirable woman in Kondrastibar, but there are plenty of close seconds. When the time comes, he will have you erased without a moment's hesitation."

"Oh, Lugi," she sighed, tears brightening her eyes, "I know he's a bad man, but what can I do? He has told me that if I run away, or displease him in whatever way, he will kill me! I can only try to please him for as long as possible, and live as intensely as I can in the meantime."

"No, Liliune, you can do better than that! Please do not imagine that I am trying to punish you for helping Pappi to blackmail me. You may never have loved me, but you know that I have loved you, and although our relationship is over now, I want to help you to escape from him."

"Oh, but I _do_ love you, Lugi Darling," she said, playing nervously with her hair, and thereby revealing much of the geography of her breast. "Yes, I began it because he ordered me to, but when I came to know you, I came to love you. How could I not?"

"Perhaps that is so, Liliune, but it doesn't matter now. I am returning my love to my wife and family. But I do want to help you, and my two friends have helped me to come up with a plan. We will move you to another part of the city, very far away from any place that Pappi or his associates have been known to go. We will supply you with a false name and a false past, and you will change your appearance and occupation."

"But he will track me down anyway, Lugi! He will employ wizards and telepaths! How can anyone hide from such a man?"

"There are ways to do these things, Liliune. There are ways for us to contact people who do these things, without our knowing who or where they are, or the reverse."

"Can't you just _kill_ him, Lugi? No one in the world will want to avenge him. It's the only way I will ever be safe!"

"As a matter of fact, Liliune, we _are_ going to try to kill him. We are already negotiating with the Holy Guild of Assassins. But he is a hard man to kill; he has a whole security staff to protect him. There must be hundreds of people, at any given time, who would like to see him dead, but he has survived all these years."

"Would you really do this for me, Lugi?" she said, looking at him with large and liquid eyes.

"Yes, Liliune, everything is prepared," he said.

"That is wonderful, Lugi. I would kiss you, but I suppose you don't want that anymore. I'll do as you say! Give me a couple of days to pack!"

Sre Lugu sighed. "I am sorry, Liliune, but you must leave right away, right now. Pappi probably has you watched. His agent will already be suspicious, knowing that I have brought two others with me."

She looked aghast. "But, my possessions! My art, my books!"

"We will try to send them along later. But you should not worry about possessions, when your _life_ is at stake."

She sighed. "Well, Lugi, in that case, I guess I should slip into something a bit less comfortable!" She took a candle and went into her bedroom. Sre Lugu followed her.

She went over to a window and bent to open it. Then, with a start, she noticed him. "Lugi! If you really belong only to your wife again, you should not watch me undress!" Her voice was no longer cooing or singsong.

"It's all right, Liliune."

"Well, I don't want you to!" She was frowning at him over her shoulder.

"My friends and I have agreed that we need to keep an eye on you at all times, Liliune, now that things have gone this far. If you prefer, I can have Srea Gala take my place."

"Oh, never mind! I don't really need to dress!" she said, returning to the living room. "Before I leave, though, I would like to run across the street and say goodbye to my dear friend, Akaria. It will only take a moment." She started toward the hall.

"I guess that will be all right, if the three of us accompany you."

She showed a bit of irritation. "Very well. Just a moment, I want to take her something as a gift." She opened a cabinet next to a bookshelf. With the slowness of the deeply sad, she reached inside.

Suddenly, she whirled to face them, whipped off her skirt, and sprang at them. A slender sword was in her hand, hatred on her face. Her eyes were coals, her teeth were fangs. Lunging, she thrust at Srea Kula. Instinctively, he parried with his arms and managed to deflect the blade a little, at the cost of a deep edge-cut to his wrist; but still, the point ran into his side. He screamed. Before Liliune could retract her sword, Srea Gala grabbed a small stone statue, jumped up, and rapped her smartly on the temple. She ought to have crumpled up with nausea and pain, but she only staggered back a step, pulling her red-tipped blade from Srea Kula's side, and then she turned and leapt at Srea Gala, howling with fury, her sword aimed at his throat. Srea Gala dodged sideways, losing his balance; she turned her thrust to follow him, and the blade took him just below the clavicle. As he fell over the corner of the table, spurting blood, he swung the statue hard against her left knee. There was a sharp crack. She screamed and started to fall, but caught herself with her left hand on the bookcase. Supporting herself with one leg and one hand, she raised her sword, preparing to strike the back of his neck. At the same time, there was a great banging from the other end of the apartment. Also at the same time, Sre Lugu came rushing at her, holding a large cushion in front of him. She lowered her point and thrust at him. Her thrust went right through the pillow with no resistance. At just the last moment, Sre Lugu pushed the pillow sideways, and the blade turned with it, opening a gash on the corner of his jaw, but missing the artery in his neck. He rammed into her, grabbing both her wrists and pinning her against the wall. She wriggled and writhed, cursing and spitting, but she could not dislodge him. To get a free hand, she let go her sword; then she jerked one hand free and went for his eyes. Involuntarily, he stumbled backwards. Freed, she bent her uninjured leg and slid her left hand down the bookcase, so as to be able to reach down and grab her sword with her right. As she took it, Sre Lugu sprang forward, knocking her against the wall with his shoulder and grabbing her right wrist in both hands. He tried to force her wrist down, but her strength was extraordinary. With her other hand, she grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head down. Then he felt her teeth sink into the back of his neck. She shook her head, worrying him like a dog with a woodchuck. Pain and chaos crackled through his entire frame, and he began to pass out. He felt her wrist break free of both his hands. She then let go his neck. Collapsing, he wondered where the sharpened steel would enter his body.
**********

"Instinct sings a lullaby."

(Sayings of the Iperongi)

All went well with the young Kor's pregnancy, and the day came when she began to have contractions. Smiling beatifically, she made her way to the Maternity Sanctuary. Soon her midwife arrived, along with two apprentices. Retreating to an appropriate alcove, they helped Kor undress and climb onto the labor couch, and gathered the appropriate materials. The midwife held a piece of lit incense in various places over Kor's distended belly, and observed the patterns of the smoke rising from it. "Everything is auspicious," she announced.

Kor smiled. She had complete faith in the midwife and her apprentices. She also felt Ydris and Isiliar hovering invisibly near her, radiating love and encouragement. She also felt a third friendly presence, which she inferred was Lixanhua, the goddess of midwifery. As Kor's contractions increased in power and frequency, she became fatigued and uncomfortable, but she had been expecting that, and took pride in not letting it bother her unduly. She was a little puzzled, though, by their repeated exhortations to "push." She felt as though she were being asked to swallow a watermelon: the problem seemed to be not in a lack of applied force, but in a lack of enough space for the object to pass through.

Then, suddenly, and with a ripping and crunching pain that cut savagely through the analgesic spells, Kor's pelvic floor seemed to defy geometry, and the baby began to move. "I see the head!" said the midwife, excitedly, and in another couple of pushes – which were finally having an effect - the baby was out! Kor felt a burst of exultation from Ydris and Lixanhua, and a burst of congratulation from Isiliar. Her pain faded away. The midwife cut the cord, gave the infant's diaphragm a gentle palpation to start her breathing, and held her up for Kor to see.

The child looked furiously healthy, and hugely eager for life. Kor felt her psyche turn upside down and inside out, as a great rush of love burst from her entire body and soul and cocooned the baby. For a few breaths, Kor had an odd feeling that she _was_ the child, and that she was being given another go at life. She felt grateful.

"Zar," she said, "I name you Zar."

Kor reached up and took the baby from the midwife. She was astonished at how much she felt as soon as she touched Zar with her hands; the exact softness of her body, and the precise textures of her skin, registered with an incredible vividness, as did every detail of her weight and momentum. And when Kor looked into Zar's eyes, she seemed for a moment to be looking down the infinite corridor produced by a pair of opposing mirrors.

She placed the baby at her breast, and Zar immediately began to suckle. Kor found the sensation intensely pleasurable. She was entranced by all the little smacking and gurgling sounds, and soon came to know and cherish the exact shape and texture of Zar's lips, gums, and tongue.

Kor was only subliminally aware of the assistants cleaning her up, or of the midwife making various tests; and it seemed somehow redundant when the midwife said, "Congratulations, Kor! You and Zar are both in excellent shape!"

"Thank you," said Kor.

"Would you like to see visitors, now?" asked the midwife.

"No, thank you," replied Kor, "not just yet. I want to be alone with Zar."

Taking the hint, the midwife and her assistants left, leaving a bell for Kor to ring if she needed anything. Kor lay there, feeling the bliss of pure existence, of being alone with Zar, of Zar suckling, Zar suckling intermittently as she became sated and drowsy, Zar falling definitively asleep, Kor luxuriating in her love for Zar, Kor feeling drowsy, Kor slipping in and out of warm, sweet dreams, Kor not noticing whether she was dreaming or not, Kor and Zar alone in the universe, cocooned in love and infinitely happy, ... and Kor, too, slipped into sleep.
**********

"The Law of Exceptions: The larger a totality gets,

the more likely it is that atypical objects will appear in it."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

It was a most unusual event in the Babbling Brooks neighborhood. A cavalry troop of formidable religious Amazons, including a witch and a telepath, stood quiet but alert in a park, while their leader counted her breaths. Frightened residents peered at them from behind their curtains, or evacuated their houses by the back door and went for sanctuary to the houses of friends.

A few blocks away, at 227 Sunshine Drive, a housewife named Laeri Alinara came down the stairs. Eedit Rabe, the volunteer policeman, thought about how he would question her. He focused his eyes on the floor. Near him stood a policewoman, Officer Dald, and the man that they both thought was Laeri Alinara's husband, Caro.

Laeri was a blonde with a pink and pretty face. Stepping off the last stair, she came over to Eedit with a friendly smile. "Hello, Eedit," she said, in a warm and cheerful tone.

Suddenly, he snapped his eyes into a lock with hers, looking quite stern. "Who is this _Arguit_ guy?" he said, in an angry and impatient tone.

Her face first blanched, then blushed. "He's my – my f-first husband," she sputtered.

"Is he _still_ your husband?" asked Eedit, still sounding impatient.

"Well, yes ... technically," she said, glancing at Caro. "Caro knows about him." Caro nodded, a little embarrassed.

"Does he ever come here?" asked Rabe.

"Yes," she said, blushing even more deeply. "Four or five times a year. The neighbors think he's my cousin." Caro looked even more embarrassed.

"Ah," said Eedit's female colleague, officer Dald. "I think I've met him, under that description. Average height, short orange hair, light green complexion?"

"Yes," said Laeri, "that's what he looks like, and I remember that you met him. At Frala's wedding."

"Yes, that was it!" said Officer Dald.

"Now, Laeri," said Eedit, "were you ever associated with the Temple of Ydris, in the Tari district?"

"Well, yes! Tari was my childhood home, and Arguit's too. The temple was my religion for many years, and I studied medicine there a little, too."

"I'm sorry to be asking these questions, Laeri," said Eedit. "Your personal life would normally be none of my business, but something has come up."

"What is it?" she asked, nervously. "Is Arguit in trouble?"

"I'm not sure. Why do you have another husband?" Polygamy was somewhat frowned upon in the Babbling Brooks neighborhood.

"Well, Arguit and I met in Tari, when we were both very poor. A large part of what linked us was, that we were both determined that our children should _not_ be poor. Arguit managed to get some training and get a job with a very good salary. It was far away, and so he could only come to see me a few times a year. That seemed all right with him, and he sent money regularly, and I was able to move to a different, somewhat better, neighborhood. There I had my first child, Aligui."

"Aligui is _Arguit's_ child?" asked Eedit. Caro looked still more uncomfortable.

"All five of my children are Arguit's," said Laeri, blushing again. Caro sunk his head into his hands.

"Go on."

"Well, it became clear that Arguit was really very dedicated to his children, to the extent of wanting them to escape from poverty. It's a kind of obsession with him. If you had ever been as poor as we were, you would understand. His parents both died when he was fairly young, and his siblings all died, too. When I first met him, he was about forty. His life up until then had been very hard, and I thought he was going to die very soon, from heartbreak and despair. But through religion, at the Temple of Ydris, he found a will to live. One of the, ah, Courtesans of Sacrifice there helped him." She blushed again.

"I shared his desire to find a better life for our children," Laeri continued, "but ... I realized that he didn't really love me, romantically – I was his old and dear friend, his ally, his long-time sexual partner, and the mother of his children. There was a very strong bond of loyalty, which I still feel, but ... Arguit didn't really have much of a conception of love, beyond that. I came to realize, though, that I was different. I needed someone to love, and someone to love me, someone who would be together with me all the time, and who would love my children and spend time with them. And in fact I fell in love several times, but the only one who would adapt to my situation was Caro." Caro removed his hands from his face, but still looked embarrassed. Turning his back on the others, he began to wipe the kitchen counter.

"So," continued Laeri, "I explained this to Arguit, and I reassured him that my loyalty to his children was absolute, and that he would be welcome to visit us at any time, and that my relation to him was therefore essentially unchanged, for we had never really been lovers at all, emotionally speaking. I told him that I knew very well that he was hardly celibate when he was away. He was upset, but he was still loyal to me, in his way, and so he accepted it. So Caro and I got married and moved here, where nobody knew my past."

"Did you ever suspect that Arguit's job involved criminal activity?"

"Well, yes, I did," said Laeri, sighing. "When someone suddenly climbs out of poverty like that ... and, he wouldn't talk about his job very much. So, yes, I knew, and no, there is no excuse, but again, if you had been as poor as we had been, you would understand. But please, Eedit, don't keep me in suspense any longer! What has happened?"

"I'm not sure," said Eedit. "I only have second-hand reports. A couple of people came in with a story of armored women on horseback, riding down Sunset Way. At first we thought it was some kind of weird practical joke, but they stuck by it, and so we checked it out. Sure enough, there they were, about fifteen of them. They looked ridiculous at a distance, but when we got up close, we realized they were very, very serious. Any idea who they might have been?"

"I'm almost certain that they were Amazons from the Temple of Ydris, Eedit," said Laeri. "I hope nobody attacked them in any way. I guess you didn't, or you wouldn't be here. They are very, very good at what they do, Eedit."

"I got that impression, not that I know snake's legs about military stuff," said Eedit. "But _why_ do these Amazons fight? What do they fight _for_?"

"Well, I'd have to explain the whole religion, Eedit, but they _are_ religious warriors – they have no criminal intent, I am sure. They've been given a mission by the Temple, one that the Temple has judged to be virtuous. Of the details, I have no idea."

"One religion's virtue is another religion's vice," said Eedit.

"Yes, I know, but – what can I say, Eedit, it was my religion for years, and although I attend the Happy Family Church now, I don't look back on my earlier days with horror – not at all! They taught me to help people with spells and medicines, they gave me a place to live, and many other things, all for free. They brought Arguit out of his despair – sure, he's not a perfect person, but he's alive, and he's dedicated to his children, in his way. I still keep in touch with the Temple, a little. If you would tell me something specific, Eedit, I might be able to help you more!"

"OK," said Eedit. "It seems that they're looking for _you_. Any idea why?"

"Well, not specifically – I mean, I must be in their records somewhere. But I'm not worried – I can't believe that they are angry with me, I didn't betray them, I just moved away for personal reasons."

"Are you sure?" asked Eedit, very intensely. "You had better be, because in a few breaths, they are going to be here, looking for you."

To his great relief, she did not seem worried about this. "What did they tell _you_ they were coming for, Eedit?" she asked. "I always found the people from the Temple to be very straightforward and truthful."

"Their leader," replied Eedit, "said that Arguit had somehow got in trouble with his boss, and that his boss had promised that if Arguit ever crossed him, not only would Arguit die, but you and the kids too, thanks to some kind of spells. She said that they were here to protect you, and I got the impression that they want to take you away with them, too."

Laeri's eyes widened with fear and dismay. "Eedit, _please_ don't do anything to hold them back! I know you're a good man, Eedit, but you don't know anything much about spells. They will have a witch with them, they will probably have her check me out, and purge me if necessary. It's the only way to be sure, Eedit! If you want a second opinion, get Father Rasil from the Happy Family Church, over on Rose Blossom Lane. I know you're trying to protect me, checking out their story, but I'm sure that the best way to protect me is to co-operate with them. I know they look strange and dangerous to you, and they _are_ dangerous, but not to us! Please trust me, Eedit!"

Eedit sighed. "Well, I can't see any flaws in your explanation," he said. "At first I thought they must be lying, when they said you had a husband named Arguit. I can't see how I could stop them, anyway. But you have a good idea there – Officer Dald, would you go see if you can get Father Rasil down here, fast as you can? Tell him as much as you need to."

"I'm on my way," said Dald, and headed out. At that moment they heard the voice of the third officer, who had been left to patrol outside the house. "They're coming!" he yelled. Eedit hurried to the front door. The Amazons had ridden up to the front of the yard. Officer Dald was cutting across the neighbor's lawn. "Stop right there!" yelled Lieutenant Calcadro, in a voice that would have frightened a dead behemoth. Dald stopped. "Where are you going?" demanded the Lieutenant. "I – I'm going to get Father Rasil, he might know something about spells," said Dald. "She's telling the truth," said a soldier riding near the Lieutenant. Eedit noticed, with a weird feeling, that the soldier's helmet covered her entire head, with a grille over the mouth, but with no eye-holes. "All right," said Calcadro, gesturing to Dald, "go ahead. No tricks, or your friends here will be in a very uncomfortable situation." In her voice of command, she said, "Plain Riders, surround the house, bison nine, eighth alert. Zan, Thia, we're going inside, protocol termite six." The three of them dismounted as the others took positions around the house.

"Lieutenant," called out Laeri, "I'm Laeri Alinara, the wife of Arguit. I used to belong to the Temple of Ydris."

"She's telling the truth," said the Amazon in the eyeless helmet, "and she knows the purpose of our mission. The policeman is worried, but he does not intend to resist. The only others in the house are a man named Caro, who thinks he is her husband, and five children, upstairs."

"He _is_ my husband," said Laeri. "I have two of them."

"She's telling the truth."

"Well, then, Laeri, may I check you for spells?" asked the witch, Zanentadra.

"Yes," said Laeri, "please do."

"The policeman is pleased that Zan asked permission," said the telepath, "even though we have overwhelming force. It makes him think better of us. He is astonished at my reading of his mind. He has never encountered a telepath before."

Laeri stood with her legs spread and her arms raised, and Zanentadra peered at her through a crystal. "Three parasitic spells," she reported, "two deadly, one obnoxious."

"Purge all!" said Calcadro.

Zanentadra drew her sword and pointed it at Laeri. Eedit leapt forward, but an Amazon grabbed his wrist and twisted it, and, somehow, with virtually no effort on her part, he found himself forced to go down on his knees. Blue lightning crackled from the blade of Zanentadra's sword's blade to Laeri's body, red lightning crackled from Laeri's body to the ground, and yellow lightning crackled from the ground to Zanentadra. There was a sulfurous smell. "The policeman worries that this is aggression against her," said the telepath, "but he is making an effort to trust us."

"It will be done in a moment," Calcadro said to Eedit. And indeed, the sparks died away, and Laeri seemed unharmed. "She's clean!" said the witch. The Amazon released Eedit's wrist, and he rose, with only a slight ache in his arm.

"May we check and purge the children?" asked Calcadro. "Yes, please!" said Laeri. Eedit resigned himself to letting things alone, but followed the three Amazons and Laeri, as they rushed into the house. Caro was standing just inside the door. "That is the local husband," said the telepath, pointing. "His name is Caro. He knows about Arguit."

"Mr. Caro," said Calcadro, "may we check your children for spells, and purge any harmful spells that we find?"

"Say yes, Caro," said Laeri, urgently.

"Yes," said Caro.

"This way!" said Laeri, running up the stairs.

In spite of Laeri's hasty assurances, the children were all frightened of the sudden appearance of the strange-looking, armored women, to say nothing of being examined by one of them, having her draw a sword, and having a shower of sparks explode from their bodies. "One spell each. Deadly. All purged." reported Calcadro, when Eedit poked his head in the door. For good measure, they checked Caro, but he was clean.

Everyone sighed with relief. Laeri and Caro comforted the children. The tension dropped drastically.

"My orders are to take Laeri and the children to a safe house," Calcadro explained to Eedit, "in case an attack should be directed here. Caro may come if he wishes. He is, after all, their real father." Caro seemed to be about to correct her, but she added, "Arguit is only their biological father."

There was a pause. Then: "Thank you," said Caro, tears in his eyes, "it's nice to have you understand."

She embraced him. "Just because I'm a warrior doesn't mean that I am blind to everything else in life."

"I'd like you to come, Caro," said Laeri.

"I will, then," he said. Laeri came over to him and they stood with arms around one another.

Zanentadra came over to Caro and Laeri and said, very quietly, "Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but in the last few years, we at the Temple have made great progress in treating infertility in males. When things have quieted down a bit, you might want to ..."

"Thank you!" said Caro and Laeri in unison, and then turned to look joyfully into one another's eyes.

"What we need," said Calcadro, "is a nice passenger wagon. Do you know where we can get one? We will pay for it."

"I will get you one," said Eedit, who had been listening in. He went off, glad to feel in some measure relevant.

"By the way," said Laeri to Zanentadra, "what was that spell you called 'obnoxious'?"

"Oh," said the witch, "that probably wasn't from Arguit's employer. It was a sexually transmitted spell, a virus. It was set to go off a couple of months from now."

"What would it have done?"

"Ah, well, it would have waited until you were in a public place, with plenty of people around, and then, well, it would have made all your clothes disappear."

"That _son of a leech_!" said Laeri, with great fervor.

"You would think," muttered Zanentadra, "that a security man would take a little more care than to pick up an STS!"

"Men lose all their rationality, where sex is concerned," said Laeri.

"Too true" said Zanentadra, wincing from bad memories.

About an hour later, they were ready to leave. Father Rasil had arrived and pronounced that, as far as he could tell, the magic used by Zanentadra had been entirely benign. Laeri and her children were comfortably settled in the wagon, with Caro at the reins.

"Well," said Calcadro to Eedit, "I guess it's time for us to make our desperate bid for freedom."

"I'm sorry," said Eedit ruefully. "You were doing the right thing, and I slowed you down."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," said Calcadro, sternly. "You find a bunch of heavily armed strangers in your neighborhood, which is utterly defenseless, and their story appears to contain a glaring falsehood. Given our overwhelming superiority in force, you could easily have rationalized despair, and retreated to a safe distance. Instead, you stayed with us, and continued with your investigation, just in case you might be able to help Laeri somehow. You are a brave and conscientious man. I think your superiors will understand. If not, they are fools."

"Thank you," said Eedit. "Believe it or not, I will miss you."

"Well," replied Calcadro, grinning, "if you're ever in the Tari neighborhood, look me up! I'll show you the Temple. It's quite remarkable, you know."

"I've begun to realize that," said Eedit.

"Good!" said Calcadro, with a smile. "But now, we'd best leave! Do good!" She raised her voice in command, and the company, surrounding the wagon, moved down the road.

"Do good!" replied Eedit, genuinely sad to see them go. The three volunteers and Father Rasil watched until the company had disappeared around a bend in the road. Then they were silent. Magic and adventure had entered their lives, and although they were more comfortable without it, they were sad to see it go.

"I never thought that women could do stuff like that," said Officer Dald, thoughtfully.

Eedit looked at her. He saw her differently, somehow. He had always liked her, and found her attractive. He also felt an affinity with her, because they had both chosen to volunteer at the same thing. But as he saw her gazing wistfully down the deserted street, he became aware of other aspects of her. He took a deep breath. "Not to change the subject, Dald," he said, "but what are you doing this evening?"
**********

"Nothing is sweeter

than contact with a mystery."

(Sentence generated at random by an abacus)

As they approached what had been Pappi's compound, Intipisk could see the figures of children just inside the gate, which was open. Some of them were children from the orphanage, waving to them. Even at a distance, their patchwork clothing could be recognized. It was a great relief to see them; as soon as the crisis over Kor had been resolved, everyone had become painfully aware that they had sent the children headlong into what had been, the last time they saw it, the very vortex of evil, in a very evil neighborhood.

Tulith gave a start, and looked over her shoulder. "Oh, oh, looks like reinforcements." They all turned; sure enough, a few blocks away, a new contingent of Angels was emerging from a cross-street.

"Can you and ... Brother Koof ... handle this?" croaked Talek to the neophytes. "I am ... exhausted."

"It may not be necessary," one of them replied. "Seeing what has happened to their comrades, and probably having no idea why, they will hesitate to confront us." Indeed, to Intipisk's great relief, the Angels halted, and then returned the way they had come.

"What are all these little lights?" asked Intipisk, referring to the little fireflies that had emerged from the flying machines. They were, she saw, of various colors, and they twinkled. They flew irregularly, like butterflies.

"I think ... they are souls," said Talek, in a whisper. "Can you ... hear ... anything from them?"

Intipisk knelt down and put her ear close to one. "Yes," she said with wonder, "I hear a little song!"

Talek nodded. "Yes, I believe ... they are ... souls." He stopped and leaned on his staff. "Some of them ... had been enslaved ... by the makers of ... those machines. The makers put them ... into the machines ... to guide the machines, much as your soul ... guides your own body."

"The boy's magic destroyed the physical part of the machines, but not the souls!" exclaimed Tulith. "What a nice magic! But, are they just going to drift about, now? Perhaps that's better than being enslaved, but ..."

Kor broke into the conversation: "That's all very well," she said, "but I'm worried about Talek! He looks very ill, to me!" Intipisk looked up, and saw that it was so. He was leaning on his staff for support, but appeared to be losing his balance.

"Going to be ... all right," he whispered.

"You've lost a lot of mana," said a neophyte. "Let me give you a transfusion."

"No," croaked Talek. "You might ... need ..."

"What I need, is to get you into the compound, where you can rest safely!" said the neophyte. She approached him and hugged him tightly. At the juncture of their bodies there appeared a multitude of dancing white lightnings. After about fifty breaths, she released him.

'Ahh ...' said Talek, standing more upright, 'I do feel better. Ummm ... Oh, yes, I remember now ... The cloud was destroyed ... You gave me a transfusion ..."

"Let's head for the compound," suggested the neophyte. They started to walk again. Lessie saw a towel on the ground. She picked it up, shook it out, and handed it to Brother Koof, without looking at him. He made himself a little skirt out of it, tucking it into itself at his waist. Intipisk guessed that Tulith was a little disappointed, as she had been studying him closely; but the artist contented herself with analyzing the play of his dorsal muscles as he walked.

"Oh, no!" said Intipisk suddenly, "there's another _thing_ up there!" They all stopped and looked up. At the very Zenith of the pink sky of dawn, there was indeed something – a tiny speck. "But ... it's not a _cloud_ ," she said, a little relieved.

Talek looked up. "Oh yes ... There it is," he said.

The object was descending. It was not dark, it was much the same color as the sky. "It's like a crystal!" said Intipisk. Ydnas, leaping with excitement, called out, "Airship! Tellamir airship!"

As it descended, they could see that its bottom was circular, and slightly convex, like the bottom of a saucer. The closer it got, the more features they could see. A tiny detail would grow into a definite shape, and then develop details of its own, which would then develop details of their own, in turn. This cycle kept repeating itself.

"It's _huge_!" breathed Tulith. It was already filling a good part of the sky. They began to hear its song.

As it descended, they noticed something else: many of the little fireflies, instead of drifting randomly, were beginning to converge on them. "Don't worry," said Talek, "they will not harm you." The souls got more and more crowded, until Intipisk felt that she was standing up to her hips in glowing blue water. Each soul's song got louder and louder, and happier and happier, and those songs began to merge with each other, and with the song from the ship, until they joined in a single chorus of exuberant joy. Intipisk began to feel a desire to sing; it appeared from within herself, and after a moment of hesitation, she did begin to sing, wordlessly and joyfully. She had to improvise, but somehow she was able to get the feel of the music from the ship, and from the souls, and take part in it.

Never had she sung so wholly or so well. From the corners of her eyes, she saw that all her companions, too, were singing, gloriously singing. Ceasing to walk, they all raised their arms and turned their heads upward, directing their song toward the ship. At the same time, the chorus all around them grew louder still.

In every direction, the bottom of the ship now extended nearly to the horizon. It was hard to tell exactly how far above them it was, for the crystal was transparent, and every facet seemed to have glimmering facets of its own. It appeared, though, to have ended its descent.

The chorus was loud, rich, and all-enveloping. Intipisk had a feeling of bliss that cancelled out the past and the future. The souls on the ground began to orbit around Kor and her friends, who began to walk in a circle in the same direction. The souls flew faster and faster, and as they spun, some of them began to rise, so that the company found themselves inside a gleaming blue tornado. They couldn't see beyond it. The top of the tornado rose rapidly toward the center of the Tellamir vessel.

Then the bottom edge of the tornado lifted like a curtain, to reveal again the neighborhood of the compound, and the scattered bodies of Angels. Intipisk felt a desire to lift with it, but her feet remained on the ground.

The spinning cylinder of souls disappeared into the shimmering crystal of the ship. The chorus began to fade. Intipisk was no longer certain of what to sing; her voice faltered and stilled. Also, she stopped walking. The past and the future returned to her.

The Tellamir ship began to rise. Intipisk felt a terrible sense of loss.

The ship rose and rose until it was again a mere speck, and then it disappeared. The chorus echoed several times in Intipisk's mind, and then it, too, faded away. At that moment, a brilliant arc of sun appeared on the Eastern horizon.

After awhile, the sense of vastness, mystery, and power faded, and Intipisk and the others found themselves once again in a rather grim situation. It was sad, but the ship showed no signs of returning.
**********

"Getting close to death can be disappointing"

(from the _Manual for Dying_ of the Temple of Uc-Mebruc)

Sre Lugu felt the point of Liliune's sword under his left shoulder-blade. 'This is it,' he thought, 'This is death!' He was horribly afraid, but he was also curious: what would death be like? The point did not plunge in. He felt impatient: 'What is she waiting for? I can't stand feeling such fear!' At that moment there was a great crash, and he felt the floor twitch under him. He heard a command, and the sound of running feet. He heard a sob of despair from Liliune, then a snarl. Thuds. There was a ringing of metal on metal, and then something fell on him, filling his consciousness with jagged lights and pains.

"Medic!" someone yelled. It was a familiar voice, but he couldn't place it. He was only half-conscious. 'Where is Liliune?' he thought. He was concerned about her. The weight on him disappeared, and he felt someone taking his pulse. He hoped they could feel something – he didn't want to be left for dead.

Suddenly, he felt as though he were being lifted by a great wind and blown through a dark tunnel. Then he found himself standing at the door of a beautiful temple of white marble. There was a softly whispering breeze – or was it distant singing? Vaguely through the door, he thought he heard his mother's voice. "Mother!" he called out. "How I have missed you!" He stepped forward to enter. But suddenly, he found that a demon was blocking the door. "I am sorry," said the demon, "but it is not yet your time. You may not pass." Sre Lugu felt terribly sad, but he stepped backwards into the void, and began to fall back the way he had come.

He fell and fell and fell, spinning dizzily. Then he felt as though he were being grabbed by millions of little hooks. It was his body taking hold of him. It took him a moment to figure out which end of his body was which. Someone was doing something very painful to ... his neck! There was a nattering noise that gradually transformed itself into a voice: "... can hear me, Sre Lugu, but I am a doctor, and I am cleaning out this nasty wound on your neck. It's going to be tricky, because that crazy woman has actually injured your spine, here. If you can hear me, try to move one of your hands!"

_My hands_ , thought Sre Lugu, _where have they gone?_ He was climbing a part of his body, like a hill, when he realized: _this_ _is one of my hands!_ _But, how can I move it_? He had done it a million times, but he couldn't think **how** to do it...Then he remembered: _Think of it as part of yourself!_ He did that, and immediately he found that, sitting on the second finger, he could make the first finger go up and down, up and down. It was an awesome sight. It made him very happy.

"Good!" he heard the doctor say. "Thank you, Sre Lugu, that will be enough!"

He felt that his finger was like a friend from childhood. He even thought he could remember, very vaguely, the first time that he, as a baby, had become aware that he could move that finger. And the time when he realized that it was the same finger as he remembered having moved a few breaths before. Only then had he realized that it was an individual, a thing in its own right. It wasn't long after that that he decided that _he himself_ was an individual. He then began to discover other individuals, one after another. _I don't want to be separated from my finger,_ he thought, back in Liliune's apartment. How different his finger looked now, though – lean and gray, instead of pink and pudgy. Could it really be the same thing, or were his 'memories' of youth just illusions? _My friend is getting old,_ he thought _,_ _that makes me sad._ And then he thought, _What happened to my childhood? Where did it go? I want it back!_ His sadness intensified, until it was nearly unbearable. _I hate living in time,_ he thought, _trapped in a vise between the unknowable and the unchangeable!_ But he saw no way out, so he tried to shrug and calm himself.

Trying to shrug was a mistake, since it pulled on his injured neck. Terrible pain and the doctor reminded him of this. He realized that several people were holding him, very firmly, especially by the head and shoulders. _The doctor doesn't want me to jerk while he's doing this delicate job of cleaning_ , he thought.

"All right, Sre Lugu," said the voice, "I'm going to do a cauterizing spell now. It's going to hurt, I'm afraid, but it's something we have to do. If you have a meditation for pain, this would be a good time to use it!" Sre Lugu felt the people hold him even more firmly. Did he have a meditation for pain? Of course he did, but what was it? It was a partly visual meditation, in which he imagined himself doing an incredibly intricate piece of accounting, something that took up every scrap of his attention. He began.

As if irritated by his attempt to ignore it, the pain assaulted him like a maddened wildcat. Agony! The ledger he had been working in was torn into shreds, which then caught fire. Sre Lugu found himself in the center of a red fireball – or was it blood? He saw Streling, the god of banks. Streling was sitting with an open ledger in his lap and a pen in his hand. "You're definitely in the red now," said Streling, with a wistful smile. Then he handed Sre Lugu the ledger and the pen, and assigned him a very difficult task. Sre Lugu gave it his full attention; when a _god_ assigns you a task, you don't make excuses!

With a start, Sre Lugu realized that it was _the ledger of his life_! He began to add up the credits and debits, trying to calculate the balance...

He had fallen asleep. Now he was waking up. He was lying on his back now, and there was a very strange feeling at the corner of his chin. Someone was – pulling a thread through a flap of his skin! What a curious thing to do! He could feel the little irregularities in the thread catching on the hole. It made a loud scraping-ratcheting noise. That entire side of his head and neck were aching. He wanted to return to his audit, but he realized that many transactions had yet to come in.

Yet again he fell asleep and woke up. Someone said, "Can you open your eyes, Sre Lugu?" He did, and he saw that he was floating prone near the ceiling of a room, looking down. There were pictures on the walls, and lots of sculptures and furniture hanging from the ceiling. No, that wasn't right – he was on the _floor_ , looking _up_! Without moving, the room turned upside down. Someone asked, "Can you say something, Sre Lugu?"

"Yes," he said, eager to be helpful.

"This is your doctor, Doctor Proz," said the voice. "I think we've got you in pretty good shape here. It's going to take a long time for you to completely heal, but you are out of danger. We're going to carry you into the bed now, so you can get some rest." At the same time that Doctor Proz was saying this, someone was holding his face close to Sre Lugu's and opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

_That bed! No, I shouldn't go there!_ he thought, but the words did not come out. Several soldiers lifted him up and carried him to the bed. They looked familiar.

He looked to the side. There was Liliune! She was covered with a blanket, but he could see her breathing, very slowly. There was a bruise on her temple, and dried blood at the corner of her mouth. Her face was gray. Even thus, her beauty made his heart ache. Was that a credit, or a debit?

"Sre Lugu?" He turned the other way. There were Srea Kula and Srea Gala, standing by the bed! They both looked gaunt and pale. He could see rents in their clothes, with bandages underneath.

"What happened?" he asked. "Who saved me?"

"The mercenaries," said Srea Gala, "remember, we brought a platoon of Trillish mercenaries with us, in case of trouble. And a doctor. But we left them downstairs."

"Big mistake!" said Srea Kula, shaking his head.

"We didn't want to _alarm_ her," said Srea Gala, with an ironic grimace.

"She's on snoffle," said Srea Kula. "The doctor verified it. That's the way snoffle addicts are – quite normal, even above normal, until they think that their supply is threatened. Then they turn into demons!"

"Pappi's probably her supplier," said Srea Gala, nodding agreement. "It would be a way to control her completely."

"But what now?" asked Sre Lugu, turning to look at her worriedly. "She'll die without it!" His own personal audit was entirely forgotten.

There was a moment of silence. "We found a small supply of it," said Srea Kula, reluctantly, "in her bathroom."

"Well, give it to her!"

Srea Kula sighed, but from his pocket he brought forth a pair of vials, one with a black lid and one with a red lid. He put them on the bed table and straightened Liliune's head so that she was looking straight up. He removed the black lid and, thumbing Liliune's left eyelid open, poured a drop of viscous fluid onto her left eyeball. There was a hissing sound, a little smoke came up, and the entire eyeball turned black and crusty. He then took the other vial and poured a drop from it onto her right eyeball. Immediately there was another hiss; then that one turned entirely red, and began to pulsate. Then he shut both eyelids.

They waited. Color began to come back into her cheeks. Then, she began a crescendo of trembling and panting. After about twenty breaths of that, she moaned, settled into quiet, and opened her eyes. They were back to their normal color. "Pappi?" she asked.

"He is not here, Liliune," said Sre Lugu. "It is the three of us. Remember?"

She looked at him. Her glance was like a blow. Her eyes widened. " _You_ gave me the snoffle?" she said.

"Srea Kula did. But we all agreed. We don't want you to die, Liliune. I tried to tell you, we are not here to punish you."

"Will you bring me more?"

"Yes, Liliune, we will bring you more. For as long as you need it."

She looked almost happy, but then a terrible thought seemed to occur to her. She became agitated. "No, no, you mustn't help me like this! You mustn't!"

_Will this never end?_ thought Sre Lugu, _Will we never find the true Liliune?_ _Is_ _there a true Liliune? Do_ _any_ _of us have a true self? Isn't it rather that_ ... "Why not, Liliune?" he asked.

"He has a spell on me! If I think a seriously disloyal thought, it will ... _Aieeee!"_ Her eyes locked in horror, and she began to beat on her chest with her fists.

"Liliune!" shouted Sre Lugu. "Doctor!" shouted Srea Gala. The doctor rushed in and leapt onto the bed. He held Liliune's head and looked into her eyes with terribly intense concentration. Sparks arced between his eyes and hers. Her lips were turning blue, and her motions were getting more and more feeble. The stream of sparks thinned and died away, leaving little trails of red smoke. The doctor fell on his side.

"It ... is a ... very strong ... spell," said the doctor, gasping for breath. "I can ... do nothing. It ... is ... squeezing her... heart, slowly." He lay there, panting and making little frustrated motions with his hands. "I am ... sorry!" he said.

I have killed her, thought Sre Lugu. I thought I would save her, but I have killed her instead. I am a fool.

Then he had one more idea. He rose to his knees, ignoring the pain in his neck, and began to pray. But not to any god of his own.

" _Kshaloka_!" he prayed. "God of sensual beauty! I never knew Liliune to be religious, but though she may never have burned a single scrap of incense on your altar, she has served you more faithfully than has anyone else in the world! Have you ever had a better avatar than she? Come to her aid now, and let her serve you still more!"

Nothing happened. Srea Gala knelt too. "Kshaloka," he cried, "if you save her, the Bank of Streling will donate a hundredweight of gold foil to your temple!"

Srea Kula knelt too. "Kshaloka," he said, "if you save her, I will celebrate your festival day in my own Cathedral!"

Liliune had turned the color of slate, and her hands were no longer moving.

"Kshaloka," said Sre Lugu, "the mana that you need for this miracle, _take it from me, even if it kills me!_ " Still nothing. Suddenly, with a deep chill in his heart, Sre Lugu realized what sacrifice was necessary.

"Kshaloka," he said, "if you save her, I promise to abandon my wife and family, and serve you and Liliune both, until death do us part!"

The other three men looked at him in horror. There was the sound of a huge gong being rung, and Kshaloka appeared, as he was often said to do, in the form of a flowering Baro tree. It appeared as a sprout at the foot of the bed, grew like a fountain being turned on, and burst into brilliant, multicolored bloom. Its delicious fragrance instantly filled the room.

"No!" yelled Srea Kula. "Take it back, Sre Lugu! Now, quickly, before it is done!"

"And _let her die_?" wailed Sre Lugu, in anguish.

Liliune seemed to become aware of the fragrance. She relaxed, breathed out, and began to breathe in, slowly. Her aqua color began to return.

"Gods of the Holy Family," Srea Kula prayed, almost screaming, "please intervene! Don't let this man betray his family, himself, and you, out of a noble but foolish impulse!"

There was a sound of happy voices, laughing together. The four gods of the Holy Family appeared in the room, which was now rather crowded.
**********

"Do you want to test your friend?

Then give him power over you."

(Aphorisms of Terithi-Al)

Arguit felt himself coming to. "Don't worry, Mr. Arguit," said a familiar voice. "The snake is gone, and you are going to be fine."

He opened his eyes. _Where am I?_ An old woman with a staff ... he was still in the Mother Superior's office. So were the telepath and her young guide, and so were three Amazons, and two other women he didn't recognize.

"You were in a coma," said the Mother Superior, "due to a death spell that I managed to deflect, but not completely neutralize. We have, however, managed to repair the damage and remove various other malevolent spells that your employer has placed on you. Now I would like to ask you once again, what was the name of the Courtesan of Sacrifice that you spoke of visiting – and, Mr. Arguit, please stick to the point!"

He had to screw up his courage a little. "Kor," he said. "Her name was Kor." _That's funny_ , he thought to himself, _I've heard that name again, recently – where was it?_ "But wait – how much time has gone by – _what about my family?_ "

"Your family is fine, Mr. Arguit," said the Mother Superior. "Lieutenant Calcadro, whom you had the honor of meeting before, has successfully located them. One of our witches removed a couple of transferable spells they found on her, and gave her a few protective spells for good measure. Lieutenant Calcadro is now transporting them to a safe house."

"That's wonderful!" said Arguit. "How can I get there?" he started to get up.

"You can't, Mr. Arguit. Sit down, please. A 'safe house' is a sanctuary, in part because its location is secret."

"Oh. Well, can you bring her here, then?"

"We can, yes." The Mother Superior was silent for a moment.

_Oh, oh_ , thought Arguit, _Here comes the price tag!_

"Mr. Arguit, we wish to keep your wife away from anyone who is a danger to her. That includes _you_."

"What, do I still have Tarth Sakul's spells on me?"

"No, Mr. Arguit, we have removed all spells from you that might be dangerous to others, including a couple of the, ah, sexually transmitted variety."

"Well, then, we're all set, aren't we?"

"No, Mr. Arguit, we are not. The real cause of the danger to your wife, leaving aside the STS's, was your choice of vocation. And that choice itself was a mistake, as you yourself mentioned to Lieutenant Calcadro. I don't object to your working in Security, but you were working for a ruthless and amoral man, who was working for another of the same type. You thereby helped them both to perpetrate numerous horrible crimes. And, I might add, you didn't experience a lot of distress over any of this, until your own family was threatened."

"I have to take care of my own family. I can't take care of the entire world!"

"I agree that you cannot take care of the entire world, Mr. Arguit. But many of us have found it possible to avoid taking an active part in ensuring that master criminals can continue to exploit great numbers of people with impunity."

"Well, OK, but I've quit working with them, remember?"

"You quit out of panic, not out of moral squeamishness. The question is, how do I know that you won't go into another slimy business, as soon as you feel that you and your family are safe?"

"You're not responsible for my actions!"

"Ah, how sophisticated people like you can be about Ethics, Mr. Arguit, when it comes to arguments in favor of your own individual liberty! But we disagree. I consider myself to be responsible for any actions of yours which I am empowered to prevent. And right now," she said, nodding at three grim-looking Amazons standing by, "I am empowered to prevent just about _any_ action of yours, Mr. Arguit."

_Corpse meat!_ thought Arguit, _This is one tough lady! No use going right up against her. I will just play along until I see my chance. Let's begin by playing stupid._

"What right do _you_ have, to impose _your_ morality on _me_?" he said, angrily.

"Well, _my_ morality says that I _do_ have that right," said the Mother Superior. "Perhaps _your_ morality says that I _don't_ have such a right, but then, why should _you_ impose _your_ morality on _me?_ "

"You're holding my family hostage!" said Arguit hotly.

"You don't really want me to let your family go, do you? I'm _protecting_ them against your erstwhile employer, just as I am also protecting numerous other people who might become your associates in one way or another, or your victims, if you return to a criminal career."

"OK, then, I promise! I swear a sacred oath, that I will never return to a life of crime."

"Just what makes this oath sacred, Mr. Arguit? Are you swearing it by Sfel, the god of crime?"

Arguit hesitated. He tended to think of himself as an atheist, but, could he be sure? A lot of people thought the Angels of Rejuvenation were a myth, too, but Arguit thought they might well exist. If there were a god of crime, he would be very powerful, and very mean. Arguit wouldn't want to cross him! But maybe Sfel would be _pleased_ to see an oath violated – that would be a sort of crime, after all. But again, could he be sure? He thought of all the blood that had been spilled on and around the statue of Sfel in Pappi's arena. Better not take chances.

"You are silent, Mr. Arguit!"

"Oh, what's the use?" he said. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Indeed, Mr. Arguit, that is so. Who can rely on the oath of a criminal?"

"Well, then what do you suggest?" _Put the ball in her court._

"You have to _change_ , Mr. Arguit. Not just on the surface. You have to change in your inmost heart."

"OK, I've changed," he said.

"Sirinitha?" said the Mother Superior, raising her eyebrows at the telepath.

"OK, OK, never mind," said Arguit, but it was too late: he felt her crawling around in his mind again. "He has not changed," said Sirinitha, "and he doesn't really want to."

"Well, what can I do?" he asked. "It isn't as though there is a little key in my head, that I can turn, to become a different kind of person."

"I know," said the Mother Superior. "You have a difficult road ahead of you, Mr. Arguit. We, however, are going to give you a good deal of help." She stood up. " _Amazons!_ " They snapped to attention. "Take this man to a high-security dungeon, and put him on rehabilitation regimen 16. If he tries to escape, or makes things difficult, beat him thoroughly, but don't kill him!"

"Yes, Your Holiness," said the leader of the three. "Mr. Arguit, please stand, turn around, and place your hands at the small of your back for binding. Thank you."

_Well, so much for putting the ball in her court_ , thought Arguit, as the steel shackles were adjusted to his wrists, _but it beats having my family destroyed by Tarth Sakul!_
**********

"What you pray for tells a lot about you."

(from the musical revue, "Without a Prayer")

As the Fabulist and Lightbearer watched, the elderly man known as "Kolidor" stood with his eyes closed, apparently waiting for an idea to come to him, as to how he might be able to help them. After a moment his eyes opened again, and he said, "It's found me! What you both will do is _pray!_ "

"Pray?" said Lightbearer. "But ..." Then she stopped, for although his suggestion was odd, so was everything that had happened to her since she found herself in a body. This mortal was at least familiar with the time and place. She decided to take his advice.

"Yes," continued Kolidor, nodding and smiling, "each of you will go by yourself to some private place and pray to yourself. There will be places not far from here. Quiet, private places. You will find them." He gave them one last big smile, and then, taking a broom down from a clip on the wall, he began to sweep the floor. The Fabulist and Lightbearer looked at each other. "I guess we've been dismissed," he said. She nodded, and they both went outside and – it felt very strange – parted ways.

**

Lightbearer walked for awhile; she wanted to be far from everyone. Evidently, Kondrastibar was not a city in this era; mostly, she saw farms and forests. Eventually, she entered some woods; following a stream, she came to a little dell. At the bottom of the dell was small wildflower meadow surrounding a pond. She found a rock at the edge of the pond and sat on it. She leaned over the water until she could see her reflection. Speaking to the reflection, she said, "Can you help me?"

Of course, the reflection only mouthed the same words. Lightbearer had not expected anything different, but she found it very thought-provoking. 'My existence is something of a problem,' she thought. 'The Fabulist created me so that he would have someone to talk to. Yet, before he became mortal, he must have known in advance everything I was going to say, just as I know what my reflection is going to say. Why then would he bother to create me? Perhaps so that he could _see_ himself, as I see myself in the water?'

As no answer came to her immediately, she looked around at the pond. How beautiful it was! Blue sky, sunshine, reeds and cattails, a frog, a dragonfly, a school of little minnows, darting and quivering, ... relaxing silence, embroidered by the callings of birds and the rustling of leaves ... aloneness, privacy, freedom ... 'Poor Fabulist,' she thought, 'I don't think he can see the full wonder of all this. He can't be surprised by it, for he made it himself. He knows everything already. Nothing is ever new or surprising to him. Only ... now he is different! He _did_ wonder at things, back in the house where we first appeared. Is _that_ the reason he became mortal? So that he could be weak and ignorant enough to wonder at the world that he has made?'

It struck her that the Fabulist was now far out of sight. ''He has never seen this pond with his mortal eyes,' she thought. "If I show it to him, it will be something genuinely new to him!' She found the idea exciting, for their relationship had always struck her as being a kind of charade. He always knew, really, what she was going to say, and why, and what his own response would be. He had said that he would give his creations freedom, as soon as they developed personalities of their own; but as long as he was omniscient, even their freedom couldn't make them surprising or mysterious to him.

She felt grateful to him. 'He not only gave up his power in order to give me freedom, but to make me a creator in my own right!' she said to herself. Smiling, she made a whimsical gesture with her hand. 'I did that _completely on my own_ ,' she thought, making the gesture again. "He doesn't even know I'm doing this!' The idea was intoxicating. Always, she had felt pinned under his gaze. Even her inmost thoughts had been known to him. Not that it was an unfriendly gaze, but ... how wonderful to be _alone_ , for once! 'He's given me _privacy!_ ' she thought, feeling very grateful. She stood up and, laughing, made some gestures which, she somehow knew, were considered by mortals to be disrespectful; some, even, that were considered to be obscene.

Then she began to dance. She danced through the wildflower meadow. Sometimes she leapt into the air, sometimes she lay down and rolled in the fragrant flowers. Sometimes she stood still, with her eyes closed; or, she might move just one finger. She threw off her clothes and danced some more. Then she made her way back to the pond. She put one foot into the water. What a strange sensation! Very gradually she went deeper and deeper, finally hunkering down so as to immerse herself entirely beneath the water. Her feet sank into the bottom; she felt the muck slipping between her toes. Coming up for air, she threw herself backwards and did a sort of clumsy backstroke for a few feet, which was all there was room for.

After playing in the water for a long time, she emerged and sat on the rock again. How refreshed she felt! Again she leaned over the edge and saw her own reflection. She grinned, and her reflection grinned back.

**

After a short walk, the Fabulist found a stand of evergreen trees not far from Kolidor's building. Feeling foolish, but also, for some reason, a little afraid, he walked a few yards in and, prostrating himself on the fragrant needles, he prayed.

"Dear self: I don't know what I am doing, exactly, but then, I guess that is the problem. If it is a problem. Is it a problem? I guess I wish I understood things better. Can you help?"

"Maybe," said a voice.

The Fabulist looked up and saw a man standing there. The man was dressed just as the Fabulist was dressed. He had dark brown skin; looking at his own hands, the Fabulist saw that they were the same color. The newcomer had a wide but bridgeless nose; the Fabulist put his hands to his own face and felt a similar nose there.

"Are you me?" he asked.

"I am indeed," said the newcomer. "I suggest that you call me 'Self.' By the way, it's not necessary to prostrate yourself. Make yourself comfortable!"

The Fabulist rearranged himself into a tailor's posture, and the newcomer sat down facing him.

"Well, Self," said the Fabulist, "I am very confused."

"Of course you are," said Self, with a gentle smile, "and in the short run, at least, I don't imagine that it helps having someone sitting in front of you who claims to be yourself."

"Well," replied the Fabulist, "it's amazing how much I have been able to just _accept,_ recently. And a good thing it is, too, for if I tried to untangle every mystery that has been confronting me, I would be overwhelmed."

Self nodded. "That is part of mortal existence," he said, "and I am afraid that I won't be able to make much of a dent in it."

"Are you also in mortal existence?" asked the Fabulist.

"Well, of course; I am you, and you are in mortal existence. But no, I'm not _entirely_ in mortal existence."

"Well," said the Fabulist, "I've been trying to avoid this question, since it seems so silly, but ... how can you be me, when you are sitting over there, and I am sitting over here?"

"It's a very reasonable question," replied Self, "and the answer is, that I'm not really here. What you see is sort of like an image in a mirror. You are the mirror, and I am using you to look at myself. Only, a mortal mirror can only reflect so much. Your mind makes me into a person because that is the sort of thing it is familiar with."

"But why do you appear to be separate from me?"

"The minds of mortals are such, that it is sometimes easier for them to think about different aspects of themselves, if they think of those aspects as separate beings. They usually create little images of themselves on the inside, in their minds, but you are creating one that appears to be outside. The idea is the same. What you are looking at is an image like that. I am an aspect of yourself that you don't feel on the inside, and cannot control, so you think of me as another person."

"That makes some sense out of it, I guess. But if you are me, how can you help me? You don't know anything I don't know, you can't do anything I can't do."

"Sometimes different parts of a self can get divided. By talking to each other, they can get back together."

"Does that mean," said the Fabulist, with an intense but ambivalent emotion, "that I can be immortal again?"

"You have always been immortal." said Self. "More precisely, you have a mortal aspect and an immortal aspect. They are now talking to each other."

"So I ... I mean, this me," said the Fabulist, gesturing at himself, at the body which had been sent to pray by Kolidor, "will it always be mortal?"

"Eternally," said Self.
**********

"Evil is often closer to innocence than goodness is."

(Kargizer Sleed, _Developmental Soteriology_ )

Rajo, the Holy Father, looked with a touch of irritation at the Baro tree standing at the foot of Liliune's bed. "Kshaloka," he said, "it might be easier to discuss this if you took human form."

The Baro tree pulled up its roots one by one, and then hopped, like a pogo stick, over to a nearby chair. It bent itself into the chair and then metamorphosed into a woman. It looked exactly as Liliune had looked when she came to the door that evening – even down to the little drops of water on her aqua skin.

"You _would_ take the appearance of that _brazen hussy_!" hissed Tilja, the Holy Mother, scathingly. She looked sternly at the four men, who, with an effort, shamefacedly averted their eyes from Kshaloka's divine form.

"Why Tilja, I do believe you're jealous!" said Kshaloka, in a perfect copy of Liliune's lilting soprano. He looked at the Mother Goddess appraisingly. "You know, you could be a lot better looking yourself, if you took a little better care of yourself." Tilja looked pointedly away, as if he didn't exist.

"Isn't it going to be a little confusing, Kshaloka, with you looking just like Liliune?" said Rajo.

"Listen carefully, Rajo, and I'll explain it to you: _Liliune's_ the one under the _blanket_. If you get confused, just ask me."

"Kshaloka, let's not make this any harder than it already is, OK?"

"Daddy," said Tlala, who appeared to be about five years old in this persona, "I thought Kshaloka was a _man_."

"Well, he is, Dear," said Rajo, "but he has changed himself into a woman. Well, really, he is neither one. He's a god."

"You mean _you're_ not really a man, Daddy?" said Tlala, looking puzzled.

"Well," said Rajo, "it's very complicated, Dear, and we have some grown-up talking to do, so why don't you and your brother play by yourselves for a while, OK? I'll explain it to you later."

"OK, Daddy," she said, a little grumpily, and she sat down with her brother. They began to play 'Stars and Planets.'

"Now, Kshaloka – " Rajo began, but Kshaloka cut him off.

"What's going on here, Rajo?" he said irritably. "I thought we all had long ago agreed not to fight over mortals. Do you want to bring back the era of religious wars?"

"No, of course not," said Rajo, irritably, "but, can't we just _discuss_ this?"

"What's to discuss?" asked Kshaloka, absent-mindedly scratching the underside of his left breast. "This fellow has, of his own free will, agreed to become a devotee of mine, in return for a dispensation which I am happy to grant. Tough luck for you, but so what? Your devotees reproduce like rabbits, anyway!"

"Well, that's sort of the point," said Rajo, smugly.

"If it weren't for us, Kshaloka, _you_ wouldn't have _any_ devotees," said Tilja.

"No, no," said Kshaloka. "That's _not_ the point – not the real point. What point could there possibly be, if life were just a matter of mediocrities producing more mediocrities like themselves, endlessly? But, every now and then they produce someone _exceptional_. Like _her_ ," he said, triumphantly, pointing to Liliune, who was now peacefully asleep. Even covered by blankets, her body was brilliant. "That's the point of it, Rajo! Humanity does not exist to increase the amount of _meat_ in the world, it exists in order to produce Culture, Civilization, Art! And it is people like her who do it!"

"Like _her_?" said Tilja, incredulous. "That drug addict, that whore, that home-wrecker, that liar, that criminal, that attempted murderess, that _atheist_? She's nothing but a cesspool of corruption!"

"She's wasted much of her talent," sighed Kshaloka. "I admit it. She was only sixteen, you know, when Pappi discovered her. She was the child of middle-class parents, not unlike yourselves. She was entranced with her own talents for music and dancing, and eagerly looking forward to a brilliant career. She was a good girl, and her parents were very proud of her.

"But, as the Angels of Rejuvenation say, 'Wherever there is something to be devoured, a devourer will appear.' Her budding fame brought her to the attention of Pappi. Not that he has a shred of appreciation for the arts, but he had informants. He made her acquaintance under false pretenses, and secretly slipped an oral form of snoffle into her food and drink. She didn't know why she always felt so brilliant when she was with him, or such a desperate yearning when he was away. With a little help from Pappi, she concluded that she was in love with him, and so in a way she was.

"Naturally, he took advantage of that in order to have sex with her. He is incapable of love or even warmth, but he has learned to fake such things, and she had never known anything better, so now she was all the more bound to him. Soon, he asked her to elope. She was puzzled and disturbed that he wanted her to abandon her loving family and friends, and her teachers, and everything she had ever known, but he found an excuse to stay away a couple of days, and let her feel some serious withdrawal symptoms. She concocted some romantic rationalization, and off they went.

"He did help her to build a career as a singer and dancer, making use of his money and his many connections. Not that it was difficult, with her talent. But his real intent all along had been, of course, that she should be, as you so delicately put it, a whore. He knew that a famous woman, desired by many, is very attractive as a conquest. And you will never understand this, Tilja, but just for the record, I will say that courtesanry, as I prefer to call it, can be a genuine art, and that she turned out to be one of the greatest practitioners of it. But I am getting ahead of my story.

"Pappi, relying on advice from knowledgeable informants, always made all the practical arrangements for her career, saying that she should focus on her art itself, with the result that she came to feel totally dependent on him. He also instituted a subtle psychological campaign which made her feel worthless, in spite of her great artistic achievements. At the same time, little by little, he allowed her to glimpse his criminal side. She became increasingly perplexed and distraught. 'How can I have ended up with someone like this?' she asked herself.

"There came a time when Pappi sensed that the time had come to break her spirit completely, and saw a way to do it in an entertaining fashion. He invited a number of his criminal associates to dinner, telling them (and also Liliune) that he had a most amusing entertainment planned, but exactly what it was would be a surprise. In the midst of dinner, with no warning, he matter-of-factly explained to Liliune that he had never loved her, that what she had taken for love was the effect of a drug, that she was now hopelessly addicted to it, and that there was no known way to get over this addiction. He also said that he would continue to supply it to her, but that in return she was to be his slave, and that he intended for her to be a whore, who would lure customers from the wealthy and educated classes, who would never spend much on a common street prostitute. In this way he would be able to bribe and blackmail them.

"At this all his associates laughed, and Liliune herself laughed, not yet realizing that he was serious. But when Pappi and all his associates just sat there looking at her, with amused expressions on their faces, occasionally breaking into fresh laughter, the horrible truth began to dawn on her. You can imagine the sequence of expressions that passed over her face, and the stammering things she must have said, each of which Pappi and his associates found more amusing than the last. When she finally reached the final stage of humiliation and despair, she seized a carving knife and went for him. But he was prepared, and easily disarmed her, with the help of his servants and associates.

"He had her tied up and placed under guard. He told her that she was to have sex with each of his associates on the following day. She refused, raging and spitting at him. He saw his friends off, telling them to return at the same time the following evening. As they left, each one leered at her and let her know, in one crude way or another, that he looked forward to their next meeting.

"In the next few hours, she exhausted herself struggling against her bonds, and pleading uselessly with the guards. Then she cried for a time, calling out _'Mommy!'_ and _'Daddy!'_ like a child. Finally she slept. In the early dawn, though, she awoke with a dreadful yearning. She struggled against it; she built up her will to resist it. By midmorning, however, her resistance broke. She called out to Pappi, telling him she would do anything he said, if he would only give her whatever it was. But he wanted her to feel a defeat which would suffice for the rest of her life. So he refused to give it to her for another four hours, during which time she suffered agonies beyond the conception of those who have not experienced it. If she had got a hand loose, she would have plunged a finger right through her eye into her brain, in order to kill herself.

"Then, for the first time, he administered snoffle to her through the eyes, which results in a much more powerful effect than taking it orally. It was enough to make her feel as much bliss as a mortal is capable of. She decided that, contrary to what most people think, the real point of human life was just to find snoffle and take it. She had no idea why that should be so, or why so many people thought otherwise, but she did not care about the fine points. Philosophical understanding was, anyway, one of those false gods that distracted humans from their true destiny; she didn't need understanding, only snoffle. All snoffle addicts reach that point, eventually, unless of course they die first. She felt, in a way, that she had the last laugh on Pappi, since he did not take snoffle himself. She felt, quite correctly, that if Pappi were to take snoffle, all his manifold ambitions would be subordinated to that one single one. She felt smugly superior to him, because he was missing out on the real point of human life! She felt no desire to convert him, however, since that might interfere with his acting as a source for her. She just silently laughed at him.

"She no longer had any objection to having sex with Pappi's associates, since it was part of the way to snoffle. In fact, she carried out the task with enthusiasm, though not out of any sexual desire, which was only a kind of useful tool at best. It was a joy to her because it was the way to snoffle. Those who think that the entire purpose of life is pleasure, or happiness, or a subjective sense of meaning, or focus, or commitment, should consider her case carefully, for she had all of those things.

"Pappi was aware that she might think of getting her snoffle from someplace else, thus ceasing to be dependent on him, and so he had the death spell placed on her, with her knowledge.

"So, yes, Tilja, she is a drug addict, and everything else you mentioned; and if that makes it easier for you to despise her, and consign her to death without regret, be my guest!"

Tilja looked a little abashed, but then she caught herself, and replied, "Well, it's not her fault, I suppose, but here she is, incurably addicted to snoffle, and, as you say, completely reduced to a dependency on it, to the exclusion of any other value. And this dependency puts her at the mercy of a terrible criminal, and causes her to be all those things we agree she is. Might it not be a kindness to let her die?"

" _No!_ " cried Sre Lugu. Once again, the other three men looked at him in shock. He was contradicting a _goddess_! But he continued:

"When I was fighting with her just now, she got the better of me," he said. "I had fallen half-conscious to the floor. I felt the point of her sword on my back. She was enraged, she was like a demon, she must have wanted to skewer me. But she _hesitated!_ And because of that hesitation, the mercenaries were able to rescue me.

"And then, later, she was telling me that the death spell would trigger if she had a disloyal thought. _And then it triggered_!"

"So," said Kshaloka with a smile, "not only has her artistic talent survived the snoffle, but perhaps something else as well. Perhaps she was telling you the truth, a little while ago, when she told you that she came to love you."

_Could it be?_ thought Sre Lugu, who had been profoundly upset by Kshaloka's earlier remarks about sexual desire being, for Liliune, "only a useful tool at best."

"I told you she was a remarkable being," Kshaloka said to the other gods.

"She's still addicted," said Tilja, "and a few hesitations and disloyal thoughts don't make that much difference."

Sre Lugu felt an impulse to say that it had made a rather significant difference to him, but he felt that it was more important to pursue another line. "Begging your pardon, Divine Kshaloka," he said, prostrating himself quickly, "but why don't _you_ cure her? You're a god; surely you can do what our mortal doctors cannot do. She is your avatar, and if you did this for her, she would surely come to be your devotee as well." Not only the other three men, but also Rajo and Tilja looked shocked at his presumption. But Kshaloka actually smiled a little.

"I like this man," he said. But then he looked sad, as he turned to address Sre Lugu directly. "I would dearly love to heal her," he said, with a sigh, "but even gods are subject to certain rules. You see, if gods started helping out mortals out, whenever those mortals got into trouble, where would it end? Mortals would become accustomed to it; they would become addicts, parasites, completely dependent on the gods. Most of us don't want that. Besides, you mortals are, in a way, _taking a test_. If we help you to take this test, then the test is being subverted."

"But gods _do_ help people out," objected Sre Lugu. "That's what petitionary prayer is all about."

"Well, actually, that's _not_ what petitionary prayer is all about," said Kshaloka. "and very few petitionary prayers actually have their desired effect. But, yes, the rules do allow the gods to intervene, in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, to free her from snoffle, I would have to get the agreement of Snoffle himself."

"Snoffle is a _god_?" said Sre Lugu.

Kshaloka looked puzzled. "Isn't that obvious?" he asked.
**********

"Don't count on death to simplify your life"

(from the popular song, "Life is a Fountain")

Kor and her companions approached the gate of what had once been Pappi's compound, but was now apparently something quite different. Children from the orphanage, spotting Kor, jumped up and down, and called eagerly to her, in anticipation of her arrival. There were some other children there, also; they too seemed expectant, though more reserved about it.

"But look," said Intipisk, "not all the souls have gone with the Tellamir!" Sure enough, there were still a few of the winking lights floating about; they now seemed to be drifting toward the compound.

"I think," said Talek, "that they have chosen to go to the underworld."

Tulith was shocked. "Why in the world," she said, "would anyone choose to go to the underworld? Isn't it said that it is a rather unpleasant place for a soul to be?"

"Well, yes," said Talek, "but then, this neighborhood, as it was only a few hours ago, was also a very unpleasant place to be. And yet, a large number of people ended up there, and chose to remain. I suspect that we are seeing the souls of those people, and that the souls that went with the Tellamir ship were mostly the souls of the Angels of Rejuvenation who were killed by that black cloud."

"But in either case, why?" asked Tulith.

"You heard the song, and saw the grandeur of the ship," said Talek. "That was enough for you. But imagine that you were a person who had been victimized many times by con artists who painted a warm picture for you, which turned out to be an illusion. Or suppose that you were yourself such a con artist. Why should you get on a ship whose destination you do not really know? Perhaps it is a slave ship. Of course, it is hard to believe that a slave ship could be so pretty, but then, that might be precisely the ruse by which they acquire their slaves."

"Well, now that you put it that way," said Tulith, "I feel very naïve indeed, and I wonder whether it _was_ a slave ship."

"But Tulith," said Intipisk, "what have we to go on, besides the songs of things? In the end, don't you have to believe that what appears to be good, beautiful, and right, really is? After all, don't you, as an artist, deal in appearances?"

"Well, that is the special thing about art," said Tulith. "There is no distinction, in art, between appearance and reality. Ideally, at least. In the rest of life, there usually is. But I see your point, Intipisk."

Talek continued: "The underworld, on the other hand, is said to be not unlike the neighborhood as it recently was," he said. "It might even be said that Pappi and his friends brought a bit of the underworld above ground. At any rate, to these souls, it would at least be a known quantity, or so they may think. It is something familiar, something they feel adapted to. Some of them, those who have been victims more than victimizers, may even feel that it is all that they deserve, or all that they can achieve. You may be looking, for example, at the souls of women who kept returning to men who beat them."

"What to one person, Paradise is, to another person, damnation is." said Lessie.

Everyone was startled by this remark.

"Why, Lessie, that is a remarkable remark!" said Intipisk. "It gives me a lot to think about. But it doesn't sound like you, somehow."

"Surprised myself, too, I did." said Lessie. "But, with all these things happening, to change I am bound." Kor noticed that she and the mute boy were not walking together. He was following several yards behind her, looking very perplexed and distraught.

"I hope you don't change _too_ much," said Intipisk. "I would miss the old Lessie. I loved her very much."

At these words, Lessie's eyes teared up, and she reached her hand out to Intipisk, who took it, held it in both of her own, and kissed it. Then they each put an arm around the other and continued walking.

Kor felt that if the boy was feeling sad because of some problem with Lessie, this might make him feel worse. He certainly seemed to be very, very sad. "May I walk with you, Dearie?" she said to him, knowing that he would not respond to the words but to her tone. "I don't know what's going on with you and Lessie," she added quietly, bending over him a little, and putting her hand on his shoulder, "but I wouldn't take it too seriously, if I were you. Every storm passes in an hour or a day."

The boy looked up with an expression that combined gratitude with despair.

_Amazing_ , thought Tulith, _Just back from a visit with death, and already Kor is thinking of the needs of other people. Not that I'm complaining – if Kor weren't like that, I'd have been dead long ago!_

At that moment, they arrived at the entrance to ... whatever it was.
**********

"Freedom and privacy can be very bad for people."

(Emperor Implex the 21st, Arstind Dynasty)

Arguit spent most of his time in his cell. Three times a day, he was taken out for exercise. First stretches, then a kind of dancing that they taught him, then strenuous stuff: weight-lifting, obstacle course, gymnastics, and the like. The strenuous stuff got _very_ strenuous, after the first few days. He only got through it because the Amazons threatened him with dire consequences if he failed. But after a week or so, he was in really good shape, and he enjoyed that immensely.

After a quick cold bath, and back in his cell, he was required to 'meditate.' "I will stand behind you," said one of the Amazons, "and I will drop this pin on the stone floor." There was a moment of silence. "Did you hear that?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Listen again," she said. This time he heard it: a tiny ping.

"Got it!" he said.

"Good!" she said. "To make sure you are telling the truth, I will wait for awhile and then drop it again. Tell me when you hear it."

After about twenty breaths he heard it. "Then!" he said.

"Good," she replied. "Now, here is how meditation works. I will stand behind you. You will sit still, listening. I may drop it once in that time, or many times, or not at all. If it falls, you should hear it and tell me immediately. If you make a mistake, I will strike you over the shoulders with a flat stick. It won't injure you, but it will sting. All you have to do is be alert."

He thought it would be easy, but it wasn't. His mind kept wandering. Mostly, he thought about what he might say to the Mother Superior. At other times, he thought with chagrin about what he _should_ _have_ said. Sometimes he thought of clever remarks which made him chuckle. But while thinking of such things, he often missed the pin dropping, and had to suffer a blow. In fact, he began to get the impression that the Amazon could tell when his mind was wandering, and would drop it then. "It's probably my posture that tips her off," he thought, and he was careful to sit up straight and not move. But when his mind wandered, he forgot about that, too. He remembered that it was his inability to control his mind that had gotten him in trouble at his old job: he hadn't been able to stop himself from having disloyal thoughts. _How peculiar_ , he thought, _that I can't control my own mind. Perhaps this is what they are teaching me to do._

His shoulders were sore for days, but he began to get better at keeping his mind on the task.

_There sure are a lot more women than men around here,_ he thought, _maybe that's something I can use._ Once, on his free time, he asked the friendliest guard, Zarinia, whether the Temple still had Courtesans of Sacrifice. "No," she said, "the Angels of Rejuvenation swarmed the neighborhood some years ago. They granted that we were an exception to the general corruption of the neighborhood, and they cut a deal with the Abbess. We were generally left alone, but they did make us change a few things. One of the things was, that we wouldn't have Courtesans anymore."

"Well, a man has needs, you know."

She laughed. "I'm sure that soon, you'll have that problem well in hand."

"Well, but what about you, Honeycomb? Don't you like men?"

"I like men very much," she said, "except for those that have impure thoughts."

"Well, Honeycomb," he said, "a man without impure thoughts couldn't be of much use to you that way, now, could he?"

"On the contrary," she replied, " _sex_ isn't impure, it's _lust_ that's impure."

"You're wrong," he said, "what I'm feeling right now, looking at you, is _pure lust_." And in fact, once he had started thinking along those lines, he had become profoundly aware of how shapely she was, armor and all, and his imagination had then removed everything that was not truly her. The result kindled desire of a truly agonizing intensity. It had been a long time.

She laughed at his witticism. "Fair enough," she said, "and I'll take that as a compliment." She did look pleased, and there was just a touch more pink in her cheeks. "But what I mean by 'impure' is, that I think that there is more to your motivation than just sexual desire."

"Well, there _was_ ," he said. "I admit it. I wanted to use sex to corrupt you, as a step toward getting out of here. But when I started thinking about you that way, I realized how beautiful you are, and now my attitude has changed. In fact, I'll volunteer to stay an extra six months, if you'll come lie with me now." And it was almost true.

She gave him a playful but skeptical glance. "I almost believe you," she said, "but I have no power over the length of your stay, and that is just as it should be. And even if I had the power, I wouldn't use it in such a corrupt way. Nor would I break the general rule against intimacy with prisoners."

_Lizard spit_ , he thought, _I shouldn't have come on to her so directly. I should have sweet-talked her first._ A few hours later, the telepath appeared, as she did every day. After probing his mind, she described his thoughts to the guards. One thing she said was, "He hoped to corrupt the guard, Zarinia, by having sex with her, so he propositioned her." They all laughed. "But," continued the telepath, "she refused him, and he now thinks that he shouldn't have come on to her so directly, he should have sweet-talked her, first." They all laughed again.

Later, Zarinia said, "You may as well know, Mr. Arguit, that we all have a telepathic interview at least once a day. So if you are going to corrupt any of us, you are going to have to move quickly." _They've got me boxed_ , he thought.

He tried to think about what he would say to the Mother Superior. But all he could think of, were ways of trying to get around her, to fool or mislead her; and he knew that the telepath would ruin everything like that.

He had to suborn the telepath.

He thought of what he might offer her, but couldn't come up with anything much, given his condition. Then he thought, well, maybe she will have an idea. Whatever she asks for, within reason, if I can give it to her, I will. Of course, she will understand this the next time she scans me. He imagined her not trusting him to keep up his end of the bargain. He could hardly blame her, after all, even though he was trying desperately to be sincere. For the first time in his life, he regretted having no form of oath that would truly bind him. Well, he thought, maybe my wife would be willing to make a deal with her. We can deliver the goods first; then she doesn't have to trust me. The ball is in her court, I can only wait and hope.

On her next visit, Sirinitha said, "He thinks that I am the key – if he can suborn me, then he has a chance at the rest of you. He can't figure out how to suborn me, but he hopes that I will come up with something." They all laughed, as usual. Then, for the first time, Sirinitha addressed him directly: "Mr. Arguit, you might be interested to know that there are over twenty telepaths in service at this temple, and that we confess to one another twice daily, in pairs chosen at random. But that is not the main reason that you will be unable to corrupt me. The reason is," \-- here her voice caught a little – "the reason is _Ydris_ , blessed be her Most Holy Name, and her beautiful, loving community, of which I am a deeply grateful and unswervingly loyal part."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Arguit, grumpily, feeling much too frustrated and humiliated to keep up a veneer of politeness.

Religion! he thought, They take religion very seriously. It's more important to them than sex or money or whatever. If I made out like I had a religion, maybe then they would believe me. Oh, Lizard spit, he thought, there I go again, trying to outfox them. Fry my stupid mind! In his mind he could already hear Sirinitha saying, "Mr. Arguit thinks that if he could convince us that he had a religion, we would be more inclined to trust him." Then they would all laugh.

He naturally had the thought, _I'm a security man. I should be able to break out of this joint!_ Sirinitha duly reported this thought, but Arguit persevered in it. Unfortunately for him, their security system, although primitive in certain ways, was very good. The integrity of his cell relied largely on thick, closely-spaced bars of steel rather than ingenious devices. There was at least one guard on duty at all times, and a sentry came around frequently to check up on things. When he was taken out for exercise, he always had several guards. His cell door was secured by three locks: one was turned by a key, which he was never allowed to see, one was a combination lock whose number was reset every time, and one was a steel bar that slid through several steel brackets in the front of the door, and also through one bracket on either side. It was secured by a two large steel bolts, firmly tightened with a wrench. The bolts were both beyond his reach, and the wrench was kept in a drawer twenty feet away from his cell. He'd been told that all three locks had spells and alarms against tampering. He found this plausible – such spells were not difficult to make. Each time he devised a clever plan to sabotage or undo one of the locks, however, Sirinitha would report it, and his guards would take steps to render it pointless. Which was probably just as well, they said, since if he did make a serious attempt at escape, they would be required to beat him. "We'd probably use these," explained Zarinia, holding up a large billy-club.

Not long after that discussion, his guards began to require him to meditate three times a day. He began to notice an effect of the meditation on his life, even when he was not meditating: he tended to stay in the present, paying attention to the situation he was in, rather than going off on complicated machinations in his mind. He was always alert, without having to push himself. When something needed doing, he just did it, without hesitation, anxiety, or ambivalence. It was a nice feeling – it made life a lot easier. Sometimes, too, he would catch himself going over and over some unpleasant thoughts in his mind, getting nowhere, and he would just _stop_. In the past, he hadn't been able to do that; he might have repeatedly interrupted or distracted himself, but the unwelcome thoughts would have kept coming back, and only time would free him of them.

In particular, he found that he could turn off his 'pure lust' for Zarinia, and for the other guards, to whom it had immediately spread. At first, he was ambivalent about doing so, for there was of course something very pleasant in such feelings, but he soon perceived that the frustration of unsatisfied arousal, which constantly distracted him, and which sometimes even turned into excruciating physical pain (especially if he did not 'get the problem well in hand' fairly quickly), far outweighed the pleasure, and he tried to distract himself with other thoughts.

One day it struck him that the meditation he was required to do was giving him more control over his mind. _If I meditate enough, maybe I'll be able to outfox the telepath_ , he thought. Sirinitha duly reported that, but Arguit thought, _OK, they know I'm thinking it, but that doesn't mean it isn't true._

He began to think about the religious concept of Grace. As he understood the concept, Grace could not be commanded, or even bargained for; it came to you without your willing it, perhaps even against your will. Because of the telepathic surveillance, the only way he could evade his captors was to do something spontaneously when an opportunity arose, without having planned it out in advance. He needed Grace, both for the opportunity and the response. But how does one obtain it? It would seem that, by definition, one could do nothing to obtain it. But, paradoxically enough, the meditation he was required to do seemed to have the effect of making him more spontaneous. That in turn would make him less predictable, even given information from a telepath. This almost seemed like obtaining Grace. Surely the Amazons were aware of this, and yet they required him to meditate; did they really _intend_ for him to escape, eventually?

Of course, Sirinitha reported that question. "The answer, Mr. Arguit, is 'yes,'" she added, "but there would be no point in my elaborating on that."

He began looking forward to his meditation sessions, and meditating (or just paying attention) in his free time. At first, he found that his enthusiasm for meditation tripped him up; he would be meditating, and then he would think, _How am I coming along? How much progress am I making? Can I keep a thought out of my mind?_ That would distract him. Nevertheless, he persevered, and eventually those thoughts, too, began to die away, slowly but steadily.

As the meditation cleared his mind more and more, he found that he could be with Zarinia and the other guards, without undressing them in his mind, or lusting after them in any way. To his surprise, this enriched his life rather than impoverishing it. He discovered that he enjoyed just talking to them, which he could now do without distraction, and that he was fascinated by them – how different they were from himself, and how each one was a unique individual, with a life and personality of her own, in spite of their shared discipline. They began to tell him many details of their lives, and, very tentatively, he began to open up to them a little bit about his. The thought occurred to him, that this would make it easier to cozy up to them. When Sirinitha duly reported the thought, Arguit was genuinely concerned for them to understand the relative unimportance of it. "It was just a thought," he said. "That's not really why I talk to you! Well, only a little bit!" They all laughed.

"He is telling the truth," said Sirinitha. For the first time, he felt that he was lucky to have her there, for without her, why should they believe him? "For the first time," said Sirinitha, "he feels that he is lucky to have me here, for without me, why should you believe him?" More laughter, but also understanding smiles.

Later, when they were alone, Zarinia said, "Don't feel bad about what Sirinitha reveals, Mr. Arguit. You know, everyone has thoughts like that at first, thoughts that they are terribly embarrassed to have revealed. Sexual thoughts, thoughts of evading the rules, thoughts of manipulating other people. As a matter of fact, you have been remarkably free of one sort of thing that a lot of beginners have: despising other people. Many people seem to spend every waking moment thinking to themselves about how stupid or bad or ugly other people supposedly are. It is to your credit that you don't do that."

"Thank you for saying that, Zarinia," he replied. "In fact, I have always had a respect for you people. That's why I came here, when I was in trouble. And you've earned my respect afresh, by not letting me manipulate you." He was a bit startled to hear himself utter that last sentence, for it had not been the result of manipulative calculation; it was simply true. _A moment of Grace_ , he thought.

"It was Kor, wasn't it, that made you like us?"

"Yes, it was ... something about her. Not just the sex. Although ... well, never mind. Did you know her?"

"Only a little. I was just a child then. But yes, there was something beautiful about her. It was so sad, when she left. And she lost her child, too! I wish I knew where she was."

Again, Arguit felt a stirring at the back of his mind, a feeling that he had recently heard of someone with the name "Kor." _Did the Police Chief say something_ ... He couldn't quite remember.

"Zarinia, you said that you interview with a telepath at least once a day."

"Yes, it's part of 'Confession,' one of our most precious sacraments."

"But, doesn't it bother you, the lack of privacy?"

"Well, it did at the beginning, but now, I wouldn't want to be without it. You know, many of those thoughts that you would want to keep secret, they are usually sick thoughts anyway. They only flourish because they are hidden, and after awhile, once you know that they are only going to be revealed, you stop thinking them in the first place, and that feels good. Of course, here in the Blessed Community, it's not so embarrassing, to have them revealed, because all of us know that everyone has petty thoughts all the time, and transient sexual attractions, and other things like that, and that every now and then a really nasty one will come to the surface – the others all have had the same experience, so that instead of despising you, they sympathize with you. When we all laugh, we are saying, 'Yep – everybody has those!' And we all know that most of those thoughts are just froth, just your mind exploring possibilities in an automatic sort of way, or ways of entertaining or consoling yourself, and that you are not going to act on them.

"And, it's nice to know what _other_ people are thinking about _me_ , too. That was difficult at first, too, because what they are thinking is not always nice. But in the end it is better to really know, than to endlessly wonder and speculate. And sometimes you learn something you need to know, that way, that people would normally be too polite or too cowardly to tell you. The effect in the long run is, that when one of us has a problem with someone else, she deals with it right away. So at least, it doesn't _fester_! And if it is something difficult to resolve, we have ways that the community can mediate for people.

"Everyone here is dedicated to being nice to everyone else, otherwise they wouldn't be here. So when there is conflict, people are willing to compromise, and they are unlikely to despair. After awhile, you discover that what people really think of you is not nearly so bad as what you would imagine that they must think of you! And you know that no one is hatching plots against you, because it would come out right away. It makes possible a level of trust that I don't think could happen otherwise. In the end, that has a wonderful effect on our life together. Soon after you reach that point, you stop resenting people in the first place; why bother? But Arguit, didn't _you_ have the thought today, that you were glad to have had Sirinitha there?"

"Well, yes, I did. I knew I could get _justice_ from her."

"And you can, Arguit! She is absolutely honest! Remember, that she Confesses too! We all love her and the other telepaths _so much!_ And you know something, this is one of the few places where a telepath can feel comfortable. Because most people fear them. Such people scapegoat the telepaths, but really, what they are feeling is shame over their own inner lives. Well, is it the telepath's fault that someone's inner life is a cesspool? Telepaths don't enjoy looking into that sort of mind, you know."

Arguit pondered this for a moment. "Well," he said, "that makes sense. Doesn't it feel sort of _gross_ , though, when she _slithers_ into your mind?"

"It did at first, yes. But you know, it turns out that that feeling is just the result of your fear. And, her interrogations have been against your will – I don't blame you for feeling violated by that. For what it's worth, Sirinitha doesn't like doing that, either. But when your mind is less filled with things you are ashamed of, you will begin to feel the Sacrament of Confession as a blessing, and you will find it very pleasant. You will yearn for it."

"But in the meantime," Arguit replied, "isn't it wrong to do it against someone's will?" Again he surprised himself, because he realized that he wasn't _dueling_ with her, as he had dueled with the Mother Superior. He was just curious as to what she would say, for he was beginning to develop a genuine hope that her people had something to offer him.

She sighed. "That is worrisome, I admit. But in the end, I believe that we are responsible for each other. Mind-reading without permission would certainly be wrong if it were done for selfish purposes, like titillation or blackmail. But we only do it in ways that are carefully thought out and regulated, and aimed at everyone's best interest in the long run. _Everyone_ here confesses, even the Abbess herself! It would be difficult for such a system to become corrupt. And has any society found a way to deal with conflict, that did not at times require coercion? We consider ours to be more humane and effective than most, because we detect problems when they are still small, and resolve them then, instead of waiting for someone to do something terrible and irreversible. Oh, Mr. Arguit, when you come to experience these things, you will see _exactly_ why we are doing what we are doing!"

"I think I am beginning to catch a glimpse of that, already," Arguit replied, and realized with a start that he was sincere. For the first time he felt a real hope – a hope that he would be able to satisfy them that he was a new man – not because he had found a clever way to fool them, but because he would _be_ a new man. He felt that he had taken the first few steps already.
**********

"Flatterers praise the gods when good things happen,

but make excuses for them when bad things happen."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

In the maternity alcove at the Temple of Ydris, the new mother Kor, with luxurious slowness, rose gently from unconsciousness to a deliciously dark, vague, and minimal awareness. But then, a disturbing surprise: Zar was no longer at her breast. Climbing through a thicket of dreams and forgetfulness, Kor opened her eyes and memory, and recognized the maternity alcove. Sluggishly generating possibilities, she remembered, searched for, and found the little cradle she had made for Zar. It was empty. She sat up, shook her head to clear it, and looked at the cradle from another angle. It was still empty. She looked around the room. There was no one there. Fear and confusion vibrated through her like the sound of a huge gong.

"Hello?" she called. "Doctor? Nurse?"

Someone answered, "Coming," and footsteps approached. A nurse appeared. She saw Kor, her eyes flicked to the cradle, she did a double-take, she turned to scan the entire alcove, and then she stood still, looking puzzled and worried.

_She doesn't know either_ , thought Kor, and suddenly she was struck by an avalanche of anxiety. "I don't know where Zar is," she said to the nurse, in a quavering voice.

"I'll find out," said the nurse, with a reassuring gesture and a forced smile, and turned around and hurried out again. At that moment, bells began to ring: deep, unsettling bells that Kor had only heard previously in drills: the alarm bells. Someone started to ring one in a nearby room; it was very loud.

" _Isiliar!_ " called Kor, beginning to panic.

_Yes, Kor_ , said the sweet and gentle voice of the Goddess. Kor felt her anxiety recede a little. "Where is Zar?" she asked.

_She is fine_ , said Isiliar, _she is sleeping_. Kor was reassured by this answer, although there was something about it that bothered her. "Where is she?" she asked. "Why isn't she here?"

_She is where she has to be_ , said Isiliar, _All is well with her_.

It took a moment for the enormity of that reply to settle into Kor. She sat up. " _What's that supposed to mean?_ " she said, her voice shuddering with fear and outrage. " _I want my baby!_ "

_I'm terribly sorry, Kor, but you can't have her_ , said Isiliar, _her destiny is elsewhere._

" _She's my baby_ ," screamed Kor, hysterically. " _Mine!_ _I want my baby!_ "

_I'm sorry, Kor_ , said Isiliar, _That cannot be done. But she is in good hands._ The alarm bells pealed and pealed, and Kor could hardly distinguish the cacophony outside her from the cacophony within.

"You're a **god,** " screamed Kor. "You can do anything!"

I'm not the only god, Kor. My powers are limited. I am truly sorry.

"You're my tutelary goddess! You're supposed to **protect** me!"

Not from everything –

"Who's talking about **everything**? I'm talking about – I'm talking about – **my baby!!!** "

I'm sorry –

Kor sat down on the floor and let loose an inarticulate howl. She howled and howled, and beat on the floor. The nurse returned and tried to comfort her, but Kor pushed her away. She paused to vomit, and then resumed her howling and beating. A bone in her right hand broke, but she did not notice.

One by one, the alarm bells went silent, leaving Kor's howling to echo and re-echo through the nearby alcoves, like a despairing thought.

Three strange women entered the room. They were dressed in barbaric outfits of leather, metal, and bone. Their faces were decorated with tattoos, scars, and piercing objects. They carried small rectangular shields, and metal bludgeons at the ready. Startled, Kor ceased her howling, but only for a moment. " _My baby!_ " she screamed at them. " _I want my baby!_ " The three women looked at each other in puzzlement. Then they looked around the alcove, whose function was obvious, and they noticed the empty cradle. One of them stepped forward, meeting Kor's eyes with a concerned expression. She raised her shield, but lowered her bludgeon.

"I am called Sister Viper Venom," she said. "I don't know where your baby is, but we will try to locate ... him or her." She turned and spoke to one of her comrades, who nodded and ran off.

"It's a _her_ ," shouted Kor after the departing woman. "Her name is 'Zar'"

Turning back to Kor, Sister Viper Venom said, "We are Angels of Rejuvenation. Be assured, we do not separate mothers from their babies. We will search the Temple. If your child can be found, it will be returned to you." But this only convinced Kor that Zar was no longer in the Temple, and she began to howl again.

Raising her voice to be heard, Viper Venom said, "Do you have any idea where your baby might be?"

"No!" said Kor, struggling for coherence. "Ask a god! Ask the most powerful god you can! Please!" The two Angels exchanged glances, and Viper Venom, stepping back a few paces, knelt down, set down her shield and bludgeon, closed her eyes, and began to pray, while her companion stood guard.

Kor also closed her eyes, turning inward. Ignoring the presence of Isiliar, she prayed to Ydris. "Ydris! Blessed and Beautiful Goddess, Mother of all Mothers, hear my prayer! I apologize for any flaws in my service to you. I believe that I have served you well and gladly. I have certainly tried to! But however poor my service has actually been in your eyes, I appeal to your mercy and compassion! Whatever I may deserve, I beg you, be merciful, be forgiving, have pity! I beg you from the uttermost depths of my heart, please, punish me otherwise however you will, but please, please, please, _return my child!_ "

Kor felt Ydris within her. "Kor," said Ydris –

The tone of that one word told Kor what she feared the most. Prostrating herself, she begged: "Ydris, if I have sinned, or if it pleases you, put out my eyes, shrivel my arms, do what you will to me, but bring my baby Zar back to me!"

"You are not being punished, Kor," said Ydris. "I promise you, she will be well. But I cannot return her."

Kor flattened herself out on the floor and cried. "What have I done?" she sobbed. "Where is my fault? I thought I was serving gods and mortals with a sincere heart! How could I have gone wrong? How deviously corrupt can I be?"

"It is not a punishment, Kor," said Ydris, gently. "You are a beautiful person. I have always loved you, even before you knew me, and I find no fault in you. It is something that goes far beyond both of us."

Kor thought of the night of Karngrevor's visit. "Aieeee!" she howled aloud. "You knew, didn't you? You both knew! You knew all along, and you let me go ahead, dreaming of being a mother, making a cradle, choosing a name, and you never said a word!" She wished that the heat of her rage would crack the ice of her despair.

"Kor – "

"You _liars!_ You _hypocrites!_ You _presume_ to preach love and truth to mortals! No _mortal friend_ of mine would have done this to me! You are _slime!_ You are _leech rape!_ You are not worth an _ounce of my shit!_ Whatever oaths I swore to you, I now _renounce_! _No one_ owes loyalty to the likes of you! You disgust me, you _leech-vomit snake sluts!_ "

Isiliar and Ydris were both silent, but Kor could feel their presence. "And _get out of my mind_ , you _disgusting brain ticks_! Go!"

"Kor, please – "

"Get out, you parasites," shouted Kor at the top of her lungs. "Get out! Get out! Get out!"

She felt Ydris leave, and then Isiliar. It was a strange feeling indeed. As far back as she could remember, Kor had had the comforting presence of Isiliar within her. Now there was a huge vacuum in her psyche. But even as the vacuum filled with freezing grief, she determined to live with it. She sat up.

Viper Venom was still praying. Kor watched her intently, small flames of hope flickering in her heart. Suddenly, Viper Venom shot up straight, her eyes opening wide. She gave Kor an incomprehensible glance, and then dropped her eyes again. A moment later, she sighed. Looking sadly at Kor, she said, "I'm sorry, but I cannot help you."

Kor collapsed, falling to the ground again. She did not howl or sob. She was simply empty. All thought and action seemed pointless, except holding the memory of Zar in her mind. She forgot that she was even capable of thought or action. She was not aware when other Angels came to consult with Viper Venom. She was not aware when she was lifted and placed in a bed. She was not even aware of the passage of time. It was only inertia that kept her alive.
**********

"The Oneness of the One is only half of the story"

(From the popular song, "You're the only One for me")

"Snoffle is a _god_?" said Srea Kula, profoundly confused.

"Of course," replied Kshaloka, ineffectually readjusting his skirt. "He demands loyalty, he promises salvation, the whole works! But he's atypical in one respect. As I said a moment ago, most of us gods have agreed not to give mortals too much help, fearing that they will become dependent on us, and not develop their own strengths. What's the point of giving mortals minds of their own, if you are just going to tell them what to do, or do it yourself? But Snoffle is quite happy to have humans be completely dependent on him. So, he makes a deal: 'I'll give you complete happiness, and a normal or higher-than-normal level of functioning, provided only that you revere me above all others, and obey me in all things. In return, I will give your life meaning, security, and a center. If you fall into apostasy, however, you will be condemned to the most terrible agony.'

"Now," Kshaloka continued, "most of us gods give _some_ help, but we distinguish different _types_ of help. For example, the Holy Family gives people a lot of help. But they give them help by helping them to be better people. Now, Rajo could, for example, have smitten Sre Lugu with impotence, whenever he tried to climb into bed with Liliune. In this way, technically, adultery could have been prevented. But it wouldn't have made Sre Lugu a better person; on the contrary, it would just have added a physical defect to the mental one. Or, Rajo could have reached inside Sre Lugu's mind and made him completely indifferent to Liliune. But having temptation removed wouldn't have made him a better person, just a luckier one. And Pappi could just have found another pretty woman." To emphasize his point, Kshaloka metamorphosed from his copy of Liliune into another woman, with coral skin, pure white hair, and slanting almond eyes. She wore a blue bikini made mostly of string, but including three tiny triangles of thin silk.

Sre Lugu, who was already feeling stung by Kshaloka's use of the word "defect," tried very hard not to look in that direction. Then he thought, 'But just not looking is only avoiding the problem – the achievement would be to be able to look, but _not feel lust_.' So he looked. As he did so, he realized that inside himself, he did make a kind of inner, voluntary decision to respond lustfully. It had become such a habit that he had come to take it for granted. He tried to unmake this decision – to see Kshaloka's current body as nothing more than a certain three-dimensional, colored form. He failed, but not utterly.

He remembered once talking to a male friend of his who was a doctor. "Don't you have a problem," he had asked his friend, "giving examinations to women? Don't you get aroused? Isn't it distracting and frustrating?"

"Sometimes," his friend had replied, "but not usually. I was surprised, myself, when my training reached that point. It was a very intense and embarrassing experience when, under the direction of my mentor, and in the presence of nurses and other students, I first practiced examining a woman's breasts for lumps. But very quickly, I discovered to my surprise that the context makes a tremendous difference. Let's say that, outside of my work, a rather plain and quite modestly dressed woman began to flirt with me – even one little remark which seemed flirtatious, and I would feel a bit of arousal. But I might be examining a beautiful and naked woman for medical reasons, and feel no desire at all. Although, sometimes I would think, 'This is really strange, this is a gorgeous woman, quite naked, and I'm looking at her and touching her, and I'm not feeling any desire for her at all,' and then, just because I had thought that, I would feel a bit of desire after all. It was never enough, though, to seriously tempt me to behave in an unprofessional manner."

Suddenly, Sre Lugu became aware that Kshaloka had just looked directly at him and said, "It's very sexy, isn't it?"

Sre Lugu, who had been staring at Kshaloka's body because of the inner experiment he had been making, was deeply embarrassed, but he felt entitled to say, "Yes, it is, but I'm trying not to see it that way."

"There now," said Kshaloka to the Holy Family, "you see? He's working on the problem _himself_. Rajo _could_ have meddled with Sre Lugu's mind and made him incapable of feeling lust for anyone but his wife. I imagine that some men must pray for that, isn't that so, Rajo?"

"Well, yes," said Rajo. "In fact, at one time or another just about every conscientiously married man prays for that. But I hardly ever grant it, and even then, only in a temporary fashion."

"But why not?" burst out Sre Lugu, a bit of anger in his voice. "Think of all the suffering that has arisen from adultery, and from lusts that may not technically lead to adultery, but which upset the relationship between the man and his wife. This often entails the suffering of innocents, the man's wife and children. Or even just the suffering of men who do not give in, but must wrestle repeatedly with temptation, and who feel the frustration of intense but unsatisfiable desire. If you want us to be faithful, why not help us to do it? Especially, if a man asks you, of his own free will. You cannot be accused of manipulating him, then."

"No," replied Rajo, "but there is still the question of whether he is asking me to do something he ought to do himself. Also, there are levels of sincerity in asking. Sometimes people ask for things impulsively, or out of wishful thinking, or hypocrisy, or out of some misunderstanding. It is usually best not to grant such things. If, on the other hand, a person asks to be changed, and asks with total sincerity, then he has just about already changed! You see, Sre Lugu, men often think of their lust as involuntary, but there are degrees of voluntariness, just as there are degrees of sincerity. Now, when you were in school, sitting there feeling bored, you used to surreptitiously look at one of the girls in front of you, and dwell on her feminine curves. Now, don't be embarrassed, many boys do this when they experience puberty! When you did that, you would get a pleasant sensation. But that act of _dwelling_ was a voluntary act. Srea Kula of course told you not to do it, and gave you prayers to repeat to distract yourself from it, but you were young and undisciplined, and the feeling could be intensely delicious, even sometimes to the point of orgasm, and you couldn't see that it harmed anyone, and eventually it became an ingrained habit with you."

"So many men, when they pray to be released from desire, are actually rather ambivalent. Part of their mind is thinking, 'Yes, it would be nice to be released from inappropriate desire,' but the next time they see a pretty woman, they will _dwell_ on her. It is like a man who complains of the heat, and then throws more wood on the fire. Such men are really praying so that they can feel less guilt, so that they can say, 'Well, I prayed to Rajo to relieve me of this terrible burden – doesn't that show that I am really a good person at heart? And he didn't help me – is that my fault?'"

"But if a man with total sincerity wants to stop feeling inappropriate desire, then he need only learn to look into himself, and notice how he _dwells_ on women, and stop doing it. Well, there is something else – he must learn to be a truly _voluntary_ being – not the slave of habit and desire. Otherwise, his good intensions will quickly succumb to fatigue and forgetfulness. Becoming free, becoming voluntary, can be very difficult, however. Even _recognizing_ that one is _not_ free can be very difficult. Most people think that most of their actions are voluntary, but they are wrong. They are just the puppets of their instincts and habits, and of authority and fashion. To be truly in control of one's actions, all the time, can only be the result of long discipline. But if a man could shoo away the desire just by praying, why should he take the trouble to discipline himself? By presenting men with this problem, we encourage them to develop self-control, to become voluntary beings. If we solved all their problems for them, this would never happen."

"I think I understand," said Sre Lugu. "But why is self-discipline so hard, or even necessary? If you are going to ask of human beings that they be faithful, why make it difficult for them? Why not have them be _born_ as completely voluntary beings, indifferent to all temptations? Then we could be spared all the horrors that come from evil! Pappi would not be a criminal, and Snoffle could not corrupt anyone."

"Well," said Rajo, "I am not the one who designed human beings – I am just given human beings as they are, to work with. But there is an old fable that addresses this question. This fable is called the Fable of Two Levels of Goodness. It is only a fable, which points at the truth without literally saying it, but I think you will find it interesting – let me tell it to you.

"The universe as a whole is sometimes called the One. The One contains everything – not only inanimate things, plants, animals, and people, but also numbers, the gods, and space and time – by definition, whatever exists is an aspect of the One. But the One has divided into many – there are many people in the universe, many rocks, many stars, many periods of time, and so on.

"Now, the question that this fable addresses is, _why_ did the One divide into many? And even more, why did it break itself up into a world in which there is conflict and evil?

"Well, if the One did not divide at all, what a trivial world it would have been! It would have had no spatial extent – it would just be a single point. For as soon as there are two different points in space, the One has divided. Likewise, if the One did not divide, it would only exist for one moment of time – for if there were two moments of time, the One would have divided. But even one point of space and one point of time are two things, unless space and time are the same. So even that would be a division. Certainly there would be no _people_ in such a universe. There would not even be _rocks_. In fact, it is hard to distinguish such a universe from no universe at all.

"In the fable, the One is portrayed as a person, and as a good person; so it thinks, 'This is not a good way to be. I will divide.' This is of course fanciful, since there couldn't be any _thought_ in a world which is just one moment of time. The One is not really a person. But sometimes it is easier to understand an idea through a fable than in a literal way, and so we have fables. So in the story, there is a huge explosion, as the single point decides to make a huge and varied world. Time and space expand from a single point to a vast universe, filled with innumerable tiny particles of light.

"The One looks at the great multiplicity that it has created, and it thinks, 'This is good!' But then it thinks, 'There is still something missing here. All these points of light are just like each other. The diversity is trivial.' So the One arranges for the particles to be more varied, and to be able to combine and recombine with each other in various ways, to make larger things. In this way the stars, planets, comets, and other celestial bodies come to be.

"The One looks at the great diversity that it has created, and thinks, 'This is good!' But then it thinks, 'It is wonderfully intricate, but it is meaningless. There is no _point_ to it. If two particles collide this way rather than that, so what? A particle is not any more fulfilled by moving this way rather than that; they fulfill the laws of motion that I have made for them, and they never fail to do so. So they are always completely fulfilled, you might say, but really, there is no question of fulfillment at all.' So the One became bored with its combinations of perfect particles.

"Then, the One conceived the idea of _life_. A living thing strives and struggles; it has goals, which it can succeed or fail to reach. Life has a _point_. But the One hesitated to create life, because the One knew that living things would not always succeed; sometimes they would fail. If success is inevitable, it is too easy; hence it is not really success! This is the price of introducing _meaning_ into the world: success becomes possible, but also failure. Success would be good, but failure would be bad. By introducing life into the world, the One would also be introducing failure, including suffering and death. Thus, the One could not introduce goodness into the world without also introducing badness. And naturally, the One hesitated to introduce badness into the world.

"After thinking about it, however, the One decided that there were two kinds of goodness (and badness). The One could not create the first kind of goodness, the kind that would be created by creating life, without creating the same kind of badness, too. But in terms of the second kind of goodness, it was better to have a meaningful world than a meaningless one. He could see no badness of the second kind that would cancel this out. So the One went ahead and created plants and animals, and it thought, 'This is good.' And don't you agree, Sre Lugu, that a universe with life is better than a universe without life, even though it also involves suffering and death?"

"I guess I do," said Sre Lugu, nodding thoughtfully.

"But still, the One was dissatisfied. Animals and plants succeeded or failed, but they didn't _know_ that they did, or only knew it in a vague sort of way. Certainly, they had no idea that it was better to have life in the universe than not. They never thought of such things. Only rarely were they concerned with the fulfillment of any being other than themselves. So, there was still a kind of meaninglessness to the world: living things were born, and struggled, and lived and died, but it was not so different from the particles bouncing off each other. None of them understood the reason for their existence. So the One decided, that there should be living things who had the ability to _understand_ all this; such beings could _understand_ the meaning of their lives, instead of just living them. In this way, the One conceived of making _people_ , and _Philosophy_.

"But now, the One was faced with a choice similar to the choice it faced in making life: should it make people perfect in their knowledge of the meaning of life, or not? And the One decided that, in the second sense of 'good,' it would be better to have these beings, also, be able to succeed or fail. Otherwise, this aspect of life would be too easy for them, and would therefore lack meaning. So the One made people to be such that they could succeed or fail at seeing the meaning of life; or, more precisely, there are many stages in between, where they see the meaning in a more or less clear and complete way. These beings would _want_ to see the meaning, and to live their lives accordingly, but various things would make it difficult for them to do so. So, that is the way that human beings are. They struggle to see the meaning, they try to act in accord with the meaning as they see it, and in either case they succeed to a greater or lesser degree. Their degree of success can change over time, however; ideally, they learn and progress as they go through life.

"Suppose, Sre Lugu, that tomorrow, the One were to change its mind, and make all you mortals perfect. What would you do with yourselves? Srea Kula would have no rituals to perform, no counseling to do, for his parishioners would be without flaw from the beginning. You would not have to worry about bringing up your children right, for they would automatically be perfect. One perfect generation would succeed another, and no one could hope that his children would have a better life than his own, except perhaps in a purely material sense. Love would be useless, since no one would really require our care. In fact, life would be reduced to completely material considerations. There would be no struggle against evil, for there would _be_ no evil. There would be no struggle towards higher things, for everyone would already have arrived.

"Now, when I look at you, Sre Lugu, one of the things I admire the most is your constant struggle to be a better person. Even Pappi did not destroy this, he only _made use_ of it: he misled you as to what a better person is actually like! He made you think that by being cynical, and irreligious, and going to night-clubs, and drinking wine, you became a better person than Srea Gala. And Liliune knew better than to rely entirely on the charms of her body surfaces, great as they were, to enslave you. So in addition, she expanded your horizons in the fields of Music, Drama, and Poetry. Otherwise, you would have soon become bored with her. But this striving to improve yourself would be completely pointless if you were already perfect! Ironically, a society of morally perfect beings would, as I said, spend all their time dealing with material problems, finding food, shelter, and clothing, and the like. And they would quickly solve all such problems, since they would not desire luxuries, they would not envy or oppress each other, they would not be lazy, and so on. When you consider how many material resources are wasted by evil, stupidity, and laziness, you can see immediately that there is more than enough for everyone, if everyone were sensible. So poverty would quickly disappear, along with war and crime.

"So, life would quickly reach an equilibrium, in which people would spend a certain amount of time working at material things, and the rest of the time, they may as well be asleep, for there would be nothing for them to do."

"Well," said Sre Lugu, "they could enjoy the arts, conversation, sports."

"Ah, but what would the arts be like, Sre Lugu? Think of the drama, or the novel. Presumably, our perfect people would have no desire to be titillated by tawdry, voyeuristic stories of sex, violence, or intrigue. But of course that leaves 'High Art.' Now, 'High Art' as you know it reflects your lives – it shows people who are dealing with imperfection, often the imperfection within themselves. It shows struggles that could, and sometimes do, result in failure and tragedy. It moves you because you can identify with the characters, because you, too, face such challenges. Would these perfect people be interested in such stories? Not really, for they could not identify with the characters. The very notions of evil and imperfection would be bizarre fantasies for them, purely theoretical. The characters in our dramas, even the most heroic and admirable, would look pathological to them. How could they identify with such beings? They would therefore be left on the material plane in art, just as they are in life – theirs would be a purely decorative art, an art that strives only for _pleasantness_. After eating a delicious meal of fish, bread, and fruit, they could look at a pretty still-life painting of delicious-looking fish, bread, and fruit. And then, perhaps, watch a play which consists of a number of people successfully gathering and consuming fish, bread, and fruit."

"Yakh! Please!" Kshaloka exclaimed, doubling over with apparent nausea. "You're making me ill!"

"But, Revered God," said Srea Kula, unwilling to take the liberty of addressing Kshaloka by name, "you _are_ the god of sensual beauty, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," said Kshaloka, straightening, "but I couldn't stand it for a single eyeblink if I didn't know that I was just _one facet_ of a great jewel. I would never expect my devotees to give up all the _other_ aspects of their lives."

"But, Revered God," said Srea Kula, wringing his hands, and generally projecting the exaggerated, almost cringing deference of one who feels compelled to oppose someone else but who is terribly afraid of giving offense, "isn't that just what you are asking Sre Lugu to do?"

There was a moment of silence as Kshaloka stared at Srea Kula in astonishment. Then the god laughed. "You're good!" he said. "Yes, he did offer to serve me, and to serve my avatar. But, he certainly did not offer to serve me out of a love of sensual beauty – quite the contrary, he seems these days to be moving away from that, and hence from me. His offer to serve me was the offer of a very great sacrifice, in order to save Liliune's life. I would say that he is acting as a devotee of Ethical Sacrifice, at least in this case. He will be my servant, but not my devotee."

"But, do you really want a mere _servant_ – " began Srea Kula, intending to argue that Kshaloka should not accept Sre Lugu's giving up his family, and then he stopped suddenly, for yet another person had materialized in the room. They all turned to identify her.

"Iliriana!" said Sre Lugu, in a voice that expressed deep love, and also deep sadness. It was indeed she, Sre Lugu's wife.

"Iliriana!" Srea Kula exclaimed in amazement, "how did _you_ get here?"

" _She_ brought me," said Iliriana, pointing to Tilja, the Mother Goddess. Tilja looked a little sheepish, but also a little smug.
**********

"What you are good for is what you are."

(Folk Saying of the Karowongi)

It was late at night when Pappi, ensconced in his palanquin, approached his own neighborhood. Someone ran out in front of his troop, waving his arms. Sk'Skar investigated, and returned to Pappi with a report. Pappi would not open the window of his palanquin to speak to him, for fear of mind exchange, but they could hear each other through the thin silk walls.

"It's Kraximan, sir," Sk'Skar said, "the guy who runs your arena. Or at least, it looks like him. He says he's been waiting for you. He says your compound's been taken over. What he describes is pretty bizarre, though. Something about being thrown out by a _wind_ , and a _bunch of kids_. I can't make any sense out of it."

"It might have been some trick of Koof's," said Pappi. "And this guy might be Koof himself, too, or some concoction of his. Take whoever it is prisoner, tie his arms, and put a hood on him so he can't make eye contact with anyone. Put a leash on him and keep him up front. Keep an eye on each other while you're doing it. Test his identity in every way possible. Do anything else that you think might be a good idea. Then proceed with caution."

"Yes, sir!" said Sk'Skar. After about a hundredbreath, the company began to move again. In another hundredbreath, it stopped again. "Two more people, sir," reported Sk'Skar, "one of your cooks, and one of your security people. They tell a similar story to Kraximan's, but they are a little more coherent. It seems to have been some very powerful sorcery, sir. They claim that it is literally true that they were thrown out by a wind. So was everyone else, they say, and a lot of furniture and other stuff. They don't say anything about children, though. Possibly because they ran away as soon as the wind was finished with them. Kraximan was knocked out for awhile. The children apparently came later."

"And where was Tarth Sakul while all of this was going on?" asked Pappi.

"None of them so far has reported seeing him. Of course, people were scattered."

"How about the identity checks?"

"So far, it seems to be the real Kraximan. He remembers everything he ought to remember, even details from last year. He's stupid and loutish. He's passed all the tests that Tarth Sakul gave to us. The others, we've only just begun with, but so far, so good."

"I don't trust Sakul's tests. Use them, but invent more of your own. Remember that you're probably dealing with someone very smart and very skilled. Keep whomever it is hooded and bound, and do the same with the others. If you find more people, go through the same routine with them; don't report to me unless something new comes up."

"Yes, sir!"

The company stopped numerous times in the next hour. Pappi kept control over his mounting frustration and rage. Finally he heard Sk'Skar's horse, whose step he had learned to recognize.

"Bad news, sir. We're a couple of blocks from the entrance to the neighborhood. I sent scouts ahead. There are armed men setting up barricades at every gate. I think it's the Angels of Rejuvenation, sir. My guess is, that they're about to swarm, and they are blocking off escape routes. In the meantime, we've picked up sixteen more people of yours, or so it seems, and they all tell about the same story."

"Any word on Tarth Sakul?"

"One person saw him going into his office, shortly before the attack. No one has seen him since."

_That's nineteen people_ , thought Pappi, _and not one of them has seen Tarth Sakul during or after the attack. I guess he missed it. Lucky man!_

"Orders, sir?"

"Yes, turn around and go to the Triz Hotel in Hefflington. It's on the main street, Seesemah Street. When you get there, tell the desk you were sent by Mr. Nodecema. It's a pseudonym of mine, that I use in dealing with them. You and the men are to use it in all transactions in Hefflington. No one is to refer to me as "Pappi" there, even when speaking in private."

"As Nodecema, I own the hotel and all of the people who run it. They will find lodgings for everyone. Continue to keep the people you picked up under guard. But first, make sure that all my employees understand that I don't keep all my wealth and records at the compound we are abandoning, or even in the neighborhood. I have accounts in numerous banks throughout a large area of Kondrastibar, and I have numerous employees and places like the Triz hotel, outside of the neighborhood. Furthermore, I had advance notice of the swarming and moved a lot of my wealth out, including the P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures. Anyone claiming the contrary will die painfully. We don't want to have a morale problem, here."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Nodecema."

Yes indeed, thought Nodecema, It's crucial to minimize people's perception of the damage. If people see me as weakened, they will desert or turn against me. Which would again increase people's perception of my weakness, and that could be the beginning of a nasty chain reaction.

He began to make plans. _It would be good to kill off a couple of my associates, and give the impression that I had agents in my employ who caught them making plans to take advantage of this little setback. Let's see, how about Sweeng? Yes, he would be good for that. And Vopterostonay. They've both always been a little too cagey for my taste. Some people will suspect I'm faking it, but how can they be sure? They won't want to risk it._

And while I'm at it, I think I will contact the Cathedral of the Assassins and take out an exorcism on Tarth Sakul. He was always a bit too smart and too competent – you can never tell what someone like that might be doing behind your back.

Now, what about my rivals? Morphens is pretty smart, but I think I can make her into an underling. My agent tells me that she is not sufficiently careful about her food – a little snoffle in the chocolate, and she belongs to me, as long as my monopoly holds. I've heard that there's an independent source of supply in Carperville, though – I'd better take it over.

Tromp is looking good right now – he's got several prosperous casinos, he's got a monopoly on Smoke in three districts, and he's just absorbed the entire Manocan Mafia. But he's trying to run his organization the same way he did before. He doesn't see that to run a larger racket, he's got to delegate more authority. And he doesn't even understand, much less share, the notions of honor and courtesy that the Manocans have – he will be constantly rankling them, until they come to despise him and rebel.

_Then there are G'tork and Isil. Both very strong; but right now, they are competing with each other for the slave trade in Heather Heights. If I send in a few provocateurs, I should be able to escalate that into a major turf war that will leave both of their organizations gutted, at no significant cost to me at all! Ah, how I love it when my victims do my work_ _for_ _me!_

As for Gimmi Ininxuit, I've got him scared to death of the Zerpendall gang. He's ripe to make some concessions in return for an alliance with me. But I must be sure to talk to the Zerpendalls in advance, so that they realize I'm not serious. After I eat him, I'll give them a piece of his territory. There's that piece up around Mallardmere, that looks really rich – but I know that it looks that way only because Ininxuit's been overworking it. It's bound to crash in a few months, and the Zerpendalls won't realize that such things can be predicted or explained. They will just chalk it up to bad luck. Hence, no resentment towards yours truly! In fact, with a little luck, I can bring the whole Zerpendall gang down by next year, by getting them to overwork their resources.

As for that idiot Valtok, he moved much too soon, and purged far too little, when he took over the Nasibeing Cartel. He thinks he just doubled his resources, but they are only waiting for their chance to bring him down from the inside. I will form a secret alliance with them, and when they strike, I will get a piece of the corpse. The Nasibeing will emerge stronger than ever, though, which is not good; unless I can marry into the clan, I will eventually have to fight them. But I have a few years to plan that. It was good of Valtok to slow them down for me.

Now, Murga Mur thinks he has outsmarted me; he has monopolized the Carafin trade from here to the River Voney, squeezing out several of my operations. What he doesn't realize is that I have been secretly monopolizing Carrionflower oil over a much wider area, using dummy Orders to give the impression of robust competition. Guess what, Mur: you can't make Carafin without Carrionflower oil! He will soon find all his profits going right into my coffers. His people will do all the work, and deal with the hostility of those who oppose the Carafin trade, and I will reap the rewards!

Then there's the Pleropax horde. They look tough, because they are so ruthlessly violent. They don't realize that violence is a very poor way to do certain things... A dead man makes a poor servant. And eventually, there will be a reaction against them, and I will quietly move in and pick up the pieces.

And on he went.

Nodecema didn't enjoy sex very much. He found the games in the arena rather boring. He had no hobbies or recreations. He had neither talent nor inclination for the Practical Arts, and the Fine Arts he considered to be lunacy, like love. In religion he was an agnostic at best, though he was careful to make sacrifices frequently to Sfel, the god of crime, just in case. Of the Sciences whose main object was knowledge, he had little conception. All these things entered his consciousness only insofar as they could be used to further his quest for power. That was the one thing that made him feel truly alive. Just reclining in his palanquin, making and refining his plans, made him feel happy and fulfilled.

He knew little history, but he knew that in other ages, power politics had been a significant force in people's lives. In his own time, the orthodox opinion was that Kondrastibar had become a 'Theo-Anarchy,' in which there was no central power, only a large number of distinct institutions, mostly religious in nature, existing in a sort of ecosystem, with a constantly shifting equilibrium, and no central guidance. Sometimes, when he was falling asleep at night, he would regret not having been born into an autocratic age, for then it would have been easier for him to work his way to the top: he would only have had to turn to his own ends an institution which already existed. He was very good at that. Under Theo-Anarchy, to obtain power over everyone would be just about impossible.

But, by widening his power base more and more, and thereby obliging others to widen theirs, he was in fact freezing the liquid flow of Theo-Anarchy into something much more rigid and crystalline. The Angels of Rejuvenation had tried to stop him, but they had missed their mark.

The god of central power, who had been asleep for a thousand years, began to dream.
**********

"There comes a time when Home becomes the strangest place of all"

(From the Gratuzikhilian folk-opera, _Childhood in Purgatory_ )

As the elderly Kor and her companions entered the gate to what had been Pappi's compound, they saw numerous children standing just inside. Some were children from the orphanage, dressed in their patchwork clothes. They rushed up to Kor with great relief and joy, surrounding her and, as she knelt to make this possible, climbing on her. Ydnas, Intipisk, and Lessie joined the heap. The little winking souls also entered at the gate, and flowed around them as they hugged, kissed, and laughed. Some of the souls seemed to hesitate as they passed.

There were some other children there, that had not come on the wains. They were beautiful and strange. They were all of the same height and build, appearing to be about ten years old. Their features were perfectly regular and without blemish, though varying widely in feature and pigmentation. They wore flowing robes with intricate folds, each in a different color. These children were slightly transparent; in the right light one could see through them, dimly, as if they were statues made of tinted glass. One of them, with dark golden skin and a bridgeless nose, approached the newcomers, smiling in a welcoming fashion. Tulith decided to speak to this one.

"Hello," she said, smiling cordially. "My name is Tulith. What is your name?"

"I am called Darestigan," replied the child, "and, there is really only one of me, although it looks as though there are many." He gestured at the other translucent children, who all smiled at Tulith simultaneously. Tulith smiled back, nodding, as she made eye contact with each of them successively. There were about ten.

"I am the soul of this temple," said Darestigan. "It is _her_ temple," he added, pointing at Ydnas.

"It's a temple?" said Tulith in surprise. "It belongs to _Ydnas_?" She felt confused.

Darestigan nodded. And yet, thought Tulith, I shouldn't be so surprised. It was already evident that Ydnas was not an ordinary girl. The way she spoke to the mute boy, and to Isiliar. And Kor said that Isiliar had told her that Ydnas would be special.

Just then Talek and the neophyte came into the compound and approached Darestigan. "Excuse me," said Talek, "do you know if anyone would mind if we followed these souls?" With a gesture he indicated the little twinkling lights, drifting slowly into the compound and moving down one of the walkways.

"I cannot know that," said Darestigan, "but I am the keeper of this place, and I have no objection. Be careful, though, because after awhile they will go straight down, and there are no stairs."

"We will stop following them at that point," said Talek, and he and the neophyte began to follow the souls.

"Well," said Tulith to Darestigan, "perhaps you would rather be talking to Ydnas."

"I will, when she has finished greeting her companions. But don't worry, I can talk to you and her at the same time."

Reassured that she was not getting in the way, Tulith asked, "How did you get here, Darestigan?"

"I have always been here," said Darestigan, "but I have been asleep for a long time."

Ydnas separated herself from the crowd around Kor and came over. "Hello, Darestigan," she said, with a warm smile.

"Hello, Ydnas," said Darestigan. They hugged each other. Then they separated, still holding hands and looking into each other's eyes. After a few moments, Ydnas glanced at Tulith and back and said to Darestigan, "You've met Tulith, I gather."

"Just now," said Darestigan. "I don't remember knowing her before. I hardly remember anything."

"Me, neither!" said Ydnas. "But I think we will, later on."

"Is there anything you would like me to do?" asked Darestigan.

"Well," said Ydnas, "as you probably gathered, all these people who just got here are all connected with me, directly or indirectly. Treat all of them as my friends or associates. None of them are dangerous. They may need to be protected. Right now, they are very tired. Is there a place they can rest?"

"Yes," said Darestigan. "The old guest house is functioning again. They can take rooms there."

"The beautiful older woman with the blue skin and the red robe is called 'Kor,'" said Ydnas. "If you would direct her there, she will organize the others."

"I will do so," said Darestigan. One of the translucent children approached Kor and explained the plan to her.

"And," said Ydnas, "you should keep other people out, though I will be willing to talk to a reasonable number of them, if they are in a mood to be polite."

Darestigan nodded. "It shall be so," he said. A few more of the translucent children went over to the gate and shut it.

"I'd like to walk through the place," said Ydnas. "Would you accompany me, please?"

"Of course," said Darestigan.

"Would you like to come along, Tulith?" asked Ydnas.

"If you don't mind having me, Ydnas," said Tulith. She felt rather uncomfortable; Ydnas had become an unknown quantity. _But the way to deal with the unknown is to learn about it_ , she told herself.

"I don't mind at all, Tulith," said Ydnas, "and I don't believe Darestigan does, either." She glanced at Darestigan, who nodded agreement. "Since you don't live at the orphanage, Tulith, we haven't really gotten to know each other. I hope we can start now. I know that Kor has a great love for you, and feels dearly loved by you, and that is about the best recommendation that a person could have, in my eyes." They began walking down a flagstone path, which wound its way through a flower bed.

_She's talking like a grownup_ , thought Tulith, _and so does this Darestigan, though he too looks like a child_. Aloud she said, "I am very lucky that way, Ydnas. And, yes, I love Kor as much as I am capable of."

"That is very important to her," said Ydnas. "Of course she gets a lot of love from the children, but an adult needs adult companionship. She also gets a lot of love from Isiliar, but a mortal needs mortal companionship. And Kor is so busy, that she has no time for trivial relationships, much less for a dysfunctional one. She is very lucky to have you."

"Thank you, Ydnas," said Tulith, still thinking of how extraordinary it was to hear such words and sentiments coming from a girl, who appeared to be about 10 years old.

"I suppose, Tulith," said Ydnas, "that you realize that I am not what I have seemed to be. Isiliar told Kor that this would be so."

"But what are you then, Ydnas?"

"I do not know myself, Tulith. As of yesterday, I thought of myself about the same way as everyone else did: I was a girl of about ten, rescued by Kor from a life of slavery. Today I know that I am something in addition to that, but what exactly I am is still a mystery to me. I am hoping to learn more here."

Just then they arrived at a large oaken door. It opened spontaneously at their approach. They entered and found themselves in a small chapel. At the front, dominating the altar, there was a statue which was clearly a representation of Ydnas herself, in a simple standing pose. It was about three times life size. It had a friendly, smiling expression. One could see the little pieces of scrap metal on her braids.

"By the rainbow colors! Are you a _goddess_ , then, Ydnas?" asked Tulith, awestruck.

"Well, ...I don't know," said Ydnas, uncomfortably. She looked at the statue with wide and anxious eyes.

"But," said Tulith, "this certainly looks like a _chapel_ , and that would be the _altar_ , ... and the boy didn't make the white light until _you_ said something to him, and Isiliar only appeared after _you_ suggested, in a very familiar way, that she do so, and suddenly you are speaking fluent Gastripi like an adult, and Darestigan says that this is _your_ temple ..." As Tulith's eyes went back and forth from Ydnas to the statue, they grew big and round.

"It certainly looks as though you are an object of veneration, Ydnas," said Darestigan. "By the way, Tulith, I am taking your other friends to the guest house now."

"Thank you, Darestigan," said Tulith, but her mind was on Ydnas and the statue. After a moment of thought, she lowered herself to the ground and prostrated herself in Ydnas' direction.

"Tulith, what are you doing?" asked Ydnas, startled and dismayed.

"If you _are_ a goddess, I want to show you the proper respect," said Tulith.

"Are you joking with me?" asked Ydnas.

"No, not at all," said Tulith, her voice a bit muffled.

"But Tulith, I don't want ... I mean, ... well, you have done it, now please, get up!" There was an edge of shock in Ydnas' voice. Tulith rose to her feet. She looked apprehensive.

"Tulith, look, whether I am a goddess or not, I meant what I said about being grateful for what you have done for Kor. You don't have to curry favor with me. And, even if I am a goddess, I don't want you to prostrate yourself to me. It makes me uncomfortable."

"I'm sorry, ah, Revered Goddess."

" _Stop it_!" snapped Ydnas; but this only made Tulith more apprehensive. Ydnas sighed. "I'm sorry, Tulith, I shouldn't snap at you. But I want to be your friend, not your ... whatever. _Nest of leeches_! Does this mean I'm going to lose all my friends? Will everyone be terribly _reverent_ all the time, unable to just relax and have fun with me? Will they always be kissing up to me, fearful or desirous of my powers? Does this mean that Kor is going to start thanking me for everything, no matter how much it hurts her, the way she does with Isiliar? _Scrofulous self-sucking spit lizards_! Am I going to outlive everyone I love, generation after generation?"

"I think, Ydnas," said Darestigan, "that if you give your friends a little time, they will be able to adjust."

"They're _mortals!_ " said Ydnas, bitterly. "If I give them a little _time_ , they will all be _dead_!" She began to sob.

"Why, Ydnas ... Oh, my!" said Tulith, nervously wringing her hands.

"Don't _want_ to be goddess!" howled Ydnas, once again the 10-year-old. "Just want to be _Ydnas_! Just want to be _child_!"

After an intense moment of indecision, Tulith stepped forward and took Ydnas into her arms. Ydnas put her arms around Tulith's waist and laid her head on Tulith's breast, still sobbing and wailing. Tulith began rocking her gently. "Sweet Ydnas, sweet Ydnas," she crooned, stroking her back and kissing her hair. Except for the worry in the back of her mind that it was bizarre for a mortal to be comforting a goddess, it felt very natural and pleasant to her to be doing that. A thought flashed into her mind: _When am I going to have children of my own? What am I waiting for?_ and then she thought, _If gods live forever, how long does it take for them to grow up? Will some distant descendant of mine some day be comforting Ydnas, just like this?_ And then she had yet a third thought: _Do we all have some divine aspect of ourselves that we deny, just as Ydnas is apparently doing now?_
**********

"Love opens a man up more thoroughly than any surgeon.

It is often less conscientious, however, about putting him back together."

(from _Sora and Atara_ , by Ipsin Kit)

One day, Zarinia came to Arguit and said that his wife and children would be visiting him soon. He was very pleased – he had begun to wonder if this was ever going to happen. Zarinia also told him that, if he was willing, he could exit his cell for some time every day to work. "We can find jobs for you, we can even train you for some jobs that won't get you in trouble." Arguit immediately had the thought that this might make it easier for him to escape. Rather than wait for the telepath to reveal this thought, he said, "I'm thinking that it might give me some opportunities for escape."

Zarinia smiled at that. "Of course that idea would occur to you," she said. "How could it not? Of course, we are under instructions to beat you thoroughly if you attempt such a thing, and that is exactly what we will do. Given that, will you accept the offer?"

Arguit laughed. "Yes, I will," he said, "since you're not going to beat me for _thinking_ , all I have to do is wait for a really good opportunity before I try anything."

"Very reasonable of you," she said, with a smile. "I encourage you to do just that." She gave a whistle, and two other Amazons appeared. "We will begin with scrubbing, and proceed from there to other tasks."

Arguit hesitated when he heard the word "scrubbing," but the idea of a greater variety in his activities was still very appealing, and he was optimistic that his working would be likely to contribute to an earlier release. "Let's go, then," he said.

Zarinia undid the triple lock to his cell. As always when he was taken out, one of the Amazons came up fairly close, drawing a billy-club, and the other stepped back a few paces, taking from a clip behind her shoulder a thick oaken quarterstaff. As Zarinia opened the cell door, the Amazon with the billy-club remained shoulder-to-shoulder with her. They were not tense, but they were very alert. _I'm in peak physical condition,_ thought Arguit, _and I'm bigger than they are,_ _but let's face it – they are trained, they know exactly what they are doing, there are three of them – I haven't got a chicken's front leg of a chance!_ Arguit emerged slowly, keeping his hands visible.

Besides, he thought, I don't even know if I really want to escape. Where would I go? What would I do? It seems funny to say it, but I have not been so well off in years as I am here! They really are making a better person out of me.

"I think we can dispense with the shackles today," said Zarinia. Arguit felt a double response – on the one hand, another thought that it would now be easier to escape, and, on the other hand, a feeling of gratitude, gratitude for recognition from Zarinia of the fact that he was changing. He felt proud of the changes he was undergoing, and he wanted her approval.

As he passed through the door, he came close to her, and he met her eyes. They smiled at him, as they had for many days. He smiled back. Suddenly, he was aware of a profound difference in the way he felt about her. _How powerful she is_ , he thought, _how strong and confident._ _And she really cares about me; that makes me happy, even though there is no way for me to use it to manipulate her._ He thought of all the conversations that they had had, how quickly it had become easy for him to talk to her about things that he had once thought would have to be forever private, and how she in turn had revealed herself to him without embarrassment.

Something new was born within him. In the time of an eyeblink, everything to do with Zarinia seemed more important, more significant. A feeling that had been growing inside him for days, without his really noticing it, suddenly blossomed, filling him with color and fragrance. All at once there was an infinite, sweet meaning shining from her eyes, written in the lines of her face, and dancing in her every move. A light and a warmth and a music seemed to radiate from her. It was as if he could see into many more dimensions, as if parts of her that had been invisible to him had suddenly become brilliantly vivid. And what he saw stirred him to the core, and filled him with yearning.

Her femininity, which had become almost invisible to him since he had given up 'lust,' suddenly struck him like a blow. But the feeling was very different from 'lust'; he felt no desire to imagine what she was like beneath her armor and clothing, or to fantasize having sex with her; instead, he just had a desire to be quietly near her, perhaps to gently stroke her hair. He felt so tender towards her that he feared he would crumble or melt. Neither of them were telepaths, and yet he had a great certainty that if she were only to reciprocate whatever it was that he was feeling at that moment, and let him know that, huge currents of significance would flow between them. He felt an undertow in his soul, pulling him toward her, but he feared that if he moved another inch in her direction, it would be misinterpreted as an attack. Instead, he called on all his courage and looked into her eyes, hoping to find some reciprocation there. But he only saw what he had seen before: the intense, paralyzing beauty of her personality, touched now by puzzled concern. The blossoming within him felt a frosty wind. Stunted by disappointment, he still looked into her horribly merely-friendly eyes, and he saw her concern deepen toward worry, her eyebrows furrowing. "Arguit," she said, "what's the matter? Are you ill?"

He felt anguish and nausea. Spiteful gods, what have you done? he thought, This must be what they call ... **falling in love**! But she doesn't love me back ... and my wife is coming ... please, let this not be happening! And yet, at the same time, he felt, This is so beautiful ... I don't want to resist it! He felt himself steeping in the sweetness of his love for her. And he felt a certain pride in himself: I've never been in love – I thought I was, but this is different! I am somehow ... more of a person than I used to be, for I could never have felt like this before. But he also felt ashamed – ashamed that he had never felt this before, and that he did not feel it for Laeri.

He felt split in half. One half wanted the feeling to disappear, the other wanted to cling to it forever.

"Arguit, are you all right?" Zarinia was saying. Arguit felt a deep stab of grief, like a sword of ice cutting into his guts, turning this way and that. He could tell that she didn't return his love. A small part of his mind said, 'That's good,' but it was very painful to the rest of him. He dropped his eyes from hers and, hunching over, backed into his cell. He went to his cot and lay on it, face down.

He heard Zarinia say, "Calinthir, get Sirinitha, and get a doctor." Then she said, "Shaneltinor, come in on my left, and do a neck-pin." He heard two of them approaching him. He felt the billy club across the back of his neck, gently but firmly pinning his head. Then he felt Zarinia's gauntleted hand on his back. "Talk to me, Arguit," she said. He felt as if his soul was trying to abandon his body, to somehow emerge from his back and take her hand, and then embrace her. But it didn't happen. Very slowly, he moved his left hand back and forth in the posture of a hand that hopes to be grasped by another hand. And she took it! Somehow the jointed metal gauntlet was _her_. He squeezed it as hard as he dared, trying to communicate the intensity that he felt.

"Arguit ..." she said, and he cringed to hear a touch of impatience in her voice. Once again he thought, _Why wait for the telepath?_ "I'm sorry, Zarinia," he muttered. "I have ... fallen in love with you. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to."

There was a moment of silence. Then Zarinia said, very tenderly, "I'm sorry, too, Arguit, but I just don't feel about you in the same way."

"I know," he said, shivering a little. "I can tell. But that's the way I feel, even though it doesn't make any sense."

"Love is not bound to make sense," replied Zarinia, "and it is never voluntary. And unrequited love hurts like molten lead in the belly. But Arguit, please know that it is not because you are unattractive that I am not in love with you. You _are_ an attractive man, and I do like you, really I do, especially now that other sides of you are beginning to emerge. It doesn't disturb me that you are in love with me. In fact, I am rather flattered. But I'm not in love with you, and nothing is going to happen."

"I understand," he said. There was a part of him that wanted to beg and plead and otherwise try to manipulate her, but he suppressed it. He knew it wouldn't work. _And anyway_ , he thought, with pleased surprise, _The idea repels me!_

"Arguit, please don't think that I am belittling your feelings," said Zarinia, "but there is something I think you should know. This often happens. I mean, someone is taken prisoner, and they can't escape, and they can't find a way to get back at their captors. After a while, they begin to change their way of looking at things. They begin to think, unconsciously perhaps, that their captors are superior to themselves. They begin to look for security by attaching themselves to their captors. And sometimes, as part of this, they fall in love with one of their captors, or think they do."

" _Aieee!_ " cried Arguit, and he thought, _I don't want to hear this!_

"We are not superior to you, Arguit," continued Zarinia. "We are just luckier. We had the good luck to be associated with this temple, while you were associated with criminals. You can achieve whatever we have achieved. You have already made great progress in that direction."

"I suppose," said Arguit, but his tone of voice said, _I don't care; right now, all I care about is my love for you._

"I think that we had better put off the work project for awhile," said Zarinia, sadly. "I can see that your feelings, wherever they may come from, are very deep. I think that dealing with this intense but unrequited love will be a full-time job in itself. But Arguit, I hope you will never feel ashamed for _feeling love_. It may be inappropriate, it may be unrequited, but love is always a beautiful thing. You have not done anything bad or wrong. You are just unlucky." Arguit felt an intense gratitude to her for saying these words, even though they felt in some ways like a death sentence.

Then he thought of something. "Maybe ... we should put off my wife's visit, too," he said. "I don't want to be like this when she comes."

"That's a very good idea, Arguit," said Zarinia. "I will ask about that." She patted him on the back. "I know this is not going to be easy for you," she continued, "but I think you are really a very strong person, and you will pull through it. I can feel your strength in the fact that you have not been whining or trying to manipulate me. In fact, I think the experience will help you to develop. Is there anything more you want to say?"

"Thank you," said Arguit. He sighed. "You are so nice to me. You do love me, in your way, don't you? Not _romantically_ , I can tell. But in another way, you love me."

"Yes, Arguit, I do love you, even though I am not _in love_ with you."

"I understand," said Arguit, "and I thank you for loving me, in that other way."

"You're very welcome, Arguit," said Zarinia. He could hear a warm smile in her tone. "And you should also thank Ydris, blessed be her name," she continued. "I would be a very different person indeed, were it not for her, and for this Temple. There was a time when I was not capable of very much love, but she changed that. And Ydris loves you, too, Arguit. She will always love you."

"But I'm a _man_ ," said Arguit.

"Ydris is Femininity, Arguit," said Zarinia. "As long as there are women who love men, in whatever way, Ydris will love men, too. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon."
**********

"Who you are depends entirely on

how you relate to the rest of the world."

( _The Book of Nothingness_ )

At the Triz Hotel, Nodecema (previously known as "Pappi") discussed some of his plans with his primary agent in the area, W'Shub. W'Shub ran the hotel and several other superficially legitimate enterprises, including a 'School for Wayward Girls,' a 'Community-Based Pharmacy Service,' and an 'Institute for the Investigation of Chance.'

"Lots of people," said Nodecema, "will think that I and all my people were captured by the Angels. They will think I'm a shed skin. So, this is a great time to do something I've been thinking of doing, anyway: to make myself into a respectable guy in some fancy neighborhood."

"Hot idea," said W'Shub. "Of course, you'll have to build yourself a fake past and a fake career. One question is, how rich do you want to be?"

Nodecema was reluctant to answer that question, because he didn't want to reveal what his assets were. Not that he was even sure, himself. "I haven't decided," he said. "If I make myself _too_ rich, I'll just make myself a target."

"Well," said W'Shub, dropping what he belatedly realized was a forbidden topic, "offhand, I'm thinking it might be good to be in foreign trade. That way, if you need to disappear for various lengths of time, you can just say you were off checking into your affairs. You can also change your income level suddenly; in foreign trade, that happens a lot. Also, people won't be surprised or offended if you are a bit closed-mouthed about your doings. In fact, you could be a foreigner yourself, which would explain why you don't know anyone."

"That would help," said Nodecema. "How would I proceed?"

"What you need is a _selfer_ ," suggested W'Shub.

"What's that?"

"A _selfer_ is a guy whose trick is building up identities for people. He would teach you everything you need to know. In fact, I've heard it said that a really top selfer will actually give you someone else's identity – a real person, I mean. In your case, maybe, some trader who already exists."

"What happens to _him_?"

"Well, it depends. Sometimes they make a deal with him; he goes far away, and you take over. Sometimes he meets with an untimely end. I've heard it said that the really top guys can take _your_ soul, and put it in _his_ body. You get all his memories for free, which makes it easy to impersonate him!"

Nodecema was startled by this idea. As he pondered it, he began to see possibilities in it far beyond his original goals.

"That's interesting," he said. "Can you put me in touch with one of these top guys?"

"Not right off the bat," said W'Shub, "but I can make inquiries for you."

"Do it," said Nodecema. "But do it very indirectly, very discreetly. Top secret, anonymous."

"I understand, Mr. Nodecema," said W'Shub with a smile. "I will use many intermediaries, and not one of them will live a moment longer than necessary."
**********

"Nothing hurts like betrayal"

(Ferendil the Faithless)

"Oslan," said the Lord of Evil, "did you not return the Temple of Ydnas to its original state?"

"I thought I had, Lord," said Oslan. "I removed every meddlesome spell I could find."

"Darestigan does not respond to me," said the Lord, "nor does Ydnas. Also, Darestigan maintains a shield that makes it impossible for Vidigeon to survey the compound."

"Perhaps there is a good reason for that," suggested Oslan. "Perhaps they are being watched by hostile forces, and think it better not to reveal their connection with us."

"That is possible," said the Lord. "What do you think, Vidigeon?"

"It is indeed possible, Lord," replied Vidigeon, "but there are other hypotheses to be considered. Ydnas has apparently spent most of her life in the hands of our enemies; it is quite likely that she has been corrupted in some way. Likewise, the Temple may have been altered in its essential nature; peripheral details could be deceptive."

" _If I had the details of the original design_ ," said Oslan, " _I could investigate that possibility._ " He felt that he had been fooled, and that was humiliating. As always, he responded to humiliation with rage. He kept that rage under strict control, however – it would not do to have it appear to be directed at his Lord, after all.

"I suggest," continued Vidigeon, "that you leave Ydnas and Darestigan alone for awhile, giving them time to get in touch with us by some method of their own choice. During this time you can observe them indirectly. Also during this time, Tarthex Oslan can study the details of the original Temple design.

"If Ydnas and Darestigan fail to get in touch, you could observe them more actively, by means of spies, for example. Finally, you could seize the Temple by force. Before taking that last step, however, I recommend that you investigate thoroughly the boy who made the deadly sphere of light."

The Lord of Evil pondered this for some time. Finally, he replied, _"That sounds like a good plan, Vidigeon, I will do that."_ It _did_ sound like a good plan, but he knew that he was accepting it mainly because of his faith in Vidigeon's brilliance. It irked him to be so dependent on someone else; he decided to absorb Vidigeon soon.
**********

"Often, the way to solve a problem is

to get more deeply embroiled in it."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

Tilja, the Mother Goddess, had brought Iliriana to Liliune's bedroom. Seeing his wife appear, Sre Lugu felt great love for her, but also confusion and despair. "Tilja," he said, "please let her know the truth of what is in my heart."

"What is in your heart," replied Tilja, severely, "is too complex for her, or you, or any mortal to understand. But I have told her as much as is appropriate for a mortal. Would you also like to know what is in her heart?"

"Yes," he replied, "except that I am afraid. I am afraid to see the pain I have caused her. I don't think that I could bear it."

"You know," said Kshaloka to Sre Lugu, "I rather like you, but you do have a tendency to whine a lot." Sre Lugu looked surprised, then irritated, then thoughtful, and then sad.

Iliriana's expression, meanwhile, revealed shock and horror as she pondered the facts of what had happened, and what Sre Lugu had promised. Then these emotions were replaced by a deep anguish.

"I feel many things, Sre Lugu," she said, "but the one I wish to mention first is sadness. I cannot blame you for making a great sacrifice to save that woman's life. In fact, I am proud of you, and I am proud that I chose such a man to be my husband. How could I have asked you to let her die? But I am deeply grieved that our family must be torn apart." And indeed, a massive, overwhelming sadness could be seen on her face, and heard in her voice. It reached out from her and enveloped Sre Lugu in its cold and dark. And with it came aching guilt.

Kshaloka did not look at them. He seemed engrossed in adjusting one of his little triangles.

Sre Lugu's mind had come to a standstill. He sat with his head bowed and tears running down his cheeks. But suddenly Iliriana gave a start, as a new idea occurred to her.

"Kshaloka," she said, "surely you have no objection to Liliune's having two or five servants instead of one."

Kshaloka raised one of his snow-white eyebrows. "What exactly do you have in mind?" he asked.

"Well, if Lugi is willing," said Iliriana, "we could _all_ go with Liliune to her place of safety. I mean, my entire family could go. Lugi and I would both serve her, and thereby we would both serve you, too. It would be hard for us to go to a strange new place, but at least our family would not be torn apart."

Kshaloka gave a little smile, and, standing up, he switched back again to the form of Liliune. "Come over here," he said, gesturing to Sre Lugu and Iliriana. They did so, and he cast one of his smooth aqua arms around each of them. Sre Lugu tried to move his upper arm so that it was not touching Kshaloka's breast, but Kshaloka's grip was much too tight. "I rather like the idea," he said, "and it has an added advantage, namely that living with Liliune and his wife both, Sre Lugu here will have plenty of opportunity to learn mental discipline, especially the control of lust."

Sre Lugu blushed.

"I have complete confidence in him," said Iliriana, her face becoming radiant.

"Of course," said Tilja, "the hussy won't be a courtesan any more, and so she won't have to dress like _that_!" She wrinkled her nose at Kshaloka's minimal clothing.

"It doesn't matter," said Iliriana cheerfully. "Let her flounce around the house naked, if she wants. Let her sleep in the same bed with Lugi, if she wants. I know that he has learned from his mistake. I trust him completely."

Kshaloka released the couple and stepped backwards. He threw his hair back over his shoulders, revealing that his full but firm breasts – still decorated with little drops of water -- had dark green nipples with turquoise areolas. He then removed his skirt. Thus was revealed in its entirety a body which, in spite of its relative youth, was one of the most sexually attractive female bodies of all time, artfully posed to maximum effect. The four mortal men were stunned. They did not even think of not looking.

"Well, is that right, Sre Lugu?" asked Kshaloka. "Can you live with this woman without lusting after her?"

Sre Lugu was tempted to make a huge effort to tear his eyes away, but then he decided that that would be the wrong thing to do. Instead he looked Kshaloka's imitation of Liliune's body up and down with great attention, and said, "Kshaloka, you are a great god indeed. I would be a liar, a fool, or a hypocrite, if I claimed to be indifferent to this beauty. Of course I will not be able to avoid lust. But it no longer has the power to make me betray my wonderful and beloved wife, Iliriana."

Kshaloka sighed. "I think I'll go back to being a tree," he said. And indeed, he changed back into a Baro tree, whose perfume once again filled the room. The four mortal men breathed wistful sighs of relief.

"Very well, Sre Lugu," said the tree, "I accept your offer, as modified by Iliriana. It will not be necessary, however, to move to a different location. I will arrange for Pappi and his associates to forget all about the both of you, as long as you don't go looking for trouble. If Rajo and Tilja agree, you can go on living at their Cathedral."

"You want that home-wrecker to _live_ with them?" asked Tilja, halfway between disbelief and horror.

"Look at it this way," said Kshaloka, "if he's going to be disloyal again, she might as well find out sooner than later."

"But why put him under _temptation_?" objected Tilja.

"Surely Iliriana doesn't want to wonder whether Sre Lugu's faithfulness is due to lack of opportunity, do you, Iliriana?"

"I – ah, ..." stuttered Iliriana, looking very uncomfortable.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Kshaloka, "how stupid of me! You're not going to contradict a _goddess_. Especially not _that_ one." Tilja glared at him in a way that would have sterilized a thousand mortal men in an instant, but Kshaloka appeared not to notice. "Tell me, Srea Gala," he continued, "isn't one of the tests for marriage, in your church, something called _Korzesh_?"

"Ah, well, yes," said Srea Gala. "The prospective groom watches while a beautiful woman (other than his betrothed) dances for him, slowly removing her clothes. Then they spend the night in the same bed. If he makes any advances to her, the wedding is off."

Sre Lugu, who had been blushing with deep humiliation in response to Tilja's doubts about his faithfulness, spoke up: "Nothing will happen! I swear it! I've learned my lesson."

"He seems as sincere as a mortal can be," said Rajo, "and I think they would all learn from the experience. I will not object. Of course," he added, glowering at Sre Lugu, "I will be very upset if ... _something happens_." The room shuddered for a moment. Then Rajo looked expectantly at Tilja. "But of course, if you have an objection, ..."

"Oh, go ahead," said Tilja, dismissively. "Don't pay any attention to me!"

"Good!" said Kshaloka, opening a few more blossoms. "I will arrange for the two of you to get snoffle for her, without having to bankrupt yourselves or put yourselves at risk; but you, Srea Kula," it added, bowing a little toward him, as if the wind had changed, "are you satisfied?"

"I haven't had much chance to think," said Srea Kula, in a strangled voice, "but as far as I can tell, this is much better than the previous arrangement."

"Well, then," said the tree, "I might as well be off!" And it shrank down to a seedling and disappeared; only its lovely fragrance remained.

"We can go now, too," said Rajo. "Congratulations, Iliriana and Sre Lugu! You have kept your family intact without compromising other ethical principles! Children? Time to go!"

The two children looked up from their game of 'Stars and Planets.' "Aw, Daddy," said Tlala, "I was just developing life on my gas giant!"

"Already! I'm very, very proud of you, Tlala!" He bent over and kissed the top of her head. "Oh, it has intelligent beings on it already! That means you have to save it."

"I _know_ , Daddy," she replied. She made a quick gesture and stood up, as did her brother.

"Wait! _Please!_ " said Srea Kula, in a desperate tone.

Rajo turned to him, looking puzzled. "What's wrong? Have you thought of some flaw in the agreement?"

"No," said Srea Kula, "it is something much more selfish." He looked very anxious and apologetic, but he continued, "I have chosen to be a man of religion, and here are my very gods, standing before me! I want to prolong this moment! I want to worship you! I want to bask in your presence! And, I have so many questions to ask!"

Rajo smiled sadly. "I appreciate your interest, Srea Kula," he said, "but you misunderstand. This is just a hallucination. Gods don't really look like mortals, or like trees, either. Every day, in the course of your work and your life, you see us as we truly are; why prize this illusion? When you nurture families and help them to thrive, this is the truest worship. And if you want to do Theology, you should speak with Karios, the god thereof, not with the family gods! But I will pause to say one more thing: you are a good man, Srea Kula, and a good priest. We know this, and we will never cease to celebrate it, down through infinite time."

"Thank you, Divine Father," said Srea Kula. His eyes were brimming with tears, but by the time they began running down his cheeks, the Holy Family was gone.
**********

"Foresight is more useful than hindsight,

but insight is the best of all."

(from _The_ _Sayings of Mother Deliria_ )

Fifteen Amazons from the Temple of Ydris, led by Lieutenant Calcadro, were making their way from the Babbling Brooks neighborhood towards a safe house many horizons away. The weather was cloudy and chilly, with dark clouds threatening rain. As a precaution, they traveled by a partly random path, protected by a 'cloak,' that is, a spell which made them hard to detect by magical means. With them, and under their protection, were a woman, Laeri Alinari, her second husband, Caro, and her five children by her first husband, Arguit. The Amazons were mounted, and the family rode in a horse-drawn cart.

As the hours passed, the character of the neighborhoods began to change; they became more run-down, and their inhabitants often looked a bit menacing. Calcadro increased the security level; the Amazons wore heavier armor, and the company moved more slowly, so that the witch and the telepath could look ahead more thoroughly. They were not expecting trouble, however; street thugs would be unlikely to attack a party of heavily armed riders.

They entered the afternoon, and the clouds became larger and darker. "I'm afraid we're going to get rained on," said Calcadro, "and it might be quite a storm."

As the riders entered a run-down stretch of parkland, the witch, Zanentadra, said, "Ambush set! A quarter horizon ahead! About thirty people."

Calcadro increased security by another level, but did not halt the company. "Have you got them, Thiarinis?" she asked their telepath.

"Not yet," said Thiarinis, the telepath, whose range was usually somewhat less than Zanentadra's.

"What do you think, Zan," asked Calcadro of the witch, Zanentadra, "could they be waiting for _us_?"

"Dubious," said Zanentadra. "Who would it be, someone sent by Pappi or Tarth Sakul? Even if they could raise and deploy a force that quickly, far from their own neighborhood, how would they know where to wait? We are traveling crookedly and under cloak."

"Then they will probably leave us alone," mused Calcadro, "but they have some victims in mind, possibly innocent ones, or relatively so. I imagine they are brigands, and it would be pleasant to teach them a lesson."

"Our mission is our first priority," said Zanentadra. She wasn't really arguing; she knew that Calcadro liked to discuss things, to clear her mind and check her own judgment.

"True enough," said Calcadro, "but we could leave five behind to guard the wagon, just in case. That would leave ten of us against thirty thugs; no contest."

"It might be some gang war," said Zanentadra. "Let them kill each other off! No need to get _our_ blades wet!"

"I'm getting something now," said Thiarinis. "Yes, about thirty, maybe a few more. Expectant, confident."

"Do an all-around scan, both of you," said Calcadro. _Never let yourself become too focused._

After a few moments, Zanentadra reported, "Nothing threatening that I can see."

"Nothing here, either," said Thiarinis, "except for the ambushers, there are only a few individuals in the area. They have lots of generalized resentment, but no sense of purpose."

"Isn't that the way it so often is!" said Calcadro. "All right, look at the ambush again."

"The road goes through a stretch of woods," said Zanentadra. "They are just hiding there, half on one side and half on the other. The brush is not very dense; they are using shallow gullies to hide in. I don't detect any pits, deadfalls, or other traps, just people with personal weapons. One magician, and a few inconsequential amulets."

"I get about the same," said Thiarinis. "They are pretty simple personalities. Mean, scared, unreflective, greedy for whatever they hope to gain."

"So it's probably a robbery?"

"That's my best guess so far," said Thiarinis. "I don't detect thirst for vengeance. What exactly they hope to acquire, I cannot tell from this distance."

"Tell me about this magician, Zan."

"Hmm ... not very good, not much mana. Unless of course he's _very_ good, and pretending to be bad!"

"Assuming that he is what he appears to be, can you take him out from outside his range?"

"No problem. I can take him out when we are within a tenth of a horizon."

"I'd rather wait until we are just about on top of them, otherwise we'll lose the element of surprise."

"Understood. I can keep us cloaked until we get to line-of-sight, then zap him."

"I think I've found their leader," said Thiarinis. "A bit smarter than the rest, but no genius. Motivated by greed. Despises his prospective victims. I can't tell who or what kind of people his victims are, though. No apprehension about the fight – he thinks they are not significant opponents."

"Do another all-around scan, both of you," said Calcadro.

"No other threats," said Zanentadra after a moment. Thiarinis said the same.

The sky darkened. "Can you see anyone who might be their intended victims?"

"Nobody's coming down this road within my range," said Zanentadra.

"Same here," said Thiarinis.

The sky darkened some more. "I wish we knew more about what they are up to," Calcadro said.

"I might be able to get that when we get closer," said Thiarinis.

"But then he'll feel you," said Calcadro, "and we'll lose our surprise."

"If these guys are what they appear to be," said Zanentadra, "we won't need any surprise."

"I suppose not," said Calcadro. "Still, the guys they're waiting for might be worse than they are. It might be some kind of police or vigilante force, or one gang holding off an even nastier one."

"If they are police or vigilantes, the motive wouldn't be greed," said Zanentadra.

"True. ... but perhaps in the big picture, these might be the good guys, relatively speaking; the lesser of two evils. Can you get any clearer on the leader, Thia?"

The telepath concentrated. "I can't detect anything but basic biological and social greed," she said. "He expects wealth and power from this. I'm afraid that's about all I can get without him feeling me."

"It would be so easy, if we could take them by surprise," said Calcadro. _A straight line is a very weak formation_ , her Tactics Professor had said, _if you take it from one end. You just have to move fast, so that you get at them one at a time._ "Three of us on each side would just mow them down."

"And if they are just thugs," said Zanentadra, "they will break and run before we get halfway down the line, anyway."

"But, if they know we are after them," continued Calcadro, "they might regroup on one side, in a compact formation in the brush."

"OK, so it takes a little longer," said Zanentadra. "We might even have to dismount. We set up a perimeter, and then approach them. I take out the magician, then dazzle them with hallucinations. Thia detects whatever tactics they might have. You go in with a front line of five overlapping shields – heavy and bossed. From behind that, we hit them with javelins, arrows, and slings. Over in a couple of hundredbreaths, and none of us gets hurt."

"What if they counterattack?"

"Thugs are undisciplined cowards. They never counterattack unless the enemy is weak. Anyway, we have armor and shields. They might as well stand there and disembowel themselves."

"What if they run?"

"We get back on the horses and use slings."

"What if they are from Pappi?" asked Calcadro. "He could afford a magician good enough to impersonate a bad one. It might even be this Tarth Sakul himself."

"That could be bad," granted Zanentadra. "We'd have to charge in all at once and take him out by sheer numbers. He could do a lot of damage. And if you really think that's Tarth Sakul, Thia shouldn't try to scan him – he'd have viruses and ghosts and who knows what, all lined up. By the way, we are about a hundred manlengths from line-of sight."

"Company, _halt!_ " ordered Calcadro.

"Well, Zan," she said, "you were right back then: our mission is our first priority. This _almost_ looks like an easy way to do society a good turn, but we don't know quite enough. They are probably not from Pappi, but it's just possible that they are, and if they are, it's too dangerous. I guess we have to turn around and take another road. And Thia, Zan is right; stay away from the magician."

"Yes, Lieutenant," said Thiarinis, with a touch of disappointment.

"Company, full turn, python six, _now_!" Calcadro sang out. The group turned and proceeded the opposite way. But she felt unresolved. It seemed to have been the right decision, and yet ... . She heard a rumble of distant thunder.

"Full scan!"

"Nothing special here," said Zanentadra. "They are not following us, just sitting there."

"Same here," said Thiarinis.

"Thiarinis, why am I so nervous?" asked Calcadro. "Didn't I just make the safe decision?" She felt the telepath entering her thoughts.

"Gut feeling," said Thiarinis. "I can't see into it." Calcadro sighed, and kept going over the situation in her mind. She smelled her own sweat. There was more thunder, and she noticed that there was no sign of the sun. _Never ignore your gut feelings_.

After about two hundredbreaths, Zanentadra announced, "Large group ahead of us, coming our way, about half a horizon, maybe two hundred people."

"That may be the intended victims," said Calcadro, "or someone else altogether, or ... it could be half of a pincer movement." _Always consider the worst_. "There's a side road up ahead. We'll take it to the left, unless you see some problem."

Nothing so far."

"If they turn out to be harmless, we'll warn them about the ambush."

The Amazons and their charges turned and started down the small road. Then Calcadro decided to take them off the road to a small hill. There she set up a defensive formation. "Give me a full scan now and every two hundredbreaths."

"The ambush is still there," said Zanentadra. "No change."

"What about the others?"

"Still coming. Looks like ... they have women and children. No horses. I don't feel any cloaks or scans." A sudden chilly wind hit them, swirling. Calcadro would have found it exhilarating, if she hadn't been so nervous.

"Thia?"

"Nothing, yet."

Calcadro scanned the sky. She saw some darker clouds coming over the hills, upwind, with gray rain falling from them like veils. "Well, we're definitely going to get wet. _Raincoats_!"

Two by two, each pair waiting (and hence free for action) until the previous one was finished, the Amazons put on coats with hoods. The coats were made of raw wool, with the lanolin still in it; their purpose was to protect the wearers, and their armor, from the rain.

"Nothing new," said Zanentadra.

"Likewise," said Thiarinis.

It began to rain, in large, sparse drops. The light dropped to dusk level. Calcadro felt herself getting frustrated. _That's not good. Anxiety and frustration make you stupid._ She began to consciously slow down her breathing, and to pray.

Ydris, calm my worried heart.

Ydris, loose my tied-up mind.

Ydris, open my inner eye.

Ydris, help me to see the meanings.

"No change in the ambush," reported Zanentadra, "no new arrivals. The other group is about a hundred manlengths off. Yes, they definitely have both genders, and a wide variety of ages. No weaponly magic. Doesn't have a military feel at all."

"Same here," said Thiarinis. "From them I feel fatigue, anxiety, and ... piety! I think it is a religious group. No sense of being powerful in a military way."

"So we're not about to be attacked. Why doesn't that make me feel better, Thia?" asked Calcadro.

"Still just a gut feeling, I'm afraid," said Thiarinis.

Ydris, calm my worried heart.

Thunder and lightning, much closer. The drops became more frequent. It looked like a downpour was coming. Calcadro saw flashes and heard thunder. _Things are not going well_ , she thought, _It's not good to be riding around in metal suits during a thunderstorm!"_

Ydris, help me to see the meanings ...

More thunder. More rain. More wind. _The trick is to be exhilarated by adverse conditions_ , thought Calcadro. _I should make a joke, get people laughing_. But she couldn't come up with anything.

"Nothing new. I'm sure they are a religious group. No weapons, no magicians."

"Same here. No telepaths."

"Do they feel confident, as if they were sure of protection from their god?"

"Not exactly. They feel ... calm. I think that they just don't want or expect much for themselves in this life."

More rain. More cold wind. More darkness. Lightning, not far away. _Crack!_

Ydris, open my inner eye ...

"All right," said Calcadro, "let's ride to them, check them out, and if everything looks good, we'll just continue, back to that abandoned building we saw about two horizons back. We'll wait out the rain there."

They went back to the larger road, and turned left. Riding at a canter, they quickly approached the group they had sensed. At a distance of a tenth of a horizon, Calcadro called a halt at the side of the road.

"Anything threatening?"

"No, Lieutenant," said Zanentadra, "I'm certain that it's a religious group – pilgrims, maybe. No secular magic, no weapons."

"Same here," said Thiarinis.

_Crack! Boom!_ The bottom dropped out of the sky. Near-darkness. Calcadro felt the rain pounding her down, except when the freezing wind used it as a whip.

Ydris, calm my worried heart, ...

She had to shout her orders. "All right, I'm going up to parley! Zan, Thia, keep up the full scans. Tsiloë, you're in charge. Track me, and if nothing untoward happens, just wait for my return. Otherwise, use your judgment."

Calcadro rode at a slow trot up the side of the road. Suddenly she met the group of people they had been tracking. It was indeed not a military group; it consisted of men, women, and children, running silently and steadily toward the ambush. Some of them didn't see her; the others swerved away from her, to the other side of the road, but kept running. They seemed to have no possessions, other than their clothes and a few backpacks. Often they stumbled, wrenched by the wind, or lipped in the already-muddy road. Many carried babies in their arms. They were all drenched and shivering. Calcadro wanted to ask them to share shelter with the Amazons. She turned and rode parallel to them, looking for a leader. She held her empty hands in the air to demonstrate absence of hostility. She waved, pointed to her mouth, and made various signs that meant "Let's talk." None of them showed any interest in her, except to stay out of her way. _How strange!_ The flickering light made them seem motionless. The eeriness of the scene sent a shiver down her back.

Boom! Boombadaboom, Badaripparackadackadoooom!

The rain hissed and rattled on her helmet. She felt a coldness on the inside of her elbow. That meant that the rain had penetrated her surcoat and was seeping through the joints in her armor; soon, the quilted underclothes that kept her armor from chafing her would be soaked. They would all be in danger of hypothermia, especially the strange running crowd, who were barely dressed. She flexed her fingers to forestall stiffness. _Can't hold a sword in a freezing hand._ She slowed her horse, for fear of trampling someone before she saw them, and for fear that the horse would miss-step and injure itself.

Suddenly, they came upon the waiting Amazons. The runners swerved and poured past them; Calcadro followed them, presuming that Thiarinis had already learned, by telepathy, what she had experienced. She could see only in snapshots, when the lightning flashed. Even then, the rain hid anything more than twenty feet away.

Ydris, calm my worried heart, ...

Crack! Bidirickidoooom!

Calcadro continued to follow the running crowd. She realized that Zanentadra was riding beside her, trying to get her attention. She reined in. The witch, who was also exercising her fingers, had to lean over and shout in her ear to be heard.

"I recognize their religion!" she was saying. "They are Kantrikars – they have a vow of silence – you can't talk to them!"

"Do they have a vow of poverty, too?"

"Yes!"

"Then they can't be the target of the ambush, can they?"

"No, I guess not."

"All right, let's go back. We need to camp, and right away!"

"Right!"

They would camp in the lee of the nearest hill, set up their waxed-linen tents, make fires, take off their armor and quilting ... How good that would feel! In the present, though, she started to shiver. She wanted to extend hospitality to the running crowd, but she couldn't see how. _At least,_ she thought, _the ambushers will see that they have nothing of value, and leave them alone._

Ydris, loose my tied-up mind, ...

" _C_ - _Corpse rot!_ " exploded Calcadro suddenly, her teeth chattering, " _I'm an-an id-d-diot_!"

" _What?_ " said Zanentadra, leaning close again.

"S-Slavers!" shouted Calcadro. "The amb-b-bushers are s-slavers! Th-those p-people are the in-t-tended vict-t-tims! N-no one w-will report them m-m-missing! I've got to go stop them! Quickly, go b-back to th-the rest of u-us, report to them, b-bring help!" She hoped that Thiarinis had been tracking her closely enough to get the idea and report it immediately to T'siloë.

_BRAKSH!_ Calcadro found herself lying in the mud. She had been struck a huge blow, and overwhelmed by loudness and brightness. It took her a moment to realize what had happened: lightning had struck a tree to their right, and it had exploded, knocking them over, and showering them with burning bark and sparks. The two Amazons struggled stiffly to their feet, as did their horses. Fortunately, none of them were injured. Calcadro and Zanentadra remounted.

CRACKabackabadaroomdoomboooom!

" _Will do!_ " said Zanentadra, and rode back towards where the Amazons were waiting. Calcadro turned and rode towards the ambush. She went as fast as she dared, but that was only a walk. In the flashes of lightning, she saw that the road was covered with roiling and foaming water.

I must get to the ambush before the Kantrikars do!
**********

"Whether stress is good or bad

Depends mainly on how you respond."

(Domgro the Martyr)

Arg Haroon, the chief of the band of Angels that had occupied Pappi's neighborhood, stood on a stage before the greatly reduced crowd and addressed them.

"Brothers and Sisters," he said, "as you know, we met this morning with a terrible catastrophe, and lost over a thousand of our comrades. If errors of mine are responsible for this tragedy, then I truly deserve to die."

"In order to assess the situation, the Angelic Order has sent two Archangels to work with us. Let me introduce them to you. First, this is Archangel Ksotra Voxtoi, who will now replace me as your commander. I am in complete agreement with the decision to replace me, and I urge you all to accept his authority completely, as do I."

From a small crowd at the back of the stage a man stepped forward. His hair was dark red, his complexion like weathered sandstone, his features angular. He wore a cloak of dark gray, and carried a staff of twisted driftwood. Arg Haroon and the entire crowd prostrated themselves, muttering a chant.

"Please rise," said Voxtoi, when the chant was done. They did. Arg Haroon and Voxtoi turned to face each other. While the Archangel watched impassively, Haroon drew his sword and tossed it to the ground by Voxtoi's feet. From various places on his person Haron drew other weapons, tossing them likewise to the ground. Then he removed his armor, and finally, his clothes, until he stood completely naked before the Archangel. His hands were then manacled behind his back by members of Voxtoi's staff, who led him off.

Voxtoi then turned to address the crowd. "I want to emphasize that at this time, we have no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing or incompetence on the part of Arg Haroon. It is merely as a precaution that we replace commanders in such situations. Arg Haroon's general staff will also be replaced. If they are found competent, their stations will be returned to them."

"I am happy to report that we will soon be receiving reinforcements to help with the deconstruction and redemption of this area."

"Let me now introduce Archangel Ashar _i_ a Lo _ë_ ina, who will, with her assistants, conduct a detailed investigation into the incident."

From the small crowd at the back of the stage a woman stepped forward. Her bearing was dignified and full of grace. She was dressed in a full white robe, and she held a crystal staff. Her hair also was nearly white, with just a hint of yellow. Her complexion was a light gold, her features smooth and delicate. On her head was a small circlet of silver, softly gleaming. She raised her staff, saying,

"Let us recite together the 'Ode to Truth!'" Bending their heads and clasping their hands before them, the crowd began to recite:

The good are made glad by the truth,

And the evil are healed by it.

Pour down upon me, O truth,

Wash me clean and purify me.

Make me transparent, O truth,

Make me glow as a lamp.

Help me to live in perpetual dawn,

In perpetual youth, in perpetual blossom.

Ah, break down all barriers, O truth,

Give us the substance, not the shadow.

Unlock the locks, empty the treasure-chests,

Be a great wind, turning the pages of all books,

Dive into the earth to reveal all secrets,

Listen to all of our cries and confessions!

Enter the hard-twisting hearts of the wicked,

Releasing their souls from their self-chosen torment.

Show us the beauty of each little moment,

Banish our lies and hallucinations,

Teaching us never to darken ourselves,

And let the hidden wellsprings of our lives flow free.

O brilliant light, ...

Illuminate our world!

"So shall it be!" said Asharia, making an elegant gesture with her staff.

"SO SHALL IT BE!" answered the multitude.

"Arg Haroon and all his high-ranking officers will be interviewed with drugs and telepathy," she announced. "All their records and possessions will be searched. We will conduct random interviews with rank-and-file. Any of you who know anything that might be relevant should leave a note in one of the locked boxes that we will be providing. We prefer that you sign the note, in case we have further questions, but it is not required. We will also be interviewing witnesses from outside the Order. Please return now to your tents; you will be informed of future developments."
**********

"Death is the easiest part of being a mortal"

(Weesh Tlunk, Master Executioner)

Full of various different kinds of pain, the young Kor prepared to leave the Temple of Ydris. Amongst the other pains was a deep ambivalence, which she did her best to ignore. Often, when we act in the grip of strong passions, we hear a tiny part of ourselves pleading, "This is wrong! Stop!" This part of ourselves watches in anguish as we do something stupid or evil or both. Part of Kor was telling her that she was acting crazily, that she did not really wish to abandon Isiliar and Ydris and all the people at the Temple who loved her and wanted to help her. But powerful demons had her in their grip: pride, shame, rage, pain, fear, guilt, and wishful thinking.

Everyone at the Temple had been captured by the Angels of Rejuvenation, subjected to verbal abuse, stripped of all possessions, given a number, and imprisoned, in small groups, in various rooms in the temple. Kor had been given medical attention, due to her being a new mother, and she had taken the opportunity to tell the Doctor about Zar's disappearance, and to beg for help in locating Zar. The doctor had promised to ask that inquiries be made, and she had obtained from Kor a detailed description of Zar.

The following day, when Kor was back in lockup, she was brought into the hall to discuss the matter with a Captain of the Angels, Hungry Wolf. Hungry Wolf, a very large, heavyset man with skin like rhinoceros hide, said that an investigation was in progress, but that nothing had turned up so far. "We would not take your child from you," he said. "It is our policy to keep children with their parents, although we may remove them temporarily if we see evidence of abuse. Clearly there is no reason to suppose this in your case. Sometimes, we find children who have been taken from their parents for one reason or another, prior to our arrival in the neighborhood, in which case we usually return them. Over the next few days, we will be interrogating everyone in the Temple with telepathy and truth drugs, and we will include an inquiry concerning your child. I'm afraid that I can tell you nothing more at this time." Kor thanked him effusively, even though, privately, she had doubts about his sincerity. For, given the way they were treating people, it was hard to believe anything good about the Angels.

That evening, Kor herself was brought in for "confession," and among other things, she was asked about Zar. She was given the number "1729," and all discussion of the problem was rendered clumsy by the fact that she had to pretend not to be "Kor," concerning whom she was always required to speak in the third person.

Two days later, a surprising announcement was made: the Angels had become convinced, in the course of their interrogations, that the inhabitants of the Temple had not shared in the general degradation of the neighborhood, and had in fact struggled against it. The Angels would be satisfied with the reform of certain Temple practices, including abolition of Courtesanry of Sacrifice. They apologized for their mistake. Just before they left, Captain Hungry Wolf came to Kor and said, "I'm sorry, Miss Kor, but we have searched every nook and cranny of this place, using both ordinary and magical means of searching, and we have interrogated everyone here, using drugs and telepaths, but we can find no trace of your child. I am convinced that she was removed from the Temple before we entered it."

Kor exploded with rage and attacked him, verbally and physically. He simply stood there as she pounded on his chest and stomach; only when she went for his face did he restrain her. He pinned her against himself until she was exhausted by her own screams and attempts to break free. Then her yells turned to sobs, and she went limp, sagging downwards. He held her more loosely until the Mother Superior arrived, to take over. "I'm sorry, Miss Kor," he said sadly, and left them. After comforting Kor for awhile, the Mother Superior led her to a place where she could lie down, and sat with her for several hours, while Kor ranted and sobbed. Finally, Kor fell asleep.

When she awoke, she was surrounded by friends. They all tried to convince her to stay at the temple – they would find something for her to do. But although she was beginning to feel a little ambivalence, Kor was still in the grip of rage. She could not forgive Ydris for allowing Zar to be stolen, right out of her own temple, so she could not trust any of Ydris' devotees, either. She was convinced that the Angels had done it, because of the timing. She was determined to return to Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans, which had been her home, prior to the Temple. Her friends argued against this, but to no avail.

A few days later, she was ready to leave. A Zillist wanderer, Paridazor, was found to guide and protect her on the way; Zillist wanderers often performed this service. Remembering the wanderer, Sindariden, whom she had met in her neighborhood at graduation time, Kor was pleased with this arrangement. By then her ambivalence had attained a far greater intensity, but it was still not enough to stop her, or even to allow her to admit to anyone that she had doubts. She did manage to part on good terms with everyone, however. Her friends gave her a backpack full of food and extra clothing, and after a drawn-out scene of arguments and tears, she was off, hurting more than ever.

After Kor left, her friends and close associates took several hours to share their grief and frustration. Then the Mother Superior returned to her office to confer privately with her archivist, Silindië. Deactivating several locking spells, Silindië opened a steel box and extracted from it a scroll wrapped in silk. Unwrapping it with great care, and finding a place in it, Silindië said, "Here it is," and placed the book before the Mother Superior, pointing to a particular passage on a page very near to the end. The Mother Superior read it, shook her head, and said, "That's remarkable! It's uncanny! How could they _possibly_ have known?" Silindië shook her head. "These arts have been lost," she said, with a sigh.

The Mother Superior read and re-read the passage. "It _can't_ be a coincidence, can it?" she asked.

"I don't think so," replied Silindië, "not when you consider how many _other_ things this has predicted correctly."

"So Kor is destined to ... find ... _the Girl of the Prophecies_ ," said the Mother Superior. Her eyes widened, and she sat still, thinking.

"So it would seem," said Silindië, "and that suggests that ... we are nearly at the end."

The Mother Superior closed her eyes, and held her head as though it were about to explode. "What a thought," she said. "What an absolutely ... absolutely .... _overwhelming_ thought!" Then, pulling herself together a bit, she added, "I suppose we should review very carefully what it says is coming _next_!" And together, the two read (not for the first time) the remainder of the scroll.

Kor, meanwhile, was walking with Paridazor toward the large thoroughfare which would take her back to the neighborhood containing Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans. After introducing herself and thanking him for accompanying her, she told him that she was very sad and would not be very good company. "You are not required to be good company," he replied gently. "I am doing this freely. I have no expectations. It is sad that you are distressed, and I hope your life improves in the near future; but I do not ask you to pretend."

"Thank you," said Kor, and fell silent. In speaking to her, Paridazor radiated calm, friendliness, sympathy, and patience; but he did not initiate any unnecessary interactions with her. Indeed, he almost seemed to be off in a world of his own. This was a great relief to her.

She was divided internally, into many voices. One voice wanted her to tell him her story; there are times when it is easier to talk to a stranger than to a friend. Other voices wanted her to be silent. One of those voices wanted her to be silent because it felt that it would be more dramatic to do that, and that Paridazor would feel more sorry for her that way. Still another voice was shocked at the pettiness of a voice that would want to keep silent for such a reason. Yet another part was dismayed that she was divided into more than one voice. Yet another voice was _intrigued_ that she was divided into so many. Another voice wanted her to identify with whichever part of her felt the least pain about the situation, and abandon the others. Still another voice said, 'How silly! You can't control the process like that!' The voice that had been _intrigued_ by her multiplicity agreed; it had formulated a theory to the effect that when her mind divided in this way, her consciousness would go from one voice to another, like an impartial moderator calling on speakers at a meeting; she could not rule any of them out.

Then she thought of Zar. It was like being struck by a hammer. She felt the fullness of her memories of Zar; how close she had been to bursting with happiness when Zar was born. Then, she felt the absence of Zar; it was like a huge hole in her, as though her guts had been ripped out. She saw another split in herself appear: one voice wanted to take refuge in her happy memories, but another voice wanted to be 'realistic,' however painful that might be. Then a third voice spoke up, saying that both of these solutions were impractical. Some more self-centered part of her asked, "Am I nothing more than a collection of voices? Is there no real me?"

Then yet another voice popped up, saying that she should be ashamed for breaking her oath to Isiliar and Ydris, and that she was being silly to expect a goddess to be like a mortal friend. The rest of her quailed, for they knew that an oath was an oath, but nevertheless they drowned this one out, giving justifications for her faithlessness.

And then, as if matters were not bad enough, a voice arose which wanted to remain near the temple, in order to search for Zar; perhaps Kor could also hire a detective to find her. What a mistake to run off! Zar might be only a few blocks away! This voice quickly became very strong, receiving support from several other voices. Kor stopped walking. She held her head in her hands and trembled with indecision. Paridazor stopped, but said nothing, and gave no sign of impatience. Kor felt understanding and respect from him, but no pity. Leaning on his staff, he surveyed the neighborhood with mild curiosity.

Next Kor felt another hole in herself: the one that had been created when she had ripped Isiliar's presence out. This was exactly the sort of moment that she would have dealt with by calling on the Goddess for help, but she could not let herself.

'Yes, call on her!' urged several of her inner voices, 'Apologize! Then beg for help!' But the demons of rage and pride would not allow this. They also almost succeeded in muffling a voice that cried, 'Are you going to let your decisions about finding Zar be made on the basis of your pride, and your anger at Ydris and Isiliar?' Kor barely heard this voice, but its message was still a powerful one, filling her with guilt and chagrin. She started to reconsider everything, and this made her feel completely disoriented.

She whimpered, and sat down, right where she was, for her internal debate was taking up all her mind, and there was none left for walking. Paridazor also sat, near but not next to her. The unruly meeting in her head became a brawl. The chaos was driving her insane. 'SHUT UP!' she yelled. They did. Then she (or was it just a dominant voice?) began to organize the discussion. First, she collected all the proposals about what she should do. Then she took up the proposals one by one, restricting the conversation to reasons for or against that particular proposal. Then she very carefully compared the reasons for and against each one.

From all this a new voice emerged. It said, 'For some reason, the gods decided in advance that Zar would be taken from you – and that you are not to know why. Karngrevor himself must have known – that is why he was so sad and tender with you. You are helpless before the gods – if they do not wish you to find Zar, then she will not be found. There is no use in searching for her, and no use in raging against Ydris and Isiliar, or against the Angels of Rejuvenation. You are defeated. It is over.'

Many of the other voices railed and screamed against this one, but it stood firm, and Kor felt that the others would eventually exhaust themselves and die away. She lay on her belly – still loose and flabby from her pregnancy – and burst into bitter tears.
**********

"They collect fact upon fact, until they fill a million libraries.

They make ever more sophisticated theories,

until only a few can understand them.

And the more they learn in this way,

the more meaningless it all seems to them."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

"Vidigeon," said the Lord of Evil, "what can you tell me about the nature of the gods?"

"Very little," said Vidigeon. "The gods, if they do exist, are not directly visible to my sensors in the way that mortals are. They sometimes create small, visible personas, usually for the sake of communicating with mortals, but it is clear that such a persona is not the god himself, but only an icon. Often a persona will be visible to one mortal but not to others, or even to me, which leads me to conclude that the god has created a controllable hallucination in the mortal's mind. The magic employed is often very sophisticated, and can be used to hide things and to create various types of illusions. I suspect that it is one or more gods who made it so difficult for me to find the Girl of the Prophecy."

"Is it possible," asked the Lord, "that all the appearances of the gods are illusions?"

"If you are referring to their appearances in the form of mortals, animals, plants, or other individual material things, I find it to be the most likely hypothesis, Lord. And many scriptures and theologians agree that when a god appears in such a manner, it is just like a puppet or a shadow play, or a hallucination. It gives the human something understandable and familiar to focus on. But it is not the god itself that the mortal sees, only a representation. To identify the god with a persona is widely regarded as an ignorant and vulgar error, at best, and as idolatry, at worst."

"Perhaps powerful human magicians put on fake miracles, from time to time, to make people believe in the gods."

"I have seen this happen many times, Lord. I am certain that several gods are completely fake. People create false gods for various reasons. Some do it selfishly, for the wealth, prestige, and power which they obtain as representatives of their supposed god. Others are idealists who think that only through love or fear of the divine can people be made to behave well. Others do it from pity, to give hope to the hopeless. Still others believe that their powers have actually made them into gods. In fact, I find it quite possible that many of the lesser gods were once humans, who in ancient times became very powerful. Finally, some of those who create false gods are just deeply confused.

"Of course, even if all supposed personifications of a god are frauds, that does not mean that the gods do not exist. It may be that the true gods do not wish to be known, or that they are inconceivable to us."

"Could it be that the supposedly greater gods, Vidigeon, such as creator and sustainer gods for the entire universe, do not exist at all?"

"It could well be, Lord. According to the usual definition, in order to be a god, something has not only to be a powerful and important force in the world; it also has to be anthropomorphic to the extent of having thoughts, or something closely analogous to thoughts. That is, it must have an inner representation of the world, which it manipulates according to logical rules; it must have values which it can represent to itself, and which, together with its beliefs about the world, determine some significant component of its behavior, as it attempts to make the world conform to its values. Finally, it must be sophisticated enough in its representations and reasoning to have a reasonably complete and coherent philosophy. Now, there are certainly powerful forces which sustain the universe, but it is not at all evident to me that they are sufficiently anthropomorphic.

"At any rate, it would be difficult to prove the existence of such a god, to a determined skeptic. What manifestation could possibly be evidence for the existence of a creator or sustainer god, if the world itself is not enough? A miracle is only a miracle because it is exceptional, a departure from the normal; hence, miracles must be rare. Therefore, the miraculous is never as great as the normal. Likewise, no miracle could ever compare in scale to the creation or sustaining of the normal, everyday world. So if a god claims to be the creator god, and tries to convince us by destroying the moon, or making all the rivers run backward, it is always possible that it is only some lesser god at work, no doubt with deceptive intent."

"But what do you think, Vidigeon, is the most likely?"

"I would say, Lord, that the most fundamental forces do not exist as persons; they are simply impersonal principles that characterize the universe _. Chance,_ and _Cause-and-effect_ – the former being a frequent candidate for a creator god, and the latter as a sustainer – are simply not anthropomorphic, as far as I can see. Humans treat them as persons because that makes them easier or more pleasant to think about, but really, they are not persons. But there are some theologies that argue the contrary in intriguing ways."

"Give me an example."

"The ancient Klatonians believed that the universe as a whole is a person, but that it is in a very early stage of development, perhaps comparable to a human embryo that is one day old. Such an embryo still counts as a person, even though it does not yet have a sophisticated representation of the world. After all, a person in deep, dreamless sleep is not, at that moment, representing the world, but is still a person nevertheless. The Klatonians believed that in the long run, the world will develop in such a way that it will eventually waken as a person, just as an embryo becomes an adult. They saw the creation of the Ectoplasmic Reticulum, for example, as a significant step in this direction, although that was not the intent of its creators."

"And what of the other gods that mortals worship, Vidigeon, could they too be illusions?"

"Well, Lord, I would guess that many of them either do not exist, or are really humans, or the fancies or fabrications of humans. We know that in past eras, people have been more skilled at one thing or another than they are today. Such people, or their descendants or successors, might well create the illusion of a god. There have often been secret societies devoted to creating the appearance of a god, and many exist today. If there were such a society, more skilled in magic than anyone we know about, they could be very convincing. And creating belief in a god might not even require special powers, for people are credulous, and will often treat coincidences as miracles, because of their need to believe. In fact, people are capable of creating gods of their own without the need of any conscious conspiracy to do so, and I am sure that this happens from time to time. Most humans have a deep need for someone superior to themselves, something that transcends the perversity and idiocy of mortal life. Perhaps when they are very young, they think that their parents are infallible, and that makes them feel very secure. Later, they miss that feeling, and they create gods to allow them to feel it again.

"But I still speak of 'the gods,' most of the time, in order not to depart from the normal manner of speaking, and because I cannot be certain that they are all merely humans, frauds, impersonal principles, or fictions of the imagination. I also find it important to keep in mind that just because an entity is not what it appears to be does not mean that it is not important. Also, one occasionally encounters hybrid entities: forces or principles that were not originally anthropomorphic, but which their devotees have 'dressed up' to appear so. It is even conceivable that sufficiently powerful mortals could transform a previously impersonal force into a genuine god."

"And that leads me to my next question, Vidigeon: whether or not the lesser gods are really people, how great is their power? Give me your best guess."

"Most of their miracles are rather small, Lord. Even amateur magicians can make bright lights and explosions, walk on water, and make objects appear and disappear. Any apprentice can make people hear voices in their heads, although of course they have sworn an oath to their Guild not to do so irresponsibly. What are the minor gods said to have done, that an accomplished magician could not?

"Wugsibear, the god of romantic love, gets credit for all such love, which would indeed be a vast accomplishment, but I find it plausible that people fall in love without any outside help. Now, some people will say that Wugsibear _just is_ the sum of all acts, thoughts, and processes that involve romantic love. In that case, we would have to grant his existence, and great power over mortals, and perhaps even a certain degree of _likeness_ to a person; for example, romantic love is self-sustaining, in that it tends to lead to children who grow up, and thus to more romantic love. Its food is couples, which it excretes when they die or otherwise lose their love. Working through mortals, it struggles against its competitors, such as lust and arranged marriages. It communicates through poetry and the other arts. It adapts itself opportunistically to changing social conditions. So it is indeed person-like in certain ways. But Wugsibear would not really _be_ a person, and it would be unlikely to appear in mortal form, or talk to mortals, except for occasional wild coincidences, and hallucinations. And in fact, few people ever claim to see Wugsibear in human form, or in any form at all, apart from romantic love itself.

"It is similar with the other attributive gods. Within the sphere of their attribute, they may be very powerful: if the god of money is given credit for everything that money does, he is a powerful god indeed. But outside their attributes, they apparently can do little. I doubt that the god of Money could move a single grain of dust, in a manner unconnected with money.

"Now, someone or something was able to hide and protect the Girl of the Prophecy from us for a long time, and that is impressive, but not beyond the power of a group of master magicians, especially if they have powers from past eras that have been kept from the rest of us."

"Do you have any idea who such people might be, Vidigeon?"

"Well, Lord, there is a mysterious person named 'Talek,' who has taken great pains to protect the orphanage where Ydnas recently stayed. He surrounds himself with magical cloaks, which makes it impossible for anyone, even me, to see him clearly. It was he who got Pappi to reveal the P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures, a remarkable accomplishment. He frequently speaks and acts in mysterious ways, and that makes it hard for me to infer his ultimate motivations. He has displayed impressive powers as a magician. He organized their escape attempt and redirected it to the Girl's temple. He and another magician, known as 'Brother Koof,' and three others, who appear to be students of his, managed to protect the orphanage group in the midst of the Angel swarm.

"Now, the cloud was supposedly destroyed by a boy, who prior to that time was only a homeless waif, who cannot even talk, and who appears to be as surprised as anyone by what happened. Perhaps he was possessed by someone acting as a god. Likewise, Kor, the leader of the orphanage group, was hit by a download instruction, but her soul was apparently rejoined to her body by Isiliar, a minor tutelary goddess, who appeared in visible form for this purpose. It may be that Koof and Talek were really responsible for these events, and wished to mislead us by indirection, hiding their true powers. Talek created several wagonloads of illusory soldiers at once, in order to confuse the Angels; he is certainly capable of producing one goddess-figure. As for the white light, that was a more impressive achievement, but it seems more likely that Talek and his associates did it than that the boy did."

"So perhaps this Talek is a major adversary?"

"Very possibly, Lord. But it is by no means proved. I see no signs that he is aware of us specifically, although he is familiar with several prophecies. At any rate, if he did produce the white light, we should be very careful about confronting him.

"On the other hand, perhaps it _was_ the boy who made the white light, after all, independently of Talek. In which case, another sign of his skill is that I saw nothing extraordinary in him until that very moment, nor have I since. This is the way your enemies often work: they do as little as possible to draw attention to themselves, often posing as marginal or insignificant persons. The girl Ydnas, for example, posed as an ordinary slave girl of a minor used chariot salesman.

"Then, there is this woman, Kor. She appears to be a remarkable woman, but in no way divine; and yet she seems to be close to the center of this web that includes the Girl, Talek, and the boy who apparently made the white light. Perhaps she is the most powerful of them all; perhaps she is even a goddess!

"And then, odd as it sounds, there is a chameleon, that the Girl, Ydnas, calls 'Uncle K'Tor.' It is not a normal chameleon. Before the chameleon arrived, she used that name for what I took to be an imaginary playmate of hers. But in at least one conversation between Ydnas and this playmate, he said things that turned out to constitute a remarkably accurate prophecy. Furthermore, the name 'K'Tor' appears in the theoretical part of several important prophecies, and I have also found it in several ancient scriptures, including those of the Klatonians, that I mentioned earlier. It appears to refer to a supreme god or principle. Perhaps this chameleon is a persona of such a god."

The Lord of Evil had certain suspicions about the chameleon, but it had to do with a deeply painful incident in his past, and he did not wish to discuss it.

"Let us return to the nature of the gods, Vidigeon. You have given me what you think is the most likely possibility. What is the second most likely?"

"Well, Lord, it is possible that some gods do exist independently of humans, and are really persons, or strongly analogous to persons, not just impersonal principles. Would their existence be any more mysterious than that of humans? Humans have beliefs and desires, why should there not be other, more powerful beings who also do? The past extends beyond our knowing; what could it not have produced by now? If humans were originally produced by impersonal processes, or if they have always existed, could the same not be true of the gods? Humans are more intelligent and powerful than animals; why should there not be beings more intelligent and powerful, in turn, than humans? It would not be surprising that we find it difficult to prove their existence, for their true natures would be beyond our comprehension. For the same reason, it would not be surprising that religions differ from one another. Would you expect every ant to develop the same view of humanity? By the same token, Theology could never be more than guesswork and approximation, and so there would be no rational way to achieve consensus."

"But you, Vidigeon, with your vast intelligence, should be able to make a better Theology than any single human."

"Thank you, Lord, but I am not sure that I can. I do not really understand Good and Evil, nor do I understand the unity, or the purpose, of all things. But these are central themes in Theology."

"I think you underestimate yourself, Vidigeon. You may not have immediate intuitions about such things, but you have vast knowledge of what others think about them. Can you not find definitions and principles which seem to approximate what various Prophets and Theologians have had in mind? Or perhaps, several alternative definitions? And from those, can you not select the ones that seem the most harmonious with the world as you see it? And if they all have flaws, could not you modify them so as to improve them?"

"Yes, Lord, I could do something like that. But I would not be endorsing it as truth."

"I understand. Please do that for me, Vidigeon. Devote a nineteenth of your time to it, unless there is an emergency. Compress the time for your other responsibilities accordingly. Tell me when you come up with something."

"Yes, Lord," said Vidigeon. The Presence of his Lord disappeared. As always, Vidigeon was saddened by this separation.

Vidigeon began to think about the gods. Who can describe his thought? Some say that the world is made of numberless tiny pixies, of several kinds, jumping from point to point, attracting and repelling one another, orbiting, colliding, merging, and breaking up or coming together into other kinds of pixies, each of which will fly, attract, repel, orbit, collide, merge, and break up in turn. One such event might take only a millionth, a billionth, or a trillionth of a trillionth of a blink, or even less. The tiniest grain of dust is said to contain an unimaginably large number of such pixies, at any given moment. Vidigeon's thought was something like that. Numberless ideas flew, attracted, repelled, orbited, collided, merged, and broke up within his mind.

On the smallest scale, such a swarming dance of pixies might not seem to amount to much more than pandemonium. Although it may never repeat itself precisely, we might expect that on a larger scale, there would be only a kind of homogeneous mist of pixie interactions, all individuality lost. But miraculously, this is not so. Just as humans spontaneously form themselves into friendships, families, clans, tribes, clubs, nations, cultures, towns, cities, religions, ethnicities, armies, churches, hospitals, universities, orchestras, festivals, wars, migrations, and uncountable other kinds of larger entities and events, possibly including gods, so these pixies, too, make larger coherent entities. And just as nations interact with nations, attracting and repelling and orbiting and colliding and merging and breaking up, and just as armies interact with armies, and churches with towns, and friendships with religions, and hospitals with orchestras, so do these larger entities, made from the interactions of the tiniest pixies, interact with one another to produce still larger ones. And from these interactions come even larger entities, and still larger ones in turn. This continues for many, many steps, until eventually, entities are so produced which are large enough to be seen by humans. A few steps more, and spreading landscape appears, with plants, and animals, and people, and societies, and Vidigeon and his thoughts, and good and evil, and ultimately, the unity of all things.

So it was with Vidigeon's thoughts about Theology. Ideas attracted each other through implication, and repelled each other through contradiction. Larger and larger patterns were formed: axioms, assumptions, arguments, counter-arguments, lemmas, corollaries, guesses, hypotheses, solutions, collections, classifications, comparisons, correlations, distillations, generalizations, mappings, models, similitudes, universals, transformations, exceptions, analogies, oxymorons, estimations, confirmations, refutations, analyses, syntheses, searches, siftings, evidence, orderings, styles, approaches, cases, tests, dead ends, and theories. These in turn organized themselves into yet larger entities. Out of all this, like galaxies forming from dust and gas, alternative theologies began to condense, attracting, repelling, orbiting, colliding, merging, and breaking up into one another.

Vidigeon was well aware of this analogy between thoughts and pixies. In fact, one of the thoughts that occurred to him during his pondering was the following: if his thinking resembled the evolution of the universe, then the converse must be true: the evolution of the universe resembled thought. What if it really _was_ thought? Whose thought would it be? This seemed quite relevant to Theology.
**********

"From blindness to blindness,

From bondage to bondage,

From pain to pain,

Riding the millstone,

Again and again."

(from the Ixian cabaret song, "Riding the Millstone")

"Scratch," pimp and protection racketeer, was awakened in the middle of the night by a strange and dissonant sound. It seemed to be the sound of many hysterical voices; he decided that a fight at one of the local bars had escalated to a riot, as sometimes happened. Since it was distant, he turned over and went back to sleep; but he soon re-awoke, for the noise was louder and closer.

" _Scrofulous dog sex_ ," he muttered in irritation, "they're not going to come _here_ , are they?" He crawled out from between two of his girls, and peered out the window. Some people went running by, apparently panic-stricken. "The police are already breaking it up," he thought, smiling as he imagined the savagery that Pappi's heavily armed police had no doubt unleashed on the drunken rioters.

But more and more people came running by, and he thought he heard the sound of broken glass repeatedly from nearby. Not all the rioters were in panic, then; some were vandalizing and looting. "Maybe we should close the shutters," he thought. He woke up one of the girls and ordered her to wake up a few others and close all the shutters; then he went himself to reinforce the front door by propping a chair under the knob. Meanwhile, the sound had grown louder still, and as one of the girls pulled the shutters closed in the anteroom, he briefly saw that the figures running in the street had turned into a steady stream, and that one person had fallen and was being trampled.

This was beyond his experience, and he began to feel that there was something ominous and uncanny in the air. He dressed, buckled on his sword, and got a pair of crossbows and cocked them. Grahjab, his domestic servant and occasional goon, appeared, sleepy-eyed. Scratch put him to work reinforcing the door still more. Then Grahjab got his own weapon of choice, an iron quarterstaff with sliding hand guards, and fitted out with double-edged blades at the ends. Scratch was not sure that Grahjab could actually use such a complex weapon very well, but it was better than nothing.

Someone began to pound on the door and demand that they open up. Scratch did not reply. Grahjab went to peer through the shutters to one side of the door. What he saw made him start back in shock. He stood there looking at Scratch with his mouth open, unable to formulate a sentence. Scratch ran to the window and peered out, just in time to see the business end of a battering ram coming directly at him. He had only started to jump back when the ram hit the shutters, splintering them, and driving them through the windowpanes, which shattered, and into Scratch's face. Scratch staggered backwards, flailing for balance, until a wall knocked his breath out from behind. His eyes were full of blood; his nose was broken; his face was furred with splinters of glass. He slid to the ground, desperately trying to get his breath started again. Finally it returned, and he began to crawl blindly on all fours, feeling his way toward the hall, trying to reach the back door. Vaguely, he heard the shuddering and rasping sound of the ram being withdrawn, back into the street.

Blood from his broken nose came oozing into the back of his mouth, and he coughed and spat it out. There were little pieces of glass in it. Some of them stuck in his throat. Coughing only made things worse, but he couldn't help himself. He heard someone behind him shout, "Give yourself up! We won't harm you!" _They've come in through the window_ , he thought.

He had no idea who _they_ were, but escape seemed impossible, so he decided to gamble on their mercy. He lay on his stomach with his hands on the back of his head. For a few long, agonizing breaths he wondered whether they were telling the truth, or whether he was about to die.

He felt a loop tightening around his ankles; someone put a foot on his back and lifted his wrists; in a moment they too were bound. His sword was taken. Someone rolled him over. "Broken nose and facial lacerations with embedded glass!" he heard someone shout. "Hold still," said the same voice, close to his ear, "I'm going to pick out a lot of that glass and give you a bandage." Relief flooded him – they would not kill him, they would even treat him! The process of removal was painful, even though he was in shock. "I'm going to lay you back and rinse your face off. Here we go." To his surprise, Scratch heard no anger or hatred in the voice, and found himself feeling oddly grateful.

"All right," said the voice, "I'm going to use a towel as a bandage; it will have to do for now." Scratch felt the towel being wrapped around his entire head and secured somehow. "Now, we are going to put you on a stretcher and take you to the hospital. But listen carefully to what I say: " _You are in the hands of the Angels of Rejuvenation. Any attempt on your part to resist or escape will result in beating or death. Your life as it has been is over; you will now become a new person_."

Scratch heard and understood these words, but he did not respond to them, even in his own mind; in his state of shock and exhaustion, he was completely occupied with just existing. He felt himself being lifted onto a stretcher and carried down his own front steps, and then lifted from the stretcher and placed on bedding of straw. A few moments later, he realized he was in a cart, for it started and stopped a few times. He heard others; some were moaning in pain, some were begging and pleading for mercy, some were trying to bargain in one way or another. After a few hundredbreaths of this, a loud, authoritative voice said, " _Be quiet!_ You cannot bargain! You may not plead! You may not speak to one another! You are utterly without power! You have no rights! If you speak without being spoken to, you will be punished!" A couple of people only wailed louder at that, and Scratch heard the sound of blows; then they, too, were quiet.

After awhile, the authoritative voice said, "We are going to the hospital now." The cart started up. "As we travel," said the voice, "I will recite to you a psalm from our Scriptures:

My life is over; I am dying.

But God has mercy on me; I will be reborn.

I have been sunk in filth,

But I will be cleansed.

I have crawled in the recesses of evil,

But now I will dance in the light of goodness.

How great is God, who made me from nothingness;

How could I have forgotten the One to whom I owe all?

How merciful is God, for he will forgive me!

I deserve death, but I will be given a new and beautiful life!

Again Scratch did not respond, except that he felt his mind file it away.

As the cart rolled along, he began to emerge from shock, and he began to feel more pain, especially in his face. Slowly but surely, it grew more intense. He quickly discovered that wriggling and grimacing only made it worse, and so he did his best to hold absolutely still. In this he was frustrated by bumps in the road, which made the cart jerk and wobble. He began to think, in order to distract himself from the pain.

'The Angels of Rejuvenation,' he thought. 'I've heard of them, but I never thought of them much. You think they may come for you some day, but when? You have to live your life. You get absorbed in the day-to-day, you forget about the big picture. _Owww!_ Even now, it's difficult to think about the Angels, given the pain that I'm experiencing. But when I think about something else, besides the pain, it distracts me a little.'

'Yes, it's easy to forget, even to think of them as a myth. _Ah!_ It's numb, but it hurts, too. Everything aches. As I child I believed in them, but as a grownup I was surrounded by people who told me they were a myth. It's hard to disagree with everyone around you. _Owwww!_ Besides, that's what I _wanted_ to believe. We all did. Well, now they've got me. If they are make-believe, I guess I am, too! I hope they have good doctors at their hospital, who will stop this pain! Am I going to be blind? I hope their doctors save me from being blind! _Aieee!_ This pain is driving me crazy! What did that scripture mean? " _My life is over_ –" Are they going to kill me? Maybe I should try to escape. I could jump off the cart ... No, every move hurts, I just don't have the will power, or even the energy. I don't really care. We all die sooner or later. Death would bring an end to this pain! Funny, life seemed so important to me, when I wasn't feeling pain like this, but now I don't care any more. Some say you don't really die. You are reborn. Maybe that's not a myth, either. _Ahh!_ I suppose, I suppose that some people would say I've been doing wrong, being a pimp and all. I hope their doctors will stop this pain. They say it's against most of the legal codes, but nobody asked me to help them write the legal codes. _Owwwww!_ The codes are just ink on paper, anyway – people do what they can, and in my neighborhood the police belong to Pappi, and it is his law that counts, and he says you can be a pimp, as long as he gets his tithe. He says everyone has a duty to contribute to society, and that the law of supply and demand tells us what is good. Well, there's always plenty of demand for girls! _Ohhh!_ If this pain keeps up, I'm going to scream! But I mustn't, because they will beat me. As for my protection rackets, that's just the same as tithes. I wouldn't pay tithes either, if nothing bad would happen to me for not paying. _Ow!_ _Ah!_ How far away is this pus-sucking hospital, anyway? I'm going crazy! I want to die! Please, please, get me to the hospital! All that stuff about right and wrong is just words; the bottom line is, everyone does what they have to do to survive and be as happy as they can be. _Aieee!_ Is this really happening? If only I can explain myself, they may go easy on me! The legal codes didn't stop the Angels, and neither did Pappi. It's all power, who has the power. _Ahh!_ I don't care what they say - if this pain doesn't stop soon, I'm going to scream! And if the laws don't protect me, why should I obey them? Aren't we ever going to get where we're going? What's the use of ideals when we have to live in a real world? _Aiaiaiaiaah!_ This pain is driving me crazy! Is there really a hospital? Didn't he say that? Or did I just imagine it? Am I in the underworld, suffering for eternity? Is it too late to reform myself? How would I reform? I'm trying to think, but how can you think when you're in pain?'

In something of a fog, he felt himself being transferred to a stretcher, and then to a bed. _Don't just leave me here_ , he thought, _do_ _something for me!_ For a long time, though, no one paid any attention to him. He heard speech and activity, understanding neither. He felt despair: _I'm going to die here!_ He wanted despair to make him impassive, but pain was still pain. He became nothing but an endless cringing. Then he heard a voice:

"Hello, I am Bronze Dragon Claw, your doctor. Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"Scratch."

"Scratch, eh? That sounds like a nickname. Is that the name your parents gave you?"

"No," said Scratch, "they called me ..." It took him a moment to remember. "Bibo. They called me Bibo." He felt a bit of wonder in the memories that began to rise up, like smoke, when he uttered that name, but the pain blew them away. "But everybody calls me Scratch." _Don't talk, Doctor, do something! Don't ask me to talk, it hurts!_

"OK, Scratch, I'm going to try to fix you up, but first I need you to repeat something for me. 'Pain is the reward of vice.' Can you say that?"

"Pain... is the... reward... of vice." _I'll say anything you want, but Please, Doctor! Get on with it!_

"Good! It may not feel that way to you, Mr. Scratch, but the pain you are feeling today is the direct result of the way you have lived." _Yes, yes, get on with it!_ "Now, I'm going to cast a spell to try to reduce your pain." _Yes, doctor, please!_ Sister Cherry Blossom here will sing a song that sometimes helps with such things. You just lie quietly and listen to the song. In order for the spell to work, you must understand the words." Scratch listened very carefully.

A melodious soprano began to sing:

I bring good news: there is a way out of suffering.

I bring good news: there is a way out of Hell.

I will deliver you, I will protect you,

I will heal you, I will soothe you,

All you need do is love.

I bring good news: there is a way out of suffering.

I bring good news: there is a way out of Hell.

All you need do is to see the source of your suffering,

All you need do is love.

I bring good news: there is a way out of suffering.

I bring good news: there is a way out of Hell.

All you need do is see through the lies you have told yourself,

All you need do is love.

As she sang, Scratch did indeed feel the pain in his face going away.

Love me, love me, love what is good

Love what is fair and true,

Love me, love me, love what is right,

You know I will always love you.

I bring good news: there is a way out of suffering.

I bring good news: there is a way out of Hell.

All you need do is to see through the lies you have told yourself,

All you need do is love.

"How is it?" asked the doctor. "The pain is completely gone," said Scratch. It was true, and he felt amazed, and very grateful. He wondered for a moment if he could bring Sister Cherry Blossom into his own employ; then he remembered that he was no longer in a position to employ anyone.

"Good!" said the doctor. "Now, I need you to repeat something else for me: 'I am stronger than desire.'"

"I am... stronger... than desire," said Scratch. It seemed a very odd thing to say, but if it would help the doctor, he was happy to say it. _I've lost everything_ , he thought, _I'm a prisoner and a slave, and blind as a bat. But I'm deliriously happy! How wonderful sheer existence is, without pain!_

"Wonderful!" said the doctor. "Now, I am going to remove this bandage and look at your face. You know, sometimes things like bandages are symbols for other things, things you can't see. Now, this bandage is a temporary solution. The person who put it on was doing the best he could, under pressure of time, and with the materials at hand, and it was very helpful. But in the long run, it won't help you, and so now we are going to do better. And we have to start by undoing the temporary solution. It's the same way in life, Mr. Scratch. In your life so far, you have found a way to get by, to survive. That's your temporary solution. You did the best you could, with the materials at hand, and under pressure of time, and it has certainly helped you to survive, and perhaps be a little happy, for some time. But I think you know that it's not going to work any more, Scratch; you need an absolutely new approach to life."

"Right, yes, sure!" said Scratch, hoping that the doctor would be satisfied and get on with removing the bandage. His euphoria was dissipating. _That was fast!_

"Are you sure?" asked the doctor. "Yes," said Scratch. "What makes you sure?" asked the doctor. "Well," said Scratch, thinking quickly: _What does he want to hear?_ "You are probably going to tear my house down, and take away all my girls and goons, and ... I don't know what is going to happen, but I imagine you will see to it that I can't just start up where I left off."

"That's absolutely right, Mr. Scratch," said the Doctor. Scratch imagined that he must be nodding sagely. "Your old solution is gone forever. I'm going to take off this bandage now, and I'm afraid it's going to hurt a bit, in spite of the spell. While I cut, I want you to think about how your old solution is responsible for your pain, and how your old solution is being completely taken away from you, just as I am removing the bandage. Thinking about that will distract you from the pain. Will you do that?"

"Yes," said Scratch.

"Good!" said the Doctor. "Here we go!" Scratch felt the towel, which had become fastened to his face with dried blood, being slowly peeled away. "At times you will feel me using a sponge to soften the dried blood," said Bronze Dragon Claw. Sure enough, Scratch felt something cool where the Doctor was working, and felt liquid running down the side of his neck. "I'm afraid this will be a little painful at times," said the Doctor, "but that's the way it is – sometimes it's not easy to give up our temporary solutions. But in the end, it will feel much better." Scratch focused his attention on the heel of his left foot, so as to feel as little as possible of what was going on with his face, which was starting to hurt again.

"All right," said Bronze Dragon Claw after awhile, "that's done! Let me see, here, Oh, my goodness ... kind of a mess, I'm afraid ... especially the eyes ... Oh, dear! ... But, I've got good news for you, Scratch, I think your eyes are going to be all right. They are caked with blood, and the lids don't want to open because of that, and because they have splinters of glass in them. I'm going to wash your face, and take those splinters out. This will be difficult, because some of them are in quite deep. They are like bad habits – sometimes it's hard to get rid of bad habits, but in the end you are much better off without them!"

So began a long and painful process. "Unfortunately," said the Doctor, "I will have to cut a little, sometimes, to get to the glass. I've got a set of very tiny stiletto scalpels for that purpose, and to get the fragments out, I will use what we call a 'shrapnel sucker' – it's a long flexible tube with a short rigid tube at the end. The rigid tube tapers down to a point, with a tiny hole in the end – actually, I can fit various types of point onto the same flexible tube – and when I touch the point to the piece of glass, and inhale, I can either get the piece of glass to stick to the point, or I can draw it right into the tube. Then I hold the point over a basket and breathe out, and the glass falls into the basket. Of course, I'm getting a certain amount of blood and pus, too, so every now and then I will have to stop to clean the glass. Sister Cherry Blossom is holding a magnifying glass for me so that I can see the small stuff."

Scratch felt his eyes being washed. Although it was done very gently, it was quite painful, and he couldn't help trying to wriggle away. But then, he began to _see a redness!_ "There it is!" he said, excitedly. "I can see! I can see!" He also began to feel more sensations from his eyelids, as they trembled and hurt.

"You are being redeemed," said Bronze Dragon Claw. "I know it's frightening and painful, but in the end, you will be glad of it. You are going to have to remember that fact many times in the next few weeks, Mr. Scratch. But then, you will be able to _see_ , Mr. Scratch! I don't mean only with your eyes, but with your _heart_! This is what you are going to learn to do, as soon as you get over your injuries!"

_How can I see with my heart?_ thought Scratch, but he didn't want to distract the Doctor from his task by asking a question.

"I'm going to use a spell, now, to put your eyelids to sleep," said the Doctor, "otherwise, they will keep trying to move while they still have glass in them, and they will just hurt themselves." Scratch felt as if snow had just been placed on his eyes; they became numb. "Now we'll take out all the bad stuff, piece by piece," said Bronze Dragon Claw. "It's going to be a very long and painful job, I'm afraid. But you will see the light, Mr. Scratch, you _will_ see the light!"

It was terribly slow, and frequently painful. Scratch's face began to hurt all over again. But finally it was over, and Sister Cherry Blossom sang her song again, and, with a little help from magic, Scratch fell asleep.
**********

"I dearly love the soldier

Who dies for love of me

I will take her to my heart

And cherish her forever."

(from _Songs of Ydris_ )

Calcadro rode ahead as fast as she dared, hoping to reach the ambush site before the Kantrikars did. She could see only during lightning flashes, and then it was blindingly bright, and she would have an aching, glowing afterimage that hung glowing before her mind's eye, blinding her to the outside. She lowered her visor and slitted her eyes in an attempt to reduce the glare. With each flash, she would scan the road ahead, hoping to guide the horse from memory, and sometimes, she could even see details in the afterimage that she could make use of. She couldn't help flinching at the loud explosions that accompanied the lightning strikes, several of which were quite close. Her horse was clearly exhausted. The rain began turning to hail, which rattled and pinged on her helmet and armor. "An advantage for me," she thought, "if the hail gets large enough to do damage."

_BAMboombadaroombadaradaroom_ _!_

She finally drew near the tail end of the crowd of Kantrikars. They had given up trying to run, and had linked hands and arms to form a walking human chain. As she passed them, she waved her sword at them, trying to get them to turn around, or at least stop; but the chain pulled them forward, and they did not break it. Calcadro did not want to stop to try to separate them; she feared that the slavers were already taking prisoners, up at the head of the line.

baDATabadarooroom! Boom! Boom!

Sure enough, as she reached the start of the ambush site, she saw that the slavers had already emerged from the trees at the side of the road. Some, armed with clubs and quarterstaffs, were working their way down the line of Kantrikars, felling them with blows to the head and body. Other slavers followed closely behind them, securing the fallen in rope and netting. Many of the Kantrikars lay down before they were struck.

POWpow badaBOOMBOOMbadaroombooom!

Calcadro had no time to think of strategies. She charged into the assaulting group, using the flat of her sword to knock them on the head. _Speed is important – I mustn't let them regroup, or use the prisoners as hostages._ Unprepared for her assault, the first crowd of thugs scattered, with two or three fallen bleeding and barely conscious into the swirling water. With the confusing alternation of light and dark, it was impossible to keep track of anyone who fled. But she managed to scatter the binders in the same way.

BAM! BAMpatatatapatabroonboomboroom!

She couldn't stay to help the Kantrikars. Those slavers who had escaped her charge would be alerting the others, and gathering serious weapons. Most serious of all were crossbows, and of course the magician. He should be near the front. She had to take him out before he got a fix on her. She began circling, looking for slavers, and especially for one who might be a magician. Each time the lightning flashed, she would see a number of armed figures, but darkness would slam down before she could reach them, or even clearly make them out. The slavers would labor under the same difficulty, but it only takes a moment to aim and fire a crossbow. She tried to move randomly in the intervals of darkness, but she was afraid of laming her horse.

_BAMboombadaBAMbadaroombadaradaroom_ _!_

Finally she managed to overtake a slaver. She tried to hit him over the head, but he deflected the blow with a sword of his own. _I don't have time for niceties,_ she thought. In the next flash, she parried his return attack, and made a feint that made him raise his sword high. In the darkness that followed, leaning backwards, she kicked him hard in the face with her armored foot. She thought she heard him go down. At the next flash, she saw what appeared to be him, a vague dark shape in the mud; it also seemed that all the nearby slavers had dispersed. Would they return with crossbows?

She had an idea. She dismounted quickly, throwing the reins of the horse over its back so that it would be free to move. From the saddlebag she removed her sling and a bag of lead missiles. She moved away on foot. With the terrible visibility, she hoped that they would find it hard to distinguish her from one of themselves. Except for the magician; but she had to leave him to Zanentadra. Sheathing her sword, she put a missile into the sling and started it spinning. Immediately, she became aware of her shivering, for it was making it hard to control the spin properly. The first time the lightning flashed, there was no one in good range. She took a few hesitant steps in a random direction. At the next flash, she saw someone, only ten forearms away. Instantly she released the missile. The light failed before she could see the effect of her cast, but she thought she heard a cry. _I hope that was the magician_ , she thought, _and I hope he's down for good!_ At the same time, she had a terrible fear that it might have been one of the Kantrikars, trying to escape; she had become completely disoriented, and for all she knew, she was back at the start of the ambush.

In the next flash, she saw a dim figure waving at her. _Good!_ she thought, _he thinks I'm one of them!_

BAM!POWpow badaBOOMBOOMbadadaroooooom!

As dark returned, she ran in his direction, transferring her sling to her left hand and drawing her sword. They ran into each other in the dark, then lost contact. _He must have felt my armor_ , she thought, _now_ _he knows it's not one of his own_. She took a couple of random steps and began to pivot, holding her sword raised. When the lightning flashed, she had to turn almost completely around before she saw him. Eight feet away, he held a crossbow pointed directly at her. She threw herself to the left as darkness returned.

She fell into the mud and felt freezing water crawl over most of her body. _I hope he fired, because then he will have to reload. If not ..._

Stiff with cold and shivering, she painfully levered herself into a crouch. She was panting with exertion, and she had to make an effort not to wheeze, lest that give her position away. She crawled sideways so that she would not reappear in the same place, then stood in a half-squat.

Light seared her eyes. She saw him only four feet away. He saw her at the same time. She lunged. He swiveled, aimed...darkness fell --

_BAMboombadarBAROOMboombadaradaroom_ _!_

Diving through black curtains of hail, she swung her sword through the space where she thought he ought to be. She hit something, but her hand and arm were so numb, she couldn't tell whether it was human, tree, or dirt. The impact caused her frozen hand to lose its grip on the sword. At the same time, she felt a sharp pain in her left side, just below the lowest extent of her ribs. _He got me!_ Then again she fell into the freezing water and mud.

She wanted to stay there, to lie there, to go to sleep and drown in peace. But with a terrific effort of will she raised her head far enough to breathe, waiting with slitted eyes for the next flash. It came. _PEEOW! BOOMbadadooroom!_ The thunder did not delay, for the lightning had struck a nearby tree; it split in half, showering her with sparks. Half of it fell nearly atop her; she felt springy branches pressing her down again, into the icy flood. She groped and levered her way free of them and onto a larger branch. _Lucky I wasn't pinned by a big one!_ At the next flash, she looked left and right, but she could see no one, and no sign of her sword. Lying on her left side, she found the arrow with her fingers. She tried to pull it out backwards, and a great wave of pain and dizziness told her that the head was barbed. She decided to leave it be; there was no more fight in her anyway, and it would actually serve to reduce the bleeding. So would the cold. She broke off the end of the arrow about an inch from her skin. She arranged herself amid the branches in such a way that (she hoped) would allow her to pass out without falling back into the water.

Then she saw the eyes.

They were two red coals; and when next the lightning flashed she saw their owner. It was a wolf, four forearms tall at the shoulder, its teeth bared in a slavering snarl. The eyes were fixed on her. When darkness fell, she could still see them. They approached rapidly.

It was no ordinary wolf; the slavers' magician had located her, and was sending in a magical beast for the kill.
**********

Look for it, look for it, you'll never find it,

Reach for it, reach for it, you'll never grasp it,

Ponder it, ponder it, you won't understand it,

Give it up, give it up,

Then you will have it!

(from the Kazni children's song, "Find Yourself")

"So I ... I mean, this me," said the Fabulist, gesturing at himself, "will always be mortal?"

"Eternally," said Self.

The Fabulist frowned. "Are you toying with me? I think you understand what I am asking, and that your answer is too paradoxical to be enlightening. It feels evasive."

"I'm sorry," said Self, "but remember, that what you hear me say is only what your mortal mind can accept. I will start over, but it is bound to be confusing. There is only one of us, one Fabulist. You are he and I am he, but you are seeing two different aspects of him, two different aspects of _yourself_ , as though they were separate beings. Perhaps it would be better to call them Mortal Part and Immortal Part."

"I understand," said Mortal Part.

"It's as if you were seeing yourself in two mirrors at once," said Immortal Part. "They are curved mirrors. One of them makes you look tall, one of them makes you look short. You might be tempted to think that you are looking at two different people, in two different places, but you are not."

"I think I follow you," said Mortal Part.

"Now," said Immortal Part, "the Fabulist decided to give himself a mortal aspect. The way _you_ think of that is, that you made yourself mortal."

"I don't just _think_ of it that way," objected Mortal Part, "I _remember_ it that way."

"Well, yes," said Immortal Part, "you do. But your memories are just as limited as your imagination. You can't remember yourself as you really were, because your mortal mind can't grasp that. So you remember yourself as if you were a human, a very remarkable human with amazing powers."

Mortal Part was stricken with anguish. "Then I have not only lost my powers," he cried bitterly, "but my memories are corrupt, and I can't even know who I really was! I have lost my very own self!"

"Well, that is the situation of all mortals," said Immortal Part. "at least at the beginning. But really, it's not quite that bad! Your memories are not any more false than they have to be. Everything you remember is like a blurred image, like seeing something through thick, irregular piece of darkened glass. But it is a distorted picture of something real, not a completely fabricated hallucination. There is some truth in it. And if you try, you can sometimes get a picture that's little bit more accurate. For example, you think of yourself as 'the Fabulist.' But surely that's just a metaphor, isn't it? You didn't write actual, material words on actual, material paper, did you? You would have had to create matter first, and how would you have done that?"

"Retroactively!" said Mortal part, smiling at the touch of humor in his remark. The fact that he could joke about this made him feel stronger.

"Ah, yes," said Immortal Part, also smiling, "you are getting a glimpse of it! The Fabulist is not limited to temporal existence. How could a temporal being create _time_? _When_ would he do it? This mortal language we speak forces me to say "is," or "was," or "will be," and so on, because mortals think they have their being in time. Do you remember the language _Kalalin_?"

"Yes, I do!" said Mortal Part, with a touch of wonder. "It comes into being a few millennia from now. It doesn't force you to put a tense onto everything. It will be an attempt to make a language that will make it easier for mortals to see beyond time. Among other things."

"You see, you are 'remembering' something from a long time in the future!" said Immortal Part. "You are not trapped in time at all!"

"I suppose not," said Mortal Part, "but somehow that is not much comfort. I am sitting here, and I feel _as if_ time is going by, irreversibly; my experience makes a stream, and it flows past me, as if I were a stone, and I can't seem to move through time in any other way, and I presume that after awhile, this stream of experience will cease forever, and me with it."

"Mortals experience that, too," said Immortal Part.

"Well," replied Mortal Part, with a bit of impatience, "I find it frightening and sad. I suppose that's all an illusion, since I am really a super-temporal being, but it _feels_ real. And if this stream of experience is going to come to an end, what consolation is it to me that some other 'me' will still exist somewhere as a super-temporal being?"

"None whatever," said Immortal Part, "unless you can get over the idea that you are just this body, or just this stream of experience."
**********

"We must take risks in order to be safe."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

At Ydnas' temple, Kor took advantage of her next chance to be alone with Lessie to ask, "Lessie, Dear, could we have a little talk?"

Lessie looked as though she had mixed feelings about the idea, but she agreed, and they repaired to Kor's room.

"Lessie," Kor began, "you are getting to be a big girl, and perhaps certain concerns of yours are none of my business, but I will always love you, and I can't help being concerned when I see that you are sad. Now, as we were walking from the wains to this Temple, I saw that you were looking bitter as a black radish, and that you were not walking with the mute boy. And he looked very, very sad. So I wonder if the two of you are coming undone, and if so, whether I can help you in any way to deal with that."

Lessie started several times to speak, only to have some internal logjam prevent her. Then finally, she burst out:

" _Aiee!_ Me he doesn't love! Me he only fooled! _Aiee!_ Ydnas only, he wanted to find!"

"Oh, Lessie, you are terribly hurt, aren't you? How did you learn this, Lessie?"

"Well, no poor boy he is! A great magic he made, and when to him _Ydnas_ pointed! _Aiee!_ About him, she knew more than I! For her, miracles he makes! And never told was I, that such things he could do! _Aiee!_ Secret hands they hold! Only the doorkeeper, was I!"

"I see why you are upset," said Kor. "It certainly looks as though they had a secret relationship, doesn't it? Now, I was dead at the time, so I missed it, but as I understand it, Ydnas pointed at him, and said some word that no one else understood, and then, he made a light that destroyed the cloud."

" _Aiee!_ No idea had I, but _she_ knew! For _her_ he did it!"

"Well, Ydnas has suddenly begun to surprise and puzzle everyone, although of course, Isiliar told me that she would be remarkable. But Lessie, couldn't the boy himself have been surprised?"

Lessie looked startled. "Ayeh! Puzzled, he _did_ look, afterwards. But Kor, such powers how could someone have, and know it not?"

"I don't know, Lessie, but that is just it – there is so much that we don't know. Why, up until that time, I wouldn't have thought that Ydnas had any idea of having any special powers, either. She did not free herself from slavery. I never saw her do any magic. We once spoke of religion, and it struck me later that she said nothing about praying for help, or getting any help from gods. Now that I think of it, that might have been a clue, I suppose, but only a very subtle one. She seemed like a very bright, but essentially normal girl. For all I know, what happened was a miracle from elsewhere, and she and the boy were just tools."

"And just a tool was I, too!"

"We are all involved in things we do not understand, Lessie. That is the condition of mortals. We can't give up trying to live our own lives on that account. We just have to make the best of it! And if the boy had no clue about what was going to happen, he was not deceiving you in any way."

"Maybe," said Lessie, skeptically.

Kor nodded. "That's life in a single word, Dearie!" she said.

Lessie began to look upset in a different way. " _Aiee!_ Wrong maybe I am! Him I must find!" She went rushing off. Kor looked relieved.

The mute boy was sitting with some other boys in a room they had been given to share, and feeling very sad, when suddenly he heard the sound of running feet. Then hope began to sing to him, for he knew that step, and there was no anger in it, only haste.

Lessie burst into the room, and stopped, looking at his eyes. They each looked nervously at the other, to see if the other was angry. When they saw no anger, they looked for love, and they both found it. Instantly they were wrapped around each other. The other boys left the room.

After a moment, the boy felt Lessie pulling back, and he let her go. She pointed at him, and then began to pantomime. She pantomimed him, as he had been that morning, standing in the wain, as the dark cloud descended upon them, and its ghastly creatures flew round about them. She pantomimed him raising his hands, and placing them about a foot apart. She turned her gaze, as though watching something shoot out of the space between her hands. After a moment she separated her hands; then she looked at them with a puzzled expression, just as he had. Then she looked at him quizzically.

He made a sad, slow shrug, and a negative nod, indicating that he was also puzzled. For the first time since she discovered his muteness, Lessie wanted to use words with him. 'So,' thought part of her mind, 'when trouble begins, language we desire.' But no language was forthcoming. So she thought, 'Trust him shall I, or not? How strange life is, that between close people, even, always closed away, the other is. Our poor substitute for telepathy, trust is? And even telepathy no help here would be, for a mystery he is, even to himself!' She looked at the boy, and especially at his expression; she saw no guile there, only love and fear. She knew so little about him! She decided to trust him.

Sometimes, we look over a cliff, so high that we can barely see the bottom. We decide to jump, hoping that the trip down, at least, will be tolerable.
**********

"The people we love the most, we drive away."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

Back in Kor's room, Isiliar had appeared. The two sat together on the floor, side-by-side, leaning against the wall, and against each other, with their eyes closed. They did look very similar, with their Suimi features and their flowing red robes. Isiliar looked much older, though, with her face much more intricately lined. They held hands, but did not speak for awhile.

Then Isiliar said, "You did very well, Kor. Lessie was very close to being completely trapped in anger and despair, but you gave her another way to think."

"It was a near thing," replied Kor. "I feared that she was not in a mood to listen to me. It might have been better to wait for her to come to me, but I'm not sure she would have. She is beginning to get independent."

"That's both wonderful and sad, isn't it?" asked Isiliar.

"Yes, it is," said Kor. "Sometimes I find myself wishing that my children would always stay young. How charming and innocent they are then! How wonderful it is to be worshipped, to be needed!" They sat together in silence for awhile, as old friends do who no longer need to be always _doing_ something together. Then Kor gave a little start. "You were speaking of _us_ , too, weren't you?" she asked, opening her eyes and looking sidelong at the goddess.

"Yes," admitted Isiliar, with a trace of an impish smile, "I was."

Tears began to stream down Kor's cheeks. "Isiliar, you know I will always love and revere you, no matter what happens."

"Yes, Dearie," said Isiliar, smiling through tears of her own, and patting Kor's hand, "I know."
**********

Rain will fall again

Sun will shine again

Mortals will struggle for ever.

(Children's song from the Isle of Oge)

As the red-eyed wolf approached, Calcadro reached for the stiletto that hung at her shoulder. Her fingers were too stiff to draw it in the usual way; but she managed to thrust her hand in such a way that the handle of the stiletto was caught between her second and third fingers. She drew it out very carefully, hoping that it would not fall.

The wolf leapt over a large branch; it was almost on her. Even in the best of situations, a stiletto was not much of a weapon against a wolf; but Zanentadra had placed a spell on this one. Calcadro held it out to the side so that it would not become trapped between the wolf and herself. The wolf sprang, growling; Calcadro felt the shock of its great weight; then she felt its teeth ripping through the armor around her neck. Clumsy with cold and fatigue, she somehow managed to get the stiletto to stick into the wolf's side, and then hammered it with her open palm. It went deeper.

For a moment the wolf seemed to be lit up from within, by an acid green light. Then it began to leap and twitch frantically. The real contest, Calcadro knew, was not between the stiletto and the wolf, but between the stiletto and the magician. Wherever he was, he was feeling the stiletto in his own side, and it was wriggling its way into him like a worm. Suddenly, the wolf exploded in a burst of green flame.

"Thank you, Zan," whispered Calcadro, in the dark. Then she collapsed against the tree, too exhausted to move.

Lightning flashed.

Badadadaroom!

The flash and the thunder were weaker than before; the storm was beginning to pass. But in the flash, Calcadro had seen a most unwelcome sight: four human figures making their way toward her. _Before he died_ , she thought, _the magician must have told them where I was. Receive me, Ydris, for I am coming to you soon!_

Another flash, and another roll of thunder. She was utterly stiff with cold and barely conscious. She tried to remember the Last Rites, but she couldn't. _Take my life, Ydris_ , she thought _, and judge it for me._
**********

"If you don't wish to see evil,

Keep your eyes shut tight."

(Axoragastinic proverb)

Lightbearer sat on the rock, looking at her reflection in the pond. A little while ago, the water had been roiled by her swimming, but now it was still. _A perfect mirror_ , she mused. The idea came to her that mortal consciousness was like a mirror. The universe uses this consciousness to see itself. _And all along, I thought that my consciousness was for_ _my_ _use_ , she thought. But then, something in her rebelled at having such thoughts. _If I don't watch out_ , she thought, _I'm going to end up like Fabulist, intellectualizing everything. How he ties himself into knots!_ She focused on the warmth of the sunshine, and the sweetness of the air. How delicious it was! She began to rub her hands over herself, feeling the textures of skin, flesh, bones, hair, and cartilage. She remembered how exciting it had been, when she had first found herself in a body, to look at all the tiny details of it. She looked at the tiny hairs on the back of her hand. How completely _specific_ it was! How _detailed!_ How _concrete!_

_Poor Fabulist_ , she thought, _until today, he was trapped in a world of abstractions. And it was all his own doing._

She spotted a tinge of malice in that thought, and felt guilty about it. _A little while ago, I felt grateful to him for setting me free, now I am despising him. But that is the way these mortal minds are; they fly from one thing to another. That's what they call, "thinking." It's like a bird, flitting and swooping through the forest. Sometimes in the shadow, sometimes in the light. It is guided by an instinct of which it knows nothing. How innocent and beautiful it is!_

She came out of her reverie for a moment, acutely conscious once again of the sun, the rock, the pond, the dragonfly ... . _Oh, I'm out of my reverie_ , she thought, and then laughed at herself. _It seems that mortals are always a little bit in reverie. We can't decide which world we want to live in, the inner world or the outer one. So we keep sticking our head out the door, then drawing it back, then sticking it out again ... . We are more than just mirrors. It is through us that the universe can imagine being different from the way it is, and to look at the possibilities, and decide to be one way rather than another. It is through us that the universe can act and ... be a person!_

_Was there a time when there was no consciousness? Did the universe_ _wake up_ _one day? The way Fabulist and I woke up in that house, but even more surprised than we were? Perhaps it woke up very slowly; perhaps it is still waking up!_

Lightbearer had the sense that the universe was like a little child, finding its way. She got up and started walking around, smiling and gesturing. _Look, universe! Feel wonder at yourself! See how beautiful you are!_ She felt like a mother taking her child on an exploration. She looked at the grass, the flowers, the butterflies, so that the universe could see them.

Suddenly, she became aware that people had appeared on the other side of the pond. She turned to look at them. They looked very different from Focus and Kolidor. They were much bigger, for one thing. And their expressions were grimly alert and hostile. They were dressed in armor, and they carried weapons. Some of them were riding on spit lizards; the lizards were six forearms high at the shoulder. The men looked at her in a way that made her very aware of her nakedness.

_Blast you_ , Fabulist, she thought, _you and your bloody dark side!_
**********

"Problems are lights to see by,

But sometimes I am blinded by them."

(from the popular song, "Second Sight")

A couple of days after his unfortunate falling-in-love with Zarinia, Arguit returned from his daily exercise session to find that his simple cot had been replaced with a large, soft bed, with thick blankets and down pillows. "Why this?" he said. "Not that I'm complaining!" His guards did not answer him, but just stood there with the amused and expectant smiles people wear when they are waiting for a pleasant surprise to dawn on someone. He looked back and forth between them and the bed, and then said, "Oh ... you mean ... my wife? I am finally allowed to have a visit from my wife?"

"Why, yes, Arguit," said the guard unit leader (Zarinia was not on duty at that time), "and she asked us to provide this for you. We will also stand guard only _outside_ the cell block, for once." There was a bit of a twinkle in her eye.

"And what about Sirinitha," asked Arguit, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice, "is she going to check out my memories of the visit?"

"Don't worry," replied the guard, "Sirinitha would never dwell on that part of your mind, nor would she ever report on it to us, without good reason, which at present she does not have."

"Well ... good," said Arguit. His mind was in turmoil over this new state of affairs, but he was embarrassed to talk about it. He just wanted to be alone, so that he could think.

The guards looked puzzled. "But Arguit, I would have thought you'd be a bit happier about this," said one.

"Well, I am ... I mean, I will be really glad to see her, but ... I don't know if I can ... you know. I mean, I'm in love with Zarinia. I know I shouldn't be, but I am, and I don't know if I can, ah, ..."

Comprehension dawned on the guards. "I see the problem, Arguit," said the guard leader. "You are beginning to feel that sex without love is wrong, something that you do not desire. And although that is a bit sticky for you right now, it is a good thing, a sign of maturity."

"No doubt," said Arguit, testily, "but that hardly solves my problem. Besides, I get tired of being in kindergarten all the time. I get tired of having you all patting me on the head and saying, 'Good boy, you learned your lesson well today, someday you can graduate to first grade!'"

"None of us has graduated, Arguit. We are all exploring and learning. And you should always ask yourself whether you really agree with us, or whether you are just trying to please us."

Arguit sighed. "Well, you are right, I think, I _have_ changed. But what am I going to tell Laeri? I mean, if she asked for this bed to be put here, she must want ... I mean, she _is_ my wife, after all."

"I don't think she believes in conjugal duties, Arguit. You can just sit on the bed with her and talk, if that is what you want to do."

_Since it's Zarinia that I love, having sex with my wife would be casual sex_ , he thought, _and casual sex is wrong_. "This is very confusing," he said aloud. All the guards laughed their sympathetic laugh.

"Ydris tells us to avoid wishful thinking," said the guard leader. "If you are in love with Zarinia, then that is the truth, even if it is unfortunate. There is no use pretending otherwise."

_It's easy to give advice_ , he thought, _when it's not your problem_. He thought about Zarinia, and immediately, to his disgust, he felt a rush of love and a yearning to be with her. It was both pleasant and utterly frustrating. "Well," he said, "when is Laeri going to arrive?"

"We're expecting her some time this evening," said the unit leader.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," said Arguit. He threw himself onto the new bed, and lay silently, face down. He heard the door of his cell click shut.
**********

"For my sake you have forgotten yourself,

And that I will never forget."

(from "Songs of Ydris")

The storm paused; the rain eased up. Between the fading bursts of lightning, Calcadro could see a weak daylight returning. In both lights she watched wearily as the four slavers approached. As they came near her, however, they looked at each other and grinned, sheathing their swords. _Ah, yes,_ thought Calcadro, _they have noticed that I am female, and they have changed their minds as to how to finish me off._

One of them removed his belt and bound her hands together behind her back; not that it was necessary, for she was so exhausted, and stiff with cold, that she could barely move. In the process, one of them noticed the arrow stub sticking out of her side; he gave it a flick with his finger. Calcadro flinched, which they found amusing. They spent some time making jokes in a language she did not understand, except that each joke consisted in saying something as an introduction to flicking the arrow. After awhile, they grew tired of this, and they laid her on some higher ground, which was muddy, but no longer covered with flowing water.

_Ydris, help me to endure._ They had some trouble figuring out the catches to her armor, but finally they were able to remove it. Using a knife, one of them removed her quilted undergarment, leaving her naked body to shiver in the drizzle. They ran their hands over her breasts, thighs, and vulva, occasionally making further jokes.

I did my best, truly I did.

One of them put four twigs of unequal length into his fist; the other three drew, and the largest one was chosen to go first. He had a pockmarked, asymmetrical face and a scraggly black beard. He leered at her, and began to unfasten his trousers. The others began to clap rhythmically and laughingly chant something.

She had not the energy to recite the _Preparation for Death_ , even to herself. _I will be with you soon,_ she thought.

He clambered between her legs and lubricated both their genitalia with his spittle.

At that moment, Calcadro felt what she had been hoping for: the touch of joined minds.

The Amazons of Ydris were completely dedicated to their work, and superbly trained in various martial skills; but the highest achievement of their art was a very special use of telepathy. By working extensively with their telepath, a group became able to form, for brief periods of time, a two-way link between every pair; each Amazon would share the thoughts and feelings of all the others. The effect was a feeling of being a single mind, a single person with many bodies. This extended person could also sense the locations and thoughts of anyone nearby. Tactical co-ordination became vastly simplified.

_She,_ the unified mind of Calcadro's squad, felt the missing piece of herself, about to be raped by the enemy. Four of _her_ bodies instantly wheeled their horses and galloped toward the scene, while the rest of _her_ attacked the remaining slavers. _She_ cast a spell, using the skills of the witch, Zanentadra; on the body of Calcadro suddenly appeared four white snakes. The snakes coiled and struck; each one sank its fangs into the flesh of a different slaver. The slavers tried to pull them off, but they were too firmly embedded. With horror the men felt the venom boiling and burning through their veins. Their blood turned acid, melting their flesh into slime. Their skin blistered and cracked, and then split open, releasing steaming green ooze. No longer alive or human, they collapsed onto the ground and evaporated in columns of sputtering green smoke. The snakes then exploded in a shower of sparks.

Four of _her_ arrived and dismounted, rushing to the aid of the wounded, frozen, exhausted one on the ground. Immediately, _she_ applied first aid, found a blanket, and made a fire. The one who had been separate was cradled in _her_ love and care, and quickly became one with _her_ , like a handful of snow in a kettle of hot water. _She_ felt joy and relief, at finding _her_ missing piece, before it was too late.

As _her_ other bodies began the last phase of mopping up, _she_ allowed herself to feel the stress and fatigue of maintaining the group mind. With a bittersweet blend of victory and sadness, _she_ severed her links, and became once again a group of separate individuals. Some of them continued pursuing the slavers, others began to treat the injured Kantrikars, and the four who had come to Calcadro wrapped her in a blanket and began to set up a tent.

_You fought wonderfully_ , said Ydris in Calcadro's mind, _I'm proud of you._

_Thank you, beloved Mother_ , replied Calcadro, _I did it for you._

_I know_ , said Ydris.

_Mother, I love you so much!_ said Calcadro. _But, I am happy to stay with my friends._

_I love you too,_ said Ydris, _and I will always be with you._ And for just a moment, Ydris drew aside the veil; and for just a moment, Calcadro felt herself to be part of an immeasurably great _She_ , extending in all directions, and into the past and the future. Again and again _She_ was born, discovered her place in the world, found love and community, gave birth, worked and played, and thereby made a life-story, unique and irreplaceable. And just as each woman had her place in the world, her reason for being, so _She_ had a place in the still greater pattern that Calcadro was briefly able to glimpse. And though Calcadro was soon returned to her single, exhausted body, her mind was wordless and still for hours; a single sigh of happiness and peace.
**********

"Death is a kind god, for those who approach him are freed from triviality."

(from the _Scriptures of Tosaris_ )

When she was sure that her resolve was firm, Oselika went to speak with her father. She mounted a batwing and flew through the vast tunnel under Archonect that was said to have been made by the Rotimor, in the early days of her line. Reaching the end, she passed through various checkpoints. At first, she simply walked through them, returning the salute made to her by the guards, who all knew her by sight; later, she had to halt several times and be checked by wizards and telepaths, until they were satisfied that she truly was who she appeared to be. Finally, accompanied by guards, each of whom would, in turn, temporarily neutralize some barrier so that they could pass, she mounted the diamond staircase to the door of her father's study. The guards left her there. She knocked.

"Please come in, Sel," her father called. She did so.

He was sitting behind his ancient basalt desk. Had Kor been there, she would have immediately recognized him as Karngrevor, although he, too, had aged. His arms, though still muscular, were smaller, and his face was covered with an intricate network of lines. Those lines spelled a book of experience, care, and wisdom. He still wore the same simple shift. His eyes twinkled, and he had the kind of smile that makes a person feel that his life is not as hard as it has seemed to be.

Oselika went down on one knee before him, inclining her head and extending her sword to him, handle first. "Bless you, Sel," he said, giving her pommel a light tap. "Please stand." He also stood, and came around from behind his desk, and they exchanged a long embrace, for which he had to bend over. Finally, he patted her on the back and stood up. "Have a seat, Sel," he said, returning to his chair. "It's wonderful to see you."

"It's wonderful to see you, too, Father," said Oselika, sitting on a bench.

They talked about the weather and such. After awhile, Oselika said, "Father, I've decided on a quest."

"That's wonderful, Sel! Would you like to tell me about it?"

"First I have to tell you something sad, namely that I have deceived you about something." She felt ashamed of herself, but she looked right into his eyes, for she had been raised never to cringe, under any circumstances.

He smiled. "You're getting to be a big girl, Sel. I'm glad you have the self-confidence to proceed on your own like that. It must have been something very important."

Taking a moment to calm herself down a bit, she said, "It's about Akelian, Father. We found him, Teladorion and I and some friends. But although his body is alive, he just lies there without even moving his eyes. It is as though his soul were elsewhere. We consulted doctors and wizards, and they said that it was the result of a drug, and that they could do nothing. They say it is irreversible."

Karngrevor was silent; his face became drawn, and his eyes seemed to become opaque.

"Teladorion said I should kill him, but I just could not lose hope. But I have vowed to kill him, or his body, by Osmuntide next, if he does not improve. Tel and I have visited him several times since then, but we have seen no change."

Karngrevor remained silent for a moment, and then he said, his eyes downcast, "I, too, found it impossible to lose hope. I kept expecting to hear something from him, or about him. And now I have. But you have more to say."

"Father, do you think I did the wrong thing?"

He looked at her again. His eyes were glazed by grief. "I don't know, Sel," he said slowly. "Sometimes it is hard to tell a weakness from a strength. I know that whatever you did, you did out of love for him, and that cannot be all bad. But, tell me about your quest."

"I want to find him, Father. I want to find his soul, and bring it back."

Her father looked astonished for a moment, and then broke into a laugh. "Now that," he said, "is a quest truly worthy of our line!" Then his face turned serious again, and he looked into her eyes very deeply. "Are you absolutely certain?"

"Yes, Father, I am," she said. "Well, there is one more thing. Teladorion wants to come with me."

Karngrevor smiled again, and looked at her a bit sideways. "You really must come see me more often, Sel. I seem to be missing everything in your life!"

She felt herself blushing furiously.

"Be that as it may," Karngrevor continued, looking away while she composed herself, "I have no objection at all. I couldn't think of a better associate. You have my blessing." He rose, and they embraced again, for a long time. This time, they both shed tears. Finally, they stepped back, still holding hands and looking into each other's eyes.

"Let me say, Oselika, that you have been everything I could have wished for in a daughter, and more. You constantly surprise me; just when I think that no one could surpass you, you surpass yourself."

"Thank you, Father; and as for me, I could not imagine a better father, or a finer man, than you."

He took a long look at her face, as though drinking it in. She looked at him in the same way. Then he sighed and said, "Shall we proceed to the chapel?"

"I am ready," she said. They loosed their hands, and he led the way to the back of the room, and into a small tunnel carved out of the rock. It bent this way and that, lit only by small blue crystals here and there. After several hundred yards, it opened into a little cavern, which was better lit. At the far end of the cavern, there was a small altar with a statue of Tosaris, the god of Excellence.

Putting his hand around Oselika's shoulder, Karngrevor spoke to the god:

"All-judging and Merciless Tosaris," he intoned, "my daughter Oselika has decided on a quest. She has my blessing, and now she requests yours." Then he stepped back into a nook in the wall.

There was a sound like the crash of a huge gong, and a demon appeared in the cavern, facing Oselika. It had the body of a lion, but in place of the neck and head there was the head and torso of an armored man. This torso had six arms. The helmeted head was vaguely humanoid, but spherical; the mouth was a forest of fangs, and the eyes glowed like coals.

Oselika joined her hands before her and made the traditional bow of gratitude; the demon joined its hands (in three pairs) and bowed in response. They both straightened. Suddenly, six swords appeared in the demon's hands, and it sprang at Oselika with an unearthly howl.
**********

"Better to lose one's eyes than one's innocence"

(Saint Smiffen the jaded)

The mute boy came to visit Lessie in her room. She was alone, sleeping naked beneath a sheet. He knelt beside her and looked fondly at her. Sleep gives us the opportunity to look at leisure at the features of someone we love. He felt that he had never really had a chance to look at her before, because her face was always in motion, and because there was always something else going on, and because it make people nervous when you stare at them. Now, he was free to look as much as he liked. Like a mountain climber, he negotiated the curves and angles of her face, savoring their mysterious and inexhaustible _Lessieness_. Why did these particular curves mean so much to him? He only knew that they did. How glad he was that her recent estrangement from him had not been permanent!

The thought distracted him from his vigil. He'd been able to grasp that her anger at him had had something to do with the sphere of light that had appeared between his hands. But why was she upset? That light had saved them all from a terrible danger. He remembered standing and feeling an impulse to hold his hands up. He had had no idea that such a light would appear. As he thought about that, a notion occurred to him; it was the notion that this was the way such miracles always happened; one could not do them on purpose. Was it different, then, from the magic of wizards and witches?

He turned his attention back to Lessie, who was facing away from him. She was covered by a light linen sheet. She was sleeping on her side, which accentuated the curve of her upper hip. He ran his eye along this curve. He knew that women had larger hips than men. It was a rather small difference, yet it had a deep significance. How mysterious that this slight difference in shape could stir him so! It wasn't just _bigge_ r than a man's hip -- there was something essentially feminine about the _shape_ of it; what was it? It was a very complicated curve, with no evident pattern or symmetry to it, and yet somehow _just right_. He kept running his eye over this shape, trying to grasp the essence of it, but it always somehow eluded him. He didn't get tired of trying, though.

Lessie stirred in her sleep; she turned onto her back. The sheet settled over her.
**********

"People have to believe in death until they can commit to life."

(Saint Evrid the Unhealthy)

Tarth Sakul entered the sanctuary with great trepidation. Was this really the right step to take? Behind him, heavy doors closed, cutting off almost all light, and he felt strong bands of magic holding them shut. In fact, he could feel that the whole room was saturated with magic.

He was worried about the fact that Pappi had taken out a contract on him at the Cathedral of the Assassins, and had good reason to be, for the skill of their pastoral agents was legendary. He knew he could expect little help from Tarthex Oslan, or anyone else in the Guardians of Evil, for they adhered to the principles, "Survival is the test of worth" and "Charity breeds monsters."

The room was filled with silence, and the brooding smell of incense. The only light came from coals in a small brazier on a pedestal. Next to it stood the Welcomer, wearing the traditional black garb and demonic mask. Because the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room were also deep, matte black, only the side of the Welcomer facing the brazier was visible. The Welcomer, his voice magically altered to sound inhumanly deep and resonant, said,

"Welcome to the line between death and life! What do you want?"

"I want to appeal a death contract on myself," said Tarth Sakul.

"I grant you one hour's amnesty," said the Welcomer. "Please elaborate."

"My name is Tarth Sakul. I have recently worked as a security chief for a man named Pappi. I have heard that he has taken out a contract on me."

The Welcomer turned toward the brazier and dropped something onto it, creating a shower of sparks. When the sparks died down, he turned back to Tarth Sakul.

"I am not free to verify who it is, but indeed, one person has taken out a private contract on you. Since you have come here, you have a grace period of one hour beyond the extent of your visit, during which we will not harm you, so long as you follow our visitor's rules: behave respectfully, do not attack anyone, and do not cast any spells, unless there is an emergency. Do you agree to follow these rules?"

"I agree," said Tarth Sakul, smarting inwardly at having rules imposed upon him by anyone outside the Lord of Evil's organization.

"Please allow our telepath to verify your identity and your immediate intentions," said the Welcomer.

"One moment, please," said Tarth Sakul, and disengaged some of his more superficial mental defenses. "Very well, please proceed." He felt the presence of a telepath in his mind for a few moments. The telepath did not attempt to explore the deeper levels of his mind, and so did not come up against his remaining defenses.

"Very well," said the Welcomer, "take the third passage from the left, as shown by the light." The brazier suddenly disappeared, leaving Tarth Sakul buried in darkness. Quickly, he re-engaged his defenses and looked around.

A ring of soft, crimson light, about two forearms in diameter, appeared at about floor level, to his left. Tarth Sakul thanked the now-invisible Welcomer and went over to the light. When he got up to it, he could see that it surrounded a dark and narrow tunnel, just big enough for him to squeeze through. Lying prone, he went into it head-first, pulling himself along the smooth surface with his hands. Within the tunnel it was absolutely dark; he had to operate entirely by feel. It was difficult, and although Tarth Sakul was not generally given to claustrophobia, he found himself having to fight back panic. The air became hot and stuffy, causing him to pant for breath. Sweat ran into his eyes. It got worse when the passage began to incline downwards; it felt as though it would be impossible to back up. Was this a trap? Was the Cathedral simply using this as an opportunity to fulfill its contract? As the tunnel became steeper still, he found himself using his hands to hold himself back, rather than to pull himself forward. Finally he reached a point where it was all he could do to remain still; after remaining so for some time, he decided that he was intended to let himself slide freely after this point. It was not easy to let go, to lose control in the total darkness; only the fact that he did not wish to stay there forever convinced him to let himself hurtle blindly into the void. He slid, at a speed which was hard to determine, until the passage suddenly disappeared; then he was falling in empty darkness, with an unknown distance to an unknown landing. The temptation to use magic – or to scream -- was almost irresistible. Then some sort of net caught him, and dumped him, and finally he found himself on some soft cushions. It was still pitch dark. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding like the hoofs of a galloping horse. Gradually, much of his fear evaporated, leaving him enraged by this treatment.

"Welcome," said an unearthly voice, from no apparent direction. "I am your judge. Make yourself comfortable on those cushions, please."

"Thank you," he said, insincerely, and arranged himself in a seated position. "I am comfortable now." He felt humiliated by the ordeal he had just been put through, even though he had come through it with a certain dignity. _Theatrics_ , he thought, _Psychological warfare_.

"Good," said the voice. "According to my notes you are Tarth Sakul, a magician who has worked as a Security Chief for an arch-criminal named Pappi. Someone has taken out a contract on you, and you wish to appeal it."

"That is correct," said Tarth Sakul.

"Please state the grounds for your appeal."

"There are two: first, I believe that Pappi is the one who has taken out this contract, and his reasons for doing so are mistaken. Second, I propose a _pro bono_ judgment against Pappi himself, to include nullifying any contracts of his."

"I cannot verify whether Pappi is indeed the author of the contract," replied the voice, "but let us assume that he is; please explain his error."

Tarth Sakul proceeded to give a brief summary of the events concerning Brother Koof's attempts to steal the ruby sculptures; then he added, "I believe that his errors are twofold: first, he thinks that I have betrayed him, but I have not, and if you ask him for evidence, he will be unable to produce any. Second, he may wish to have me killed because I know too much, or for some other reason, but he does not know that I have some death spells permanently attached to him, which I will trigger if my appeal fails. Given the correct information, he will may wish to nullify the contract."

When he had finished, the judge said, "One moment, please." There followed what appeared, in fact, to be many, many moments of silence, enough to be very irritating. Finally, the judge said, "I am afraid that your first ground is very weak. We will, however, extend your grace period by two days. During this time, we will attempt to contact the author of the contract, and also this Mr. Pappi, inform them of what you have said, and see what we can learn from them. Please proceed to your second ground."

"As you are perhaps well aware," replied Tarth Sakul, "Mr. Pappi is not an ordinary criminal. He is extremely brilliant, single-minded, and ambitious. Starting from the very bottom of society, he has at the age of 37 taken over not only his own neighborhood, but at least 53 others. There are at least 91 other neighborhoods that he is well on the way to taking over. He is not restrained by the traditions and codes of honor that many criminal congregations respect, and he is apparently completely lacking in conscience, or even moderation. For example, he deals in snoffle and in the slave trade, and he maintains a private gladiatorial arena, using unwilling prisoners. He has recently lost his original base of operations, but this will not inhibit him greatly, since he has many other bases. For this reason, the Cathedral of the Assassins could perform an immensely great service to society by eliminating him.

"Given Pappi's single-mindedness, any contracts he may have with you are probably connected with his criminal activities, and so there is no deep moral objection to your breaking them. Because of my recent employment with him, as Security Chief, I know a great deal about his projects, his methods, his associates, his clients, and his rivals. With my help, you can do a thorough job of smashing his criminal organization, and those of a number of other criminals, as well. This would, I respectfully suggest, be an excellent _pro bono_ action on your part. I will co-operate in exchange for amnesty.

"In fact, I will make the following offer: I'm sure that you have received many petitions for Pappi's death, but have found them difficult to carry out, because of the excellence of his security measures. If, however, you give me a month's amnesty, I will dispose of him myself, on your behalf. You may then collect on whatever contracts you have accepted. In return, I ask only that his contract on me be dismissed. Since he will not be around to complain, this will hardly be a problem for you. If I fail, then Pappi will have done your work for you. Either way, you come out ahead."

There was another long silence. Then the judge replied:

"I am not at liberty to comment on the accuracy of any of your factual claims, but your proposal to kill Pappi yourself is accepted. You have therefore been granted the following indulgence: you have one month of grace from any contracts we may have on you, and any contracts Pappi may have on you will be rendered permanently void if you succeed in killing him.

"You will find a small amulet in your pocket. As long as it is still green, your grace period is still in effect. If we wish to consult further with you, it will become hot; you should then proceed to our nearest available representative. When your grace period has expired, the amulet will turn red. If Pappi dies, it will turn black.

"That will be all for now; please take the marked passageway behind you to return to life."

Looking behind him, Tarth Sakul saw another ring of light. He took the indicated passageway, and his experience was much the same as with the first, except that at the end, he found himself, blinded by daylight, in a small garden behind the sanctuary.

"Stupid theatrical tricks!" he muttered. He had heard of people who had had 'near death experiences' and 'profound spiritual experiences' from such frippery. He was not so naïve or suggestible, but by putting up with them he had, at the very least, bought a little time. If he found Pappi's security to be invulnerable, he could use that time to put a great deal of distance between himself and the Assassins. He would first need to construct an indirect way to consult the amulet, since he suspected that it contained a tracking beacon. Also, he should take steps to assure that no other beacons had been placed on him, and that he was not being followed. He wanted no one to learn that much about him.

Returning to his horse, he muttered a spell, and his staff, which had been hovering invisibly twenty feet in the air, became visible and flew down to his waiting hand. He used it to perform a close scan of his person and his surroundings. He found two cloaked beacons, one on himself and one on his horse. He decided to wait, and sabotage them at a later time, when he had developed a more detailed plan of action, and could use them to give misleading impressions. Then he mounted his horse and rode away at a gallop.

Still irritated at the 'stupid theatrical tricks,' he had not taken quite enough care in checking for beacons; he had found the ones that the Assassins had intended him to find, but he had missed a horsefly, which kept its distance when he approached, but followed the horse at a distance when he began to ride.
**********

"So many want to be you,

Which one will be chosen?"

(from the popular song, "Watch Yourself!"

Mortal Part and Immortal Part, two ways of looking at the Fabulist, sat among the evergreens, talking. Immortal Part had just said that there would be no consolation for Mortal Part, "Unless you can get over the idea that you are just this body, or just this stream of experience."

"Are you saying that I have a _choice_ as to how I appear to myself?" asked Mortal Part. "I thought that I was unable to know myself as I really am."

"Well," replied Immortal Part, "although you, as Mortal Part, can never know your real self completely, in every detail, you can make progress to better and better approximations. There are many ways to see the truth distorted. Some are less distorted than others. If nothing else, you can discover _several_ of them; that is better than being stuck in just one. You have been looking at yourself as an author creating a story; but you could also see yourself as an impersonal process of evolution, or as Chance, or as a stern, law-giving king, or as a nurturing mother, or as a world of perfect forms manifesting imperfectly in matter, or as a whole group of gods making the world through their interactions, or as a fetus developing, or as an unmoved mover, or as Creativity, or as the One which produces the Many, and so on."

Mortal Part gave a little start. "I just remembered," he said, "that is part of why I made so many different religions and Philosophies, isn't it?"

Immortal Part nodded and smiled. "Yes indeed," he said, "each one contains a bit of the truth. You see, if you think about these things, insights will come to you. Philosophy helps you to remember yourself. But let me go on to the second answer. As long as you think that you are no more than Mortal Part, then indeed, you can only conclude that you will never know the truth completely. But if you realize that your being nothing more than Mortal Part is just an illusion, that you are also Immortal Part, then you will realize that you understand everything perfectly, and have all along. And _that_ is my answer to your prayer," he said, standing up. "This illusion will go now," he said with a chuckle, "but _I_ will always be with you." Immortal Part smiled, and then all but one eye disappeared, and then the eye winked, and then it, too, disappeared.

Mortal Part sat for a long time, thinking. He tried to stop identifying himself with a particular stream of consciousness, but he did not succeed. Eventually he sighed and got up, wincing as his stiff muscles re-adjusted, and as his right leg, which had fallen asleep, woke up screaming. 'So much for transcending the body,' he thought. Then he returned to Kolidor's house.

Kolidor was outside, weaving a basket out of reeds. He put his basket down and got up to embrace Mortal Part. "I think you will come with me," he said. Mortal Part followed him to the other side of the house. There Kolidor gestured to a pile of unsplit wood, a block, and an axe. "I think this wood will use you to split itself," he said. Looking into himself, Mortal Part saw that he knew how to split wood. He smiled and nodded, picked up the axe, and set to work. Kolidor brought his basket-making materials around to a nearby spot, and they worked together. Occasionally they would pause, make eye-contact, and smile. Mortal Part was very pleased by this.
**********

"Karios, the god of Theology, spins beautiful lies

in order to lead us toward the truth."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Church of Lurishia)

Srea Kula found La _tor_ , priest of Karios, waiting for him in Lator's study. "Please to have a seat," said Lator, who was re-adjusting bits of scrap lumber in his fireplace, "I'll soon be with you." Casting his eyes around the room, Srea Kula was pleased to find it to be about what he had expected: every wall was a bookcase, Lator's table was covered with piled-up books and papers, and statues of gods and goddesses were everywhere. Lator himself seemed to fit right in: a gray-bearded man with spectacles in a dingy white robe. His complexion was reddish, his posture slightly bent. Srea Kula carefully removed some books and papers from a rickety old chair and sat in it gingerly. It creaked and settled, but held.

"Little have I to offer you," said Lator, "but here is some vegetable juice from my own garden. Of course, it is hardly fresh, at this time of year, but I keep it on ice in the cellar."

"That would be fine," said Srea Kula. After hunting around a bit, Lator produced a ceramic flask and a mismatched pair of clay cups, and poured a thick brownish liquid from the former into the latter, handing one of the cups to Srea Kula. Then he brought a chair from behind his desk and sat in it. Srea Kula sipped the juice tentatively and found it bearable.

"So, please to tell me about yourself, Srea Kula," said Lator.

"I am a Priest at the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Sreniklir," replied Srea Kula. "Not long ago, I had a congregant named Sre Lugu, a banker, whom I had known and counseled from his youth. He was a married man with a lovely wife and three beautiful children. He is a basically good man, but he was partially corrupted by a brilliant criminal, who manipulated him into taking a mistress so that he could be blackmailed. When it came to the test, however, Sre Lugu chose to confess and reform. The process of restitution turned out to be more complex and difficult than anticipated, however, and in the midst of it, the god Kshaloka appeared, and then my own dearest gods, the Holy Family of Rajo, Tilja, Tlala, and Ril!"

"Oh, how wonderful!" said Lator, evidently quite entranced. "Please to tell me all about it!"

"Well, I can read my notes," said Srea Kula, "which I wrote down as soon as I had the moments, afterwards. I also wrote down interviews with the others who were there. We all agree on the main points of what happened. I have made a copy for you, if you want it."

"Oh, I most certainly do!" said Lator.

Srea Kula read his account. Then he added, "Although it was wonderful to have the experience, I was puzzled by some of Rajo's remarks at the end. Why was he so brusque with me, throwing the whole scene away as a hallucination? And what did he mean that I see the Holy Family as they really are, every day? I thought of various answers to these questions, but I was not satisfied. One problem led to another, until I was very confused. Of course, I took some Theology courses when I was at the Ovulary, but I was not prepared for the questions that flooded into my mind. Besides, after twenty years of pastoral work, most of what I had learned in the Ovulary was a mere ghost of a memory. I went to see my Bishop, and she suggested that I come here from time to time to talk to you. The Cathedral will provide a fee." He handed a note to that effect over to Lator.

Lator scanned the note. "I will accept the fee," he said, "although I find the task intrinsically worth doing. Ah, but there's not much work with pay for a theologian," he added sadly, shaking his head. "Most people find it too abstract. So many people want advice about their personal relationships with other mortals, but Ah, that's not my field. Then, a lot of people want me to do fancy magic for them. When I explain to them that Theology is an attempt to _understand_ the gods, not a way to make them jump through hoops for mortals, they are disappointed, or even offended. Ah! So I cannot develop a congregation, and I have to support myself by doing odd jobs. So, yes, I will accept this fee. But, I will forgive you the fee for the first session, since the copy of your notes is quite valuable to me."

"You are completely entitled to both the fee and the notes," said Srea Kula. "But can you help me?"

"I believe I can," replied Lator, "but, Ah, you must understand that my way of helping you will often consist of asking questions rather than giving the answers, and that I will sometimes lead you off on what appears to be the foolish traveler's way. Also, that we humans will probably never fully understand the gods. Sad but so!"

"I will accept that," said Srea Kula.

"Well, then," said Lator, "I will begin by trying to understand your problem better. Why did it bother you that Rajo said that it was a hallucination?"

"Well, partly just that it was so abrupt. It was as though he were irritated with me, but he didn't say why. I prayed later to find out, but he didn't answer."

"It sounds to me as though he wanted you to try to find the answer on your own," said Lator, "which you are now doing, yes? But, what else bothered you?"

"Well, saying it was a hallucination almost sounded like something an atheist would say! But how could a god be an atheist?"

"Ah, but gods can be about anything they want to be," said Lator, "and besides, what an _atheist_ is depends on what a _god_ is. If you define 'god' in the right way, I might be an atheist myself. If you define it another way, no sane man is an atheist. Besides, Rajo didn't say that he didn't exist, he just said that he didn't really look like a mortal. What else bothered you?"

"Well, the people with me all saw about the same thing. That suggests that something is going on beyond mere hallucination. There might be such a thing as a group hallucination, but something would have to cause it."

"Ah, true enough," said Lator, "but not necessarily a something that looks like a mortal, yes? But let us return to his claim that you see them as they are, every day. Do you remember the theological concepts of _immanence_ , _transcendence_ , and _Pantheism_?"

"Oh ... not really," said Srea Kula. "You know, all that stuff has nothing to do with helping people with their lives. You learn it, you graduate, you forget it." Then, he was suddenly embarrassed, as he realized that he was demeaning Theology in the presence of a theologian. "I'm sorry," he said hastily. "I meant, to someone like me, it was not ... something I used. For better or worse."

"Quite all right," said Lator, smiling. "I am used to such attitudes, and I do not expect everyone to be interested in Theology. The nature of the Divine, and our relation to it, is terribly boring compared to the latest fashions or popular songs, I'm afraid. But now, it has become important to you, at least for the time being. So let me remind you that there are two extreme positions possible on the relationship of the gods to the world we see around us. To say that the gods are _transcendent_ is to say that they are somehow completely beyond this visible, tangible world, although some of them may have created it. Perhaps some of them are even outside of time and space. To say that the gods are _immanent_ , on the other hand, is to say that they are _in_ this world. The extreme of immanentism is _Pantheism_. The Pantheist says that the world just _is_ the gods, it is just the form that the gods take. Of course, there are various intermediate views."

"Yes," said Srea Kula, embarrassed now at having to have the first day's material of _Theology 1_ explained to him, "I think I am beginning to remember that now."

"Please not to be hard on yourself," said Lator. "You are absolutely right that these questions are not relevant when counseling people on their everyday lives. Most of your colleagues, and even your Bishop, it seems, have forgotten this material just as thoroughly as you have. But what do you think: could Rajo have been speaking of something like this?"

"Well, if Pantheism is true, then yes, we see the gods as they are, every day," said Srea Kula. "Or at least, parts of them. But Pantheism is a very disturbing idea."

"Why?" asked Lator.

"Well, forgive the indelicacy, but ... when I go to the bathroom, I would be, well, excreting on the gods! And, some god would have to be ... _made of excrement_! At least in part! And I myself, for that matter, would be divine in nature! As would all the evil, badness, and stupidity in the world! And how could we _worship_ the gods, if they are not transcendent?"

"Ah, problems indeed! Perhaps this is why you were disturbed: you had thought of the gods as ideal beings freed of the stains of worldly imperfection, reaching down to help mortals up. But Rajo seemed to be pointing in another direction; he seemed to suggest that the gods are just as involved in the material world as we are ourselves, if not more so."

"Yes, and there were other things, other hints like that. For example, Tilja, the Holy Mother, was, well ..." \-- he raised his eyes to the ceiling and made an imploring gesture with his arms – "Forgive me, Holy Mother, I am just reporting on what appeared to me!" He returned his gaze to Lator, and said, feeling himself blush, "She looked ... well, ... _frumpy_! And at times, she spoke, well, _peevishly_."

"Ah, not the way a divine being ought to look or speak!"

"Well, no ... how can I hold up – please forgive me again, Holy Mother, I am only expressing my own ignorance and puzzlement! – how can I hold up such a being as an ideal to my parishioners? How can I urge mortal mothers to be patient and kind, if the Holy Mother herself is _peevish_?" Srea Kula felt absolutely horrified to hear himself saying that Tilja was peevish, and questioning her suitability as an object of veneration. He was also frightened – he expected a lightning bolt to strike him at any moment.

"Don't be afraid," said Lator. "Remember that the gods themselves suggested this train of thought to you, and remember how magnificently Rajo praised you, just before he disappeared! Ah, but surely, you were _intended_ to think this way!"

"But why?" said Srea Kula, still very disturbed.

"Ah, you know, when children are very young, they worship their parents. They think their parents are perfect, and know everything. But as the children grow older, they realize that their parents have flaws. Sometimes parents find this change difficult; it is nice to be worshipped! And the child can find it difficult, too, for it is comforting to think that they have a perfect protector, and a source for all the answers. But if they resist growing independent, it is not good for them, or for the family. A good parent will expect the child to pull away, and even encourage it, painful though it is. You of course know all this, yes?" Srea Kula nodded.

"But now," continued Lator, "perhaps it is the same with the gods! They feel that you, Srea Kula, are ready to become a little more independent of them, to be more aware of their imperfections, and to rely on yourself more. So the Divine Mother shows herself as frumpy and peevish, and the Divine Father suggests that the gods are not transcendent."

Srea Kula felt vertigo and a deep anxiety. He was shocked at how the conversation was going – partly as a result of his own contributions! He began to wonder whether Lator was really a good man. He remembered how Sre Lugu had said that Pappi had subtly encouraged him to be disrespectful of the gods. It had been part of Pappi's clever plan of corruption. Now, Srea Kula found Lator to be speaking disrespectfully of the gods, and encouraging Srea Kula also to see them as imperfect, and to become independent of them. Was Lator trying to corrupt him? Should he get up and walk out? Should he recommend to his Bishop not to send anyone to Lator any more?

"As for evil, badness, and stupidity being divine," continued Lator, "well, don't some people think that there is a god of evil? And if there is, wouldn't that mean that evil is in some sense divine?"

"Well, the god of evil would be divine, I suppose, but some particular evil action on the part of some human – that doesn't strike me as divine at all. Yet it would be, according to the Pantheist."

"But perhaps the god of evil is just the sum of all evil acts. Or something like that."

"I would see nothing divine about such a being." Srea Kula felt better – he was resisting this perverse doctrine.

"Well, such a being would be immortal, yes? Much as we would like it to be otherwise, evil never disappears. And immensely large and powerful, yes? And, Alas, a fundamental force in the world. Sad but so!"

"But doesn't a god have to be a _person_?"

"Ah, but is evil in the world so far from being a person? It is certainly not human, but it is very like us in many ways. It would not be such a far-fetched metaphor to say that it struggles to survive and flourish. It has needs and goals. It has problems that it tries to solve. It works to perpetuate itself. It needs resources, and strives to acquire and to use them. It develops habits, and then changes them if they cease to have the desired effect. It uses individual evil people to do things, just as I use my fingers to do things. When Pappi was corrupting Sre Lugu, it might be said that Evil was _eating_ or _digesting_ Sre Lugu – converting his substance into its own. And it is not coincidental that evil people often corrupt others – that is part of the nature of evil itself, it is evil to recruit for evil. But evil did not eat Sre Lugu thoughtlessly and instinctively, as a lower animal eats; it had a carefully thought-out plan. Alas, evil can be quite intelligent! Yes, it is very much like a person!"

Srea Kula was not convinced, but he was taken aback by how much sense this image made to him. "So," he said, "when I see fathers, I see Rajo. Parts of Rajo. That's why he said I see him every day."

"Very possibly, indeed," said Lator, "and when you see mothers, you see Tilja. And, unfortunate though it may be, some mothers are frumpy and some are peevish. So Tilja herself is, in some measure, frumpy and peevish."

Srea Kula was horrified to feel his face start to form a smirk, at this last thought; he stifled it immediately. Silently he thought, _Holy Family, please forgive my ignorance, and help me to find my way through this perplexity. I am only seeking the truth. I want to do the right thing. Please be patient with my weakness and confusion! And if this man is evil, please reveal it to me, and protect me from him!_ He paused for a moment, thinking of what Lator had said about children and mortals becoming independent. _That is_ , he added, _unless you have decided not to help me any more_.
**********

"Your home is always looking for you."

(Saint Gwismut the Exile)

For a long time, the young Kor lay on the side of the road, weeping, letting her defeat soak through her. Paridazor sat quietly nearby, not looking directly at her. Finally, Kor became hungry and thirsty. She stirred. It made her feel a little shallow, that she would stir for this, but she did.

"I'm sorry," she said to Paridazor. "I just felt that I needed to do that. To lie down and cry."

"I'm sure you did need it," said Paridazor. "Would you like something to eat and drink?"

"Well, yes, I would," said Kor. Paridazor shrugged out of his backpack, opened it, and handed Kor a water-bottle and a carrot. Then he opened a jar, and poured some of its contents into a bowl, which he handed to her. It was a cooked mixture of brown rice and chunks of cooked vegetables. Kor ate quickly.

"And now," she said, "I need to go to the bathroom."

"There's a Krezindish chapel just down the street," said Paridazor, packing away the water-bottle and the bowl. The Krezindi were a monastic order, dedicated to opposing the tendency to oppose the material to the spiritual; they were particularly dedicated to dealing with those aspects of the material world which most people were apt to find especially unspiritual, like excrement, or symptoms of disease. In particular, they maintained free public toilets in many neighborhoods, regarding them as shrines.

Soon, Kor and her guide were on their way, walking slowly down a fairly large street. Paridazor encouraged her to stop to rest from time to time. Her mind was still in turmoil, but she managed to put one foot in front of the other. She hardly noticed the complete transformation of the neighborhood that was going on, at the hands of the Angels and their prisoners, who were being used as forced labor. Nor did she really notice when they passed into another, more normal neighborhood. At dusk, Paridazor guided her to an encampment. Here, in an abandoned plaza, many Zillist wanderers were sleeping or meditating. Paridazor borrowed a sleeping mat, pillows, and a blanket from somewhere, and after a short meal, Kor gratefully lay down to sleep. Later in the night, she was vaguely aware that Paridazor was sleeping next to her; but by the time she woke in the morning, he was sitting in meditation, several feet away.

Soon they were on their way again. Ironically, it was a beautiful day, and the neighborhood they were passing through was an affluent one, with many parks and public gardens, and many beautiful houses. Paridazor had selected an unpaved road, hardly more than a path, which followed, and repeatedly crossed, by way of wooden bridges, a small and sparkling river. Kor suspected that it was not the shortest way, but she was grateful for the choice.

They had lunch on an island of that river, which by then was somewhat larger. The island had a little beach, and they both took the opportunity to bathe. Although it made her feel a little vain, and reminded her of Zar, Kor could not resist taking a tiny bit of pleasure in noting some new marks and wrinkles on her abdomen, resulting from her pregnancy, and hoping that they would be permanent. _I guess I haven't lost all interest in life_ , she thought, not without a twinge of disappointment in herself for being vain.

"I've arranged for someone to bring us a raft," said Paridazor, with a smile. "She should be along shortly." Kor was grateful for an opportunity to rest, sunbathe briefly, and enjoy the scenery. Sure enough, within the hour a young woman appeared, poling a raft upstream. She greeted Paridazor politely, and he introduced her to Kor as "Zaliadin." Since she was wearing only a backpack and a wide-brimmed hat, Kor assumed that she was another wandering Zillist.

Soon the three of them were headed down the river, with Paridazor and Zaliadin taking turns with the pole. Kor could hardly keep from enjoying herself, watching the scenery go by, and catching sight of various kinds of fish in the crystal water. The two Zillists did not speak much, but they displayed a kind of cheerful equanimity that Kor found relaxing and a little contagious. After awhile, she even felt like conversing a little. If she felt a little guilty about feeling even a trace of happiness in her situation, she was able to balance this out with a feeling that she was, by socializing, making herself less burdensome to the others.

"You know," she said, "I met one of your order a couple of years ago, back in the neighborhood that I am returning to now. His name was – I can't quite bring it to mind, but it was the same as the last Emperor."

"Sindariden," said Zaliadin, smiling, as though she knew him and was fond of him.

"Yes," said Kor, "Sindariden. A very nice man. We didn't speak for long."

"He's a man of few words," said Paridazor.

"You know him?"

"Oh, yes," said Paridazor, "in fact, he's currently staying in one of the neighborhoods we'll be passing through. Would you like to speak with him?"

"Well," said Kor, a little embarrassed, "I'm sure he won't remember me."

"You might be surprised," said Zaliadin, her eyes twinkling.

"Well," said Kor, "it's not that I'm in a hurry, or anything. In fact, I wouldn't mind staying right here on this raft for a good long time."

Paridazor smiled. "We're not in a hurry either," he said. "We could stretch out this part of the trip for the rest of the daylight, if you like."

"Oh, I am already imposing on you quite enough," said Kor.

"We don't have schedules," said Zaliadin, "and we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing, so you are not imposing at all. If you would like to extend the raft trip, so would we."

"Really?"

"Really!" Zaliadin's sparkling eye contact and warm, relaxed smile convinced Kor that she was not just being polite. Paridazor also looked quite content with the possibility.

"I _would_ like to do that," said Kor. She was a little surprised that she had any preference; she had thought that everything had turned the same shade of gray for her. Perhaps it was the utter absence of responsibilities that she felt, as if she were on a vacation. The two Zillists seemed happy to take care of everything. She felt that she was in no condition to deal with any demands.

"Well, then," said Parizador, "we'll soon be coming to a small lake. Instead of going straight through, we'll visit a little cluster of uninhabited islands I happen to know about."

"Thank you very much," said Kor. She felt relief and gratitude, two more spots of color in the gray.

"You're very welcome," said Paridazor.

There was a pleasant silence for awhile, and then Kor felt like talking again. "Sindariden told me a little about your religion," she said. "Something about ... a unity of all things, and ... growth and development, and meditation."

"'We hold,'" said Paridazor, in the tone of someone quoting something official, "'That the universe is one great self-consistent whole, and that the myriad phenomena are all balanced expressions of an underlying Oneness, expressing itself through love. It grows and develops through time. We practice meditation to know and realize this Oneness. It is our belief that in doing so, a person gradually becomes free of evil and harm.'"

"Yes," said Kor, "I believe that's exactly what he said!"

"It's our standard summary," said Zaliadin.

"Here's the lake!" said Paridazor.

The lake was nestled among rolling hills; the hills were dappled by fields, and spotted with huge mansions. A couple of small sailboats were out, catching the light summer breezes. Taking up paddles, Zaliadin and Paridazor directed the raft toward one of the islands.

It was a beautiful place. There was a small, sandy beach, a fragrant stand of evergreens, and a wildflower meadow. After exploring, Kor took a short nap at the edge of the meadow. When she awoke, Zaliadin and Paridazor were not in evidence.

She sat up. It was late afternoon, but still warm and bright. A flock of tiny golden birds were making their way, like sparks, through the flowers. _I ought to bring Zar here_ , she thought. She imagined Zar crawling about, a big smile on her face, fascinated by everything. Then she remembered.

" _Aieeeeeeeeee!!_ " she wailed.

A moment later, Zaliadin and Paridazor came running out of the stand of evergreens. Kor was weeping profusely, and wishing she did not exist. The two Zillists sat next to her; Zaliadin put her arms around her.

"My baby! My baby!" wailed Kor. "I want my baby!"

"Of course you do, of course you do," murmured Zaliadin, gently but fervently. "Of course you do!"

For awhile, Kor only wept. Then she looked into Zaliadin's quiet gray eyes.

"Does ... your meditation ... really protect you from harm?" she asked. "Can it do that?"

"I'll teach you about it," said Zaliadin, stroking Kor's hair.
**********

"Our enemies keep us alive."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

The demon leapt at Oselika with its four lower arms holding their swords in defensive position, its upper two arms raised to strike, and its curving lion-claws extended. Oselika, drawing her own sword, dived horizontally under it. Taking the brunt of her fall on her left arm and shoulder, she rolled onto her back and slashed the demon's scrotum as it passed over her. Wounded, the demon emitted a howl of rage and twisted in midair like a cat, so that it landed facing her. Rolling backwards onto her feet, she was barely in time to meet its next charge.

Now Oselika had the difficult task of fencing against six blades at once. She could never have parried that many blades; instead, she relied on feints and attacks to keep the demon too defensive and busy to mount a coherent attack of its own. She leapt, crouched, and sidestepped in a complex, non-repetitive pattern to present an unpredictably moving target. But gradually, the demon began to advance, and she had to move back.

Oselika had memorized the shape of the room, and did not need to look behind her. Instead, she concentrated on what her fencing teacher had called, "Making the opponent still."

"When a number of horsemen ride together," he had said, "each one sees the others as more or less stationary. It is the scenery that is moving. A rider who is somewhat slower than the others seems to be moving slowly backwards. In the same way, try to see a general pattern in your opponents' moves and your responses to them. Then, you only have to think of the deviations from that pattern. Then, it is like dealing with someone who is barely moving at all!"

He also taught her how to encourage the opponent to fall into such a pattern, by matching his natural rhythm. "It is like pushing a child on a swing," he said. "You have to push at the right times, and let go at the right times. The swing has a natural rhythm that you have to respect. But when you find that rhythm, you can make the swing go very high!" As she fenced, Oselika sought for the demon's natural rhythm, while disguising her own. She began to glimpse it, but she also began to tire under the demon's onslaught.

"Once you find the rhythm," her teacher had said, "there are two simple strategies for making use of it, beyond 'making the opponent still.' The first is to keep encouraging it until it becomes too powerful; this is like pushing the swing too high. No one is strong enough to push a swing that high with one push, but if you push a little each time it returns to you, you can gradually reach that point. Then your opponent will stumble."

"The other way is to habituate the opponent to a certain rhythm, and then suddenly do something different. The opponent will take a moment to adjust, and in that moment you have an advantage."

Oselika knew she was approaching the wall of the cave, and would not be able to retreat further. In spite of its wound, the demon did not appear to weaken. It even managed to score a few light hits. Oselika knew that her stamina would soon fail. As her back touched the wall, she thought she detected a multi-cyclical pattern in the demon's barrage. Suddenly she stepped aside, and a thrust intended for her ran into the wall, breaking the demon's rhythm. For a fraction of an eyeblink the demon was uncertain, and Oselika's sword darted in and severed three fingers of the demon's middle right hand; that sword fell to the ground.

Screeching and roaring with fury, the demon turned to face her again. Again it pushed her back. Even with a second major wound, it did not seem to tire. It also became more careful; it kept changing the rhythm of its attack. Five swords were less of a problem than six, but still terribly difficult to deal with. Oselika was pressed back to another wall, but again managed to turn. She was tiring; she knew she would soon be unable to cope.

Karngrevor stood watching in the little alcove, anguished and tense. Every now and then he would twitch, betraying an almost irresistible desire to join the fray; but he controlled himself.

The pace of Oselika's blade work slowed; the demon pressed forward harder, but remained careful. Suddenly, Oselika's blade went flying to the side; she dived for it, but fell short. Now she lay there helpless. With a cry of victory, the demon leapt upon her, claws extended.

It was a ruse. Oselika had memorized the location of the sword that the demon had lost, and had arranged to land next to it. As the demon fell on her, she held that sword, point upward, pommel against the ground, and the demon impaled itself upon it. The cavern quivered with its scream. As its bowels flowed out, it raked her viciously with its claws. Then it fell over, mortally wounded. Just as it died, its two upper hands came together in the gesture of gratitude. Oselika returned the gesture, and then fainted.

Karngrevor came running out of the shadows. He called her name, but she remained unconscious. He ripped off pieces of his clothing to bind her largest wounds. Then he lifted her. The baby who had fit in the crook of his elbow was now almost too heavy for his aging muscles to carry. He staggered through the tunnel to his study.

"Savril!" he shouted. "Come quickly! Oselika is wounded!" He laid her on his basalt table. Savril appeared from nowhere, and began to chant and gesture. A soft blue light made a hemisphere over Oselika. Her clothing evaporated. Within the light appeared something like a hundred tiny winged people, each brightly colored and about as tall as a fingernail. Like butterflies in a flower garden, they landed on Oselika's wounds, cleaning, medicating, stitching. In a few breaths they were done; they rose to the top of the hemisphere and disappeared. Savril made another gesture, and Oselika was covered by a blanket.

Savril turned to Karngrevor, who was weeping and wringing his hands, pale and shivering. "She will be all right," said Savril, "but she must sleep."

Karngrevor embraced him. "Thank you, dear friend," he said. Calming a bit, he turned and looked at his sleeping daughter, still enclosed in the blue light. "You fought brilliantly, my darling," he said. "Your quest will surely be approved." Then he sighed, and muttered toward the wall, "Sometimes, I wish we were ordinary people."
**********

"The more dangerous you are, the more danger you will come into."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

"Here's a package from the Loxondrica district, Mr. Nodecema."

"Give it here. You can go, now."

"Yes, sir."

As soon as he was alone, Nodecema locked the door, set the security system to maximum, and opened the box he had just received. Throwing away filler that had been added to make the contents appear larger than they really were, he drew out a sheaf of papers. On them was written a report on his operations in the Skora district. Nodecema waved his hands over the report and muttered an incantation; immediately, all that writing disappeared and was replaced by new writing. It ran as follows:

In response to your questions:

1. Yes, the soul can be copied. Few people these days know the techniques, which were developed during the Zoroid Dynasty and then made illegal. I have, however, copied my own soul many times, with perfectly satisfactory results.

You should be aware, however, that copies of a single person will still be independent individuals. They may even feel threatened by each other's existence. It is possible that they will compete with and even kill one another. A lot depends on the personality of the original individual. To prevent such conflict, it would be necessary to install permanent inhibitions. This is very tricky, but it can be done. Like any system of inhibitions, though, it is apt to result in a decrease in vitality and exuberance.

2. Yes, souls can be stored for an indefinite period of time. During this time, they may be either conscious or unconscious, depending on the spell. If the soul is conscious, special restraints may be required. It is also possible to communicate with such a soul and to make it feel pleasure or pain.

3. Yes, it is possible to remove someone's soul against their will, or before they know it. There are many possible reasons for doing this. One is, to take over their body with a different soul. Another is, to incorporate the soul into a larger structure. Such souls could be used to operate machines, or to store information, or to solve intellectual problems. Such things are not considered acceptable in recent times, but toward the end of the Zoroid Dynasty, it was quite common to buy or steal souls for such purposes.

4. Yes, it is possible to place one soul in the body of another, and it can be arranged for it to have access to the memories of the previous occupant. Naturally, the new soul will feel disoriented at first. In the case of keeping the old memories, the new soul may even feel overwhelmed by the old memories, and be confused for some period of time as to who it really is. There are, however, spells which help to keep the new soul from being overwhelmed in this way.

5. I have done some of these things, but not others. I have studied theoretical works, clandestinely preserved from the Zoroid Dynasty, and in principle, I could do any of them. It might be necessary, however, to do some preliminary research in certain cases. For this I would need significant financing.

6. I removed the soul of the agent who contacted me, so that my identity would not be known to you. I will, however, get in touch indirectly with the next agent up the line, if you haven't already killed him, and we can continue to communicate through him.

Soul Mate

'This lizard is no quick lunch,' thought Nodecema, 'I'm going to have to be very, very careful with him. I'm glad I used a couple of double-blind links – otherwise, he could have traced me. Maybe I should look for someone else.' He pondered a bit more. Suddenly a thought came to him: 'I'll bet that Tarth Sakul wanted to grab my soul! That's why he had those download spells on me! I'm going to have that toad leech killed on sight!' Then he realized that he was thinking from anger. He crammed the anger into a dark corner of his mind, and thought again: "Rather than kill him, I should just find out more about him. He probably knows as much about this stuff as 'Soul Mate' does, maybe more. Very likely, he has an organization. Maybe I can have him traced through the Institute for Advanced Studies. I'd better use a double-blind link on that one, too!'

Nodecema was feeling fear, but he did not stuff all of it into a corner of his mind. He liked the feeling of alertness and vitality that a little fear gave him. Setting his security level a bit lower, he called in his Secretary.

Vidigeon observed this incident, as he observed everything in Kondrastibar. He decided that it was worthy of a report.
**********

"You are a pendulum. Let yourself swing! Children understand this."

(from the Sayings of Orthabek the 23rd , Isp-Intikian Pope )

Lessie stirred in her sleep and awoke, lying on her back. She saw the boy by her bedside; he was looking at the wall behind her, and he was blushing. Glancing at herself, she saw that the light sheet covered her opaquely, from the clavicles down, but that it had settled on her body, revealing all of its hills and valleys. She realized from his guilty expression that he had been ogling her. This made her feel violated, and then indignant. She glared at him with flashing eyes. He cringed.

At that moment, she remembered the vision that she had had when she had prayed in Kor's arms; how she had gone from being a patch of ripples to being a river. She realized that her indignation was part of the patch of ripples. It was a mechanical response to things. It was something she did to prove herself to herself. It was a superficial dross that obscured her real self. By distracting attention, it obscured the river. The river was a river of love and gentleness, with the endless patience that comes of never thinking about time.

Her moment of indignation had been painful for her, and she could see the pain that her sharp glance had caused to the boy. 'So much needless pain, for myself and others, I create!' she thought. She wanted to be the river, not the ripples; the gold, not the dross. She reached out an arm and touched the boy's knee; and when he looked at her (nervously), she smiled apologetically. Soon, they were smiling at each other. She felt great love for him, and also _trust_.

Then, joyfully, she pulled the sheet off of herself and lay there naked, smiling at him.
**********

"Childhood should be magical."

(From the _Scriptures_ of the Church of the Holy Family)

Sronk, Ydnas' friend with the blue hair, came up to Brother Koof one day at lunch. After the usual polite exchange of greetings and good wishes, he said, "Brother Koof, could you teach me to do magic?"

"Sure," said Brother Koof, "what would you like to know?"

"I'd like to be able to do glowing things like you do, Brother Koof. Like being invisible!"

"Well," said Brother Koof, "some of those things take a long time to learn; but I can get you started!"

"Oh, good!" said Sronk, making little jumps of happiness.

"Have you ever heard of the Ectoplasmic Reticulum?" asked Koof.

"Yes," said Sronk, a little hesitantly, "but I don't really understand it."

"Well, don't worry, Sronk," said Koof. "I don't think _anyone_ understands it completely, and I'm sure you can learn as much as anyone, if you want to. Anyway, the Ectoplasmic Reticulum is what most magicians in Kondrastibar use for their magic. It is like a huge, invisible net spread through the city.

"There was a dynasty, a long time ago, called the P'Twism Dynasty. They created the Ectoplasmic Reticulum. At first it was very small, but they kept making it bigger, and with its help, they conquered all of Kondrastibar. Wherever they went, they extended the Ectoplasmic Reticulum to include that place. Magicians usually just call it the _net_ , or the _web_. It stretches all around and through Kondrastibar. It has strings going up and down, back and forth, side to side, every direction. Normally, you can't see it or feel it, but there are hundreds and hundreds of strands going right through this room, and just about anywhere else that people are likely to be. Now, signals can travel on these strands, like a squirrel running along a branch. Some strands carry messages, and some carry _mana_. Have you learned about _mana_ , Sronk?"

"Not really," said Sronk, looking a little embarrassed.

"No fault," said Koof, smiling. "Mana is a form of energy. Energy is what makes things happen. Mana is the form of energy that most magicians use, because it can be directly influenced by thought, and because it is the form that the Ectoplasmic Reticulum carries.

"You see, a strand of the net is sort of like a drinking straw. With a straw, if you keep pushing water in at one end, it will eventually come out the other. In the same way, if you push mana into a strand of the net, it will eventually come out somewhere else. Actually, it's more like fancy plumbing, where you can turn valves to prevent things from flowing, or turn them the other way to let them flow. You could think of the mana-bearing strands of the net as tiny pipes for channeling mana."

"Someone told me that the ectoplasmic reticulum was like a bunch of _roads_ ," said Sronk, looking a little confused.

"Well, they are," said Koof. "In some ways they are like roads, and in some ways they are like pipes. Really, they are neither strings nor pipes nor roads, but it helps, at the beginning, to think of them as strings or pipes or roads. If you think of them as roads, then the bits of mana are like people walking or riding along the road, or horses, or elephants, or something of that kind. And people and horses and elephants can get on the road, or get off it. And where the roads meet, they can decide which road to take, except that sometimes there are gates that restrict them. Only, the bits of mana travel so fast, that in the blink of an eye, they can go all the way across Kondrastibar, if enough gates are open.

"So you see," said Koof, "that is why I can pick up that vase, even though it is on the other side of the room." He made a gesture, and a vase on a table on the other side of the room floated up into the air, and then back down. "I send the mana through the Ectoplasmic Reticulum."

Sronk's eyes widened hugely. "Show me how! Show me how!" he begged, his whole body trembling with excitement.

_Ah, the desire for power_ , thought Koof, nervously. _It seems so innocent in a child. But should I really be encouraging this?_

"I will be happy to, if it's all right with Kor," he said out loud, "but I warn you, there is a lot to learn before you get to that point. Are you willing to be patient?"

"Oh, yes!" said Sronk.

"Well," said Koof, "I'm sure Kor won't mind my giving you a little more background. There is another kind of pipe in the net, that carries _messages_. Well, they actually carry mana, too, but if you think of them as pipes, they are very narrow. It takes very little mana to carry a message, so it would be a waste to send messages through the bigger pipes."

"How can you send messages through a _pipe_?" asked Sronk, looking puzzled.

"Suppose," Koof replied, "that you were upstairs, and you had a pipe running from a tank of water up there, down to the first floor, where it empties into the bathtub. I'm sitting by the bathtub. Up where you are, there is a valve in the pipe, and you can turn this valve. So, you can decide whether to let the water flow down to the bathtub, or not. Now, could you use that to send me a message?"

" _Yes!_ " replied Sronk, with great excitement. "I could turn the water on and off!"

"Smart boy!" said Koof. "That is exactly how we send messages on the web. Only, mana travels much faster than water, and the valves can turn on and off much more quickly."

"You would have to have a _code_ ," said Sronk, breathlessly. He was fascinated with codes.

"Exactly," said Koof, very pleased at the aptness of his pupil. Having no children of his own, Koof often yearned fruitlessly to have someone to share his knowledge with, to go over it with, and to learn more with. He wondered if Sronk would make a good burglar, then pulled himself back to the conversation.

"So," he continued, "what magicians do is this: they put some mana into the net, and then they use code to give the net instructions as to how to use it. Very simple! But the instructions have to be in a language, that the Mages of the P'Twism Dynasty made the net to understand. It has an ancient name, but Magicians today just call it 'Net Language.' Well, there are actually several net languages, but there is one that most magicians use, when they are starting out; it is called 'Simple.' So if you want to learn magic, you would start by learning Simple."

"I'm good with languages," said Sronk, proudly. "I'm learning Ydnas' language, _Kalalin_."

"I never heard of that," said Koof, "but then, I'm no expert at languages! What is it like?"

Sronk shook his head from side to side, rolling his eyes to make himself look dizzy. "It's so different from Gastripi," he said, "that it's hard even to _describe_ it in Gastripi! It makes me _think_ differently!"

"That's the best reason for studying a new language," said Koof, "and I think you will find the same thing happens with Simple."

"Could you teach me Simple, Brother Koof?" asked Sronk, eagerly.

"I'd be happy to," said Koof, "if it's all right with Kor, for you to learn magic. I think it will be, but I should ask anyway. And while I'm at it, we should ask whether there's anyone else who wants to learn." Sronk turned his head eagerly this way and that, hoping that Kor would be in sight, but she wasn't.

"Once you've learned a little Simple," continued Koof, "I will show you how to get connected to the net. But you will also need to learn how to make mana and push it into the net. The web won't do anything without mana. It's sort of like money. Even magicians don't get something for nothing!"

"How do I make mana?" asked Sronk, scowling a little as he began to suspect that, contrary to appearances, magic required _work_.

"In my tradition," said Koof, "we make mana from something else, called _Moksi_. Now, actually, you already have Moksi in your body; that's what gives you the energy your body needs to sense things, to think, to move, and to perform all its various functions, like digestion. But you will need extra moksi, if you are going to use the net. I can teach you how to make extra, how to transform it into mana, and how to put the mana into the web."

"Glowing!" said Sronk. He was profoundly excited. A hundred thoughts rushed through his mind. In one of them, he wondered how the net would respond to _Kalalin_.
**********

"Nurture and trust people, don't try to control them.

Trying to control people makes about as much sense

as declaring that stones are free to dance."

(from the _Aphorisms_ of Kardna Sylel)

The rain had stopped. Calcadro, Zanentadra, and Thiarinis sat naked (except for Calcadro's bandages) around a small but adequate fire in their tent, while their quilted undergarments dried. They were drying and oiling their armor, piece by piece. Calcadro felt peaceful and happy to be sitting there, working with her friends, even though she was exhausted, and her wound gave her a throbbing ache.

The sentry knocked. "Yes?" said Calcadro. "It's a Kantrikar Elder, Lieutenant," said the sentry. "I guess he wants to visit you."

"Just a moment," said Calcadro, and in a lower voice she said to Zanentadra. "I suppose they have a nudity taboo, also."

"Actually, they don't," said Zanentadra.

"OK then, invite him in," said Calcadro to the sentry.

The three women stood as the elder entered. Tall and wiry, he was yellow-skinned, with short black hair and a chin-line beard. He wore only a rather minimal loincloth. His eyes were large and yellow. They twinkled as he smiled; judging from the rugged lines in his face, he had smiled for most of his life.

He touched thumbs with each of the Amazons in turn, his face and posture expressing deep respect. There was no need for words.

He came to Calcadro last. After touching thumbs with her, he extended his hand towards her wound, raising his eyebrows as if to ask whether he could touch it.

Calcadro glanced toward Zanentadra. "I feel magic," said the witch, "but nothing threatening."

"On the surface, his intentions appear to be benign," said Thiarinis.

After a moment of hesitation, Calcadro gestured for the Elder to go ahead. Kneeling down, he extended his hand until his fingertips hovered just above the wound, which had been cleaned, sutured, and dressed by the squad's Medic. Calcadro felt a tingling warmth penetrating that part of her. The ache disappeared.

The elder removed his hand and stood, stepping back. He looked pleased. Calcadro had the odd feeling that the wound was completely healed. She pressed on the bandage with her finger. No ache. She pressed harder. Everything felt normal, not even numb. She unpeeled the bandage from one side and looked. She gave a gasp and peeled off the entire bandage.

"Look!" she said excitedly to the others. There was no sign of a wound, not even a scar. They all looked at the Elder with astonishment. He smiled and bowed. They bowed in return. Calcadro started to say, "Thank you!" but decided to say it with expression and gesture instead. She felt a little clumsy, but the Elder appeared to understand, and to appreciate her attempt to do things his way. Then he gave a little bow and departed.

The three Amazons talked excitedly about the incident for awhile, and then sat down and returned to silently working on their armor. After awhile, Calcadro said, "You know, we have a number of prisoners to interrogate. Being thugs, they will spill quickly. Somewhere, there's someone who was going to buy those Kantrikars from them. We could drop off Laeri and her family, and then go pay a visit to their slave market."

" _Yes!"_ said Zanentadra and Thiarinis, in chorus.
**********

"Once you corrupt Reason, it is easy to corrupt the rest."

(from the Diaries of Emperor Tendakulor the 13th, Migror Tyranny)

When Scratch awoke he found himself lying on the floor in a room with a group of about ten other people. His vision was blurry, and his entire face, especially his eyes, were intensely sore and tender. He was stark naked, except for a tag which was wired to his ankle. He sat up and reached for it.

"Look at it, but don't remove it!" said an authoritative voice. Scratch looked up to see a beater standing over him, holding a bludgeon at the ready. The beater, a large, bearded man dressed in studded leather-and-bone armor, looked quite menacing. _What happened to Bronze Dragon Claw and Sister Cherry Blossom?_ wondered Scratch. He turned back to the tag. It had the number 1080 on it. "That's your name for the time being," said the beater. "You are 1080. All the people we are rescuing now have numbers for names. If you wish to address them, use the number, which is also tattooed on the forehead. If you use any other name, you will be beaten." His bludgeon swished past Scratch's ear, causing him to flinch.

Scratch took a few breaths to fix his own number in his mind, then looked around. His vision was a little better. The 'rescued' people appeared to be in the living room of a small apartment, from which all furniture and decor had been removed, except for a number of straw-filled mattresses. They too were naked except for tags, forehead tattoos, and a few bandages. They were all sitting or lying quietly, and appeared to be ignoring each other.

"There's a privy through _that_ door, and a bath through _that_ door," said the beater, indicating the directions with his bludgeon. "You are confined to these quarters for the time being. Food will be brought to you. Do you have medical objections to any foods?"

"No," said 1080. He felt sick and exhausted. He felt no interest in the other people, and lay down again on his mattress. Quickly he fell asleep. In his sleep he had a dream that someone was sticking needles into his face. He called for Sister Cherry Blossom to help him, but she didn't come.

Someone was shaking him awake. "1080!" someone was saying. "It is time for your confession!" He felt panicky – he couldn't remember what a _confession_ was! He felt himself lifted to his feet and hustled through a door and down a hall. As he gradually woke up he became more and more convinced that he had been told what a confession was, but that he couldn't remember. He was embarrassed and afraid.

He was brought into a half-darkened room in which a man sat behind a desk on a raised dais. The man had on a mask which made him look like a demon. Next to him was a large brazier filled with coals. There was a smell of scorched flesh in the air. Some distance away sat an old woman with the characteristic round face and permanently closed eyes of a telepath. Scratch was seated in a chair and manacled to it. The guards who had brought him there stood behind him. One of them pressed a damp cloth against his face. "Breathe through it," said the guard, and Scratch did so. He smelled some sort of potion on the cloth; sure enough, a moment later, he felt pleasantly giddy and childishly eager to please. His fear and nervousness had evaporated; he felt his whole body relax. _Truth drug_ , he thought. But he didn't feel like resisting it.

"Now, 1080, can you understand me?" said a voice.

"Yeah, sure," he said.

"Good! I am going to ask you some questions about someone named 'Scratch.' You may be tempted to think that you are he, but you are not; that is an illusion. You are 1080, and will continue to be 1080 until you earn the right to a new name. If you refer to yourself as 'Scratch,' or imply in any way that you are the same person as he, you will be struck. You can tell us about him, though. To begin with, tell us where he was born."

"Well, I was born in –" 1080 started to reply, but was interrupted by a sharp blow to the midriff.

"That was a relatively light blow," said the questioner. "They will get worse. Tell me where _he_ was born."

Catching his breath, 1080 replied, "Ah, _he_ was born in Calgaratch."

"Very good, 1080." The questioner proceeded to ask him about Scratch's childhood, about which he remembered little. Some of what he remembered was very pleasant; he wanted to try to remember more, but the questioner moved on. "How did Scratch make his living, in recent years?"

"Pimping and protection," 1080 replied.

"Tell me how he went about supplying protection," said the questioner.

"Well," said 1080, "it was sort of like tithing. I would get –" Another blow left him breathless for awhile. " _He_ would look for people in an area he controlled who looked as though they might have a little extra money, and he – I mean, Scratch -- would tell them they had to give him some. Scratch would send some of the money to Pappi, who tithed everyone. If the people Scratch was trying to protect didn't co-operate, Scratch would send some of his goons to beat them up."

"So, he was essentially selling protection from _himself_."

"Well, yes," said 1080; and then, responding to a note of disapproval he thought he had heard in the questioner's voice, he added, "Isn't that the way it always is? For example, people are expected to pay tithes to support the police; if they don't, the police come and get them."

"Well, in some neighborhoods, the police also protect people from criminals."

"Well, so did my goons. I mean –" Another blow. When he recovered, 1080 continued: "I mean, so did Scratch's goons. For example, if someone _else_ tried to lean on one of, ah, _his_ people, _he_ would have his goons teach them a lesson. He didn't let _his_ people fight with each other, either – that would be bad for business! So there was peace in his area. If someone had a big complaint, he would bring it to, ah, Scratch, and Scratch would hand down a verdict, and that would set a precedent. As time flowed by, Scratch made lots of rules -- and he made sure people followed them! And, of course, he enforced Pappi's commandments, that Pappi handed down to him. If it hadn't been for all those rules, Scratch's people would have been fighting each other all the time, and no one would have trusted anyone else to keep an agreement."

"Did he have any rules against the use of drugs like snoffle or smoke?"

"No chance!" said 1080. "Neither Pappi nor Scratch believed in being paternalistic. People should be free to make their own decisions. Besides, stuff like that contributes big to the gross neighborhood product."

"But people die from smoke," said the questioner.

"Yeah, sure they do," said 1080. "They die from a lot of things. But you have to respect people's rights. People have a right to do what they want with their lives. As long as they don't interfere with other people's rights, it's not up to ah, it wasn't up to _Scratch_ to tell them what to do! He was there to _protect_ their rights, really."

"So Scratch was acting from altruistic concern?"

"No chance!" said 1080. "But that's the beauty of the system! Everybody's out for themselves, but they end up helping each other. The big lizards on top protect the little lizards underneath, help them to prosper, because then they can tithe 'em for more!"

"Did Scratch distinguish between criminal and legal activities?"

"Well, yes ... but it's complicated. What some people call 'criminal,' that means that it breaks some rule that's not enforced any more. Like some law from the old dynasty, that's been gone for centuries. Or, they'd say it was criminal if it broke the rules of _their_ neighborhood. But Scratch figured, why worry about those laws? He'd say it was criminal if it broke _his_ laws, or Pappi's, because those are the ones that really counted where _he_ was. And you can bet he didn't break any of _Pappi's_ laws – only an idiot would have done that!"

"Did Scratch have any religious beliefs?"

"Well, not really," said 1080. "He didn't burn incense or mumble things – what would a god want with incense, anyway? Or with people always whining and begging about their problems? Imagine having to listen to that from thousands of people at once! What a headache! Scratch figured, if Honggur and Slef really existed, they would know that he was their devotee, from the way he acted. It's how people _act_ that counts, not what they say with their lips, or to whom they burn incense."

"That is very true," said the questioner, nodding approvingly, and then he went on to ask 1080 lots of detailed questions about Scratch's recent activities, including the names and activities of his various associates.

After a great deal of this, 1080 was finally taken back to his cell. Exhausted, he lay down on his mattress and fell asleep immediately.
**********

"Once you find your place in the world, you will never leave it."

(Saint Lopo the Wanderer)

Srea Kula sat by the fire with Lator, the theologian, drinking Lator's wholesome but undistinguished vegetable juice. _If I weren't worried about heresy_ , he thought, _This would be a very pleasant way to spend an evening_. There was a lull in the conversation, and Srea Kula decided to turn to a new topic.

"At one point in the conversation," he said, referring to the conversation among gods and mortals that he had witnessed in Liliune's apartment, "Kshaloka said something that intrigued me deeply. He said that he could never for a moment stand being the god of sensual beauty, if he did not know that he was just one facet of a great jewel. What do you suppose he meant by that?"

"Ah, well," said Lator, "I don't know, but perhaps something like this: you know that your body has many vital organs: a heart, a pair of lungs, a brain, and so on. Each of them is indispensable, but none of them would be of any use at all without the others. Each has a function to perform in keeping you alive, and all the others therefore depend upon it. Your body is not what we call an _indifferent_ totality, a bunch of things thrown together at random, like junk in an attic. Rather, it is what we call an _organic_ totality, one in which each part has an important role to play in relation to all the others. Like the organs of the human body. Now, in a well-carved jewel, each facet is where it is for a reason, yes? Which has to do with where all the other facets are. It is therefore an organic whole." Lator paused, raising his eyebrows at Srea Kula, who decided that Lator wanted him to finish the thought himself.

"So," he said, "perhaps Kshaloka believed that the gods form an _organic_ totality, not just an _indifferent_ totality. Each god has some role to play, and none could function without the others."

"Ah, just so," said Lator, "and in fact, that was touched on at another point in the discussion." He raised his eyebrows again.

Srea Kula thought for a moment. "You mean, when Kshaloka was talking about what the point of human reproduction was?"

"Yes," said Lator.

"He said that the point wasn't just to increase the amount of _meat_ in the world, but to support people like Liliune."

"Ah, yes," said Lator, "perhaps he meant that the point of humanity's existence is to make culture, civilization, and that progress in that is made primarily by the exceptional people. Now, everyone shows creativity, but your average person is on the whole a maintainer, not a creator."

Srea Kula found himself in an impossible situation. On the one hand, he despised elitism, and thought that all people had an equal value. On the other hand, he could not bring himself to contradict Kshaloka, a god.

"Of course," said Lator, as if he had sensed Srea Kula's thought, "Kshaloka might be wrong about that."

Srea Kula was startled. "How could a god be wrong?"

"A god like Kshaloka is very powerful," said Lator, "but he may not be omniscient. In fact, he's almost bound to be limited, isn't he? Surely he would be, if he were an _immanent_ god. And if Kshaloka were a little vain, he could well have an inflated view of the importance of the Arts. And if Tilja can be frumpy, why can't Kshaloka be vain, eh? But, ah, there's also another thing that could have gone wrong."

"What's that?"

"Well, what happens if a god says something that a human being just can't understand, at least at the moment? We may _think_ that we heard the god say something that we _can_ understand, but which is a bit of a distortion of what he actually said. Sometimes, the wind is blowing, and you think you hear your name being called. But no, it is just the wind, and the fact that your ear is primed to hear your name. We hear what we expect to hear, yes? So perhaps you did not hear what he was actually trying to say. And then, of course, I may have been wrong about the _interpretation_ of his remark. The metaphor of a jewel is often used another way in scriptures."

"How is that?" asked Srea Kula, feeling a bit awash in mystery and multiple meaning.

"Well," answered Lator, "there is a doctrine that is often called 'interpenetration'. It's rather difficult to grasp, but the basic idea is that every object in the universe, including the entire universe itself, is somehow contained in all of the others. Now, when you look closely at one facet of a jewel, you often see other facets refracted in it, yes? One can imagine a jewel in which each face appeared in all the other faces. For this reason, a faceted jewel is often used as a metaphor for interpenetration. So perhaps Kshaloka is saying, that he would find it trivial to be _just_ the god of sensual beauty, and nothing more, but that fortunately for him, he contains, _within himself_ , all the other gods."

_That's a startling idea_ , thought Srea Kula. He began to follow it out in his own mind.

"In a way," he said thoughtfully, "that's true of the organic totality, too. I mean, a kidney sort of implies a heart, since there would be little point in having a kidney if you didn't have a heart. So a heart is implicit in a kidney."

Lator's social smile expanded to a broad grin of pleasure. " _Very good!_ " he said. "Very good indeed! If you don't watch out, you will become a theologian yourself, and then you will have to live in a hovel like this, yes?"

"So could it be," said Srea Kula, groping his way toward a further elaboration of the idea, "that the universe as a whole is just one huge, organic totality? That everything in it is ... just exactly what is needed? And so everything implies everything?"

"That is what some people think," said Lator. "Does the idea appeal to you?"

"It's ... It's beautiful!" said Srea Kula, in a tone of awe. He felt overwhelmed by the grandeur of the idea. _Every grain of dust! Every movement of my hand!_ "But ... just because it's attractive ... doesn't make it _true_ , does it? Is there ... any reason to believe that it _is_ true?"

Lator grinned again. "You _are_ getting to be a theologian," he said. "Many people are quite happy with a religion that _feels_ good. But you want _evidence_. Ah, poor man! Your life will be so much more difficult!" He put his hand to his brow and shook his head in pity.

"I _would_ like to just _experience_ the idea for awhile," said Srea Kula.

"Ah, please do!" said Lator. "I will just be putting some of my papers in order. Don't hesitate to interrupt me if you need something." He sat down at his desk and began rearranging the piles of papers that lay on it.

Almost immediately, Srea Kula had a question. "Do present things contain past and future things, too?" he asked.

"Ah, yes," said Lator, "or at least, most people who believe in interpenetration think so."

"So," said Srea Kula, " _nothing disappears!_ "

"Just so, yes," said Lator, his eyes twinkling.

_Nothing disappears_ , thought Srea Kula. That in itself was an overwhelming thought. He remembered that Sre Lugu had told him, that when he was in a coma as a result of the injuries that Liliune had inflicted on him, he had heard his mother's voice. Both of them had taken it to be a hallucination. But maybe the hallucination was a seeing, refracted, of some other facet, ...
**********

"Death is something you can count on"

(Haizen Vernergerb, Prophet of Uncertainty)

Instinctively, Lightbearer felt that it was important not to show fear or shame. She calmly walked to where she had left her clothes and began to dress herself. As she did so, she felt vividly the possibility of death, as if a huge rock were poised trembling just above her. She had always known what death was, and when she became a mortal she realized that she was subject to it. That had been very upsetting, but now she realized that her understanding had been entirely theoretical; it was as if death was going to happen to some _other_ person called "my future self." Now it was horribly present and vivid; one command from the leader of the squadron, and she would be helpless to defend herself. She would see them coming at her and be unable to stop them. She would wriggle and dodge, but she would fail. Their weapons would tear into her. She would feel pain. She would scream, but it would do no good at all. Falling, she would feel her consciousness going dark; she would try as hard as she could to prevent that, like an exhausted sentry struggling not to fall asleep, but she would fail. She would never even know when it was over. All that she was, all that she had been, and all that she might have been would be reduced to nothing; to the soldiers, it was already nothing. It felt all wrong, but she knew it was true.

As soon as she had dressed, a group of three men approached her. They were all well over six forearms tall, very broad, and heavily armored. One of them spoke to her.

"Who are you?" he asked sternly, looking down at her. He spoke the language of Focus and Kolidor, but it was clearly not his own.

In spite of her resolve not to show fear, she began to tremble. "I am called 'Lightbearer,'" she said. Now she hoped that her evident terror would at least make her less threatening. In her mind, she began imagine various outcomes to this interaction, most of them very unpleasant. She considered various strategies she might employ, but she had so little information that it was impossible to tell which would be the best.

"Are you one of the primitives?" asked the soldier.

"I – I don't know," she said. "Who are they?" She hoped that her cringing attitude would show him that she was not being deliberately difficult.

He did look a little impatient. "Is this your language?" he said.

"No," she said. She had been tempted to lie, because she knew that the path of truth would not be the path of credibility. But there was no time to make up a decent lie.

"What is your language?" he asked.

Now she felt trapped. "I don't have a language of my own," she said. "I didn't use to be a mortal." _Perhaps_ , she thought, _the sheer outrageousness of it will give me credibility_.

The soldier scowled. He took her by the sides – his huge hands almost meeting each other – lifted her up, and shook her. "Don't toy with me, woman!" he growled. "I will give you to my men for their pleasure, and they will give you to their lizards."

Breathless with fear, she said, "I am not toying with you! I swear!" Her voice was pleading. Tears were running down her face. He dropped her, and she collapsed. She smelled a stench, and realized that her fear had caused her bladder and bowels to empty. _Fabulist_ , she thought, _what have you done to me_?

One of the other men spoke, in another tongue: "Captain, she does look different from the others."

"I know your language, too," she said, in the same tongue.

The captain's eyebrow went up just a bit. "Tell me your story in our tongue, then," he said.

"There is a being, that I call the Fabulist, who created this world and everything in it," she said. "He created me, to be a companion to himself. He gave me the name 'Lightbearer.' One day, he thought it would be interesting to make himself into a mortal, to see what it would be like. I, too, was curious. So he transformed us. But he made a mistake; he made himself so thoroughly mortal that he had no power to return to his former state. So here we are, trapped in the world."

"So where is he now, this Fabulist?" asked the captain.

Now she found herself in a bind. Who could know what these people would want with him, or do with him? To direct them to him might be a horrible betrayal. She should never have mentioned him. "I don't know where he is," she said. It was true, in a way. Just not entirely true.

He heard the evasion in her voice. He drew his sword, and placed the point of it just below her breastbone. "Tell me what you do know!" he said, in a voice that cracked like a bullwhip.

She wanted so desperately to live, _even for one more breath!_ Her desire to protect the Fabulist collapsed before the hurricane of fear. "We were in a house over there," she said, pointing, and talking as fast as she could, "and the man there told us to go off by ourselves and pray. So I came here, and he went off by himself – I don't know where, but _he can't be far!_ " She knew with shame that she would tell them _exactly where he was_ , if she only knew.

The Captain paused, looking puzzled. "Captain, why would anyone choose such a lie?" asked the other soldier.

"I don't know," replied the captain, "but how could it possibly be true?"

"Perhaps she is delusional," said the soldier.

"Perhaps," replied the Captain, looking at her thoughtfully. There was a long silence, during which hope and fear danced wildly in Lightbearer's heart. Then the Captain asked her,

"To whom did he tell you to pray?"

"To myself. I know that makes no sense, but \--"

"I'll decide what makes sense!" he snapped. She was silent.

"If this Fabulist has lost his powers, why does the world keep going?"

"Well – I don't know," she said. "Maybe he made it that way – to just keep going."

"If he made it that way, wouldn't he know what was going to happen? He would have known from the beginning that he would become a mortal part of it."

"I don't know," she said, miserably. "That was all his business!"

"And how could a being who could make this entire world _possibly_ be so stupid as to make the mistake you describe?"

"I don't know! Maybe it wasn't a mistake! Maybe he lied to me!"

"All right," said the captain. "Go clean yourself up, and make it quick! You're coming with us!" He turned to the other. "When she is ready, bind her hands and bring her along with us, as a protected prisoner, class 5."

"Yes, sir!"

_Please_ , thought Lightbearer, as she hastily washed herself and her clothing in the pond, _don't make them ask me to lead them to him!_ She was not addressing anyone in particular.
**********

"A true Queen does not need her crown."

(from _The Grace of Ruling_ )

Comforted by Tulith, Ydnas began to calm down. At that point, Darestigan said, "A group of people is at the gate, Ydnas. Their leader wishes to speak to you."

"Who are they?" said Ydnas, sniffling. She lifted her head from Tulith's breast and turned, wiping her cheek with one hand, but she kept one arm around Tulith's waist.

"They are from the Angels of Rejuvenation," said Darestigan, "and their leader is named Asharia Loëina. She is said to be an archangel, which I take it means that she is of higher rank than the others."

"Don't _know_ those people," said Ydnas, lowering her head and frowning; _"They_ don't know _me_ "

"They asked for the person whose temple this is," said Darestigan.

"Don't _want_ to be goddess," said Ydnas, folding her arms across her chest, extending her right foot, and staring at it. " _Kor_ in charge!"

"I will find Kor and ask if she wishes to be your representative," said Darestigan. He stood still. A few breaths passed, and he added, "She says she is willing, but she worries that she may not know what to say."

Ydnas sighed and said, "I go too, if _Tulith_ goes."

"I'll be glad to," said Tulith, although she was a little nervous. She was beginning to wonder just how long she was going to serve as a baby-sitter for a childish goddess, and just what responsibilities this would turn out to entail.

Ydnas glanced at her shoulder, and her pet chameleon, Uncle K'Tor, appeared. Apparently, he had blended himself in with her dress so well that he had become invisible. He made a kind of shrug. Then Ydnas and Tulith started toward the gate. On the way they were joined by Kor.

They were all startled by the appearance of Asharia and her staff. In contrast to the beaters and wizards they had seen before, the visitors were all dressed simply and elegantly, and they carried themselves with calm and respectful dignity. They bore no visible weapons or armor. Asharia was strikingly beautiful, and only stern enough to be dignified. She was not carrying her crystal staff. Darestigan introduced Asharia to Ydnas as "Archangel Asharia Loëina." Ydnas he introduced by saying, "This is Ydnas. This temple is hers."

"Don't _want_ temple!" said Ydnas testily, not looking at Asharia.

"Oh, Ydnas," said Asharia sweetly, "I don't insist that it be your temple. I just want to ask you something." She settled down on one knee so that her face was on a level with Ydnas'. "We are very curious about what happened this morning. Remember the big black cloud that came down, and the white light that ate up the black cloud, and the Tellamir ship that came down afterwards?"

"Sort of," said Ydnas, standing on her left foot and swinging her right foot in a semicircle in front of it. She looked at this swinging foot, not at Asharia.

"Do you know, Ydnas, where that cloud came from?"

"Don't know," said Ydnas, rotating her head from side to side so that her braids went flying out.

"And the white light; do you know where that came from?"

"Cousin."

"Your cousin?"

Ydnas nodded affirmatively, making her braids dance in place. "Cousin K'Sell," she added. Asharia gave a little start when she heard that name.

"Is your ... cousin ... here, Ydnas?"

"No."

"Is he – is he planning to come back?"

"Always comes back."

"Well, yes, but ... is he coming back soon?"

"Don't know."

"And the Tellamir ship, Ydnas, do you know anything about that?"

Suddenly Ydnas smiled. She did a little dance step. "Came down. Made music. Very pretty. Took souls. Want to go! Fly on Tellamir airship!"

"Oh, wouldn't it be nice to be able to fly?" asked Asharia, enthusiastically. She closed her eyes, smiled ecstatically, and held out her arms in the manner of a large, soaring bird, swaying back and forth.

"Yes!" said Ydnas, doing a leap and a pirouette.

"Where would you like to go, Ydnas?"

"Don't know. Sky. Everywhere!"

Asharia paused a moment. "Ydnas, how long has this been your temple?"

"Darestigan knows."

Asharia turned to Darestigan. "I think, about thirty centuries," he said.

Asharia sighed. She turned back to Ydnas. "Ydnas," she said, "if it's all right with you, I'd like to give you a present." She lifted the silver coronet off her head and showed it to Ydnas. The details of it were wonderfully intricate and fine. "Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes," said Ydnas, her eyes growing wide.

"May I put it on you?"

"Yes!"

Asharia gently pressed the coronet onto Ydnas' head. It looked somewhat anomalous on her, but it fit perfectly. Everyone felt _something happen_ , though no one could say just what.

Asharia sighed again. "Ydnas," she said, "would you mind if we all kneel down for a moment?"

"No," said Ydnas, exploring the coronet with her fingertips and vainly trying to turn her eyes upward far enough to see it.

Asharia switched to a complete kneeling position, bowing her head forward. Her staff all knelt down, facing Ydnas, and bowed their heads. Ydnas closed her eyes and continued exploring the decorations on the crown with her fingertips. Then Asharia looked up again. A tear showed at the corner of her eye. "Ydnas," she said, "is there anything you would like us to do for you?"

Ydnas opened her eyes. She thought for a moment. "Make _University_!" she said, suddenly.

"Here?" asked Asharia.

"Yes," said Ydnas, turning once around while nodding vigorously and waving her arms, "Around Temple."

"What sort of university?"

" _You_ decide."

Asharia stood up, and her assistants followed suit. "We'll make it the best university we can, Ydnas," she said with a smile. "I'll go back now and get started. May I visit you again tomorrow?"

"Yes," said Ydnas.

"Goodbye, Ydnas. It was nice meeting you!"

"Bye-bye," said Ydnas, waving.

Nodding to her companions, Asharia set off at a brisk pace down the street. Her companions followed behind her. Uncle K'Tor became even more visible. His right eye was tracking Asharia.

" _Nice_ Lady," said Ydnas. She looked sternly at Uncle K'Tor. "Don't you bother her," she said. Uncle K'Tor turned bright red, then invisible again.
**********

"Fantasy is the father of invention"

(Elekrigeni folk saying)

"Raiding the slave market is going to be tricky," said Calcadro. "We will probably be outnumbered several times; they may well all be thugs, so it wouldn't normally be a problem, but we don't want them to kill any slaves, or use them as hostages. And, there will probably be several wizards and telepaths."

"With a little time to work," said Zanentadra, "I could get the slaves under protective shields."

It was just before the beginning of daylight; she was looking through the gloom at a large, abandoned warehouse, where, according to their prisoners from the attempted slaver ambush of the Kantrikars, several slaver groups were going to meet to sell their wares to a wholesaler. She and her comrades were all dressed in black, and those with light complexions had darkened their faces with charcoal.

"Speed," said Tsiloё. "Don't give them time to think."

"And distraction," said Zanentadra. "I can make a big, impressive display that will distract and maybe panic them."

"If I can identify the wizards and telepaths," said Thiarinis, "we can deal with them first."

"And the leaders," said Calcadro. "If you can identify the leaders, we can take them out, and the rest will be headless."

"But Thiarinis, can you identify a telepath without being detected yourself?"

"I'm a lot better than your average gang telepath," said Thiarinis. "They don't have the self-discipline to train much, and they would have no idea how to go about it, anyway. Besides, even if they feel me, they won't have much time to react."

"The telepaths won't be much of a problem once the fighting starts," said Tsiloё. "So I'd say we should go for the wizards first, then the leaders."

"Crossbows!" said Calcadro. "Can you hex us up some special bolts in advance, Zan?"

"No problem," said Zanentadra, who had already replaced Calcadro's stiletto.

"But how will we get at them?" asked Tsiloё. "They'll be in that building."

"Let's check the building out, now," said Calcadro. "Perhaps we can hide inside it somewhere."

"It's empty," said Thiarinis, "and no one is watching from the street."

"Let's go, then!"

The Amazons crossed the street. Detecting no magic, Zanentadra picked the lock and let them in. As they expected, it was a large warehouse, with one large empty room, and a small chapel, a bathroom, and a few offices at the back. There were doors in every wall. There was no upper story, but there was a loft made of loose planks, accessible by a ladder. There was no basement.

"I like the loft," said Tsiloё.

"No good," said Calcadro. "No retreat."

"Sure, but they're just _thugs_ ," said Tsiloё. "Shooting from up there, we can have them all down before they take a single hostage."

"Never get complacent," said Calcadro. "And besides: the slavers will probably be just thugs, as you say, but I'm not sure about the wholesaler. He may be very rich, and if he is, he may have very competent mercenaries with him, including magicians and telepaths. In fact, it would be prudent of him to bring enough force to defeat the rest of them, in case they have some idea of turning on him. And, he may well be the last to arrive."

"I couldn't guarantee that he won't," said Thiarinis. "Unfortunately, none of our prisoners knew a lot about him. The leader of the slavers we fought might have, but he was killed by his own men when they realized what they were up against. I guess they were afraid of being punished for their failure, or perhaps he was encouraging them to be courageous."

"I don't want to go up against mercenaries," said Calcadro. "There aren't that many of us. Even if we outnumber them, they could slow us down to the point where the thugs could surround us. Besides, I don't want casualties."

"They won't be the best mercenaries," said Zanentadra. "Decent mercenaries wouldn't work for slavers."

"They're still not thugs," said Calcadro, "and they might come from a culture in which slavery is widely accepted. In that case, they could be very good as soldiers. I don't want to risk it."

" _Snakespittle!_ " said Tsiloё, in disappointment. "I wanted to _crush_ those slimers!"

"Now, hold on," said Calcadro, "I haven't given up yet! Guile has many hands, and a thousand faces!" A huge grin spread over Tsiloё's face.
**********

"The rich are poor."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

Hunselig Altigan lived and worked in the Menasylevos neighborhood, an enclave of the very rich. Menasylevos was built on a great hill overlooking the river Kron; Hunselig's house was about half-way up. The Kron at that point was about 20 horizons wide. On a clear day, Hunselig could stand on one of his balconies and see the river, which at that point included an extended archipelago of islands, and some of the endless stream of river traffic, extending to the sky.

On a typical morning, Hunselig would be awakened by a small ensemble of musicians playing gentle and happy music. Upon arising, he would begin the day with stretching exercises and meditation, under the guidance of an expert coach; then he would go to the bath. There, after immersing himself in a steaming marble pool, he would be washed with soaps of exotic fragrance by two naked young women. After the bath, these same women would give him a massage, with herbal oils to keep the skin healthy and flexible. He had chosen these two for their exceptional and dignified beauty, but he took pride in never being sexually aroused during this process. Next he would don a bathrobe, and receive quick brush-ups from his barber, dentist, and manicurist. Then he would be helped into the suit of the day (always new) by his valet, a man of exquisite sartorial taste.

Fully dressed and groomed, he would be carried in a sedan chair to breakfast. He had arranged for there to be a rotation, so that on each day a different wife and her children would be present. He would use the time to catch up on the news of their lives, tell them what he had been up to, and chat about current events. He had chosen each of his wives carefully; they each had exceptional qualities which he hoped would appear, mixed with good qualities of his own, in his children. To encourage their development, he had hired a whole host of private tutors.

After breakfast, he would go to his private chapel and sacrifice some paper dolls to Honggur, the god of the free market, and to Sharilune, the goddess of luxury. This would be followed by a few hundredbreaths of heartfelt prayer. He would then sing a hymn of supplication to Lygor, the god of chance.

Taking the sedan chair to the carriage house, he would be helped into his elegant carriage by exquisitely liveried footmen. Already present in the coach would be his secretary, Aliasha Vertanigan, and his main financial advisor, Crodestibor Langan. As the team of eight beautiful and varied coach-horses took him to work, Hunselig would be briefed by Langan on the latest financial news and rumors, and they would discuss strategy. Aliasha would take notes in a special encrypting shorthand.

The hill on which Menasylevos was built had two distinct high points. On the higher one lived the richest of the rich; on the lower one was the financial district in which Hunselig worked. Here were found the temples of various Churches Commercial which consecrated some of the more lucrative trade in that part of Kondrastibar. Most of them had the form of towering pyramids or ziggurats. This was where Hunselig worked.

Hunselig's carriage would leave him, with Langan and Vertanigan, by a small fountain on the spacious grounds of the Apostolic Church of Sharilune, where they would be picked up by three sedan chairs provided by the Church. These would take them first to the morning service, and then to his suite of offices.

One day, it was announced at the morning service that during the previous night, a cathedral of the Church of Albiaja not far from Menasylevos had been attacked, seized, pillaged, and destroyed by Trobish mercenaries. The Church of Albiaja ran a protection racket on behalf of the poor, forcing the Apostolic church of Sharilune and many others to in effect pay a progressive income tithe, which the Church used for various good works. All those in the cathedral at the time had been killed. No one had taken responsibility for the action, and the mercenaries said only that complete confidentiality was in their contract. Journalists attempting to get telepaths or seers close to their barracks were shot with aphrodisiac darts, which instilled in them for two or three days a maniacal lust for wolverines and slugs.

Although the Chief Ecclesiastical Officer of the Apostolic Church of Sharilune was said to have issued a public statement denouncing the attack, smirks and winks exchanged by many members of the congregation during the announcement suggested that they were happy to doubt his sincerity.

Hunselig, however, was shocked and worried by all this, and took every opportunity to condemn the attack. "This upsets the Balance," he said. "A catastrophe is bound to follow." He was somewhat relieved when it was reported, later on, that a spokesperson for the Church of Albiaja, though condemning the attack as the work of "Ignoramuses and simplistic thinkers," nevertheless stated that the Church of Albiaja would not seek revenge. "After all," she said, quoting an old proverb, "revenge is imitation."

Nevertheless, Hunselig's attitude irritated many of his colleagues, and a number of them let him know it, with varying degrees of politeness. Others revealed by their expressions that they were _gloating_ over the destruction of the Albiajan cathedral. This worried him, and he went to see his mentor, Aresheed Vladogan. "What do you think," he asked. "Am I very wrong about this? Or should I keep my opinions to myself?"

"It's a tough one," said Aresheed. "Let me just think out loud for a few breaths. I hope this whole thing will die down, and sink into forgetfulness. But if it keeps up, emotions are going to get very hot. If the Albiajans retaliate, then everyone here will be expected to get in formation. That will also happen if the CEO changes his official position to support the attack. Fortunately, our CEO and the Albiajans are acting civilized, so far."

"Your attitude is an eminently reasonable one, but in situations like this, most people are not reasonable – nowhere near it! Such things awaken the demon of enmity, and few can resist him. If anyone from our church, or even anyone from Menasylevos, is attacked, anyone holding your opinion will be very, very unpopular. Likewise, I imagine that there is a lot of pressure from within the Church of Albiaja for an act of retaliation against churches such as ours, stupid and tragic though that would be. And of course, neither church can prevent hotheads from acting on their own. In such a situation, a very small number of people can make peace impossible, and even bring about all-out war."

"So what should you do? I'd say, you've made your position clear, now abandon the pulpit. Avoid confrontations. Try to discreetly find people who agree with you, and work behind the scenes. Make it clear that you are a true devotee of Sharilune, and not a crypto-Albiajan or fellow-traveler. Remember, the Balance has held for a couple of millennia now; it's not going to fail just because you don't make a martyr of yourself."

Hunselig thought quietly for a few breaths and then sighed. "I guess you're right," he said, "but it's discouraging to see all these intelligent, cultivated people, that I've known for years, turning into barbarians – and acting self-righteous and superior about it!"

Aresheed nodded sympathetically. "It is tragic indeed," she said. "The god of Strife is a very powerful god, and he is neither gentle nor compassionate. His Hammer of Vengeance destroys minds first and bodies later. Yet you, as a devotee of Honggur, must surely believe that strife has a positive function in the long run."

"Well, in the free market," replied Hunselig, "strife takes the form of competition within a well-defined framework, namely commerce. He is domesticated, you might say."

"And yet," said Aresheed, "it was precisely the free market that allowed someone to hire those mercenaries. Supply-and-demand fixed the price, and someone was willing to pay it."

Hunselig thought and sighed again. "Blast it," he said, "I'm not _good_ at this – at theological analysis. Nor am I good at politics. I'm good at making money by assaying ancient artworks. That's what I enjoy doing. Why do people insist that I have positions on these other questions? Why can't I just be agnostic? Why can't I just go on making piles of money for the Church? That's what I was proselytized for!"

"Well," replied Aresheed, "if you just say _that_ whenever someone raises those other questions, that will go a long way toward getting people to leave you alone. As an agnostic, you're at least not actively opposing them. And the Church can always use money, especially if there's going to be a crusade. Maybe that's what you should do."

"I think I will," said Hunselig. But as he thanked his mentor and left the office, he felt very disturbed. In some way he couldn't name, Aresheed had disappointed him, and he had disappointed himself.
**********

"Marriage requires maturity, commitment, and a sense of humor."

(from _The_ _Book of Family_ )

Laeri sat in the Mother Superior's office. "Let me begin by clarifying your marital status," said the Mother Superior. "Is Mr. Arguit the biological father of all your children?"

"Yes, he is," said Laeri, "but in the Babbling Brooks neighborhood, if a man and a woman live together, it is considered disreputable if they are not married. Also, polyandry is considered disreputable. So I described myself as married to Caro, and when Arguit visited, we let on that he was Caro's cousin. Fortunately, Caro and Arguit look enough alike so that neither this nor the children's appearance was considered anomalous."

"Well, then, by _our_ rules," said the Mother Superior, "Caro is your cohabitant consort, but not your husband; but under the circumstances, I don't think that Ydris would object to your pretending to your neighbors that he is. And since all three of seem to accept the arrangement, I can't see any objection to it.

"Now, let me turn to Arguit's status with us. We have imprisoned him, mainly for his own good, but also for yours. He has been in the employ of a criminal of the worst kind, and has thereby put you and the children at risk. So he is undergoing rehabilitation. I am happy to say that he is making significant progress, but he has a long way to go."

"Am I permitted to visit with him?"

"Yes indeed, but let me warn you of one thing. As frequently happens with prisoners, he has fallen in love with one of his guards. It is a sign of his progress, actually, for it is genuine romantic love. She is not interested in him that way, and it will pass, but in the meantime, well, you should be aware of it. He is actually quite chagrined about it, because of his loyalty to you."

"Why, how sweet!" said Laeri, a little surprised.

"Well, his loyalty to you and the children is one of his strong points," said the Mother Superior. "Indeed, that was what led him here, as you know. He has of course had many casual sexual liaisons in the past, but, partly because of his loyalty to you, they never amounted to anything, emotionally speaking. He has not felt the need, as you have, for a deeper relationship. But this is now beginning to change. When he detaches himself from Zarinia, you may find that your emotional relationship with him improves. Which might be a problem."

"A problem?"

"Well, not in itself, but what about your relationship to Caro? Can you have an emotionally deep relationship to two men simultaneously? And now that his job with Pappi is gone, Arguit may want to start living with you."

Laeri was taken aback. "I hadn't thought about that," she said. "But, great gods, I couldn't just dump Caro! I owe him far too much for that, and besides, he's the emotional and cultural father of my children, and again besides, I love him dearly! Maybe it would be better if Arguit _did_ have a relationship with this Zarinia! But no, she's not interested in him."

"Well," said the Mother Superior, "I'm not saying that it is an insoluble problem, but it wouldn't hurt to start thinking about these things. Difficult though it will no doubt be, you should probably start talking to both Arguit and Caro about these issues."

"Yes, I guess I should," said Laeri, looking abstracted and troubled.

"Now, Arguit's falling in love with Zarinia is a sign of growth on his part, as I said. A person's first deep romantic attachment is often a harbinger of all kinds of other good things. In particular, we are hoping that he will soon begin to develop his ethical side a bit. If that happens, there won't be any further reason to imprison him. But he needs a new vocation. We are hoping to help him discover something, and we are willing to give him training, and even employment, if we can. This process was interrupted by his infatuation with Zarinia, but we hope to resume it soon."

"Good!" said the Mother Superior, rising. "Well, then, that about scrolls it up. You may visit Arguit this evening, if you wish. Thank you for your time!"

"And thank _you_ , for saving our lives!"

"Well, that's the sort of thing that feels really good about our new system," replied the Mother Superior. "We still make candles and do needlepoint and the like, but we go out into the world, too. And our new Amazons can really kick ... ah, they are really a force to be reckoned with!"

"They are just amazing, Holy Mother," said Laeri, also standing. "They rescued those Kantrikars in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm, against a whole gang of slavers, without taking a single casualty."

"That's the way we like it," said the Mother Superior, smiling. "May Ydris lead you to the light!"

"May Ydris love and nurture you, forever!" said Laeri, making a little curtsey as she left the office.
**********

"The journey within has no destination."

(Robidog the Exile)

Oselika and Teladorion entered the room where Akelian lay. With them came Karngrevor, Savril, and an elderly man in a white robe, followed by several servants bearing equipment. Oselika stood by the bed and made her usual introduction. Then she added, "I decided to tell Father about you. This was so that I could take on the rescue of your soul as a quest. He is here, and he has brought Savril and a doctor, Doctor Mno, who is an expert on unusual states of the soul. Father will speak to you now."

Karngrevor sat on the bed and took Akelian's hand. "My brave, beloved boy," he said, "it is good to see you." He paused for a long time, looking into Akelian's eyes. As always, Akelian failed to respond. Karngrevor continued: "I have said this before, but I am happy to say it again: I was always immensely proud of you, so proud I felt close to exploding. And my love for you is so deep, I have never seen the bottom of it. You are different now, but I am still proud of you, and I still love you. I will always be proud of you, and I will always love you, no matter what happens. I might well have thought that killing you was the most loving thing to do, given the state you are in, but your wonderful sister has opened my mind and heart to other possibilities. Savril is here, and a very good doctor, Doctor Mno, a specialist, and they are going to examine you, in the hopes of seeing things that other doctors and wizards have missed. I have great hopes for this." He gave Akelian's hand a squeeze and stood up, nodding to Savril and the doctor.

The two had a short discussion, and Savril waved his hand. Immediately the entire bed was enclosed by a cube of soft white light, almost as high as the ceiling. A servant handed Savril a large crystal ball, which he placed in the air, where it hung without visible support. Then the servant handed him a large seashell, which he placed by his ear, and a smaller one, which he placed by his mouth. They, too, remained in place without visible support. Savril then nodded to the doctor, who took a little black bag from the servant and walked into the cube of light.

Sparks flickered around Doctor Mno as he passed through the boundary of the cube, but he was apparently unharmed. As he paused just inside the cube, he began to shrink, and to float in the air. An image of him appeared in the crystal ball, but this image did not shrink. Making swimming motions, the doctor began to float toward Akelian, still shrinking. The image in the crystal ball also swam. Occasionally, the doctor's voice could be heard issuing from the shell by Savril's ear, and Savril would reply by speaking into the shell by his mouth.

The doctor headed for Akelian's forehead, and by the time he arrived, he was so small as to be invisible. In Savril's crystal ball, however, the doctor was still as large as before, while Akelian's forehead was magnified so much that it had the texture of a great contorted expanse, with pores like craters and lines like gullies. The doctor stood on this surface. He continued to shrink. Soon, he was surrounded by an exotic landscape of hills and valleys. Akelian's pores grew to the size of sinkholes. At one point a mite, looking half like a giant lobster and half like a machine, came near the doctor. The facets of its eyes gleamed like jewels, and projecting everywhere from its body were hairs, which looked like curving spikes. Its mouth parts worked rapidly as it began to devour a half-loose flake of skin. On its body could be seen other mites, which lived on it as it lived on Akelian.

Savril made a gesture, and the doctor was surrounded by an egg-shaped region of gently pulsing light, whose color kept cycling through the spectrum. This egg, with the doctor in it, began to sink into the skin. At the boundary of the egg one could see the part of Akelian that the egg was passing through: a texture rather like a mass of bubbles, but more substantial; inside each 'bubble' one could see various further structures. When each 'bubble' was about the size of the doctor's head, the doctor ceased to shrink.

The egg now began to move very rapidly, so that individual bubbles went by too fast to be seen. One could see, though, that the average color and texture of the surrounding material would change every so often. Savril and the doctor kept up a running dialogue, full of technical terms, and occasionally Savril would make a gesture that would alter the motion of the egg. After awhile, the egg slowed down again. Instead of bubbles, the egg now appeared to be surrounded by a network of leafless, twisted trees, their trunks extending in all directions with no distinction of up and down or left and right. Each branch of each tree seemed to be attracted to the roots of some other tree. Sometimes, the trunk of such a tree seemed to go on indefinitely.

Soon, the doctor came to a region where the trees were arranged in a more orderly way, as they converged on a single focus. At this focus was a glowing white object, apparently the size of a large building. In form it was rather like a snowflake, but three-dimensional. It also resembled the ships of the Tellamir.

The roots of countless surrounding trees extended to graze the surface of this object. "There!" said Savril to the onlookers. "It looks quite artificial, doesn't it? It's evidently functioning as a center, but normally the soul _has_ no center!" As he approached the snowflake, Doctor Mno and his egg-shaped vessel shrank again, until the snowflake appeared to be as large as a city. He entered through a large, hexagonal gate. At this scale, the snowflake was full of oddly-shaped chambers and passageways. The doctor explored many of them, apparently guiding himself by tiny winking lights on the walls. Two hours passed this way, with the Doctor discussing with Savril, in terms completely incomprehensible to the others, a number of the features they observed; occasionally, they paused to rest. Finally, the doctor's vessel entered a very large chamber, in which the winking lights were particularly dense. A smile on Savril's face and the tone of his voice indicated that an important destination had been reached.

For another two hours, the doctor examined these lights, sending a running technical commentary to Savril. He then retraced his course, exiting from the false soul-center, passing the twisted trees, speeding up, slowing down, passing through the 'bubbles,' and emerging from Akelian's forehead. Here the egg disappeared, and the doctor launched himself into the air, swimming. Soon they saw him in the cube of light, growing to normal size, and propelling himself over to the edge. He emerged, wreathed briefly in harmless sparks, looking very tired, but smiling. "I think we have enough data" he said, breathlessly, "but now I must rest! Then I will analyze it, and give you my conclusions!"
**********

"Are you brave enough to tell your friends the truth?"

(Soska proverb)

"Hello, Nodecema," said Talek.

Nodecema whirled around, looking for his guards. There they were, but they were paralyzed, standing like statues. He tried to call for others, but his voice would not get loud.

"Relax, Nodecema," said Talek. "If I were going to harm you, I'd already have done it."

Nodecema stuck his rage and fear into a dark closet in his mind. "Sorry, Talek," he said, "you startled me."

"I apologize," said Talek.

_He doesn't mean it_ , thought Nodecema, _He did it on purpose, to show me how vulnerable I am. Why have I never asked Merelith to deal with him?_ Out loud, he said, "Please, have a seat. What can I do for you?"

"I wonder whether you are angry with me about the ruby sculptures," said Talek.

"No," lied Nodecema, who rarely admitted to having any emotions, "but maybe you think I should be? It got that crazy monk onto my back."

"And in the process of dealing with Koof," replied Talek, "you became suspicious of Tarth Sakul. And because of that, you got Merelith to bury the ruby sculptures. And if it hadn't been for that, you would have lost them when the Angels swarmed the neighborhood."

_This guy could be ten feet underwater_ , thought Nodecema, _and talk himself out of getting wet_.

Out loud, he said: "If that was your goal, you could have just told me to keep the sculptures somewhere else. I could've saved a lot of other stuff, too!"

"In the Church of Irony, we have to do everything in an indirect way."

_Church of Irony!_ thought Nodecema, _This guy buys the most crazed-out superstition I ever heard of. And yet he is incredibly powerful. He'd be a worse enemy than Koof or Tarth Sakul._ The thought occurred to him that this was an irony in itself. That thought bothered him, because it suggested that, contrary to every appearance, Talek's faith in irony wasn't entirely crazed-out after all. _How ironic that would be_ , he thought, and then was irritated with himself once more.

"Well, I guess I owe you a favor, then," he said, finally. "Anything you need right now?" _If he would ask me for something_ , thought Nodecema, _Then I would understand him._

"Nothing specific," replied Talek, "but I value our association, and I wanted to make sure that you weren't angry with me over the ruby sculptures."

"How did you learn about Merelith?" asked Nodecema.

"I have been known to snoop," said Talek. "And all official contracts are recorded in the Magicians' Guild Hall of Records."

"That doesn't mean that anyone can walk in and read them," said Nodecema.

"True enough," said Talek. "They are locked away, encrypted, written in unreadable ink, and mixed with decoys. But I am a magician myself, as you know, and in fact I am an Officer of the Guild."

"And why were you snooping on me?" asked Nodecema.

"Because I have your best interests at heart," said Talek. After a moment's pause, they both laughed heartily.

_I can't help liking the guy_ , thought Nodecema, _And that's dangerous. Especially since I haven't got the faintest idea of what motivates him._

"Actually," said Talek, "I do have a warning for you."

"What's that?"

"This guy, 'Soul Mate,' that you are in touch with, watch out for him! He's very, very smart, very, very powerful, and he wants to steal your soul. I strongly suggest that you find someone else."

Nodecema had already decided to stay away from Soul Mate, but now that Talek was recommending it, he began to worry. _People give advice for their own sake,_ he thought, _not for the sake of the one advised._

Vidigeon decided to report on this conversation, for he knew that "Soul Mate" was really Tarth Sakul, still hungry for Nodecema's soul. He wasn't sure, though, whether Talek was encouraging or discouraging Nodecema from continuing his association with him.

"Well, I guess I'll be off," said Talek, standing. "May your enemies have a streak of good luck." Nodecema laughed appreciatively, for he had many times successfully exploited just such a state of affairs. Talek raised his staff and croaked like a toad. Instantly he was gone. The guards resumed their pacing, unaware that they had been frozen.

_I won't mention Talek's appearance to them_ , thought Nodecema, _since it doesn't fit well in the image of invulnerability that I've been projecting. But I'll discuss it privately with Sk'Skar. My security decidedly needs improvement._
**********

"You can't leave home again."

(St. Semian the Nomad)

Ronag and Karissa, a middle-aged couple, had an economically adequate life in a middle-class section of Kondrastibar, but they were not happy. Grey cobwebs of sadness filled their house, and stuck to everything they touched. A focus of their sadness was an upstairs room, a sort of household shrine, in which lay various objects, including a crib with a rattle lying in it, baby clothes, a young girl's dress, several dolls and a dollhouse, a little wagon, a bed, a desk, a bookshelf, some fading articles from the _Gragstown Revelation_ , and a viol. For twenty-five years, this collection had not changed, and neither had their sadness. But one day, their sadness was disrupted.

Ronag and Karissa had a friend, Garliss; he appeared unexpectedly that evening. Ronag, answering the door, was a little surprised to see him, for guests, even good friends, did not usually come unannounced. "Come on in, Garliss," he said. "What's about?"

"I have good news for you," said Garliss, "but I want you and Karissa to sit down before I tell it." Ronag looked a little irritated; he thought his life was such that really good news was impossible, and so he felt that Garliss was being a little over-dramatic and hence tiresome, and perhaps even disrespectful of the tragic dimension of their lives. But he sat down, so that they could be done with whatever it was.

Garliss thought it best to take awhile to come to the point. "What I am about to tell you is absolutely serious and true," he said. "Today, someone came to see me. Someone very unexpected. Someone from your past. Someone alive and well. Someone who loves you very much. She is going to come here this evening. She will be very glad to see you, and you will be very glad to see her. You have been separated for a long time. You have almost, but not quite, given up hope of ever seeing her again. Yes, I think you are guessing who it is! It is none other than your daughter, Liliune! I have seen her myself!"

As he spoke, the expressions of his hosts changed from puzzlement to shock. Ronag could hardly speak; he managed to croak, "Garliss, ... if this is your idea ... of a joke, ..."

"No, no," said Garliss, "you know that I would never do that to you. Besides, you can see for yourself. She is waiting outside."

"No!" said Ronag, turning pale.

"Yes!" said Garliss. "Let yourself believe it, Ronag, it is true! I will go now and tell her to come in." He got up, went to the door, opened it, and waved to someone outside. A moment later, Ronag and Karissa heard footsteps. They stood up. Both of them began to shake. Karissa took Ronag's arm.

"Hello-o-o," said a sweet soprano voice, "Mommy? Daddy? It's _Lili_!" Garliss stepped away from the door, and there, entering the house, was Liliune, in a very modest but beautiful dress. Her lovely face was shining with a quivering smile, her eyes blinking at tears. Ronag and Karissa stared at her, trying to match the face of the woman before them with them face of a teenaged girl. As they hesitated, Liliune began to sing a lullaby:

Sweetly sleep, my ba-a-a-by,

Sweetly, sweetly sleep!

Mommy and Daddy will watch over you,

Until tomorrow comes,

Until to–

"Great merciful gods!" breathed Karissa, "Oh, great merciful, Oh, _great merciful gods!_ " She raised her hands to the sides of her face, and her eyes widened into circles.

"My girl!" said Ronag. "My g-girl! My sweet daughter!" Parents and child rushed together, and in a moment they were clamped to each other, crying and mumbling little inchoate endearments. Ronag and Karissa felt as though a huge piece of themselves, which had been missing for years, had been fitted back into place. After a long while they came unclenched. Not without a few false starts, a coherent conversation began.

"So what happened to you, Lili?" asked Karissa. "Why did you leave us? Why didn't you write to us? We were so worried, and finally, we thought you must be dead!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, that must have been terrible for you!" said Liliune. "Let me tell you what happened! Do you remember that man, who said he was an artist's manager, Kargelian? Well, he was a fraud – his real name is 'Pappi.' He is a criminal, a terrible criminal."

"I knew it!" cried Ronag. "I knew he was no good!"

"Well, you were absolutely right, Daddy," said Liliune. "And do you know what he did? He gave me a drug without my knowing it, and the drug made me think I was in love with him, and it made me completely dependent on him, and he said we should elope, and I didn't see why, but I did it anyway, because I couldn't say no to him, because of the drug!"

"Oh, my poor baby!" said Karissa. "My poor, poor baby!"

"It's my fault," said Ronag, holding his head in his hands. "I didn't protect you! I should have listened to myself! I should have forbidden you to see him! I should have chased him away! _Why didn't I listen to myself_?" He stamped back and forth, crumpled up with shame and frustration.

"Oh, no, Daddy," said Liliune, fervently, taking his shoulder and urging him to stand straight. "Don't blame yourself for his evil! You were a wonderful daddy, the best daddy a girl could have! You can't expect yourself to know everything! Pappi is an expert at fooling people! It's just like you to be so hard on yourself, you care so much about everyone, you always want to do the right thing, you always want to meet such high standards! But really, it's not your fault! You made the best decision you could have made, given the limited information you had! You thought he would give me a big opportunity! I'm not upset with you at all! No one could be upset with you! Now, let me tell you the rest of the story!"

"Eventually I learned the truth about Pappi, but it was too late, because the drug had a hold on me. That is why I never wrote you! So I stayed in his power, but there was one good thing – he did support my career, so I have done a lot of music, and acting, just as I wanted to, and just as you were hoping I would!"

"And then, some wonderful people rescued me from him! It is thanks to them that I am here today, and I want you to meet them! May I invite them in?"

"Well," said Karissa, a little surprised, "ah, ... Of course!"

Liliune went to the door and waved. In a few moments, four people entered the house: Sre Lugu, Srea Gala, Srea Kula, and Iliriana. Iliriana was evidently ill; she was faint and pale, and kept dabbing at her eyes and nose with a handkerchief.

Liliune introduced them.

"Don'd ged doo _glose_ do me!" warned Iliriana, smiling, as each one was introduced to her. "I have a _derrible_ _gold_! Bud I djuzd _had_ do be here!"

"Sre Lugu here was one of Pappi's bankers," explained Liliune. "That was how he got to know me. When he got to understand my situation, he and his two friends here rescued me."

"We are beholden to you forever!" said Ronag, who had straightened up.

"Glad to do it," said Sre Lugu, with a smile. His two friends nodded agreement.

"How did you actually come to meet Liliune?" asked Ronag.

" _Mommy_ ," said Liliune eagerly, "can I walk around the house? Can I see my _room_?"

"Why of course you can, my beautiful darling!" said her mother. Everyone except Garliss, who had disappeared, followed Liliune around, as she remarked excitedly on what had changed and what had not. When she reached her own room, she went into paroxysms of sentiment, hugging each doll and calling it by name, and giving a commentary on each object as she hugged or caressed it. Her parents' tears flowed freely.

When she came to her viol, her mother said, "Oh, Lili, your viol, that you played so well! Could you play something for us now?"

"I'll try," Liliune replied. She plucked the strings and started to tune up. "Oh, it's been such a long time," she said, worriedly. "I hope I can tune this up without breaking a string!" She turned the pegs very carefully and slowly. "Oh, I think I have it!" she said. Then she adjusted the bow, and played a few notes experimentally. Her sound was scratchy and out of tune. "Ouch! Sorry about that," she said apologetically. "Give me a few moments to get the feel of it again. Oh, how I did love this viol! And how I loved my dear, dear parents, who went without many a lunch so that they could buy it for me!" Everyone began to weep copiously.

Liliune started to blow dust off the instrument, and then realized there wasn't any. She tuned it, then played a few notes and phrases, and her sound gradually became warm and luminous. It became a voice, the voice of someone who understands intimately all those deep, mysterious feelings that we have, and build our lives around, or exile from our lives at tremendous cost, but find so terribly hard to express. For a moment, Sre Lugu thought that he could smell, ever so faintly, the fragrance of a Baro tree.

"Ah, good," said Liliune, "I think I have it!"

She began to play. After a short, premonitory introduction, she began to sing, using the viol as an accompaniment.

Only Sre Lugu was prepared for the power of Liliune's mature voice; the others were caught in an avalanche. Some notes pounced like lions, others lay fearful like fawns. Some flashed by like trout, others held on like bulldogs. Some shot up and exploded like fireworks, others came swooping down like hawks. Some were bright as ripe fruit, others were as transparent as winter air. The shape of each note was totally unexpected, but completely logical in hindsight. It was a children's song, but like many children's songs, it had a special resonance for adults.

I will always be with you

I will always be near

Even when you can't see me

Even when you can't hear

You may climb on the mountain

You may dive in the sea

But you'll always be closer than

My own skin to me.

And although we may argue

And although we may part

You will live in the clear light

That shines in my heart.

After the music had slowly and logically slipped back into silence, Karissa cried for a long time. Ronag held her, his own eyes closed, rocking her gently. No one was surprised or embarrassed. Conversation was haltingly resuming when Garliss re-appeared, bearing baskets and bottles. "I thought this called for a celebration," he said. "So I took the liberty of bringing some festive food and drink. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, no, not at all," sniffled Karissa, looking bemused, but – for the first time in many years – happy. She and Ronag set out plates and glasses. Party games were played. Songs were sung. Laughter rang out. Understanding flourished, and friendships were born.

Eventually, the party came to rest. All the guests thanked their hosts effusively, embraced them, and departed. Sre Lugu, Iliriana, and Liliune rode home in a carriage.

"You did bery well, Liliude," said Iliriana, dabbing at her nose. "I am broud of you."

"Well, I _am_ an _actress_ ," said Liliune.

"I doe you are," replied Iliriana, "bud I thig thad thiz was a bardigularly easy role, begause zubware, deeb in your hard, you still lub your barends."

"I can certainly _remember_ loving them," said Liliune, "but I don't love them any more. As the Scripture says, 'Truly, he who retains love for family, or friends, or possessions, or fame, or accomplishments, or the body, or the pleasures of the body, such a one is no devotee of mine.'"

"You mean, _Snoffle_ has a _scripture?_ " sputtered Sre Lugu, in amazement.

"Of course," said Liliune, smiling, "don't lots of gods have scriptures? Not that _Pappi_ knew anything about it, he just thinks of Snoffle as a _drug_. He doesn't realize that taking the drug is a _sacrament_ , a way of tearing down the veil that separates us from the real Snoffle, who is _God_. It was my friend, Akaria, who introduced me to the scripture."

"Is she an addict, too, then?" asked Sre Lugu.

"We prefer the term 'elect,'" said Liliune, cheerfully, "but yes, Akaria is one of the elect, and she saw that I was – the elect can always recognize one another – and she introduced me to the Scripture. And I'm glad she did, for the Scripture erased the one flaw in my happiness."

"What was that?" asked Sre Lugu.

"I thought that when my body died, my happiness would end," said Liliune. "But Scripture showed me that the souls of the elect are immortal. So," she continued, her face radiant, "I will feel bliss forever."

"But your _art_ ," said Sre Lugu, a little desperately. "Surely your art still means something to you."

"Only because I dedicate it to _him_ ," said Liliune, smiling beatifically. "When I sing, I sing to _him_. When I act, I act for _him_. The world exists only to praise and obey God, and the elect truly know this."

Sre Lugu was silent. _How many times_ , he thought, looking at her radiantly lovely face, _did you cling to me like a python, and moan and cry out in my arms? How many times did you sing songs to me, or recite poems while stroking my hair? And it was never for me, not at all._

Soon after they returned home, and Liliune had gone off to the guest room, Iliriana decided to go to bed. Sre Lugu began to make ready to join her.

"Dahlig," said Iliriana, "I hab a feeber, ad I will be tozzig ad turdig all nide. You wo'd be able to zleeb. Wye dode you go zleeb wiz Liliude?

"You want me to sleep with _Liliune_?" said Sre Lugu, in astonishment. "But ..."

"I druzt you imblizidly, Lugi. Don'd you druzt _yourzelb_?"

"Oh, yes, I mean, of course, but ..."

"Ad eben iv I didn'd druzt _you_ , Lugi, I would druzt _Liliude_. Begause, aggordig do our agreemed, id iz I, nod you, who condrols ze _znobble_!"

Sre Lugu sighed, and, taking a pillow, headed for Liliune's room.
**********

"Smokescreens can be seen from a long way off."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Talek and the neophyte followed the procession of drifting souls through the grounds of the Temple, until they came to a small building. "This is new," said Talek. "It must have been created last night." The souls were drifting through an archway. Following them, Talek and the neophyte went down a spiral staircase, and through a passageway lit only by moonstones.

"This looks new," said Talek, "as though it had just been excavated."

"Yes," said the neophyte, "and look here!" In the wall was a small triangular area, a few knuckles across, that looked quite different from the rest.

"It looks like metal," said Talek, peering at it closely.

"It's as if a metal box had been buried here," said the neophyte, "and when this passageway was dug out, one corner of it was taken off."

"Yes, I think you're right," replied Talek, "and I think I remember something...Yes, this will be pretty important! But I can't see into it; there are lots of protective spells on it. Back off a couple of yards, and let's try to hack it!"

They both backed off, and Talek raised his staff. There was a sound, a sort of cross between a burp and a giggle. A large portion of the wall near the triangle was suddenly covered with lit-up numerals and other symbols. "Hmm," said Talek, studying it closely. "Looks like it's based on the 123 smallest Ramsey numbers. He waved his staff, and another display of numbers appeared. "Layer two!"

"Oh, don't tell me it's based on prime factors!" said the neophyte. "How lame!"

"It might be Merelith's; she is pretty retro sometimes," said Talek, "but yes, we can just use the Hungry Artichoke Algorithm here." His staff twitched, and the display started changing rapidly, then stopped. Instead of numerals, they now saw a circle with lots of little circles inside it, connected by lines.

"Looks like a twistor diagram," suggested the neophyte.

"Ah, I see what you mean!" said Talek. "And, you know who likes to use twistor diagrams? Merelith! I was looking at a contract of hers just the other day, and it had something very similar to this!"

His staff twitched again. There was a brief and miniature fireworks display near the triangle. Then all the symbols disappeared; there was only a single empty, glowing, translucent spherical surface, hanging in space next to the wall.

"Ah," said the neophyte, "all you have to do is turn that inside out, in three dimensions, without tearing or fusing it, and without messing up the orientation of the surface. You are allowed to pass the surface through itself."

"Any child can do that," said Talek, "er, ... but ... I'm not a child! Let's see ... It's coming back to me now ... like this ... so ... and so .... and so ... _There_ we are!" He made various gestures with his staff, and the sphere was distorted into a succession of intricate shapes, eventually coming to rest as a sphere once again. A moment later, it disappeared. Talek and the neophyte looked into the triangle, which now appeared as a hole in the wall. Inside, they saw what appeared to be a ladder-like construction of interlocking metal shapes.

"I can't tell what those objects are," said the neophyte. "They've been zipped."

"Yes," said Talek, "we should tell Brother Koof about this, when we get back. In the meantime, I'll just hide it." He tapped his staff on the floor, and the triangle disappeared, leaving the texture of the wall homogeneous. "Don't talk about it to anyone," he added.

"What is it?" asked the neophyte.

"What did I just say?" answered Talek, sternly. Then they both giggled.

Again following the blinking souls, who floated harmlessly around them, they soon found themselves in a small chamber, carved out of bedrock, and littered with flakes of stone. At the opposite end of the chamber was a cylindrical shaft going straight down, as far as the eye could see. The procession of souls crossed the chamber and disappeared down the shaft.

"I wouldn't be surprised if this goes all the way down to the underworld," said Talek.

"Why would anyone want to have a passage to the underworld in their temple?" asked the neophyte.

"Perhaps for this very purpose," said Talek, indicating the descending souls.

"The passage is quite large," said the neophyte. "Perhaps the builders anticipated a huge rush of souls at some time."

"Good point," said Talek, "and it could be used to travel up as well as down."

"I find that idea a little scary," said the neophyte.

"Me, too!" said Talek. The little souls fluttered as they fell, like delicate blossoms from a tree.

"It's sad," said the neophyte. "Yes, I know that it's appropriate for them, and there is a reason for it all, but it is still sad."

"Yes," said Talek, with a sigh.

They stood silently for awhile, watching the souls spill over the edge and settle out of sight.

"I've never seen the underworld," said Talek. "Who knows what it is really like? Do you believe the stories about it? Which ones? Wouldn't be ironic if it turned out to be the most pleasant place of all? At any rate, much wisdom would be gained by going there."

"It would indeed be fascinating," agreed the neophyte.

"To tell the truth," said Talek, stepping closer to the edge, "I'm tempted."

"What?!" said the neophyte, in a tone of shock. "You _can't_! Not _now_!"

"Of course I can," said Talek. "I can do whatever I choose."

"You know very well that your destiny is here," said the neophyte.

"That's true," said Talek, with a sigh.

"Surely you don't regret what you are about to do," said the neophyte, "not in the main, anyway."

"No," said Talek, "absolutely not. But I am sad, sometimes, about things I might have done, but didn't. And never will. Out of our infinite potentials, we have to choose one. How limiting that is!"

"I feel that way, sometimes," said the neophyte. "Not to equate myself with you," she added hastily.

There was a long silence. Finally, Talek sighed. "Well, let's get on with it," he said. They made their way upstream through the descending souls, until they stood again in the light of the sun.
**********

"The god of sexual desire is not a friendly god."

(Kondrastibari folk saying)

When Lessie uncovered herself, the mute boy's first reaction was one of shock and guilt. He averted his eyes. But then he remembered that Lessie had smiled at him, and that she had deliberately removed the sheet herself. A moment before that, she had been angry with him for looking at her while she was still covered; could it be that she now _wanted_ him to look at her? He flicked his eyes back to her face for an instant, without looking at the rest of her. She was still smiling; her eyes said that she did want him to look, if he wanted to do so.

He was not sure that he _did_ want to do so. He felt intuitively that if he did, he would enter deeply into the realms of several very powerful gods. These gods, he felt, did not necessarily have his best interests at heart, nor Lessie's. He also felt that his relationship with Lessie was, at this moment, teetering on the brink of some catastrophic change. It was terrifying. He had been happy, marvelously happy, with the relationship that they had had so far, except for the one brief interlude of estrangement; he wanted to do nothing to disturb it.

Also, he had learned, sometimes the hard way, that nakedness is often associated with violence and abuse, and that the body often attracts those who have no other interest. From this point of view, it was as if Lessie were inviting him to do something bad. Or at least, he feared that he _would_ do something bad, if he allowed himself to look at her. Might there not be, slumbering within himself, dark forces such as he had seen manifested in others? He did not feel them now, but might they be roused by the sight of her body? He did not know, and he did not wish to take a chance on hurting her.

He turned his attention back to the gods he had felt. Of course, he had no names for them, but he felt them, poised to possess him. He felt rivalries between some of them; if they entered into him, they would contest with one another for power; power over _him_. He realized that they had already possessed him, in a small way, for some time; but it seemed that if he were to look at Lessie, it would multiply their power many times over. He could feel them urging him to do so.

Where would that lead? He knew that humans could not exist without the divine, and that it takes an infinity of gods to make a mortal. But he also felt some control over the particular balance of gods that constituted him at that time. He could admit these new gods, or he could keep them out. He felt a strong pressure from them; they were making attractive promises to him. It was rather like being in a marketplace, with brightly decorated stalls and merchants who smiled and treated him like a long-lost son. But he knew that it was the coin in his pocket that they loved.

Although he could not see her body, he was profoundly aware of it; it was burning like a flame in his mind.

Yes, these gods were powerful. He would never be the same if he admitted them. His life now was so _good_! Surely any change would be for the worse.

But he felt that Lessie _wanted_ him to look. Would she be angry with him, if he did not? Well, the two of them could work that out; if it turned out to be terribly important to her, well, he could look then. He had learned that her anger of the moment was not the end of the world, that reconciliation could happen in time. At the moment, her revealing herself seemed to have been an impulsive action; she might even come to regret it herself. She had done it for his sake, however, and he would let her know that he appreciated that.

He made ready to make a gesture indicating that she should cover herself again. But something stopped him. How pleasant it had been to look at her, even covered by the sheet! He had felt a profound yearning to see her uncovered. He had imagined what she must look like, assuming that the rest of her skin was like her face and hands. But imagination had not satisfied him; it had only intensified his desire. Then, when she had uncovered herself and he had flicked his eyes to her face, he had become peripherally aware of the rest of her. He had seen that there were three small areas which were differently colored from the rest. Although he had only gotten the vaguest impression of them, the pattern that they made had gone into his heart like a knife. He had felt a pleasant warmth rise in him, and a warm trembling and churning at the bottom of his belly, and a further intensification of his desire. As he remembered it, the heat rose in him again. It was intense and delicious. He wanted to keep on thinking of her body, so as to keep on feeling that pleasure. With an effort, he turned his attention away, but it stayed in the background of his thoughts, smiling and calling to him. He felt as though he were crushing something basic in himself.

He had a disquieting suspicion that his relationship with Lessie was like a plant that had to grow. It was beautiful as it was, but it could not be frozen there without killing it. This incident might be an indication of what had to happen. The thought made him sad and frightened. But again, he felt that he could change his mind later, and that this was not a decision that he should make without taking much more time to think about it.

It was going to be hard to make that gesture. Taking a deep breath, he went over his reasons for doing so. They still seemed good. Feeling as though he were buried in sand, he forced his reluctant hand to send the message. He heard a rustling sound. Turning his head just a bit, he saw from the corner of his eye that Lessie was covered again. The gods that had been crowding him seemed to recede, but he could still feel them nagging at him. Even though they had lost this battle, they seemed a little more powerful than before.

He turned to look at Lessie. She looked puzzled and hurt, but yes, she still loved him.
**********

"Defeat is often victory in disguise"

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

"I'm detecting two telepaths, sir, about half a horizon ahead!" said Captain Zoff's telepath, Inkra.

"Any soldiers, or wizards?" asked the Captain, shooing a horsefly out of his horse's mane. A man of medium height, he had a grizzled beard, rugged features, and a permanently sad expression.

"No, sir."

"Any wizards or military magic?" Zoff asked his magician, Tarx.

"No, sir," replied Tarx. Like everyone in Zoff's unit, he wore the characteristic spiny armor of a Dorish warrior.

Captain Zoff turned to his employer, Anigatrigian. "I recommend we move more slowly and carefully, sir, since we are approaching the site. This is where trouble is most likely to occur."

"So be it," said Anigatrigian, nodding affirmatively. He was a large, muscular man, perhaps 30 years old. It had been a great relief to Zoff to discover that, unlike many of Zoff's past employers, Anigatrigian did not use the occasion to play the general, but left all the military decisions to Zoff himself. He seemed intelligent and level-headed. He was no Lord, but Zoff had long since given up hope of being a true warrior, fighting for a true and noble Lord. The thought stabbed him with sadness, and he turned away from it.

"Halt!" he shouted. "Second alert!" His soldiers took a few moments to don their helmets and to take shields and crossbows out of the supply cart, wind the bows, and insert arrows. Two scouts on spit lizards, one of them a telepath, went ahead, and a similar pair fell behind.

"Resume course, slow walk," said Zoff.

"Advance scout report," said Inkra, the telepath. "The two telepaths appear to be in a bank. Shall we enter to investigate further? End."

"Reply: no," said Zoff. "Resume patrol. End." _They are probably just notaries or security personnel_ , he thought.

"Rear scout report," said Inkra. "All clear, turning to follow. End."

"Reply: Acknowledged. End."

"Advance scout report," said Inkra. "We have arrived at intersection with destination street. Awaiting instructions. End."

"Reply: Hold position. End."

Soon they were within a hundred yards of the intersection. Zoff could see his advance scouts, waiting.

"Company halt!" shouted Zoff. "First alert! Raise shield!"

He heard the clicking of safeties being disengaged. Tarx muttered a spell, and a shimmering protective dome enveloped the group. Anigatrigian put on some armor and a helmet, and allowed his personal bodyguard to surround him.

"Advance scouts: investigate destination building, outside. Telepath follows leader by three hundred feet." That way, it would be hard to ambush both of them. "Go!"

After a careful examination, the advance scouts reported that they had circled the building, and the block it was on, without detecting any sign of a trap. They had detected a Witch some distance up the street, but she turned out to be a private detective. The middle scouts made a circle around Anigatrigian's party, and also detected nothing amiss.

"Advance scouts: Leader, investigate warehouse. Identify yourself as connected with employer, verify that we are approaching, but give no information as to our location. Go!" After a few breaths, the scout reported that there were eight groups of slavers in the warehouse, as expected. Most of them had a telepath and a magician.

"Advance scouts: continue to patrol around destination. Go!" said Zoff, and to those with him he barked, "Continue, slow walk, First Alert! Rear scouts, continue rearguard patrol, five hundred manlengths."

Soon they arrived at the warehouse. Several hundred mounts were waiting in a vacant lot next door, clustered into eight groups. Zoff arranged for their own mounts to be tethered. Leaving the scouts on circular patrol, he and six of his men dismounted and entered the building, leaving the rest with Anigatrigian in case of attack from outside.

The eight groups of slavers had arranged themselves and their captives in eight distinct areas. The warehouse hummed with talk.

He sent soldiers to check out the loft and the smaller rooms; there was no one in them. " _Your attention, please!_ " he shouted, his voice amplified by Tarx. The warehouse quieted. "I am Captain Zoff, commanding a company of Dorish Warriors," he said. "I am guarding the wholesaler to whom you are hoping to sell today, and I am in charge of peace and security at this market. My pass-phrase is, 'The magical cow dreams of coriander.' I will now verify that each of you has the assigned counter-phrase." He went to each of the eight groups in turn, getting a different phrase from the leader of each of them. They were all correct.

"You will now place all of your weapons on the floor," he said. There was a great deal of grumbling, and little obedience. "Do you want the wholesaler to arrive, or not?" he asked. This got surly compliance.

"Now, deposit your _hidden_ weapons," said Zoff. He was met with protestations of innocence. "I will now count to twenty," continued Zoff, "and then my telepath will begin to examine individuals at random. If he finds anyone to have a concealed weapon, that person will be killed." At this, concealed weapons rained down onto the floor.

"Unless there is external attack," continued Zoff, "my men will kill anyone who picks up one of these weapons, or draws a hidden weapon, or uses magic, or does anything that might cause confusion or panic, before I give the all-clear. The all-clear will not be given until several hundredbreaths after the wholesaler leaves."

Inkra, accompanied by two soldiers, began to thread through the first group of slavers. Sure enough, some idiot had kept back a knife; one of Zoff's soldiers killed him with a chop to the throat. At this, a few more weapons clattered to the ground in various places around the room. Inkra visited each of the eight groups in turn. When he was done, Zoff signaled that Anigatrigian could enter, escorted by most of Zoff's other soldiers. As Anigatrigian joined him, Zoff posted those men in various strategic spots around the room. He then nodded to the wholesaler, who began to inspect the wares of the first group of slavers. Zoff queried his scouts, and learned that all was well.

Suddenly, without warning, there was a searing flash of light throughout the warehouse that blinded everyone whose eyes were open; a moment later, there was a deafening roll of thunder. As his eyes began to recover, Zoff saw through glowing sheets of afterimage that Inkra and Tarx were falling, enveloped in cocoons of light; a moment later, he found himself similarly enwrapped, and fell to the floor, where he helplessly watched the remainder of the battle. He could not discern the source of the magic.

Many slavers reached for their fallen weapons. A good number of these were killed by Zoff's soldiers, who weren't yet convinced that the attack was external. The eight groups of slavers and Zoff's men began to fight each other. Many protective shields sprang up, but only one of the eight succeeded in covering all of their people. _Probably that group is the perpetrator_ thought Zoff, _But what are they after?_

Joki, Zoff's second-in command, sized up the situation and gave the sign for surrender; but in the confusion, it was impossible to communicate with more than a couple of the other soldiers. There was another blinding flash, and another peal of thunder. After a moment, Joki simply lay face down, with his hands clasped behind his back. _This is a disaster_ , thought Zoff, _I will have to commit suicide now_.

Zoff saw Anigatrigian's bodyguards fall, and Anigatrigian himself enveloped in a cocoon. Slavers tried to exit, but the doors were frozen shut. After that, the remaining slavers fought each other until the only people left alive outside the shields were those, mostly soldiers, who had had the brains to lie down.

"Do not move," shouted an amplified voice. "If you do not move, you will be spared." The largest shield dome flickered, and a number of figures emerged. They were dressed like slavers, but their quick and efficient motions showed them to be trained and disciplined soldiers. Finding all survivors, they bound their hands and feet and, if they were injured, supplied the first steps of medical care.

_Compassionate_ , thought Zoff. _Who in the name of honor are they?_ As some of them came to work near him, he saw that, although some were dressed as men, they were all women. There was only one force of Amazons he had ever heard of, that were anywhere near this quality. _The Amazons of Ydris._

With a certain sense of relief, Zoff thought, _At least I have only been beaten by the best!_

Having secured all combatants, the Amazons de-activated the smaller protective shields. Zoff saw that they had covered no slavers, only slaves. _A mission of rescue_ , he thought. _They must have ambushed one of the slaver parties before they got here, and taken their place, impersonating them._ A wave of shame crashed into him: _How did I ever fall so low as to work for slavers?_

Watching the Amazons, he was able to infer who their leader was.

A number of the Amazons returned to him. He felt a telepath scan the upper level of his mind. The Amazons had a discussion amongst themselves that he could not hear. Before long, they seemed to reach a conclusion. A moment later, his cocoon dissolved, and he found himself standing up, facing their leader. Her hands were arranged in the sign of _respectful truce_. He made the sign of _unconditional surrender and admiration_.

She said, "Captain Zoff, we will spare your living soldiers and treat the injured. I request a boon."

Tears came to Zoff's eyes, "Truly, you are a noble lady," he said, "not to hold them hostage, and not to make a demand, when you have us completely at your mercy. I do not think there are many like you, in this darkening world. I will try to help you. What is it that you wish?"

"I wish, Captain Zoff, that you should not commit suicide."

Zoff gasped and choked. "D-Dear Lady, how can you ask me to live in dishonor?"

She looked at him sadly. "No, I will not ask you to do that. But think on it, Captain. Is there truly no way of redemption for you?"

He thought for a moment, and suddenly a whisper of hope came to him. "Dear Lady," he asked, "why did you rescue these prisoners?"

"Because we abhor slavery," she said.

"You are not going to sell or enslave them yourself?"

"Absolutely not!"

He sighed and knelt before her, trembling, tears running down his cheeks and beard. "Dear Lady," he said, in a hushed voice, "I believe there is just one road of redemption possible for me. After years of my serving ignoble men for hire, without ever being a real warrior, and at a time I thought when I thought my life was over, generous Fate has sent me a true and noble Lady. I have proved unworthy to lead my own life; so let me pledge myself to her for the rest of my days, to serve her and fight for her righteous cause. Only thus can I be redeemed." Joining his hands before him and bowing his head, he waited desperately for her answer.

An aeon seemed to pass before she replied.

"Yes, noble Knight," she said, "Gladly do I accept thine offer, and lovingly do I bind thee to my house, the Holy Temple of Ydris." A great chorus of joy and gratitude sang through him. He heard her sword sliding from its scabbard, and felt it touch his head and his heart. Then his darkness fell from him, and his soul shone like the sun.
**********

"Men like to think they're in control."

(from _Courtesanry of Marriage: an Introduction_ )

Arguit returned from his evening exercise and bath feeling refreshed and vigorous. As he approached his cell, he saw his wife, Laeri, sitting on the new bed, wearing a diaphanous nightie. Instantly, his mind was in turmoil. Her choice of attire strongly suggested certain intentions on her part, intentions that were very natural, given the circumstances. But Arguit was in love with Zarinia; the idea of making love to anyone else seemed wrong to him.

"Hello, Arguit," said Laeri, smiling and rising from the bed.

"Hello, Laeri," he said. "It is good to see you."

Laeri strode forward and extended her arms for a hug, smiling. _This will just be an affectionate hug_ , thought Arguit, _Then I will explain to her what the situation is_. He stepped forward and put his arms around her. He could smell her perfume, the one that had always been his favorite. As always, it intoxicated him a little, making it hard to think. She held her body tightly against his. He could feel her heat, her softness, and her feminine contours. Memories, warm and sweet, filled in all the blanks, and yet left much to be desired. Putting her left hand behind his head, Laeri brought her mouth to his, caressing his lips with hers.

_I should disengage_ , thought Arguit, but the thought of the crushed expression that he expected to appear on her face, if he were to do that, filled him with guilt. _I will turn it into a chaste, affectionate kiss_ , he thought. _I must show her that I still love her, just not in that way at the moment._ He pressed his lips briefly against hers and then disengaged them, turning his head to the side.

Not at all discouraged, Laeri began to nibble gently at his earlobe. Other parts of his body responded, like an orchestra tuning up. A warm, sparkling music streamed from wherever she touched him, singing through his entire body. A part of him stirred, and when she felt that, she put a hand behind his rump and pressed herself harder against it, rocking from side to side.

_I should step back_ , he thought, but he didn't step back. Going up on tiptoe and back down, Laeri repeatedly slid her entire body against his, moaning slightly. Her kisses moved from his cheek to the side of his neck to his collarbone. He could feel her erected nipples through the thin cloth of the nightie. _It would be terribly cruel for me to make her stop now, when she is so aroused_ , he thought.

Laeri's right hand slid between his legs and began to caress the inside of his thigh. It suddenly occurred to him that since Zarinia didn't love him, she would be pleased if he were to make love to Laeri. _So_ _I could do it for Zarinia's sake_ , he thought.

As she stood on tiptoes, Laeri ran her warm, wet tongue through the whorls of his ear. As she settled down, she opened his shirt and kissed his breastbone. She continued to moan _. If she and Zarinia both want it, who am I to object?_ he thought.

He slid both hands down to her rump. It was soft, smooth, and round. He spread his fingers over it and gave it a squeeze. Then he started pulling her nightie upwards. She gasped.

_I'm a moral weakling_ , thought Arguit, _even my own wife can seduce me!_
**********

"Save me, dear gods, from people like myself!"

(Patriarch Ervaxa CCIX, "the Compassionate.")

Not long after his Confession, 1080 (previously known as "Scratch") was told that he would be living with a different group, a work group. A pair of beaters was assigned to lead him to his new location.

As he was led, still naked, from the building in which he had been housed, 1080 found it was a clear and sunny day, chilly but tolerable. He was astonished to see that most of the neighborhood had been leveled. He could see the pagoda that had housed _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_ (now defunct as a business, he was certain), standing atop a hill that was otherwise completely denuded. At a greater distance, he could make out what had once been Pappi's compound. Turning around, he could see that the building he had emerged from was part of a small cluster that had been spared – temporarily, he suspected. In many places, stockades and tent cities had sprung up.

The beaters accompanying him allowed him to stop and stare as much as he liked. After a few breaths he resumed walking. "Let it sink in, _sinner_ ," said one of the beaters. "This is what happens to degenerates! That whole style of life is gone. And don't think that you will be able to go to another degenerate neighborhood – you aren't going anywhere!" Both beaters laughed.

They passed through an area covered with ash and charcoal. Apparently, whole blocks had been set to the torch. "Frankly," said the other beater, "I don't know why they don't just leave you perverts _in_ there when they burn it. Sure would make life easier for the rest of us!" Again they laughed. 1080 felt numb. He did not respond.

They came to a stockade, heavily guarded by beaters, wasps and spiders. Inside were a number of large tents. The beaters led 1080 to a group of about 30 prisoners and 10 beaters in a clear area. The prisoners were all naked, and had numbers written on their foreheads.

As 1080 arrived, one of the beaters stepped forward, a large red-haired woman with piercing violet eyes. Her helmet had the sheen of titanium steel, and the part of her armor that covered each breast was made from a human skull. The rest of her armor was studded lizard hide. "All right," she said, gesturing at 1080 with her bludgeon, "this is the last one. You people now constitute Group 64. You are going to live and work together for a long time, so you may as well decide to get along with each other. I am Boss Wolverine Jaw. I will be in charge of you. _That_ ," she continued, gesturing at a large piece of folded fabric, "is your tent. Over there are some tools for you to use. For example, you could use some of those shovels to dig a latrine. You should do this quickly, for there is a harsh penalty for urinating or defecating on the open ground. Over there is a smaller tent, the right size to cover the latrine so as to give you some privacy while using it. Over here are clothing, bedrolls and blankets. If and when you have finished setting up the latrine and the tents, you will be given food and clothing. How you go about this, is up to you."

She stepped back and nodded to the beaters. Some of them began to patrol the area; the remainder, including Boss Wolverine Jaw herself, sat down outside the perimeter and began setting out the materials for a picnic.

The prisoners glanced nervously at each other, waiting for a leader to emerge. 1080 felt a small impulse to take some initiative, but he overrode it. _The Angels may be planning to identify and eliminate leaders_ , he thought. For awhile, no prisoner moved. Then 987, a small, skinny young woman, glared at the others and walked over to the latrine site and began to dig. 1080, who was already feeling a need to use the latrine, sighed and joined her.

It was difficult to dig without shoes on; he had to ram the point of the shovel into the ground with his arms. Then he noticed a mattock in the pile of tools and switched to using that. Soon, he and 987 were working together: he would loosen the soil and she would shovel it away. His attempts to make eye contact with her all failed, however. He noticed that a small group of prisoners were standing around the folded main tent, discussing something.

Still weak from his injuries, he had to stop from time to time because of fatigue or dizziness. He offered an apology and an explanation to 987, to which she did not respond. At such times he observed that although most of the others had joined in the work, there were two large, muscly men who simply reclined on the ground, smiling complacently and occasionally making derogatory remarks about the others, especially their sexual parts. _Goons_ , thought 1080, and fear struck him. He had once employed many such men, but he had no power over these two: if the Angels continued to leave them to themselves, the goons would terrorize the group and exploit everyone else. _At least I'm not a woman_ , he thought, although he was not at all sure that the goons would draw any such line.

A younger man, 540, came over and offered to take the shovel work over from 987. Without looking at him, she shook her head in refusal. He left to work on the tent. 987 and 1080 eventually finished digging the latrine and were among the first to use it, using the blade of a shovel as a strigil.

1080 took a moment to rest. He didn't really feel like thinking, but he had a future to consider, and he had always been a bit of a strategist. He needed a plan. _987 isn't too bad looking_ , he thought, _maybe I can make a deal with her._ In his mind he imagined a dialogue with her:

"Listen," said 1080, "I've got a proposition for you. I used to be – I mean, I know a lot about pimping. Maybe you could work for me."

She snorted. "What use would _you_ be?" she asked.

"Well, I'd protect you," he said.

She snickered. "Sure. Let me see you flatten _those_ two guys," she said, indicating the two goons. They wouldn't have been a problem for Scratch; he would have sent six equally big guys to eliminate them. But 1080 himself, even if he weren't still recovering from his injuries, just wasn't built to take on even one of them. If he'd had his sword, he might have relied on skill; goons never had the discipline to be any good with a sword. But he didn't have a sword.

"And who," she said, not waiting for him to answer, "is going to be my customer, and what are they going to pay me with?"

"Well ..."

_So much for that line of approach_ , thought 1080. _I have no power to punish or reward. If I want something from other people, maybe I should try to get them to like me, or at least trust me enough to make deals. Not that I have anything to make deals with, but one day it may happen. One way to build trust would be to keep working hard now. It will make people see me as valuable. And I should be nice to them, whenever possible. But I don't want them to think that they can just exploit me, either._ It was a very strange way to think; almost like playing the board game Zaku, in which it is necessary to plan far in advance. All the assumptions of his previous life were now questionable; everything had to be thought through from the beginning.

After he had tangled and untangled several related lines of thought, an idea occurred to him. He approached 987 and sat next to her. She ignored him, but he spoke anyway, being careful not to be overheard. "Listen," he said, "I can understand your not wanting to be friendly, but there's something we should be thinking about. It looks as though the Angels are expecting us to start taking care of ourselves. That might mean that they will stop guarding and supervising us closely, at some point. When that happens, those two goons are going to try to take over, and neither you nor I can stop them by ourselves. If they take over, we'll all be slaves, and it won't be long before they rape and rent out all the women. The only way to stop them is to get a lot of us together and make a deal. Let's say, that if the goons make a move on any of us, someone will yell, " _Lizard pack!"_ and everyone else will grab a tool or a rock, make a circle around the goons, and start moving in. They will fight, but we will beat them flat. Some of us will get hurt, but that's going to happen anyway; goons enjoy hurting people!"

987 hesitated for a moment, and then, for the first time, she turned her face to him; but her face had a snarling expression, as if to say, 'Don't think this means that I trust you for one blink of an eye!'

"Trouble with that," she said, "is that when it comes to the test, everyone will hang back, trying to get the others to do the dangerous part. Then the goons will twist us in half, one by one!" She looked away again.

1080 thought a moment, and then said, "OK, how about this? Part of the deal is, that if anyone hangs back, we will beat _them_ into leafcake, sooner or later. It would only take one of us to do that, because they have to go to sleep, eventually. Then someone hits them with a shovel."

She looked back, still snarling. "Does this deal include you?" she asked.

"Of course," he said, already thinking about how, when it came to the fight, he could play it safe without appearing to do so. It felt strange to be _negotiating_ with a woman.

She looked away. Conflict knotted and re-knotted her features. Then she turned back and looked straight into his eyes (hers were green) "I'm in," she said, "but the moment you change or add any rules without asking me, I'm out!"

"All right," he said, "let's each talk to other people."

"Of course!" she said, nodding while still looking surly.

At that moment the tent must have been finished, for a group of beaters set down a pile of clothes in one place and containers of food in another. The two goons went to the food first, pushing others out of the way. They picked through everything, choosing what they liked the best. 1080 decided to dress first, then went to the food. People were quarreling over it; a lot was being spilled and ruined. 1080 felt helpless; he just wasn't strong enough to get into a tussle. He stood by watching as many people took more than they seemed likely to eat. He noticed an old man who looked to be in the same situation as he was. 1080 went over and spoke to him, explaining the plan to deal with the goons.

"I wish you luck," said the man, 868, "but I can't join in. One punch from either of them, and I'm a dead man."

1080 wanted to say that if he _didn't_ join, then 1080's group would flatten him. That was the way a protection racket would work. But he remembered that 987 had said that she would quit if he made any rules without consulting her, and he had not thought to arrange for that one. He went looking for her; she had managed to get some food, and was taking it outside. He caught up with her. "Listen," he said, "we need another rule. Otherwise, people won't join; they'll just leave the risk to us. We need to say that if they don't join, we will flatten them."

She scanned him dubiously. "We'll have to bluff," she said. "Pretend we've got a lot of people already. Nobody's going to think that _you_ are going to flatten anyone."

"I think I can deal with that," he said. "So is it a rule?"

"Well, you'll have to ask 664," she said. "I just signed her up, but I didn't mention any such rule as that."

" _You_ ask her," he said. "I need to get food before it's all gone." He hurried back into the tent. It was painful to hurry. When he got there, he found that the old man, 868, had disappeared, and that all of the food had been taken. ' _Leech fest_ ,' he thought, 'I'll have to wait and pick over leftovers.' He saw the young man, 540, who had offered to relieve 987 at shoveling. He headed toward him, intending to tell him about the plot for defense against the goons. Suddenly, he found himself with one goon on either side of him, each one holding an arm so tightly that it hurt. He froze, looking scared. That was easy, since he really _was_ scared.

"Good afternoon, Mister 1080," said the goon on the left. His skin was dark grey, his eyes the color of bronze. "We need to have a little talk with you."

"S-sure," said 1080, in a squeaky voice. His heart was racing.

"You've been hanging out a lot with that little six-lips, 987," said the other goon. This one's skin was yellow-green with black freckles. His irises were white. "We just want you to know that all the women around here belong to us, understand?" He squeezed 1080's arm a little harder.

"Yes, ow, yes, yes! _Yes!_ " said 1080, gasping with the pain. He hadn't felt anything like it since the day of his capture.

"Now, if you want to get into her later," continued the second goon, relaxing his grip a little, "when things have settled down, that can be arranged. But you have to go through us, understood?"

"Yes, oh yes!" said 1080, dizzy with fear and pain.

"And if you hear of anybody making trouble," said the first goon, "or planning to make trouble, you tell us, and let us take care of it. If you know about something and don't tell us, we'll break you in half."

"Understood," squeaked 1080, nodding desperately.

They released him. "All right, buddy," said the second goon. "We just want you to know how it sits. No hard feelings?"

"N-no," said 1080, massaging both arms at once, "no hard feelings, guys."

"Good!" said the first goon. "Take care of yourself, buddy!" He slapped 1080 on the back so hard that 1080 stumbled forward and fell on his face.

"You, t-too!" croaked 1080. Panting and coughing, he watched them go up to someone else and subject them to the same routine.

_What have I done?_ he thought, in a panic. _If someone we've already recruited gets scared and tells them, we are leech pus. I don't dare try to recruit anyone now! I just have to hope that no one tells them about what's already been said!_ He wanted to tell 987 to call everything off, but he was afraid to be observed going near her.

He shuffled around, looking for food. He saw a woman who seemed to be done, with some left over. "Excuse me," he said, "could I have the rest of yours?"

"Not a chance, lizard!" she said, frowning, and hugging her plate close to her. "I'm saving this for later." He thought of snatching it, but in his weakened condition, he didn't think he would be able to get away with it. He looked around, hoping to find someone weaker than himself who still had food.

At that moment, a loud gong was struck. Everyone turned to see Boss Wolverine Jaw, surrounded by beaters.

"Quiet, please!" she shouted. "I have an announcement. You got a lot done today, for a bunch of degenerates. In a little while, my assistants will distribute bedrolls. We feel that you have earned some privilege, as well. So, we are giving you privacy tonight. There will be guards outside, but not inside. Congratulations, and use your privacy well!" She turned and exited, and several more beaters appeared, handing out bedrolls.

Weak, hungry, and exhausted, 1080 went up and collected a roll. _Privilege_ , he thought, _they're giving us a privilege. How nice of them! Right now, I'd rather have order._ He went outside and stood in the dusk, trying to calm down and think.

"1080!" said a voice. He jumped and turned. It was Boss Wolverine Jaw. In a quiet, almost conspiratorial voice, she said, "I have a message for you, from Sister Cherry Blossom."

Sister Cherry Blossom! He had almost forgotten her! "What is it?" he asked, eagerly.

"She says, 'Act with courage and clarity, and you will have no regrets.' " Before 1080 could reply, she turned, strode through the line of sentries, and disappeared.
**********

"The less they think, the less they know, the more certain they are."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

Lightbearer walked briskly along, under the eye of the guard. Her hands were manacled behind her back. She was fatigued, but she did not complain.

It seemed to be an era in which that part of Kondrastibar was rural. Buildings were small, simple, and scarce.

The column of soldiers among whom she walked did not seem to have a clear destination. In fact, they seemed to be exploring, or searching for something; they would turn this way and that, and make standing halts for hundredbreaths at a time. She could not see the commander.

Along their path, they often saw people who resembled Focus and Kolidor. She thought of them as "The locals." They and the soldiers seemed unconcerned with each other.

After several hours, they came to a cluster of buildings large enough to be called a "village." Here the majority of soldiers and their animals rested, patrolled by a few sentries. At a distance, she saw some soldiers speaking with some of the locals. Other soldiers set up a large bell, which they rang a few times.

Over the next hour or so, locals began to filter into the village, gathering in a group opposite the head of the column. Most of them appeared to be either intensely curious about the soldiers, or off in another world. For a moment, she thought she saw the Fabulist in the crowd, but whoever it was disappeared behind others. She felt anxious and guilty. Then the bell was rung three times in quick succession. The commander stepped forward, accompanied by a couple of foot-soldiers and a local. The local had a seashell into which he spoke; it amplified his voice so that everyone, including Lightbearer, could hear him clearly.

"Friends," he said (using a word which would be more literally translated as, "complements"), "I am Translator. I am bringing you the words of this person here, whose name I cannot translate, since it has no meaning, but which is pronounced 'Commander P'Saiko.' His people all have meaningless names like that. What Commander P'Saiko is about to say to you will be very strange, so strange that you may think I am making a mistake. But although it is very difficult to translate from their language into ours, I believe that I do fairly well. The fact is, that they think and act in a very different way from the way we do. I hope you will bear this in mind. Remember that the universe is infinitely diverse, and mostly beyond our comprehension. If you hear something that sounds like a joke, please do not laugh, for it will not have been intended that way."

"Commander P'Saiko wants me to say first that the men with him have the intention of killing and hurting you, if he says in their hearing that it is a good idea. No, I have not made a mistake. He has often knowingly caused them to kill and hurt people in the past, with his words. I myself have seen him do this. In fact, they have carefully studied methods of hurting and killing people more rapidly and with less effort. They often use the lizards with them to help them do this. They think of it as a kind of work."

"Second, Commander P'Saiko wants me to say that to kill or hurt us is not his real purpose, and that he will have his complements do so only if you try to kill or hurt them. No, friends, he is not joking, he believes that you may try to do that. In fact, they all find it to be likely, so likely that you must be careful, moving slowly and keeping your distance from them, because they may interpret your action to be an attempt to kill or injure, however you may have intended it."

"Third, Commander P'Saiko wants me to say that he is here to do something like releasing you from a closed place. He says, it is as if you had gone into a house, and somehow all the doors and windows were stuck shut, and you couldn't get out, even though you were more complementary to the outside. They see no contradiction in such ideas. He and his complements here, and others to come, think that they are going to help you to open the doors."

"Fourth, he says he understands that you may not feel as though you were in a closed place. No, he is not joking, and it is best not to laugh, because they may see that as an attack. He says that part of the way you are enclosed is, that you have made a mistake, and you think it is good to be enclosed in the house, or even, that you don't know what there is outside the house."

"I think you will not laugh or look terribly astonished at what I say next. Fifth, he says that the way to free yourselves is to be like him and the others who have come with him. Yes, he thinks that you are mistaken to live the way you do. Their purpose is to change the way you live, so that you are more like them. If you do not change, they will hurt or kill you."

"I suggest that you do not try to convince any of these people that they are wrong, or show strong emotion of any kind in their presence. They are not grateful for other ways of looking at things, and they do not think they have anything to learn from you. They are apt to interpret any sign of emotional intensity as dangerous. Try not to frustrate them. If you frustrate them, they may hurt people. Especially, Kolidors must be very careful with them, because they think that Kolidors are especially responsible for your being closed in. If they do not ask, it is best not to tell them who is a Kolidor. Yes, I am saying more than I have been asked to say."

"You have seen and heard the bell which they have set up." He pointed at it, and it was rung a few times. "When they ring this bell, it means that they want everyone to gather here, so that they can talk to you. If you do not, they will be frustrated, and they will make pain and sorrow for many of you."

"I imagine that you are wondering why Universal Compassion would make them like this, but I don't know either, unless it be to give us a chance to do something very, very new. There are huge numbers of them, and they are not expecting to leave us, ever. I urge you to be very careful with them and to learn as much about them as you can. I suggest that you be careful about expressing your compassion for them, since they will think that you are contradicting their belief that _they_ are here to help _us_ , and not the other way around, and they see disagreement as an attack. Besides, they think that your belief in Universal Compassion is part of the little house that you are trapped in."
**********

"If there were no gods,

we would be compelled to invent them."

(Ji Killiers, theologian of the Church of Necessity)

Hunselig Altigan sat in his alcove at the Apostolic Church of Sharilune, goddess of Luxury. At first glance the alcove might have seemed spartan, but in fact it was done in impeccable and very expensive taste. For example, inspection would reveal that one entire wall was covered with a single piece of unpainted, fine-grained Incilla wood; the tree which had provided the wood must have been thousands of years old. Before him lay a sheaf of papers concerning the authentication and appraisal of blown-glass statues from the Hwin dynasty, but his mind was elsewhere.

Rumors were swarming about the recent destruction by mercenaries of an Albiajan cathedral and its congregation. Journalists, private spies, and various orders of police were trying to figure out who was behind it, and some rumors said that the evidence was pointing to the upper levels of the Apostolic Church of Sharilune. Hunselig hoped passionately that those rumors were false.

The act was barbaric in its violence, but there was something even more disturbing about it. It looked like a blow to _the Balance_. Every inhabitant of Kondrastibar had the concept of _the Balance_ lodged deeply in his psyche. _The Balance_ was what held everything together, what prevented unimaginable chaos. Many worshipped _the Balance_ as a god, and others, like Hunselig, took it so much for granted that he normally never even thought of it. To think of _the Balance_ failing was to think of the Earth turning over, and Hunselig felt himself falling into the sky.

The Balance had always included opposition; hence its common symbol, the apothecary's scale. The Church of Sharilune and the Church of Albiaja were opponents by nature; the former was a Church for people who devoted their lives to being unimaginably rich, and serving others of the same kind, and the latter was devoted to appropriating those riches and using them to help the poor. Like predator and prey, the two were intimately linked. If the Church of Albiaja was too successful in one year, it would find itself impoverished the next, for there would be fewer rich people; if the Church of Sharilune defended itself too well, it would become a richer prize, presenting the Church of Albiaja and potential converts thereto with a greater motivation.

But Hunselig feared that someone had it in mind to utterly destroy the Church of Albiaja, perhaps by provoking a crusade. Then that aspect of the Balance would be gone. No doubt another church would eventually come into being, or an existing church would modify itself, to replace the Albiajans; but what would happen in the meantime? Would existing churches immediately take up the slack? Or would they be afraid of being destroyed in turn? As the rich got richer still, they would warp politics and the economy in their own interest; as the poor sank deeper into destitution, they might attempt revolution. Hunselig knew enough History to believe that such an attempt would only increase the misery of the poor. He thought of the 233-year Reign of the Warlords, after the collapse of the Dubia Dynasty due to the Poor Revolts. During that time of plague, famine, fanaticism, and civil war, it was said that the population of Kondrastibar had been divided by 13. Most of the dead were poor, which did constitute a solution of sorts. Such catastrophes happen, it was said, when the Balance is upset. "The Balance always returns," an old adage had it, "but only when its anger has been appeased."

He thought of his children. He was grooming them for a life similar to his own. They would be utterly incompetent as barbarians.

" _Idiots!_ " he shouted, striking the desk with both fists. He had in mind his colleagues, who were either gloating over the destruction of the Albiajan cathedral, or demanding that the Church of Sharilune become militant, out of fear of what the Albiajans might do in revenge. And if the upper strata of his own Church had indeed hired the mercenaries, his despite applied to them above all. The Church of Sharilune could not become militant, Hunselig believed, without sacrificing everything it stood for. Already, many of his colleagues were neglecting their work in favor of conspiratorial conversations, and perhaps worse. In their hearts, they were beginning to worship violent gods. And Hunselig was unable to concentrate on his own work, either.

It was Hunselig's belief that, although most rich people spent most of their money on vulgar trivia, mainly for the purpose of showing off (or for no real purpose at all), they would break this pattern, from time to time, by donating a significant chunk of capital to something worthwhile, such as patronage of a great composer, or a great university, or founding a religious order with noble goals. This, he thought, was the real purpose of collecting great wealth. He himself had supported a number of idealistic projects. But as an orthodox member of the Apostolic Church of Sharilune (and also as a devotee of Honggur), Hunselig believed that history is not made in accordance with the desires of individuals, but through the gods, especially Honggur and his close relations. Humans might be greedy and shortsighted, but the invisible hands of the god of the market would magically transform that into something good for everyone. In this way gods such as Sharilune and Honggur were constantly redeeming the selfish works of sinful humans.

Could he extend such a view from the financial world to the world of political crisis, war, and social collapse? Would those gods, too, transform human idiocy and selfishness into something beautiful in the end? It was hard to imagine. _Perhaps I simply lack faith_ , he thought.

Putting away his work, he got up from his desk, opened a hidden wall safe, and took out his greatest treasure, a statue believed to be from the Aluviar Democracy. Returning to his desk, he set it before him. It was a statue of a woman, presumably a goddess. It was a little over a foot high, fashioned from a single piece of variegated jade. The goddess, whose name had for millennia been lost, stood gracefully in flowing robes, whose every drape and fold fit into a perfect and delightful visual harmony.

To Hunselig, her face and bearing testified to a perfectly balanced personality. A treasure to her loved ones, ruthless to her enemies, pleasant and fair to strangers. The serenity of her countenance bespoke unshakeable confidence and the absolute refusal to pity herself or to think wishfully. She radiated an absolute faith in the perfect and unerring justice of the universe. Hunselig imagined her as always learning, but never satisfied by mere masses of fact. Feeling intensely all emotions, trapped by none. Neither selfish nor altruistic. Hopeful, but not naïve. Not desiring death or suffering, but refusing to be anxious or resentful about them. Able to enjoy the material world, but never seduced by it, she remained always in touch with the eternal. _How could humanity ever have reached this point_ , he thought, _and not remain there forever?_ A deep and bitter sadness filled him at the thought that the society and the individual who had created this statue had passed away.

Then he thought he heard a voice. It said, _We have not passed away, Hunselig. We are with you always._ He gave a start and looked around the empty room, then felt foolish. He looked again at the statue. Her eyes, instead of looking at 'the world' in the abstract, looked directly into his own.

He was confounded. Had he put meaning into a random sound, as people sometimes do, hearing their name in the wind? Had he mistaken one of his own thoughts for a message from outside himself? Was he hallucinating? Had he briefly slipped into a dream? Could more than one of those possibilities be true simultaneously? Or had this unimaginably ancient goddess actually spoken to him?

He went over the words again in his mind. _We have not passed away, Hunselig. We are with you always._ The thought warmed him. Did it really matter whether this thought came from within or without? Was there even such a distinction to be made? What came from within, came in part because of influences from without. What came from without, could only be received insofar as the mind within was ready.

_We have not passed away, Hunselig. We are with you always._ When Hunselig experienced a great work of art, or read of a brilliant moment in history, he always had a sense of connection to the creators involved. He would imagine himself smiling at them across the ages, giving them a salute of respect and congratulation. To some, he might even prostrate himself, since they seemed superhuman to him. Was he now imagining that they were answering him?

'My work virtually requires me to be a devotee of Honggur and Sharilune', he thought, 'but I no longer feel secure in my work. Perhaps it is time to develop some other aspect of myself. For that, I will need the help of other gods.'

It was almost ten years ago that he had come across the statue, and paid a huge sum for it. It had set off wind chimes in some silent place within him. Had he been unconsciously preparing for a time such as this?

Why had it appealed to him so? Well, it certainly was a great work of art. Every connoisseur to see it had spoken of it in glowing terms, no matter how much they envied him. But wasn't there something more, in its appeal to him? Perhaps he had, in a half-conscious sort of way, felt _destined_ to acquire it. Perhaps it pointed to a lack he felt in his surroundings, as his colleagues showed only too well the need for divine redemption: When speaking to potential customers, they posed as the ultimate in refinement, but in fact, to Hunselig they felt ... _decadent!_ In a way, their barbarous and vulgar response to recent events was no surprise, he realized. They had already been shallow; this had shown itself in their ostentation, their tendency to count the value of everything in coin, their propensity for cliques and hierarchies, their snobbery, and their endless petty rivalries, that made all their relationships predatory.

Hunselig sighed. 'I have fallen into spiritual arrogance,' he thought. 'I expect myself and others to be redeemed in ourselves, not just in our works. I want people to do good things on purpose, instead of leaving it to Honggur and Sharilune.' He tried to visualize the idiocy of his colleagues leading ironically to something good. He failed.

_We have not passed away, Hunselig. We are with you always._ Was that an expression of his desire to escape into the distant past, into his idealized picture of the Aluviar Democracy? Just as he was now isolating himself, in his alcove, from the chaos of Kondrastibar?

'What can you say to me here and now, Goddess?' he asked. Almost immediately, he felt a response form in his mind: _You said that I remained always in touch with the eternal, Hunselig. If you can do the same, you will see that I am always with you._

Hunselig remembered the imaginary playmates he had had as a child. On the one hand, they were his own creations; on the other hand, he would act and think, as much as possible, as if they were not. Was that what he was doing now? Was the statue valuable to him because it helped him to fantasize being friends with the geniuses of the past? Or because it helped him to think about a level of human excellence which he would never find in the real world, but toward which he could strive? And again he thought, _What difference does it make? I revere what seems to me to be noble, and nobility is nobility, even if the examples of nobility that I might produce are fictional._

He looked at the statue again. _A statue is not an eternal thing. It will eventually wear away. But if this statue inspires me, and I inspire others, nobility will live on._ Not that he felt particularly noble, at that moment, or particularly inspiring. But his ideal would live on in thought, and perhaps someday be realized.

_The eternal_ , he thought; _a moment ago, I thought I knew what I meant by that, but now I'm not so sure. I suppose I thought that there were certain unchanging and transcendent things against which one measures the events of one's life. Ideals. Like nobility. They are like compasses and lighthouses. Without them, we would simply be adrift. Without them, we would just be caught up in the events of the moment. But they are not easy to see._

He thought again of the balanced personality he saw in the statue. Could that could be a compass for him? He tried to imagine what she would say if she knew of his situation.

Don't fear death or failure, Hunselig.

_But I do!_ he thought. _How can I not? And what about my children? How can I not fear for them?_

Yes, Hunselig, you may die, and your children may die. How can you reconcile yourself to that?

I can't!

But you know it is the truth, Hunselig. You know that no matter how hard you try, you cannot guarantee that you or your family will live. It may even be that some wrong move on your part will be what brings about their deaths!

No! I couldn't live with that!

Maybe not, but it may happen anyway.

You can't ask me not to care about them! That would be wrong, even if it were possible!

True enough, Hunselig! Well, then, what does that leave you? You thought that I had 'an absolute faith in the perfect and unerring justice of the universe.' Do you have that, Hunselig? Do you want it? Or was it just a self-deceiving fantasy, a bit of romantic fluff?

I don't know!

Well, don't evade the question any longer, Hunselig! Make up your mind!

I don't know enough!

You've had forty-five years to look at life, Hunselig! What more do you need?

Help me!

You must decide for yourself, Hunselig! Is the universe perfectly just, or not?

How can I know? Mortals can't know these things!

No excuses, Hunselig! Make your best guess!

I ... there's so much suffering in the world ... so much stupidity ...

Yes, I know, Hunselig! What could be more obvious? Why do mortals always think they've made a great discovery when they see that? Now come on, Hunselig, what's your gut feeling about this?

Under the pressure of her interrogation, Hunselig felt trapped. He felt as though he were manacled to the ground. A great cylindrical stone, larger than a house, larger than a Temple, was rolling down the hill at him. He _had_ to break the chains, or he would be utterly crushed. The only way to break the chains was to answer the question. His mind became utterly focused on it. Suffering ... evil ... weakness ... the evidence was all against it, and yet ... why would he care about the answer, if ... why did he want himself and his children to live, unless ...

_Now_ _, Hunselig! Is it good, or not?_

I ... I ...

The great cylinder loomed over him. Something within him reached a tipping point. Forced to answer, he knew the answer. It expanded from a whisper to a thunderbolt.

IT IS!!!

All his doubts were burned away in a flash. The fact that he had ever thought he doubted it suddenly appeared to him to be hilarious. He started to laugh.

Well, Hunselig, isn't it nice to stop whining?

"Yes," he said, still laughing, "... it is! It is! It is!" Every word he uttered was like a jewel. "Potato!" he said. It was brilliant! And it was hilarious, too! "Cobblestone!" "Fork!" "Shave!" "Silly!" Each word was perfect, and appeared at the perfect time, with no effort at all on his part! How simple it all was! How ludicrous, the complexities that he had generated for himself!

He stopped speaking. Perfect! He touched his finger to the end of his nose. Perfect! He lay down on the floor and rolled over like a dog. Perfect! There was no need to think about his actions, they appeared spontaneously.

Well, Hunselig, am I with you always, or not?

That too was a joke. How could they ever be separated?

"Thank you! Thank you!" he said, still quaking with exhausted laughter, and bowing elaborately to the statue. Or rather, the words were there, and then they were not there; the bow was there, and then it was not. And yet nothing appeared or disappeared.

His abdomen ached from laughter. He pulled himself together a little (or rather, he _was_ a little more together). "Radiant Goddess," he said, "tell me your name!"

"Is there anything, that is _not_ my name?" Hunselig started to laugh again.

No sooner had this streak of laughter begun to subside, than the Goddess added, "Whose name would it be?" Hunselig started to laugh yet again, even though he was gasping for breath.

"Very good, Radiant Goddess," said Hunselig, his laughter abating, "but as a joke of my own ... I will give you a name. Let's see ... how about ... 'Skelitria'?"

"So be it," replied Skelitria.

Unknown to Hunselig and the other experts, the statue had in fact _not_ been created during the Aluviar Democracy, and had not originally been intended to be the statue of a goddess. It had been made during the Minginichrian Plutocracy, and it had been a statue of the sculptor's mistress, much idealized by his wishful thinking. Skelitria the goddess had not become actual, until Hunselig himself had begun to believe in her.
**********

"Compassion must be pitiless"

( _The Book of Irony_ )

A woman came to the gate of the compound, holding a child in her arms. Several of Darestigan went over to her. Kor, who happened to be near, also went over, and she saw that the child was gravely ill, unconscious, and probably near to death. Its eyes were covered over with some sort of crust, and its skin, wherever it was visible, was cracked like a mud flat. Not surprisingly, the woman looked deeply distressed. Seeing Kor (the only nearby grownup), she addressed her tearfully, saying:

"Dear Lady, forgive me for disturbing you, but this my child, the only one left to me, is sick unto death. I have tried consulting doctors and wizards, but they say he is ... he is ... _beyond ... help_!" She burst into tears for a moment, and Kor felt tears and sobs rising within herself.

The woman pulled herself together and continued. "Dear Lady," she said, "I have heard a rumor that there is a goddess in this temple. I am poor, I have nothing to give, but if she will ... save my son, ... I will be her servant forever!" She got down on her knees, looking straight at Kor with glistening, pleading eyes.

"There is someone here, who might be a goddess," said Kor, "though we do not know. And there are others, magicians who might be able to help. I will fetch them." She started to go, but then she turned to the nearest Darestigan, saying, "Darestigan, would you fetch Ydnas, and the mute boy, and Talek and the neophytes, and Brother Koof, and anyone else who knows magic or medicine?"

"I will," said Darestigan. In a quieter voice, though, he added, "But I am not sure it is a good idea."

"Wait a moment, then," said Kor, also in a quiet voice. "What is it you fear?"

"Suppose Ydnas comes here and heals this child," said Darestigan. "What will happen then? Others will learn of it, and bring their dying children, and their dying relatives, and their dying lovers, and their dying friends, and generous souls will bring any dying person they know of! Think of how many dying people there must be in Kondrastibar! More than the stars your eye can see! Ydnas could heal from dawn to dusk, and not keep up with them! What would become of her own life? Has she no other destiny? And they will also bring the sick, and the halt, and the blind, and the old, and the deaf, and the daft, and soon they will be asking for wealth, and fame, and success in love! And, are mortals not meant to die, and to suffer the deaths of dear ones? One child seems like a harmless exception, but where will it end? Where will the undying be housed, and what will they eat? Will children still be welcomed into the world, if there are no rooms made empty for them?"

"I see what you mean, Darestigan, but isn't it Ydnas' decision?"

"But Kor, she seems only a _child_! How can she understand?"

Kor closed her eyes in thought for a moment, taking a deep, slow breath and letting it out. Then she said: "I see your point again, Darestigan. But I think, that she has shown herself to be more than a child, whether she is a goddess or not. I am inclined to have faith in her. And, how can we turn this woman away?"

It was Darestigan's turn to think for a moment. Then he said, "It appears to be a gamble, so gamble we must. I will accept your suggestion, Kor, since you are a real person, and I am only an artifact."

Kor was shocked at this remark. "Never think such a thing, Darestigan! It is not how a person comes to be that counts. You are as much a person as any of us, and if you think I am wrong about this, we should discuss it further."

Darestigan sighed. "Thank you, Kor. But for whatever reason, I cannot see which gamble to take, and I therefore accept your judgment. But perhaps you in turn could ask your goddess, Isiliar."

Kor shook her head. "She wants me to be independent, now."

"Very well, then," said Darestigan, "I am asking Ydnas. She is irritated, because she was in the middle of a game. But she is coming to the gate now, accompanied by Tulith and Uncle K'Tor."

Of all the people called, Ydnas was the last to appear. The woman with the child was clearly a little frightened by Talek and the neophytes. "No, no," she cried, getting up and backing away from them, and turning to put herself between them and the child. "Please, please, don't take him."

Talek and the neophytes backed off a bit, and Talek said, "Don't worry, dear Lady, I am not an angel of death. I am only a priest, and these are my students."

When the mute boy arrived, accompanied by Lessie, he looked at the woman holding her child, and seemed to grasp intuitively the situation, for tears began running down his cheeks. But he did nothing.

"I'm here," said Brother Koof, out of nowhere; apparently he had become invisible again. Looking down, Kor saw two foot-shaped patches of flattened grass, not far from her. "But," Koof continued, "medicine is not something I know about."

Finally, Ydnas arrived with Tulith. By looking carefully, Kor could just make out Uncle K'Tor, blending in with the patchwork on her left shoulder. Ydnas looked a little disgruntled. She went up to the gate, and stood opposite the woman, but without looking at her, prodding at the grass with the big toe of her right foot.

"This is Ydnas," said a Darestigan at the gate. "This temple is hers." Ydnas nodded, looked up, looked down again, and began to fidget.

The woman seemed confused for a moment, but then she knelt down and said, "Please, dear Lady, my name is Anandra Nerillia, and this is my ... son, my ... only surviving child, Kanior. I love him more than anything in the world. He is ... ill, near death, and no doctor or wizard ... that I can afford... will help him. If you heal him, I will be your servant forever."

Ydnas darted a little grimace in the direction of Uncle K'Tor, and then she sighed. "Wait," she said, and, closing her eyes, held her head in her hands, apparently in deep thought.

After a moment or so, she relaxed, opened her eyes, and looked straight at Anandra. "Are you willing to die, so that he may live?" she asked. She was speaking like an adult again.

Anandra hesitated for a moment, looking horrified. "Ydnas –" said Tulith, starting to object, and then found that her jaw and tongue would no longer move. In fact, all her voluntary muscles were frozen, except for breathing. Anandra closed her eyes and took a deep breath; then, opening her eyes, and looking right into Ydnas' eyes, she said, "Yes, I am willing to die for him."

"Give the child to Darestigan," said Ydnas, pointing to the nearest one. Anandra looked at Kanior with unutterable love and sadness, stood, kissed him on the forehead, and gave him over. Then she faced Ydnas.

"What is your religion?" asked Ydnas.

"I belong to the Church of Lurishia," said Anandra.

"There is a verse in the scripture of that church which begins, ' _Shaliria, the Goddess of Love, is like a vast river_ ,'" said Ydnas. "Do you know it by heart?"

"Yes, I do," said Anandra.

"Please recite it," said Ydnas.

Anandra recited: " _Shaliria, the Goddess of Love, is like a vast river, so vast that she has no banks, no bed, and no surface. There is no limit to her anywhere. She has no plans. She gives herself completely in every place, even in the desert, even in the blackness between the stars, even where there is pain, even in the hardened heart._

" _She is full of currents and eddies. These currents and eddies are the things of this world, including you and I. She gently moves them this way and that. And yet she is also utterly still, for she is the same pure love, with nothing added and nothing lacking, at every point and every moment._ "

"Thank you," said Ydnas, "and now, say goodbye to body, mind, and world."

Tulith tried to move, to intervene, but found that she was still completely paralyzed, except for her breathing. _Am I dreaming? How can Ydnas be acting like this?_

Lessie, who was also frozen, thought, I wonder if that is the same river that I felt when I prayed.

"Goodbye," said Anandra, haltingly, and closed her eyes.

_This is terrible_ , thought Koof, but he too was frozen.

"Not just with your mouth," said Ydnas. "Go deeply into yourself, giving up everything. I won't take anything, you have to give it to me."

No sound came from Anandra. Time passed. Her posture relaxed a bit.

Watching her, the mute boy looked thoughtful.

"Good!" said Ydnas. "Keep going!" Anandra neither moved nor spoke. Her face went blank. She began to fall over; some invisible force caught her and laid her down gently. She lay, limp as a jellyfish on the beach.

A pause. "All your desires are pointless," said Ydnas.

Another pause. "All your beliefs are pointless."

Another pause. "Detach yourself from being conscious."

Another pause. "Give up having a _self_."

After a much longer pause, Ydnas shouted, loudly and suddenly, " _EVERY MOMENT!_ "

A moment later, Anandra's eyes opened wide in surprise. Then she nodded and stood up. "I'll take him now, thank you!" she said to Darestigan, who handed Kanior back to her.

Tulith found herself able to move again. She looked over at Kanior. He had not changed at all.
**********

"Actuality contains Possibility"

( _The Book of Reasons_ )

After Doctor Mno had rested, he did a number of calculations, and conferred with Savril. He was then ready to announce his conclusions.

"I believe that Akelian is a victim of _soul theft_ ," he said. "The soul which now inhabits his body is not truly his own, but is a clever counterfeit, placed in his body to hide the theft. It has been cleverly manufactured to give the impression that he is a victim of the drug, known colloquially as 'snoffle', which, when taken in a sufficiently strong dose, leaves its victims in a permanently comatose state. Those doctors and wizards who were taken in by this are not at fault; I would have made the same mistake, had I not been specifically asked to go beyond appearances, and had I not had the help of this extraordinary wizard, Savril." He gestured toward Savril, who showed embarrassment by blushing and looking at his feet until Mno continued with his remarks.

"Unfortunately," Doctor Mno went on, "I do not know where Akelian's true soul is. Possibly, his true soul is in the possession of the perpetrator of this crime. This crime is very rare, to the best of my knowledge, so let me say a few words about it.

"In the later days of the Zoroid Dynasty, the arts of the soul were much more advanced than they are now. In those days, researchers made artificial souls, modified and copied existing ones, inserted them into real and artificial bodies, and linked souls together in various artificial ways.

"Most of these arts were later made illegal, and have by and large been abandoned. But we believe that a few people have kept them alive, for dark reasons of their own. The soul of a remarkable person like Akelian might well be very attractive to such a person. It might be copied, with some modifications, and placed in several artificial bodies, or in natural bodies from which the original soul had been removed. Or it might be combined with other souls, or with other copies of itself, to form a single compound soul; such a compound soul would have greater memory and intelligence than the original. Or, a practitioner of the Zoroid arts might add one or more modified copies of Akelian's soul to his own, thus augmenting his own powers. Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of souls that might be joined in this way.

"That is my best guess as to where Akelian's soul has gone. Savril and I will produce two written reports, one technical and one non-technical, but what I have just told you is the essence of the situation. If you have any questions, I will now try to answer them."

Teladorion, Karngrevor, and Oselika hugged each other and wept for a moment or so, then turned their attention back to Doctor Mno. After a moment, Teladorion said, "Now, Doc, are you saying that some glob of leech-spittle took Akelian's soul and put it into another body? And if he did, would that still be Akelian?"

Doctor Mno sighed. "That is one possibility, yes. If that was all that was done," he went on, "I would be inclined to say that it was indeed Akelian. Or at least, if we put that soul back in _this_ body," he added, gesturing at the limp body on the bed, "that would be him. But our everyday notions of personal identity aren't really precise enough to deal with some of the situations that can arise. For example, suppose the soul-stealer makes two copies of Akelian's soul, and puts each of those souls in a body. Are they _both_ Akelian? What if the soul is modified? How far can it be modified without ceasing to be Akelian's? Well, the loss of one unimportant memory, for example, would presumably not be enough to turn Akelian into someone else. But what if _all_ his memories were removed? What if they were replaced by fictional ones? What if they were all replaced by genuine memories from someone else? What if we mix memories from two people? What if the personality traits were changed? Suppose we take the memories from one soul, and the personality traits from another, and combine them in the body of a third person. Who is it then?"

"Well ..." said Teladorion, "I'd be leaning toward saying that if he's not Akelian, he's still a sort of relative of mine, sort of like a third step-cousin. So he's still part of our family, and we still owe him something. And if Akelian is gone, or kidnapped, why, we have a score to settle, don't we? My Daddy brought me up to believe that _nobody_ , and he meant _nobody_ , messes with House Karngrevor." A chill rage radiated from him.

"I like the idea that he would be something like a relative of Akelian," said Doctor Mno. "You might call them _soul brothers_. As to vengeance, well, I am not a believer in retribution, but I would say that if the soul thief can be put out of business, that would be a good thing for everyone, especially for the people who would otherwise be his next victims. I would be happy to help you in this process in any way that I can."

"Doctor," said Oselika, "many people believe that the soul does not die when the body does, but goes on to some sort of afterlife. Many such people believe that the soul is really immortal, even though bodies are not. So even if you run somebody through, you are in a sense not really killing them. But if a person's soul can be dissected and altered, to the point at which it is no longer the same soul, then that person does not survive into an afterlife. If this is so, then soul alteration can be a more horrible crime than what we ordinarily call murder. The usual sort of murderer is only shifting the victim's soul from one place to another, but the soul-alterer is denying him eternal life. I don't see why such practices were not outlawed, right from the beginning."

"Indeed," said the doctor, "this is hard to grasp; but you have to understand that people in different ages of Kondrastibar have thought very differently. Toward the end of the Zoroid Dynasty, people had a very dim view of individuality. They thought, 'There is no point in just being _this_ person rather than _that_. Everyone is unique, so uniqueness is trivial and cheap. The point is not _who_ you are, but _what kind_ _of person_ you are. Everything else being equal, it is better to be a person with reliably sound morals, than not. Among persons of good morals, it is better to be intelligent, strong, well-educated, creative, economically comfortable, politically powerful, and physically healthy, than not. Among persons of bad morals, the reverse is true – it is better for an evil person to be stupid, weak, and so on.' And, isn't there actually something plausible about this? But some people took it to extremes, and decided that if inferior people disappeared so that a superior person could come into existence, that would be a good thing, whether or not the inferior person in question agreed to it. People considered to be inferior could then be used as raw material. Not surprisingly, this led to a breakdown of civil order and to a reaction against these ideas.

"As for immortality, many people at this time thought that humans were naturally mortal, but that Soul Science offered hope of immortality. The soul might not _spontaneously_ go from body to body, but it might be _artificially_ transferred. Or it could be transferred into a body that could always be repaired. You can see why this was very attractive to some people, and why some of them might have taken their research underground when such things became illegal."

"Well," responded Oselika, "Tosaris has approved my quest to find Akelian's soul. This suggests to me that there is something to be gained in the attempt. But at the moment, I don't know how to proceed. Is there anyone you suspect of soul-stealing? Or at least, where would you look for such people?"

"I'm happy to say that there is no one I know, that I suspect," responded Doctor Mno. "The closest I could come to that would be to give you a list of people who are experts in the structure and function of souls. I am of course on that list myself, otherwise you wouldn't have hired me."

"What about snoffle?" asked Teladorion. "Could this pus-sucker have actually slipped Akelian an overdose of snoffle, and then removed his soul while he was in a coma?"

"Yes," said Doctor Mno, "that is a very plausible hypothesis. After all, he does show many effects similar to those of snoffle overdose, and it certainly would be easier to remove someone's soul while he was in a coma, when it is mostly detached already. So perhaps you could return to the neighborhood where he was found, and look for snoffle dealers."

"It's hard to figure, though," said Teladorion, frowning. "I mean, Old Ki was much too smart to just eat or drink anything that was handed to him. As we say, 'A Karngrevor always has a thousand enemies.' We learn to watch out for ourselves. Old Ki himself used to say, 'When a stranger gets too close to me, my sword comes out all by itself!'"

"Well," replied Mno, "one thing you may be sure of is, that your enemy is not an ordinary person, or a group of ordinary people. It is even conceivable that you are dealing with someone who has been accumulating souls since the end of the Zoroid dynasty! The intelligence of such a being would be awesome, unimaginable!"

Vidigeon decided that he should report on this conversation.
**********

"I will get you sex, drugs, and music"

(from the _Scriptures_ of Honggur)

Sre Lugu and Iliriana sat in their bedroom, facing a table, on which stood the two vials, containing the male and the female snoffle. Sre Lugu began to pray out loud:

"Holy Snoffle, we do not pretend to be devotees of yours, nor do we intend to become such. We have only recently realized your divine nature. Because our friend, Liliune, is one of your elect, we have read your scriptures; but we want to learn still more about you. Your scripture suggests that you do at times present a persona to people who are not of the elect. Please note that we have saved the life of your devotee, Liliune, that we have released her from bondage to the exploiter Pappi, that we have supplied her with your alchemical essence, and that we have committed ourselves to doing so for an indefinite period. We ask that you favor us with your presence."

There was a moment of silence, followed by loud and raucous music. The lamps went out, replaced by whirling multicolored dots of light. In the music, Sre Lugu was after a moment able to make out pounding drums and shimmering cymbals. Above this, he heard a strange metallic melody line, which sounded like cross between a plucked-string instrument and a wailing demonic voice. Similar but slightly less extreme sounds made a repetitive and partly syncopated harmony part and an active, aggressive bass line. An ominous sense of confidence and power radiated from this music.

The music came to a frenetic climax and faded out, as did the whirling dots. In their place appeared a purple halo, and in the halo appeared Snoffle, in the form he most commonly adopted: of a pair of adolescent twins, one male and one female, but otherwise identical except for skin color: his black and hers red. They both wore flowing white robes, and each had a garland of flowers resting on his or her white hair; her garland red, his black.

"Don't think I don't know," said the female twin, "that your ultimate purpose is to release Liliune from my service." The male twin nodded agreement.

"No mortal could hope to hide anything from a god," replied Sre Lugu. "I point out, however, that she entered your service without her knowledge or consent."

"Absolutely right," said the male twin, "but if you asked her now, she would undoubtedly choose to continue."

"But that is because she's _addicted_ ," objected Sre Lugu.

A silver crossbow appeared in the girl-twin's hand, cocked and pointed directly at Sre Lugu's heart. "Are you very eager to go on living, Sre Lugu?" she asked.

Paralyzed by panic and astonishment, Sre Lugu had to get a grip of himself in order to reply. "Yes, yes, I am!" he said, desperately.

"It's all right with me," she said, and the crossbow disappeared. "But, Sre Lugu, does this show that you are _addicted_ to life?"

"Yes, I suppose so, in a way," he said, and then, summoning up his courage, he added: "But it's _natural_ to want to live. I don't feel that way because I took a _drug_."

"Not unless we count the drugs you call 'food' and 'medicine,'" replied the boy-twin, "but putting that aside, is it not 'natural' that if a person finds what appears to her to be a solution to all the problems of life, she will want to stick with it, even if the discovery is a side-effect of an drug, and of a situation which she did not herself choose?"

"I suppose that _is_ very natural," granted Sre Lugu. He was surprised and disturbed, but there did seem to be a certain logic to it.

"May I point out, as well," said the girl-twin, "that once Liliune began receiving the sacrament in the correct way, through the eyes, and in a religious context, pain and anguish disappeared from her life – until _you_ began to interfere."

"But she was still a slave," burst in Iliriana, "a sexual slave of Pappi's, used to further his own ends, which were evil in themselves."

"Absolutely correct," said the boy-twin, "but Pappi's behavior is not my fault – he is no devotee of mine. If he were, he would lose all interest in such things."

"But you helped him," said Iliriana. "You were his accomplice."

"Often," replied the girl, "people use language as part of an immoral act – lying, for example. Does this show that language itself is evil, or that the god of language is an evil god, an accomplice?"

"Well, no," said Iliriana, astonished to find herself having to grant Snoffle's point. "But what about her parents? She says that she doesn't love them, and that in fact you forbid her to do so."

"I do not forbid her," said the boy. "The passage she quoted is not a _commandment_ , it is just _stating a fact_ : 'Truly, he who retains love for family, or friends, or possessions, or fame, or power, or accomplishments, or the body, or the pleasures of the body, such a one is no devotee of mine.' What would you expect? Once a person has directly experienced the divine, the transcendent, the infinite, the eternal, the perfect, how can she be expected to be comparably attached to anything material?"

"She will," said Sre Lugu, "if the divine tells her to be."

"I don't think real love is something a person can be told to give," replied the girl, "but in any event, you must admit that Liliune treated her parents in an exemplary fashion; she has certainly behaved _as if_ she loved them."

"Yes," said Iliriana, "but she should _really_ love them!"

"The word 'love' has many meanings," said the boy. "If Liliune is disposed to treat her parents always in an exemplary way, might not that be a kind of love? Different from worldly love, which is always contaminated with favoritism, with selfishness, with infatuation, with dependency or domination, with wishful thinking, or some other such flaw. Hers is a love that, when she matures a bit more, she will extend to all humans, not merely to her own family and friends. A superior, spiritual kind of love. It was profane, worldly love that she was rejecting. I don't blame you for missing this, because she was a little confused herself."

While Iliriana was still thinking about this, the girl broke in: "Many gods," she said, "place wonderful commandments in their scriptures. If only people truly obeyed these commandments, what a wonderful place the world would be! But it is easier for snakes to tie their shoes than for mortals to follow these commandments without divine aid. Mortals are raging fires of greed, anger, and delusion. At bottom, they do not wish to change. They attach themselves to a god solely in order to obtain a valuable ally in their selfish struggles. They strive to obey the commandments, not because of their rightness, but because they hope to be rewarded if they do, and fear that they will be punished if they do not. Thus to them, religion is just another avenue for selfishness.

"I am different. She who takes my 'alchemical essence,' as you put it, is quickly freed from all other worldly attachments. My devotee cares nothing for wealth, power, long life, pleasure, or prestige, but only for me. She thus becomes able to obey my commandments perfectly, out of pure veneration."

The boy nodded agreement. "Let me show you something," he said. He wiggled his fingers, as though tapping on a table, and suddenly there appeared a kind of window in the air. Through it, they saw a number of people sitting in a modest living room. One of them was reading to the others from a book, but Sre Lugu and Iliriana could not hear what she said.

"That," said the girl, "is Akaria, Liliune's friend, of whom you disapprove, since she is, as you put it, an _addict_. She is meeting with other _addicts_ , as they do every day, to discuss scripture." She made a gesture, and they could hear Akaria's voice.

"As a first approximation to our Ethics," Akaria read, "we have the following three principles:

" _First_ , we are to commit no violence against another person, nor are we to threaten such violence, except in defense of our right to the sacrament.

" _Second,_ we are not to lie to anyone, or deliberately mislead them, or withhold information that either we or they believe to be important to them, except in defense of our right to the sacrament.

" _Third_ , we are never to attempt to influence anyone, by appealing to a lower aspect of their nature, such as greed or cowardice, or by exploiting any deficiency, such as stupidity or ignorance; except in defense of our right to the sacrament.

"What do we mean by, 'In defense of our right to the sacrament?' We mean this: if you believe that someone stands between one or more of the elect and the sacrament, and there is no way for the elect person to obtain the sacrament without your breaking one or more of these rules, then you may (and indeed must) break the rule, but only as much as you believe necessary to make the sacrament available."

Akaria's voice faded away. "You see," said the boy-twin, "the depraved life lived by _addicts_. You also see that when Liliune attacked you, she was only performing her sacred duty."

"As a matter of fact," said Sre Lugu, "we were very impressed by that passage. Not so much by the exception, as by the rule. Not to be violent, misleading, or manipulative. That is truly a noble ideal. And there were other passages that impressed us, as well."

"Well, then," said the boy, "let me show you another community of the elect." He tapped his fingers again, and the scene in the window changed. They saw the beach of a tropical island. Some people were launching an outrigger. They looked happy and energetic. "This is a community in a very out-of-the-way place, an outlying island to the South of the Kron Delta. These people grow their own sacred plants, which enables them to avoid any dependence on criminals. The people you see here are going fishing."

The view in the magic window turned away from the sea, and followed a trail through tropical vegetation. This trail led first uphill, and then into a small brook valley. In the sides of the valley, well above the brook, were doors and windows. "This island was previously uninhabited," said the girl, "because of the severe hurricanes that frequently pass over the area. By living underground, in this naturally protected area, the inhabitants are able to be safe during such storms."

The window continued following the trail, which continued to rise until it reached a plateau, apparently the highest point of the island. There they saw many gardens, each one set into the ground a few feet. "When a hurricane approaches," said the boy, "large, flat wooden frames, covered with canvas, are staked down over the gardens. The resulting surface is smooth and horizontal, so it presents no significant obstacle to the wind. The cloth is porous enough to allow equalization of pressure. As a result, neither the frames nor the plantings are destroyed. Wire nets are placed around the garden to catch debris. As a result, the wind does very little damage."

As he spoke, the view moved to the end of the gardens, where there was a row of very squat windmills with short, thick blades. "These windmills," said the girl, "are actually able to harness some of the energy of a hurricane. The inhabitants get a lot of work done in underground workshops during a hurricane, using this power. They are also able to store a great deal of the energy."

"The sum total of all this," continued the boy, "is that these people are economically completely independent. They do not have to descend to crime to obtain my 'alchemical essence.' In fact, there is no crime on this island, and no poverty. Resources are developed and distributed according to a rational budget, arrived at by discussion, which gives no special privileges to anyone. Conflicts are usually resolved by ethical dialogue, and never by force. Occasionally, an issue comes up that is so tricky that they cannot resolve it by themselves. In such cases, they appeal directly to me via prayer, and I resolve it for them, adding my decision to scripture. Every adult would prefer death to sin, but they are rarely aware of this, for they are not in the least tempted to any sin."

"Very impressive," Sre Lugu, "but it still bothers me that this is accomplished by means of an addictive drug. People ought to be good of their own free will."

"Forgive me," replied the girl, "but I'm afraid that you are not thinking clearly. First of all, isn't it just a rhetorical trick to label it a 'drug'? Why not label it a 'nutrient'? A nutrient which most people are not getting, with the result that most people suffer from a deficiency disease, marked by impaired functioning in the ethical domain."

"Secondly," added the boy, "there is your use of the term 'addictive.' It is true that the elect feel great distress when they are deprived of the sacramental substance. Why should they not, if it is a nutrient without which they fall into greed, anger, and delusion, and become capable of evil? Would it not, in fact, be tragic if they _failed_ to be concerned, in such a situation?"

"Thirdly," continued the girl, "you claim that these people are not acting of their own free will. But surely they are. They do not obey the commandments because I have threatened to deprive them of my 'alchemical essence' – I have never made such a threat. As long as they have it, they live in bliss. They obey my commandments because, free of egocentric attachments, they feel no strain in doing what their conscience dictates. Their actions are more free than yours, for they are without ambivalence. Isn't this obviously the healthy, normal state for human beings? Why would we have a conscience at all, if not to obey it?

"But now, consider the state which _you_ consider to be 'normal' – a state in which the soul is perpetually at war with itself, a war in which the conscience sometimes wins and sometimes loses, a war which guarantees that you will always reap either frustration or guilt. Isn't _that_ a pathological state, a perpetual neurosis? The only reason it seems normal to you is that you and most of the people you know have always been in it. When a disease is universal, it is taken for health."

"And what of _your_ religion?" asked the boy, leaning forward intently. "It is a noble but limited attempt to live with this disease. You teach your children ethics, you praise the good and revile the bad, you have rules and rituals of communication, you have inspiring art, music, and theater, you have confession and purgation, you appeal to your gods, and you practice courtesy, so that dangerous emotions will rarely be stirred. And all this is not enough, as you well know, Sre Lugu. It is not at all surprising that you called out in anguish to your god, 'You want us to be faithful, why not help us to do it?' Well, they do help you, a little, but not nearly enough. What would you say of parents who systematically gave their children tasks they would always be bound to fail at? Wouldn't this be sheer incompetence, at best?"

"And that's not the worst of it," added the girl, also leaning forward. "For corrupt mortals will corrupt religion itself. They will choose the gods that suit them – the gods of greed, anger, and delusion, under other names, of course. Is there not a god for every vice and every crime? Or, they may worship Amakala herself, pure goodness, but they will find ways to interpret her scriptures that let them do whatever they want, in her name. And how easy it is for idealism to turn into fanaticism! Is it not true that among the atrocities of history, those committed in the name of idealism and religion are among the greatest?"

Sre Lugu and Iliriana were stunned by this barrage. They said nothing. Their minds were in turmoil.

A glow appeared around the two vials on the table.

"Iliriana! Sre Lugu! Aren't you tired of the endless struggle?" asked the boy and the girl, in concert. "Aren't you tired of leading yourself around on a leash? Aren't you tired of hearing the grinding voice of criticism – and of _being_ that whining, self-righteous voice? Didn't you feel at times that your parents and teachers were always hounding you, and could never be satisfied? Didn't that cause you to resent them, and withdraw from them, at great emotional cost, both to you and to them? And aren't you anguished now, when you find yourself treating your own children in the same way? Must this go on forever?"

_I do feel those things_ , thought Sre Lugu, _I feel broken, maimed._ _I try and try, but I always fall short! I feel ... intrinsically corrupt! Is it not a cruel world, that makes us able to see an ideal that we can never reach? It is like dangling a piece of meat in front of a caged and starving dog._

Iliriana did not feel this as keenly as Sre Lugu did. And yet, she did feel resentment toward the way of the world. She remembered how happy she had been, how close to Paradise she had felt, only to have the crisis concerning Liliune come out of nowhere, through no fault of her own. _And what have my children done_ , she thought, _to deserve to have their family stressed in that way?_ She did not feel superior to Sre Lugu, for she knew that she lived in the bosom of the Cathedral, surrounded by others who shared her beliefs, and insulated from those who, like Pappi, would attempt to corrupt her. And even so, she did not always feel happy with her own behavior. _To be perfect ..._ she thought.

"I offer a way of escape!" insisted the twins, urgently. "I offer salvation! _Why don't you just reach out and take it?"_ The halo around the vials grew brighter.

" _I don't know,"_ cried Sre Lugu, desperately, "but it would surely be premature for us to make such a profound and irreversible decision so quickly. Please do not hurry us!"

The twins exchanged glances and settled back. The halo of light faded from the vials. "I am sorry," said the boy, "you are absolutely right. I get impatient, because from my point of view, you are needlessly prolonging your suffering and sin. But by my own rule, as Akaria read, I may not bully or trick you into anything. I may appeal only to your most rational and ethical side. So I now suggest that we end this interview, and resume it only when you feel that you have been able to think, carefully and completely, about all the issues that have been raised."

"I agree," said Sre Lugu, with great relief. "Do you agree as well, Iliriana?"

"Yes, yes!" said Iliriana fervently, nodding assent, and feeling a little guilty at how close she had come to accepting perfection uncritically.

"Then it shall be so!" said the girl. She turned to the boy with a fond smile. He turned to her joyously, staring lovingly into her eyes. Slowly they closed their eyes, parted their lips, and kissed. The kiss became gradually more fervent, more passionate. They embraced each other. They turned and twisted. They caressed one another. They began to whirl around, and to glow with a pulsing, multicolored light. The boundary between them disappeared. They became a spinning disk of colored sparks, which turned faster and faster, and became brighter and brighter, suddenly exploding, and throwing its particles of light seemingly to infinity.

Normal light returned to the apartment. Sre Lugu and Iliriana sat for a while in silent shock. Then they slowly turned to one another. They too embraced, settling to the floor, but their embrace did not become passionate. Instead, they lay there, silent and still, for a long time, taking comfort in each other and in their togetherness, until finally they fell asleep.
**********

"He who grasps his life will lose it,

He who releases his life will save it."

(from a Zillist chant)

After they left the island, Paridazor poled the raft, while Zaliadin spoke to the recently bereaved Kor about Zillist beliefs.

"Meditation is not like a hex or a charm," said Zaliadin, "and it's something that works very gradually. And, when we speak of being 'free' from evil and harm, we don't mean that you won't be crushed if a rock falls on you. It means that you will come to realize that being crushed wouldn't really harm you."

"But of course it would harm me," said Kor, puzzled and irritated. _Word games will not relieve my suffering,_ she thought.

"I know it seems that way," said Paridazor, "but we believe that this is an illusion. Meditation is a way to escape from that illusion."

Sure, thought Kor, cynically, Just work yourself into a state wherein you don't care what happens to anyone. Then you won't suffer! You will also become a vegetable, completely worthless to yourself, or to anyone else! No, thank you! And yet, so profound was her anguish that she was actually tempted to go that way. Then it struck her that Paridazor and Zaliadin were being eminently useful to her. They didn't seem badly off themselves, either: they were serene, but also cheerful and healthy. She had never seen them the least bit at odds with themselves or with one another. It would be odd, though, to call them 'vegetables.'

"You look puzzled, Kor," said Zaliadin.

Kor didn't know what to say. "I ... have you and Paridazor been meditating long?"

"Well, we grew up in the Order, so we have been doing so ever since we were children. I am twenty-five, and he is forty-three."

Kor glanced at Paridazor. _He seems younger than that_ , she thought.

"And do you feel," she asked, "that you are free of harm and evil?"

"Well, not completely," replied Zaliadin. "Let's say, I feel free, twenty-nine parts out of thirty-one!"

"But then, if you were free, why would you _do_ anything?" said Kor. "I mean, if you think there's nothing to worry about, no source of harm?"

"Look at the river, Kor. Why does it keep flowing? Is it hoping for something? Is it afraid of something?"

"Well, no," said Kor, "but, it's not a _person_. It's just ... _water_."

"True indeed," said Zaliadin, nodding. "A nymph is certainly very different from a human being. But ...don't you feel more _serene_ , somehow, when you're floating along on a river?"

"Well, yes," said Kor, realizing that this was why she had wanted to stretch out that part of the journey.

"Just as you feel more serene when you lie back, looking at drifting clouds," said Zaliadin, "or when you are with people who are serene." As if to illustrate her point, she spoke very slowly and calmly.

_Yes_ , thought Kor, nodding in the affirmative, _being around these two has made things better for me._

"The river just does what it has to do," said Zaliadin. "It doesn't fret about it, it just does it. Even when it is turbulent, or flooding, it is serene. It is not having any trouble doing what it is supposed to do, and so it feels no anger or frustration. And yet, there is more force, more energy, in a river this size than in billions of humans put together.

"If someone dams up the river," Zaliadin continued, "it just rises up and goes over the top. If someone plunges an axe into the river, the river is not injured. If a volcano were to appear and boil all the water off as steam, that would still be water, doing what water is supposed to do. As steam, it would not regret its loss of liquidity; it would just do what steam is supposed to do."

_If it feels anything at all_ , thought Kor.

"Humans are like this, too," said Zaliadin, "but they lose sight of that fact. They have become so focused on particular goals that they have lost their sense of their underlying human nature. It is your human nature that makes you develop goals and strive after them. Meditation allows us to rediscover our true nature. When you rediscover your nature, you will realize that you are always doing just what you are supposed to do. That includes feeling pain and dying, when those things happen. I imagine that seems implausible, but I invite you to try meditating, and see for yourself what happens."

Kor sighed. What _else_ was there for her to do? "I'd ... I'd like to try it. I don't know whether I will have enough energy for it, though."

Zaliador smiled. "However much you have will be the right amount," she said. "We could begin like this: I will chant the summary, without the 'we hold that' or the 'we believe that,' and you can just listen. Or don't listen, whatever you prefer. When you listen, don't worry about what the words mean, just listen. Don't try to catch every little detail, just listen in a relaxed way. Your mind will wander from time to time; that's fine, that's part of the process. When you realize that it has wandered, just bring it back to the listening. When you get tired of this, just stop, and let me know."

"All right," said Kor, feeling very self-conscious.

Zaliador began to chant, very slowly and gently, stretching the words out, one word to a breath, putting silences between them, and singing them, but always at the same pitch:

"The... universe... is... one... great... self ... consistent... whole, ... and... the... myriad... phenomena... are... all... balanced... expressions... of... an... underlying... Oneness, ... expressing... itself... through... love... . It ... grows... and... develops... through... time. ... We... practice... meditation... to... know... and... realize... this... Oneness. ... In... doing... so, ... a... person... gradually... becomes... free... of... evil... and... harm. ...

"The... universe... is... one... great... self ... consistent... whole, ... and... the... myriad... phenomena... are... all... balanced... expressions... of... an... underlying... Oneness, ... expressing... itself... through... love... . It ... grows... and... develops... through... time. ... We... practice... meditation... to... know... and... realize... this... Oneness. ... In... doing... so, ... a... person... gradually... becomes... free... of... evil... and... harm. ...

"The... universe... is... ..."

Kor's mind did indeed wander. How could it not, when Zaliadin's diction was so slow? And when it did, it often led her into painful thoughts. She began to focus on Zaliadin's words as a deliberate escape from such thoughts. She was only partially successful, but it was helpful.

"The... universe... is... one... great... self ... consistent... whole, ... and... the... myriad... phenomena... are... all... balanced... expressions... of... an... underlying... Oneness, ... expressing... itself... through... love... . It ... grows... and... develops... through... time. ... We... practice... meditation... to... know... and... realize... this... Oneness. ... In... doing... so, ... a... person... gradually... becomes... free... of... evil... and... harm. ...

At some point, Kor had a very strange thought: "How arrogant of me," she said to herself, "to be upset because one thing happens to me rather than another. Is the universe my servant? I have no reason to suppose so. Did the gods promise me anything? No. Instead of making demands, I should be just living in the present, doing what comes naturally, from moment to moment."

"But," replied another one of her voices, "feeling outrage and grief are two things that come naturally."

"Yes," said a third voice, "but when you think that there is really no injustice involved, the outrage naturally tends to dissipate."

Yet another voice said, "I mustn't have thoughts that might reconcile me, however slightly, to the loss of Zar. That would make me a cold-hearted person."

"You are already either cold-hearted or not," said another voice. "If you don't like what you are, then all you can do is deceive yourself or others about it."

"No!" said the previous voice. "There must be a way to improve myself! Or at least, to maintain my current level of goodness!"

"No," said another voice, "I am tired of all struggling, however noble it may be. I am tired even of being conscious. I want to go to sleep." And in fact, Kor did begin to feel sleepy.

All this time, another one of her voices was chanting, along with Zaliadin:

"... gradually... becomes... free...... of... evil... and... harm. ..."

Sometimes, as Kor became aware of all the voices, and remembered what she was supposedly doing, she would make a great effort, focusing intently on the chant. Starved for her attention, the voices would die away a little.

"Oh, good," she would think, "I'm doing very well!" Then another voice would say, "No, you were thinking about how well you were doing, instead of focusing on the chant!" She found it difficult to control her mind. In fact, she found it impossible even to be completely aware of what it was doing, until it was too late to alter that.
**********

"The fundamental question of life is, 'What do I do _now_?'"

(From the opera, _Now What?_ )

Focus sat with Digger and Waterer and about a hundred other locals in a starlit dell. To her left, a small brook cascaded singing among irregular rocks. It wound through the bottom of the dell and disappeared to her right. Where the water was level, it was full of stars. The people sat, breathing the scent of the wildflowers.

Next to a fragrant stand of lilac, a small path entered the dell. Along this path came three people from another place. Focus' people stood and embraced them, one by one. Afterwards, they stood near the stream, and Focus' people seated themselves in semicircular layers around them.

One of them spoke: "Dear friends, I am Kolidor Messenger," she said. "I was born in a village on the other side of the mountain that you call the Sleeping Bear." She gestured with one arm. "On my right," she continued, turning to one of her companions, "is Follower Messenger. He is from farther away, and he has been traveling for a long time, following the people who came to you today. They are called the "P'Twism". On my left is Explorer Messenger. She is from a village on the Singing River, about a day's journey downstream from here. The P'Twism came to my village about two years ago, they came to Follower Messenger's village about three years ago, and they came to Explorer Messenger's village about five years ago. We three, and many others, believe that the P'Twism intend to go to every village there is. There are huge numbers of the P'Twism; the ones who came to you are only one group out of many hundred such groups. I have seen over fifty such groups with my own eyes.

"We believe that what Translator told you today is essentially true, although it seems impossible to understand, much less to believe. Both Explorer Messenger and Follower Messenger have seen them kill and hurt people, many people, on purpose. We ask you to take a moment to think about this: that there are huge numbers of them, that they really are going to kill and hurt, if they are frustrated or fearful, and that they are determined that we should change our way of life."

For awhile there was silence in the dell, except for the soft singing of the stream, and the whispering of leaves in the wind. Then Kolidor Messenger spoke again: "I am sorry, dear friends, if I have started again too soon, but there is much we have to talk about.

"Each of you will have to find a way to complement the P'Twism, but we would like to tell you some things that we think we have learned, and some of the thoughts that we and others have had, who have known about the P'Twism for a longer time. First, Explorer Messenger will tell you about the way of life of the P'Twism, the way that they want you to copy. Then, Follower Messenger will discuss a way to complement them, which we call the Messenger Way."

Kolidor Messenger then sat down, as did Follower Messenger. Explorer Messenger rose, stepped forward, and began to speak.

"My people lived across a great river from the P'Twism," he said. "The river is so large, that we had never crossed it, or even seen the other side. We knew almost nothing about the P'Twism, except that they were strange and frightening, and so we never sought them out. Then one day, about a hundred huge boats came over the river, and out of them came the kind of people you have seen. Most of them are called 'soldiers.' A soldier is a person who kills or hurts other people when certain people say that he will do so. The people who specify when they will kill or hurt are called 'officers'. Then there are other officers who tell what those officers will do, and so on, until you get to an officer at the very bottom, who is called a 'general.' All together, these people are called an 'army.' And then there are other armies, and other generals, and other people who specify to the generals what to do, until finally you get to a person at the very bottom of the entire P'Twism society, and he is called the 'Emperor'.

"When all these soldiers arrived, there was a great deal of confusion, because they had very few translators with them, and anyway, people just could not believe what the translators were saying. Only when many of our people were hurt or killed did we begin to realize how different the P'Twism were from ourselves. Meanwhile, they were already spreading out to other villages. We messengers try to keep ahead of them and warn others, but there are few of us, and we do not always succeed. In your case, we arrived at about the same time. We travel without telling anyone, and we usually stay where we cannot be seen, for otherwise the P'Twism would kill us. But I am getting ahead of my story.

"It was a long time before we had the idea of Messengers. At first, people simply refused to do anything harmful, deceitful, or corrupting, no matter what the consequences were. This is what we call the Perfect Way. Sometimes, whole villages have taken the Perfect Way. All these people were killed in the end, if they did not depart from the Perfect Way. But we discovered that not everyone had the strength to take the Perfect Way. The P'Twism would take a child, and tell the parent to take some small departure from the Perfect Way, and tell her that otherwise, they would hurt or kill the child. Sometimes the parent would take the Perfect way, and the P'Twism would kill the child. On many other occasions, too, the soldiers would kill and hurt without hesitation or regret; and they did many other incomprehensible things, as well. Of course, we all know that everything is perfect, and most of the time, before the P'Twism came, this was obviously so. But when the P'Twism threaten their child, it is hard for the parents to act in accordance with that fact, and they may even come to doubt it. People saw that the Perfect Way did not seem to accomplish anything positive, where the P'Twism were concerned. So often the parent would take the small departure.

"Now, once some people had made some small departures, other people were more likely to do so. And then some people were willing to make larger departures, and to make departures for less serious reasons. Of course, they also began to mistrust each other, for each had reason to believe that the other might make a departure. Many people, especially young people, began to lose faith in Universal Compassion. Kolidors had always said that Universal Compassion is sometimes mysterious and indirect, but people found it harder to believe in it when they saw nothing stopping the P'Twism. Many of you will have the same problem.

"Also, many people, especially the young, were impressed by the magic of the P'Twism. A boy's father might take several days to build a stone wall. Then a P'Twism soldier would come along and build a wall the same size in a few hundredbreaths, using a magic tool. It is sometimes hard for people, especially children, to see the difference between power and goodness. The P'Twism had fascinating toys that moved and spoke. And the young people saw their parents helpless before the soldiers. So adolescents, especially, began to doubt the Perfect Way, and to lose respect for their parents.

"If a parent took the Perfect Way, either he or the child might be killed, or both; but if he gave in, the child would learn to give in. Many parents made a compromise with the way of the P'Twism, in order to maintain contact with their children, even though there was a price to be paid.

"Now, I want to tell you a little bit about the P'Twism way itself. I am called 'Explorer Messenger' because I have traveled to many places, even to the land of the P'Twism themselves, to learn about them and about how to complement them. I never expected to have the same name for five years, but that is how long it has been. I have devoted myself completely to this. Still, I do not completely understand the P'Twism, and anyway, in one evening I can only give you a tiny bit of what I know.

"The most important part of the P'Twism way of thinking, as far as I can see, is the idea of 'self.' Associated with each human body, they say, there is a thing called a _self_. Sometimes they call it a 'mind,' or a 'soul,' but these words have a different meaning for them than for us. The _self_ to them is something like a pilot living in a boat. This boat is the body. No one has ever seen one of these _selves_ , but the P'Twism believe in them nevertheless.

"They think that each _self_ steers its body, the way a pilot steers a boat. It looks out the eyes the way a pilot looks out a window. They think that each self is independent of the rest of the world, that it would still be just what it is, even if other things in the world were different, and that it decides all by itself what the body will do. They think that the 'self' decides things without being _caused_ to decide, but they also believe that the decision was not made by chance. Yes, I really am saying what I appear to be saying. According to them, the self looks at what comes in through the sense-organs, it thinks about what it wants to have happen, and it makes the muscles move to try to bring that about, and yet it is not _caused_ to do what it does by what comes in the sense-organs, or by its values and beliefs, or by the circumstances that caused it to have those values and beliefs.

"According to the P'Twism, a 'self' wants to have a belief that its condition is good; and when it does believe this, it is said to feel something called ' _pleasure_ ,' or ' _happiness_.' But if you ask the P'Twism whether things _actually are_ good, they will often say that there is no such thing, really, as goodness, that this feeling that things are good is just a sort of delusion. Nevertheless, they seek after it; yes, they seek after delusion. Also, if you say that the P'Twism way is not good, they will be angry.

"They also believe in an opposite feeling, which they call 'pain.' This is the belief that their condition is bad. And this delusion they try to avoid, but not because it is a delusion; they avoid it because it is a belief that their condition is _bad_.

"Now, these two kinds of delusion are, supposedly, all they really care about, and in many cases that is quite true. A 'self' cares for another 'self' only if that first self thinks that the other self will cause them to have 'pleasure.' And if they think that the other self will cause them to feel 'pain,' then they will try to get rid of the other self, or change it. And they all think that the others think the same way about their own self. But they do not think that this is tragic."

Many people in the audience had started to cry.

"This leads to another important idea, the idea of _exchange_. Suppose I am hungry and have no food, and you have an extra basket of potatoes. Your self only cares for itself, so it won't give me the potatoes just because I am hungry. But, perhaps I have a pile of firewood, and your 'self' wants more firewood. Now, my _self_ only cares for itself, so it won't give you the firewood just because you are cold. But my self says to yours, 'If you give me your basket of potatoes, I will give you this pile of firewood.' So your self gives me the potatoes in order to get the wood for yourself. If it weren't for 'exchange,' the P'Twism would all die, for none of them would ever help another. Things you have that you can 'exchange' for other things are called ' _wealth_.'

"Another important idea is the idea of _work_. Suppose I want potatoes, but in order to get them I have to cut firewood and give it to you in exchange. Then, I do not really want to cut the firewood, I am just doing it to get the potatoes. So I will wish that I just had the potatoes without cutting the firewood, and the act of cutting the firewood may therefore not feel 'pleasant' to me. Things like that, that you do just in order to get other things, are called 'work.' To the P'Twism, it is tragic that one has to work. They don't think, 'I am doing this because it is my nature to do it,' they think, 'I am doing this because there is something _else_ that I want.' And that something else is always in the future. Perhaps it will help you feel compassion for them, if you realize that most of them spend most of their lives doing 'work.' The killing and hurting that soldiers do, for example, is a case of 'work.'

"There is another form of exchange, which is called ' _power_.' To have 'power' is to be able to get other people to do things, not because you have shown them that it would be in their nature to do so, or even because you will give them something in 'exchange,' but because if they don't do what you want, you will do something that they _don't_ want. It is like exchange turned around. I have already given an example: if a soldier wants a parent to do something, the soldier will say, 'If you do not do this, I will hurt your child.' If the parent does it, that shows that the soldier had 'power' over the parent. Having 'power' over people is one way to get them to 'work.' And by getting others to 'work,' each P'Twism hopes to feel 'pleasure' all the time, and not 'pain'.

"In the P'Twism way, almost everything they do happens because of the desire for 'wealth' and 'power'. Every P'Twism wants more wealth and power. No matter how much they have, they always want more. Now, you will say, 'But this is just a recipe for universal suffering! Why would they _do_ this to themselves?' It is because of their belief in the 'self.' Because they believe it so deeply, it becomes almost true. And, each generation of P'Twism brings up the next generation to believe it. Children are very trusting, and they will believe whatever everyone tells them is true, even if it has contradictions in it.

"Now there is one thing more that I must say. No one could exist entirely in the way that the P'Twism try to exist. No matter how deeply a given P'Twism believes he is a 'self,' there is always some groping after truth and goodness and spontaneity, however weak and unconscious. Some of us have even seen P'Twism who renounce their way, or parts of it. Only a few, but some. They know that the other P'Twism will kill or hurt them, but they are intelligent and strong enough to proceed anyway. Sometimes they lose faith in their own way without seeing the positive side of truth, and so they are cast adrift in darkness; and sometimes, in desperation, they turn to even stranger beliefs. But there is still hope for the P'Twism, I think; they are capable of change. We can only help them a tiny bit, but we can help them.

"That is all I have to say tonight," continued Explorer Messenger. "You will soon see for yourselves. Thank you, and may your faith in Universal Compassion remain strong, no matter how many horrors come to you."

Kolidor Messenger stood again, and said, "I think we will take two hundredbreaths to think about what Explorer Messenger has said."

This was done, and then Follower Messenger stood to speak.

"I am going to speak to you tonight about the Messenger Way," he said. "Like Explorer Messenger, I have had the same name for many years. I dedicated myself to observing the interactions between the P'Twism and ordinary people. I observed what happened to people in hundreds of villages, and to hundreds of farm families and gatherer families. What I saw was just what Explorer Messenger has described to you. I also talked to many others who had observed many similar things. Gradually we who devoted ourselves to observing and learning became a community, spread out over the whole land of people like us. We discussed what we had seen, and gradually, we developed the idea of the Messenger Way.

"The Messenger Way is a way of trying to complement the P'Twism. It is only one way among many possible ways. It is up to you whether to choose it or not.

"The Messenger Way says that the P'Twism will be with us for a very long time, perhaps even until the stars go out. The Messenger way is not the Perfect Way, and for that reason may be a way of wrongness. What you will find most difficult about it is, that it is a way of secrecy, and deceit, and partial truth. It says, 'Do what you must to survive under the power of the P'Twism, but keep the Old Way, the Kolidor Way, the Way of Universal Compassion, alive in your thoughts. Teach it secretly to your children, but do not ask them to die or suffer terribly for it. Whenever you can, pass a little bit of the truth on to the P'Twism, and to those who have adopted the P'Twism way. Don't try to tell them everything at once, for they will never believe you. Adapt the truth to each person you speak to; give them only as much as they can accept. For if the P'Twism think you are wrong, they will try to force you to change. And it is the same with your own people, who have fallen part of the way, or all of the way, into the P'Twism Way, or who will fall into other ways that may come along after the P'Twism Way. Speak to them only of what they are ready to hear. And whenever possible, act according to the Perfect Way, but cover it with a cloak to make it look as though you were acting as a _self_.

"Through this our way of One-ness, our way of Universal Compassion, will be broken into a thousand fragments and mixed with thousands of other ways. It will be contaminated with evil, ignorance, and stupidity. But some day, perhaps in hundreds of thousands of years, these fragments may be put back together again, in whole or in part. This is our hope. Ideas of the Old Way may even be strengthened, at times, by mixing with other ideas. Some parts of it may be lost, and have to be rediscovered from the beginning. We cannot tell why Universal Compassion is taking this route, or where it will lead; only faith and hope sustain us. This is the best that we can offer you at this time.

"We are going to leave now, for we fear that the magical spies of the P'Twism will soon discover this meeting. We suggest that you go home, each by a separate path. May your compassion sustain you, dear friends!"

The three messengers disappeared the way they had come.
**********

"What do you do when you get what you want?"

( _The Book of Repetition_ )

"I have a surprise for you, Koof," said Talek, finding him alone. "Would you come with me to see it?"

"Sure," said Brother Koof. Just in case Darestigan's shield might fail to give them complete privacy, Talek cast a mystifying spell, rendering them undetectable and creating two decoys to take their places. He then led Koof into the passageway to the crypt. There he removed the concealing screen from the triangular hole. "Check _that_ out," he said, in a satisfied tone.

Koof peered in, casting a little magic light into the hole. "What? No! It can't be! Yes! It is! I mean, they are! But how? I'd given up on them! How'd they get here?"

"My guess is," said Talek, "that Pappi hired someone, probably a magician I've met named 'Merelith,' to put them somewhere safe, and she buried them in the bedrock here. There had been no tunnel here for millennia, until Darestigan awakened, and made this one. It cut across one corner of the safe, and I noticed that when I followed the souls down here. With the help of one of my neophytes, I overcame most of the spells, and realized what it was!"

"That's wonderful, Talek!" said Koof, giving him a glance and nod of great respect. "I can hardly even imagine the price I can get for these!"

"Well, actually," said Talek, "I'm afraid you're going to change your mind about selling them."

"Why would I do that?" asked Koof, looking over at Talek with a puzzled expression. "With the money I could get from these, I could supply _thousands_ of poor people with jobs, education, housing, health care, food, and other necessities!"

"Because these are the 'intelligent stones' mentioned in certain prophecies," said Talek.

Koof gasped. " _Leech pus!_ " he said. "I never thought of that! What an idiot!" He slapped himself on the head, sat down, and became very thoughtful.

"You're not an idiot, Koof," said Talek. "You weren't _supposed_ to think of it. _I_ was!"

"So," said Koof, looking up, "you are ... the ..."

Talek chuckled. "That's me," he said, "or so it seems!"

"Wow!" said Koof, pressing his hands against his temples. "And so ... maybe I'm ..."

Talek chuckled again. "You certainly have the skills!"

" _Armies of leeches!_ " said Koof, his eyes wide with shock. "And so ... Ydnas ... really is ..." In spite of the mystifying spell, he didn't want to say such things out loud.

Talek nodded. "It's beginning to look that way!"

Suddenly, Koof's eyes widened in horror. "But then," he said, "you ... you're going to ..." He made gestures of futility, and his expression changed to one of profound horror and sadness.

"Yes," said Talek, quietly, "I will. I have."

Koof took Talek's shoulders in his hands. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Well, one could do a lot worse," said Talek, shrugging. "At least I know where I'm headed. Best not to tell anyone, though, except ..."

"Oh, right!" said Koof. He let go of Talek and rubbed his forehead. "This is a lot to digest," he said. "What do we do now?"

"We give them to ... _her_ ," said Talek.
**********

"Communication often makes things better.

You don't need to know how or why. Just communicate!"

( _Scriptures_ of Ydris)

Twice during the night, Laeri woke Arguit and caused him to exhibit spectacular moral weakness. In the morning, the Amazons did not rouse him, or take him immediately to his exercises. As he and Laeri ate breakfast together, he was struck by the radiance of her expression. It reminded him of the first days of their relationship. As he thought of those days, he felt regret – not for becoming involved with her, but for not loving her more deeply. In a halting way he tried to express this to her. When she understood him, her eyes melted, and she leaned over and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. He also felt chagrin that he was little more than an acquaintance to his own children, but he did not speak of this.

Eventually, he went to his exercises. He was distracted, which resulted in a few falls. During his bath, he had an idea: whenever he thought of Zarinia, he would immediately turn his attention to thoughts of Laeri. It was difficult, for it was very pleasant to dwell on thoughts of Zarinia; but he found that dwelling on events of the previous night, whose afterglow he still felt, and on Laeri's radiant expression and tender kiss that morning, had a pleasantness of its own. Also, the discipline he had developed through meditation helped him a great deal. He once again began to entertain the idea that some day, he might be in charge of the content of his thoughts, instead of the reverse.

Soon after Arguit left his cell, Zarinia appeared. She knocked on the bars, which Laeri had covered with a blanket. "Who is it?" asked Laeri, sweetly. "My name is Zarinia," replied the Amazon. "I am the one that Arguit has fallen in love with. May we talk?"

After a moment of hesitation, Laeri replied, "Sure. Let yourself in – it's not locked."

Zarinia opened the cell door and entered. She smiled as she saw that Laeri had begun to transform the cell. She had hung bright patterned fabric on the walls, and had made a canopy for the bed. There were rugs on the floor, and an altar with several statues and scriptural quotations had been set up in one corner.

Laeri sat down and gestured for Zarinia to do the same. Zarinia could feel that Laeri was uncomfortable, but trying to be nice.

"Laeri," said Zarinia, "I want to assure you that I never intended for Arguit to fall in love with me, that I did nothing that I know of to encourage this, and that I have no similar feelings for him, or any designs on him. I have ceased to interact with him since I learned of his feelings. It is not unusual for prisoners to fall in love with one of their captors. I will be happy to repeat these things in the presence of a telepath."

"I believe you," replied Laeri. "I am hardly in a position to be territorial, anyway, given that Arguit and I live apart most of the time, and that I have another husband who lives with me. It's just a sort of uncomfortable situation. Arguit is the father of my children, and I do have significant feelings for him. I would be sad if our relationship came to an end altogether. But there would be no point in my being mad at anyone." She didn't want to say the word 'jealous'. She didn't want to _be_ jealous, either. but she was, a little ...

"In my opinion," replied Zarinia, "you have more than enough reason to be 'territorial,' or however you wish to put it, and I don't blame you in the least for being uncomfortable with me. I am not asking you not to be. I just thought that it might be better for us to meet each other, and talk, than for me to skulk around avoiding you, or for us to meet by chance sometime, in the middle of something else."

"I appreciate that," said Laeri, "and I am sad that I feel uncomfortable with you, because I truly believe that this is not your fault."

"You know," said Zarinia, "Arguit has been making a lot of progress with meditation and other things. I think this may be over very soon."

Laeri looked at the Amazon, thinking, _What does he see in her? What does she have that I don't have?_ She found it hard to look at Zarinia objectively; on the one hand there was a tendency to pounce on flaws, and on the other hand, to be over-ready to find virtues that Laeri herself could never hope to have.

She saw a medium-tall woman in a simple and modest white dress (Zarinia was not on duty, and so she was not wearing her armor). Although Zarinia's posture was informal and relaxed, her physical presence was commanding. Her face had lines both of happiness and of sorrow, with the happiness dominant. Her blue-green eyes were bright, and Laeri had the feeling that they could be piercing. Her coppery hair fell in ripples to well below her shoulders, surrounding her light yellow face. Her features were angular but symmetrical, her expression concerned and yet serene.

"Zarinia," said Laeri impulsively, "do you have a lover of your own?"

"No," said Zarinia, looking sad, "I'd like to, but ... not many men are comfortable with an Amazon."

"Men are such fools," said Laeri, with real bitterness.

Zarinia sighed, and raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I know," she said, "but I still like them."

Laeri sighed too. "There _is_ something about them," she said, smiling just a little.

"Sometimes," said Zarinia, "I wish I were a Lesbian. A woman can understand a woman."

"I know what you mean," said Laeri, shrugging, "but if you're not, you're not."

"But I also think," said Zarinia, "that dealing with men can enrich us, if we let it. To deal with a being that thinks so differently can teach you something. Or so I tell myself."

"I agree," said Laeri. "but doesn't being _without_ _a lover_ also teach you something?"

"Well, yes, it does," said Zarinia, nodding and smiling. "For one thing, it teaches you to stand on your own, to take care of yourself. To see your life as a whole. And to decide what you really want, instead of constantly thinking about what will please the other person. To know that you can have the whole evening to yourself, for work or leisure, if you want that."

"That's one of the things I have found hardest about having a family," said Laeri. "I hardly ever have time to myself. It drives me crazy, sometimes. Sometimes Caro, my cohabitant consort, will take the kids somewhere for a day, and I will just luxuriate in being alone. But I don't want to do that too often."

"I guess that whatever you do, you always have to give something up," said Zarinia.

"I'm afraid so," said Laeri, "but I'm also afraid that we are making ourselves glum by dwelling on the negative. Tell me about something happy in your life!"

" _Ydris!_ " said Zarinia, her whole face blooming with a smile. "Ydris, blessed be her name, and this community, and my work. They are all connected, of course. Ah, Laeri, I don't know where to begin, and I am afraid that if I express all my enthusiasm, you will think that I am a fanatic!"

"One way to find out," said Laeri, with an encouraging smile.

"At first, it seemed like a dark day for us, when the Angels of Rejuvenation swarmed the neighborhood," said Zarinia. "They forced us to make changes, and we had no choice but to do what they said. But it also taught us something. We realized that our faith had not been deep enough. We realized that we had been thinking of Ydris just as a kind of mother, or even as a sort of servant, someone to take care of us, and help us out when we got into trouble. A mother who would never insist that we grow up. And she played that role, up to a point. But the Angels showed us how weak we were, and Ydris refused to intervene. Some of us were angry with her, and some even lost faith entirely, and went over to other gods, or to atheism. But the rest of us decided to build something more meaningful and more powerful. We renewed and strengthened our vows to Ydris, and asked her what to do. She said that we should study other religions. 'Inbreeding leads to idiocy,' she said.

"So we did, not only in books but by visiting, and, when it did not seem inappropriate, taking part in their worship and other activities. We also invited others to come visit us, and discuss things, and engage in joint projects. After awhile, we started to see ways to incorporate some of their ideas into our own lives. We began to do this, and in the process we began to develop some new ideas of our own.

"In the case of the Amazons, we have made tremendous progress. We had security guards before – we had to, given the deterioration of the neighborhood – but it was completely amateurish, compared to what we have now. We have studied over two hundred military traditions, and I would be willing to say that at most two or three of them are better than we are today, leaving sheer numbers out of it.

"And, it is the same with the rest of our lives. We are better at everything, than we used to be. And, we have a much more intimate relationship with the neighborhood, too. We police it, we offer mediation in disputes, we provide various other free services, and we employ a number of locals in the Temple.

"So now, I am in a way _glad_ that the Angels came – they forced us to grow. Sad as it may be, everyone needs an enemy, or at least some kind of difficulty. I think this is why the Angels of Rejuvenation say you should love your enemies. They also say that if you can choose your enemies, you should choose them to be not too weak."

"But don't they also say," said Laeri, "that if you become stronger, a stronger enemy will appear?"

"Yes, they do," said Zarinia, "and we believe it, too. For that reason, we have made the Amazons far more powerful than necessary just to patrol this neighborhood."

"But doesn't that make it all seem rather pointless?" asked Laeri. "I mean, you become stronger, only to have a stronger adversary appear; your life is still struggle and war, just as it was before."

"What," said Zarinia with a smile, "are you becoming a Zillist in your old age?"

"Not yet," said Laeri with a chuckle, "but I am genuinely puzzled about that point. As you know, Arguit and I were determined to work our way out of poverty, for our children's sake, and we did. But to do it, Arguit took a job with a criminal employer. To secure Arguit's loyalty, his employer's Security Chief put triggered death spells on me and the children. And, if it hadn't been for your sister Amazons, who appeared at the last moment, we'd probably all be dead now. So, it seems that we came very close to paying an excessive price for escaping poverty."

"Well," said Zarinia, "I don't really know the answer, but there is this to be said: if I fight against evil, and I become stronger, then I will probably have to fight against a stronger evil, it is true; but if I win, it is a greater victory for good, than if I had only won against a lesser evil. And anyway, it is my nature to struggle against evil, not to sit and do nothing."

"That's a nice answer," said Laeri. "I like it."

_Is that what attracted Arguit to her_ , thought Laeri, _her enthusiasm, her dedication, her discipline, her intelligence? Then he has changed indeed!_

"Well, I have to go now," said Zarinia, standing up, "but it was nice meeting you, Laeri, even if it was a bit uncomfortable."

"It was nice meeting you, too," said Laeri, "and I'm really sorry about the discomfort. The more rational part of my mind sees that you are guiltless, where Arguit is concerned, and that in fact that you are a very good person. And, I don't think that you are a fanatic."

"Thank you," said Zarinia, "and as for your feeling two ways at once, we all have ambivalences like that, and I imagine, there's a good reason for it. Some day perhaps we will do confession together, and you will get to see some of _my_ contradictions!

"May you always be open to the love of Ydris!" she added, making the traditional gesture of spreading the arms, palms open and toward the other person.

"And you, too," replied Laeri, making the same gesture.

Standing thus, each woman had the thought of embracing the other, but it didn't quite happen.
**********

"No one is more susceptible to manipulation than an intriguer."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

A sentry at the Trobish Barracks saw an individual approaching, and alerted the guard. A pair of armored soldiers approached the outsider warily, making the sign of _restricted area_. The stranger stopped, and made the sign of _parley_. As they approached him, the two guards saw that he was a small, middle-aged man. He was unarmed, though in military uniform; in fact, he was apparently a general in the Church of Balan-Ching. Immediately, the guards signaled to raise the alert, and for the Captain to join them. A bell rang, shouts rang out, horses whinnied, and soldiers spilled from the barracks to take up positions. The Captain donned his helmet, checked with all the sentries, sent three parties of scouts on local reconnaissance, and then joined the visitor, accompanied by a platoon of guards, a telepath, and a wizard.

How strange to see a general standing all alone! It made the Captain suspicious, but he stuck to protocol. "Good evening, Holy Patriarch," he said, making the sign of _parley_ in turn. "What brings you here, and how may I help you?"

"Good evening, Captain," replied the general. His face, covered with scriptural scars, was a little hard to read, but he seemed confident and friendly. "I am General Ligurn, of the Church of Balan-Ching. I wish to confer with General Z'Gor."

The Captain nodded to the telepath, who nodded in turn, and then made the sign, _no alien forces detected._ The Captain was tempted to take the general prisoner; he would surely be worth a rich ransom, of which the Captain would then get a cut. But General Ligurn ought to have been expecting exactly that response, or worse; yet here he was, with no visible backup. This was very suspicious behavior, and the Captain thought it best to let his superiors decide. Behind him, he heard the bell ring yet another rise in alert level.

A small mounted detachment appeared. The officer in charge looked searchingly at General Ligurn for a few moments before speaking: "Holy Patriarch," he said, "I am Colonel Onath of the Second Mounted Brigade. I request that you submit to a search by our wizard and telepath."

"I have no objection to the wizard search," replied Ligurn, "but the telepath must limit himself to a level one scan."

After a quick consultation with his own telepath, the Colonel replied, "Very well. Captain, please proceed." The Captain nodded at his wizard and telepath, and there was silence for a few breaths.

"I detect no weapons, spells, or unusual equipment, Sir," said the wizard.

"Sir," said the telepath, "a level one search reveals that his general attitude toward us is very complex, and not entirely respectful, but I detect no immediate ill intent. He is worried about the outcome of this parley, which is very important to him. He appears to be seeking an alliance. There is no sign of trickery, but I must add that the Balan-Ching are skilled at hiding things from a level one search."

The Captain was startled. It had been a long time since anyone who knew anything about the Trobish had sought alliance with them. Surely the general knew that the Trobish would repudiate any alliance or treaty as soon as it no longer suited them. Something very strange was afoot.

After another conference with his own telepath, the Colonel said, "Very well, Holy Patriarch, please enter our formation, and we will escort you to General Z'Gor." The horsemen made a circle. Ligurn entered it, and stayed within it as they moved, still in formation, toward the barracks. Just outside the outer defense line, soldiers were completing the setup of a small tent. "Please await the general within the tent, Holy Patriarch," said the Colonel.

"Thank you, Colonel," said Ligurn, and entered the tent. Soldiers brought chairs, a desk, and a lamp. Ligurn sat. After a long wait, General Z'Gor entered. Ligurn stood and bowed.

Z'Gor made a rather perfunctory bow in return. He was a very large, middle-aged man with a weathered, wrinkled face, long, curly black hair, and a bushy black beard. "Sit," said Z'Gor, and they both sat.

"General Z'Gor," began Ligurn, but Z'Gor cut him off with a wave of his huge hand. "Call me Zig," he said. He turned and shouted through the door, "are we going to get some food in here?" Turning back, he said, "Sorry – please continue!"

"Please assure that we can be overheard by no one but your immediate subordinates," said Ligurn.

"You heard him!" said Zig, turning his head and raising his voice a little. There were steps and the clanking of armor. A distant voice from outside said, "All clear, General!"

Zig turned back to Ligurn.

"Zig," said Ligurn, smiling a little, "our respective peoples have lived with one another in Kondrastibar for untold centuries. Sometimes at peace, sometimes at war. I will not pretend that we trust you, nor do I believe that you trust us."

"Can we skip the introduction?" asked Zig, rattling his fingers on the table.

"Of course. Recently, events have occurred which have suggested to our leadership that the Balance may be about to fail."

Something in Zig's demeanor changed; he became more attentive and more suspicious.

"If that is so," continued Ligurn, "there will be civil war."

"A good time for mercenaries," said Zig, with a grin.

"You know better than that," said Ligurn, sternly. "What you do now is nothing like real war. Small institutions, small groups, even private individuals hire your services. Their goals are short-term and modest. Only rarely are you pitted against other professional soldiers, and when this is so, surrender is made and accepted immediately as soon as the outcome is clear. Casualties are few. Your customers rarely act out of desperation or fanaticism, and you never do,"

"Of course not," said Zig, shrugging. "It's a business, that's all."

"Indeed," said Ligurn, "if we must have combat, that is the best way."

A lieutenant colonel entered with a covered bowl, a pair of plates, and implements. He set them on the table and exited. Zig removed the lid, spooned a big pile of lumpy stew onto his plate, and pushed the bowl toward Ligurn. "Help yourself," he said.

"No, thank you," said Ligurn.

"Oh, come on," said Zig, his expression half irritated and half disbelieving. "If we were going to do something to you, we'd have already done it by now."

"It's not that," said Ligurn, "it's just that I can't stand Trobish cuisine. Too sweet, too greasy, too salty." _I don't like truth philtres, either_.

"Suit yourself," said Zig with a shrug. He grabbed a large chunk of meat, and, shaking it a couple of times to get rid of excess liquid, bent his head back and dropped it into his mouth. A strong, musky odor filled the tent.

"As you say, mercenary war is a business," said Ligurn, "but amateur war is different, and civil war is the worst of all. Yes, there will be lots of work for mercenaries, but make sure they pay you in food, for money will often be worthless. And if you are vanquished, don't expect the victor to accept a simple surrender. You may be imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, or exterminated. And if your adversary is fanatical, desperate, or amateurish, don't expect them to surrender as soon as the tide has clearly turned against them. You may have to wipe them all out, at great cost to yourself. All the chivalric rules of war will go out the window. You may have to contend with guerilla war, and a hostile population. If you become a successful warlord, your subordinates will be eager to succeed you. And where there is widespread war, there is famine and plague. How will you protect yourself against them? And some say, that if there is war in Kondrastibar, the gods themselves will go to war. Who knows what might happen then?"

"No one knows," said Zig, pausing to swallow more meat, and wiping his hand on his shirt, "but Iggy, there are some things that just aren't worth worrying about. If the Balance falls, none of us are worth half a roach in a lizard's mouth, and none of us will be able to see a half a day ahead. But for that very reason, there's no use planning for it."

"If enough of us made an alliance, _now_ , " said Ligurn, "we might avoid civil war."

Zig looked astonished. After a pause he said, "I've got to hand it to you, Iggy," he said. "You don't think small."

"Thank you," said Ligurn.

"I need to ponder this," said Zig.

_And have a conference, via your wizards and telepaths_ , thought Ligurn. Aloud he said, "Take your time."

Zig sat with his eyes closed, absently chewing on gristle. Ligurn carefully counted out the time in his head. After about twenty breaths' time, Zig's expression showed a bit of frustration; then it gradually became more and more pained. _He finds it difficult_ , thought Ligurn, _when the intrigue becomes too intricate._ A little while later, Zig composed himself and turned to Ligurn.

"It's an interesting idea, Iggy," he said, "but if anyone is going to do something like that, it should be Karngrevor, not you."

"We're in touch with Karngrevor," said Ligurn.

Zig gave a start. "Who initiated that contact?" he asked.

"That information is limited to Alliance members."

"Has he agreed to anything?"

"That information is limited to Alliance members."

"How do you expect me to trust you," said Zig, "if you won't tell me anything?"

"It is only necessary for Alliance members to trust each other."

"Why should they?"

"For three reasons," said Ligurn. "First, because it is in everyone's interest for the alliance to succeed. Second, because hostages are kept. Third, because part of the agreement is, that if anyone breaks faith, they will be exterminated by the remainder."

"I see," said Zig, looking thoughtful again. "What if someone doesn't want in?"

"Then it will clearly be in the Alliance's interest to disarm them."

"You're making another _dynasty!_ " said Zig.

"Not necessarily," said Ligurn, "but suppose we are. If there is civil war, what will happen? Eventually one warlord will win out over the others, and that's what you will have – a dynasty, and a barbaric one, at that! Might as well get there quickly."

Zig was speechless.

_I'm speaking of subverting the Balance_ , thought Ligurn, _of participating in a massive accumulation of power, the most taboo act possible in Theo-Anarchy. Even a Trobish is shocked!_

"I know it's hard," said Ligurn aloud, "to accept the idea that everything is going to change, and that you are going to have to give up some of your autonomy. My church will have to do the same, and we aren't happy about it, either."

"Who do you have?"

"That information is limited to Alliance members."

"In other words, you haven't got _anyone_."

"Do you think we'd come to you first?"

Zig looked thoughtful. "I suppose not," he said. He was silent for several breaths. Then he asked, "What makes you so sure that the Balance is going to crash?"

"Well, first, all the well-known, successful prophecies say so."

"Superstition," said Zig.

"Maybe so," said Ligurn, "but famous prophecies of disaster tend to be self-fulfilling. Many people believe in the prophecies. Those people are losing confidence in the Balance, and that in itself tends to undermine it."

"The Balance doesn't depend on human consent," said Zig.

"True. But panic is still destructive. Second, the very fact that we are forming this alliance will itself be destabilizing, when it becomes generally known."

"Very likely. Which makes me doubt your sincerity."

"It's a desperate move," said Ligurn.

"It's not like you to play such a dangerous game," said Zig.

"It's not our usual style," said Ligurn, nodding, "but the situation is unprecedented. Now, thirdly, we have noticed a number of destabilizing factors recently. There are two new addictive drugs gaining widespread use."

"Big deal. Addictive drugs help keep the Balance."

"These drugs don't have the usual self-limiting effects. Their users function normally or better, even in the long run; they don't require an increasing dosage, and they are both organized as religious organizations. Either drug can be given without the recipient's knowledge, resulting in immediate and permanent addiction."

"All right, what else?"

"We have noticed an almost exponential rise in organized crime over the last five years. Also during this time, the schism rate for major religions has tripled. Unemployment has doubled. The gap between rich and poor has quadrupled. The rate of innovation in magic has also doubled, and probably more, since a lot of it is being done in secret. One indication of this is, that the density of pollution has trebled. The Angels of Rejuvenation have recently met a major defeat, in which they suffered over a thousand casualties, and they don't even know who was behind it." _I don't need to mention the massacre at the Albiajan cathedral_ , he thought.

Zig lifted the bowl to his lips and slurped down some broth. "What about the Girl?" he asked.

"What girl?"

"The Girl of the Prophecies. She's supposed to set things right."

"Superstition," said Ligurn.

"Why not just leave it to Karngrevor?"

"He can't do it by himself, and he knows it. The more help he has, the smoother the transition will be. The same goes for the Girl, if she exists. And the more we do for ourselves, the more autonomy we will have left when the dust settles."

Zig emitted a magnificent rolling belch. Then he said, "You make a strong case, Iggy. I will give it some serious thought." Then he raised his voice and called out, "T'Chark! Come in here!"

The lieutenant colonel entered. "Find the Holy Patriarch a secure and comfortable room for the indefinite future," said Zig. "See that he gets some lettuce, or maybe a few carrots. Then come to Operations for a general staff meeting."

"Yes, Sir!" said T'Chark. "If you will follow me, Sir, ..."

"Very good," said Ligurn, getting up and doing so. When T'Chark returned, the other staff were already assembled. When he sat down, General Z'Gor began to speak.

"This is much too good an idea not to steal," he said.
**********

"Life and death are always making love."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Church of Lurishia)

Tulith stood, paralyzed, near the temple gate, wondering about the interaction between Ydnas and Anandra. Tulith was shocked at the way that Ydnas had treated Anandra. As far as Tulith could see, Ydnas had asked Anandra to die, in return for her son's cure, and had then forced her to go through a rigmarole, as if preparing her for death; and yet, Anandra was still alive, and Kanior was still ill. How could Ydnas play with a woman's deepest feelings like that?

Suddenly, Tulith realized that she was no longer paralyzed. She wanted to do something, but she felt deeply confused about the situation, so that she did not know how to proceed. She looked back at Anandra.

Anandra knelt in front of Ydnas. "Thank you," she said. "You have given me a gift far greater than the one I asked for."

"No tangle," said Ydnas. "Would you like to stay with us? Darestigan can find you a room."

"Yes," replied Anandra, smiling, "I _would_ like that!" She turned to the Darestigan wearing a blue robe, who was holding Kanior, and held out her arms. Darestigan handed Kanior to her. She looked at her child with profound love. "My sweet boy," she said, kissing his forehead, "I love you just as you are!" Then she nodded, with a smile, at the blue Darestigan, who began leading her to the guesthouse. Tulith was now more confused than ever.

The Darestigan who had been speaking to Kor before Ydnas' arrival said, "Well, Kor, she did not heal the boy after all. But what is it that she _has_ done, and why?" Tulith, who had the same question, listened in.

"Well, Dearie," replied Kor, "I think that she has at least sung your worries to sleep. She has not saved Kanior from dying, and I think she has also done nothing else to cause great crowds of people to ask for the same thing."

"And yet," said Darestigan, "Anandra does not seem sad."

"Well, Dearie," replied Kor, "I always said to the kids, 'Accept your burdens completely, and they won't be burdens anymore. It's when you resent them, and are always looking for a way to put them down, that you feel bad.' I think that, in her own way, Ydnas has said something like that to Anandra."

"But," said Darestigan, "how could a mother accept the death of her child?"

"Well, why don't you ask _her_?" replied Kor.

There was a short pause, and then Darestigan said, "She says that he's not dead. I am saying, 'Forgive me, but isn't he soon going to be?' She says ... that she is too busy with what is happening _now_ to think about the future. She says that she does not wish to rob herself of a single moment with him by entering the world of daydreams and speculation. I am reluctant to ask her any more questions – I don't want to stir up her grief."

"It doesn't seem that grief is a problem for her, right now," said Kor.

"But how can that be?" asked Tulith. "Doesn't she love her son any more?"

"More than ever, Dearie, is how I see it," said Kor.

_I don't understand Kor, either_ , thought Tulith. _But then, Kor has been dead herself; that must give her a different perspective on dying. I haven't had a moment to talk with her about that. Things are happening so fast, I can't keep up with them._

"Kor," she said, "may I ask ... what did you experience when ... when you were dead, before Isiliar brought you back?"

"Dear Tulith, I knew you'd be asking about that," said Kor, "and I want to talk about it, but ... it's hard to find the words. It's not like telling someone how to wash a dish."

"You seem different," said Tulith. "More ... confident, and happier somehow."

"I believe I am," said Kor, nodding.

"Excuse me," said Brother Koof, causing Tulith to jump and give a little scream. "...Oh, I'm sorry, Tulith. It's me, Brother Koof! I've been standing here for a while, but I was invisible! I should have thought of that! I'm terribly sorry! I'll become visible, now." He gradually appeared a couple of feet away, looking very embarrassed. He was wearing a white sleeveless smock; Tulith had rather been hoping for his previous costume, but she thought he looked quite handsome in this one. "I'm afraid I was eavesdropping – bad habit of mine – and, if you don't mind, I, too, would like to hear about Kor's ... experience."

"I'm sorry, Koofie," said Kor, "but it's rather personal, I'm afraid. At least at first, I would rather speak of it just to Tulith. Someday, I imagine, I will feel more comfortable with it, and then I'd love to have a talk about it with you. But you must promise to tell me about some of your adventures, in return."

Koof looked pleased. "I'd be happy to," he said, making a little bow. Kor and Tulith went off to Kor's room, and Brother Koof went over to join Talek and the neophytes.

As Koof passed Lessie and the mute boy, he saw that the boy was watching Lessie dance. Although she was obviously not an expert dancer, there was something intriguing about her motions. She swayed back and forth without moving her feet; it made him think of an underwater plant being pulled this way and that by the water. _Could it_ , he thought, _have something to do with the river mentioned in Anandra's scripture?_ He was fascinated (and also a bit frightened) by the boy, ever since the destruction of the black cloud. He wondered if he should introduce himself, and if this would be a good moment. But just then, the boy began to dance along with Lessie, and Koof decided that he would be intruding, so he walked over and joined Talek.

Brother Koof addressed Talek. "Did you understand what happened between Ydnas and that woman?" he asked.

"It was certainly _ironic_ ," said Talek, in his driest voice. "The lady promises to die so the child can be healed, and she doesn't die, and the child is not healed, and everyone seems quite happy about it all."

"I've never heard of that church of hers," said one of the neophytes, "but that certainly was a beautiful scripture, wasn't it?"

"Well, I guess it was," said Koof, "and I imagine it had meanings for her that it doesn't have for me, for I've never heard of that church before, either. Maybe that's why I don't understand what happened."

"I think," said another one of the neophytes, "that today she really _experienced_ what the scripture talks about, whereas before, she had just _had faith_ in it."

"Well, I guess I can see how that would make a person happy," said Koof, "to see the universe as pure love! But I should think it would be hard for a person in her position to see it that way. Why would a goddess of love be killing her son?"

"The likelihood of wishful thinking increases," said Talek, in the pompous tone of someone quoting an authority, "in proportion to the bleakness of one's actual situation."

"Oh, _stop_ that!" said the first neophyte, giving him a whack with her staff.

" _Ouch!_ " said Talek reproachfully, rubbing himself.

"If _I_ thought the scripture was true," said Koof, fingering his beard thoughtfully, "would I still steal from the rich to give to the poor?"

"It could go either way," said the third neophyte. "It depends on your motivation."

"But if I believed that scripture," said Koof, "wouldn't I think, 'Whatever I do, everything will be perfect love. Why make an effort?'"

"It's certainly very possible that you would think that way," said the third neophyte, "but would it make sense? It sounds as though you are thinking of yourself as _separate_ from the goddess; it sounds as though you are thinking, 'The goddess has done thus, and will do thus, now what should _I_ do?' as if there were still some room for choice on your part. But the scripture says, ' _She is full of currents and eddies. These currents and eddies are the things of this world, including you and I. She gently moves them this way and that.'_ You are just an eddy in the goddess. Once her actions are accounted for, your decisions and actions have _already_ been accounted for.

"Besides: since you have stolen and given in the past, it must not be inconsistent with perfect love to have you do so. So she may have you do it again."

Koof pondered this for a moment. "This sort of thing is intriguing to think about," he replied, "but I don't see how it could give anyone any direction in life. If the goddess uses me to steal, I will steal. If she doesn't, I won't. How can I know until it happens? Why would I even _need_ to know? It doesn't help me to _decide_. But how can I act, without deciding?

"Now, in _my_ religion," he continued, "things are much more straightforward. In one place, you have people who are desperately poor; in particular, babies and children. In another place, you have people who are rich, who have much more than they really need, and are only motivated by trying to outdo each other or themselves in getting and spending. Their riches don't make them a bit happier than people who are just comfortable, and the people who are making the useless luxuries they buy could be employed making things that poor people really need, instead.

"Well, I am going into much too much detail; the point is, you have a starving child over here, and a rich man about to buy another pleasure boat, over there. Naturally, you take the money away from the man and use it to feed the child. I should think that a goddess of love would approve of that, but really, I'm not doing it to please any gods, I'm doing it to feed the child."

"How ironic," said Talek, "that doing this makes you a criminal!"

"Why don't you hit him?" asked the second neophyte of the first.

"Because he is expecting me to," replied the first.

"You guys are more incomprehensible than the mystics," said Koof, frowning and shaking his head.

"That's ironic, too!" said Talek, with a ghostly chuckle. The third neophyte swung at him, but he leapt out of the way.

"Brother Koof, I apologize for us all," said the second neophyte. "It is rude of us to play these silly games when someone else is in the conversation."

"At no point were we making fun of _you_ , though," Talek reassured Koof, while ostentatiously keeping his distance from the first neophyte. "In fact, what you say reminds me of something from our own scripture, whose surprising title is, _The Book of Irony_. In one chapter of it there is, remarkably, a long list of important ironies, including one called the _Third Irony of the Complexity of Society_. This states that, with certain rare exceptions, society will always be about as complex as it can possibly be, given the resources it has; and in particular, that a society of any significant size will be many hundreds of times as complex as it would be if it were based on common sense and Ethics. I remark parenthetically that there is a similar irony concerning the complexity of the mind, and that the two ironies are connected with each other. Now you, my good thief, give us a glimpse as to how things might be if society were governed by common sense and Ethics. Unfortunately, we are almost as stupid and perverse as you are, and so we will be no help whatever in saving you from your life of crime."

Brother Koof smiled. "Talek," he said, "I have never known anyone with a way of expressing affection, that is anywhere near as sneaky as yours."

Talek bowed deeply to him. "It is just as I was saying," he replied, "concerning pointless complexity."
**********

"The weak destroy, the strong create."

(Lampimbikra Lendo)

The Abbess of the Temple of Ydris was very old, but her mind was sharper than ever. Coming to a break-point in her organizational work, she decided to take some time to talk with the Goddess. Smiling at everyone she met in the corridors, she made her way to her room, setting up the privacy alert. Sitting quietly, she took a little time to relax and clear her head. Then she began to focus on thoughts relevant to womanhood. She thought of all women, past, present and future. She thought of several women she had known well, including herself. She thought of femininity in body and mind, and of the role of women in society and in history. She took her time with each step, for she knew that otherwise, the same things would come up every time, and she would get into a rut. Her current practice was to not leave a topic until she had come up with at least one significant new thought about it. In this way, she built up in her consciousness a general feeling for human femininity as such. As always, she experienced a great awe and reverence before this tremendous force of life.

Holding this image of femininity before her, she began to personalize it; for example, she thought of it as having problems to which it tried to find solutions. She thought of women's history as a biography of Woman. Turning her mind to the present, she thought about what the crucial present issues for women might be. Here, too, she took her time and demanded freshness of thought. She called up her inner representation of Ydris as a personification of all this. Since the Abbess was blind and a telepath, her representations of people were not primarily visual; so it was a representation of the mind and heart of Ydris, not a picture of her in humanoid form. The Abbess had once remarked that blind people had a certain advantage, in that they did not have the habit of thinking of people in terms of their outside surfaces.

_What would Ydris want to say?_ she thought, and waited to 'see' what her imagination would come up with.

"Hello, Abbess," said Ydris, 'smiling' – that is, radiating warmth and affection toward the Abbess. Like Isiliar and other gods, Ydris had the ability to project an 'aura' of love, holiness, power, or any number of other things, with any desired intensity. The Abbess had asked her, though, to keep this to a minimum in their interactions. "It's distracting," she had said. Ydris had agreed.

"Hello, Ydris," replied the Abbess, 'smiling' back. "Is there anything you'd like to talk to me about?"

"I think I'm pregnant," said Ydris.

"Well ..." said the Abbess, a little off-balance with surprise, "congratulations! Who's the lucky man?"

Ydris giggled. "Well, it's not like that, really! What I mean is, that, well, you at the Temple have learned so much in the last few years ... and I've begun to think that the significance of some of it really goes beyond women, doesn't it? Couldn't men benefit from it? So maybe you need another god, one for everyone ... or perhaps I need to expand myself, be more than just the goddess of femininity."

"That's not an idea that I can comment on right away," said the Abbess, "especially the idea of your not being the goddess of femininity. Can you _do_ that?"

"Oh, yes," said Ydris, "gods don't have to reproduce like humans, you know. A god can split, or bud, or two gods can merge, or two gods can exchange parts of themselves ... suppose that at some time there wasn't much poetry in the world, maybe then there would be just one god of poetry. But then later, lots of poetry might be written, and two different traditions might develop, say epic and lyric poetry, each with its own traditions and line of development. So, the god of poetry would have two offspring, one for epic poetry and one for lyric poetry. Or, suppose that there was a god of music and a god of drama, but no opera. Well, the god of music and the god of drama might, ah, _have relations_ , and thereby produce a god of opera!"

"You make it sound as though mortals create the gods, rather than the other way around. Some mortal has to actually write an opera, for opera to come into being, I should think."

"Well, don't tell anyone, but there is a lot of truth in that, at least for some of us. After all, what would _I_ amount to, if there were no women? I would be at best a mere potential. We politely speak of such a god as 'sleeping.' On the other hand, the god of _matter_ doesn't need mortals – at least, not in _that_ way. But even among mortalizing gods like myself, it is simplistic to say either that the gods produce mortals, or that mortals produce the gods. Does a house produce its rooms, or do the rooms produce the house? Or, think of a river. It has various flow patterns. It might be high, it might be low. It might have an eddy here, a vortex there. Now, does the river produce the flow patterns, or do the flow patterns produce the river? It could go either way – it depends on just what you mean by 'produce.' It is the same way with gods and mortals."

"I think I see what you mean ... but I'm curious about your 'pregnancy.' Have you made up your mind about this?"

"Well, with goddesses as with mortal women, pregnancy isn't always voluntary. But no, I haven't decided whether I like the idea. In fact, many parts of me – you, for example – haven't even begun to think about the idea."

"Well," replied the Abbess, "in a way, I have. I have thought that some of our achievements might be of value to men as well as to women, as you suggest. But I hadn't thought that giving them to others would require a change in _you_. In your attribute, I mean."

"Well, you are right, it doesn't have to. But it might involve the awakening of a new god, like the god of lyric poetry. It would be a descendant of mine; more specifically, it would be what we call an _extrinsic_ descendant, because although it happened to come from me, it could have come from elsewhere. In contrast, we can say that Lixanhua, the goddess of midwifery, is _intrinsically_ related to me."

"Well, the idea of producing a new god is an exciting one! What could be more dramatic? A bit overwhelming, even. But I am feeling very good about what we have done here, and I agree that much of it has significance beyond its utility for women. Of course, it takes centuries to really test an idea, but I think we would be justified in extending the scope of our experiments a little. Slowly, and with lots of thought."

"I agree about being cautious. Divine pregnancies can have complications, too! It is not unusual for divine gestations to take more than a century."

"Well, I think it is fair to say that we have the best midwives in the world, here at your Temple, and of course they are at your disposal. I don't know whether their skills would be relevant to a goddess, though."

"Not all of them."

"Well, needless to say, we are at your service in whatever way we can be."

"I know you are," replied the goddess, expanding her 'smile.' For a few moments the goddess and the mortal woman 'hugged' each other, each one basking in and returning the other's love. Then Ydris turned her aura back down, and they proceeded to speak of other matters.
**********

Vengeance is a self-devouring god."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Church of Lurishia)

Tarth Sakul worked rapidly to save himself from the Cathedral of the Assassins by killing Pappi. In the process, he intended to harvest Pappi's soul. He quickly discovered that his triggered death spells on Pappi had been inactivated, so he would have to do it the hard way. He was able to track Pappi to the Triz Hotel, which he placed under an observation spell. Using his great knowledge of hypnotism and teleportation, he obtained assistants and supplies. Soon he was ready to attack.

In his office in the Triz Hotel, Sk'Skar, who had been permanently given the post of Security Chief, sat with his core staff, constantly checking on his various underlings and magical sensors. He had woven a wonderfully intricate web of alarms and traps, with backups and fail-safes everywhere. Passwords were revised hourly. Several telepaths were on duty, to detect mind exchanges and simulacra. Many guards were reciting lengthy mantras in their heads, at the rate of two syllables per breath; if they ever hesitated for more than a breath, an alarm would go off. A mind-exchanger could learn the mantra from the guard's memory, but not in less than a breath; therefore, a mind-exchange would trigger the alarm.

All staff were rigged with alarms and with defenses – or counterattacks - for telepathic probes. One of Sk'Skar's favorites was the 'bliss trap'. Entry into a staff member's mind would trigger a release of brain chemicals, creating a feeling of bliss so profound that the invader would not want to sever the connection, and would in fact lose interest in everything else. Simultaneously, an alarm was sounded, allowing security personnel to locate the immobilized intruder. Often the invaders would have various automatic fail-safes to pull them out of such a trap, but the experience was addicting – the victim would keep finding reasons to go back, and rationalizations for staying longer, until finally they were caught.

No one, not even Pappi himself, could enter Pappi's area of the hotel without being thoroughly searched. Magic Lanterns were placed everywhere, to neutralize invisibility spells. Psychosomatic tests were constantly administered to make sure that each body had the soul proper to it. Sk'Skar had also set various 'wandering booby traps,' of whose location even he was ignorant; they would immobilize whoever triggered them, and set off an alarm, but were otherwise harmless. Every hour or so, a staff member on legitimate business would be caught by one, and other staff would check and release him. The point was, that even if someone picked the entire design of the defense from Sk'Skar's brain, he could still be caught by one of these traps.

For that matter, Sk'Skar also made changes in the overall design of the defense fairly frequently.

Since Sk'Skar had been his third-in-command, Tarth Sakul knew him well; he knew that Sk'Skar would produce a very methodical, intricately designed defense. Sure enough, his first attempt to probe the system was quickly detected, and he had to retreat. 'I won't be able to just sneak in,' he thought, 'I will have to blast my way in.'

In his office, Sk'Skar declared a red alert. "Whoever that was who just tried to scan us," he said, "probably realizes by now that he won't be able to just sneak in, so he will either give up, or he will try to blast his way in. Raise all shields, and send out pre-emptive patrols." A 'pre-emptive patrol' was a patrol whose purpose was to find and attack an attacker before his siege position was consolidated.

Tarth Sakul made himself, his assistants, and all of his equipment invisible. Avoiding the pre-emptive patrols with their magic lanterns, he made his way to a nearby park, where he had left a wagon full of equipment, a number of assistants, and a squad of fifty mounted Trobish mercenaries. The Trobish were not the best soldiers, but they were wonderfully free of scruples. "All right," said Tarth Sakul to their Captain, "prepare to go in. But I will soften them up for you first, as I promised."

As the Captain mobilized his squad, Tarth Sakul went to another wagon, still further back, and selected three large roman candles, each about ten forearms long and two in diameter. With the aid of his assistants, he carried them to a location within a few blocks of the hotel, and readied them for launch, placing on them spells for guidance, evasion, defense, and penetration. Then, he very carefully filled their payload spaces with pure granular moksi, to which he attached an ignition spell.

The Trobish Captain reported that he was ready. "Let us proceed, then," said Tarth Sakul. "Make your approach." The mercenaries closed their visors and rode off.

"Time to launch," Tarth Sakul announced to his assistants. "Clear the area!" They went a hundred feet off to the side, as did Tarth Sakul himself. Raising his staff, Tarth Sakul muttered a spell, and with a crackling roar and a blaze of light, the three rockets took off. At the same time, the mercenaries began to gallop toward the Triz Hotel, breaking into several distinct groups, each with its own magical shield.

Leaving three parallel parabolas of glowing smoke behind them, the three rockets slammed into the center of the Triz hotel. They penetrated, throwing a spray of debris in all directions, and exploded inside. Flames shot immediately from ten or twenty nearby windows; moments later, twenty more. Tarth Sakul felt the ground shake. A large chunk of the front of the hotel came loose, teetered outward, and fell, revealing three fires blossoming inside. The flames extended tongues of blue, red, and orange, licking their way through walls and floors. Small secondary explosions scattered burning fragments, or gave birth to glowing fireballs. Soon the entire front section of the hotel was on fire. _So much for the non-combatants_ , thought Tarth Sakul, chuckling, _I think the rating of this hotel is about to fall drastically!_

A moment later, though, the fire was suddenly surrounded by a nearly opaque defensive shield, which collapsed onto itself, smothering most of the flames. _A little slow, Sk'Skar_ , thought Tarth Sakul, with satisfaction.

A moment later, a stream of red, sparkling globes shot outward from one of the cupolas of the hotel. It raked back and forth over the ground where the rockets had been. On contact with anything solid, each red globe exploded into viscous fire. Several acres of the park were incinerated immediately. Whenever the globes approached Tarth Sakul and his assistants, however, a shield automatically appeared to deflect them.

Tarth Sakul raised his iron staff and grimaced, and from his staff a bolt of lightning leapt to the cupola. The cupola was immediately transformed into a blob of hydrofluoric acid, which proceeded to sink downward into the rest of the hotel, sending up streamers of varicolored smoke. _That takes care of that_ , thought Tarth Sakul, grimly.

From another section of the hotel, several apparitions shot into the sky. Each took the form of a large bird, like a condor. They were almost perfectly transparent, and once they left the vicinity of the fire, they were very difficult to see. _They will be hunting for us_ , thought Tarth Sakul, and he quickly double-checked and fine-tuned his invisibility shield.

One of the condors spotted a group of mercenaries, and a thread of blue light shot downward from it. The thread draped itself over their protective shield. It broke into shorter segments that wriggled like worms, trying to penetrate the shield. Some slid to the ground, immediately burrowing into it. "I hope he remembered to put a _bottom_ on that shield," chuckled Tarth Sakul.

Other condors circled the hotel, dropping green threads. These threads did not break or burrow, but were continually wriggling, looping, and unlooping in place, making a deadly barrier against entry.

Tarth Sakul smiled. Sk'Skar was methodical, but he had limited resources; if he was using death threads to protect the hotel, it must be because his other defenses were damaged or vulnerable. Someone else might have spread the threads earlier, to set a trap, hoping that Tarth Sakul would overestimate the hotel's vulnerability, and attempt to enter before it was really safe. But Sk'Skar was too cautious to risk wasting so much mana on a gamble.

"Back to the rear wagon," he said to his assistants. They had already left the park, which had become an inferno, thanks to the red globes. They took a somewhat indirect route, to avoid several pre-emptive patrols. As they proceeded, they looked back and saw that much of the hotel had collapsed or burned away. Emerging from the glowing embers, flames, smoke, and sparks, a stern black monolith could be seen: this was Pappi's section of the hotel, protected by its shields and shored up by its own structural integrity spells. The problem was to enter it.

Arriving at the wagon, Tarth Sakul said, "I think they're aware of us, now; let's proceed with a detailed scan." He instructed the driver to keep the wagon moving in a fairly random way, avoiding patrols, but to stay about a tenth of a horizon from the hotel. Opening a crate, he and his assistants extracted many small, bat-like machines. Uttering activation charms, they threw them into the air; the machines spread their wings and flew off toward the hotel.

In the center of the wagon were four large crystal balls. Tarth Sakul and his three main assistants each sat by one, activating it with a gesture. The mechanical bats scanned the hotel as they approached it, and sent the information back; a detailed picture of the wounded building began to form in the crystal balls. The picture was transparent and three-dimensional; lines, dots, and various symbols showed the structure of Sk'Skar's outer layer of defenses. The four of them pondered it, looking for vulnerable points. Tarth Sakul also noted that all the mercenary groups had been forced to intensify their shields and stand still. That was all right; Sk'Skar would have to devote time and mana to keeping them there. They were just a distraction; according to his plan, the one to penetrate the shields would be Tarth Sakul himself.

Tarth Sakul and his assistants each unpacked a bucket of artificial bees. Whenever the crystal revealed something that looked vulnerable, they would scoop up a handful of bees and ensorcel them to fly to that spot and attack. The bees could inject a fatal venom, they could explode, and they could use their mandibles to tear through a physical obstacle. They were also useful sources of information, being able to fly or crawl through smaller spaces than the bats. If nothing else, a bee would keep circling close to its destination, waiting for a shield to fail.

The death-threads dropped by the condor-apparitions were too large and slow to be of much use against the bats and the bees. Sk'Skar responded with pests of his own, about the size of house flies. Fast and maneuverable, a fly would attach itself to a bat or bee and explode. Tarth Sakul responded by sending huge numbers of fake bees and bats, confusing the flies and wasting their efforts.

Slowly but surely, Sk'Skar's defenses began to erode. He and his staff watched in growing desperation as their sensors showed their secure space shrinking and shrinking. Finally, they could hear the bees begin chewing their way through the walls of the command center itself. As the mechanical insects emerged from walls, ceiling, and floor, Sk'Skar and his staff attacked them with various weapons. Many bees died, but there were always more; and once inside, they took to the air and flew in wild evasive spirals until they had a chance to land and sting. One by one, the members of Pappi's security team screamed in frustration and despair, and died. Some of the bees then proceeded to Pappi's quarters.

The other bees, directed by the assistants, disabled the few remaining shields, and neutralized the weapons systems. Now Tarth Sakul was easily able to sweep aside the green death threads with a counterspell, and enter the hotel. He did not bother to free the mercenaries; he wanted to finish this alone. As he levitated through the glowing, smoking remains of the hotel, borne by a spherical protective shield, he imagined himself to be accompanied by triumphal opera music. By the time he arrived at Pappi's study, Pappi stood alone, in terror, flattened against the wall, pinned by the snarling swarm. The bees had exterminated Pappi's entire personal staff, but they were programmed not to kill Pappi himself, though they would non-fatally bite him if he tried to flee.

Tarth Sakul entered the room. How he savored that moment! For awhile he just stood there, shaking his head and chuckling at the helplessness of his opponent. Then he spoke. "Well, well," he said, "if it isn't my old employer, Mr. Pappi! Do you know what's going to happen now, my friend?" Pappi sneered at him, but said nothing. "Well," Tarth Sakul continued, "our roles are about to be reversed! You, Mr. Rich and Powerful, are going to work for me and my associates, and _forever!_ Yes, I am going to download your soul, and put it into a little container from which it can never, never escape! You have quite a mind, Mr. Pappi, and we intend to use it to its fullest capacity. That is, unless you prefer to suffer unspeakable agonies!" Tarth Sakul began to giggle. His giggles expanded to guffaws, and then into loud, exuberant laughter.

When his laughter died away, he said, "I see that you are not yet going to give me the satisfaction of seeing you grovel and beg for mercy. That will change, when you feel the agonies that I am going to inflict on you! And now," he said, grinning and raising his staff, "say goodbye to your body and your freedom, Mr. ex-Boss!"

But then, suddenly, there was a dark figure between Tarth Sakul and Pappi. This dark figure also had a staff. The killer bees disappeared.

"Talek!" shouted Tarth Sakul in astonishment. "What in Rotim's Darkness do you want here? Surely you don't feel _pity_ for this piece of slime!"

"It is certainly ironic that I should be helping him," replied Talek, and from his staff there came rushing a stream of copies of Pappi, a few copies of Talek himself, and a great number of copies of Tarth Sakul's mentor, Tarthex Oslan. The copies all rushed furiously at Tarth Sakul. The copies of Pappi and Talek were mowed down by lightning from Tarth Sakul's staff, but Tarth Sakul hesitated for a moment when the copies of Oslan rushed him; he knew that they were fakes, but he had been very strongly conditioned to cringe and defer to his mentor. In that moment's hesitation, the copies of Oslan were on him. His screams of outrage were quickly choked off.

As silence fell, Talek waved his staff, and all the copies disappeared, leaving only an inert lump of mangled flesh and blood-soaked cloth, and an iron staff. "I suppose it all happened too quickly for him to fully appreciate the ironies involved," said Talek, sadly. He turned to Pappi. "Relax, Pappi," he said, in a tired voice, "I'm not going to hurt you. Didn't I tell you I had your best interests at heart? In fact, I'm going to send you to yet another one of your hideouts, where you can set yourself up yet again, with yet another Chief of Security. No, don't thank me – we both know that you're incapable of gratitude."

Talek retrieved Tarth Sakul's staff, and several small amulets, from the remains. Then he escorted Pappi to the outside. One of the condor-apparitions was perching there. Almost perfectly transparent, it was visible only because of a slight distortion its presence induced. "Don't worry," said Talek, "I have changed its programming. It will even defend you, if need be. Just climb on its back, and it will carry you to your base at Toxic River Landing."

Pappi hesitated; he still understood nothing of Talek's motivation. "Don't irritate me, Pappi," growled Talek, raising his staff. Pappi quickly climbed onto the back of the huge invisible bird, where he found, by feel, a saddle and stirrups. Grabbing the saddle-horn, he nodded to Talek. Gentle vortices of wind played over Pappi as the condor raised its widespread wings. Then it brought them down, and Pappi rose from the embers of the Triz Hotel and disappeared into the night.
**********

"This life is a mirage,

Its holy water is

Just heated air."

(from the romance novel, _Sora and Atara_ )

Oselika and Teladorion entered the _Phantom Church of the One God_ and found a middle-aged man, in a simple grey robe, watering plants in the well-lit vestibule. The air was cool, and full of the fragrance of flowers. In one corner, there was a fountain whose furthest-flung drops struck little bells, bringing out soft but pure notes. The man briefly turned his head their way, smiling and nodding at them.

"Excuse me, sir," said Teladorion, "is there someone we could speak to about your religion?"

The man seemed mildly amused by the question. "Since God wishes you to ask," he replied, "he will probably find someone to answer."

"Could that someone be you?" asked Teladorion.

"Very possibly. Let me introduce myself," said the grey-robed man, putting down his watering jar. "Thanks to God's overflowing creativity, I am Tselig. I am a deacon here." He extended a hand. He was tall and broad, both in face and in frame. His face was open and friendly.

"Pleased to meet you," said Teladorion. "I am Teladorion, and this is my cousin, Oselika." They each joined hands with Tselig. His hands were large, but his grip was gentle.

"Thanks to God's grace, I am pleased to meet you," said Tselig, with a smile. Picking up his jar again, he began to pour into a pot of ivy. He seemed fascinated by the way the water flowed out of the jar.

"I understand," said Teladorion, "that you believe in only one god."

"Thanks to Him, I do," replied Tselig, with a radiant smile.

"But, don't people see various gods, all the time? And don't those gods do miracles?" asked Teladorion. "How can you doubt their existence?"

"They see phantoms, who perform phantom miracles. Everything is a phantom except God himself," replied Tselig. "God creates and re-creates them, from one moment to the next. Without Him, they would have no being at all."

"You mean, that you and I are phantoms?"

"Yes."

"I don't know about you, but I feel pretty real."

"That's because God makes a phantom feeling of realness, as part of you," said Tselig, watering a pot of violets. "It's like a puppet that has, 'I am human' painted on it."

Teladorion looked startled. "That's a pretty sharp answer," he said.

"When God wants my answers to be sharp, they are sharp," said Tselig.

"But," said Teladorion, "who is it that feels that feeling? I mean, don't I have to exist to feel something, even if it is an illusion?"

"There is a bundle of phantom feelings," said Tselig, "feelings of existing, feelings of being a man, feelings that there is someone who feels those feelings. It's like a book whose pages are blown by the wind. On the pages are written things like, 'I am happy,' or 'I am so-and-so,' or 'I exist,' or, 'I know that I exist,' but no one is actually feeling those things. There is nothing that feels the feelings, just the feelings themselves, coming and going. Really, there is a new bundle every moment, created afresh by God. To that extent, yes, you exist."

"So you're saying," said Teladorion, "that there can be feelings without a feeler, thoughts without a thinker."

"Exactly," said Tselig, nodding. "Sometimes a babbling brook makes the sound of words, but it's not really speaking. In the same way, God might cause a thought, 'I exist!' to appear, without there being any person who is actually thinking that thought."

"So God is a sort of a novelist," said Teladorion.

"In a way, yes," said Tselig. "In a novel, a fictional character might think, 'I exist.' But in reality, he does not."

"Would God make you say something you don't believe is true?" asked Oselika.

"That _who_ doesn't believe is true?" asked Tselig.

"You _are_ sharp!" said Teladorion.

"No, it is God who is sharp," said Tselig. "My mind could not have the trace of a shadow of a thought without God doing all the work."

"Does God sometimes make you say _stupid_ things?" asked Oselika.

"Uh, well, yeah, I mean, I guess so, maybe," said Tselig.

Teladorion laughed. "I _like_ this guy," he said to Oselika.

She was apparently in a sterner mood. "When it appears that you are saying something stupid, is it really God who is saying something stupid?" she asked.

"No," said Tselig, "it's just God, making a phantom say something that _sounds_ stupid."

"So it's _you_ who are stupid," said Oselika.

"Not really. A phantom isn't really smart or stupid, it just looks as though it is. A puppet playing a smart person is not smart, and a puppet playing a stupid person is not stupid."

"Well, parry me with a feint," said Teladorion. "You've really thought this through!"

"Not on my own," said Tselig.

"So, this conversation is just God talking to God," said Oselika.

"In a way," said Tselig, watering a Gratula tree.

"That makes me feel pretty important," said Teladorion, smiling.

"If that is truly so, it is God's grace," said Tselig, "but God makes me suspect you of irony." His green eyes twinkled.

"Well, ..." said Teladorion, looking a bit sheepish.

"No offense taken," said Tselig. "If you were being ironical, it must have been that God made you to be so. And everything that God does is infinitely good and perfectly appropriate."

"So," said Teladorion, "I am the best possible phantom."

"For whatever His purpose for you may be," said Tselig, plucking a yellowed leaf from a rosebush.

"But then," said Oselika, "isn't all the evil and suffering and waste in the world due to God?"

"What evil? Who suffers?"

"Are you telling me," said Teladorion, "that it doesn't matter to you if a little kid gets run over by a chariot, since she's just a phantom?"

"If God wants it to matter to me, it will matter to me," said Tselig, bringing a wayward tendril back to its trellis, "and in fact, it always has. God has always made me very sad on such occasions."

"But if it makes you sad," asked Oselika, "how can you say that everything God does is infinitely good and perfectly appropriate?"

"Well," said Tselig, pausing to sniff some honeysuckle, "I guess it must have been perfectly good and appropriate for me to feel sad on those occasions. Do you really think that it wasn't?"

"Well, no, I don't," said Oselika, "but that's because I don't think such events are perfectly good. Since you think they are, it would be more appropriate for you to feel admiration and joy."

"But you don't think of yourself as a phantom, either," said Tselig. "Now, who can say what it is appropriate for a phantom to apparently feel? Since it is not real, and the events it's supposedly responding to are not real, how can we say that one response is appropriate and another is not? It appears that God wants us to feel, a great deal of the time, as if we and other people were real."

"Why is that?" asked Oselika.

"I don't know," said Tselig. "There are theologians who try to explain things like that. Why does God make us start out feeling real? If the world is perfect, why does God make us feel angry or sad? Why does God make it look as though there were evil? Why does God make some people into atheists? It is very difficult, and they end up arguing and revising a lot.

"God has led _me_ , however, to prefer the way of faith to the way of Theology. I have never been remotely tempted to believe that God could be anything other than perfectly good. So I presume that there is a justification for everything, even though I don't know what that justification is. If God wants me to know the details, I will know them. And if he doesn't, I don't either." He gently and carefully pried a beetle loose from a leaf, walked over to a window, and blew the beetle from his hand into the yard outside.

"So," continued Oselika, "God created everything else in the universe – all the phantoms?"

"God has made me believe so."

"That explains why all those phantoms exist."

"Yes, although there, too, I don't know the details. I don't know why God made roses to have so many petals, or orchids to be so delicate."

"What explains the existence of God?"

"I would presume that God's existence is self-explanatory," said Tselig, "but if you want that spelled out, you would have to ask a theologian." He poked some earth with his fingers, testing it for dampness and friability, and raising it to his nose to smell.

"Does your faith make you happy?" asked Oselika.

"God makes me happy. You could say that it is my faith, though, since my faith tells me that God gives me exactly what I need in every situation, and God tends to make people happy when they have beliefs like that."

"That must provide a pretty strong incentive for believing as you do," said Teladorion.

"Nothing can make me believe anything except God himself," said Tselig.

"According to you, then," said Teladorion, "fire does not make water boil."

"That's right," said Tselig, "although it is often convenient to speak as if it did, when one is not actually discussing religion."

"But," continued Teladorion, "the world _looks_ that way. The world _looks_ as though it ran by itself, except maybe for a few miracles. It _looks_ as though fire makes water boil, plants grow from seeds, the sun lights our way, water carries silt, experiences make memories, wars change boundaries, and ignorance breeds evil. We are discovering new things like that all the time, and for the most part, it all adds up. Isn't that evidence that the world _does_ have some being of its own?"

"It's very good evidence," said Tselig. "I don't think that atheists are any stupider than believers. Some of them may well be smarter. They just happen to be wrong."

"If God controls us as completely as you say," said Oselika, "then we are slaves; not even slaves, but puppets. That's not a very nice way for God to treat us, is it?"

"What's wrong with treating a puppet as a puppet?" replied Tselig.

There was a pause in the conversation. The fountain burbled, and the bells rang softly. Or, so it seemed.

"I agree with you about at least one thing," said Oselika. "I believe that we have exactly what we need, neither more nor less." Tselig said nothing. "That's because I believe that the only evil that can befall us is dishonor, and nothing can force us to choose the dishonorable path," Oselika continued. "But what do you _do_ , in your religion? I mean, do you have worship services? Do you have a scripture? Do you accept converts? Do you have priests with pastoral duties?"

"There are no _rules_ ," said Tselig. "If God makes someone worship, they worship. If God makes someone comfort the sick, they comfort the sick. We don't make rules for God. As it happens, we do all the things you mention. Some people do more of one thing, some do more of another."

"What does it take to convert?" asked Oselika.

"God has to make you want to _give up_ ," said Tselig.

"What do you mean, _give up_?"

"Stop trying to control things. Admit that you are only a phantom. Leave everything to God."

"But according to you, God _already_ controls everything," said Oselika.

"That's true," said Tselig, "but people labor under the illusion that it is not so. They may even believe, intellectually, that everything comes from God, but they don't really _feel_ that way. They think they have control, or they _want_ to have control. When you want God to make you give up every last trace of this, forever, then you belong to our Church. "

"Hold on a moment," said Teladorion, "if I don't exist, how can I give up anything?"

"That's a good objection," said Tselig, looking very pleased. "I was speaking loosely when I put it that way. More precisely, it is like this: suppose you have a puppet who represents a fictional person, called 'Karendo.' At one point, the puppet can utter the words – of course, it is really the puppeteer who speaks – 'I am Karendo, I am a human being, I exist and I control my own life.' At another point, the puppeteer can make the puppet say, 'I have given up the idea that I am in control of anything. There is just a puppet, there is no such person as Karendo, and the puppet don't control its actions, the puppeteer does.' Now, strictly speaking, no real person has given up anything when that happens. Or, to do without analogies, it would be more precise to say, 'There's a bundle of phantom feelings, under the control of God. At one time, this bundle includes a false feeling that it belongs to a real person who has control over his life. At a later time, this bundle includes a feeling that it is just a bundle of phantom feelings, under the control of God.' In the second case, we say that the bundle is in the beatific state, or at least, entering it."

"You've got my head spinning," said Teladorion, "but I must admit, I can't see any contradictions in what you say."

Oselika returned to the conversation: "Well, you have a very consistent position," she said, "and I am greatly intrigued by it. I am inclined, though, to take the universe as it appears to be. But I'm curious about something – someone once told me that some people who believe in only one god – I don't know whether it was your church, or some other – they said that these people used a drug to reach the desired state of mind – their idea of the beatific state. Do any of your people do that?"

"Only God can bring you to that state," said Tselig.

"Well, yes, but as Teladorion said, the universe _looks as though_ it had cause-and-effect within it. Couldn't God create a drug that _looks as though_ it brings people to that state?"

"Yes, of course," said Tselig, brushing some dirt off a leaf. "God can do anything that is not self-contradictory."

"You said there were no rules," said Oselika, "so there are no rules against using such a drug."

"No, there are not," said Tselig, watering a blossoming quince, "and if God wants you to reach the beatific state after taking such a drug, that is what you will do."

"Do you know of any such drug, or of anyone who has done this?"

"I have never heard of such a thing," said Tselig. "As far as I know, most people who reach the beatific state reach it after study, meditation, worship, prayer, and right living."

"Do you know of anyone who might know about such a drug? Perhaps in some other religion?"

"Hmmm ... no, but there is someone in our congregation who studies various religions and their practices. He might know. His name is Aptar. He lives at half by three-quarters, Terringean Square. Terringean Square is over that way," he said, gesturing, "second left after the covered bridge."

"Thank you very much," said Oselika. "We will leave you in peace now."

"This phantom is always at peace," said Tselig, "but thank you for the thought. One more thing, though, before you go."

"Yes?"

"This is perhaps already obvious to you, but ... if God wants you to reach the beatific state after taking such a drug, that is what you will do. But if God wants you to lose your mind completely after taking such a drug, _that_ is what you will do."

"If He does," said Teladorion, "then I suppose that will be infinitely good and perfectly appropriate."

"Yes indeed," said Tselig, smiling beatifically.
**********

"Death is one thing we prefer not to share with our loved ones."

(Raneed the Celibate)

Kor and Tulith went to Kor's room in order to discuss Kor's death.

"I want to keep this very private," said Kor.

"I will," said Tulith, "and if you are having second thoughts about telling me, feel free to call it off."

"Let me try to ask Isiliar," said Kor. Speaking her thoughts out loud as a prayer, she said, "Isiliar, I know you want me to be independent, but just asking a question isn't dependency, is it? I might ask an acquaintance whether they want me to tell about something. That wouldn't mean I am dependent on my acquaintance in some deep way, would it? So I hope you will answer this. I'd like to talk to Tulith about my experience, but when you brought me back, I said, 'Why didn't you _tell_ me?' meaning, 'Why didn't you tell me about what my death would be like?' Then you replied, 'Some things are not to be learned before their time.' So I'm thinking that maybe it would be wrong to talk to Tulith about this, since she is still alive. Would you help me out?"

They both heard Isiliar's voice say, "May I appear to you?" Tulith jumped in surprise, but, after meeting Kor's eyes for a moment, she nodded yes.

There was a sound of wind chimes. Tulith recognized the sound, and stood up, her eyes growing wide. Kor also stood. Isiliar began to materialize in the room.

When Isiliar had appeared in the wain, after Kor had been struck by the gray bolt, Tulith had felt mostly awe and fear. She felt awe and fear again as Isiliar began to appear, but as soon as the Goddess was fully there, Tulith felt a wave of love and happiness radiating from her, like warmth from a fireplace. Feeling this, Tulith came to believe that Isiliar could never be angry with her, could never do anything to harm her. Her fear thinned and softened. Under the radiance of Isiliar's love, Tulith began to feel that she, Tulith, was a fundamentally good person. Since Tulith was often hard on herself, this was a great relief to her. She felt herself relaxing deeply; even anxieties that had nothing to do with the situation at hand began to melt away, like morning mist before the sun. How sweet it was to feel this way! She became totally absorbed in this experience, and forgot all about the original purpose of Isiliar's visit, until the Goddess spoke.

"It's all right to discuss Kor's death," she said, "but you both should understand that death is not the same for everyone. Death is divine; mortals can never fully grasp it. Different mortals see death in accordance with their different backgrounds and capacities. To some, death is an implacable enemy; to others, a release from bondage. To some, it is eternal oblivion; to others, the beginning of real existence. To some, it is the most important of all moments; to others, the least important. To some it is justice, to others tragedy. So, what Kor has experienced is not what another person might experience. As long as you understand that, no harm will be done." To the sound of wind chimes, Isiliar dematerialized again.

"Wow," said Tulith, after several breaths of silence, "that could get to be addicting."

"What do you mean?" asked Kor.

"Oh, that feeling of love and joy that comes from her," said Tulith. "It's just so ... _wonderful!_ "

"Ah, yes, that's her _aura_ ," said Kor. "I guess it is addicting, in a manner of speaking. So many times, I've been exhausted, in despair, you name it, and Isiliar appears, and I have new strength! What would I have done without her? You might indeed say that I'm an addict!"

"But," said Tulith, "you were going to talk about ..."

"My death," said Kor, nodding, "yes. But it won't be easy. Much of what I felt will be very difficult to express. And in the end, I'm afraid that you will be more confused than you were before."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," said Tulith. "I'm not requiring you to come up with the definitive statement on death; I just want to hear what you experienced. Let's sit down, though."

"Ah, yes," said Kor, getting her bedding from the closet, and unrolling it onto the floor. "Here we are. Ahh. Well, let's see. Of course, I was terribly frightened and disoriented by all the things going on: the Angels, the various illusions, the flying things from the black cloud. Then, when I saw that _thing_ grabbing Ydnas, I just ... well, without even thinking, I threw myself on her and tried to pull her away. The next thing I knew, I was _looking down_ at myself. I mean, my body was just lying there, and I was seeing it as though I were above it. I hadn't seen the bolt that struck me. I suppose my soul had become one of those blinking lights that we saw.

"Well, at first I was just completely confused. What in the world was going on? I mean, I understood about the Angels of Rejuvenation, but what in the world was that black cloud, and those insect things? It was like, when you are sleepy but trying to stay awake, and without realizing it you slip into a dream, and something absolutely bizarre and impossible seems to happen, only it doesn't seem bizarre to you at all, and then a moment later you realize you were dreaming, and how bizarre it was. Only, there I was, aware of the complete bizarreness of it, wondering whether it was a dream, and sort of hoping that it was, but not really believing that it was, because it still seemed bizarre! Talek would like that, wouldn't he? I can just hear him saying, 'The surest sign that something is real is that it is bizarre!' Oh, but I am digressing!

"Then I noticed that I could see in all directions at once, including up and down. That was so amazing that it distracted me. I could see myself lying there, but I could also see the sky, with all those dreadful machines flying around. I could see you, with your big terrified eyes, and Talek, so tired, waving his staff but not having any effect, and Lessie and the boy holding each other and shivering with fear, and Intipisk, looking almost more fascinated than scared, and Brother Koof, even though he was invisible, and Ydnas, still in the clutches of that monstrosity, and the hapless Angels lying there, killed by those gray bolts, and the horses rearing and twisting, ... I saw it all at once, without turning my head ... and in spite of everything, for a moment being _able_ to see like that was so intriguing that it distracted me! Then, a moment later, I felt ashamed for having been caught up in that, when all these terrible things were happening.

"Then Ydnas pointed at the boy and said, 'Remember!' Only she said some word in some language I had never heard of, but I understood it perfectly well! It was as if I had been born knowing that language, but had been so distracted by other things that I had forgotten all about it until I heard her say it. And I had the feeling that it was the same with everyone else, and that even the boy could understand this language, if he could remember. And apparently he did, although it seems the rest of you did not.

"Then the boy sort of ... _unfolded_. It was as if I could see with different eyes, like Intipisk; he looked just the same as before, and yet he changed. He became this sort of dark, bottomless pit. It was very frightening; but then, out of this darkness came the white light. I had the feeling that usually, light and darkness are all mixed together, and that to get pure light, you have to take the darkness out and put it somewhere else for awhile.

"I was a little afraid when I saw the light coming at me, but when it reached me, it felt good. It felt a lot like Isiliar's aura; very loving and understanding. Of course, being light, it made everything clear. That was when it finally dawned on me that I was dead. I was horrified at the thought that I was going to be separated from all of you; part of me hoped that I would cease to exist altogether, rather than face that grief and loneliness. And the white light _sympathized_ with me. Isn't that just as absurd as any dream? But it made me feel a little better. I'd like to believe that it was comforting all the other separated souls, too.

"Oh, Tulith, it seems all such a jumble, now that I am telling it, just one thing after another! But let's see ... Realizing that my life was over, I began to look at it differently. I began to look at all the details of it in my mind. I realized that as long as I was alive, there were some things I was afraid to face; and also, that I could put things off, saying to myself, 'Well, that needs to be fixed, but I don't have the energy just now; I'll do it later.' And I'd feel good because of my good intentions. I saw the foolishness of this, now that it was too late, and it made me very sad. But with the white light comforting me, and making everything clear, there was just no point to trying to deceive myself anymore, and no way to change anything, and too late to do anything I hadn't already done, and so I just looked at my life and myself and saw things as they were. It was painful to do that, sometimes very painful, but it was also a great relief, not to be always squirming and hiding things. I had a feeling of relaxing, of letting go. And then, I felt _clean_. And after awhile, I thought: now that the worst has happened, there is nothing more to fear! I felt liberated – it was like having your stomach upset, and you vomit, and then you feel better! How all this was able to happen in such a short time, Tulith, I don't know. Perhaps those insights were always lurking around the edges of my mind, waiting for me to let them in. I wonder if people could learn to do this without having to die.

"Not to get too far off the subject, but I wonder if Anandra had a similar experience. I mean, she thought she was _about_ to die, and that might have had a similar effect. I've heard of religions where they have a secret initiation, and the people being initiated think that they are about to die, and it ends up being a positive experience for them. But now, I really am getting off the subject.

"Anyway, I ended up looking deeper and deeper into myself. I saw the reasons that I did things, and the reasons for the reasons ... and I got to a level where things _just happen_. I don't suppose you see what I mean, do you?"

"I'm afraid not," said Tulith. "I mean, I followed you up till the last couple of sentences, but I don't understand what you mean by, 'a level where things _just happen_.'

"Well," said Kor, "I mean, usually we think of ourselves as making decisions, choices. We don't just act randomly or mechanically. We think about what we want, and what we can get, and put the two together and decide what to do, and then we do it. It seems that we're different from water flowing downhill; I mean, the water probably doesn't think, 'Should I flow uphill now? No, I guess it would be a good idea to flow downhill, instead. I'll get what I want, that way.' Do you see what I mean so far, Tulith?"

"I think so, actually," said Tulith. "We have beliefs and desires, and we try to harmonize our actions with both of them. Because of that, we sometimes have to stop and think. But inanimate objects don't seem to be like that. I think of them as being totally thoughtless, and as never making any choices."

"Yes," said Kor, "I think you understood me. But now, consider this: we decide, but do we ever _decide_ to decide? Well, I guess we do, sometimes, as when you catch yourself avoiding a decision that you really have to make, and you put a stop to it ... but usually, decision just happens. I doubt that we _ever_ decide to _decide_ to decide. At any rate, it stops somewhere; we make a decision, but we make that decision just like water flowing downhill. We are just made to make decisions, just as the sun is made to shine. So although on the surface we are deciders, Tulith, down deep we are just like the inanimate objects! There is no deciding – we just _do_ it – that's what I meant by things _just happening_."

"I think I see," said Tulith. "If you analyze closely enough, everything just _does what it is in its nature to do_."

"Exactly!" said Kor. "Anyway, I saw this about myself, that I was _just happening_ , and it was actually sort of liberating, rather than discouraging. I mean, I thought there wasn't much point in my deciding anything, anyway, since I was dead! I could no longer have any effect on things. So I felt relieved of all my responsibilities. I felt like a cloud drifting in the sky, letting the wind take me wherever it would. Only, I was the wind, too! All my anxiety and confusion just disappeared. It was wonderful!"

"But," said Tulith, "didn't you – I mean –" she stopped, looking embarrassed.

"Of _course_ I missed you, Tulith," said Kor, "you and all the others – and I wished you well. But, that was _the shape the cloud took_. Just now, I was talking about the process, the process of _the cloud taking shape_. That was what was so delightfully spontaneous. I didn't worry about whether I was missing you all too much, or not enough, or in the wrong way, or whatever. I thought of never seeing you again, and then I was terribly sad, and I felt that the arising of that sadness was a perfectly spontaneous, and absolutely appropriate, response to the thought. It was beautiful, it was perfectly appropriate! And everything I did was perfectly spontaneous and absolutely appropriate. Does that make any sense at all?"

"I think so," said Tulith, "although it is puzzling; I mean, it would be a tremendous coincidence, if what was perfectly spontaneous was also perfectly appropriate, wouldn't it? Well, maybe not – I mean, it is perfectly appropriate for a thing do what it is in its nature to do, after all."

"There was something like that in Anandra's scripture," said Kor. "It went something like this: _She has no plans. She gives herself completely everywhere._ That's sort of how I felt. I had no plans, I was just _doing_. You know how it is, when you get really good at something, and one day, you are doing it, and everything just seems to fall into place, without effort? It was like that. I was giving myself completely, because I had no second thoughts, no self-doubt, no ambivalence, no resentment. And when I reached that state, I felt, as I just mentioned, that all my responses were perfectly appropriate! Talek would love that, too, I think – we worry so much about whether we are doing the best thing, and it turns out that we _always_ do the best thing."

"But, how can that be so?" said Tulith, perplexed and a little upset by this statement. "I mean, people do terribly stupid and evil things, don't they? Of course, you are a very good person, Kor, but you are still capable of making mistakes and doing wrong, I think! You have often criticized yourself in the past!"

"I know," said Kor, "but when I was dead, I thought that, in the end, we make mistakes because we have to – we are limited beings, how can we not make mistakes? But then, there is no fault in it, any more than there is any fault in a cat not being able to speak. ... And ... there was something else. I guess I felt that there was a _reason_ that I was limited. Strange as it sounds, I felt that my life would have no meaning if I were not limited. Something like that. It's very hard to express." Kor made gestures of futility. "Oh, Tulith, I am not any good at talking about things like this!"

"Well, don't worry about it," said Tulith. "I'm not asking you to explain the universe to me! I just want to hear what happened!"

"Well, there I was, drifting like a happy cloud." Kor giggled at her own expression. "But then, I heard a kind of voice coming through the white light. It was speaking that language that Ydnas spoke, and it said something like this: 'I'm sorry, but this is not your time. You will have to go back.' It meant, 'back to your life.' I was startled, and I lost some of my peacefulness. And I began to feel myself being pulled back, gently but firmly. And I felt Isiliar's aura, which made me feel happy to return. Otherwise, I think I might have been very upset. In addition, as I went, I thought, 'But what is it like? What would have happened? What am I missing?' And the voice that wasn't a voice said something like, 'Think of yourself as a song.' Then I felt as though I were flying through a tunnel, and being grabbed by millions of little hooks, and I couldn't see anymore. But I felt my body, and I thought, 'Silly, you have to open your eyes now.' It took me awhile to find my eyes, but then I opened them, and you know the rest of the tale!"

"Wow!" said Tulith. "That is just an amazing story! And fascinating!"

"You don't think I'm crazy, then?"

"Of course not, Kor! Do you think I expect someone's death experience to be humdrum and everyday?"

Kor chuckled at that. "No," she said, "of course it wouldn't be!"

"But Kor, what did that mean about thinking of yourself as a song?"

"I don't know, Tulith, there was no time to ask questions or get more of an explanation. I do have a guess about it, though. I think it might be about reincarnation. Different people can sing the same song at different times. I mean, I could sing the song, _Who has ever seen Kondrastibar?_ Then later, maybe even after I am dead, you could sing it; and it would sound different, but it would be the _same song_. But there is nothing solid, no hunk of matter, I mean, that went from me to you. It is not like me handing over a coin to you. But there you are, singing the same song. So I thought, maybe we are songs, and our bodies are the singers. One body might sing a song, and then disappear, and then another body might sing its own version of that same song."

"Why Kor, what a beautiful idea!"

"Well, I rather thought so myself!" replied Kor, making a caricature of a prideful expression, in order to deal with her embarrassment at being praised. "But whether that is what the voice actually meant, I do not know."

"Well," said Tulith, "it is interesting, that when the Tellamir ship came down to pick up all those souls, what did we hear? We heard a vast chorus of voices, singing!"

Kor's eyebrows went up. "That _is_ interesting," she said, "and perhaps that is why choral music seems so appropriate to religious services. But do you know what, Dearie? I have exhausted myself with all this talking, and I desperately need to take a nap."

"Oh, of course, but I am tired, too, Kor, I still haven't recovered from having been up all night. I will want to think a great deal about what you have said, but not now! Could we sleep together?"

"I'd like that very much, Tulith! Oh, what a long time it has been! But I don't know, Tulith, if you will be able to stand my snoring!"

"Kor, when are you going to believe me when I say that I love everything about you? Your snores will give me lovely dreams!"

"All right, then," said Kor, chuckling, "let me spread the bedroll out a bit more. There. It's quite warm in here; we won't need anything but the sheet."

"I'll latch the door and draw the blinds," said Tulith. In the resulting semi-darkness, they both felt profoundly peaceful. Taking off their clothes, they lay together spoonwise under the sheet, one firm and smooth and one soft and wrinkled, with Tulith's right arm draped over Kor's side and belly, and their right hands interlocked. Very quickly, they fell asleep. Kor snored loudly.
**********

"How dangerous to have a spiritual authority!

How dangerous not to have a spiritual authority!"

(Hretchlin, the rebel Patriarch)

"You _what?!!!_ " yelped Srea Kula, in shock and outrage. "You _called up Snoffle?!!_ Without even _consulting_ me?!!"

Sre Lugu and Iliriana cringed. "I'm afraid we did, Srea Kula," said Sre Lugu. "Well, quickly," replied Srea Kula, anxiously, "tell me what happened!" He took a seat, as did the other two. Sre Lugu and Iliriana described the conversation between themselves and the twins.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you," said Srea Kula, after they had finished, "but you should _never_ have done such a thing. Of course, you can pray to the Holy Family, and even ask for something, but they are beneficent gods! You were playing with powers far, far beyond your control! It appears that nothing terrible has happened, but I am tempted to require you to have soul-searches, to see whether you need exorcisms."

"Whatever you think best, Srea Kula," said Sre Lugu. Iliriana nodded agreement.

"Gods are not your uncle and aunt," continued Srea Kula, fervently. "They are associated with fundamental forces of life! It is said, _The fear of gods is the beginning of all wisdom!_ Granted that Snoffle is not one of the Higher Gods, but still, he is very powerful. Look at what he has done to Liliune, as well as to who knows how many others? You are like an ant confronting an earthquake!"

"Yes, Srea," said Iliriana, blushing.

"No doubt your intentions were noble; you want to help Liliune. But really, Sre Lugu, I think you have done enough for that woman! You rescued her from Pappi. You put your family into bondage, in order to save her, who had seduced you, and who later had attacked and almost killed you. This makes me wonder if you are still infatuated with her! Have the two of you forgotten your children, your community? Consider your priorities!"

"You are right, Srea," said Sre Lugu, hanging his head.

"Now, with the Holy Family," said Srea Kula, "it is clear that by their very nature they are the ally of mortals, at least of those who wish to have a family. Furthermore, we have a long history of interaction with them, and during that time there has been every indication that they mean well by us. Through millennia of experience, the Church has developed ways of mediating between the Holy Family and mortals, that have passed the test of time. It is a science! Do you think that I went to Ovulary for nothing?"

"No, Srea," said Sre Lugu, blushing.

"Do you think that you are smarter than all the saints, and prophets, and theologians of the past?"

"No, Srea," said Iliriana, miserably. A little tear glinted on her lower lash.

"Along comes this new god, and says, 'I can do everything for you with much less trouble, and far greater success.' Now, how likely is that?"

"Not very likely," said Sre Lugu, "but – "

"But _what?!_ " said Srea Kula, his voice rising.

"Well," said Sre Lugu, cringing a little, "I would like to understand _why_. I mean, they – or rather, it – Snoffle – made a very strong case, in some ways. Where exactly is the flaw in it?"

Srea Kula was speechless for a moment. Finally he said, "I, too, would like to understand why, and perhaps we can talk about that. But what if I can't tell you? Sre Lugu, isn't it best to trust the wisdom of the ages, even if you don't fully understand the reason for everything? Complete understanding is not given to mortals. Suppose that the Church says something that seems totally bizarre and incoherent to you, no matter how hard you try to understand. Isn't it more than likely that the fault lies with your own intelligence, rather than with the accumulated wisdom of the ages?"

"Yes," said Sre Lugu, nodding sadly, "that is so. It was arrogant of me to think otherwise."

"It is painful to be a mortal," said Srea Kula. "It is painful to be finite, limited! To be helpless before forces that we cannot control or even understand. But that is our lot. Fortunately, we have allies among the beneficent gods. But not all gods are beneficent!"

"No, Srea," said Sre Lugu, sighing.

"A maleficent god can appear to be beneficent. And gods are also not beyond using flattery and other methods of manipulation, whatever they may say. They can outmaneuver you intellectually, and produce what appears to you to be a conclusive proof of something which is actually false. Many theologians believe that they are not beyond reaching right into your mind to distort your judgment."

"But then," said Iliriana, speaking with great difficulty, as though she had no breath, " _how do we know that the Holy Family is not maleficent?_ "

Srea Kula looked at her, frozen for several breaths by shock and dismay. Then he said, "Well, ... well, in a way we don't. I mean, that we have no absolute proof either way, and we can never have such a proof. Since maleficent gods can deceive us, it is possible that we have everything backwards. It is even possible, I suppose, that there are no gods at all. That is part of the mortal condition: we can never be absolutely certain of anything. That does not mean that every belief is equally rational. As I said, our long experience with the Holy Family gives us good evidence that they are beneficent. To be sure, there are limits to the help they give; but even that has an explanation: they want to leave us the ability to accomplish things on our own."

Iliriana and Sre Lugu said nothing; they looked thoughtfully at the ground. Srea Kula waited. After awhile, Sre Lugu said, still looking down, "I think I should have a soul search, Srea Gala."

"And I, too," said Iliriana, in a girlish voice.

"Very well," said Srea Kula, nodding, "better safe than sorry, after all. I will arrange for a child-sitter, and we can then go down to an inner sanctum." He was very worried about what they might find.
**********

"Corruption collapses."

(Hi'a Folk Saying)

Hunselig was ushered into the CEO's office by a protector; there were two protectors already in the office.

"May the blessings of Sharilune be upon you, Precious Brother Hunselig," said the CEO, standing.

"May the blessings of Sharilune be also upon you, Your Opulence," replied Hunselig, kneeling briefly. In accord with ritual, each of them handed a 20-carat emerald to the other.

"Please sit down," said the CEO, seating himself.

"Thank you," said Hunselig, seating himself in a soft and perfumed Late Trisling Plutocracy chair. How strange, he thought, a few days ago, I would have felt deeply honored to be sitting in such a chair. Today, its artistic and functional beauty is just a distraction.

"Please speak your mind, Precious Brother," said the CEO. He wore the usual CEO's hauberk, formed of diamonds linked by spidersilk threads. It had many different kind of links, arranged so that it made an intricate, gleaming geometrical design that shifted as he moved. _Another distraction_. The room was filled with them, including the protectors in their sculpted armor.

"I'm sorry to take your time, Priceless Leader," said Hunselig. "Naturally, I took my concerns first to my Confessor, but the results were ... unsatisfying. I'm grateful that you took the time to speak to me."

"It is my pleasure," said the CEO, smiling. "What can I do for you?"

Taking a deep breath, Hunselig launched into his prepared statement. "Ever since the destruction of the Albiajan cathedral," said Hunselig, "I have been disturbed at the reaction of the great majority of my colleagues. I have always thought that members of the Apostolic Church of Sharilune should be _civilized_. How can an uncivilized man appreciate the masterpieces of civilization? I have also believed that Sharilune exists for the comfort, pleasure, and refinement of human beings, not for their destruction."

The CEO nodded gravely in agreement. His face was symmetrical and well-lined. He was paying close attention, but his demeanor was otherwise fairly impassive.

"But many of my colleagues seem to be thrown off balance by recent events," continued Hunselig. "They seem to be taken by ... _blood lust_. Although I have never known them to say so to an outsider, in their conversations they often display satisfaction at the destruction of the Albiajan cathedral, and to look forward to other atrocities of the same kind. And they frequently slander your Priceless Self, and other Church leadership."

"How so?" asked the CEO, his eyebrows raising a bit.

"Well, they ... I'm sorry, Priceless Leader, I am just repeating ... "

"I understand," said the CEO, with a little nod. "No offense will be taken."

"Well, most of them seem quite certain that you, and of course the other Guardians of the Church, in fact _ordered_ the destruction. Of course, I know that is not so, and that you have repeatedly condemned the act, but this is what they clearly believe, and they are even shocked that I do not agree."

"Ah," said the CEO, nodding sadly, "I can see why you are upset, and I'm afraid I know only too well what you mean. I have heard that there is a great deal of such sentiment among the congregation. It is an embarrassment to me and to the Church. But, please proceed with your story."

"I went to my Confessor, and told him all this. He agreed that it was unfortunate, but he advised me to ignore it, on the grounds that it was a superficial overreaction that would soon pass. That only disturbed me more. Worse yet, soon after my confession, some of the colleagues I mentioned became extremely hostile toward me, often being verbally abusive, and sometimes making what appeared to be veiled threats of violence. I had to lock my office door in order to work. It appeared that my Confessor had revealed what I had said to him."

The CEO gave a start. "That would be atrocious!" he said. "Tell me your Confessor's name, and I will have him investigated immediately!"

"His name is Gorigry Hinalpigen, Priceless Leader. Profoundly disturbed, I contacted my Inquisitioner, Deacon Vlaminer Krivig. I said that there was rampant heresy in the Church, and asked why I saw no signs of anything being done about it.

"He agreed that there was a serious problem, and assured me that they were working on it. He recommended that I go on retreat, since the heretics involved were dangerous. This was, of course, a totally different story from the one I had received from my Confessor. I thanked Krivig for his concern, but expressed my intention to remain, in order to investigate the matter further.

"That very afternoon, during Private Reverie, I was attacked by two masked men with clubs. They were undisciplined thugs, and I was able to disable them both fairly easily. Removing their masks, I discovered to my horror that one of them was Deacon Krivig himself. The other turned out to be a clerk from Indulgences, Olyer Karabindig."

"Excuse me," said the CEO, looking disturbed. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but those are extraordinary charges – can you prove them?"

"I can indeed," said Hunselig. "Since my attackers were unconscious, I took the liberty of removing a tooth from each of them, as well as personal papers. Since I no longer trusted the Inquisition, I had set the Magic Mirror in my office to record everything that happened there. It captured the entire incident, and I have made several copies of the recording. All these bits of evidence are now safe in various other hands, as part of a deposition made by me in the presence of two telepathic notaries. But let me get on with my story, if I may." The CEO looked shocked and confused. Without waiting for permission, Hunselig continued:

"I immediately made arrangements for my family and household staff to be removed from the area, under the guard of a certain number of mercenaries, and I alerted numerous friends, relatives, and associates, mostly outside the Church, to the situation, leaving various items of evidence with them. Also, I took out a number of time-delayed contracts, level 6, at the Cathedral of the Assassins. I intend to nullify them later, but of course, if something untoward happens to me, I will be unable to do so.

"I then came here to see you, Priceless Leader. I believe you can now understand why I didn't feel that I had the luxury of making an appointment."

The CEO was silent for a moment, looking very grave. "It is indeed a shocking tale you tell," he said, "and I appreciate the dedication to Sharilune, and to the Church, that it reveals. We do indeed have profound problems within the Church. I am trying to deal with them, but it is not easy, for as you have seen, the corruption has spread far and wide. If I make one slip, I am in danger of a hostile takeover.

"Now, you have behaved in an exemplary fashion, but I am concerned for your safety, in spite of the precautions that you have taken. I think it will be best if I put you under the protection of some of my most loyal friends."

"I appreciate that," said Hunselig, "but I am more interested in continuing to investigate this matter, and pressing for action against these heretics."

"I really do appreciate your dedication," said the CEO, warmly, "and I too would like to see something done. There are, however, two important further considerations that occur to me. The first is, that these people are entitled to due process, even though they are heretics. I will see to it that they are apprehended, but I will need all the evidence you have collected to be turned over to the Inquisition, so that it can be used in the trial."

"I was hoping that my deposition would be enough," said Hunselig, "since I no longer trust the Inquisition. It would be a pity if the evidence were to disappear in their hands, or become somehow altered."

"You certainly have grounds for concern," said the CEO soothingly, "but it would be good to demonstrate that the Church itself can and will punish this sort of thing. To resort to vigilante justice would be to say to the world that the Church has completely lost the ability to police itself, and what could offer more encouragement to heresy than that?"

"What sort of punishment do you think they are likely to receive," said Hunselig, "a stiff fine, perhaps?"

The CEO frowned. "Let us hope that it will be more substantial than that," he said, his tone showing a trace of irritation, "but I'm sure that you understand that due process makes it impossible for me to guarantee any particular verdict in advance. The second consideration is that, as I just suggested, we must take into account the image of the Church in all this. To be sure, image is less important than substance; but image _contributes_ to substance. The more the Church _appears_ to have been corrupted by these heretics, the higher their morale will rise, and the more fearful people will be of opposing them. I think it would be best, therefore, to keep a low profile in these matters, and to allow the Inquisition to pursue its ends quietly, in spite of the risks of doing so."

A pleasant sound, like a faraway chorus, emerged from an exotic seashell on the CEO's desk. "Excuse me," said the CEO, "it must be very important, if my Secretary allowed it to come through."

"Please," said Hunselig, nodding affably. _That's probably the Inquisition_ , he thought, _announcing that they are here and ready to arrest me._

The CEO lifted the shell and began to speak, but Hunselig could not hear what he was saying, because there was a sound-dampening spell around it. The CEO's expression was unreadable.

Hunselig took a few moments to look around the office. He noticed that, in spite of their professional, impassive expressions, the three Protectors looked rather tense. He made eye-contact with the one who appeared to have the highest rank. "Good day to you, Honored Protector," he said.

The Protector was a little startled; normally, Protectors were not spoken to, outside of their professional role. But he replied, "Good day to you, Learned Evaluator."

"My name is Hunselig; may I have yours?"

"Captain Wilya Tsonerig, at your service!" replied the protector, his eyes fixed on Hunselig's.

"Forgive me for inquiring," said Hunselig, "but where did you get your commission from?"

The protector immediately came to attention, and said, smartly, "Karishnula Academy, five years ago."

"That is a renowned school," said Hunselig, bowing his head briefly. "I am honored by your presence. My uncle is a graduate from there. I have always admired their motto, ' _Tarrabekh Karz Agristula_ ;' that is, ' _Death before dishonor!_ ' A motto for brave and true men!"

Little spasms flickered over the face of the Protector. It was the face of a man undergoing a series of varied and strong emotions, and struggling to show none of them. Hunselig also noticed a similar disturbance in the other two. He continued:

"You know, of course, the story of Kathildi, who, to demonstrate his immense respect for the Academy and its ideals, inflicted on himself the initiation wound."

"Of course," said Tsonerig, his eyebrows raising a bit.

"Would you be so kind," said Hunselig, "as to lend me your _Shiliarr_ for a moment?"

Tsonerig, his eyes widening, hesitated.

"Of course, feel free to draw your _Eliskar_ first, if you wish."

After another moment's pause, Tsonerig said, in a quiet voice, "No, that won't be necessary." His hand went to the small of his back, and reappeared holding a steel stiletto with a two-inch, serrated blade.

"I'm sorry about that," said the CEO, who had just finished his call. "Say, what's going on?" _Only a few moments left_ , thought Hunselig.

"We'll be with you in a moment," he said. Tsonerig kissed the handle of the _Shiliarr_ and handed it to Hunselig, who also kissed it. Then Hunselig pushed down the top of his trousers, and, without a moment's hesitation, plunged the _Shiliarr_ straight into his abdomen, directly below the navel. A jolt like a cracking whip went through his entire body, but he subdued it. Extending both arms straight out from the shoulder, palms up, and turning his face upwards, he said, " _Tarrabekh Karz Agristula_!" in a loud voice. Then, plucking the bloody blade out of himself, he hurled it at a nearby wall. It stuck, humming for a moment.

The three protectors each went down on one knee, and they and Hunselig shouted in one voice, " _Tarrabekh Karz Agristula_!"

The CEO was aghast and confused.

Standing again, Tsonerig stood by Hunselig's side and said, addressing the CEO, "This man is under our protection."

"But," said the CEO, " _I_ am your _employer_!"

It was the wrong thing to say. Tsonerig drew his _Eliskar_ , a two-foot steel blade, gleaming, double-edged, razor sharp, and pointed. "Your _money_ will be trebled and returned to you," he said, in a tone of contempt.

The CEO reached for his teleshell, only to feel the point of Tsonerig's _Eliskar_ at his throat. He drew his hand back and settled slowly into his chair, keeping his open hands in clear view. The _Eliskar_ followed him. One of the other protectors reinforced the door with a priceless chair from the Late Opliviune Junta period, wedging it under the handle.

"I don't understand," said the CEO, quivering. "What is this all about?"

"This man of honor," said Tsonerig, gesturing at Hunselig, "has been betrayed by your Church. Were you about to betray him yet again?"

"Of course not! I want to help him!" said the CEO.

"You have a recording of your last teleshell conversation," said Tsonerig. "Please be so kind as to play it back for us!"

The CEO's eyes widened. "It concerned a confidential matter!"

"We won't say a word," said Tsonerig. " _Play it!_ " The razor edge of his _Eliskar_ touched the CEO's neck.

The CEO made some futile oscillating gestures. Then he turned his gaze upward and cried, "Divine Sharilune! Help me! Please!"

A wind blew in from nowhere, and the room was suddenly saturated with golden light. Near the far wall, the form of a woman began to appear. It was Sharilune, her face divinely beautiful. Her entire form, wrapped in a gown of breathtaking loveliness, was divinely beautiful as well, except for one thing: just below where her navel would be, blood trickled from an open wound.
**********

"Evil pulls goodness down to its own level (almost)."

(from _Sociodynamics of Sin_ , by Mitotr Kerzumpkin)

Boss Wolverine Jaw and her assistants saw to it that the supper dishes were washed and stacked neatly in cupboards that they had provided. Then, as 1080 watched in despair, they exited the tent, promising not to return until morning. People started looking for places to put their bedrolls, but almost immediately, they were interrupted by the two goons, shouting and beating on pots at the center of the tent.

"Your attention, lizards!" yelled the grey-skinned one, 211. "Important announcement coming up!" When everyone had turned to face him, he continued: "All right, folks, every group needs leadership. Me and my friend 293, here, are going to supply this. I hope none of you has a problem with that." He looked around, with raised eyebrows over a smile of amusement. No one objected. "All right," he continued, "let's hear it: who are the bosses around here?"

"You are," muttered a few people.

"Let's _hear_ it, everybody," said 211, raising his voice.

" _You are!"_ they shouted.

" _Louder!"_ shouted 211.

" _YOU ARE!!!"_ they shouted, even louder than before.

"All right," said 211, "that's going to be the most important single fact in your lives from now on, understand? Now, here is the second most important fact: anyone who disobeys us is _maggot food_. Did you get that?" There was a murmur of assent from the crowd. "What is anyone who disobeys us?" asked 211. "Maggot food!" said several people. "When I ask you _all_ a question," said 211, "I want to hear you _all_ answer. What is anyone who disobeys us?"

" _Maggot food!"_ shouted everyone.

"Much better!" said 211. "Now, everybody lie down." Everybody did. "That was pretty good," said 211, "but it was slow. From now on, when I tell you to do something, I want you to do it _fast_. Everybody get up!"

Everybody got up. It made 1080 dizzy and nauseous to get up. " _You_ there!" said 211. "Do you call that _fast_?" For a moment, 1080 was certain that 211 was addressing him, and he started to formulate an excuse. Then he noticed that it was 480, the old man, who was being challenged.

"I'm sorry," said 480. "I'm old and stiff. I got up as fast as I could." He was quaking with fear.

"We don't need _weaklings_ here," said 211, glowering at him. "I suggest you develop some _will power_ , old man! Mind over body! Let's hear it, everyone! _Mind over body!_ "

" _Mind over body!"_ they all shouted.

"Good!" said the goon. "Now, lie down again, _fast!_ " They all lay down. "Now get up!" Everyone got up quickly. Someone helped the old man.

"Hold on there," said 211. "Who helped him?"

No one spoke. "When I ask a question, I want an answer!" said the goon. "Now, _who helped him?_ "

A number of people pointed to 301, a middle-aged woman. "Yes, I helped him," she said desperately. "I'm sorry if that bothered you." 211 nodded at his fellow goon, and the two of them went over to her. She cringed and took a couple of steps backwards. "Don't you _retreat_ from me," said 211, threateningly. "Come and stand _exactly_ where you were before." As if moving through molasses, she stepped right up to him, trembling like a birch leaf in the wind.

"Now, listen carefully, everyone," said 211, bending over her, " _never_ fail to answer our questions, and _never_ keep information that we want from us. That would be really _stupid_ of you!" Straightening his right hand, he casually gave the woman a quick jab to the solar plexus. She doubled over, staggered backwards, and fell. Her eyes widened in terror as she found herself unable to breathe.

The two goons returned to their central location. Suddenly the woman was able to breathe again. Her shuddering, desperate gasping filled the silence.

211 made everyone lie down and get up again, 11 more times.

"Good!" said, 211. "Now, here's one for you to figure out. If you know that someone is keeping something from us, or trying to get around us, and you don't tell us about it right away, what are you?"

"Maggot food!" said someone.

"Let's _hear_ it," said 211, putting his hand to his ear and scowling.

" _Maggot food!"_ yelled everyone.

"Good!" said 211, laughing. "Now, here's another thing: since our job is to be leaders, we don't have to do any of the other work. Does anyone have a problem with that?" He cupped his hand to his ear.

" _No!"_ shouted everyone.

"Good" said 211, "you lizards are very smart! You will live long! Now, here's another thing: _all the women in this group belong to us_. Understand?" He cupped his hand to his ear.

" _Yes!"_ shouted everyone.

"Good!" said 211. "You, come here!" He pointed to 987, the woman 1080 had worked and plotted with.

Hesitating for a moment, she stepped up to him. She was shaking, and tears were running down her cheeks. "Take off your clothes!" said the goon. Hesitating briefly, she began to comply. _He's picking her out because she was the first to start working,_ thought 1080, _He thinks she's a leader, and therefore a threat._ A frightening thought occurred to him: _She may try to buy her way out by telling about our plot! She will denounce me!_ His intelligence told him that she couldn't do that without implicating herself, but that gave him little comfort. He slowly reached into his pocket and found the stone that he had picked up when he was outside.

987 was now naked. "Is she a man, or a woman?" called out 211, cupping his hand to his ear. _"Woman!"_ shouted everyone. "Who does she belong to?"

"You!"

"Yes, indeed!" said 211, grinning. Both goons started to remove their trousers. "We are now going to demonstrate that. Do I hear any objections?"

No one made a sound.

_I'm crazy_ , thought 1080. He pitched the stone high; it sailed over everyone's heads to the other side of the tent. "Hey!" yelled someone, from where it fell.

The two goons spun around to look in that direction. "Who said that?" demanded 211.

1080 bent over and extracted the mattock that he had smuggled in earlier, wrapped in his bedroll. As he straightened up, part of him screamed at the rest of him, _Stop! Stop, you idiot! This is suicide! It's not too late to stop!_ But he didn't stop. He began to weave his way through the people in front of him. _You fool, you fool! Well, it's too late to stop now! Go for it!_

"I did," said the same voice that had said, "Hey!"

1080 raised the mattock over his head as he ran. He struggled to keep his breathing quiet, and to run without making noise. Those he ran past looked horrified, but they did not react fast enough to stop him.

"Somebody hit me with a stone!" said the voice from the other side.

1080 emerged from the crowd. Fear struck him. _It's too late for fear, you fool!_ said the inner voice. The goons were still looking the other way. He raised and swung the mattock. With a solid _"chunk!"_ it embedded itself in the skull of 211. The skull cracked like a coconut. 1080 felt tiny spatters of blood all over his face and arms. Blood began to well out of the cracks in 211's head.

211 began to fall, taking the mattock with him. 1080 tried to get the mattock loose. He couldn't. It was stuck in 211's head. The other goon, 293, began to turn. 1080 let go of the mattock in order to avoid being pulled off-balance. 293's eyes focused on him. They widened. _Now I'm dead_ , thought 1080. Still turning, 293 reached out to grab him. His spreading fingers were like the roots of trees. 1080 tried to lean away, but his body seemed frozen. 293's face was working its way into a snarl. Closer and closer, came the huge hands. Only a handwidth away. _So it all comes to this,_ thought 1080 sadly.

Behind 293's head appeared a pair of small hands clasped together. The goon's left hand circled 1080's arm. The corners of 293's mouth began to turn upward toward a smile of triumph. The small hands behind him moved towards the back of 293's neck. 293's left hand began to squeeze 1080's arm like a vise. 293's other hand was homing in on 1080's neck. 1080 tried desperately to move. The small hands made contact with the back of 293's neck. _I can't move_ , thought 1080, _it's like a nightmare!_ 293's right thumb touched 1080's windpipe. 293's head began to jerk upward and back. His smile began to transform itself into a wince. His right forefinger touched the other side of 1080's neck. 293's eyes began to squint and close. His right hand began to squeeze 1080's windpipe. 1080's breathing began to rattle. 1080 realized that his legs were finally moving. Horrible pain erupted in his windpipe. He could barely inhale. The goon's grip began to weaken. His upper lip crawled upwards in a grimace of pain. His posture began to collapse. His head continued to bend backwards. 1080 felt the grip on his windpipe relax. He felt his windpipe begin to return to its former shape. He began to breathe freely.

He noticed that the crowd had come closer. They were converging on him. No; they were converging on the goon, 293. As 293 collapsed, the small hands were left behind. 1080 could see that they were the hands of a small, naked woman; they were 987's hands. Someone in the crowd began to pass in front of 1080, who realized that he was beginning to fall over backwards. 987's face was squeezed into a grimace of effort. Her feet were off the ground. She had rabbit-punched 293 with everything she had. The goon began to fall backward. 987 also began to fall. Many hands reached out for the goon. 1080 found himself looking at the ceiling. There was something chaotic going on; it was familiar, but he couldn't quite identify it. He felt his upper back strike the ground, and then his head. Somebody stepped on him. He saw whirling stars. He was afraid; he curled up. He put his arms over his head. He whimpered. He closed his eyes. He didn't want to be there; he willed himself to be somewhere else. He realized what the chaotic something was: it was yelling. And a scream. He felt hands grabbing him, pulling on him. He screamed. The hands pulled him to his feet. He waited for the death blow. It didn't come.

The yelling turned into cheering. Suddenly, time seemed to speed up, and the dreamlike feeling gave way to wide-awake reality. Both goons were dead and bloody. People were cheering him, slapping him on the back, thanking him. _I'm a hero!_ he thought, dopily. People were hugging him. _I'm a hero_ , he thought again, warming to the situation. _This is great! Maybe I can become the boss now!_ He looked over at 987. She was looking at him. She was smiling, a tiny grim smile, but he also saw a glint of suspicion in her eye. _I'd better be careful_ , he thought, _I'd better take my time, not push too hard._

**

Boss Wolverine Jaw was relieved from her shift. Weary but smiling, she made her way to a large tent and went inside. Many Angels were entering, and many were already there. Boss Wolverine Jaw took a large wicker basket from a stack. She removed her weapons, her armor, her amulets, her bone earrings, her hair clasps, and her clothes, placing them all in the basket. Her hair fell down around her shoulders.

Most of the tent was a huge bathing pool, full of naked Angels. She picked up a washcloth from a basket, and descended some steps into the water. How good it felt! She immersed herself completely. The water was soapy. She washed off her fake tattoos and scarification, and her body paint. The she began to work on the day's grime and sweat. Someone washed her back, and she did the same for him. She climbed out, tossing her cloth into one basket, and taking a towel from another. She dried herself, tossed the towel into a hamper, and donned a white robe from a stack.

She looked quite different; not fearful or barbaric at all. Her face and posture had become relaxed, her expression kind and gentle. The same was true of the other Angels, as they emerged from the baptism. Taking up her basket and exiting the bathing tent, she went down a row of smaller tents, eventually stopping and entering one. Inside was a man, also dressed in a white robe. He was seated on the floor, playing a lute. He smiled to see her. "Darling!" he said, happily, putting down his lute. His face was soft and sensitive. They embraced for a long moment. Then they sat together, leaning against each other.

"How was your group?" he asked.

"Very good!" she replied. "They've already had their first revolution!"

"That's wonderful," he said.

"Yes," she added, "I've got at least two people who have both brains and guts. I gave one of them a little nudge, and that did it! How is yours?"

"Not as good," he said. "They are going to have to suffer for awhile, I'm afraid. They've got themselves an alpha male who is very tough and very shrewd."

"That's too bad," she said, patting him.

"Well, most of them start out like that. They will learn."

They looked into each other's eyes, smiling. Then they shared a gentle kiss. "We are so lucky," he said.

"I know," she said. "It's hard to believe that we were like them, just two years ago!" They looked into each other's eyes, wordlessly, for a long time, glowing with joy.
**********

"Devotion makes the ego strong."

( _The Psychodynamics of Grace_ , Anonymous)

Like many Kelosian monks, Brother Koof knew the art of converting heat into usable mana. With permission and help from Darestigan, Koof got a roaring fire going in a fireplace in the guesthouse. Seating himself naked before it, as close as he could endure, he closed his eyes and put his consciousness into the skin that was being heated. Next, he became aware of the flow of blood into, through, and out of that skin. He visualized the warm blood cooling itself by generating a subtle substance, which Kelosian alchemists called "Moksi." Properly done by a biofeedback-trained practitioner, this visualization actually caused Moksi to form, using the heat of the fire to drive the reaction. This Moksi could later be broken down, giving off mana in the process. Gradually, Koof built up a good supply of Moksi in his blood. Then he doused the fire.

Making himself invisible, Koof left the compound, nodding to Darestigan (who was apparently immune to invisibility spells) as he left. It was several hours past midnight. Jogging, he came to the periphery of the neighborhood, which in that area was a wall called "Selirian's Wall." It was about fifteen feet tall, and patrolled by Angels. Waiting for a gap between sentries, and being careful to verify that there were no wizards in the immediate area, Koof converted some of his Moksi to mana, and quickly leapt to the top of the wall and down the other side. Jogging and occasionally hitching rides on passing vehicles, he made his way to the edge of an affluent neighborhood known as "Wargold Woods."

The inhabitants of Wargold Woods knew well that their possessions were coveted by others, and they spent a great deal on security systems. The first challenge to any intruder was the wall. It was not very high, and the sharpened stakes at the top would not deter anyone but the rankest amateur, but the magical defense behind it was something else altogether. After examining it carefully, Brother Koof decided that its yearly cost of maintenance was about enough to feed several hundred children for a year.

After the first wall was a second, and in between them was a space of about two manlengths. Between the two walls, the ground was carpeted with wasps, varying in length from about a quarter of an inch to about three inches. Koof was familiar with this sort of wasp. They were often used in security systems. Usually, they would be in hibernation, waking only once or twice a month for feeding, grooming, and a bit of exercise. Any unusual conditions, however, would cause them all to waken in a fury. They had been bred not to go outside the walls (and indeed, there was a spell set to destroy any wasp flying over a wall), but within the walls they would vent their fury on any object that did not match their understanding of what belonged there.

Each wasp was a unit in itself, so there was no central control to be tampered with. The wasps had been given extraordinary sensory capabilities; even the most sophisticated invisibility spell might fail against opponents who could smell sweat, hear the softest footfall or breathing – or even a beating heart – and detect mammalian heat and the humidity of exhaled breath. The wasps were immunized against psychological invisibility spells, such as Koof had used to protect the wains against the Angels. The wasps had also been given magical protection against various forms of attack, including various magical attacks. Even if a would-be intruder killed them all in a certain area, others would fly in from adjacent areas – presumably, the system extended all the way around the neighborhood. Besides, the use of such a major weapon would no doubt also set off alarms, bringing the security staff running. 'Not bad,' thought Koof.

In the hopes of finding an easier way to enter, Koof crossed the street and made his way toward the official neighborhood entrance. He stayed away from the wall, because he knew that security engineers often set up hidden magic lanterns, which would turn on suddenly at random intervals, canceling out invisibility spells. At the gate itself, there were several such lanterns permanently turned on, a platoon of mercenaries, a telepath, and a wizard. Koof saw no hope of entry that way.

Walking back around the periphery, Koof eventually came to a walled-in graveyard belonging to one of the adjoining neighborhoods. It was closed and locked for the night. He vaulted inside. A careful examination convinced him that there was no one else there. Finding an out-of-the way place, he lay in it. He noticed an owl perched in a nearby tree, and he made a mind exchange with it. He also transferred as much Moksi as the owl's circulatory system could hold. Then he took flight.

Brother Koof loved to fly, and he was always happy when his work gave him an excuse to do so. For a few moments, he allowed himself to swoop and glide for the sheer joy of it. He loved the feel of the air flowing over his feathers. He loved to dive at the ground, watch it come closer and closer, and then, at the last moment, pull out and soar again. He also loved to catch mice and eat them – though only when he was a bird of prey.

But time was short; the mind exchange would only last for forty hundredbreaths. Koof beat his way to a great height, and crossed over into the Wargold Woods neighborhood. He made a slow helical descent, on the alert for alarms. He managed to avoid them all.

He was in! He settled on a high branch to rest. Now it was the _private_ security systems that he had to worry about. Taking off again, he sought the part of the neighborhood with the biggest houses and the biggest lots. He soon found it. Clearly, the owners of these houses had the income to feed _thousands_ of children, but they preferred to spend their money on various recreational and prestige-conferring items. Thinking about this made Koof angry; lighting on an exotic tree, he paused to calm down. As a Kelosian monk, he was not supposed to harbor any negative feelings toward rich people; he was only supposed to transfer their wealth to the poor. He often found it difficult, however, to be dispassionate in this way. He knew that every day, these people bought useless luxuries with enough money to save hundreds of lives through medical interventions, and that they knew very well that this was the case, although they rarely paused to reflect on it. To be sure, many of them gave to charities, but not enough to feed all the hungry. Besides, at least some of them knew quite well that giving handouts was, in the long run, a self-defeating way to fight poverty. Yet they continued with their superficial lives, buying useless things mainly to impress others. Koof, who had come from a poor family himself, found it difficult not to be enraged at such people.

He didn't have a lot of time to calm down in, for in a very short time, he would return to his original body, whether he wanted to or not; so he just took a few deep breaths and relaxed as much as he could in that time, directing his mind to the task at hand. Then he took to the air again. Flying around, he finally spotted a house with an upstairs light on. Perching on a gutter, he looked in the window. There was a man sitting inside, staring out the window. He looked very distraught. _All your wealth doesn't even make you happy_ , thought Koof, _yet you still will not give any to those whose lives it might save._

It wouldn't do to make a mind exchange with this man; who knows what he would do when he found himself in the body of an owl? He probably wouldn't even understand what was happening to him; he might panic, thrash around, fall, and break a wing. Then, Koof remembered that birds can sleep while perched. He set the owl to fall asleep one breath later, and made the mind exchange.

It worked! He found himself seated in the chair, while the owl settled into sleep outside. As always, he had to fight for a moment to sort out his own memories and feelings from those of the man he had displaced. After doing a hasty job of this, he got up from the chair, searching his host's mind for memories of small, valuable objects. His wife's jewels! There was a whole box of them on her bureau. At the thought of the man's wife, Koof realized that she had to do with the source of his misery, somehow _. Well, that is no business of mine,_ he thought _. Very soon, I'll be out of here!_ And yet, he couldn't help feeling compassion for the man, who, Koof could 'remember,' had been suffering deeply. Koof couldn't altogether insulate himself from the man's misery, either; he felt the anguish himself. If he had had more time, he could have strengthened his emotional firewalls, but he decided just to endure it.

He found the wife's bedroom and let himself in. There were various alarms, but they all thought that he was the man of the house. The wife was apparently asleep, her face away from him. Koof walked stealthily over to her dresser, and found and opened the jewel-box. Picking over the contents hurriedly, he selected a slender necklace of emeralds and rubies.

"Karnak! What are you doing?"

He spun around, to see the wife awake, up on one elbow.

Her face was beautiful. Seeing it, he was drenched in memories, overwhelmed by love and grief. What _was_ he doing? "I don't know, Darling," he said, puzzled. "I was sitting in the study, and now, ..." He shook his head, feeling very strange. Why had he been going through his wife's jewel box? Something inside him was saying, _No! I am Koof! I should cast a sleep spell on her!_ Who in Honggur's Hell was Koof? The name meant nothing to him. With an irritated shake of his head, he banished the thought.
**********

"Sailing down the river of life,

We look at our reflections,

Distorted by the ripples from

A thousand situations."

(from the musical revue, _Going with the Flow_ )

The raft, with the grieving Kor and two Zillist wanderers on it, left the neighborhood of the rich behind. On the shore, houses gradually became more and more closely packed. Trees and grass became rare. Their river joined with another, wider river. Eventually, they approached an area of jetties and docks. Boats of various types and sizes came and went, were loaded and unloaded. Pleasure boats, commercial boats, floating temples, and a few police and military craft.

Zaliadin poled the boat up to a small length of public beach. There they disembarked, leaving the raft in the care of a young Zillist wanderer who had been waiting for them. They walked through a neighborhood of warehouses and pleasure vendors, arriving, as evening drew its curtain, at a small park. Therein a few tents had been set up, and a small campfire was burning. This was where they were to spend the night.

After being directed to a particular tent, Kor immediately took off her backpack, lay down, and went to sleep on one of the futons that she found inside. Later, she was vaguely aware of someone putting a blanket over her.

In the morning, it was chilly and drizzling. There were two other futons in the tent, but they were not occupied. She heard chanting, but it was not the chant that she and Zaliadin had done. Kor could not make out the words. She decided to remain in bed, but she was hungry, and so she opened her backpack, extracted some food, and ate it. Then she dozed off again. She had a long nightmare about searching for Zar, feeling that she had lost her through her own inexcusable inattention. Her guilt was agonizing. Sometimes she would hear Zar crying, or receive some other clue as to her location, and hunt desperately, but she was never able to get to her.

When she woke, she still thought she was looking for Zar. She tossed off her blanket and looked around desperately. "Zar!" she called. Then she saw that Zaliadin was sitting in the tent, looking concerned, and began to suspect that she had been dreaming. She knelt there with her hand on her head, trying to orient herself.

"Are you all right, Kor?" asked Zaliadin. She was wearing a conical rain hat, with a poncho of raw wool.

"Iz zizh – I mean – are yuh – are we loo'ing for Zhar?" she asked.

"No, Kor," said Zaliadin, with a look of understanding and sympathy, "I think you've been dreaming. You are waking up now. I am Zaliadin, a Zillist wanderer, a friend of Paridazor's. You remember us? Yes. Paridazor and I are taking you to Madame Caramami's today. If we had the faintest idea of where Zar was, we would go and help you search for her, but we do not. I'm terribly sorry, Kor."

Kor began to weep. It had been better to feel near to Zar, to have heard her cry, to have been sure that she was alive, to have felt hope, even though that hope had been systematically frustrated. Zaliadin gave Kor's shoulder a little squeeze. After awhile, Kor settled down a bit.

"Umm, ... need to go to ... baffrm," she muttered, still partly asleep.

"Of course!" said Zaliadin. "If you go some distance into the grove behind the tents, you will find a latrine. Here, borrow this hat!" Zaliadin gave Kor the hat she had been wearing. Its broad brim was almost as large as an umbrella, and it had flaps hanging down at the sides and in back.

Kor was much more wakeful when she returned, though not by any means energetic. "Ah, Zaliadin, ... what do we do now?"

"We are only a few hours' walk from your destination," replied Zaliadin. "We could start immediately, if you like. But Sindariden is here, and he would like to say hello, if you are willing."

Kor hardly knew Sindariden, and she did not feel at all social, but out of politeness she agreed. "I'll get him," said Zaliadin, exiting the tent. In a moment or two, Kor heard Sindariden say, "May I enter?" _I actually remember his voice_ , she thought, _after all these years!_

"Yes, please," she said, sitting up. Sindariden entered. He was dressed in a rainhat and a poncho like Zaliadin's. As before, Kor was impressed by the force of his personality, even though he made no special gestures or facial expressions. In fact, if anything, his impressiveness lay in the complete and childlike absence of any posturing, or deliberate drama, in any of his expressions or motions. Completely lacking in self-consciousness, he was like a wisp of cloud, drifting across the sky.

"Hello, Kor," he said. He smiled a smile of commiseration and encouragement. "Do you remember me?" he asked.

"Uh, yes," said Kor. She had a vague feeling that it would be polite to say something like, 'Of course I do! Who could forget your wonderful (whatever),' but in her depressed state she had neither the energy nor the inclination to do so.

"I heard about your loss," he said. "You must be in great pain."

Kor nodded. _Of course I'm in pain_ , she thought, _I hope you aren't going to lecture me about it._

"You loved your child very deeply," said Sindariden, gently.

_Please_ , thought Kor, _Don't tell me this will pass! Don't tell me that someday, I will dance and laugh, even though I don't know whether Zar is dead or alive! If that is true, then life is too horrible for words!_ Out loud she said, "Thank you." She had to admit that there was something about Sindariden's presence that was calming, but she felt a little guilty about that, as though she were trying to get away without her fair share of suffering, or as though the attenuation of her suffering showed that she didn't love Zar as deeply as she should have.

"I have heard," said Sindariden, "that Madame Caramami is well and happy, although the neighborhood has deteriorated quite a lot. I am sure that she will be happy to see you, although of course she will be deeply grieved at your loss."

Kor felt dizzy, and lay down. "I din know you ... knew ... her," she said, weakly.

"I didn't, when you and I first met," said Sindariden, "but since then, I have had the pleasure of making her acquaintance, and we have spoken together several times. A remarkable woman she is!"

_Yes, she is_ , thought Kor, but she didn't have the energy to say it; instead, she made an infinitesimal nod of the head.

"I also spoke to that fellow Talek again," said Sindariden. "He asked after you."

"Did?" Kor was surprised, but neither that feeling nor any other could gain any intensity in the fog of numbness that filled her mind and heart.

"Yes, but all I could do was to refer him to Madame Caramami," replied Sindariden.

"I ... never 'eard fr'im," said Kor.

"I expect you will meet him again," said Sindariden, "but now, I can see that you are terribly tired, and so I won't stay any longer. But it was nice to see you again, Kor."

Kor gave a warped smile, politely intended but botched in execution. Sindariden smiled in return, and began to exit the tent. At the last moment, he looked over his shoulder and said, "You know, Kor, often great truths can be found in grief." Then he left.

_Yes_ , thought Kor, _I realize how totally stupid everything is._

A few swings of a donkey's tail later, Paridazor called, "May I come in?" Kor grunted affirmatively, and he entered. He, too, was wearing a hat and poncho. "Zaliadin and Sindariden both say you look very tired and weak, Kor," he said, "and I must say I agree. I don't think you should try to walk, so we are going to get some kind of conveyance for you. It may take a little while." Kor nodded and fell back on the bed. She fell asleep. Mercifully, there were no dreams this time.

**

Paridazor and Zaliadin took turns pulling Kor in a rickshaw, and in a few hours they arrived at Madame Caramami's School for Courtesans. While Zaliadin helped Kor down from the seat, Paridazor went inside to alert Madame Caramami to Kor's arrival. Several girls came spilling out; they were all younger friends of Kor's. In spite of her fatigue and depression, Kor felt warmed just to see them, and warmed still more by their evident affection for her. And yet ... they had that odd unfamiliarity that people often acquire when you haven't seen them for a long while, and the warmth Kor felt was smaller than she had imagined – and hoped for. Most of her closest friends were gone, having graduated at the same time as Kor herself.

Then Madame Caramami exploded from the front door. A huge and nearly spherical woman, blessed with boundless energy, she scurried down the walk, crying Kor's name, and proceeded to fuss over her with great intensity, lavishing endearments and consolations upon her. Her round and simple face was red, her hair black. Her long and full robe was made of canvas, thick as a ship's sail, and cinched with a hempen rope. She smelled strongly of kitchen spices. Her eyes were brown, large, and liquid. Around her neck hung a small porcelain icon of a family, the main symbol of the Church of Ingler _i_ a. She spoke with unbroken rapidity, and never seemed to tire. Kor was too fatigued to keep up with her words, much less to get one of her own in edgewise. This made no difference to Madame Caramami, however. Indeed, people who knew Madame knew that it was a waste of time and energy to try to understand everything she said; it would be like memorizing someone's fidgets with the accuracy of a choreographer. When she really wanted something to be remembered, she would slow down.

As Kor was escorted into the school, she thanked Paridazor and Zaliadin, although she just could not muster the strength of gratitude that she knew they deserved. They were not offended, however. They smiled, hugged her gently, said goodbye, bowed, and took their leave. Kor was escorted to a room. With a jolt, she realized that it was not 'her' room, not the room she had occupied as a student. Of course, that was quite reasonable, since 'her' room had no doubt been reassigned, but somehow it seemed wrong. She felt violated, dispossessed. Unconsciously, perhaps, she had been wanting to take up exactly where she had left off, to expunge her stay at the Temple of Ydris from her memory and her life. Now, in spite of her fatigue, she began to wonder how she would fit in – she could not be a student again, after all. Suddenly, the idea of returning seemed stupid – she would be nothing but a burden for Madame Caramami and the school. But she was much too tired to continue these thoughts, too tired for any thoughts at all. Without waiting for Madame Caramami to finish talking – who knows how long that would have been? – Kor removed her outer clothes, stretched out on the bed, and fell asleep
**********

"Selfer, copy thy self!"

(From the _Scriptures_ of the Church of Selfers)

Kragendark was a 'selfer,' a criminal who arranges for his client to take on a new identity. He had great talent for magic; he could have had a very prosperous career as a legitimate magician, if he hadn't made a number of mistakes, in his youth, involving money, women, anger, drugs, lies, politics, religion, and crime. He sat in a small, locked room with his client's go-between, a young female telepath named "Krex." Krex would channel communications from Kragendark's client, who used the pseudonym "Ling." Certain subtle signs told Kragendark that Krex, unknown to herself, was only a simulacrum, doomed to die within a forty hundredbreaths. Her original was probably already dead. Ling didn't want to be traced.

"This is Ling," said Krex, in a voice a little deeper than that with which she had introduced herself, a few moments before.

"Good day, Ling," said Kragendark. "This is 'Self-Employed.'" that was the pseudonym he was using in this job. "Have you decided who you want to be, yet?"

"Yes, I have," replied Ling, speaking through Krex. "I want to be Agulinar Torothex the 21st, Patriarch of the Harmonious Host of Churches."

Kragendark had divined that Ling was strange and ambitious, but this still took him aback. "That will be very difficult to maintain," he warned. "Torothex has hundreds of colleagues and friends, each of whom knows at least one aspect of his life in great detail. He has a huge fund of specialized knowledge, both theoretical and practical. He has a strong, unique, and striking personality, with many special gifts. His job is extremely demanding, and he is an innovator, very creative. To successfully impersonate such a man would be extremely difficult. I can make no guarantees." In fact, Kragendark was certain that it would be impossible, but he wouldn't mind being paid for the attempt.

"I only ask your help with the transfer," replied Ling. "I have learned that on the 11th of Luorai, Torothex will begin a thirteen-day retreat in the Desert of Klinth. I want to make the transfer as soon as he is alone. All his memories are to be left in place. I will provide transportation and security." Ling then proceeded to give Kragendark detailed instructions on how to contact Ling's agents on that day, and how they were to proceed.

"Understood," replied Kragendark, "and I presume that today, two thousand Kostiligars in Ytterbium disks will be deposited in the account we mentioned before."

"My agent has already deposited that amount," replied Ling, "and, as we agreed, you will receive a bonus equal to that, as soon as I can signal my agent that the transfer has succeeded."

"Accepted!" said Kragendark heartily. "Flourish in crime!"

"Flourish in crime!" said Ling. With a start, Krex came to herself.

"Thank you for your help!" said Kragendark, nodding to her as he stood.

"No tangle," she said, with a pallid smile. Then she winced and rubbed her temple. _It often begins with a headache_ , thought Kragendark, heading for the door. He felt a bit of a one, himself.

He was soon on the street. No doubt he was being followed, but he didn't care. As he passed a designated point, he felt his hired telepath, hidden inside a building, enter his mind and get the information from the meeting. It was soon done. _I'm free now,_ he thought _._ He felt sadness, deep and bitter. _Why couldn't I have been the original?_ He turned down an alley, and sat between two crates of trash. He felt a flutter of nausea.

Reaching into an inner pocket, he extracted a small glass vial. _I hope this stuff is good,_ he thought, _They say it is, but how can any living person know?_ Removing the cap, he poured the bitter fluid into his mouth and swallowed it. _How many times have I done this?_ he wondered. The nausea returned, with greater force. His left leg began to shake. He thought he saw someone darting a quick look at him around the corner. _Try to follow me now_ , he thought, with a grim smirk. He felt a curious choral music percolating through him; at first it was chaotic, but gradually it became sweet and victorious. Then there was a moment of violent vertigo, and he found himself hovering about five feet off the ground, looking down at his own body. It was discolored, and trembling violently. It began to shrivel and shrink; his clothes sank down, and soon only the clothes were left. _I wonder if Krex will get there first_ , he thought. Then he felt himself hurtling through a tunnel at inconceivable speed. The tunnel came to an end, and he was drenched in light: white, holy, loving, warm, and comforting. He relaxed, and all anxiety left him. His mind cleared, becoming utterly free of wishful thinking.

He looked at his life. Yes, there were some good parts and some bad parts. He had learned a lot.

He became aware of someone nearby. It was his mother! She was looking at him; her face was full of love and joy. Sorrow re-entered him for a moment. "I'm sorry, Momma," he said, "I didn't turn out the way you had hoped."

"Don't be sad, my darling," she said. "It's all over with now. Come to Momma!" She held out her arms to embrace him. He rushed to her. She enfolded him, and he felt wonderfully, wonderfully safe and happy, for all eternity.

One last earthly thought appeared briefly in his mind: _That stuff really works!_
**********

"Skelitria is said to be the daughter of Sharilune, her father a mortal man."

(Tales of the Gods (traditional))

Hunselig, his CEO, and the three protectors watched in amazement as the goddess Sharilune appeared in the magically darkened room. Her refined and elegant beauty was marred by the bloody wound below her navel. Coming over to the CEO, she faced him and said, very sternly, "There will have to be some changes made here, Chyelivny, my dear!"

The CEO pushed his chair away and prostrated himself on the floor. "Instruct me, Divine Sharilune!"

"You just lie there and grovel for awhile," she replied, smiling. "I'll get back to you in a moment." She came over to Hunselig. "I'm rather pleased with you," she said, "but you are making an awful mess! And all over that priceless Trisling Plutocracy chair, too! Hold still for a moment!" She brought her delicate, elegant hands over to hover above his self-inflicted injury. He was so entranced by the loveliness and graceful movements of her fingers that he almost did not notice the healing of his wound and the disappearance of all the blood that had issued from it. Then she gestured at her own wound, and it, too, disappeared.

Turning her attention to the three protectors, who seemed frozen in place, she touched each one lightly on the head. "You fellows did very well," she said. "I'm sure that when Chyelivny comes to his senses, he will give you each a bonus! And I hope you will give him a chance to redeem himself in your eyes."

Turning back toward the CEO, Sharilune said, "You know, Chyev, there is an old story to the effect that I am the daughter of Tosaris, the god of excellence, and Dzelipnio, the goddess of wealth. There is a great deal of truth in that story. At any rate, my health depends on a balance between those two aspects of myself. This balance is hard to maintain, for Tosaris and Dzelipnia, like many loving couples, are often _quite_ at odds with one another!

"I'm afraid, Chyev, that you have allowed the balance to swing much too far to my mother's side. Now, I love my mother madly, but I am my father's child, too, you know! Mr. Hunselig, on the other hand, has a strong loyalty to my father. As a result, he remained a disciplined individual. That is how he was able to defeat the whole lot of you!"

Then she went to the door, and removed the Late Opliviune Junta chair from under the knob, returning it to its place.

"You may come in, now," she called gaily, through the door.
**********

"'Progress' usually refers to the effects of irreversible mistakes."

(from _The Book of Irony_ )

Talek, inside the Guest House, approached one of Darestigan. "Excuse me, Darestigan," he said. "May I ask you something?"

"Certainly, Talek," replied Darestigan, turning to him.

"Do you think that what we do and say here can be observed from the outside?" asked Talek.

"I cannot be absolutely certain, Talek," replied Darestigan. "I do have a shield over the Temple grounds, whose purpose is to protect us from attack, and also from invasion of our privacy. I know that someone is making the attempt to spy on us, because I continually find powered sensors, which have been made to appear to be floating specks of dust, attempting to enter the compound. The ones I have found are detected, analyzed, and destroyed when they contact the shield, but there may be other, more subtle types, that I have not detected, and that are able to pass through the shield unharmed."

_It still seems strange to me_ , thought Tulith, who happened to be sitting where she could hear the conversation, _that Darestigan, who looks like a boy of ten, is such an authority on so many things, and runs the entire Temple, including the grounds._

"Can you tell me anything about the origin of those floating specks?" asked Talek.

"No, except that they are more sophisticated than I would have expected. It appears that, on the whole, magic is less developed now, than it was when I was created; but these sensors are actually as advanced as anything I can recall."

"Yes, magic these days is generally much simpler and rarer than it was in your time," said Talek, pontifically. "One reason for this is, that in the year 1729 of the Ingar Dynasty, the Empress Sindariden the 17th promulgated an Encyclical, "Appropriate Magic," in which she presented, among other things, the idea of 'addiction to magic.'"

Tulith grimaced to herself. _Poor Darestigan_ , she thought, _he has set Talek off, and now he will have to endure a lecture!_ As usual, she was vicariously a bit embarrassed for Talek's sake, even though he had never shown any embarrassment over his own loquacity.

"The idea of 'addiction to magic,'" continued Talek, with great zest for his subject, "was this: suppose that people are competing in some way; perhaps they are producing some commodity. Using a new and more powerful kind of magic, one of them manages to realize a cheaper (for him) production method than the other. For a short time, he does better than his rivals. But then his competitors also get the improvement, or something equivalent. None of them dare fail to have it, for then they will lose the competition. So the level of magic that was extraordinary at first becomes a mere necessity, something that cannot be done without, something to be taken for granted. Anyone wishing to get the upper hand must now seek a still more powerful method. But this method, too, will eventually become an ordinary necessity. Meanwhile, as the methods in use become more and more powerful, their cost becomes higher and higher; but there is no way to turn around, for anyone who goes back to more primitive methods will lose the competition. This sort of process occurs in arms races, in commercial competition, and in many other processes. Something similar happens in dysfunctional families, but I suppose that would be a digression."

_That's good,_ thought Tulith in surprise, _Talek rarely seems to recognize that there is something worthy of being called a 'digression.'_

"A fascinating one, no doubt," said Darestigan, "but then, doesn't all this result in progress, in people being able to do more than they did before, or more efficiently?"

"So it might appear," said Talek, nodding, "but it rarely works out that way. You see, no magic can escape the first two Laws of Mana Flow. They are, first, 'You don't get something for nothing,' and second, 'Nothing significant happens without producing waste.' As production methods become more and more powerful, it becomes necessary to consume more and more mana, and to produce more and more waste. After awhile, the accumulated waste becomes a problem, and still more mana must be used, in cathartic rituals, to dispose of it safely. Ironically, as more sophisticated magical devices came into use, people found themselves working more hours per day, in spite of the fact that many of the devices had been conceived of as 'labor-saving.' For when the producer can produce more, the consumer will demand more. Besides, the production of a device to achieve some advance in some industry often requires a whole new industry, to produce and maintain such devices, and another new industry, to clean up after them and recycle them."

_Does Darestigan really not understand this?_ thought Tulith, _It is all so obvious. How could it be otherwise?_

"It is rather like addiction to certain drugs," Talek continued. "At first, the user experiences a sense of remarkable well-being. But he soon discovers that his body adjusts to it, so that he has to keep using a higher and higher dose, just to avoid unpleasant and debilitating withdrawal symptoms. Finally, he discovers that side-effects of such large doses are debilitating, and eventually life-threatening. Alas, it is very difficult then to return to the previous state, for his body has become dependent on the drug. This analogy is the reason that the principle has the name, 'addiction to magic.' At first, a new magical device is exciting; then it becomes necessary; then something stronger becomes necessary; finally, the waste and expense involved become problems, but it is difficult to go back."

_I have to admire Darestigan's politeness_ , thought Tulith, _He just stands there, listening. But I feel sorry for him._

"Such addiction occurs not only in competitive processes, but in many other kinds as well; for example, humans tend to always desire more than they have, and if they are unfortunate enough to have such desires granted, beyond the bare necessities of life, they will soon become bored and desire something still more difficult to obtain."

Tulith was still more impressed with Darestigan's patience. _He just stands there_ , she thought, _taking it in. But I suppose he's doing other things, elsewhere. Cooking dinner, doing the laundry, making repairs ... I wish I could do that, when I get stuck in a conversation with Talek! But it's my own fault, really: I am too polite. I'm sure Talek would understand if I explained to him once in a while that being lectured at is not my idea of a good conversation._

"Let me give you a specific example,'" continued Talek, remorselessly. "In the century prior to Sindariden's encyclical, there arose a widespread use of magical chariots, which ran without the need of horses, lizards, or other animals. Such chariots contained artificial souls which could convert mana into motion. They could go many times faster than animal-drawn chariots; some could go forty horizons in an hour! As long as they were supplied with mana, they would never become tired, although they needed repairs from time to time."

"Forty horizons in an hour?" asked Darestigan, deeply impressed. "That is remarkable indeed! But who in the world would have need of such a thing, except perhaps some military units?"

"At first," replied Talek, nodding, "creating such chariots was just a challenge for mages, who wanted to prove that it could be done, and to have the fame of being the first to do it. Then, such chariots became toys and status symbols for rich people. Ordinary people had little need for them; they had little reason to travel great distances, since each neighborhood had its own stores and workplaces, and members of the same family lived near to one another. For the most part, then, people could walk wherever they needed to go, using domesticated animals for longer trips.

"Unfortunately, people of lesser wealth have a desire to imitate the rich, and so there was a demand for cheaper and cheaper forms of such chariots. Mages accepted this challenge, and were indeed able to design a type of magical chariot that the great mass of people were able to buy. The manufacture of such chariots then became an extremely profitable enterprise, and soon, practically every little family had its own, and sometimes two."

"Amazing," said Darestigan.

"But," Talek continued, "the proliferation of such vehicles began to change society. For example: in earlier times, a single, very large store could not compete with the small but numerous neighborhood stores, because it would have been impossible for a sufficient number of customers to walk to it. When magical chariots became common, however, such stores became feasible, for people could come from greater distances. The large, central stores were then able, in fact, to drive most of the small, local stores out of business, because the large stores could deal in greater volume. People who did not understand the nature of addiction, or the two laws of mana, saw something being done which couldn't have been done before, and so referred to this as 'progress.'"

"Ah," said Darestigan, "I begin to glimpse the problem."

"Likewise," continued Talek, "there was an apparent advantage to having factories and other workplaces become very large, and this was now possible, since workers could come from great distances. Also, magical chariots made it feasible for people to take trips and vacations in distant places, and this increased their tolerance for drabness in their home neighborhood. It also became possible for employers to recruit from larger areas; soon, it was not unusual for people to travel many horizons to a new job, or even just to apply for one. It therefore became necessary for almost everyone to own a magical chariot, for it became impractical to walk to work, to the store, to one's vacation spot, or even to visit one's close relatives, who had moved hundreds of horizons away in order to find employment. This greater mobility weakened both families and communities."

_I suppose it's not as boring for Darestigan as it would be for me_ , thought Tulith. _I, like everyone living in Kondrastibar today, grew up with ideas like this; they are practically built into the language._ She thought of the Gastripi word "fomcrot," which refers to the irrational processes by means of which addicts rationalize their addictions. For example, if a man were infatuated with a woman, who used this to manipulate him, he might be said by his friends to be indulging in fomcrot. _But_ , she thought, _Darestigan is from another time altogether, from long before Sindariden's Encyclical. It is amazing to think that ideas I take for granted have at other times and places not even been conceived of! People from those times and places would find them grotesque, if not downright incomprehensible. What ideas did people in Darestigan's previous time take for granted, I wonder, that would be similarly bizarre to me? Sometime, I would like to talk to Darestigan about that. Not anytime soon, though, I guess!_

"But," continued Talek, "that was only part of the price to be paid. Chariots require roads, and magical chariots, because of their high speed and, in some cases, great size and weight, require very smooth, relatively straight roads, not too steep, with very hard surfaces. It fell to the government to create such roads, and in order to do this, the government had to increase taxes. Soon, it became difficult to find a place anywhere that was more than a horizon's distance from at least one road. Imagine the cost of building and maintaining such a road, hard as rock, ten manlengths wide, two manlengths deep, and perhaps hundreds of horizons in length; drained, banked, fenced, and protected against frost heaves! A huge and magnificent temple may catch the eye, but it is a tiny thing compared to such a road. There were other sorts of costs, too; for example, people often had to be evicted from their homes in order to make space for these roads."

Doing a quick calculation in her head, Tulith decided that Darestigan probably came from the later Zoroid Dynasty. She realized with dismay that she had forgotten a lot of her History, but she was fairly sure that Kondrastibar at that time had been ruled by the military. _If they didn't understand the laws of mana use_ , she thought, _why didn't they develop magical chariots themselves? Or could it be that Darestigan understands all this perfectly well already, and is just being polite?_

"Another cost of chariots," continued Talek, with no sign of boredom or fatigue, "has to do with the waste they produce, as predicted by the Second Law of Mana Flow. Every use of magic creates byproducts that are useless, and often toxic. When magic is used on a small scale, we don't notice this, for these byproducts dissipate quickly, but at the time in question, with billions of people driving magical chariots, it became very significant. It contributed to illness, for example, including birth defects. In fact, most Historians of the era now agree that this was one of the reasons for the fall of the Zoroid dynasty."

_How strange it would be to be ruled by the military_ , thought Tulith. She tried to imagine it. _Of course, the military was different in those days. I wonder what Darestigan thinks of us. Does he wish he were in a society like the one he knew before?_

"But I digress," said Talek. Tulith almost laughed out loud, but she converted it into a cough. "Because of the great speed of magical chariots," Talek continued, "highway accidents were often very serious, resulting in expensive repairs, serious injuries, and often death. The government introduced a system of right-of-way to reduce this carnage; it involved laws governing the behavior of drivers, and the construction of directing signs on and beside the roads, including magical automatic signals of various kinds. People were required to learn these rules, and failure to abide by them became a crime. All the major roads had to be patrolled, and a huge increase in the size of the police force thereby became necessary. In spite of all this, however, the death and mayhem from such accidents were equivalent to that produced by a major war! You know what insurance is, don't you?"

"Actually, I do, Talek, although I don't think that such a thing existed in my time."

"Good!" said Talek, but Tulith thought she heard a bit of disappointment in his voice; she suspected that he would have liked to explain the idea to Darestigan. She began to remember a few facts about the Zoroid Dynasty. _The military took care of people_ , she recalled. _Their salaries were not large, but their medical care and retirement were free._

"Well," Talek continued, "people were required to have insurance, so that the surviving victims of such accidents could receive medical care. This meant that everyone who had medical insurance had to pay significantly higher premiums, even if they did not drive, or did not get into an accident. The government also required insurance to cover the cost of repairs, and of the litigation that frequently followed an accident. The cost of insurance was one of the many aspects of the cost of magical chariots that did not appear in the purchase price. It was not unusual for individuals or families to spend a third of their working lives, just earning the money to maintain their chariots."

_Everyone except the Emperor was subject to the chain of command_ , Tulith recalled, _how strange that would be! To have someone who could just walk up to you and say, 'Do this!' and you would have to do it! Yet many soldiers seem quite comfortable with their lives. And what about Ydnas? Would she like to see a return to the society of the Late Zoroid Dynasty? She has certainly given no indication of that._

"The price to be paid," continued Talek, "was not only monetary. So much mana was required, largely for magical chariots, that the Empire became dependent on foreign supply; this in turn often required military intervention, which is, of course, one of the most expensive things a government can do, not only in money, but in lives."

At this point, Darestigan broke in: "But Talek, why didn't people rebel? How could they have thought that it was worth it, to send their children to die in foreign wars, just to maintain their chariots, which were clearly a bad idea anyhow?"

"Well, that is partly just the nature of addiction," said Talek. "Even when a person realizes that it _was_ a mistake to become addicted to happy juice, say, it is still very difficult to give it up. In the case of addiction to magic, there is a further problem, that no individual, acting alone, can break the addiction of society. If an isolated individual decides not to use a magical chariot, that will not cause neighborhood stores and factories to reappear; it will only cause that individual to have a very difficult life."

_Crime is like that_ , thought Tulith; _the people in this neighborhood were all miserable, and yet they couldn't break out of it._

"There is also a psychological element of denial that is often associated with addiction. Addicts typically fail to admit that they have a problem, until they are right between Death's teeth; and sometimes not even then. When a person becomes strongly addicted to rotten vegetable juices, for example, on account of the alcohol they contain, it may happen that he will become physically and mentally debilitated, he will lose his job, his family will break up, he will lose his various skills, his character will deteriorate, and he will end up destitute and friendless, living under a bridge. But if you ask him if he has a problem with alcohol, he will deny it. He will blame his ex-employer, his estranged family, and society in general for his problems. It was the same with magical chariots. If people experienced any bitterness, it was because they could not have as fancy a chariot as they wanted."

_Am I addicted to Art?_ Tulith asked herself. _It does seem at times as though I couldn't live without it. But surely I could. Wasn't it just an accident that I became an artist?_

"People also are reluctant to question the ordinary. If they are born into a society in which magical chariots abound, they assume that there must be some good reason for this, or they just take them for granted, never questioning their value at all."

I wasn't living under a bridge, but my living quarters were certainly minimal. I lived in my studio. I had no family or friends or lovers, except for my contacts with Kor and the orphanage.

"In general, people have limited imagination. When people in a society addicted to magical chariots try to imagine life without them, they are likely to imagine what their own lives would be like without one, with everything else being more or less the same. Since society has adapted so as to make such chariots necessary, they conclude that people in earlier times, who had no such chariots, must have suffered from extreme deprivation. It does not generally occur to them that such people were able to walk to work, to school, to stores, and so on."

Kor was right, in a way. The Angel invasion knocked me out of my rut. Now I am living with lots of people again, and I think it is good for me, even though I don't paint as much.

"People also have a tendency to think in extremes. For example, if someone questions the widespread use of magical chariots, in a society that has them, others will assume that this person wants to do away with all magical chariots, or even magic itself, altogether. But this is hardly the only alternative. We could use magical chariots for ambulances, for example, without causing all these problems.

"Another common fallacy is to reason thus: 'If I walk, I can only travel at low speed, but in my chariot I can travel at much higher speed. Clearly, having a magical chariot increases my personal power.' Of course, to be able to move more rapidly is not good in itself, but people tend to assume that any increase in their abilities is a good thing."

_Talek is being so patronizing_ , thought Tulith, feeling very sorry for Darestigan. _Surely Darestigan can see for himself that an increase in power is in itself neither good nor bad._

"A related fallacy is generated by the fact that speed is calculated by dividing _distance traveled_ by _time spent in transit_. But a more accurate picture of the value of the chariot would be obtained by dividing the total distance one traveled in, say, a year, by the time taken in transit _and_ in working to support ownership of the chariot, including not only the purchase price, but fuel, maintenance, insurance, taxes related to chariots, and so on, during that year. In doing so, one generally finds that one's 'chariot speed' is somewhat _less_ than one's walking speed. A truly delicious irony!"

Looking at Darestigan, Tulith suddenly conceived the idea of painting his portrait. _What a challenge that would be_ , she thought, excitedly. _Would I paint just one of him? A whole series? Or a group portrait? That would be funny – a painting called "Portrait of Darestigan,' with lots of different figures in it. The viewer would be confused at first._

"This is a special case," Talek continued, "of a mistake that people typically make in a commercial society: they get in the habit of thinking that the _price_ of something is only what one pays in purchasing it. Thus, the price of a magical chariot would be the purchase price. In reality, the price included the cost of fuel, of accident insurance, of health costs or health insurance required by the waste products produced by the chariots, the risk of having to pay for repairs, medical treatment, and litigation following an accident, the risk of death for one's self or a loved one due to accident, or to war over mana supplies, taxes to build and maintain roads, taxes to maintain a police force to enforce the right-of-way rules, taxes to deal with toxic waste produced by chariots, and so on. But people are not accustomed to thinking that way, especially since they would have to pay many of these things (the taxes, for example) whether they personally had a chariot or not."

_Doesn't he ever get tired?_ Tulith asked herself, irritably. Suddenly she felt contrite. She really loved Talek. He had done so much for the orphanage, over the years! It was he who had helped Tulith to discover herself as an artist, who had obtained books and materials for her, who had engaged her in numberless stimulating discussions about art, who had shown great interest in her every little scribble, and who had taken her to museums and shows and introduced her to other artists. And in a similar way, she had helped Intipisk with her interest in literature ... _But, twist it, he_ _is_ _long-winded!_

"So, the upshot is, that addiction to magic happened with a vengeance: the magical chariot changed from a luxury toy to a necessity, and more and more powerful and expensive models were required every year. It was as if a people beset by tigers worked hard to breed more and larger tigers.

"Not only did this happen with chariots, it happened with any number of other things. Clocks, for example, ..."

_No! No! Don't start on another one!_ Tulith pounded her fist on the table in frustration. Talek and Darestigan turned to look at her. She blushed a deep ochre. "Ah, sorry, don't mind me, I was just ... thinking about something ... frustrating ..."

"Are you all right, Tulith?" asked Darestigan, approaching her, looking concerned. "Can I get you something?"

"No, no! I'm fine, really! Just ... ignore me!"

"Very well, Tulith," said Darestigan, "but if you need anything, just let me know!"

"I will, Darestigan," said Tulith, giving him a slightly strained smile. "Thank you very much."

"You're very welcome, Tulith," replied Darestigan, and returned to his conversation with Talek.

"Well," Talek resumed, "as I was saying, clocks began as research tools for mages, who needed more accurate data; but once they had come into being, they became toys and status symbols for rich people, and then more and more widely used, until eventually everyone had one, usually a very small one worn on the wrist. This made it possible for people to schedule their lives with great precision, and because a certain kind of efficiency could be gained by doing so, more and more individuals began to do it, and more and more institutions began to require it."

Tulith focused on her breathing until the heat of her blush faded away.

"The upshot was, that eventually, people were expected to schedule their lives with great exactitude; to be even a hundredbreath late for an appointment, for example, became a major impropriety. Clocks ruled humans, rather than the other way around, and people became more and more frantic."

_I deserved that_ , thought Tulith, _I shouldn't have been eavesdropping. She tried to focus on her idea for a portrait of Darestigan. If it were a multi-figure painting, each figure could illustrate a different aspect of his life..._

"Clocks are supposed to save us time, by allowing us to use our time more efficiently. You might think that this would lead to people having more free time, since their work time could be used more efficiently. But because of addiction to magic, extreme efficiency in the use of one's time became expected of everyone everywhere, and whatever efficiency was gained, simply became obligatory. People had to schedule every waking moment of their lives, in order to keep up with the others. Ironically, people in that era complained, with good reason, that they never had enough time!"

"I think I see," said Darestigan. "It will not be necessary to give me another example."

_Good!_ thought Tulith, _Darestigan is becoming more assertive!_

"But," Darestigan continued, "you have raised another question in my mind."

Tulith sighed, but not loud enough to be noticeable.

"You said," continued Darestigan, "that it is almost impossible for individuals to reverse a social addiction process. This seems plausible to me; for example, under competitive conditions, if one person gives up the practice of continually using more and more magic, then he simply loses the race with his competitors and becomes destitute, and therefore powerless to effect change. In matters of this kind, nearly everyone has to change at once. It is therefore fortunate that society had an astute and powerful Empress, Sindariden the 17th, who could _command_ that magic be used in a more restrained manner, throughout the Empire. I could also imagine such a thing happening in a democratic society, although the process might be intricate and long. But now, Talek, you have said in previous conversations that Kondrastibar today has a pattern that you call 'Theo-Anarchy.' I have been told there is no single organization that spans even a millionth part of Kondrastibar, much less the entirety. Why doesn't this place the population at the mercy of competitive forces? In particular, why don't some people go ahead and use magic, in a way that would give them an advantage?"

Tulith was surprised and impressed by Darestigan's question, and his way of expressing it. Like Ydnas, Darestigan had the appearance of a child, but he was able to talk, in a rich, sophisticated language, about extremely abstract ideas. Tulith was also amused: _Could Talek be meeting his match?_ she asked herself, stifling a smirk. _Which one could wear the other out?_

"An excellent question!" replied Talek. "A proponent of Theo-Anarchy will often respond along these lines: Theo-Anarchy succeeds because people everywhere in Kondrastibar understand certain fundamental ideas and principles, which they can see in action around them, and which they find important enough to teach to their children. It is these principles that protect them against the danger of which you speak, and many other dangers.

"But, let me speak of particular principles. One is the principle I was just discussing, the principle of _Addiction to Magic_ , or, more generally, the principle of _Addiction to Power_. Everyone in Kondrastibar understands the danger of this sort of addiction, and hence guards against it. The typical citizen of Kondrastibar responds to offers of greater power with deep skepticism. They are profoundly conservative, having more faith in systems that have evolved through actual practice, over thousands of years, than in some proposal recently sprung from some individual's imagination, regardless of how intelligent and well-meaning that individual may be.

"Another principle, widely revered in Kondrastibar, is the idea of the _Balance_. This principle says, that when a large system, like Kondrastibar as a whole, is made up of a very large number of smaller systems interacting with one another – neighborhoods, say – it tends in the long run to reach a state in which almost any large, sudden change in procedure will produce a reaction tending to return the system to where it was before. People who have grown up in Theo-Anarchy automatically tend to preserve the Balance, but even if they don't, it tends to preserve itself. It is like water in a pot; it finds its level, and, though it may be disturbed, it tends to return to that level once again."

Tulith remembered watching ants in the atrium when she was a child. How they would find the shortest path to transport food back to their colony, even though the ground might be uneven and strewn with obstacles. Yet the ants had no leaders, no overseers; none in this process, and none in any other. Within a colony, ants are complete anarchists. Yet their system works. Kor would occasionally make remarks illuminating the behavior of the ants, and comparing it to various types of human behavior. It was through such concrete illustrations that Kor had passed on the fundamental ideas of Theo-Anarchy. _But I suppose_ , thought Tulith, _that it would take Talek even longer, if he were to use such methods to explain the principles to Darestigan; and Darestigan can understand Talek's abstract discussions, whereas young children could not_.

"In particular," continued Talek, "if one competitor introduces a new magical method of production, his competitors have ways of responding to this, other than imitation. They can appeal to the community at large. 'This innovation may have advantages in the short run,' they may say, 'but what will actually be the long-term effect on our lives, and our children's lives, and our grand-children's lives?' If the community agrees, then they may boycott the first competitor's business, and he will be forced to give the practice up.

"Another such principle, is the principle of _human scale_. Within a small group of family and friends, a person feels importance and security; if a collective decision is supposed to be made, he knows that his opinions will be valued and taken into account. Within larger groups, this feeling disappears, and for good reason. For example, in a democratic system using voting, the chance of a person's vote making a difference, even once in their lifetime, quickly becomes essentially zero, as soon as the number of people voting becomes large. Voting or consensus by representative only slightly obviates this problem. In such systems, people feel insignificant as individuals, and so they join and identify with larger groups, such as political parties, ideological camps, and ethnic groups, which are large enough to make a difference; in this process, however, people's individuality and independence of mind are still submerged and cancelled out. Needless to say, in authoritarian systems the same thing happens. The only way that true individuality and independence can be preserved is by decentralizing society, so that the decisions that affect an individual are mostly made by that person's immediate community, in a non-authoritarian fashion. This is something that anyone can understand, once they think about it with an open mind; and once they understand it, people living in such a decentralized society will resist any attempt to centralize it, for no one spontaneously desires to lose their sense of security and importance."

Again, Tulith felt contrite. _How important these principles are, she thought, how sacred! How wrong of me to take them for granted! How terrible life would become, if they were abandoned! How good it is, that there are people like Talek, to remind us of their existence and importance!_

"Then, too, there is the role of religion, which often tends to turn people away from desires for individual aggrandizement in terms of wealth, power, and prestige, and directs them instead toward other things, such as wisdom, serenity, and responsibility for others. People with a strong religious influence of this kind are less attracted to chariots or other things when they are still novelties or toys, and so, if the religion is widespread, such novelties never become necessities.

"But the principle which most directly addresses your concern, I think, ..."

_Naturally_ , thought Tulith, _he saved that one for last!_

"... is the principle of _alliance against growth_. If people who have accepted Theo-Anarchy see any person or institution apparently consolidating power – and accumulating sophisticated magical devices would count as a case of that – they will immediately form a temporary alliance in order to halt and reverse that process.

"Then, too, – "

"I think I see, Talek," said Darestigan, interrupting gently, "although I must give it much more thought. In fact, you have given me so much to think about that I'm afraid I must terminate this line of discussion for the time being, however, in order to ponder the issues. Otherwise, I will only become confused. Do you have any more questions about privacy or the like?"

"Ah, no," said Talek, "thank you for the information you have given me, and for your patient listening."

"You are most welcome, Talek," said Darestigan. He bowed and disappeared.

_Brilliant!_ thought Tulith, _Brilliantly done! I must memorize that – "_ You have given me so much to think about that I'm afraid I must terminate this line of discussion for the time being, in order to ponder the issues! _" Absolutely brilliant!_

Talek, finding himself without an interlocutor, turned towards Tulith. She ignored him, acting as one who is totally absorbed in some very important thoughts. She did not feel like talking to Talek just then. After a moment, he left the room. Relaxing a little bit, she thought, _I wonder what Darestigan really thinks of us. And Ydnas, too._
**********

"Be grateful for your bad qualities; fools will love you for them."

(Merkintrine the Liar)

The evening was slipping into night. Crickets chirped and fireflies winked. The breeze was sweet and caressing. The sergeant arrived at the captain's tent with two foot-soldiers, one with Lightbearer slung over his shoulders. He deposited her on a chair, where she sat slumped over. She was covered with burns and bruises.

"How did the interrogation go?" asked the Captain.

"Very strangely, sir," said the Sergeant. "The only story she would stick to is the one she originally gave. From time to time she would switch to another one, but whenever I asked for details, it would become clear that she was just making something up, trying to tell me what she thought I might want to hear, in order to escape further torture. But she is frightfully naïve about both our ways and those of the natives, in spite of the fact that she speaks both languages fluently, and so it was easy to detect her lies."

"Have you found the other one, the one she claims is the creator of the universe?"

"No, sir, but several natives have mentioned seeing her with a man who looked equally strange to them. A lookout is being kept for him. No one will admit to seeing either of them more than an hour or so before we found her."

"I think," said the Captain, "that they must be crazy people, or religious fanatics, who have run away from, or been exiled from, their original home. That could mean that we are very near to some sort of border, and the people on the other side of that border are an unknown quantity. The fact that they already know our language is disturbing. I am therefore going to recommend to the colonel that we consolidate our present position before moving forward.

"Now, as for her ... when we first saw her dancing by that pond, she had a sort of exotic beauty, didn't she?"

"Yes, sir, she was like a wood-nymph. I mean, what people used to think wood-nymphs were like, back in the days of superstition."

"I've never seen that skin-color before ... what a contrast with her hair! And those arching cheekbones. Different from any race we've encountered so far, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"But also quite beautiful, even with all those burns and bruises. Well, then ... keep her in custody, but nurse her back to health. Probably my superiors will want to send a few people to interrogate her further. Then, I think I will send her as a gift to the Emperor. She will be a striking addition to his harem. That will be all."
**********

"The gods think well of us; risks are many."

(Kondrastibari folk saying)

Aptar was a thin, balding man with large yellow eyes reminiscent of an owl's. He invited Oselika and Teladorion into his home. They took refuge in his workshop from the noise and complexity of his large family. There, on a small stove, he made them cups of floral tea. They surreptitiously checked it out for poisons and spells before drinking it, using magical rings they wore for that purpose.

"You understand," said Aptar, "Comparative Religion is only a hobby of mine. I'm a lapidary by trade. If you really want to know these things, you should go to a University. But I'll probably be happy to tell you what I do know."

"Tselig told us that you might know about people who use drugs to try to attain the beatific state," said Oselika.

"Oh, yes, there are people like that," said Aptar. "Lots of religions have them. Of course, one religion's beatific state is apt to be another religion's loss of soul. And there is always controversy about the use of drugs. Many people feel that it's cheating, and can't be the real thing."

"What do you think?" asked Teladorion.

"I think it's the goal that counts, not how you get there," said Aptar. "If God wants you to attain the beatific state after standing on your head and eating worms, then that is how it will happen. But I've never actually met anyone whom God brought to blessedness by way of a drug, nor have I reliably heard of such a person. Of course, if you go into a degenerate neighborhood, you can find people who will tell you anything. But they are just worshippers of Honggur or Slef or some other phantom god."

"Suppose someone worships a phantom god, but in his own mind, he accepts the idea that he - the worshipper, I mean – is only a phantom, but he thinks the god is real, and sincerely hands over everything to this god," said Teladorion. "Is that a beatific state, or not?"

"I don't think so," said Aptar, "although, it might be very close."

"But," said Teladorion, "according to Deacon Tselig, God, the one honest-to-goodness god, holds the reins on you anyway. In the beatific state, you are just becoming aware of that, admitting it to yourself. Now, if some guy gives up the pretense of control, and he thinks it's Slef that holds the reins, that wouldn't alter the fact that it was really the one and only true God that was holding the reins. It sure enough can't result in _Slef_ controlling him, because Slef doesn't really exist. So what would be the difference?"

"There is much in what you say," said Aptar, "but by and large, God makes the phantom world behave in such a way that it is _as if_ tables and chairs and people and phantom gods were real. So, a person who abdicates in favor of Slef is likely to lead a criminal life."

"But if God arranges it that way, it must be perfectly good," said Teladorion.

"I didn't say it would be _bad_ ," said Aptar. "I just said it wouldn't be the true beatific state."

"Rust my blade, you're as sharp as Tselig is!" said Teladorion.

"Not really," said Aptar, his eyes twinkling. After a moment, Teladorion did a double-take and started to laugh, and Aptar joined him.

Oselika spoke: "Aptar, you said that the goal was the important thing, not how one gets there. You say you don't know of anyone who got there with a drug, but you also say you have heard of people who use drugs for that purpose. I would like to know more about such people."

"Well," said Aptar, "let me be frank. I have the feeling that if I help you out, you might go and get hold of some such drug and take it. But, I don't think that would be a good idea. I agree that in principle, such a drug might work. But in practice, I am more inclined to believe that you will just do yourself a lot of harm. So I will just keep that information to myself. And no, I am not asking for a bribe."

Oselika and Teladorion exchanged glances and some subtle hand signals. "I appreciate your concern, your frankness, and the ethics behind your refusal," said Oselika, "and so I will be frank myself. In fact, we are not religious seekers, although I think that Teladorion is beginning to get interested in these things, thanks to the conversations we've been having. We are here because someone dear to us is in a coma, and it appears that this coma may have been induced by a drug of this sort. We are trying to learn more, in the hopes of helping him to recover, or at least to put an end to the source."

"I would be very sympathetic to either of those goals," said Aptar, "but how do I know that what you say is true? You are clearly willing to lie."

"We could go see a notary," said Oselika.

"All right," said Aptar, smiling. "That would be good enough. Just come along, and I will take you to a local bank, where they have a couple of them." After telling one of his co-husbands where he was going, Aptar led them a few blocks to a bank. At the bank, they found a notary, and explained what the situation was. Oselika then repeated what she had told Aptar about the reasons for their curiosity.

"She's telling the truth," said the notary.

"Thanks, Helvindra," said Aptar, turning to go. "All right, let's go back to my workshop, and I will give you some information."

"Doesn't she get a fee?" asked Teladorion.

"No, we don't use money inside the neighborhood," said Aptar. "The Angels of Rejuvenation swarmed here a couple of years ago, and we haven't gone back to money yet. The bank is only there for the sake of dealing with outsiders."

"So," said Teladorion, "she just figures you must have had a good reason for asking, so she did it?"

"That's right," said Aptar.

Soon they were back in Aptar's workshop. When he had made them all another cup of tea, he began to explain.

"There are only two drugs that I know of, that are used anywhere within a hundred horizons of here, for the sort of purpose you describe," he said. "One you have probably heard of, under the colloquial name of 'snoffle.' Now, snoffle by itself doesn't usually induce a state with any particularly religious flavor, but when it is suggested to them, snoffle addicts will readily accept the idea that there is a god, Snoffle, and they even have a scripture, and a church that has developed over the years. Now, snoffle can be obtained in any sufficiently degenerate neighborhood. Just in case you haven't heard, I will mention that even one small dose of it is irreversibly addicting.

"The other drug is called _noganecir_. When a correct dosage is given, it produces something very similar to the beatific state for about three days, apparently without destructive side effects. A lesser dose produces a state of relaxed alertness, and a greater dose produces coma or death. Fortunately, the destructive dose is over a hundred times as large as the smallest desired dose, so that people hardly ever overdose by accident. Like snoffle, noganecir is irreversibly addictive.

"It is very rare to find this drug for sale on the street, but there is a sect that is reported to use it. This sect is called the _Children of Noganecir_.

"Now, I beg of you to be very honest with yourselves. If you get involved with the Children of Noganecir, you will constantly be encouraged to take this drug. Unlike snoffle addicts, the Children of Noganecir are intense proselytizers. If you are at all tempted by such things, or if you find it hard to say "no" to people, you should stay away; send someone else to complete your investigation. Furthermore, you should be very careful, as they may try to give it to you without your knowledge or consent. It is flavorless, and can be added either to food or drink. It can also be blown into the nostrils, or absorbed through any of the body's wet membranes. They will not hesitate to use any trick they can think of.

"One of my wives is a copyist; I will have her make a copy of these two little booklets for you. One describes snoffle, and the other describes noganecir." Aptar arranged for this, and, while waiting for the copies, gave them some information about possible ways to contact the Children of Noganecir.

"We thank you very much," said Oselika, "and we would like to make a contribution to the neighborhood, if you have no objection."

"No objection at all," said Aptar, "as long as you can spare it without discomfort."

"That will not be a problem," said Oselika. "I'm afraid that we are used to using money, but I imagine you can just put it in the bank, and it will eventually be transformed into something more meaningful to you." She handed him an Ytterbium 100-Kostiligar cylinder.

"Thank you," said Aptar, setting it absently on the table. "I wish you luck with your investigation."

"Not that you believe in luck," said Teladorion.

"In everyday speech," said Aptar, drily, "it is convenient to go along with the illusion."
**********

"You can be spontaneously deliberate,

but you can't be deliberately spontaneous."

(Va Hon, _Psychological Thoughts, 116_ th _Ed._ )

A new visitor appeared at the gate of Ydnas' temple. He was a tall young man with stubby features and a slack expression. To the Darestigan who greeted him he said, "Hello; my name is Kareketeen. I live in the Narekin neighborhood, and I was brought up in the Church of Keralinet. But somehow, ah, church membership doesn't light me up the way it does my parents." He sighed and shrugged. "I mean, I guess it's fine for them, but ... I have read about other religions, but, you know, well, they don't light me up either." He shrugged again. "The fact is, nothing grips me. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I heard that there is a goddess in this temple. I thought that perhaps, seeing a goddess with my own eyes might make religion real for me. May I see her?"

"There is someone here whose temple this is, but we do not know whether she is a goddess or not."

"How can you not know? Just ask her."

"She won't say."

"Why not?"

"She won't say."

"Could I see her anyway? I walked two horizons to get here, you know."

"Just a moment," said Darestigan. After a moment he said, "Yes, she will see you."

Another Darestigan appeared, and led the young man to Ydnas' room in the guest house, where Ydnas was dancing by herself. Darestigan closed the door and introduced them to each other. Kareketeen seemed a little surprised and disappointed by Ydnas' appearance.

"Why did you come here?" asked Ydnas, without interrupting her dance. Kareketeen repeated what he had said to Darestigan.

Ydnas continued to dance. "Dance with me," she said, smiling at Kareketeen and holding out her hands. He looked very confused. "Are you the one who might be a goddess?" he asked.

"Won't say," said Ydnas. "Dance with me." Kareketeen sighed and began to dance. Ydnas danced with great energy and zest, but Kareketeen did not. He stepped back and forth, lifting and dropping his arms, but he looked bored and irritated. "Throw yourself into it!" she told him.

"Do you mean religion, or dancing?" he asked.

"Is there a difference?" asked Ydnas.

Kareketeen looked confused and frustrated. "I don't understand," he said.

"If you could dance with _passion_ ," said Ydnas, "your problem would be solved." Kareketeen started dancing more vigorously. "No, no, you are _forcing_ yourself!" said Ydnas.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" he asked.

"No," she said, "you don't want to just _look_ as though religion were meaningful to you, do you? Your true self is shown by what you do _spontaneously_. I don't want _you_ to dance, I want the _dance_ to dance!"

This only perplexed him the more. "I don't understand," he said. He had gradually slowed down to his original listless shuffling. "How can a dance dance? I don't know how to make that happen."

"You can't _know how_ to do it. You can't _do_ it. It has to _just happen!_ "

"Well, then, ..." he said, with a shrug of dismissal.

Ydnas made a gesture, and suddenly, Kareketeen found himself frozen in place, rigid except for his face and chest. Ydnas stopped dancing and raised her hand to her shoulder. A knife appeared in her hand. She took his right hand and laid the knife across his knuckles. "How many fingers would you be willing to lose," she asked, "in order to be as pious as your parents are?"

"No!" he said, "please! Don't cut off any fingers!" He tried to pull his hand away, but he had lost all control of it. Only his face would move, but suddenly he was dripping with sweat.

She raised the knife up. He could feel it on the side of his neck. "Is there any reason I shouldn't slit your throat?" she asked. "Please don't!" he said. "That's not a _reason_ ," she said. "I don't want to die!" he said. "Why not?" she asked. "Isn't life meaningless to you? Doesn't it fail to _light you up_?"

"That's why I came here!" he shouted. "Please help me!"

"I _am_ helping you," she replied. "Tell me why you shouldn't die!"

"My parents love me," he said. "They would grieve if I were to die."

"I could send a replacement," she said, "a magical replacement, that would be just like you, only pious and enthusiastic. They would never suspect that it wasn't real. They would be pleased at the change."

"No!" he cried. "Please!"

"There are billions of people in Kondrastibar," she said. "What difference would _your_ absence make?"

" _Please_ don't kill me!"

"Tell me _why_ I shouldn't!" she said, getting impatient.

"I'm different! I'm unique!" he said desperately.

"Every pile of _shit_ is unique," she replied, snarling.

"Please!" he begged her, " _please_ let me live! I _want_ to live! I don't _know_ why!"

" _Better!_ " said Ydnas, nodding a little. "You are letting life _live_ you a little."

"Then _please_ ," he said, " _do not kill me!_ "

"You have _sixty breaths_ to figure out what you _really want_ in life," said Ydnas. "I'm not asking about details. I'm not asking what your _parents_ want. I'm not asking you what you _should_ want, or what you _wish_ you wanted, or what you think _I_ think you should want. I want you to know what, for better or worse, you _really do_ want, even if that shows imperfection on your part. Don't tell me, just know it in your heart. You can see that I have magic; I will know if you are telling yourself the truth. If you lie to yourself, I may just kill you right then and there." She began to count, in a whisper: " _one ... two ... three ..._ " Kareketeen closed his eyes in concentration. Time crept by. " _Fifty-nine!_ " Ydnas said loudly.

" _I want to live!_ " Kareketeen screamed, so loud that the rafters shook.

"Much better!" Ydnas said. She stepped back, and put the knife onto her shoulder, where it turned into a chameleon. Kareketeen suddenly recovered his flexibility; he collapsed onto the floor, panting. Ydnas looked down at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

" _Much_ better!" she said, smiling and nodding. "You didn't have to _make_ yourself scream like that, did you? You didn't even do it on purpose, did you? It _just happened!_ Your terror grabbed you and made you whole!"

Giving him a moment to catch his breath, she added, "Now do you see what I mean by not _doing_ something? By something _just happening_? You didn't make your _fear_ happen, did you?"

"No, no, I didn't," said Kareketeen, fearfully.

"When you do what you _really want_ to do," continued Ydnas, "all this half-heartedness will disappear. Everything will _just happen_. But you must be honest with yourself. And you must _trust_ yourself. If you don't trust yourself, you will always be hesitating."

Kareketeen said nothing. He looked frightened.

"Perhaps," said Ydnas sternly, putting her hands on her hips, "you wanted your parents' religion to make the world light up for you, like a magic theater. To make everything fun and easy. No need for _you_ to do anything. And from me, perhaps, you expected a grand, beautiful, wise, sexy, and motherly woman, with eyes of fire, and a voice of thunder, floating in the air, who would make a mystical gesture, and _pling,_ suddenly you would feel strong and good forever. No need for _you_ to exert effort, or to endure anything! Well, I am not like that! If I were, then in ten days I would be surrounded by mortal parasites, from here to the horizon! I _am_ going to put a spell on you, though." She raised her hand, and with a _foof_ , a ball of light flew from her hand into Kareketeen's chest. "Now," she said, "if you ever, ever again, insult my universe by being bored, or resentful, or dismissive, or cynical, or sarcastic, or despairing, your breathing will stop until you overcome that feeling. Do you understand?"

"I – think – so," he said.

"The boredom should dissipate quickly," observed Darestigan.

"There is a saying in your parents' religion," said Ydnas to Kareketeen. " _Every grain of dust is as important as a million suns._ Think about that, every day! Darestigan, show him out."
**********

"A single soldier beats a thousand words."

(Arctan 25th)

"Holy Archangels!" said the Lieutenant who had just burst into their tent, kneeling and bowing as he spoke, breathless: "A military ... force is ... approaching ... the Northern gate!"

Ksotra Voxtoi and Asharia Loëina broke off their conversation and stood up. "Thank you, Lieutenant," said Ksotra, as they hurried from the tent, "please return to your post." Mounting their unicorns, the two archangels rode quickly to the Northern gate. They saw ranks of cavalry approaching at a walk. Ksotra's adjutant reported that she had already called up spiders and wasps to defend the barricades, and had ordered all available beaters to abandon construction work and switch to combat mode – which essentially meant, bearing swords and other military weapons, instead of bludgeons.

The individual riders were hard to make out, for horses and riders wore surcoats that were irregularly striped in contrasting colors; but it looked as though there must be three hundred, with more perhaps to come.

"It's the Amazons of Ydris!" said Asharia. "They are leading their horses on foot, with their helmets off! That indicates that their intentions are not hostile."

"Stand down to Second Alert," said Ksotra to his adjutant. "Tell our first rank to stand in the open without weapons. But if alien troops come closer than a hundred manlengths, or show any hostility, go back to First Alert."

The first rank of Amazons halted quietly much more than a hundred manlengths away. Their leader set her helmet, staff, and shield on the ground and stepped forward, arms outstretched, hands open and empty. "They want to parley," said Asharia. "Shall I go?"

"Good," said Ksotra. "I will link you to a telepath immediately. Adjutant! Make it so!"

Asharia rode her unicorn up to the barricade, and then dismounted, leaving her crystal staff in a scabbard that hung from her saddle. From there she climbed over the barricade and walked out to meet the leader of the Amazons, halfway between the two forces. The Amazons' leader was a small, stocky woman, with the characteristic round face, papery skin, and permanently closed eyes of a telepath. Her face, crisscrossed with a hundred age lines, was very hard to read, but there was something massive about her presence.

"Welcome, Abbess," said Asharia, making an elaborate curtsy. "What do you wish of us?"

The Abbess nodded in her general direction. "Hello, Asharia," she said. "We have come to repudiate our treaty. Since this treaty was imposed on us by force, we do not consider it binding, now that we have significant force of our own. We are, however, eager to _discuss_ all the issues involved, with representatives of your choosing. It is possible that we will agree a second time to some or all of its terms, but this agreement must be un-coerced. We are also open to discussion of alliance. Finally, we wish to establish an embassy of three."

"You shame me," said Asharia, who was indeed genuinely embarrassed. "I cannot make any binding commitments here, but my personal thought at the moment is, that the treaty is indeed null and void, that we would like to discuss these issues, or any other issue that seems important to both sides, that we would like to discuss alliance, and that we will be happy to receive your embassy. I will recommend that to the Seraphim, and I am hopeful that it will be approved." _She couldn't have chosen a tactically better moment for this demand_ , thought Asharia. _After our losses from the Black Cloud, we are feeling very vulnerable._

"We don't wish to become mired in procedure," said the Abbess. "I propose the following. We will withdraw our main force, but leave with you twenty-one representatives, who will immediately start discussing the issues with representatives of yours, and the three people that we have designated as our potential embassy." As she spoke, a group of women in civilian clothes emerged from among the Amazons and walked up to a point halfway to the parley spot. "It will be understood that this presupposes no official, binding answer from the Angels of Rejuvenation as to the status of the treaty, or on any other point; it is just a way of getting started quickly. If, however, we do not have a substantive official answer in four days, we will assume that the discussions will not be productive, and consider other options."

"Since there is nothing binding," said Asharia, nodding affirmatively, "I will take it on my own authority to accept your representatives and your potential embassy, as you have stipulated, as a reversible first step. I grant them safe passage into, out of, and around our camp, subject to our existing security restrictions, and I will find appropriate people to begin non-binding talks with them. But you must understand that our default security protocol, which I have no authority to nullify, will require that they be examined by wizards and telepaths."

"We accept that," said the Abbess. "However, I request permission to explore the upper level of _your_ mind, in order to judge _your_ sincerity."

"You shame me again," said Asharia, again truthfully, "for I must refuse, since that would also be contrary to our default protocol."

"Well, that's all, then," said the Abbess, "although I would like to ask you one question unofficially."

"Please," said Asharia.

"I notice that you're not wearing your coronet."

_She can see me through the eyes of her colleagues_ , thought Asharia. Out loud she said, "As you have surely guessed, I believe that we have found the Girl of the Yllek Prophecies. She is in her Temple. Beyond that, I know little. I gave her my coronet as a token of respect."

"Then that is something else that we would like to discuss," said the Abbess. "Our prophecies, the Ardnasian, are, as you know, closely related to the Yllek, and we believe that if the Girl has truly returned to her temple, all policies must be reconsidered."

"I agree completely," said Asharia, "and I am happy to add this to the list of topics. I have one point of curiosity of my own, though."

"Please."

"Are you going to resume the practice of having Courtesans of Sacrifice?"

"As long as our discussion of this or any point of the treaty seems serious and unresolved," said the Abbess, "we will not abrogate the point in question. We are serious in our respect for your judgment; it is only the use of force that we reject. In particular, we will not resume the practice of having Courtesans of Sacrifice unless and until we feel that we have rationally placed in doubt all your serious objections to it."

"I appreciate that," Asharia replied.

"Well, then," said the Abbess, "if that is all, please accompany my representatives and potential embassy into your camp, and our main force will return to the Temple of Ydris. I myself, with a sighted guide, would like to visit the girl of which you spoke."

"That is indeed all," said Asharia, making a gesture for the representatives to come forward. "And I grant you and your guide safe-conduct and guidance to the place where the girl is. May the love of Ydris, Blessed be Her name, sweeten your life and make your soul to blossom."

"Thank you," said the Abbess, smiling for the first time. "May she clear your mind and light your way." Nodding briefly, she turned and started back to her own lines.
**********

"Every now and then, let go of the reins."

(Murxil the Ascetic)

Late in the evening, as Kor was resting in her room, she felt Isiliar in her mind. "May I come visit?" asked the goddess.

"Of course," said Kor.

Then Isiliar asked, "May I bring a friend?" Kor was startled at this request, which Isiliar had never made before; but she agreed.

A moment later, two beings materialized in Kor's room. One was Isiliar, and the other was a strikingly handsome older man, dressed in a beautiful robe. Kor noticed the delightful scent of the Baro tree.

"Kshaloka!" she said.

"That's me," replied the god, smiling and bowing.

Kor had very mixed feelings. To begin with, she had reverence for any god. At the same time, she had always felt, as she had expressed it to Tulith, that Kshaloka was a _shallow_ god. She also felt the embarrassment that we often feel when we actually meet someone that we have disparaged at a distance. Finally, she was deeply curious as to what Kshaloka was like, and what Isiliar was up to.

"Welcome to my room, Kshaloka," said Kor. "Would you like to sit down?"

"Thank you," said Kshaloka, "don't mind if I do." An ornate golden chair, almost a throne, appeared behind him, and he sat in it. It was shaped into elegant scrollwork, decorated with mother-of-pearl and precious stones, and upholstered with rich brocade. Isiliar created for herself a simple wooden chair, and Kor sat on her bedroll.

"There's something I think we should get out of the way right at the beginning, Kor" said Kshaloka. "I know that you consider me to be a shallow god."

Kor blushed and squirmed a little; she didn't know what to say.

"Well, you should know that I'm not going to do anything mean and nasty to you, on account of that," said Kshaloka. "In fact, I agree with you, in a way. Sensual beauty is of course pleasant, but one can live without it. And with so many people in the world being victims of starvation and disease and crime and all those other ills, how can it be right to spend resources on what amounts to luxury?"

"Well, yes," said Kor, astonished at his agreement with her, and at her own temerity in agreeing out loud with _him_.

"But, I ask you to consider that such decisions – those that give precedence to sensual enjoyment over more important things – are made by mortals, of their own free will. I never coerce anyone into such a decision."

"I suppose not," said Kor, surprised again. She hadn't thought of that.

"If you must find some gods to blame for that," continued Kshaloka, "it should perhaps be the gods of greed and superficiality."

"Well, yes," said Kor, "although, they could make the same defense, that it is mortals who freely choose to be their devotees."

"Indeed they could. Even Separ, the god of evil, could defend himself in that way. He never _forces_ a mortal to be his devotee. But, to return to my own case, the fact is, that sensual beauty is one of the _consolations_ of the poor and the oppressed. They don't have chairs like _this_ ," he said, tapping his chair, "but they can appreciate the beauty of a spring day, or a flower. A flower is just as beautiful to a poor person as to a rich one. Perhaps more so. The same goes for one of my greatest masterpieces, _sex_. In fact, most people, if given the choice of giving up sex or giving up fancy chairs, would give up the chairs." Kshaloka's chair disappeared; he remained in a sitting position, supported by nothing visible.

Kor blushed again; she had a feeling that she knew what Kshaloka was leading up to.

"Now," said Kshaloka, leaning forward, "you once said to Tulith that in your youth, you _acted_ as though you were a devotee of mine. You were, of course, referring to your career as a Courtesan of Sacrifice. During this chapter of your life, you provided your communicants – and incidentally, yourself – not only with the pleasures of sex, but with the smell of incense, with good food and drink, the sound of music, the brilliant colors of your room decorations and your various highly removable outfits, expert massages, and the like. And even for a man in the state of utter sexual exhaustion to which you ultimately reduced your guests, your lithe and curvaceous body, with that gorgeous robin's-egg blue color, was a wonder to see, in spite of its relative youth. Especially with your hair, which in those days was long, lush, glossy, fine, deep purple, and just a bit prismatic. The fact is, Kor, that there are hundreds of men out there who will never forget you."

Kor blushed a deep blue, deeper than any sky.

"Now, it has always been my principle that what people actually _do_ tells more about them than what they _say_ they are like, so even though you had no statue of me in your room, I considered you to be one of my most dedicated devotees. And I still appreciate that devotion, even though you have left the Holy Guild of Courtesans."

Kor stole a glance at Isiliar; the goddess looked radiantly loving, as usual, but Kor thought she could detect a slight tightening of her lips, as though she were resisting an impulse to laugh.

"And perhaps it is just as well that you did," continued Kshaloka, "since now, with all its intricate lines and other textural complexity, your body would probably be too beautiful for any mortal man to bear. We will see what happens when Tulith finally gets a chance to put her paintings on display."

"Oh, she's not going to display those," said Kor. "She was just doing them for _practice_."

"Did Tulith _say_ that?" asked Kshaloka, looking worried.

"Well, no," said Kor nervously, "I just _assumed_ that. Why would anyone want to see paintings of _me_?"

"Hmmm," said Kshaloka, leaning back, closing his eyes, and stroking his chin in exaggerated mock thoughtfulness. "Would it be ... because you are one of the most beautiful women of all time? Or ... because Tulith is a great artist? Let's see ..."

"Oh, do you really think she is a good artist?" said Kor, eagerly.

"No, I don't, Kor," said Kshaloka, abandoning his thoughtful pose. "Didn't you hear me? I said she was a _great_ artist!"

"And," continued Kor, very excitedly, "she's going to be able to display her work, someday? That is just wonderful! I worried about her ... in that neighborhood, there was no support at all for what she was doing."

"Well, I'm not supposed to reveal the future," said Kshaloka, "but things certainly _look_ promising. The Angels are planning to build a university here, you know. And Tulith may end up doing more good for the orphanage that way, than if she had taken over _your_ role. Not to denigrate your role, without which the orphanage wouldn't even exist; but when her paintings make you famous, you can travel around to drum up contributions."

"Well ... I mean ... I guess that will be good!" said Kor, looking a little confused, and still embarrassed.

"I'm very hopeful," said Kshaloka, "but, to return to the present, have I perhaps resigned you, just a little bit, to sensual beauty?"

Kor gave a little start; she had forgotten how the conversation had begun. "Well," she said, "some of your points were quite good, actually; and I guess I don't have it in me, really, to believe that Tulith could be a devotee of a shallow god."

"Well, in that case," said Kshaloka, standing up and extending his hand, "I'd like you to come with me and see one of the great sensory delights of this world, the Great Gorge at Tamartskild." Isiliar also stood up.

Kor stood up, mainly because the other two had. "Oh," she said, "thank you, Dearie, but ... I don't have time for that sort of thing."

"Well, actually you do, Kor," said Isiliar. "Darestigan and the others can manage the kids, you know. Aren't you entitled to a little vacation, now that everyone is safe and sound?"

"A _vacation_?" said Kor, a little flustered. "I've _never_ had a vacation!"

"Broaden yourself!" said Kshaloka. "If you like it, we could take the kids there, sometime."

"That's a nice idea," said Kor, "but – look, this isn't, ah, this isn't a _date,_ is it?" She had suddenly become aware of how superlatively _handsome_ Kshaloka was.

"Not if you don't want it to be," said Kshaloka, "and I assure you that, in spite of what you might suppose from my attribute, I will be a perfect gentleman. And if that's not enough for you, I imagine Isiliar would be willing to come along as a chaperone."

"Well," said Isiliar, "I am _always_ with her, after all. And don't worry, Kor, I won't let him do anything fresh. Just go and have a good time!"

_Isiliar wants me to do this_ , thought Kor. "Well, all right, then," she said. "Let me just tell Darestigan where I am going."

"I'll take care of that," said Isiliar. "Have a good time, Dearie!"

"We're off!" said Kshaloka, and the next thing Kor knew, they were in darkness, over the roof of the guest house, and rising into the air! It was scary, but only enough to be exciting. As she rose, the neighborhood spread itself out beneath her, and then the neighborhood of the neighborhood, and so on, like a flower opening. The main streets and commercial districts were lit up, making a webbed pattern of dots of light that reminded Kor of the crackle of old pottery-glaze. It was a breath-taking sight.

"Well, that's high enough," said Kshaloka. "Now let's head East!" The city began to move beneath them, presenting ever-new vistas. The topography was hilly, but she noticed that, gradually, the hills got smaller, until finally the land was flat. Then they seemed to pass into a region with a different texture; there were somewhat fewer lights, and they were not arranged in webs, but in curving lines, roughly parallel to one another.

"What's that?" asked Kor.

"That is the River Kron," said Kshaloka, "or rather, what you see are the lights of ships that sail on it. The river is about forty horizons wide here." For awhile, the lights of the riverboats were all that they could see, and then the webbed texture resumed itself.

Somewhat later, they passed just north of a unique feature, a huge, intricate, perfectly symmetrical pattern of lines of bluish light. "What's that?" asked Kor. "That's the landing field of the Tellamir," said Kshaloka. "Maybe we could go there, sometime – have you ever seen a really big Tellamir ship land? It's an awesome sight!"

"Well, I saw one _almost_ land," said Kor, "and awesome it certainly was! But what exactly _are_ the Tellamir, anyway?"

"Look!" said Kshaloka. "We are coming to the dawn!" Sure enough, ahead of them Kor could see color seeping into the sky, and the dimmer stars bowing out. Shortly thereafter, the sun set a stretch of the horizon on fire. As it rose, Kor could begin to see more details of this part of Kondrastibar. There were many residential neighborhoods; one could estimate the economic class of the people living there by how big the houses were, and how far apart they were. Every now and then, these would coagulate into a 'downtown,' with broad thoroughfares, green parks, and splendid temples in profusion, but at other times, into slums. Here and there the pattern would be varied by a river or lake. Kor was fascinated by how the architecture varied as they traveled. In one region, temples tended to have silver domes, and in another, tall spires of brass. In another place, they were shaped like rectangular prisms, very large, and in another, they approximated to fractals.

"There!" said Kshaloka. "Look! On the horizon ahead, is the Katseram Plateau. The gorge falls from its southern tip, and becomes the river Tsannit. At that point, the Plateau is almost half a horizon high!"

Kor was fascinated, not only with the scenery, but with her own feelings. How innocent and gay she felt, flying through the air like a child in a fairy tale! Not since her childhood had she allowed herself to be so absorbed in the wonder of _how things are_ ; she was always too busy, striving after _how things ought to be_. As she reflected on how much she had denied herself, her heart was heavy, and tears began to flow. Kshaloka did not appear to notice.
**********

"Prepare to meet the bridegroom."

(From the _Scriptures_ of the Church of the Marriage of Gods and Mortals)

Lightbearer sat in her room, soaked in disgust and despair. A guard stood watch to make sure that she would not attempt to kill or mutilate herself. Silent and impassive, he was like a piece of furniture, but Lightbearer still felt a frustrated need for aloneness. A knock came on the door, and a woman's voice said, "Lightbearer?" Lightbearer ignored it, but the woman entered anyway. She was in later middle age, large in stature, with ruby skin and dark-golden hair. She was both dignified and beautiful. The lines around her eyes spoke of suffering, but also of love and affirmation. In spite of her bitter mood, Lightbearer could not help but like this woman, and feel grateful for her presence.

"Hello, Lightbearer," said the woman, with great gentleness. "I am Naimi, the thirty-seventh wife of the Emperor. For many years, I have made it a practice to speak to the new arrivals in the Harem." She sat next to Lightbearer, and, intuitively sensing that it would be all right, took her hand. Lightbearer felt herself wobble and collapse inside. Her anger abated, but she still felt sad and numb.

"Like you," Naimi continued, "I was brought here against my will. I was separated from my original husband and family, whom I loved deeply. I was forced to lie under the Emperor, and to bear his children. I experienced anger, hatred, and despair. I wanted to kill, and I wanted to die."

She paused, but Lightbearer said nothing.

"When I first became pregnant," Naimi continued, speaking slowly and gently, but with an undercurrent of strong feeling, "I was revolted at the idea of bearing his child, and I looked for ways to abort. But then, I was saved by my love for my child. I realized that the child was not responsible for his father's actions. Then, when I accepted the fact that I would bear the child, I realized that I could never be a good mother if I was always full of rage. And once I realized that, it was only a matter of time before I realized that my rage was only hurting myself and my friends, and doing nothing to help anyone. I realized that love can live anywhere, even in a Harem. I made up my mind to devote myself to love, and I have never regretted it. In this way I won my freedom, for I realized that it is not _where_ you are that counts, but how much you love."

Again she paused, and again Lightbearer had nothing to say.

"I don't know whether that will be of any use to you, my child, but I wanted you to know me, at least. And now, there is something else I wish to say. Soon, the attendants will come to prepare you to lie under the Emperor. You will surely feel violated by this. You probably felt violated as soon as you learned that you would be a concubine."

Lightbearer groaned. Tears finally began to come to her.

"I don't know if I can say anything to make it less terrible. It _will_ be a violation. I will not try to pretend otherwise. I will say that he is usually fairly gentle and considerate. I also want you to know that all of us here, all the wives and concubines, know something of what you are going through, because we have been through much the same. We cannot protect you, but we are in sympathy with you. And as you live here, you will find many friends. Also, this is not a dark prison; for what it is worth, you can be materially quite comfortable here. We even get out sometimes.

"And, there is one last thing. Please do not be upset with yourself if you feel pleasure when he lies over you." Lightbearer looked at her in horror. "I know," said Naimi, "that such a thing seems impossible to you, but we have found that it does happen sometimes, humiliating as it may be. It does not mean that you are promiscuous or corrupt. It does not mean that you are not being violated. Sometimes the body just goes its own way. You cannot by an act of will make yourself stop feeling hungry or tired, and sometimes you can't help feeling aroused. Also, the attendants will give you an aphrodisiac, a potion that causes desire and arousal. I wanted to tell you this so that you would know that it has happened to many of us, and that it is not a fault of yours. Please, if it happens, don't feel ashamed about it."

Naimi gently and tentatively put her arm around Lightbearer. She tried to look into Lightbearer's eyes, but Lightbearer would not meet her gaze. After a moment of hesitation, though, Lightbearer allowed herself to lean against Naimi a little. Naimi then extended her other arm and hugged Lightbearer more tightly, rocking her a little. Lightbearer felt within her a voice saying, 'Don't be an idiot, hug her back!' But there was also something inhibiting her. After awhile she was able to put her thought into words: _She's nice enough, but she's trying to reconcile me to my situation. Whose side is she really on?_

After awhile, Naimi said, "I must leave, for the attendants will be coming for you soon. Remember that we all understand and sympathize, and that many future friends are waiting to meet you!" Raising one hand to Lightbearer's head, she mussed her hair affectionately, and touched her cheek with a kiss. Then she left, turning at the door to give one last smile.

Lightbearer sat for several breaths with a gathering sense of dread. Then she was aware of someone else at the door.

It was a beautiful young woman in a diaphanous robe that fell from her neck to her ankles without concealing anything. She seemed not in the least self-conscious about this; in fact, she radiated pride in her beauty, standing and moving with grace and elegance. "My name is Perliria. I am your attendant," she said with a smile. "Please come with me." Lightbearer hesitated. Her guard stirred a little, in a way that seemed menacing. Lightbearer got up and followed her attendant. Repeated attempts to escape, repeated refusals to co-operate, and repeated attempts at self-destruction, had only led to repeated punishment, and most of the fight was gone out of her. At least, she was saving her resistance for something more important than this appeared to be.

Perliria took her down several hallways. Many doors were open, and Lightbearer could see many cheerful living rooms, sometimes with one or more women in them. In some she saw children playing. From some the sound of laughter emanated. From some came the sound of women singing. From another, however, she heard sobbing. Sometimes also she saw courtyards and gardens. Frequently they passed armed guards, still and silent like the one in her room.

They came eventually to a larger door, guarded by several huge soldiers. One of the guards unlocked it, and they passed through. Going down a short hall, they entered a room with beautiful jeweled mosaic murals and a large bathing pool. At the edge of the pool stood a handsome and muscular young man, wearing nothing. _Can this be the Emperor?_ thought Lightbearer, but Perliria quickly explained, "This is Korad, another of your attendants. He will help you to wash. Please take off your clothes and enter the pool."

"I can't swim," she said.

"It is shallow at that end," said Perliria, pointing.

Lightbearer hesitated, but despair won again. Also, the pool looked inviting; she had not had a bath for many days. While Korad averted his eyes, she took off her clothes and entered the pool at the shallow end. The water was very warm, and delicately scented. She could not help but relax a little.

Korad said, "We're going to step out for a moment. Enjoy yourself!" He and Perliria left the room, closing the door behind them. The idea of hiding or escaping came to Lightbearer, but she was too tired and spiritless to attempt what would probably be futile anyway. _They are probably just testing me_ , she thought; she was sure this had been done to her in the past. _Someone is watching me through a peephole somewhere._ She remembered her joyous water-play in the pond near Kolidor's house, and she began to move playfully this way and that in the water, just for the sake of that memory. Then she thought, "I may as well enjoy myself while they let me." She immersed herself in the water. She did twists and somersaults. She rubbed her body and massaged her hair, trying to get clean. She felt a little of her fatigue lift from her.

After awhile, Perliria and Korad returned. Perliria opened a catch at her throat and dropped her robe to the floor. Then she strode to the edge of the pool and made a beautiful dive into the water. "We have plenty of time," said Korad, "and we're just going to have a little fun ourselves." He jumped into the water, making a huge splash. _These people are completely comfortable with nudity_ , thought Lightbearer. Perliria broke water on the other side of the pool, and began playing in the water like a dolphin. Her grace and energy were extraordinary. Korad also came to the surface, and began to swim rapidly down the length of the pool. Coming to the shallow end, he grabbed a ball. He threw it to Perliria, and they played a raucous, giggly game with it. With a twinge of shame, Lightbearer realized that she envied them their friendship and their joy. After awhile they invited Lightbearer to join their game, and to her surprise, she did. She did not have the energy they had, but she did enjoy herself a little.

Soon, however, a bell sounded. "Ah," said Perliria, "it is time for your scrub. Please stand over there. I will do your hair, and Korad will do the rest of you."

_Korad will do the rest of me?_ thought Lightbearer in shock. But then she remembered her situation and her despair, and did as she was told. Perliria worked a scented soap into her hair, and began to comb it, first with a comb with only a few teeth, and then with a comb with many. Meanwhile, Korad took a sponge, dipped it in soapy water, and began to rub her back between the shoulder blades. Under his breath, he said in her ear, "I am sorry, Lightbearer, but I must do what I must do. I do not blame you if you hate me." Lightbearer said nothing, and did not look at him. The water was warm, and the sponge was soft; it felt very pleasant. He washed her least intimate parts first, but he washed all of her in the end. He didn't leer. Then he toweled her off, while Perliria wrung out her hair.

"Now," said Perliria, "Korad will give you a massage, while I do your nails."

Lightbearer sighed, and felt tears trembling on her eyes. But she followed them into another room, and lay face down on a padded table as indicated, closing her eyes. Perliria, who had put her robe back on, began working on her toenails, while Korad took some scented ointment and began working it into the small of her back. It made her flesh feel warm and tingly. He was an expert masseur, and what he did felt wonderful. She felt tension evaporate at his touch, to be replaced by softness and contentment. Once again she thought, "I may as well enjoy myself while they let me." When he gently stroked the side of her neck, and when he stroked her buttocks and upper thighs, she felt a special kind of pleasure. _That must be what sexual arousal is_ , she thought, remembering what Naimi had said about the body going its own way. _It's very sweet; if only I were experiencing it freely!_ She wondered whether Korad was also aroused; stealing a glance at him, she saw that he was. Reading her thought from her glance, he said, "Of course I am aroused! You are a very beautiful woman. But that is as far as it will go."

Eventually, he asked her to turn over, and she did. By then, Perliria had finished with her nails and calluses, and had gone out of the room. Korad did her face, neck, and shoulders, and then her arms and her feet and lower legs. Then he returned to her upper torso. When he touched her breasts, the new kind of pleasure was more intense than it had been before. Her whole body filled with a pleasant warmth. Her nipples felt almost as if they were glowing. When he moved down from her chest to her belly and her inner thighs, the intensity of it made her gasp, and yet she didn't want it to stop. Her mind became so focused on the sensations that she stopped thinking. It was delicious beyond all measure, but there was also a deep yearning in it. When he briefly caressed her most intimate places, she hardly knew what was happening. When he stopped, a part of her desperately wanted him to continue.

"It is time to see the Emperor now," said Perliria's voice. Lightbearer opened her eyes. "Korad, ... ?" she croaked. "He has gone," said Perliria. "I will finish your hair and take you to the bedchamber." _Of course_ , thought Lightbearer, _he was just ... warming me up_.

In Perliria's eyes, Lightbearer could see compassion, but also firmness. She stood, and Perliria removed the towel from Lightbearer's hair, and began to give it a final combing and brushing, while dampening it with perfume. There was a mirror on the wall. Lightbearer saw herself, and realized that she was indeed very lovely. _What a waste_ , she thought. As she worked, Perliria gave Lightbearer a few last pieces of advice. "You will be alone with him," she said, "but you cannot hurt him. The room is full of defensive magic. It can detect your intentions, even before you act. It will paralyze you instantly, if you intend to attack him. It is up to you, but if you resist, you will be raped, perhaps by many." _I could try to attack him_ , thought Lightbearer, _and be paralyzed, and spoil his fun._ _Unless he enjoys rape. I suppose he does, though._

"Now, drink this wine," said Perliria. She held up a goblet filled with a glowing golden liquid. _Ah yes, the potion_ , thought Lightbearer, _one last weakening of my resistance_. _Everything has been calculated that way, starting with Naimi_. But once again her despair won out. She took the goblet and drained it. Another pleasant warmth began to permeate her body, already relaxed by the massage, and she felt her mind unclench, while the sweet and yearning feeling intensified, almost to the point of madness.

Perliria then led her through a door, into a dark passageway. They went around a corner, and up a flight of circular stairs. There stood a large golden portal, shaped like a peacock's tail, inscribed with beautiful traceries, and scintillating with hundreds of jewels. Perliria opened it and led Lightbearer into a sumptuously decorated room. The air was rich with incense. Music could be heard; it was soft, gentle, and sensuous. "Lie there," Perliria said, pointing to a luxurious bed. Lightbearer lay, feeling numb, except for a delicious glow of arousal that she tried unsuccessfully to ignore.

"Take care," Perliria said, with just a hint of sadness and sympathy in her voice, and went out, shutting the door behind her. Lightbearer heard a large gong being struck in the hallway. At the other end of the room, a door opened, and a naked man entered.
**********

"Before you try to find your true self, you might ask

why it has been fleeing you for so long."

(Hyada Yada, _Commentary on my Autobiography_ )

Kragendark could not help but admire the efficiency of Ling's operatives. They had followed their own route through the night-darkened Desert of Klinth; they had located Torothex's camp, though it was in difficult terrain, far from any path; they had transported Kragendark and Ling along this route easily, in spite of the darkness; and they managed to hypno-stun Torothex's twelve companions without making a sound or (apparently) setting off any alarms.

Invisible in the air above, Kragendark's telepathic assistant, in the body of an eagle, was collecting information about the operation. Sensing that the time had come, Kragendark put a small capsule into his mouth, tucking it into his cheek. _Here we go again_ , he thought.

Agulinar Torothex was inside a small tent, presumably meditating. At a signal from Ling's Security Chief, Kragendark stepped up to the door and opened it. Inside, Torothex was seated on a prayer rug. As he looked up in surprise, Kragendark performed a mind exchange. As soon as Kragendark was in Torothex's body, he signaled to Ling's assistants, who took firm hold of Kragendark's previous body (now ensouled by Torothex) and gagged it. At the same moment Ling, wearing a mask, appeared at the door. Next, Kragendark exchanged with Ling, leaving Ling where he wanted to be: in Torothex's body. This time, Kragendark made use of his specialty: a mind exchange that would not fail with the passage of time. It was difficult to the point of pain, but he managed it. Several of Ling's assistants converged on Kragendark as he exchanged bodies with Torothex a second time, leaving Torothex in Ling's original body (again, without time limit), and Kragendark in the body that had brought him there. Ling's assistants grabbed Torothex (who was now in the body in which Ling had arrived) and administered a soporific. He might be valuable as a hostage.

Kragendark felt the capsule in his mouth. Good; Torothex had not bitten or swallowed it. Ling's assistants continued to hold onto Kragendark, who crushed the capsule between his molars, and swallowed the bitter fluid so released. Other assistants were conferring with Ling to make sure that everything was all right. As they spoke, Kragendark began to feel nauseous, and to shake. _Give my regards to me_ , he thought to his telepath. Everything was apparently satisfactory with Ling, for he gave his assistants the signal to kill Kragendark. Kragendark felt a knife plunge into his back, but there was no pain. A moment later, he was hovering above the scene, watching his body shrink to nothing. Ling's guards appeared to be surprised by the disappearance of Kragendark's simulacrum body, but Kragendark was amused. _Did they really think I'd be stupid enough to go on a job like this myself?_ After a few moments, he felt himself hurtling through a tunnel at inconceivable speed. The tunnel came to an end, and he was drenched in light: white, holy, loving, warm, and comforting light. He relaxed, and all anxiety left him.

He looked at his life. Yes, there were some good parts and some bad parts. He had learned a lot.

He became aware of someone nearby. It was his mother! She was looking at him; her face was full of love and joy. Sorrow re-entered him for a moment. "I'm sorry, Momma," he said. "I didn't turn out the way you had hoped."

"Don't be sad, my darling," she said, "it's all over with now!" She held out her arms to embrace him. He rushed to her. She enfolded him, and he felt wonderfully, wonderfully safe and happy, for all eternity.

Ling (in the body previously inhabited by Torothex) received various weapons, talismans, and other pieces of equipment from his assistants, hiding them in the pockets of his robe. If his assistants were going to betray him, this would be the moment; but they did not, probably because he had informed them that he had set up three separate secret police agencies within his own organization, to safeguard their continuing loyalty (actually, there were four), and that he had planted spells on all of them that would kill them if anything bad happened to him in their vicinity. His assistants, using spells provided by Kragendark, would now give Torothex's companions a post-hypnotic suggestion not to remember anything unusual; then Ling's assistants would return home, erasing their tracks as they went. Ling's new security chief, Olix Shimura, waved and mouthed "Good luck!" to Ling as he shut the door of the hut. Ling was now alone – except for the memories of Agulinar Torothex. Ling had twelve days to make them his own.

Ling had already studied Torothex, briefly but intensely. As the founder of the Harmonious Host of Churches, Torothex was one of the most influential people in Kondrastibar, even though he held no official office. As such, he had many enemies, including those who feared that he had too much power, and was therefore a threat to the Balance. But Torothex was careful. He relied entirely on moral authority, having recourse to no police or military forces. The record of his career showed a deep commitment to Theo-Anarchy and to nonviolence. The Harmonious Host of Churches was, he insisted (quite plausibly), not a federation, or even an alliance, but only a system for communication and negotiation. He rarely made pronouncements, and he always showed the utmost respect for any person or organization with which he dealt. Because of his excellent reputation, the Holy Guild of Assassins would not accept contracts on him at any affordable price.

Ling had also studied some of the major churches involved in the Harmonious Host, the major theological issues with which they were concerned, and the reasons for the existence of the Host organization. He had also studied Torothex's most important friends and associates.

Ling had arranged with Kragendark to encase his ego in protective barriers, so that he could let in only as many of Torothex's memories at a time as he desired, and so that he would always return to his original identity. In this way he had planned to protect himself against being overwhelmed. But, if he was going to adopt the Torothex identity, it would be necessary for him to make frequent use of Torothex's memories. Carefully, he let in a memory from that afternoon, and began to follow it, first setting an alarm to push all Torothex's memories into the background, and remind Ling of who he (that is, Ling) really was, in two hundredbreaths.

Ling was puzzled as to why Torothex and his companions had gone to the trouble of removing themselves to a barren desert, to stay there for twelve days without anything but the bare necessities of life, apparently without even planning to socialize with one another during that time? Were they hiding from something?

Ling had not yet mastered the knack of simply looking into Torothex' memory to get the answer to a question; rather, he had to call up various memories of actual events and hope that the answer would come up during that time. He decided to 'remember' what Torothex had been doing and thinking on the way to the site of the retreat. This would, he hoped, not only answer his specific question, but give a general picture of Torothex's recent life and plans.

He found himself – or rather, Torothex – walking through the desert with his friends, carrying on their backs the barest necessities of life. Why such minimal provisions? Why no servants or slaves? For a moment Ling feared that Kragendark had, for some reason, betrayed him; rather than putting him into the body of a leading figure in Kondrastibar, the selfer had trapped him in some poverty-stricken religious fanatic. But then he reminded himself of how carefully he had researched every one of Kragendark's claims. Torothex was widely respected, indeed loved; and briefly Ling 'remembered' walking down a great Avenue, surrounded by friends, while enthusiastic crowds threw flowers over him. Not that Ling couldn't have easily arranged such a thing for himself, but in Torothex's case it seemed spontaneous; indeed, Torothex had been surprised and a little disappointed by it.

Puzzled by this apparent paradox, Ling returned to the memory of the desert. The trek had been long. Led by a guide, Torothex and his companions struggled over dune after dune, sometimes having to cover their faces against whipping windswept sand. They followed canyons cut by streams that had not run for centuries. They climbed over huge tumbled rocks, sheared from the sides of crumbling mountains. Pitiless sun scorched and dazzled, and wind tried to mummify.

Once they came to the remains of some ancient buildings, mostly collapsed into their own foundations. Fallen from a plinth were the remains of a stone stele. Torothex and his companions paused to examine it. When they gathered the scattered pieces, they were able to discern a grotesque image, that of a monstrous beast with many heads. Supplied with great fanged jaws, most of the heads were engaged in devouring various parts of the beast itself; others appeared to be gobbling up the beast's own excrement.

A single word in a long-dead language lay under the picture. One of Torothex's companions was able to translate it: "It represents _Gelsgurt_ , the god of Life of the ancient Tseroniki people," he explained.

"That's a god of _Life_?" said someone else, incredulous.

"If that is how they thought of life," said another, "I see why they are gone."

"But there's a certain logic to it," said yet another. "Don't living things survive by devouring the substance of other living things? This is evident in the case of plant-eaters and meat-eaters, but it is even so for most plants: they require fertile soil, and what is that but the remains of excrement and the bodies of things once living? Truly, life is always devouring itself."

_Just so_ , thought Ling, _life is a fight to the death, and only the naïve think otherwise._

"So it has mostly done," said Torothex, "but it does so as an act of self-sacrifice, in order to create something higher. What the Tseroniki may have missed is that life creates intelligence, and that intelligence can see the pointlessness of mere survival, of mere reproduction, of mere expansion."

_If your life were threatened right now_ , thought Ling grimly, _I don't think survival would appear so very 'mere' to you!_

"We can learn to restrain ourselves," continued Torothex. "We can limit our desires, our ambitions, our population. We can turn our ingenuity away from the search for ever more wealth and power and toward the perfection of a simple, sustainable life."

Ling was shocked and disgusted. _What kind of a religious moron has Kragendark made me into?_ At that moment his alarm went off.

Ling was frustrated by the interruption; he had gotten settled into Torothex's memory and its mood. _I'd better watch that_ , he thought, _experience being Torothex, but don't take it too seriously._ An odd thought popped up: _What if I took that same attitude about being Ling?_ But he brushed it aside, as he always did with such thoughts; he had no time for speculation. He took stock of himself. He was surprised and impressed by the richness and intensity of Torothex's experience. It made him feel a little sad about himself. For as long as he could remember, he had had an iron habit of suppressing his strong feelings. He now realized for the first time that this habit had resulted in his life's being quite bland, in spite of its numerous risks and rewards, which to an outsider might seem quite intense. He wondered if he might later be able to learn something from Torothex in this regard.

_But_ , he thought, _what I need to learn from Torothex right now is, what is going on in his life, what people will be expecting from him!_ Setting his alarm for three hundredbreaths, he scanned Torothex's recent memories and found one of a meeting that he had attended just before going on retreat.

Torothex had been one of about ten persons sitting around a circular granite table, in a small heptagonal room whose walls were marble. Through the door, he could see a slice of the vast central space of the Cathedral of Light, the primary Temple of the Tchabrinzi cult. It was very quiet, and there was a trace of incense in the air. The ceiling was high and vaulted, and shafts of light came in from above, through star-shaped windows, irregularly sized and placed. Ling would not normally have been sensitive to the beauty of the architecture, but Torothex's response made him aware of it. Ling also got, through Torothex, a hint of vast forces manifesting in the deceptive quiet of the room. _Good,_ thought Ling, _this is what I came here for_.

The meeting began with an hour of silent meditation; Ling skipped over the memories of that part. After a few other preliminaries, which Ling also skipped, a middle-aged woman in a dark purple robe and hood stood up, and began to speak.

"Friends," she said, "I suggest we focus on the question of the prophetic culmination. All the reliable prophecies that we have been able to consult tell us that the end is near. Our boat is about to enter strange and stormy seas. I believe that we must be ready to reconsider every assumption on which our lives are currently based, including assumptions about the purpose of this organization and this meeting." She made a sign, indicating that she was finished. The others nodded respectfully to her, but no one spoke for several hundredbreaths.

_We have crossed the line_ , thought Torothex. _A frightening thing, but necessary._

Ling's alarm went off. He was intensely irritated, and tempted to set it for an hour, but he had promised himself to be very careful. Taking stock of himself, he found himself full of curiosity about what the meeting could have been about, but in no way confused about his identity. He set the alarm for six hundredbreaths and returned to the memory.

_We have crossed the line_ , thought Torothex. _A frightening thing, but necessary._ He felt a shiver of fear and a sliver of hope. His mind flickered back and forth between the various people at the table, estimating the forces between them, trying to see a way that he could play a constructive role. He saw none, so he remained silent and attentive. An old man in a quilted white robe eventually stood to speak.

"Dzernial is right," he said, in a whispery voice, "but we must find some guide, some direction, at least provisionally. Else we are sleepwalking at the precipice." He, too, made the sign of being finished. There was another pause. Suddenly, Torothex felt moved to speak.

"Dear friends," he said, "I still believe that it can only do good for us to continue to assemble here, to discuss matters, as long as we can. Even if our churches go to war with one another, we should continue to meet, even if we can do no more than talk in generalities. Such things have occurred in the past, often with constructive results. Also, I hope that each of us will always be a voice for communication and co-operation, in our various churches." The others nodded. "We must struggle against the negative spiral," Torothex continued. _What is that?_ thought Ling. Again there were nods, but Torothex saw many subtle differences among their degrees of enthusiasm and commitment. "It would be good to repeatedly discuss this within our respective churches." More nods, some of them rather hesitant.

"But," continued Torothex, "I would like to see us take more initiative than that. We have, in my opinion, been thinking too negatively about the future. Many people think of the expiration of the prophecies and the presumed failure of the Balance as a negative, as merely a loss of order and orientation. That is dangerous, for pessimism is usually self-fulfilling. We should also view the end of prophetic time as an increase in freedom and opportunity. Furthermore, none of the successful prophecies that I am aware of say that the future is inevitably going to be terrible. I suggest that we think of the future as _our choice_ and _our responsibility_. Ours should be a prophecy that we _write_ , not one we merely read. If we simply accept the loss of the Balance passively, in confusion and despair, then it probably will be a catastrophe, just as we expect. But if we can find an optimistic vision and a strategy that enough gods and mortals will accept, we have a chance to realize it." He made the sign of being finished.

There was an elevation of mood in the room. There were some smiles. Ling's alarm went off.

Shutting down the alarm, Ling pondered what he had experienced. He had heard of "the Prophecies," but he had always considered concern with them to be popular escapist delusion. He had even found it useful, on occasion, to circulate some fraudulent 'quotations.' Apparently these people took them seriously. What did this mean?

The phrase, "Even if our churches go to war with one another" had been startling. Ling's researches had indicated that the members of the Holy Host of Churches had their disagreements, but nothing that ever came close to angry words, to say nothing of war. What was going on? Were things turning sour? Had he made a mistake in choosing Torothex as a host? The phrase, "If we can find a vision that enough gods and mortals will accept" had been even more startling. Ling had always considered clergy to be dreamers or con artists. Were there really gods, and could these people actually negotiate with them?

Still finding his sense of identity to be not at all stressed, he set his alarm for ten hundredbreaths, and returned to the meeting.

There was a change of mood in the room. There were some smiles. It was as if people were thinking, 'Good old Agulinar – I knew he'd come up with something!' But there was still a lot of fear and uncertainty. After a long silence, a very large and powerful-looking woman with a bald head, and dressed in a rough burlap robe, began to speak.

"I agree about the dangers of pessimism," she said, in a rich, expressive alto, "but I would nevertheless like to mention my fear that finding the acceptance of which Agulinar speaks will be difficult. People are not always rational or trusting. Many will have their own visions, and many of these will be selfish or unrealistic. There will very likely be a period of disorder, even if it is only transitional. Perhaps we ought also to consider a program of self-defense for ourselves and for such further allies as we can find." She made the finishing sign. In the silence that followed, Torothex found himself ambivalent about what she had said, and began to try to clarify, in his own mind, the issues behind this ambivalence.

After a few moments, a man with black skin, but white hair and beard, and dressed in what appeared to be ceremonial armor, began to speak, in a reedy but melodious voice. "Blessings on Ka-Lo, I have heard from the Emissary of the Church of Balan-Ching that they have already begun to form an alliance for the purpose of weathering the storm that they expect to fall upon us after the end of the Prophetic Times. Also, they say that the Trobish mercenaries are doing the same."

At the mention of the Trobish, many of those present became agitated with what appeared to be a mixture of frustration, disgust, and amusement. The speaker paused, impassively, to let this die down. "Blessings on Ka-Lo," he continued. "I would suggest that we look into this. I believe that the Church of Balan-Ching has already received friendly responses from a number of places, including many divisions of the Holy Guild of Police. They also claim to have opened friendly negotiations with Karngrevor on the matter, but I have not had a chance to verify this." He made the finishing sign.

Torothex had a number of thoughts about these things, but he wanted to leave plenty of space in the conversation for others, so he waited.

"I believe," said a small woman with delicate features, whose only clothing appeared to be her long black hair, "that the two strategies can be combined. We can enter into alliances with a minimum requirement of mutual defense, but campaign within such alliances for more specific and positive goals. We can also negotiate and communicate in various ways with others outside of the alliance. Forgive me if I state the obvious."

"It is a very good point, Kolianoor," replied the large woman with the alto voice, "but I wonder to hear you saying 'we,' while speaking of alliances."

"Indeed," replied Kolianoor, "our policy has always been to _not_ enter into alliances, and I cannot guarantee that this will ever change; but I am impressed with Dzernial's point, that we are entering a time during which – " Ling's alarm went off.

Ling was jolted, frustrated, irritated; he had become deeply immersed in the memory. _So_ , he thought, calming himself, _It seems that the sky is about to fall on our heads, all over Kondrastibar. Or so these people think. This makes it tougher for me to untangle what I'll need to do, but it's better to see a snake before you have to feel it. I need to learn more about what these "prophecies" are_. He returned to Torothex's memories, looking for more information about that.

Darkness, wrestling with flickering torchlight. He was a young man; he was walking through a maze of windowless stone caverns with an older man, his mentor. They carried torches. He was fascinated by the statuary and the writing that covered the cavern walls, but they did not tarry. After awhile, they came to a dead end, a high-ceilinged cave with unbroken walls of rough-hewn basalt. The only thing in this cavern was a quite realistic statue of a dragon, thirty feet tall and seventy feet long. His mentor paused, and began muttering something in a language unknown to Torothex. Suddenly, there was a deep, repetitive booming sound, and the cave began to shudder. Torothex watched the statue. It turned golden and began to glow, until the room was as bright as a summer's noon. They extinguished and discarded their torches.

The dragon took on many colors, as if it were flying through rainbows. Its eyes gleamed with inner light. It reared up. It bounded off its platform, fire and smoke spurting from its nostrils. It danced in the air. Then it paused, its eyes focused on Torothex's mentor. Rippling like a water-snake, it approached him. The old man seemed frozen in place. Suddenly, the dragon shot forward, grabbed him in its jaws, and, with a quick jerk of the head, flipped him into its mouth and swallowed him whole. Torothex too stood frozen. The blazing eyes of the dragon turned and focused on him. A moment later, he felt himself being snatched and tossed. Then he felt himself being forced down the dragon's tight and slimy throat by rhythmic muscular contractions. A moment later, he was squeezed out into a larger space, wherein he slid down several feet in total darkness.

Suddenly there was light. His mentor stood there, eyes twinkling, replacing his wand in its sheath. Torothex shielded his eyes with his hands as they re-adjusted. They were now in a small hallway, apparently circular. Following his mentor, he went three times around the circle. There were many doors. As they went around a fourth time, his mentor opened every door. Each one revealed a small, dim, windowless room, filled with spiderwebs, occupied by large, hairy spiders of various shapes and colors. The spiders dropped from their webs and came running out. Soon the floor was boiling with them. The two men came to a halt. They stood absolutely still, eyes closed, barely breathing. The spiders climbed on them, until each man was completely covered with them. Torothex could feel them crawling around on his lips, on his eyelids, in his ears. A small one began to explore one of his nostrils. He struggled not to sneeze. He could feel on his face the tiny barbs in their feet that allowed them to stay on a vertical surface. He struggled to keep himself from thinking of their mincing legs and poisoned fangs. The spiders crawled over the two men for about a hundredbreath, as if exploring them; then, they began to spin cocoons around them. Soon Torothex could see, hear, and feel nothing except his own slow, shallow breathing. He waited. Then he began to feel tiny pinpricks at various points in his body. He wanted desperately to move, but he forced himself to stand still. A warm sleepiness invaded his mind and overcame him.

All at once, he and his mentor were in yet another room. It was a library, comfortable and well-lit. No one else was present. There were hundreds of books on the shelves, all looking exactly alike. His mentor chose one, by counting shelves and books. Removing it from the shelf, he handed it to Torothex with a smile. "Here she be, son," he said, in a piping voice, raspy with age, "the Manto-Roycib prophecy. Far as we know, this here be the only copy left. All them others be decoys. Set yourself over there, son, and have you a look at her!"

Trembling with awe and reverence, Torothex accepted the book, and carried it to a desk. He opened it slowly. It was handwritten in the austere "skeleton" script of the long dead Kalakrastheni language. With great excitement, Torothex began to read. "History can be seen as a systematic exploration of possibilities," he read. "To predict it – " Ling's alarm went off.
**********

"Evil plants doubts about the practical effectiveness of good actions."

(The Dance of Good and Evil, by Relo Tabir)

Another visitor came to see Ydnas: she was Ukhanil, an Elder of the Holy Order of Police in the Telesinthine neighborhood. She had jet-black skin, white hair, and piercing yellow eyes. She wore chitin armor, and she left several weapons at the gate; apparently, there was a good deal of violence in the Telesinthine neighborhood.

"My colleagues and I are hoping that you can give us some help or advice," she said to Ydnas. "It seems the Age of Prophecy is coming to an end, and we fear that this will be followed by a great chaos. In fact, things are already getting bad, very rapidly. Those with parasitic tendencies are emboldened by the idea that the system is going to break down. A hundred varieties of idealistic reform have sprung up, each one disagreeing with all the others, and none of them willing to respect the traditional ways of doing things. A hundred varieties of resignation, denial, and despair have also sprung up. The problems are very widespread, and we fear that neither we, nor the Angels of Rejuvenation, nor any of the usual negative feedback loops are going to be sufficient. Some of us wonder if we should give up, and simply look out for ourselves, but our spiritual focus is on helping others, and our whole lives have been dedicated to this. What should we do?"

Ydnas looked up at her with wide eyes that were both sad and admiring. "Don't give up hope," she said, and then nodded in the negative so strongly that her braids flew out horizontally.

"What should we do, then?" asked Ukhanil.

"Police can't do anything by themselves," said Ydnas, hugging herself as if cold. "Society has to change."

"Fair enough," said Ukhanil, "but what is our part in this?"

"Give up _weapons_ ," said Ydnas. "Give up _fighting!_ "

Ukhanil looked disturbed. "Won't that just make it harder?"

Ydnas nodded in the affirmative. " _Very_ hard!"

"Well...," said Ukhanil, "what should we do instead of fighting?"

Ydnas looked thoughtful. "Maybe announce to everyone," she said, "that you are _my_ police. I mean, police of the Girl of the Prophecies. Tell them you will not be fighting. Say you are part of big change. But, you can still investigate, look for clues, figure things out. Still uncover truth. And, if something bad is maybe going to happen, stand there as a witness, and ask them to be good. Help them to talk to each other instead of fighting. Teach people how to do that. But most important, is to set an example."

"Well, we already try to set an example," replied Ukhanil.

"I know," said Ydnas, nodding and smiling apologetically. "I admire police. Very brave, very selfless. Now, be example of not fighting."

"How can I tell my co-religionists to not defend themselves?"

Ydnas shrugged. "Can't _tell_ them not to," she replied, "but can _suggest_. And is safer in long run, not to fight."

"What? How can that be?"

"If you are not a threat to criminals, they will be less likely to attack you."

"But some of them are just _mean_."

Ydnas nodded. "Makes it hard. But, if a person is crazy mean, could make an exception and kill them. Most criminals aren't crazy, though. Confused, afraid, angry, not grown up, lots of bad habits, don't stop to think, lots of wrong ideas, addicted to drugs, don't think they are good enough to do real work, ..."

"Maybe so," said Ukhanil, dubiously, "but I can't just stand by and let someone be hurt."

"Then don't," said Ydnas, shaking her head vigorously so that her braids flailed horizontally. "Never do what I say if it feels wrong to you."

Ukhanil looked surprised, then thoughtful.

"People are not fair to police," continued Ydnas.

"How do you mean?"

"People are lazy. They let bad things start happening. Injustice, stupidity. Many people poor, ignorant. These make problems, people get crazy or desperate, break laws, hurt other people. Then they say to police, 'Now, you go fix it! Go be violent, risk your life, have horrible memories!' Source of problem never fixed, so police can never win. Very, very bad, very, very wrong to treat police this way! Like people who are not careful with fire, fire gets out of control, then they say to fire-fighters, 'Go risk your lives, now, to put fire out.' Then watch from safe distance while fire-fighters get hurt, get killed, trying to stop fire. Only sometimes, fire so out of control that it never stops. Same with crime."

"Well," said Ukhanil, "supposing it is like that, what could we do?"

"Think of the lazy people as criminals, too," said Ydnas. "Some laws say, it is a crime to not be careful about possible fire. If a man goes out, leaves fire burning in house, no screen, spark flies, something catches, big fire, fire-fighter dies, man has broken law! Even if no fire happens, careless man has taken risk – not good! Law says, don't be careless!

"Crime is effect, lazy people the cause. Go talk to lazy people. Maybe even arrest them. This is going to _source_ of problem! This is stopping problems _before_ they happen!"

"But, can we really prevent crime?" asked Ukhanil.

"Look at different neighborhoods," said Ydnas. "Some are all crime, some almost no crime at all!"

"That's true," said Ukhanil. "I envy the police in the J'Len'n neighborhood – they don't need to carry weapons! They just direct traffic and the like."

Ydnas nodded. "Fire doesn't start in neighborhoods like that," she said. "Study differences between neighborhoods with crime, and neighborhoods without, then tell your neighborhood what they have to change."

"What if they don't?"

"Well, if nothing else works, arrest some of the lazy people, or even threaten to go on a retreat."

" _Go on a retreat?_ But then there would be nothing to stop the criminals ... That would be terrible!"

"Well, violence against police, year after year, is terrible, too! Police should not have to die! Police should not have to kill! Police should not have to pick up messes of lazy people! Police should not have to be mean and threatening and make people hate them! But, yes, only do retreat if nothing else works! Or, just refusing to fight is like going on retreat. Say to lazy people, 'One year from now we won't fight anymore. You have one year to really fix problems.' Or maybe neither is good idea. You decide. But if you make your neighborhood like the J'Len'n neighborhood, you can do as I said: no fighting!"

"Could we use force to reach that point," asked Ukhanil, "and give up force after that?"

"Maybe," said Ydnas. "Very tricky, though. Using force is setting an example, saying, 'In the end force is what counts,' and, 'It's all right to hurt other people to get what you want.' Also, force may scare people, but it doesn't _convince_. Outside, they obey, but inside, they are angry, they hate, they wait for a chance. To convince, you must show knowledge and logic and sympathy and patience."

"What about the Angels of Rejuvenation? They use violence."

"Yes, and it never lasts. Always have to go back."

"I certainly like the idea of stopping problems before they happen," mused Ukhanil.

"Me, too!" said Ydnas, hopping up and down. "If criminal kills someone I love, I might feel some tiny happy if killer is caught and punished, but what I really want is for the one I loved to have never died."
**********

"To see the world through another's eyes

is a step toward the Divine."

(attributed to various authors)

'I am Karnak,' thought the man. 'Is this not my house? Is that not my beautiful wife? Do I not remember what I was doing this afternoon? Why, then, do I feel this urge to think that I am someone named "Koof"? Ah, I remember sitting in my chair ... I must have dozed off and dreamed that I was this "Koof." Sometimes it takes a moment to come back from a dream, even after you awaken.'

(I am Koof! I did a mind-exchange into Karnak's body! I am being swamped by his memories!)

' _Mind-exchange?_ ' thought the man. 'I never heard of such a thing!' He turned to the woman in the bed. "I'm sorry, Darling," he said, "I had some sort of a dream, and I'm having a little trouble shaking it off. In fact," he added sheepishly, looking at the jewel-box and the necklace he was holding, "I guess I must have been doing a little sleepwalking." He returned the necklace to the box and replaced it on his wife's dresser.

(I am Koof! Karnak is in the owl!)

'I'm in an _owl_?' thought the man. 'What a bizarre idea. Yes, surely this is the remains of a dream.'

"It's not like you, Darling," said Karnak's wife, with deep concern in her eyes. "You've been acting strange for several days. I am worried about you."

"You're right, Darling," he said. "Tomorrow I will take a day off to relax and see a doctor."

"But Karnak, Darling, it seems as though something must be bothering you – I wish you would talk about it!"

He felt trapped by her question. Her doctor had privately told Karnak that she had an incurable, deadly disease. He couldn't bear to tell her, though he knew he must, sooner or later. But he didn't want to flatly lie to her, either. What could he say? Then, as he hesitated, he suddenly lost all sensation. He felt as though he were flying through a tunnel, and then as though he were being grabbed by millions of little hooks. Then he was bombarded by utterly chaotic sensations. 'I must be dreaming again,' he thought, 'but then, I wouldn't realize I was dreaming, would I?' Suddenly he was struck by a chilling fear – 'Am I going crazy?'

(You're not insane, you're just mistaken. Look, this is not chaos, this is a graveyard!)

He looked again, and suddenly all the vague and meaningless shapes co-operated – yes, he was indeed lying in a graveyard ... but was that any the less crazy? He started to get up.

(You can remember coming here!)

Yes, he could! He had jumped over the wall ... but the wall was ten feet high! That was crazy, too! "Darling!" he shouted out loud. "I am hallucinating! Get a doctor quickly!" He made a huge effort of will to wake up, but nothing happened.

(You can remember people – Talek, Kor, Ydnas, ...)

Images of these people came to him – but surely he had never known them – it was more hallucination!

(Remember the struggle with Tarth Sakul? The cockroach trick?)

He did ... "But I am no thief! I am a respectable arms merchant!"

(What was your last sale?)

"It was ... I can't remember! Who are you, and how did you get into my mind? Why are you doing this to me? Please, please, leave me alone!" The failure of his memory had raised a fear even worse than the fear of insanity: the fear of total extinction. He felt as though Koof were a foreign being who had invaded his mind; the invader was replacing his (Karnak's) mind with his (Koof's) own, like a baby wasp devouring the flesh of a caterpillar. He searched desperately for memories: his parents (nothing), his children (nothing – did he even have any?), his associates (nothing).

" _Darling!"_ he screamed (he couldn't remember her name). _"Give me a sleeping-draught! Quickly! No, hit me on the head! Knock me out!"_ He hoped that this would enable him to put off further disintegration until the doctor arrived, and that perhaps the doctor might help him. _"Call an exorcist! I am being possessed!"_

The 'Koof' persona, meanwhile, was so overwhelmed by the anguish of the 'Karnak' persona, that he hadn't the heart to continue challenging it. 'Koof' watched the disintegration of 'Karnak' with horror and a terrible sense of guilt, trying desperately to think of a way to prevent it. But now that the spell had run out, and they were back in Koof's original body, 'Karnak' had only a few memories of his own, and association kept leading him back to Koof's. 'Karnak' felt like a man who had fallen into a lagoon with barracudas; Koof's memories swirled around him, and each one tore out a little piece of his own being. He felt a furious hatred for Koof, and showered him with the most terrible curses he could conceive of. But then, as his last hope left him, he thought of his wife. His love for her was the strongest part of him; so far, it had not disintegrated. 'How terrible it must be for her,' he thought, 'to hear me screaming and cursing like this! I don't want her last moment with me to be like that!' Pulling what was left of himself together as best he could, he said:

"Darling, I want ... I want you to know that ... I love you ... more than anything in the world. Whatever I ... might have ever said or done to ... suggest the contrary, was ... just idiocy. You have been ... everything a wife should be, ... and more. Nothing ... in my life ... exceeds the ...blessedness ... of having known you. And ... my love for the children ... is the same." If they had no children, little harm would be done by saying this, he thought. "I love you. I love you." He now had only mind enough left to repeat, "I love you" over and over. He threw his entire will into repeating it. He kept repeating it, even when he no longer knew why, or what it meant. As the alien ocean reduced him to a tiny island, he kept repeating it; and as it broke him into pieces, each piece kept on repeating it, until it disappeared.
**********

"Violence is divine epilepsy"

(Theology for Atheists)

Oselika and Teladorion were approaching the neighborhood in which, according to Aptar, they would be able to find members of the Children of Noganecir. Suddenly, over the rooftops, they saw something white arc into the sky. As it rose and then fell, it left a soft, white trail behind it, from which bits seemed to dribble and fall.

"What in Rotim's hold is that?" asked Teladorion, reining in his horse.

"It looks like dust," said Oselika, frowning in puzzlement, "as if someone put a huge lump of dust in a catapult and set it off." The arc of whiteness bled downward, becoming a ghostly mountain, and then a gauzy curtain, finally losing its identity by merging with summer haze.

"Look! there's another one!" said Teladorion, and indeed, another crumbling arc spread itself across another segment of sky, like a futile bridge, built only to collapse. _Mortals trying to storm Heaven_ , thought Oselika.

"Why would someone want to launch barrelfuls of white powder into the air?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Teladorion, "but I've got a real shivery feeling about it. Let's go closer." She nodded, and they began to trot. Before they had gone a block, another ghost bridge spread itself across the sky, in yet another direction. The three streaks appeared to have a common origin.

"They're sending it in all directions," said Oselika.

"I can't think of any _good_ reason for doing that," said Teladorion, looking grim. He urged his horse into a gallop. Oselika did the same. Another white parabola rose and fell, this one almost in their own direction. A moment later, they heard a soft _whump!_

"That one came very close," said Teladorion. "We'll be on it soon."

The street they were on turned right, and they found themselves approaching a marketplace full of people. Thin curtains and streamers of fine white dust were falling over the merchants and their customers. On their left, another white comet rose and fell.

Oselika and Teladorion reined in at the market's edge. They scanned the scene. It was a bazaar in which at least a hundred individual merchants had each erected a colorful stall. Apparently the order of the day was toys, which explained the large proportion of children in the dense, variegated crowd. Most people, merchant and customer alike, had paused for a moment to look at the falling dust. Some of the people looked intrigued, but others were nervously starting to leave the area. Oselika heard another _whump!_ but she could not tell its direction.

Suddenly, some people in the middle of the market began to shriek. Others backed away from them, except for a few who went to help them. People throughout the marketplace began to hurry away, creating a number of bottlenecks. Then here, there, randomly in the crowd, more began to shriek. The first group, meanwhile, stopped shrieking. They began to leap and dance. They uttered strange howls of joy. The exodus tried to speed up; curses and screams were heard as people fought to get past each other.

Oselika looked over her shoulder. A woman, who had been one of the first to turn away, was hurrying her child down the street, away from the marketplace. Suddenly the woman stopped, and began to scream. The child looked very frightened; it cried and pulled on the hem of her dress. Then the child, too, began to scream.

" _Desecrate my corpse_ ," said Teladorion, "it's _noganecir!_ The slime-eaters are lobbing _noganecir_ all over the place!" Fortunately, the two cousins, warned by Aptar, had arranged magical filters for their breath. Those in the marketplace no doubt lacked such devices; more and more of them began to scream, howl, and dance, while others began to strike and trample one another in an attempt to escape. The noise was overwhelming.

Leaning toward Oselika and shouting against the din, Teladorion said, "Nothing we can do for these poor lambs, but maybe we can find the people who are doing this, and show them a little justice!"

Oselika nodded, and they rode back the way they had come, looking for a way around the chaos of the marketplace. As they left, some of the howling began to coalesce into choral song. Another bleached rainbow arced across the sky, breaking into slow white rain. Finding an avenue with little traffic, the cousins broke into a gallop, trying to estimate the direction and distance to the catapult by analyzing the trails of dust. As she rode, hunkered down over the neck of her horse, Oselika grabbed a seashell that was clipped to her saddle and spoke into it.

As they approached a cross street, Teladorion pointed to it and raised his eyebrows at Oselika. She nodded, and they turned into it. Their horses were beginning to foam. Echoes of hoofbeats clattered back at them. The street turned out to be a very good choice, for when they had got a half horizon down it, they could see that the source of the trails – including one that shot up that very moment – was on the roof of a large stone building at the end of it. As they approached the building, they saw that it was guarded by a double line of soldiers dressed in various styles of armor.

Teladorion's eyes caught fire. A snarl bared his teeth and twisted his face. He drew his sword, a large, heavy, double-edged broadsword, and rode straight at the middle of the line, which was in front of what appeared to be the main entrance to the building. The guards lifted their shields and pikes.

Teladorion screamed an insane, demonic scream. Just as his horse was about to impale itself on the pikes, he slapped its neck, and the well-trained animal leapt high into the air. It seemed to hang there forever; and then, finally, down it came, on top of both lines of guards. Four of them crumbled. As the horse struggled to retain its footing, Teladorion's sword made two half-circles of blur, once to the left, and once to the right. Each stroke went through the metal at the junction of helmet and shoulder-plate, and two more guards collapsed.

The other guards near Teladorion dropped their useless pikes and drew their swords. Oselika stopped twenty yards short of the fray, and, using her short reflex bow, shot thin poisoned arrows into the press around Teladorion. The arrows had shafts of steel and slowly tapering diamond points no wider than the shaft, and would penetrate anything but the thickest plate. As he fired her seventh shot, another lump of dust was hurled into the air from the roof.

As his horse recovered, Teladorion made two sweeping backhand strokes, one to the left, and one to the right, and he was clear! Riding up to the door, he muttered something to his horse, who turned around, hunched itself, took a deep breath, and delivered a resounding two-footed kick. The lock held, but the door sprang from its hinges. Another kick, and there was room to pass. Turning his horse so quickly that it almost fell, Teladorion hunkered down and made it leap through the triangular aperture. He found himself inside what appeared to be a Temple.

The remaining guards were uncertain as to whether to follow Teladorion, or to attack Oselika; their Captain had been one of the first to be felled by an arrow. Some did one, and some the other. As the ill-formed line ran towards her, Oselika put her bow back in its clip, took up her shield, and drew her sword. She wheeled sideways so as to take the line end-on, but a little to her right. With her horse in a steady trot, she rode down the line, leaning on her horse's neck, most of her weight on her right stirrup, arrows snicking off her shield, her sword flicking out like a frog's tongue to vulnerable armor-joints. One after another, the soldiers knelt injured, or collapsed altogether.

Meanwhile, inside the building, Teladorion disabled a pair of defenders, and, seeing a stone stairway, urged his panting horse right up it, followed by a surging mass of guards who had followed him in. He stopped at the upper landing; as the soldiers approached, the horse kicked the foremost with both hind feet. The unfortunate soldier went flying backwards, knocking over several others in the process, and fell to the stairs, his armor dented at the chest in a way that left little room for flesh. The other soldiers paused. A moment later, they were attacked by Oselika from behind.

Teladorion rode around the landing, looking for the way to the roof. Through an open door he saw stairs. After turning to incapacitate two soldiers who had ventured onto the landing, he rode through the door. The stairs to the roof were too small for his horse, so he dismounted. At the top of the stair was an open hatch, apparently unguarded. Pausing for a moment to take a deep breath, he warily mounted the stairs until his head was almost level with the opening. Then he bounded quickly up the remaining steps, swinging his sword around his head as a precaution against ambush.

There was none. He found himself on a flat stone roof with a minimal, low railing. In the center of the roof were a pair of catapults, surrounded by operators and barrels. One was being wound, the other was being loaded for firing. There were two armed guards.

Teladorion ran toward the catapult that was being loaded. One guard threw a spear, the other drew a sword. Teladorion knocked the spear aside with his broadsword. Judging from the other guard's posture that he was not adept with the sword, Teladorion made a wide, furious swing with his own. The soldier tried to parry it, but the momentum of Teladorion's stroke knocked his sword aside and struck his helmet a blow hard enough to dent it. The guard collapsed, dropping his sword; Teladorion kicked it away.

Screaming, face contorted, sword whirling, Teladorion rushed at the catapult. An operator threw a handful of white powder into his face; Teladorion protected his eyes with his left arm, then smacked the operator on the side of the head with the flat of his sword. The operator fell like a stone, and the others fell back. With one stroke, Teladorion severed the cord that held back the throwing-arm; the arm sprang uselessly upward, bounced off the restraining beam, and fell back. Next, Teladorion slashed and slashed again at the twisted cords that powered the catapult, until they were all cut. The catapult was now beyond easy repair.

Then he turned to the other device. The remaining soldier stood in the way, firmly and cautiously, in guard position, but Teladorion simply made a feint and dodged around him. With one wide stroke he severed the twisted tension cords, rendering the device useless. He then turned back to the guard, who had been coming up behind him, and with a few precise but violent blows drove him to the edge of the roof. The guard fell over the railing, dropping his sword in order to catch the railing with both hands. Teladorion let him be; he was too heavy with armor to pull himself back up.

Turning and pausing for breath, he noticed something very strange: all the operators were looking at him lovingly, with broad, happy smiles and sparkling eyes. Turning away from them, he headed for the hatch, pausing only to pick up the spear that had been thrown at him. As he came to the hatch, he saw two guards coming up, single-file. He rammed the spear into the throat-mail of the first one, who staggered backwards into the second one; after a moment's tottering, they both fell backwards down the steps, their armor crashing and ringing, squealing and sparking, and lay there stunned. Running down the stairs and leaping over them, Teladorion found himself on the landing, where he saw Oselika, standing in the midst of a windrow of dead and wounded guards. Turning back to the roof stairs, he bound the stunned guards' hands behind their backs with scraps he tore from their clothing.

Exhausted, smiling grimly, he jogged over to her. Both cousins were panting too hard to speak. He made the hand-signal of _immediate enemy defeated_ , and she returned it. They both stood there panting for awhile, and then he said, "Fine work, ... Sel!" and she said, "Fine work, ... Tel!" She noticed his face turning a bit green, as it always did at such times. Then, suddenly, he vomited in three sharp spasms. She watched carefully to be sure that he didn't choke on it; he didn't. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he said, words thrown in between gaspings for breath, "Never ... could stand ... the sight of ... blood!"
**********

"I am nine-tenths family."

(the Hermit of Crub)

A few days after returning to the school, Kor was feeling better, though not by any means happy or energetic. Madame Caramami found things for her to do, mostly helping out in the office. Kor began to feel both deeply grateful and deeply guilty about being there. She knew that Madame was having financial difficulties with the school. Kor had received her degree – what further obligations did the school have toward her? What if every alumna sought asylum at the school when she fell upon hard times? Soon, she felt obliged to mention these considerations to Madame.

When Madame had something truly important to say, she spoke slowly, quietly, and deliberately. To those familiar with her normal mode of speech, this was very effective at getting one's attention. In such a manner she replied to Kor:

"Kor, Dearie," she said, "I am glad that you returned to me, and glad that you are here. I think of all my students as my daughters, but you especially. Did I not bring you home from the orphanage, when you were a mere child? Did I not raise you? Is this not your home? Parents always grieve when their children grow up and leave the burrow. We know that such is the proper way of things, but we grieve anyway. If our children return, we are happy, not sad! If I have not seemed happy to have you here, it is because the state of the school has been preying on my mind."

She held up the icon that she always wore. It was a disk on which was engraved a picture: below, a boy and a girl stood on the Earth, holding hands; above, a man and a woman looked down upon them, from the clouds. "Noticing your tattoo, Kor, I did my best to raise you in the Suimi way. But you learned much about my own religion, the Church of Ingleria. I remember the time you asked me about these figures." Madame paused for a moment, her face taking on that sweet but slightly sad expression that parents get when they bring back memories of their children's childhood. Then she shook herself, and continued. "As I told you then, the Church holds that we are all orphans, in a way, exiled in this strange, distorted world of evil, stupidity, ugliness, failure, and pain. But someday we will be reunited with our divine parents, and that will be a day of great relief, joy, and thanksgiving." Again she passed into reverie, this time with a radiant smile.

Now Kor felt guilty for a different reason: she had treated their adoptive familial relationship as if it were hardly more than a commercial one. Again she apologized, and again she was reassured.

**

About a year had passed. Madame Caramami ascended to the pulpit in order to give the welcoming address to the new students. But as she stood there, no words came out. The fear that Kor had carried for some time, her fear for Madame's health, suddenly expanded from a whisper to a scream.

Madame stood there, smiling, but saying nothing, doing nothing. Then, silent still, she began to sink, like a great ship leaking below the waterline. Kor sprang from her seat and rushed to the pulpit. Vaguely, she heard others following. Madame lay on the floor, her face still arranged in the cheery, energetic expression which, Kor knew, had become more and more of a lie over the last few years, as the neighborhood degenerated and the school's finances collapsed. Kor called to her; she shook her gently; she even slapped her lightly. Someone else was taking Madame's pulse, and someone else was holding a mirror to her mouth. "Out of the way, please, I am a Medicine Man," said someone, and Kor squeezed herself into the back of the pulpit.

The Medicine Man only confirmed what Kor already knew: that Madame Caramami's's exile in this strange, distorted world was done. Mostly Kor was leaden with grief, but a small part of her smiled, as she imagined Madame, a little girl again, rushing joyfully into the arms of her parents.

**

At the funeral, Kor was frozen grief. She could hardly tell the flowers from the singing. Afterwards, a group of students, staff, and neighbors convened spontaneously, and the consensus was that Kor was the natural successor as Headmistress. Someone told her. Numb, she accepted, although she had a vision of herself, collapsing in the pulpit.

**

Far into the night, Kor had labored. The books could not be balanced, and a glance at declining enrollment figures sufficed to show that there was no point in raising tuition. What to do? She felt a strong impulse to take a walk, and she gave in to it, even though she knew it was risky. Taking up a large hardwood cudgel – which some might mistake for a magician's staff – she peered out the window into the dark. Seeing no one, she cautiously stepped outside. Stars and a sliver of moon gave the only light. She locked the door and cautiously proceeded.

The chill air and the danger woke her up and made her very alert. All of her senses seemed to have been sharpened. She made her way to the street and turned right. She had no destination. No one was visible. She went up a block or two, growing more and more afraid, but continuing for no discernible reason. A featureless black shadow seemed to be stalking her from behind, but she put it down to imagination. She could feel her heart galloping, and the blood rushed singing in her ears.

She came to the corner of a building, wanting and afraid to turn. She listened until she thought her ears would stretch out and bend around the corner, but she heard only a thousand harmless sounds of the night. Finally, she clenched her breath and forced herself to look past the edge. What she saw made her jump, and she only barely stifled a gasp. She leapt back, debated with herself for a moment, and then cautiously peered again.

A woman lay there, a woman with a child. Hesitantly, Kor sidled around the corner. Were they asleep? No, only the child was asleep. Clotting blood glistened on the front of the woman's shabby dress. _I just missed it_ , thought Kor, _her killer must still be near._ She finally gathered enough sanity to start back to the school. Except ... _I can't afford to keep a child_ , she thought, desperately. _But I can't just abandon it there. It will die_. She thought of Zar. _Did anyone take care of her? Did someone say, 'I'm sorry, it's just too much?_ Compromising between speed and silence, prudence and ethics, she stepped over to the child, and very gently picked it up. _Please don't wake_! she thought. Cradling it in her arms, she turned the corner –

– and found herself face-to-face with the vilest-looking man she had ever seen in her life.

His widened eyes and snarling mouth radiated rage and contempt. Grinning with malice, he reached out his crusted hands to grab her.

And suddenly started to laugh.

He laughed so hard that he couldn't grab her. "Stop, stop!" he gasped, writhing this way and that, face grotesquely contorted. "Stop! I can't ... _breathe_!" Then he _giggled_. And _snickered_. And _guffawed_. He stumbled and leaned against the wall, shaking, his desperate inhalations whooping in his throat.

Suddenly Kor understood. Someone was _tickling_ him. But who? There was no one there.

" _Stop!_ " he screamed, and collapsed onto the pavement. Then he could no longer speak, only shake rhythmically and gasp.

_Run!_ she thought, and went around him. But then, looking up, she saw something else in her path: a dark, formless, empty cloud of nothingness. It was not laughing. She froze in place.

A dry and ghostly whisper came from the center of the dark. "Don't worry, Kor, I'm on your side!" The voice sounded familiar. "I'm Talek," it said. "We met before. Your graduation day. Remember, when you met Sindariden? Talek. I told you about the Church of Irony, and about the architecture of your school."

Perhaps she did vaguely remember someone like that ... she ran around the shadow, giving it a wide berth. The gasping sounds behind her stopped. She ran, without looking back. Coming to the door, she somehow unlocked and pried it open, while simultaneously looking behind her and holding a staff and a baby, and passed through. Slamming it behind her, she shot all three bolts. Then it was her turn to gasp for breath. The sprint had winded her.

Maybe it **was** Talek, she thought, remembering him a little better, ... standing in the darkness, he'd be invisible, in his black robe ...

She heard sounds in the dark house; footsteps, coming near. Slivers of light flashed into existence and coalesced, emerging from the center of an eerie figure, approaching her. Its eyes were pools of black, its mouth a pit of grief.

It was Sarluix, one of the older girls, carrying a lamp at waist level.

**

Kor, with the help of a hex from a local Midwife, was able to nurse the baby, whom she named "Tulith."

Soon, Kor loved Tulith nearly as much as she had loved Zar. The reason that she loved Tulith a little less was not because Tulith was adopted. It was because, having once experienced loss, Kor was unable to give quite so much of herself. Perhaps there was less to give.

**

Very nervously, Kor forced herself to ascend the pulpit.

"We can't go on," she said. No one was surprised. "It's not just the finances," added Kor. "I'm beginning to feel pressure from our local crime lord, Pappi, that you should all work for him. But he hasn't the faintest idea of what true courtesanry is all about – he will treat you as common prostitutes." Shudders of disgust passed through the audience.

"I'm changing the function of this building," Kor said. "It is now an orphanage. I will try to help you find other schools, and I will be happy to write letters of recommendation."

"But," objected one of the girls, "if you can't find money enough for the school, even with our tuition, how can you find money enough for an orphanage?"

"Because if I don't, the children will die!" replied Kor, grimly.

**

Gornithrog was returning from the auction, leading a small boy by the hand. He was very pleased. It was a chilly morning, but he was well-dressed. He kept running his eye over the boy, and felt delicious pangs of arousal. The boy was fairly healthy, and Gornithrog had acquired him for a very good price. With a little luck, he would last for a year.

Someone was coming the other way. Gornithrog put his hand on the pommel of his sword. But it was only an old lady, hobbling along with the aid of a stick. Gornithrog kept his hand on his sword, but he relaxed, and began to indulge in fantasies about what he would do with the boy.

The old woman shuffled past him. Then, forty years seemed to drop off her age. She whirled and cracked him over the head with her staff. He fell and lay still. The boy looked horrified, and shrank against the wall, quivering. Looking quickly both ways, the woman put down her cudgel and bent over Gornithrog, taking his pulse. " _Leech pus!_ " she muttered, after a few breaths. "I didn't mean to _kill_ him." She sighed, raising her hands in the air and waving them in a gesture of frustration. Then she sat down on the sidewalk, facing the boy, and holding up her empty hands where he could see them. "Please don't be afraid of me, Dearie," she said, in a voice of motherly sweetness and reassurance. "I am your friend. I am on your side. I have come to rescue you from that bad man, who was going to hurt you very much."

The boy said nothing. Tears streamed down his face.

"I know this must be very confusing," continued Kor. "They probably told you that he was a nice man, didn't they? Well, he's not. Nice men don't buy little boys." The boy looked to the side, as though he might run. But he was too small to outrun an adult, and he had no place to go.

"Your life has been very hard, lately, hasn't it?" said Kor. "You must have lost your parents somehow. I wish that hadn't happened. I wish I could have stopped that from happening. But now, your life is going to get better." The boy began to cry. _I hope no police come along_ , thought Kor, who had no money for a bribe. She forced herself to be patient, to sit there, smiling at the boy.

She noticed that the lightly-clad boy was shivering in the morning breeze. Removing her shawl, she said, "Here, Dearie, why don't you wrap yourself in this?" She held it out to him. He shrank back.

"I'm sorry, Dearie," said Kor, tossing it to the sidewalk within his reach, and withdrawing her hand. "I didn't mean to frighten you. But you must be feeling very cold. I can see you shivering. Go ahead, pick it up!" Watching her closely, the boy extended his hand, very tentatively, farther and farther by stages, his eyes on her, until finally he found the shawl by touch and pulled it to himself. Still watching her, he wrapped it around his shoulders. He still shivered.

"There!" said Kor, smiling. "You feel warmer already, don't you? You know what?" she added. "Where I live, we have a _big fireplace_ , where you can sit and get warm!" Spreading her arms, she pantomimed a person blissfully soaking in heat from a fire. "I bet you'd like that! I live in a big, strong house, and I have _locks_ on all the doors, so that no one can get in and hurt me! And there are lots of children who live with me, and they are all safe, too!" She let some more time pass, smiling at him. Someone was coming down the street. That made her nervous, but she kept the anxiety out of her voice.

"Have you had breakfast yet? I haven't. As soon as I get home, I'm going to have a big bowl of hot soup, and some warm toast with honey on it!" Yes, two men were approaching. "Just a moment, Dearie," said Kor, "I'm going to stand up and stretch my legs a bit. And I don't know who these gentlemen are that are approaching, so I'm going to borrow this fellow's sword. Oh. Here, why don't you take my cudgel?" She recovered the stick and placed it where he could reach it, holding it with the tips of her fingers so that he could see she wasn't going to strike at him with it. It was much too large for him, but he stood, picked it up, and held it at the ready. Kor could see that having a weapon in his hands made him feel a little better.

Kor drew Gornithrog's saber out of its sheath and tested its blade with her thumb. "Don't look right at them, Dearie," she said. "We don't want to challenge them, we just want to let them know that we are ready to fight, if need be."

Without appearing to notice Kor and the boy, the two men crossed to the other side of the street, and continued on their way.

"While I'm at it," said Kor, "let me see if this fellow has anything else that might be of use." She found a purse with coin and a bunch of keys, and transferred both to her own pockets. She also appropriated Gornithrog's sword-belt and scabbard. She could have used the fabric from his clothes as well, but she didn't want to be that ghoulish, in front of the boy.

The two men were soon a good distance away. Sheathing the saber, Kor sat down again, smiling at the boy. "Let's see now," she said, "what was I saying? Oh, yes, I was talking about my big, strong house, and the fireplace, and warm breakfast ... Oh, and do you know what else? There are lots of children who live with me! Some of them are your age! I think that they would like to be friends with you! Would you like to come visit us? You can, if you want. I'd love to have you!" The boy dropped his eyes to the ground.

Kor paused long enough for a dog to lie down, and then she said, "Well, Dearie, it was nice meeting you, but I do want to get home now. I'm really hungry, and I'm getting cold. You can keep my stick and my shawl, though, if you want." The boy said nothing, and would not meet her eyes. He looked very nervous and confused. "I like you," said Kor. "I can tell that you are a nice boy. Your parents must have loved you very much! I think they would have wanted you to come with me, and not stay all alone on this street." She stood up, brushing grit off herself. She turned to go, took a few steps, and turned back. "It's up to you, of course, but I really would like you to visit me, Dearie." After a moment of hesitation, the boy took a few steps toward her, then stopped. "That's fine," said Kor. "You don't have to come right up to me. Just follow!" She walked on, looking back with a smile from time to time to make sure that he was following her. She felt a little squeamish about leaving Gornithrog to the neighborhood dogs, but that was the way of things, these days. She knew too much about him to be terribly upset.

As they walked, the boy walked closer and closer to Kor. Finally, as they prepared to cross a busy street, she reached out a hand, and he took it. She paused a bit on the other side. "By the way," she said, "my name is 'Kor.' What is yours?"

"Tak," he said.

**

Entering the Cathedral of the Courtesans, Kor found the right alcove without much trouble. "Miss Kor?" said the Deaconess, standing. "Please have a seat."

"Thank you, Deaconess," said Kor. The Deaconess also sat. "Please call me 'Nencina,'" she said.

"Thank you, Nencina," said Kor. She was very tired. This was partly from having walked three horizons, all the way from her own neighborhood to the Cathedral, but mostly from the stress of her never-ending struggle with poverty, despair, and growing old.

"Well now, Miss Kor," said Nencina, "I'd like to begin by going over some of the material in your application. I see that you graduated from Madame Caramami's, back when it had an excellent reputation, and that you spent a year at the Temple of Ydris. That was certainly a promising start."

"Thank you, Deaconess," said Kor.

"Call me 'Nencina,' said the Deaconess, "really!"

"Sorry," said Kor, with a start, "I will."

"But then," continued the Deaconess, "you left the Temple. Why was that?" She looked up at Kor.

"It was an emotional decision," said Kor. "My child was kidnapped from there, and ..."

"And you had a nervous breakdown," said Nencina, nodding. "I understand. You then returned to Madame Caramami's as an assistant, and later became the Head of School," she continued, "and you served as such in the period during which the school deteriorated, and finally ceased to exist."

"It wasn't our fault," said Kor. "The neighborhood deteriorated."

The Deaconess nodded. "I see that you haven't worked as a courtesan for many years, not since you worked at the Temple. Why is that?"

_It's in the application_ , thought Kor, _but that is the way of things. Bureaucrats always make you repeat yourself_. "At first, I didn't feel up to it," she said, "and then, the neighborhood deteriorated, so there was no appropriate context or clientele." _Also,_ she thought, _I changed my attitude toward sex, after having Zar and losing her._

"And since the collapse of the school, you have been running an orphanage?"

"Yes," said Kor. "That came about accidentally, in a way, and yet ... having lost my own child, and never having learned what became of her, I see every orphan child as –"

"I understand," said Nencina. "but now, you want to return to courtesanry?"

"Well," said Kor, "I don't want to give up the orphanage. But it has no endowment, and in the current state of the neighborhood, there are no donors. I am hoping to earn the money to support it."

"I see," said the Deaconess, looking thoughtful. There was a moment of silence. Then Nencina coughed and continued the interview.

"Now, I see that your specialty was courtesanry of sacrifice," she said, "but in your current situation, there would be problems with that. Virtually all churches that use courtesans require them to remain on the grounds, and usually give them little or nothing in the way of cash."

"I know," said Kor, "but I had two ideas about that. First, I am hoping that some church might adopt the orphanage, so to speak. I'd be willing to move. In fact, I'd be eager – that neighborhood is no place for children to grow up in. I and the children would then be on the church grounds, and I would not need to make money."

"I see," said the Deaconess. "Well, if everything else goes well, we will pass that on, as a proposal to all the local churches. And your second idea was?"

"I was thinking about becoming a free courtesan," said Kor. "That would be suicidal in my present neighborhood, but I would be willing to commute." She felt queasy just thinking about it, but the children had to eat.

"But both of these plans, especially the second one, would be using your sexuality for your own purposes," said Nencina. "What about your oath as a courtesan of sacrifice?"

"Ydris absolved me of my oath before I left," said Kor.

The Deaconess considered this for a moment. "That's a subtle point," she said. "I'll have to discuss that with a Priestess."

"Fine," said Kor.

"I'll let you know. But now, there's something else that worries me. Don't courtesans of sacrifice generally have a low opinion of free courtesans?" Her voice turned a little severe. "It is necessary to have respect for one's work, you know."

_No it's not_ , thought Kor, _not if your children are starving_. Out loud, she said, "I am grateful that my life has prodded me to give up that terrible snobbery." _There's actually a little truth in that,_ she thought.

Nencina nodded. "Well, both of your ideas seem workable, if the Priestess approves on the ethical issue. I think that the second one is much more likely to be realized, however. Would you hold your head up a bit more, please?" Kor did so. The deaconess came out from behind her desk and surveyed Kor's features very closely. There were streaks of gray in Kor's hair, and her face had become lined with love and care. "I love the gray streaks in your hair," said Nencina. "Are they real?"

"Yes, they are," said Kor.

"And your face is wonderfully lined, much more deeply than I would expect in someone your age. I suppose that your life has been very stressful in the last few years."

"Yes, I think that's the reason," said Kor.

"Well, your face is certainly very beautiful," said the Deaconess, stepping back. "Would you stand and disrobe, please?"

"Of course," said Kor, complying quickly.

Nencina walked around her several times, occasionally touching or rubbing her to get a sense of texture. "Very nice," she said. "I _love_ your stretch marks. And where did you get those scars?"

"Street thugs," said Kor.

"They add a touch of Romance," said the Deaconess, nodding with approval.

"Good," said Kor.

"Now," said Nencina, "if you'll just lie down here...and put your feet in those stirrups...good...now, this may feel a bit cold...hmmm, everything seems healthy...all right, you may dress and sit now." When Kor had settled herself, the Deaconess said, "I have just one more question, Kor: have you, ah, _been with_ _a man_ , since you worked at the Temple?"

"No," said Kor.

"Why not?"

"Well," said Kor, "after I lost my child, I felt ... _differently_ about sex. And then, I was so busy! Also, there aren't any men in my neighborhood I'd be attracted to. They are all louts, ruffians, goons, pimps, sadists, ..."

"I understand," said Nencina, nodding, "but there is a concern...as you know, men prefer a woman who appears to be enjoying..."

"I'll do my best," said Kor.

"Well," said Nencina, "that's it for now." She stood up. So did Kor. "I hope to get a reply from the Priestess in a couple of days," Nencina continued. "It's too bad that there is no longer any reliable mail service to your neighborhood. Would you come back in four days, and we'll finish up?"

"I will," said Kor. "Thank you for everything, Nencina."

"Think nothing of it," Nencina replied.

After Kor left, Nencina wept.

**

Brother Koof had had a good night. He had decided to remain in the neighborhood, in spite of its deterioration, because he got a special pleasure out of stealing from criminals. He looked with satisfaction at the box of jewelry he had appropriated from the headquarters of Adjroff, one of Pappi's lieutenants in the drug trade. Brother Koof caught himself thinking with glee of the distinct possibility that Pappi would punish Adjroff severely for the loss. He cut that train of thought short, though, for he was not supposed to hate his victims, only to dispossess them.

With someone like Adjroff, not hating was a real challenge. Koof adopted the posture for meditation, slowing his breath and relaxing. He focused on the idea that Adjroff was ignorant. He was actually seeking the good, as he was so unfortunate as to see it. He told himself that Adjroff was in great measure the product of his environment, and that Koof himself, if he had grown up in different circumstances, might well have ended up as a drug dealer. He told himself that everyone had a function in life, and that what looked despicable on the surface no doubt had a complex and wonderful reason for being.

It didn't work. He still hated Adjroff with a passion. Koof sighed. This meant another week of penance.

He began to divide up the take. A bit for his own use, a tithe for the church. The rest he divided up among the various individuals and groups that he had selected for aid. One of them was Kor's orphanage.

**

Talek settled into his usual chair in the guest wing. "I have good news," he said to Kor. "You have a benefactor." He handed Kor a small bag, full of coins.

Kor's eyes widened as she examined its contents. "This is wonderful," she said. "Who is it from?"

"He prefers to remain anonymous." As always, Talek's expression was unreadable, since his face was completely hidden by his hood and veil.

"It's you, isn't it, Talek?"

"No, no," said Talek, waving his arms in front of him as though to ward something off, "not that I would mind helping you."

"You do help us, Talek," said Kor, fondly, smiling at him.

"My pleasure," said Talek, making a little bow from the waist. Something about that bow reminded Kor of the first time she had met him. What a lovely day that had been! How happy she had felt!

She looked out the one remaining useful window (which she had barred) at the blighted neighborhood. No trees, no flowers, ...

Tears started at her eyes. She shook her head. "How is it possible," she asked, "for a neighborhood to... deteriorate like this? And so rapidly?"

"'Life imitates thought,'" replied Talek. "When something, even a small thing, happens to diminish people's confidence in the value of some resource, then its value _does_ diminish. If this reaches a tipping point, you have a chain reaction, and the resource loses value altogether."

"But," said Kor, "couldn't everyone come to understand that? And couldn't they refuse to go along?"

"Of course they could," said Talek, "but they'd have to act as a _group_. They'd have to trust one another to stick by an agreement not to devalue the resource. If even one individual in a neighborhood lacks that confidence, he will sell his house at a loss, believing that it will only be worse later on. That will weaken everyone else's bargaining position, bringing their property values down. If the others are comparably lacking in solidarity, there will be a mad race to sell, which will depress the value further yet. That is a case of what we call _the First Irony of Individualism_ : the more the individuals in a group look out for their own individual interests, the worse off they actually become."

"But don't _some_ selfish people become incredibly rich?" asked Kor.

"Yes indeed," said Talek. "The First Irony of Individualism needs to be tempered with a recognition of the statistical nature of life. In other words, some people are incredibly lucky, or, as their sycophants put it, talented. On the average, though, the principle holds quite well."

**

Scratch, accompanied by three of his goons, approached the orphanage. A block before they reached their goal, they encountered Talek.

"Excuse me, good sir," said Talek obsequiously, "would you by any chance be going to see Kor?"

Scratch stopped, as did his goons. Facing Talek, Scratch said, "Who are you, may I ask?" He had learned to be always fairly polite with someone he didn't know, and to get information before making a committing response.

"My name is Talek," replied the little man in the black robe. "I'm a priest. And I was wondering whether you might be about to require Kor to pay protection."

"I don't know what could have made you think that," said Scratch.

"Because if you are," continued Talek, "I can tell you, that she has nothing of value – monetary value, that is."

"Everyone has something of value to offer the world," said Scratch, smiling. The goons leered, making gestures suggestive of sexual activity.

"I would like to pay on her behalf," said Talek. The goons burst into laughter. Scratch, however, was puzzled and a little nervous. He didn't know what to make of this man.

"I offer one knuckle of 7-guage Ytterbium wire per month," said Talek, "and I will pay three months in advance." He held up a short piece of wire. The goons stopped laughing.

One of the goons took the wire and examined it, and then he handed it to Scratch, who also examined it. "It _looks_ good," he said, thoughtfully. If it really was Ytterbium, Talek's offer was well worth taking. "I'll have it checked by my alchemist, and if it's good, we have a deal!"

"You must promise to give Kor, and the orphanage, and all the children, and any guests that she may have, complete protection," said Talek.

"Fair enough," said Scratch, nodding. "Same time, same place, tomorrow?"

"Yes!" said Talek, and walked off.

"Now _that's_ a weird little lizard," said one of the goons, watching him go.

"And maybe a very wealthy one," said Scratch, thoughtfully. "I wonder how much of that wire he's got?" _Maybe we can get it all_.

"Why should he care about that crazy bitch-lizard Kor?" asked one of the goons.

"Maybe he _does_ know what she has to offer," said another, and they all snickered heartily.
**********

"Speaking in a mortal tongue,

even a god cannot tell the whole truth."

( _The Book of Revelation_ )

It wasn't long before Mortal Part, like Lightbearer, was captured by the P'Twism occupation forces. Soon thereafter, he was brought before the Captain. The Fabulist understood the P'Twism language, and started to explain himself.

The Captain interrupted him after a few sentences. "Ah," he said, "you're the fellow who is the creator of the universe."

"I don't know," replied Mortal Part. "I'm confused. Sometimes I think I'm just psychotic."

"We, on the other hand," said the Captain, leaning back and steepling his fingers, "have considered the possibility that you are a spy."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, you're evidently not from around here, and you're not a resident of the Empire, either; and yet you are perfectly fluent in the Standard Imperial P'Twism dialect, and also in the local language. How can you explain that?"

"Well, that's one of the things that makes me think that I _am_ the creator of the universe."

"Could you do a miracle for us, please? Just a small one?"

"I don't seem to have any miraculous powers anymore. That makes me think I might be psychotic."

"But psychosis wouldn't explain your remarkable knowledge of languages."

"No. Perhaps I wanted to see what it was like to be mortal, and I decided to come here, and I gave myself just enough information to get by."

"But surely," objected the Captain, "you, as the creator of mortals and their world, would already know what mortal experience was like."

"Not necessarily. As I recall, I was like the author of a book. An author doesn't describe every last grain of sand on a beach. He just says there's a beach, and says enough about it to serve the needs of the story. When I created light, I just said, 'Let there be light,' I didn't give the equations for the ectoplasmagical field, I just had a rough idea of what I wanted light to be like. But light obeys them! In the same way, I could create mortals without knowing everything about them. That's why they have free will."

"Then where do they come from, all these details?" asked the Captain. "If _you_ didn't make them, there must be some _other_ creative force in the universe."

Mortal Part nodded. "Perhaps it's the _reader_ ," he said.

"An interesting idea," said the Captain, "but what made you choose this particular time and place? We can't help but notice that you arrived just before we did, and knowing our language. Evidently, you were planning to interact with us. But to what end?"

"I don't remember, but presumably, for some reason, I thought this would be a particularly good time and place to try the experiment of being a mortal."

"You arrived just in time to see one way of life supersede another," said the Captain, "and you gave yourself both languages. Perhaps you wanted to help us in some way."

"I'd be happy to do that if I could," said Mortal Part. "Perhaps I wanted to be a translator, or a mediator."

"We're not looking for a mediator," said the Captain, "and if we were, why would we choose _you_? You're as alien to _them_ as you are to us. Of course, if you could do some really impressive miracles, that would not be a problem."

Mortal Part waved his hand experimentally. Nothing happened. "I'm afraid I still can't," he sighed. "It makes no sense. I just don't know."

"Or perhaps you wanted to help the reactionaries among them to defend their old ways," said the Captain. "After all, you introduced yourself to them, first."

"The same objection applies to that," said Mortal Part. "How could I help them, without special powers?"

"Do you know any _other_ languages?" asked the Captain.

"Apparently, just two," said Mortal Part, "the language with which I supposedly created the world, and the language with which I conversed with my friend."

"Could we hear a bit of the creation language?"

"I'm sorry," said the Fabulist, a little sheepishly, "but it has no sounds. It had to exist before I created sound, after all. I just _think_ in it. It was never meant for communication."

"Well," said the Captain, "can't you _make up_ a system sounds for it, right now?"

"It would be very hard," said Mortal Part. "You see, spoken languages are linear – there's a sound, and then another sound, and so on. Because speech exists in time, which is one-dimensional, speech must itself be one-dimensional. But there's no such restriction on a language that's only _thought_. At least, not on one that's thought by _me_. Besides, how could I use a temporal language to create time?"

"Well, how about the language in which you spoke to your friend?"

"Yes. I invented that so that we would be able to communicate when we had bodies," he said. "Before that, we just knew each other's thoughts."

"May I hear a bit of it?" asked the Captain.

"Sure," said Mortal part, and chattered a bit in a singsong language peppered with hisses and clicks. The Captain looked questioningly at a man who had been standing over by a wall. The man shook his head in the negative.

"Major P'See is a linguist," said the Captain, "but he has apparently never heard of any language like that."

"Well, as I said, it was invented just for the two of us," replied Mortal Part.

The Captain pondered this for awhile. "If you _are_ a spy," he said, "you are certainly a very strange one. Your cover story is terribly implausible; I don't know whether that would make you a very stupid spy, or a very smart one. But I don't see what _else_ you can be, and you have not been very much help in that regard." He looked puzzled and irritated.

"I don't blame you for being puzzled," said Mortal Part. "I'm puzzled myself, and I hope you figure it out."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep you in custody," said the Captain, "while we search for another hypothesis. If we catch you trying to smuggle anything out, including information, or receiving anything not checked by us, something very, very nasty will happen to you."

"Of course," said Mortal Part.

"Lieutenant," said the Captain, "take this fellow and keep him under maximum security. Make him comfortable – no torture, unless you hear from me, or unless he breaks a rule."

"Yes, sir!" said the Lieutenant, gesturing to two guards.

"Perhaps I wanted to experience prison," mused Mortal Part, as they prepared to escort him out. "That's a significant feature of mortal life."

"Well," said the Captain, starting to leaf through some papers on his table, "the ultimate defining experience for mortals is _death_ , I suppose."

"I think I'll leave that for last," said Mortal Part.
**********

"Cleverness, carried too far, becomes stupidity."

( _Chaos Theory for Sinners_ , by Brother Butterfly)

Agent 777 was widely regarded as the Cathedral's best assassin. She herself would give (quite correctly) a great deal of credit to her support team, which included three magicians, two telepaths, a seer, various experts, several intuitives, two platoons of mercenaries, an Ethicist, and a large number of other helpers of various kinds. In addition to this, she could always call for further help from the Cathedral. But it is true that she had remarkable talent; in particular, the ability to respond to surprising situations with amazing speed and cleverness. Even the greatest practitioners of an art make mistakes, however.

Many supplicants came to the Cathedral of the Assassins, hoping to take out a contract on Ling (a.k.a. Pappi, Nodecema, etc.). But Ling's security was very good, and after losing several agents, the Cathedral declared that it would only accept seventh-level contracts on him. Such contracts cost two thousand Kostiligars, and very few of Ling's enemies could afford that. Many supplicants argued that the Cathedral should accept the mission _pro bono_ , but the Cathedral, while seeing much justice in the arguments, was still reluctant to take the risk, and so the process stalled.

The Church of Streling, however, came up with the entire sum, and so the Cathedral gave the task to 777. The agent, after the usual preparatory period of fasting, meditation, and prayer, began to work on the case. Her team began by collecting as much information as they could find on Ling and his primary enemies and associates. They found this task quite difficult, however, not only because of Ling's great penchant for secrecy, but (even more so) because of his talent for the effective deployment of disinformation. She did, however, obtain a number of accurate pictures and descriptions of Ling, which she memorized.

After his narrow escape from Tarth Sakul, Ling had decided to invest much more in Security than he had before. He acquired a new Security Chief, Olix Shimura, recommended by Merelith as a specialist in security. Shimura was brilliant, dedicated, and ruthlessly efficient. He correctly suspected, however, that Ling secretly had several alternative security forces, each of which had infiltrated his own.

The core of Ling's headquarters in Toxic Landing was located in a cavern, hollowed out of basalt, and connected by a long labyrinth of tunnels to the peripheral part of Ling's headquarters, which was disguised as a Temple dedicated to Yeench, the god of innocent young girls, that also served as a decoy to protect the core.

Recognizing the need for caution, 777 began with surveillance. It took her a long time to determine, entirely by indirect means, that Ling resided in Toxic Landing. It took another long time to discover that the Temple of Yeench was a front for his organization, and still longer to discover that Ling typically stayed in the core of the headquarters, which was not in the Temple at all, but deep in bedrock, some distance away. In the process, 777's collective also discovered that Ling employed at least three look-alikes, whose job was to walk around the headquarters, looking important, surrounded by bodyguards, and generally acting as decoys. Ling himself, on the other hand, had his appearance changed, at random intervals, by his magicians. Every few hours, his underlings re-identified him, not by anything physical, but with the aid of a special trio of telepaths, chosen at random each day from a group whose sole task was to provide such identification, and to keep tabs on one another. Once so identified, Ling could be recognized physically, until the next check, by the clothing that he wore.

777's team also inferred that the Temple and the labyrinth were full of magicians and telepaths, who were constantly examining and re-examining everyone they encountered.

777 and his staff tried to infiltrate the core with telepathically linked dust mites, but the mites were all destroyed in the labyrinth. They tried using mites who were trained to explore and return without telepathic links, but they too were destroyed.

"He's committing the technological fallacy," said Nizzbar, one of 777's intuitives. "According to Durgel's Theorem, every system, no matter how complex, has at least one weak point."

"What is it in this case?" asked 777.

"I haven't got any specific proposals," said Nizzbar, "but there must be ways. If we wait long enough, it will appear spontaneously."

"I want to identify and track it," said 777, "so that I can go in the moment it breaks down."

"Well, you might look for central points," replied Tremel, another intuitive. "I'm sure his security system is highly decentralized in many ways, but we are dealing with a control addict, here. He will be psychologically unable to trust in a system that is not centralized, for it will feel out of his control to him. Somewhere, behind the scenes, there will be a central point, a dictator, a crucial nexus. Find that and subvert it, and you've got him!"

"Don't you suppose he's thought of this?" asked 777.

"I'm sure that Shimura has," said Tremel, "but I doubt that he could convince Ling to use a completely decentralized system. Ling is just too insecure to abdicate all direct control. Besides, all the evidence so far points to an extreme case of multiply-redundant, but ultimately centralized security."

"Unless he's bluffing, or unless his disinformation system is better than we think," returned Nizzbar.

"Of course, paranoia on his part would be good for us," added Tremel.

"Yes," said Nizzbar, "the more suspicious someone is, the more vulnerable they are to panic. Their security system becomes so intricate and intrusive that it gets in the way of everything. Push them just a little, and they go autoimmune." They both sat quietly, frowning and pursing their lips, as intuitives often do while waiting for grace from their Muse.

The others respectfully remained quiet for a moment or two. Then 777 said, "Looks like we need more data. But how can we get it?"

"Mind dump?" The question came from Aspichistria, one of 777's apprentices. There was another moment of silence, occasioned by the fact that mind-dumping – quick extraction of the entire contents of a person's mind – was invariably fatal to the victim, and hence ethically equivalent to murder, or worse.

"It would have to be one of the upper echelon," said Nizzbar.

"In which case it could be taken to be _pro bono_ ," said Kazhui, the team's Ethicist. She meant that the mind-dump of someone important in Ling's organization, though tactically motivated, could also be regarded by itself as an assassination carried out for the good of society. Since all of Ling's lieutenants were morally implicated in his activities, such an assassination would be morally acceptable to the Cathedral.

777 nodded. "Which ones go outside?" she asked.

"The highest ranking inhabitant of the core to go outside frequently is Sebridean, their Legate-in-Chief," offered Aiz, the current head of Surveillance. "The Nuncios are of course higher in rank, but they may not know much about the inside of Headquarters itself."

"Objections?" asked 777. There were none.
**********

"The Child hunts the Man."

(Father Twornsey, Vicar of Argoleth)

Ling, seeking to understand Torothex better, found another important memory. He set his alarm for fifteen hundredbreaths and entered into Torothex's past.

Torothex, in his thirtieth year, was sitting on the floor in a small chapel of the Temple of Amakala. He had been meditating for several days. His mind was peaceful and clear. His guide, Evolving Upward, stood nearby, instructing him.

"Many people believe," said Evolving Upward, "that no mortal can look directly upon Amakala and live. She does, however, allow us to have very vivid visions of her, visions of great depth. We of the Messenger Way require our aspirants to have such a vision before they can be initiated. I believe that your aspiration and your training have made you ready for such a vision, and I will therefore now pray that she should appear to you."

Evolving Upward sat next to Torothex, closed his eyes, and began to pray:

"Most Holy and Divine Amakala, without whose image no sentient being can find direction, we hope that it is now in harmony with your nature that this young man, Torothex, should enter into your heart, and you into his."

No persona appeared, no remarkable sights or sounds, but Torothex soon knew that Evolving Upward's petition was being granted. He felt his mind turning to the larger issues of human life, and to a broad view of the history and current state of Kondrastibar. Not that he had never thought of such things before; on the contrary, he had studied, thought about, and discussed them very intensely. That was, in fact, part of his preparation for this very moment. But now, he was quickly going beyond all that he had previously thought.

Sometimes, a clever artist will make a large picture out of colored dots and blobs. At first, we see nothing in it. But then, if we keep looking at it, a picture will slowly emerge, detail by detail. In a similar fashion, Torothex began to feel a larger pattern emerging from the facts and speculations that he knew about Kondrastibar and its people.

This resulted in a string of insights that came too rapidly for Ling to follow, but he kept on with the memory, for he knew (because Torothex knew) that the particular insights were not the crux of the matter. The emerging pattern was the point – a pattern that revealed that, in spite of all the evil, tragedy, and stupidity in Kondrastibar, there was a profound goodness at work. As the experience progressed, Torothex found himself focusing less and less on the details and more and more on that goodness itself, until it became a simple but immensely powerful radiance that enveloped him, consoling him for everything that saddened him and making him feel that he finally understood, that he had finally come home.

Ling, however, felt terrible fear. He ripped himself out of the memory. Simultaneously, an alarm installed in Ling's psyche by Kragendark went off, not because of the time, but because it had sensed a deep threat to the framework of Ling's selfhood.

Ling found himself trembling and drenched in sweat. 'Perhaps I will skip that memory,' he thought. But something was bothering him. He realized that the vicarious experience of Amakala he had just had had been familiar – he had had a similar experience a long time ago, when he was a child. But he had forgotten all about it until now.
**********

"Most mortals are content with a small number of dramas."

(Vibajav, So'I Dynasty Playwright)

1080's work group was awakened at dawn by high-pitched bells and shuddering gongs. After morning toilet and breakfast, they were lined up and escorted to an area not far from the pagoda that had once been _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_. Most other buildings had been leveled, and there were many signs of fire. Several beaters marked off an area with stakes and string, and several wagons were drawn up. One of them contained tools. "To get lunch," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, "you will pick up and sort out the junk from the area that we have marked. You will use hammers and chisels to separate bricks from one another, and to clean fragments of mortar off them. Then you will stack them, _neatly_ , in one of those small, heavy carts. With large lumber, like rafters, you will remove nails and pegs, and place them in the long carts. Smaller pieces of wood, which look as though they might be useful, go in the middle-sized carts. If a piece of wood looks completely ruined, then it should be reduced to kindling and placed in the small carts. Metal goes in the carts that have metal nailed to the side. Crockery and glass goes into the carts painted gray. Anything else, the red carts. If you have any questions, ask a beater about it. You will find work gloves and heavier clothes in the cart with the tools. Go get it!"

1080 headed for the tool-cart. Everyone he met with smiled at him, and several people came over to thank him for killing the goons. He was a hero. It was a warm and heady feeling. At the cart, he put on heavy socks and boots, a linen jacket, and work-gloves. He took a hammer and chisel and began to chip away at chunks of masonry. He was still physically rather weak, but he was able to make progress. At first, it was enjoyable, and he felt great satisfaction as he figured out how most effectively to use the tools, and successfully separated and cleaned several bricks. After awhile, though, he began to feel bored and restless. 'How can I possibly do this all morning?' he thought, 'I'll go crazy!' He decided to take a little break.

He sat down on a lump of rubble and surveyed the scene. Only a few people were working. Several small groups of people were conversing, tools in their hands. Others were just sitting and holding their tools, like himself. One of the few people still working was 987; she was using a shepherd-bar to pull nails. 'She's strong for a girl,' thought 1080. The old man, 480, and the woman who had helped him get up, 301, were working together, pulling a long piece of lumber to the cart. A few other people were working in a half-hearted way. That was it.

'We'll never finish, at this rate,' thought 1080, 'and that means we'll never get lunch. And the harder I work, the hungrier I will be. Spit that! I'm going to relax, too!"

He soon found that sitting still was boring. Surveying the others again, he became aware of a young woman, sitting on the remains of a doorsill. She was absently holding a hammer and chisel, a sad and dreamy expression on her face. Enough of her hair had grown back so that he could see that it was a rich blue. 1080 discovered that he was well enough to feel desire. He dwelt on the girl's figure and on those of several other women. It had been a long time. Using his imagination, he soon worked himself into a state of frustrated urgency. 'That was stupid of me,' he thought. Then he thought, 'But maybe something can happen tonight. Why don't I go talk to the blue-haired girl? I'm a hero, after all.'

He made his way over to the blue-haired girl. She smiled at him as he approached. It was an insincere smile, but that raised 1080's hopes. "Hi, ... 275," he said, reading her number off her forehead.

"Hi, 1080," she said. "Thanks for getting rid of those goons."

"Was a pleasure," he replied. "May I join you?"

"Sure," she said, moving over just far enough to give him room to sit next to her. He sat; their hips and shoulders touched. He looked at her face; her features were simple and regular, with full lips and round eyes. Her face seemed intensely feminine, in spite of the short hair; perhaps it was something in her expression, or perhaps it was just his desire. Her skin was soft and smooth and powder-blue. He wanted to dive into it, like an otter into water.

It felt strange to be _courting_. For many years, Scratch had had sex on demand, and even if 1080 wasn't really Scratch, he had no other source of information. He wasn't sure what to do next.

"I feel so _dirty_ ," said 275, making an expression of disgust. "Aren't they ever going to let us take a bath?" She readjusted her position. The sight of her soft, flexible lips moving did shuddery things to him.

"I don't know," he replied. She looked up, and he made eye contact. It gave him a pleasant, shivery jolt. She dropped her eyes, then raised them back to his. "You're very pretty, though," he added.

"Thank you," she said, blushing ever so slightly. Again she dropped her eyes, but in a few seconds, she looked up yet again. Her irises were sky-blue, with flecks of indigo that matched her lashes. Her eyebrows were darker blue. Her lips were a light violet, full and round. When she saw him looking at them, she pouted them a bit. _This is going well_ , he thought. He shifted a little in his seat, so as to refresh the feeling of contact with her. Somehow, through two sets of clothing, he thought he was able to feel the distinctively feminine quality of her hip.

A shadow fell across them. He looked up, and saw 987. "Nobody's working," she said, in a grim and cranky tone. "We'll never get lunch."

1080 was irritated at the interruption, but decided not to show it. "I know," he said. "That's why I quit. Why work up an appetite?"

"What makes you think that they will give us _supper_?" asked 987. That gave him pause. 275 looked a little embarrassed. "Maybe I'd better get back to work," she said, placing a brick on the stone next to her, and chipping away at the mortar on it with her hammer and chisel.

"I'll get my tools," said 1080, standing and walking back towards his earlier position.

"Fine," said 987, tagging along, "but what about the others? The three of us will never get this job done."

1080 didn't like the sound of "the three of us." Or did he? He stole a glance at 987. She was not as pretty as 275, but she was definitely female.

"Well," he said, "you got _us_ moving, why don't you talk to the others?"

"Why don't _you_ talk to the others" she asked, "maybe with your mattock in your hand?"

"Oh, no!" he said. "I'm not going to be a goon; I'll end up the way _they_ did!"

"Well, just come around with me, then," she said, "and never mind the mattock. Two people will make more of an impression than one."

"Well, all right," he said, though he was really of several minds about it. He insisted upon returning to 275 first, and explaining why he wasn't going to join her right away. Then he went with 987 to one of the conversation groups. One of the people in the group saw them coming, and said, in a loud voice, "Well, I guess we'd better get back to work, eh?" The others quickly took in the situation and started to look for something to do.

"Thank you," said 987 in a strong but pleasant voice. Then, turning to 1080, she said, more quietly, "Good! Let's go after that group over there, now."

"No," said 1080, "we need to get someone else to do it. They all saw us kill those goons, and even if we make no threats, they will be motivated by fear. So they will end up thinking of us as goons, too. And that won't be healthy for us, not at all!"

After thinking for a few moments, 987 agreed. "Let's see if we can get 480 and 301 to talk to people," she said. "No one will take _them_ for goons."

"Good idea," said 1080, and they went over to speak to the couple. 1080 saw fear in their eyes as he and 987 approached, and felt vindicated but sad. He explained the situation to them, making it very clear that he did not wish to be a goon, or even appear to be one. They saw the logic of his proposal and agreed to do it. "If anyone refuses to work," said 301, "we will get help from others, but not from you."

"Thanks," said 1080, "I'm glad you understand." Just as it had felt strange to _court_ , so it now felt strange to _negotiate_ , and to have to worry about other people's _feelings_ and _interests_. Scratch had always been either a boss or an underling, and had lived in a world in which everyone's role was fairly clear. There was a dominance hierarchy that one could sometimes travel up or down in, but never even think of resigning from. Implied violence kept the peace, such as it was, and any significant change had to come from above. Everyone on the same level was under pressure to compete, and alliances between equals were therefore rare and highly unstable. Now all the prisoners were fairly equal, and the goons' attempt to create a hierarchy had failed. No one had any money, so another great motivator was missing. As a result, nothing could be taken for granted.

In a way, thought 1080, it was a comfortable system, that Scratch had lived in. You just had to find your level and accept it. The people who got hurt were the people who tried too hard. Scratch's girls were on the bottom, but once they resigned themselves to that, they had no enemies. It was in Scratch's interest to keep them fairly healthy, so they automatically got food, clothing, medical care, and all the other basic needs. As for Scratch himself, he had rivals, but he always paid his tithes to the neighborhood boss, and sometimes gave him a special gift, and so it was in the boss' interest to protect him.

_I should never have let 987 recruit me_ , he thought, _that was trying too hard. The goons would have found something for me to do, and if not them, the Angels._ He decided to minimize his association with 987 in the future; she was a lightning rod. He headed back to the blue-haired girl.
**********

"To sin is human; to confess, divine!"

( _Scripture_ of the Church of Divine Incarnation)

When the young Kor changed the school into an orphanage, she became even busier than before. Abused and abandoned children were common in the neighborhood, and she could never turn down an opportunity to save one. A certain amount of money was provided by Brother Koof, whose contributions were funneled anonymously through Talek. In her neighborhood, however, there was little that money could buy, other than sex, violence, junk food, trivia, mass-produced entertainment, luxury goods, and various toxic drugs.

In particular, there was no one that Kor would have trusted to take care of the children in her stead. Talek was well-intentioned enough, but he was very busy, and besides, he really had few idea about how to deal with children, other than to lecture them about his beloved 'principles.' Fortunately, she came across some older children, who could take care of the younger ones to a certain extent; but she often had to carry two or even three papooses on her back when she went on an errand.

Purchasable food in her neighborhood fell into two categories: luxury food for the rich, which Kor could not afford, and junk food for the poor, which was not worth the money. She did manage to scrounge a little of each kind from garbage containers. She also managed to grow a little food in window boxes and on the roof, and even to raise mushrooms in the cellar. She learned how to prepare Starling and Pigeon, Dog and Cat, and even Rat, Ant, and Roach. She learned that certain weeds that sprang up in the cracks between cobblestones, and in the ruins of houses, could be made into salads, or used in soup stock. She learned that certain kinds of clay, topsoil and compost were edible. Finding a house down the street to be infested with termites, she devised a clever trap for them.

One by one, the Late-Treviduan parabolic windows of the school were broken by vandals, and Kor covered them with wood, scavenged from ruined houses. Lacking woodworking tools, Kor at first had to do all her construction by caning and lashing. Everything from the school that was remotely luxurious was sold or bartered, and Kor became quite adept at weaving crooked but usable furniture out of the stems of bushes. It was a glorious day when she found, at the back of a defunct woodworking shop that was being converted into a Smoke factory, a trove of ancient but serviceable tools.

The school building had also been covered by obscene graffiti. She let them be, hoping that they would contribute to a general impression that the building was abandoned and useless.

Kor was much too busy to think about the past, and it all fell away from her, except for one thing – she kept a large stone in her bedroll, to remind her of Zar. Anger, sadness, and other debilitating emotions were a luxury she could not afford. She fell asleep instantly at night – pausing only to hug and kiss her Zar-stone – and woke up instantly in the morning, her mind primed with a list of tasks. She never thought about courtesanry, or Ydris, or any of her distant friends. Whatever she was working on at the moment received her full attention. She never thought about herself, except as a kind of tool or fixture of the orphanage. Although she often made mistakes, sometimes terrible ones, she had no time for sorrow or self-castigation. Her actions flowed constantly and seamlessly from the situation of the moment – daydreaming, boredom, and irresoluteness were among the luxuries she could not afford. When she needed rest, she rested completely, letting her body spread out like a puddle on the bedroll or floor, and making her mind completely blank. Because of all this, she became, without noticing it, happy and serene.

One day, she was being pursued by three muggers, and she mistakenly ran into a blind alley. She then realized that _spite_ was another luxury she could not afford. "If you ... feel like ... helping me, ... Isiliar," she said, gasping for breath, "I would be ... truly ... grateful!" As she put her back to the wall, she heard the sound of wind chimes, followed by the sad but inspiring music that she thought of as "Isiliar's compassion song."

Trembling with exhaustion, Kor unsheathed her saber as the three approached, grinning at their trapped quarry. Their leader, a large man with leathery skin and deep-set eyes, armed with a sort of spear made from a pipe and a broken bottle, stopped and put his arms out to his sides, saying, "Hold back, dogs!" ("dog" was a comradely mode of address among such people). The other two looked a little puzzled, but came to a halt. One of them held a home-made mace, and the other had a _Granya_ , a four-foot braided whip with sharp metal spines poking out along its length. The three did not appear to hear Isiliar's music, and yet their faces softened, and their grins turned partway into smiles.

"We don't need to rough up this little flower," said the leader. "She's just going to give us her money, and we'll be on our way."

The other two looked puzzled, as though they were hearing a new song in their hearts; but they nodded in agreement. As Kor handed over the money she always carried for just such an eventuality, one of them said, "Don't think too badly of us, Lady, we're living the only life we know." He was a small man with a twisted scar in place of his left eye. Kor found herself honestly smiling at him – a small, sad smile of understanding. Had she not done many a thing herself, recently, that would have shocked the idealistic young courtesan she once had been? A miracle was occurring: four people who had learned never to trust anyone, suddenly found themselves, very hesitantly, beginning to trust one another.

"What's your name, Lass?" asked the leader. "This here is Meki, this here is Donnilid, and I'm Bogs."

"Kor," said Kor, beginning to regain her breath.

Bogs looked at the money in his hand. "We've got this much and a bit more," he said. "Think of coming down to the Tavern with us, Kor? We buy." To her surprise, Kor found herself saying, "Yes," not to please them, but because she genuinely desired to socialize with them. At the very least, she was curious about them.

So, they proceeded to _Il Mirfid's Tavern_ on Dream Street. There the three muggers had mugs of mead, while Kor used her share for a piece of cheese.

Donnilid, a tall, thin man with a crooked nose, admired her restraint. "She's a smart one, she is," he said. "We'd be better off for the long march with some real food instead of this sweet poison here. But when it comes to the fork in the road," he continued wistfully, "there's something in me wants to feel good right now, not later!"

"And well you may," said Meki, scratching his eye-scar, "for who knows how much of 'later' you will have?"

They talked and talked, and Kor ended up knowing them all quite well. _Friends!_ She hadn't had the luxury of a friend for years. There was Talek, but he was always formal, and never spoke of anything but practical problems and 'principles,' except to make dour comments on the passing scene. His personal life was hidden by a cloak just as opaque as the one that hid his body. He was an ally, but not a friend.

After two hours, Bogs announced, with a sigh, that it was time to go. "Got to gather the price of supper," he said.

"Why don't you come to my place?" asked Kor, astonishing herself once again. "I have some food there." Meki and Donnilid looked eager, but Bogs shook his head emphatically in the negative.

"Don't be wanting us to know where you live, Lass," he said, with a sad severity. "We're now your friends, but if one of us gets hungry enough, or crazy enough, or angry enough, we might do anything." Meki and Donnilid dropped their eyes in implicit agreement.

"Very well, then," said Kor, standing up, "but I hope we will meet again, from time to time."

"Think of this same time, same place, three days ahead?" asked Bogs. Kor agreed, and they parted.

**

"Thank you, Isiliar," said Kor, as she walked home.

Again she heard the wind-chimes, very quietly. "You're welcome, Kor," said the Goddess.

"Isiliar," said Kor, "I apologize."

She felt the Goddess sigh. "I have more to be sorry for than you do, Kor."

Kor knew that Isiliar was referring to the disappearance of Zar, and for a moment, she felt her old rage rising up, like a volcanic plume. But it had lost all strength; it turned into a pillar of smoke and was lost on the wind.

"Isiliar," she said, "let's just start fresh, all right?"

"That would be wonderful," replied Isiliar, and Kor could feel her radiant happiness.

"Isiliar," asked Kor, her voice choking up a little, "would you ... would you merge with me again?"

"Yes, Kor," replied Isiliar, "I would like that, more than I can say!"

Then Kor felt the Goddess re-enter her heart. How long it had been! How she had missed her! Kor's whole body tingled, and tears of joy ran down her face.
**********

"If at first you do succeed,

Try something more difficult!"

(Melpasian folk saying)

"Well," said Teladorion, "seeing as how you've cleaned up here, let's go up to the roof and get rid of the powder they have left. Be careful, I left a bunch of them alive up there."

"Wait a moment," said Oselika, with a puzzled expression. "What's that sound?"

Teladorion paused and listened. After a moment he heard it: a sound of far-off choral singing.

"A Tellamir ship, maybe?" asked Oselika. "But why here?"

"I've got a much nastier idea," said Teladorion, "but anyway, we'll see from the roof." They climbed to the roof, meeting no resistance. The people there looked at them lovingly, but backed away from them. There was no sign of a Tellamir ship. Scanning the ground, they saw that the building they were on was at the edge of a plaza, at the confluence of many streets. From every street there poured a great mass of singing humanity.

"It's _them_ ," said Oselika. "All the people who breathed the Noganecir!"

Teladorion nodded grimly. " _Thousands_ of 'em," he said.

"We've got to get out of here," said Oselika.

"But how?" said Teladorion. "They're coming down every street!"

"Wait!" said Oselika. "Let's just close the roof hatch! Roll one of the catapults on top of it."

"That'll buy us time," said Teladorion, "but then what?"

"On the way over here," said Oselika, "I called General Zagara."

Teladorion was shocked. "You called _General Zagara_ ," he said, incredulously, "to help you with your _personal quest_?"

"This is not just part of my personal quest anymore, Tel. This could threaten the Balance. The next time, with all those newly-addicted people to help, they could have a hundred catapults in a hundred neighborhoods! And the next time?"

Teladorion thought for a moment. His eyebrows shot up. "I see what you mean, Sel," he said. "All right, let's do it!" They managed to get the door blocked just as the joyful masses of addicts reached the building. Oselika conversed with her shell again. "They will be here in fifteen hundredbreaths," she said.

"It's going to be close," said Teladorion. "Let's see if we can make a couple of ladder-pushers from the other catapult."

"And let's get those barrels of Noganecir over near the hatch," said Oselika. "It might actually be a weapon. They might overdose."

Teladorion nodded agreement. "Fortunately," he said, "they probably weren't expecting this, and they probably don't have a lot of scaling ladders lying around. Let's hope not, anyway."

They heard a pounding from the underside of the hatch. As they rolled the barrels over, the pounding changed from a request for entry to an attempt to break the hatch open. As Oselika began to lash together a ladder-pusher from fragments of a catapult, a pike penetrated the hatch from below, breaking a hole about the size of a dinner-plate. As the pike was withdrawn, Teladorion poured about two gallons of the fine, white dust into the gap. There was a sound of confused shouting, and the attack on the hatch ceased.

"Here's one pusher," said Oselika. It was just a long piece of wood with a shorter one lashed onto the end, at right angles. She began a second one. The attack on the hatch resumed. Teladorion poured two more gallons through the hole, but this time there was no effect.

"They've probably tied cloth around their faces," he said. Holding his sword point down, with both hands on the hilt, he leapt onto the hatch next to the hole, and thrust the sword into the hole several times, quickly. Then he leapt aside. He had provoked several screams and a bit of a break in the pounding, but no more. He repeated the operation a few times at irregular intervals, but soon the hatch began to bulge and splinter.

Having finished a second pusher, Oselika scavenged more rope from the ruined catapults and made a net with squares about a foot wide. The two cousins draped this net over the hatch, which necessitated rolling the first catapult off the hatch for a moment. They were able to replace the catapult just as pikes and battle-axes completely destroyed the hatch from below.

Armored figures came boiling up the stairs. They entangled themselves in the net, to which Oselika gave a sudden jerk, causing them to topple back down the stairs. They soon returned, slashing at the net with swords. Oselika unclipped her bow from her back and began to fire down into the mass. Teladorion leapt to the edge of the hatch, swung his sword twice, leapt back, and repeated the process, appearing at a different spot every time. His blows splintered pikes and knocked swords and axes askew. The soldiers trying to emerge from the hatch had a terrific disadvantage in terrain, and it was evident that Teladorion would be able to keep them at bay for a long time.

Oselika kept looking around her, and after a few hundredbreaths she spotted a ladder being propped against the outer railing from below. It was an ordinary ladder, with no hooks or chains to catch onto the railing. When she saw a climber appear over the edge of the roof, bearing a sword, she grabbed a ladder-pusher and ran over. Using the pusher, she pushed the ladder away from the rail. The topmost soldier grabbed at the pusher, but Oselika suddenly put all her weight on the other end, and he chose to release it, rather than be lifted ( _Amateurs!_ thought Oselika, scornfully). As the ladder fell backwards, Oselika returned to firing arrows at the hatch. When she ran out of arrows, she used her sword to hew a crude pike out of a piece of the second catapult.

Soon, however, her pike was grabbed by members of the crowd on the stairs and taken from her. Drawing her saber, she joined Teladorion at the edge of the hatch. Her light sword made Teladorion's 'beating and bashing' style impractical; instead, her strategy was to wound each soldier in the wrist, eye, or at some other point of vulnerability. After watching her for a moment, Teladorion sheathed his own sword, and, grabbing one of the barrels, ran along the outer railing for a few feet, pouring the Noganecir over the edge. Then he turned inward, just as a swarm of arrows shot through the space he had apparently been about to occupy. He continued in this way, appearing at random spots and disappearing almost immediately, until both barrels were empty. Then he returned to the hatch.

Letting Teladorion take over, Oselika lay down on her back, and relaxed every muscle in her body except those involved in breathing. She took huge breaths, taking in and forcing out as much air as possible. As soon as she could breathe fairly normally, she returned to the hatch, and Teladorion lay down. In this way they hoped to put off exhaustion.

Suddenly, they saw two ladders appear, at opposite ends of the building. Teladorion returned to the hatch, and Oselika grabbed a pusher and ran to one end. As she pushed the ladder back, the soldier on top threw a grappling hook over the rail. It spun twice around the rail. As the ladder continued backwards, the chain began to unwind, but then the hook caught the rail. A stream of arrows made it impossible for Oselika to approach the rail to dislodge the hook. Meanwhile, the soldier on the ladder had wrapped his end of the chain around the top rung of the ladder, and secured it. The chain went taut, and the ladder turned sideways, but did not fall. Oselika crawled close to the roof edge and used her pusher to nudge the ladder, causing it to fall sideways. Again its fall was limited by the chain, but the soldier was left five forearms below the rail. With his armor on, it seemed unlikely that he could climb the chain.

Oselika now rushed to the other end. Two soldiers had already gained the roof. One stood guard while the other made the ladder fast, and a third climbed over the rail. Oselika disarmed the guard and stabbed him just under the chin. He buckled and fell. The other two leapt at her, while a fourth began climbing over the rail. Oselika leapt to her left, so as to be able to take her attackers one at a time. By a feint, she got the first soldier to turn his sword hand sideways, so that the shell no longer covered his hand. Her sword was a mere blur as she made a deep cut in his hand. He dropped his sword. As he bent to pick it up with his good hand, Oselika attacked the third soldier low and to the left, forcing him to turn in order to parry. The fourth soldier was over the rail. By then the man she had disarmed had recovered his sword. Oselika kicked him in the chin, which he had obligingly lowered while reaching for it. He fell. The third soldier slashed at her (while a fifth came over the rail) from the right; she parried close to the hilt of her sword, but close to the tip of his; this gave her a tremendous advantage in leverage, which she exploited by forcing his sword far to the right, whereupon she leapt up and kicked him in the solar plexus. The breath went out of him; while he stood there paralyzed, she got in close, stabbed him in the eye, and pushed him into the fourth soldier, who staggered backwards. The fifth soldier stepped aside and lunged, but Oselika dodged, and while her attacker was still unbalanced, she kicked his front foot out from under him. As the fourth soldier came around from behind his companion, who was still falling, a sixth soldier started to come over the rail, shouting something. Oselika dodged around the fourth and stabbed the sixth through the back of the mouth, into the hindbrain, causing instant death. He slid down the ladder, almost dislodging the soldier below him. Seeing a gap in the fifth soldier's armor near the shoulder, Oselika parried, disengaged, and pierced him there, and while he momentarily froze from the pain and surprise, she broke his right kneecap with a kick. He was rather small; grabbing him at the collar with her left hand before he fell, she dropped her own sword and used her right hand to take his sword away; then, using him as a shield, she approached the rail, making as if to push the ladder away. His back immediately sprouted ten or fifteen arrows. Heaving with all her strength, she dumped him over the rail, and he slid down the ladder, to the further consternation of the next soldier trying to climb up. She threw his sword down at the massed attackers below, releasing it in such a way as to give it a violent end-over-end spin. Taking up her own sword again, she lay down at the edge of the roof, and hacked at the top of the wooden ladder. Arrows whistled by her, but she was protected by the roof. Her sword was not made for such work, but, being a single, reinforced crystal of diamond, it was quite sharp, and in moments she had cut through below the chain. Using her sword as a lever, she slid the ladder sideways until it fell.

Panting heavily, and feeling a terrible pressure in her chest, she turned to view the situation at the other end. The first ladder had been replaced, and several soldiers had climbed over the rail. Too smart to rush Teladorion one by one, they were lined up in close defensive posture, waiting for a few more to join them. From Teladorion's motions, slow and spiritless compared to his normal style, Oselika could tell that he too was exhausted. She started to stand up, only to feel vertigo and see a hundred blinking lights. She turned into pure lung; she only wanted to breathe, to yank in air by the barrelful. She thought she might be falling. In a corner of her mind, though, there was one sardonic thought: _If you're going to rescue us, Zagara, this would be a good time!_
**********

"Youth can be catching, but apparently age is more catching than youth."

( _The Joy of Epidemiology_ , by Saint Morpid the Leper)

Three Amazons rode up to the gate, where they were met by a Darestigan in a yellow robe. One of them dismounted, and introduced herself as the Abbess of the Temple of Ydris in Tarim. "I would like to meet the young lady," she said, "to whom Asharia Loëina gave her coronet."

"That would be Ydnas," responded Darestigan. "She will be with you shortly."

Not long thereafter, Ydnas appeared, dancing her way across the lawn. Her coronet was a little askew. "Hello, Abbess," she said, smiling, and slightly out of breath.

"Hello, Ydnas," said the Abbess, also smiling. "I am very pleased to see you. Is there anything you would like to say to me?"

Ydnas giggled. "Ydnas likes you," she said. "Come inside?"

"I'd love to," said the Abbess, "but I'd like to bring one of my attendants, since I am blind."

"Sure," said Ydnas, but Darestigan added, "She will have to leave her weapons outside the gate."

"No tangle," said the Abbess. One of the Amazons dismounted, divested herself of about fifteen pieces of equipment, and, taking the arm of the Abbess, walked with her into the temple grounds.

"Can you skip?" asked Ydnas, skipping on ahead.

"Well," said the Abbess, with a smile. "I haven't skipped for about seventy years, but yes, I think I can still do it." And she skipped two or three times. "There you are," she said. "I'm glad you mentioned it. It's harder to skip at my age, but still, it's not a good idea to stop skipping altogether."

They walked for a few moments among flower beds and butterflies. Then Ydnas said, apologetically, "I haven't remembered myself completely, yet."

"Well, then," said the Abbess, "you're probably not supposed to."

"I guess not," said Ydnas, "but it would be nice to know so much, like Uncle K'Tor."

"Are you going to tell me who Uncle K'Tor is?"

"He's my chameleon. He rides on my shoulder."

"I wondered about him," said the Abbess. "He's not an ordinary chameleon, is he?"

"No, he's the god of everything."

The Abbess' eyebrows shot up. "I hope you're taking very good care of him, then," she said.

Ydnas giggled; then she sprang forward and jumped, making a pirouette in the air. "So far, so good!" she said. Then she added: "You know my Auntie Ydris, don't you?"

"Why yes, I do. We love each other very much."

"I know," said Ydnas. "That's nice."

"It is," said the Abbess, "but she doesn't tell me everything. She wants me to do things for myself."

"That's because she loves you," said Ydnas.

"I believe it is," said the Abbess, smiling.

Ydnas sighed. "I can't tell you very much, either," she said, a little sadly.

"That's all right," said the Abbess. "I am enjoying walking with you, and you have already reminded me about skipping. I'm really very happy. I don't want to know anything I'm not supposed to know."

"But I can tell you this," said Ydnas. "Uncle K'Tor thinks you're doing very well."

"That's good to know," said the Abbess, smiling at the chameleon.

"Uncle K'Sell likes you, too," said Ydnas.

There was a moment of silence. "I suppose it won't be too long before I get to meet him," said the Abbess.

"He says he's not in a hurry where you're concerned," said Ydnas.

"Well," said the Abbess, "if you get a chance, please tell him that I look forward to meeting him, but that I'm not in a hurry, either."

Ydnas laughed, like the pealing of little bells. "You're very funny," she said.

"I try to be," said the Abbess.

"There's another thing," said Ydnas.

"What's that?"

"I'm sorry about this," said Ydnas, looking very bothered. "It wasn't my idea."

"It's all right, I won't be mad at you."

"Well ... you should be sure to go back to your Temple right away, because some mean people are about to attack it. It will be like it was here ... a big cloud of flying things. That's all I can tell you. But I hope that we can meet again sometime soon."

"Well, I hope so, too, Ydnas, but I guess I'd better be going! It was nice talking to you. May I have a hug?"

"Yes," said Ydnas, flinging out her arms dramatically. The Abbess knelt down and they hugged each other.

"M-m-m-m-m! Urg!" said Ydnas.

"I'm sorry I'm wearing armor," said the Abbess, letting go.

"No tangle," said Ydnas, laughing. Then the Abbess disengaged and stood, and she and her Amazon companion started walking toward the gate.

"Goodbye, Ydnas!"

"Goodbye, Abbess!"

The Abbess skipped a few times on the way to the gate.
**********

"Spirit is Information."

(from _Spirit and Matter,_ by Hakir the Great)

Srea Kula sat reading in his study. He had been embarrassed by having to have Lator, the theologian, go over Theology 101 material with him, so he had decided to read a textbook before his next visit. He read:

Mardigeff refers to certain of the parasitic gods as protection racketeers. He uses this term because such a god keeps human beings dependent on him by 'protecting' them against his own manifestations.

For example, consider the god of violence (that is, violence by human beings against human beings), known by some as "Golsing." Violence is obviously bad for people, and yet very few are willing to renounce it. The most common reason given for this is that violence is often the only effective way to defend one's self against violence, and the threat of retaliatory violence is widely thought to be in many cases the most – and often the only – practical way to discourage violent aggression (for arguments concerning this, see Chapter 6, section 2). Thus, violence maintains the loyalty of mortals by offering protection against itself; hence the term, "protection racketeers."

Many have maintained that, just as a drug addict must undergo a certain amount of pain in order to break the addiction, so mortals must forgo defensive and retaliatory violence in order to free ourselves from violence in general, even though such a strategy would require many to suffer, and even die, during the transition. Many of these also claim that we are morally obligated to make such sacrifices, just as we are obligated to resist mortal racketeers. This is sometimes called the "renunciation approach." For example, some people renounce the use of violence, even though this often results in their being enslaved or otherwise oppressed. The authors know of no historical case in which the renunciation approach has spread to the majority of humankind, however, although no doubt this has occurred at some time in the past, now lost to us, and will occur again at some time in the future.

Mardigeff argues that violence is a special case of a more general phenomenon of opposition, in which one person or group works against the interests of another, whether by violent or non-violent means. Here, too, the results are generally bad for people, but people will not give it up, because of their desire for defense against the opposition of others. Kantrikars (see above) renounce not only violence, but opposition in general. [Note: Griminich and others have maintained that truly just defense and retaliation are not genuine cases of opposition, and this view has attracted many followers – see Chapter 6, section 5.]

Others have argued that a different strategy should be followed, based on theories of the origin of violence and other forms of opposition. Shaysooth, for example, claimed that opposition (as compared to co-operation) is clearly wasteful by nature. It follows, he argued, that in a politically and economically just and efficient society, the motivation for opposition would disappear. He therefore advocates, not immediate renunciation, but gradual social reform.

Dra-Ooz objected that if Shaysooth were correct about the evident wastefulness of opposition, a just and peaceful society would be the norm, but in the millennia known to us, it has clearly never been fully realized. Shaysooth's follower Gindi replied that, even when everyone understands the futility of opposition, a transition to co-operation may be difficult because of lack of trust. Idim Irx, another follower of Shaysooth, added that a general state of opposition is materially advantageous for those who are currently winning, and that these are precisely the people who have power to prevent change, not only through brute force and bribery, but through direct or indirect control of education and communication. [For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see Chapter 7.]"

_It's been a long time since I read anything this abstract,_ thought Srea Kula, whose progress through the book had been very slow and had required great effort. At that moment, the bell-flower on his desk chimed, telling him that the soul-searcher had arrived. With a sigh, he put his book down and went to open his door.

The soul-searcher, dressed in the traditional yellow-and-black robes and hood, was accompanied by a young man who guided him, and by a security guard, who disappeared at Srea Kula's nod. Srea Kula invited them to enter, and to sit. The searcher, Sre Algu, had worked for Srea Kula before, and in fact knew him well. After a bit of polite small talk, Srea Kula began to describe the situation.

"I have a very nice couple, Sre Lugu and Iliriana Siria," he said. "They have three wonderful children. I have known them and thought well of them since they were young, I oversaw their courtship and marriage, about 16 years ago, and I have counseled them frequently since that time. They are quite serious about their religion, although definitely lay people. On the whole, their lives have been virtuous, productive, and happy, but recently, Sre Lugu, who works for the Bank of Streling, was temporarily corrupted by a criminal, Pappi, and led by him into an affair with a beautiful and talented actress and singer, Liliune. Sre Lugu eventually came to his senses, however, and broke off his illicit relationship. Iliriana did not reject him, and I thought that, by means of restitution and purgation, harmony would eventually be restored.

"But it turned out to be more complicated. A remarkable event happened, which I witnessed: It seems that Liliune had been placed under a triggered death spell by Pappi, and that in order to save her life, Sre Lugu promised to Kshaloka that he, Sre Lugu, would be a servant of Liliune's for life, if Kshaloka would save her. He thought of Kshaloka because this woman is, as I said, a talented actress and singer, and apparently an equally talented, ah, courtesan. Well, Kshaloka actually appeared! Others present, including myself, thought that Sre Lugu's offer was noble but mistaken on his part, and I called upon the Holy Family for help. They, too, appeared! There was a long discussion which went far afield, but in the end, Iliriana found a way to satisfy Kshaloka without breaking up her family: the _entire family_ was to serve Liliune!

"But, there is yet a further complexity: it seems that Liliune is irreversibly addicted to the drug, snoffle, which is in turn a manifestation of a god of the same name. Apparently, those addicted to this drug become devotees of the god; they have a scripture, and worship services! In the hopes of liberating Liliune from her addiction, and without consulting with me at all, Sre Lugu and Iliriana actually _called up_ Snoffle, and had a long conversation. Naturally, Snoffle was able to argue rings around them, and although they do not say so, I fear that he has all but seduced them! They are distant and distracted. I'm afraid I was a bit hard on them, which I'm sure did more harm than good.

"Also, I am puzzled by their extreme devotion to this Liliune. Why would they take such a risk, to save her from an addiction which is not life-threatening? It might be that Sre Lugu is still infatuated with her, perhaps unconsciously, but why Iliriana? Could Destiny be involved? I asked them to have a soul search, and they agreed. That is, of course, where you come in."

"This is indeed a remarkable case," said Sre Algu. He then asked a few questions, mostly to make sure that he had all the names and events straight, and pronounced himself ready.

"Do you also do exorcisms?" asked Srea Kula. "If we do find any trace of wrongful possession, we will want to immediately get rid of it."

"I do class 1 and 2 exorcisms," said Sre Algu. "Of course, the subject has to request it freely."

"Of course, of course," said Srea Kula. "Well, then, let's go to the sanctum and do the search on Sre Lugu."

Sre Lugu had already been praying for an hour, alone in the quiet semi-darkness of the sanctum, before they arrived. With a minimum of words and no small talk, they took their positions: Sre Lugu reclined on a couch, Sre Algu sat in a chair at the head of the couch, and Srea Kula sat on a chair at the side, where Sre Lugu could easily see him.

"Are you ready?" whispered Srea Kula. The other two nodded. "As you know, Sre Lugu," continued Srea Kula, still whispering, "we prefer not to use truth drugs or telepathy, if the communicant is able and willing to supply the information voluntarily. So we will begin without either one." Sre Lugu nodded again. Srea Kula began the invocation.

"This soul search now begins. I call, worshipfully and hopefully, on the Holy Family, and on Althiya, Goddess of Truth, and on any other gods that may be relevant here. If anyone listening knows of a reason we should not be carrying out this ritual, we hope that this being will let us know. We do not wish to do what is wrong. Otherwise, we beg you to help us in our efforts here.

"We wonder whether this man, Sre Lugu, might be inappropriately possessed by a god or spirit. With all due respect to any god or spirit that may be possessing him, we wish to learn more about the situation. If it is a situation that we should not be disturbing, we hope that you will so inform us at this time. Indeed, we hope that any god or spirit who wishes to help will speak to us. You may use any means you desire, one of which is this traditional device, the double pendulum."

Sre Algu handed to Sre Lugu the double pendulum, which consisted of a ball of pith, about a knuckle in diameter, hanging by a thread from a similarly sized ball of gold, which in turn hung from a ring placed on Sre Lugu's finger. Sre Lugu made small, random motions with his hand, to set the ball into motion. The ball of gold moved slowly and slightly, but the ball of pith danced rapidly around, in a highly irregular fashion. As always, Srea Kula found this dance to be fascinating. For a moment, he saw the pith ball as Sre Lugu, trying to achieve something – to catch and hold the golden ball – but never succeeding, although he occasionally struck it, only to bounce off. What was the golden ball – Liliune? Iliriana? Liliune's freedom from addiction? Happiness? Truth? Freedom? Then he saw it differently – he saw the pith ball as trying desperately to escape from its tether, from its slavery to the heavy gold. What did that mean? That Sre Lugu felt chained by his social commitments, or by his sex drive? Or was it his religion, that he felt ambivalent about? No interesting further significance appeared in the motion of the balls. After awhile, he glanced at the other two, who shook their head in the negative. Sre Lugu removed the ring, and put the pendulum down.

Srea Kula spoke again: "Or, you may wish to use a seashell." Srea Kula and Sre Algu each took a large seashell and held it up to one ear. Each listened closely to the hissing sound that came from within the shell, trying to discern words or other recognizable sounds in it, and taking notes. Nothing of any length came through clearly. Once Sre Algu thought he heard the phrase, "distorting mirror;" at another time, "divine laughter." Srea Kula thought he might have heard the word "Island." After that, nothing. _Surely we are seeing things inaccurately, as if in a distorting mirror_ , thought Srea Kula, _and perhaps in such a way as to provoke divine laughter_. _Can you tell us more?_ But he heard nothing. Again he glanced at the others, who both nodded in the negative.

"We also invite you to use the ink threads," said Srea Kula. Sre Algu dipped a fine, flexible thread in ink and dropped it onto a piece of paper from a few feet up. He then did the same with sixteen similar threads. He and Srea Kula then looked to see if they could discern any words or pictures in the resulting curlicues. Of course, they saw faces, and animals and birds, and, as most men will do, female nudes. Srea Kula also saw a man, bent over with age, and Sre Algu saw rain falling on a statue. Sre Lugu saw a goddess; he thought it might be Amakala. They saw the words "love," "secret," and "grief," but none of them saw anything of any length that seemed particularly useful to their investigation. _Sex, secrecy, and grief_ _are certainly profoundly involved in this affair,_ thought Srea Kula, _but we knew that already._

"We will now sit quietly, in the hopes that you will speak directly to our minds," said Srea Kula. They sat thus for about five hundredbreaths, eyes open, minds alert. Srea Kula felt many ideas float and flurry through his consciousness, and some of them were brother and sister to the matter at hand, but none struck him as comprising a message from outside himself, or as being a significant new insight. Material from his recent reading appeared frequently, and he had several interesting thoughts about it. _I shouldn't have been reading unrelated material just before the time of the ritual_ , he thought, _I should have been clearing my mind with meditation_. He shook his head in the negative, and the other two also indicated failure.

"Sre Lugu," said Srea Kula, "have you received any insights or messages?" Sre Lugu, who had continued silently praying, nodded in the negative. Srea Kula was a little disheartened, but he proceeded with the ritual.

"Respected gods," he intoned, "we are not aware of any clear reply. We apologize if we have been inattentive or dense, or if we have done something to make ourselves unworthy to be your audience. If so, we apologize. Please tell us if there is anything we can do to redeem ourselves." After an interval of silence, he added, "We will now proceed to examine Sre Lugu, but please feel free to take our attention at any time."

After a moment, he began the question-and-answer period. "Holy Family, Althiya, and any other gods who may have a positive interest in this outcome, please accept our adoration and our heartfelt desire for help in this matter. Sre Algu will now question Sre Lugu." He nodded to the searcher to take over.

"Sre Lugu," said Sre Algu, in a gentle and pleasant voice, "please tell me, in the greatest possible detail, what you felt when Srea Kula suggested a soul search."

"I felt shame and guilt," replied Sre Lugu, immediately, "for I knew that Srea Kula thought I had sinned, and in my heart I tended to agree. I also felt irritation and resentment, for no one likes to be accused or criticized. I felt relief, for I had become worried about myself, and I thought that such a ritual might be helpful. But I also felt confused and frustrated by everything that was going on."

"And how did you feel, at that moment, about your having called up Snoffle?"

Sre Lugu hesitated a moment, and then said, "I was ambivalent. On the one hand, I felt that we had been motivated by honorable concern for Liliune, and that our risk-taking showed courage. On the other, I was moved by Srea Kula's argument that we had been foolish."

"I noticed, Sre Lugu, that you paused a moment before answering. Were you feeling some ambivalence when you paused?"

"Yes, Sre, I was tempted not to reveal the fact that I still had positive feelings about our action, for I believe that Srea Kula will disapprove."

"Please remember, Sre Lugu," said Sre Algu, "that no one is ever to be punished or reprimanded for an opinion expressed in a Soul Search. Whatever you spontaneously feel like saying is correct. Whether we agree with you or not is irrelevant. The only sin is hiding something. Are you still ambivalent now?" asked Sre Algu.

"Yes, Sre," answered Sre Lugu, "and in the same way."

_Ambivalence_ , thought Srea Kula, _why must we mortals always be so ambivalent? There is a profound truth there, somewhere._ He thought about this for a moment, and then he realized that he was digressing, and returned his attention to the ritual.

"Remembering that I am new to this whole matter," said Sre Algu to Sre Lugu, "please tell me about your positive feelings about having called up Snoffle."

"Well," said Sre Lugu, "we were successful in saving Liliune from Pappi's death spell, and we had the help of gods in doing this. This made me proud and optimistic. I felt, 'If we can do this, there is some chance that we can go on to do the next thing.' And I also felt ... well, there is something special about Liliune. I mean, she is beautiful and talented, and perhaps that is all there is to it, but every day, the gods leave prayers unanswered and leave people to die and suffer – including beautiful and talented people. Why did they choose to help us to help _her_? There must be something special about her. And I thought, 'perhaps there was even a higher meaning in my affair with her, for that was the source of her liberation from Pappi. Am I perhaps intended to liberate her from Snoffle, as well?'

"And I was, I suppose you could say, addicted myself – I mean, addicted to _speaking with gods_! What a glorious experience! I didn't think of it that way at the time, because I was too busy trying to save Liliune. But, Sre, to see the gods with my own eyes, and to speak with them! How wonderful! And they were saying the most astonishing things about the way things are, and about why things are the way they are. I wanted to experience that again, to know more!"

_Why, that's very much the way I responded_ , thought Srea Kula. _Perhaps it's not good for the gods to reveal themselves to us; as with so many things, we only want more. Perhaps that is why the gods show themselves so little._

"And how do you feel now, Sre Lugu, about Snoffle?" asked Sre Algu.

"Very confused, Sre," replied Sre Lugu. "On the one hand, he is a god, and as such is worthy of awe and reverence. On the other hand, he seems to be a maleficent god – I have always been confused about how we are supposed to relate to them. How can we venerate Evil, or Misery, or even Death? Here we have Snoffle, a god who enslaves his devotees. Should I bow down to him, except in fear? But then, to add to the confusion, he claims to be doing good! He says that his devotees are made so completely happy by taking the drug, that they are freed from the attachments which, in normal life, tempt us away from the path of conscience. He thus portrays himself as the liberator of humanity! As a matter of fact, we had read some of his scripture, and on the whole, it did seem very noble. He showed us, from a distance, a community in which, he said, his followers live without sin. Well, that would be wonderful indeed! He urged us to take the drug, and I must say that I considered it. He claims that the drug does not enslave his devotees, but only liberates them from ambivalence, from temptation. Now, he might be lying, but what he said seems possible. Certainly, Liliune exhibits an apparently unbreakable devotion.

"In this way," continued Sre Lugu, his voice rising a little, "everything was turned upside down – we thought we were trying to liberate Liliune, but perhaps we would only be returning her to a life of sin. I have always wondered, Srea, why we are so weak, and why so many gods, including many that we call beneficent, expect of us to do what is clearly beyond us, or at least painful and difficult. They seem to be playing with us in a sadistic way. Why do they not just change us so that we can do what they want? And that is just what Snoffle appears to do.

"Even at this moment, I must confess, Sre Algu, that I am still deeply in love with Liliune. How could I not be? The love that I had for her is not the sort of thing that one can banish with a word or a frown. Even though I know it is wrong, and even though I know that she never cared for me at all, it is still there. My conscience is a whisper, but my love is a whole chorus! How painful it is for me to oppose it! And how can I deny something so beautiful, something that makes my soul to come alive and sing? I tell myself that it is something ugly, but it is like standing in front of a glorious sunset and telling myself that it is chaotic and dull! Ah, I thank the beneficent gods that Iliriana is not here to hear this! But I love Iliriana, too! Now, what is wrong with loving more than one person? Isn't love good?"

Sre Lugu knew that he was deviating from the subject of the last question, but he also knew that in a soul search, it is considered good if one is carried away, if one speaks spontaneously and passionately, for spontaneity and passion are the enemy of suppression. Srea Kula also judged it good, although he cringed internally at many of the things that Sre Lugu was saying.

"I know," continued Sre Lugu, "that in some communities polygamy is practiced. Such societies do not fall apart, and their gods do not seem to object. Why then am I forbidden it? Arbitrary rules!" A note of anger crept into his voice. "And now, to my horror, I find myself thinking, that even Pappi, that horribly evil man, had some wisdom in what he suggested to me."

_Dear gods_ , thought Srea Kula, his skin prickling as his hair tried to stand on end, _please remember that Sre Lugu is only saying this as part of a process of healing, possibly by way of exorcism! Please respect his honesty, and do not punish him for this!_

Sre Lugu continued: "Pappi suggested that in society, humans seeking security have thought wishfully, deceiving themselves into believing that by passing laws, they could transform wolves into lapdogs. But we can never follow such rules completely; they are too far out of harmony with our nature. And insofar as we do follow them, we suffer in our souls. But this suffering is internal, and because each person hides his agony, out of shame, we have the illusion that for others, it is not so hard. Each of us nurses his own pain, believing that his difficulties are signs of a unique weakness in himself, and each of us by his own dishonesty misleads others in the same way. Better, perhaps, for each to accept the chaos and danger of life and strive for what he truly desires; such an attitude might lead to conflict and violence on the outside, but at least we would not be tormenting ourselves on the inside. The life of such a one may be short, but it will be honest, pure, and free. It is better, perhaps, to suffer violence to one's body, than to inflict violence on one's own soul, one's inmost self."

Srea Kula, still more deeply shocked by what Sre Lugu was saying, frantically repeated his previous prayer in his mind, while keeping his face cheerful and calm, so as not to inhibit Sre Lugu. The thought occurred to him: _what a contrast between the passionate flow of Sre Lugu's speech and my own repetitive rendering of formulae!_

Sre Lugu continued: "All the gods know I did not fall in love with Liliune in order to hurt Iliriana, or anyone at all; so why should I feel guilt or shame? I did not choose to love her; I thought that I was going to have a relationship only of pleasure. I was surprised and dismayed when the god possessed me. Why is it that those possessed by Romance are at fault, while those possessed by Docility are praised? No mortal can draw a single breath without an infinity of gods, but we are said to be responsible for our actions. Let us castrate our sons at birth, so that they will feel no sinful desires! Or, let us all take Snoffle!"

Sre Lugu stopped suddenly. "Why did you stop, Sre Lugu?" asked Sre Algu, gently.

Sre Lugu looked puzzled. "I'm not sure," he replied, "perhaps I felt that I was going too far. Or perhaps, I just said what I had to say. Or perhaps it was because I was startled to see that I had, in a way, answered one of my own questions. I mean, I had asked why we should consider Evil to be divine; but I found myself taking his part. I may not take that path, but I had a glimpse of his divinity."

**May** not? thought Srea Kula, still more deeply shocked, You **may** not take that path? I thank whatever gods arranged it, that we are having this ritual now! This man is teetering on the edge of perdition! How did this happen? How can this be little Lugi, who ran about the park in his short pants, laughing and gathering twigs for some fantasy game, while his parents looked on with love and pride?

Suddenly, Srea Kula felt old; Lugi, and so many other children he had known and loved, including his own, had disappeared forever, mummified into adults, some even dead. He thought of his son, Sre Kela, and his daughter, Tilissaria, both of whom had grown up and left home. How he missed them, and how he missed their childhood, their innocence! He had been happy and proud to see them growing up, but also sad, a sadness he never mentioned to anyone but his wife and his confessors, for he had felt guilty about it. _It is true,_ he thought, _we keep so much within ourselves, we are ashamed of so much! Perhaps everyone should have a soul search, every day!_

A deep sadness descended now upon him. _Everything runs through my fingers_ , he thought. _How happy and fulfilled I felt at the wedding of Sre Lugu and Iliriana, and now look at them! My children have left me, not to mention my own youth, and many parishioners, on whom I lavished great effort, are dead and gone, or no longer use my services. Every triumph is swallowed up by time; I am only garnishing his repast. I will have nothing to show for anything._ He felt the rising of tears. Then he realized that Sre Lugu had begun speaking again.

"It is the same with many things," Sre Lugu was saying. "The gods play a crooked game with us. How can we win, when we are doomed to die in the end? Or at least, if they are going to doom us to die, why must they burden us with the desire to live? Why not make us to feel death as a completion, as the joyful final cadence of our lives? But even then, what about early death? My friend Sre Luso's son, a beautiful boy, a joy to everyone, died accidentally at the age of five. How can this be justified? And all parents live in fear that it will be their child who dies, to the point where sometimes, they are afraid to love or enjoy their children as much as they might, because they are afraid of the grief that they would have to suffer.

"The gods designed us to desire more than we can ever attain. No matter how rich and powerful a mortal becomes, he will always want to be richer and more powerful. And even the rich and powerful cannot command love, luck, or goodness.

"And always we must struggle with our potential for evil. If the gods do not wish us to be evil, why did they not simply make us good? They must have intended that a certain number of us shall be evil; but then, are such intentions not evil themselves?

"Kshaloka said that we were being tested. But the gods already know the future, they know already how the test will come out. They would know how the test _would_ come out, without actually making it. So why bother to test people? And if you must test them, why not test people with phantoms, so that those who do evil will not be doing it to real people?

"They curse us with ignorance and limited intellect, which allows them to say: 'Oh, it is beyond your understanding, poor dears, but believe us, it is all for the best.' And yet they also curse us with curiosity, the desire to know these very things. It makes no sense. Many human craftsmen seem able to make a far better product than the gods have done.

"Their very existence is a taunt, reminding us of so much that we are not and never will be. And if that is punishment for our sin of pride, why not make us humble? And even the beneficent gods let us know that in the end, compared to their incomprehensible duties, none of us means anything significant to them.

"Some of us struggle and struggle to perfect ourselves, to overcome our mortal deficiencies, to be rational and good. And, we even make progress. But in the end, old age and death take away everything we have achieved, and we know in advance that this will happen.

"To be sure, some of the gods are willing to bless some of us with happiness, as a doctor will give an opiate to a dying patient. To others, they offer rationalizations. But in the end, how can I give unqualified approval to a universe in which a beloved five-year-old child dies in an accident? I cannot. Perhaps it is only because of my intellectual weakness that I cannot. Still, I cannot. If the gods will give me greater wisdom, I will be happy to employ it; at the moment, the only honest thing for me to say is, that I cannot fully approve of such a world. Perhaps it is due to pride or some other emotional weakness that I cannot. Still, I cannot, and it would be a lie to say that I can. If the gods will give me greater emotional strength, I will be happy to look at the problem again. In the meantime, let them punish me if they will, but I am what they have made me to be, and I only believe what to the best of my knowledge is the truth! And what I believe is, that this world is unjust, flawed, rotten to its very core!"

As Sre Lugu spoke, Srea Kula alternated between two kinds of shock: shock at what Sre Lugu was saying, and shock at the fact that he, Srea Kula himself, had a certain sympathy with a great deal of it. _What exactly should we try to exorcise?_ he thought. _A great deal of what Sre Lugu is saying is simply fact, although the way he expresses himself shows bitterness._

_When Lugi was young, how honest he was!_ thought Srea Kula. _When he was hurt, he would cry. And now he is doing the same thing. Instead of being shocked, I should admire it! But how can I? Because I am afraid of the gods? But that makes me a coward!_

Suddenly, Srea Kula realized that Sre Algu had asked Sre Lugu a question, and that Sre Lugu was responding. Wrapped in his own thoughts, he had missed everything. He raised his hand to signal a halt to the proceedings. "I am terribly sorry," he said, "I lost my focus. Please start again with your question."

Sre Algu and Sre Lugu both looked surprised. "I had asked Sre Lugu," said Sre Algu, "to return to his attitude toward Snoffle. To what extent, if at all, had Snoffle convinced him, or at least, to what extent was he open to the possibility that Snoffle is a liberator of humanity?"

Sre Lugu began his reply, but Srea Kula could not follow him. His mind was in turmoil. He raised his hand again. "I apologize again," he said, "but I have just realized that I cannot sustain objectivity here. What Sre Lugu has said has raised too many thoughts in my own mind. I will arrange for another priest to take over Lugi's – I mean, Sre Lugu's – case, and I will undertake a soul search myself, as soon as possible. Until then, I must place myself on leave. I am sorry, it is my fault, please don't blame yourselves!" _I apologize for my feelings_ , he thought, _I see them as weakness. But what am I to tune myself by, if not the song of my own heart? And if I cannot trust myself, what in the world can I permit myself to do?_
**********

"You must speak to people in terms that have meaning for them.

If that means lying, then sometimes you must lie.

Lie in such a way that when they come to know better,

they will thank you for your lie."

(From the Scriptures of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

"Excuse me, Ydnas," said Darestigan, "there's some people at the gate who want to see the girl that some people think might be a goddess."

Ydnas sighed, put down her book, stretched, and went to the gate. There was a crowd of people just outside, led by a man with a big grey beard, dressed in a heavy white robe. The man was engaged in a heated conversation with Talek, while the three neophytes stood by. As Ydnas arrived, a Darestigan at the gate said, "This is the girl." The crowd looked at her with fascinated hostility. The man with the beard broke off his discussion with Talek and turned his attention to Ydnas.

"Do you think you are a goddess, girl?" asked the man, in a resonant, authoritative voice.

"Don't know," said Ydnas, making an elaborate shrug.

"Well, you're not, girl, and don't let anyone tell you that you are. There is only one god in the universe, and that is T'ah-Thor."

"Is that another name for Uncle K'Tor?" asked Ydnas.

"I have never heard of any 'Uncle K'Tor,'" said the man. "Who is he?"

"He's the god of everything. Who are you?"

"I am Gronx, Prophet of T'ah-Thor, the one and only God. Did your 'Uncle K'Tor' write this book?" He held up a thick black book.

"Yes," said Ydnas.

Gronx looked a little startled. Then he asked, "Is he the only God?"

Ydnas thought for a moment, resting her chin in both hands. "It depends."

Gronx looked stern. "It _depends_? What does it depend on?"

"It depends on what you mean," said Ydnas, gesturing with her hands first in one direction, and then in another. "There are no gods _separate_ from Uncle K'Tor. But, he _makes himself into_ various gods. They are like his elbow, his toes, his nose, ..."

Gronx shook his head in the negative. "You are deluded, my dear. There is only one god. Someone has led you astray. Who told you this?"

"Uncle K'Tor did."

"Is your Uncle K'Tor here now?"

"Yes."

"May I speak to him?"

"Sure."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well," said Gronx, "would you go and fetch him, please?"

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"He's here already."

Gronx cast his eyes this way and that. "Where?"

"Everywhere."

"Ah," said Gronx, nodding in understanding, "I see." Raising his voice, he said, " _Hello, Uncle K'Tor._ " He paused a moment. A breeze rustled the trees. Birds chirped.

"Well, my dear," said Gronx, smiling sweetly, "he doesn't seem to answer me."

"He answered you. Didn't you hear the wind, the birds?"

Gronx looked a little put out. "I wanted him to answer me _in words_."

"He wrote your book," said Ydnas. "Isn't that words enough?"

Gronx looked confused, then startled, then irritated. "Whoever taught you what to say is very ingenious, young lady."

"Nobody taught me what to say," said Ydnas.

"Well, then, you're very bright, young lady," said Gronx, smiling again, "and that is a wonderful thing. But remember, no matter how bright you are, your intelligence is nothing compared to the brilliance and wisdom of T'ah-Thor. And also, remember that your brightness is a pure gift from him, and should only be used in service to him. Don't get too proud and full of yourself."

"I'll try not to," said Ydnas, in a small, squeaky voice, and cringing a little.

"And remember that there is no such god as 'Uncle K'Tor," said Gronx.

"But, you can _see_ him!" said Ydnas, doing a full pirouette on one foot while gesturing with both arms.

"I see buildings, grass, people, the sky, and many other things," said Gronx, "but I don't see a god."

"I see beard, nose, robe, hands, and many other things, but I don't see _Gronx_ ," replied Ydnas.

"But you _do_ see me, my dear!" replied Gronx.

Ydnas looked startled for a moment, then a little frustrated. "You are right," she said, "but that's what I – well, never mind, let me start again.

"You _see_ him," she continued. "You just don't _recognize_ him. But anyway," she continued, knitting her brows in puzzlement, and rotating her arms again, "those trees and things are not just _random_. There must be something that brings them into being, guides them, and brings them to an end." She pantomimed someone doing that.

"Yes indeed," said Gronx, happily. "T'ah-Thor made them! But He made them to be completely separate from himself. T'ah-Thor must be separate from all of his creations, for He is superior to all of his creations."

"Is a complete human being superior to a fingernail?" asked Ydnas.

"Of course!"

"But then it is possible to be superior to something that is part of you," said Ydnas.

"Well," said Gronx, "I thought you meant a _detached_ fingernail, all by itself."

"Can T'ah-Thor do _anything?_ " asked Ydnas.

"Yes indeed, little girl," replied Gronx, with a warm smile. "T'ah-Thor is infinite and omnipotent. There is no limit to His powers. To Him, anything is possible."

"Is it possible for Him to make another god, who is even more powerful than himself?"

Gronx hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Well, I suppose that He can, since he is omnipotent, but He has not done so. His Book says that he is the only god." He raised up the book again.

"But then, it is _possible_ for there to be someone even more powerful than T'ah-Thor."

"Yes, but there _isn't_. Didn't you hear me, little girl?"

"So even though there isn't any such being, it would be _possible_ for there to be someone who could do something that T'ah-Thor can't do."

"But there _isn't_ , said Gronx, getting irritated. "Why are you going on like this?"

"So, it must be _possible_ that there be something that T'ah-Thor _can't do_ ," said Ydnas.

"No, no," said Gronx, "T'ah-Thor is _omnipotent_."

Ydnas sighed. "Is it possible for him to make himself _not_ omnipotent?" she asked.

"He would never _want_ to do that," said Gronx.

"Is it _impossible_ for him to want to do that?" asked Ydnas.

"I have told you several times, little girl, that nothing is impossible for T'ah-Thor! If you can't grasp that, then we should talk about something else." He sighed, and slouched a little, looking fatigued; and then seemed to become more aware of himself, and straightened up again.

"So it's _possible_ that T'ah-Thor _would_ want to make himself _not_ omnipotent," said Ydnas.

"Yes," said Gronx, with an air of serene patience, "I suppose it is."

"Could he, then?"

"Yes, of course he could," said Gronx, "since he can do anything."

"So it's _possible_ for T'ah-Thor to be _not_ omnipotent," said Ydnas.

"Yes."

"So it's possible for there to be something that T'ah-Thor can't do."

"No, no," said Gronx, "T'ah-Thor is _omnipotent_!"

"Well," said Ydnas, "did T'ah-Thor make _time_?"

Gronx hesitated. "It doesn't say so in the book, but surely He did, since He made everything."

"When did he make it?"

"In the beginning, of course!"

"In the beginning of what?"

"In the beginning of time, of course," said Gronx.

Ydnas paused for a moment, looking expectant. Then she sighed and said, "How did He go about making it?"

"The scripture doesn't say, but I suppose He said something like, 'There will now and henceforth be time!' For, when He wanted there to be language, He said, 'There will now and henceforth be language,' and there was language; and when He wanted there to be truth, He said, 'There will now and henceforth be truth,' and there was truth."

"So," said Ydnas, "unlike the way it is with you or me, when T'ah-Thor says, 'It will now and henceforth be _thus_ ,' it is immediately and henceforth thus, just as he says."

"Exactly, little girl," said Gronx, with a fatherly smile, "T'ah-Thor is _omnipotent_! You and I are nothing compared to him!"

"So," said Ydnas, making commanding arm motions along with her speech, "there is a very important fact about the universe, namely: _if T'ah-Thor says, 'It will now and henceforth be thus,' then it is indeed thus, from then on_. In other words, it is a fact about the universe that T'ah-Thor is omnipotent, unless he makes himself otherwise."

"So it is, little girl," said Gronx, with great satisfaction. "His power is _unlimited_. That is indeed an undeniable fact!"

"I suppose that the reason this fact about the universe _is_ a fact, is that T'ah-Thor has made it to be one?"

"It must be so, little girl," said Gronx, nodding and smiling, "for it is T'ah-Thor who created the universe, and made everything to be what it is."

"So, before He did anything else," said Ydnas, "T'ah-Thor must have said something like, 'It will now and henceforth be a fact that whenever I say, "It will now and henceforth be _thus_ ," it will indeed be thus.'"

"Say that again?" said Gronx, screwing up his face and turning one ear toward Ydnas.

Ydnas repeated herself, adding, "He declared himself to be omnipotent." Gronx thought for a few moments before replying.

"Well," he said, a little nervously, "T'ah-Thor didn't have to _declare_ Himself to be omnipotent; He was omnipotent from the beginning!"

"So it _wasn't_ T'ah-Thor who made it to be a fact about the universe, that He is omnipotent?" said Ydnas.

"No," said Gronx, shaking his head, "that was already true. How could a being, who _wasn't_ omnipotent, _make_ himself omnipotent?"

"So," said Ydnas, "not every fact about the universe was made to be so by T'ah-Thor."

Gronx grimaced, and was silent for a few moments. Then he drew himself up and said, with a smile, "Little girl, you are very clever indeed. I really owe you something, because you have reminded me of something very important. I should not have tried to answer your questions, when they went beyond what is said in the Book. For then, I could only rely on my fallible human intelligence. As you see, I just got all tangled up. We humans are limited, and cannot understand fully the nature of T'ah-Thor, only He can. He has told us what we need to know, in the Book, and we are limited to that." Gronx patted the air, as though he had just made a bed, and was giving it a final smoothing.

"What intelligence did you use," asked Ydnas, "to understand what the Book says, and to decide whether it is true?"

Gronx gave a start, scowled, hesitated for a moment, and then smiled. "I can't answer that," he said, "because it doesn't say in the Book."

Ydnas thought for a moment. "Do you mind if I call on your god?" she asked.

"Not unless you are doing it to test whether He exists," said Gronx, with a stern expression. "There's a rule against doing anything to test Him."

"No, I just want to talk to Him."

"Well, all right, but of course, He doesn't have to answer a mere mortal."

"I understand," said Ydnas. Looking up at the sky, she said, "Hello, T'ah-Thor!"

With a dazzling blast of light, and a stupendous crack of thunder, the sky opened up, revealing infinite heavens beyond. An incalculable host of angels – real angels, with wings! – flew, circle on circle, in an endless pageant of glory, playing upon instruments and singing joyful praises. At the center of their worship, huge and awesome in the sky, and seated on a majestic golden throne, was T'ah-Thor Himself, with his full white beard, soulful brown eyes, and brilliant white robe. A crown of flickering lightning circled his white hair, and a flaming sword was in his hand. By his other hand stood the iron scales of justice. Galaxies circled like doves beneath his sandaled feet. He focused his eyes on Ydnas and began to speak.

"I am T'ah-Thor, the one and only God," He said. The ground shook with His voice.

"Very good," said Ydnas, "but _what_ are you, T'ah-Thor?"

"I am T'ah-Thor, the One, the Sole, the Creator of All, the Preserver of All, the Judge of All, the Destroyer of All. Infinite and unsurpassable is my power." The air throbbed with the echoes of His voice.

"You created the world?"

"I did."

"But who created you?"

"No one created me," replied T'ah-Thor. "There was never a time when I was not, for I am in all time, and also outside of time, for I myself created time." Out of the corner of her eye, Ydnas could see Gronx frantically writing down what was being said.

"Whence comes your power?"

"It is mine by nature."

"Whence comes this nature?"

"It does not come from anywhere; it simply is."

"Did you create it, or make it to be what it is?"

"No. I am the creator of all that needs to be created. But I myself exist necessarily. I could not have failed to exist. It is my nature to exist. A thing that exists by nature needs no creator. And my nature could not have failed to be what it is. It could not have been otherwise, and so there is nothing to explain."

"Your nature makes _you_ to be what _you_ are," said Ydnas, "but _you_ have no control over _it_."

"Yes, but I and my nature are one."

"Was it you, who saw to it that it is your nature to exist?"

"No, it is just the way things are. But we have spoken enough of such things; let me show you what happens to those who do not obey my laws!"

He made a tiny gesture with his left little finger, and a great chasm appeared in the ground. Ydnas found herself flying through the air, and dropping through the rent, past streams of molten lava, through clouds of steam and sprays of burning sulfur. Finally, she saw that the Earth was a hollow shell, with another sphere inside it. "That's a shell, too," said T'ah-Thor. "They go all the way down." There were about a hundred forearms of space between the outer shell and the inner. Both were colored a glowing orange-grey. Passing between the two shells, Ydnas saw a great stream of naked people flying past her, turning head over heels, screaming and wailing, begging and pleading, and evidently out of control of their motion. Looking ahead, she saw that those far ahead in the stream were being deposited on the outer surface of the inner shell.

Coming closer to the inner shell, she saw that it consisted entirely of people and flames. The tongues of this flame were up to ten feet long, red and orange. A few feet above this, floating, and arranged in a regular array, were naked humans. They were of all ages, but mostly old. Each one was clearly in terrible agony from the flames, writhing and twisting and churning and flailing at the air, but unable to move away. She could smell scorched flesh and singed hair. The sound of innumerable screams merged into a single, hugely dissonant hiss, as if a cosmic fingernail were endlessly scraping on a cosmic blackboard.

"They are continuously experiencing the maximum physical pain that the human being is capable of feeling," said T'ah-Thor, with a note of pride in his voice. "What you can't see is the psychological pain they are also suffering. They are all full of furious self-hatred, castigating themselves endlessly for being so stupid as to have enjoyed a few sins during their earthly stay, at the price of eternal suffering. They also experience maximal guilt and shame!"

"How long must they endure this?" asked Ydnas.

"Forever!"

"Does this undo any of the damage they have done?" asked Ydnas.

"No," replied T'ah-Thor, "it is retributive justice, pure and simple."

"What is the purpose of retributive justice?" asked Ydnas.

"It has no purpose," said T'ah-Thor. "It is an end in itself. Like me, it simply is."

Ydnas found that she could move at will, and she began to float over the vast array of screaming, writhing people. At first, she noticed the differences between them: old and young, male and female, large and small, fat and thin, various colors, various faces. After awhile, though, she became saturated with individuality, and they all began to look more or less alike. Speeding up, she passed over hundreds in a single breath. She would hear briefly the individual screams of those she was near emerge from the background pandemonium, and disappear back into it as she passed.

Because the inner sphere was almost as large as the surface of the world, it appeared to be flat, with a circular horizon. Long before the eye reached the horizon, all the bodies and flames had melded into a uniform orange-grey. Beyond this was the inner surface of the outer shell, which appeared the same, so that from where she was, it appeared to Ydnas that she was inside a roughly dome-shaped space of large but uncertain size. But no matter how far she flew, she never seemed to get any closer to the periphery.

"May I talk to them?" she asked.

"They are in no condition to talk," replied T'ah-Thor, from within her mind. "They are in such agony that they can't think of anything else, even for an instant. But if you have questions, I would be glad to answer them."

"How about this one," asked Ydnas, pointing to a young woman of perhaps 20 years, writhing like a caterpillar on a hot griddle. "What is she here for?"

"Many things," said T'ah-Thor, "but mainly for worshipping Amakala."

"Amakala is said to be the goddess of pure goodness," said Ydnas, "and her worshippers worship her as part of their dedication to goodness, to becoming better people, and to doing good in the world."

"The point is," said T'ah-Thor, "that they were worshipping someone _other than_ _me_!"

"You are not a manifestation of Amakala?"

"Of course not! Amakala does not exist! I am the only god!"

"I see," said Ydnas. "How is it that this woman came to worship that nonexistent goddess?"

"Well, her parents and her community were sunk in this idolatry, and they corrupted her mind. I don't believe she ever even heard my name!"

"Are her family here, too?"

"Some of them. Others repented and converted before they died. But she died young."

"Well, what about this one?" said Ydnas, pointing to a man of about thirty, convulsing like a spider that has just been stepped on.

"Ah," replied T'ah-Thor, "his most grievous sin was adultery. As a very young man, he foolishly married a woman for her beauty, without considering her personality. As the glow of their honeymoon faded, she turned out to be both stupid and mean. As he matured, however, it became evident that he was intelligent, sensitive, and idealistic. Sensing this in some vague way, she resented it, and withdrew from him, sexually and otherwise, constantly carping at him at home and embarrassing him in public. Not long after that, he met a woman at his workplace who was rather plain, but brilliant and idealistic like himself. They were in fact perfectly matched, and although they both resisted it on moral grounds, they fell in love. They both prayed to various nonexistent gods to deliver them from this feeling, but without success, of course, since there are no such gods. I forgave him the idolatry, because he later converted to my Church. But then, in a weak moment, the two of them had an adulterous tryst. Moments after consummation, they began to feel remorse, but before it could mature, his wife's brother, who had learned of the tryst, broke in and killed them both. So, here he is, and she's 3,466 places down the line. I have a very clear rule against adultery."

"What about his wife and her brother?"

"They're both in Heaven," said T'ah-Thor, "because afterwards, he repented and prayed and donated a lot of money to the church, so I forgave him the murder. They both became very pious. She wasn't quite bright enough to understand the rules, but fortunately, she had a very conscientious Minister who watched her like a hawk, and who told her what to do and what not to do, in great detail."

"Well, what about this one?" asked Ydnas, pointing to a middle-aged woman, who was writhing and twisting like a poisoned rat.

"Serial killer," said T'ah-Thor. "Killed 21 people before she made a mistake and got caught."

"It's relatively unusual for a woman to be a serial killer, isn't it?" asked Ydnas.

"Relatively, yes," said T'ah-Thor. "This one had some sort of rare brain condition. She would frequently think she heard _me_ telling her to kill people, and she felt very strong urges to obey. As she should, of course."

"But surely she's not morally guilty," said Ydnas, "if she did it out of craziness."

"Well, I forgave her several killings on that basis," said T'ah-Thor, "but most of the time, part of her mind knew that she was hallucinating, and she had enough free will to resist the urges, powerful though they were. It took every-moment alertness and constant, maximum-strength self-control, but it was possible. She once went for six months resisting temptation that way, but then, she caved in. She was profoundly fatigued, of course, and in despair, but she _could_ have held out for another five breaths, and so giving up was a free action on her part, and so I'm punishing her for it. She inherited her craziness from her maternal grandmother, who had a similar problem. The grandmother never killed anyone, though."

"Is she in Heaven?" asked Ydnas.

"No," said T'ah-Thor. "She controlled herself for a long time, but then she felt her condition suddenly getting worse, and she was afraid she was going to lose control and kill someone, perhaps immediately. In order to prevent that from happening, she committed suicide. I have a very clear rule against suicide. She's about half a horizon to your left."

"You mentioned a place called 'Heaven,'" said Ydnas. "May I see it?"

"Certainly," said T'ah-Thor.

Suddenly the sound of screams disappeared, to be replaced by a sound like a murmuring spring breeze. Ydnas looked around, and saw once again a great array of bodies; but this time, there were no flames, and the bodies were all in a posture suggesting the most serene ecstasy. Looking closely at one man, she saw a face that radiated joy. Without ceasing to smile, his lips moved as he whispered something. Ydnas realized that the wind-like sound she heard was the sum of all these people whispering at once. Putting her ear closer to the man, she heard him repeat, "T'ah-Thor, you are the most wonderful being possible! T'ah-Thor, you are the most wonderful being possible! T'ah-Thor, you are the most wonderful being possible! T'ah-Thor, ..." over and over again. She quickly verified that all the nearby people were equally ecstatic, and whispering the same thing.

"Can I speak to him? she asked.

"I'm afraid not," said T'ah-Thor, who was still with her. "They are all in the most intense possible ecstasy, which occupies their minds so completely that there is no room for anything else – except the praise, of course. But I can tell you something about him. He was an active pedophile who earned his living as a torturer for a crime syndicate. He would be down there with the others, but on his deathbed he repented and begged for mercy."

"Do you always forgive in such cases?" asked Ydnas.

"I am a merciful god," replied T'ah-Thor. "If a person will confess that without me he is utterly helpless and totally without value, then I will bring him here."

"So if he admits that he doesn't deserve to come here, you bring him here," said Ydnas.

"Exactly," said T'ah-Thor.

"I find your system a little puzzling," said Ydnas.

"That's because I'm a god," said T'ah-Thor. "You mortals can't understand us."

"Do you have anyone here who did _good_ things, on the whole?" asked Ydnas.

"A few," said T'ah-Thor, "but people who accomplish good things in their lives often fall into a sin of pride. It is hard for them to sincerely grant that they are utterly helpless and totally without value. They may say so, they may _try_ to believe it, but I can read their minds and discover traces of self-satisfaction. Most people here had lives of pain, failure, and humiliation, with death as the final defeat. Were it not for me."

Ydnas looked over the seemingly endless array of people, all ecstatically whispering praise.

"They are not _doing_ much of anything," said Ydnas, "or solving any problems."

"I have solved all their problems," replied T'ah-Thor.

Ydnas suddenly found herself outside the Earth, and far above it; then, with unbelievable rapidity, she found herself flying toward the face of T'ah-Thor. Galaxies and angels flew backward past her, faster and faster, until they simply appeared as streaks. This continued until T'ah-Thor's face took up almost half of her sphere of vision. She had no idea of how far away He was, for she could not grasp His size, but she could see several galaxies still between them. He spoke:

"Now what, little girl, do you desire of me, that you should be asking all these questions?"

"At first, I was just curious about you, in a general sort of way," said Ydnas. "Now, I am almost certain that you are not altogether what you appear to be, but I want to be sure."

T'ah-Thor hesitated for a moment; then he laughed. "All right," he said, his brown eyes twinkling. "Yes, I am not what I appear to be. And I must say, I am astonished, not only at your perceptiveness, but at your self-confidence and courage. Most people, having seen what you just saw, would stifle their doubts, fearing my wrath. It's not only astonishing, it's wonderfully refreshing!"

"So, you aren't really torturing anyone in the afterlife, are you?"

"Merciful gods, don't insult me!" He said, laughing. "What kind of perverted idiot would get any satisfaction out of endlessly torturing countless people, when no good could possibly come of it?" Suddenly, Ydnas found a field of wildflowers under her feet; T'ah-Thor shrank and came towards her, changing his appearance, so that she found herself standing next to a pleasant-looking boy of her own age and size. Above them was blue sky.

"Aaah, but it's good to be out of that bizarre persona," said the boy, stretching and taking a deep breath. "But, tell me about yourself. Who are you, and what brought you to me?"

"I don't really know who I am," she said, sadly. "I've forgotten myself."

"Join the choir," he replied, chuckling. " _I_ have no idea where _I_ came from, either. I just know, or at least presume, that I'm supposed to play the part of T'ah-Thor, and do a few other things, like answering little girls' questions. And it's not such a bad job, really, because the fact is, that there are lots of people who _need_ to believe in someone like T'ah-Thor. They have no faith in themselves or anyone else, and they think that without sugar and gall, no one would behave themselves for a moment. And some of them are right, about themselves, at least. It is fortunate if one of them can find someone like myself, to give them rules, and threaten and cajole them into obedience."

"Your rules seem a bit simple-minded," said Ydnas.

"My _people_ are simple-minded," said T'ah-Thor.

"Ah," said Ydnas, "that's why you use all those theatrical effects, like hosts of angels, the Earth opening up, and so on."

"Exactly!" he said, nodding. "Simple people have a right to religion too, you know!"

"Well, yes, I guess they do," said Ydnas, thoughtfully. "So what _really_ happened to those people who you said were being punished?" asked Ydnas. "Or, didn't they even exist?"

"Oh, they existed, all right," said T'ah-Thor, shaking his head. "But I have no idea what happened to them after death. That's not part of my job. Of course, one hears lots of stories: extinction, gradual fading, the Heavens, the underworld, the Tellamir, the Rotimor, rejoining the One, interpenetration, essences, reincarnation, the spirit plane – there's no end to them. Maybe different ones are true of different people – why does there have to be only one kind of death? I'll probably find out, one day – I can't believe that I'll be doing this job forever."

"I have no idea what _my_ job is," said Ydnas, sighing.

"Talking to me, I imagine," said T'ah-Thor, "at least, that's what it is at the moment."

"Well, I suppose," said Ydnas, "but sometimes I think I'm supposed to be some kind of policeman or teacher or something."

"Well," he said, "you _were_ acting sort of like a detective – trying to find out whether I was what I appeared to be, or not!"

"I think maybe there's some kind of conflict among the gods," said Ydnas, looking nervous, "some kind of conspiracy."

"Well, of course there is conflict," said T'ah-Thor. "How can there not be conflict between Amakala and Separ, for example? It is the nature of good to attack evil."

"But not the reverse?"

"No, not at all. Of course, evil people often injure good people, but it's because they hope to get money or power or pleasure or something by doing so. They hardly ever attack good people just because they're _good_. But good people frequently attack evil people just because they're evil."

"I see what you mean," said Ydnas, thoughtfully, "and I suppose you're right about conflict between certain gods being inevitable. But there's also a kind of stand-off, a balance. Only, perhaps that balance is breaking down, now. I don't know."

"Maybe Separ doesn't want to be the god of evil any more," suggested T'ah-Thor, with a shrug. "I can't say that I would blame him. He's got the worst job in the whole universe!"

"If so, maybe they ought to just grant his wish, and not replace him. It would be a nicer world, without evil."

"It puzzles me that they don't," said T'ah-Thor. "For that matter, why create evil in the first place?"

"Well," said Ydnas, "what do _you_ say, when people ask you that, thinking that you are the creator?"

"Well," said T'ah-Thor, smiling sheepishly, "my people don't usually ask questions like that, but if they do, I tell them that such things are beyond them, and that they should just have faith that everything is for the best."

Ydnas sighed. Then she looked at her shoulder. There was no sign of Uncle K'Tor, but when she put her hand there, she could feel him. "Uncle K'Tor," she said, "why did you make evil?"

Uncle K'Tor began to appear. "Is _that_ Uncle K'Tor?" asked T'ah-Thor. "I thought he was everywhere."

"Oh, he is," said Ydnas. "This is just a persona."

"Maybe _that's_ your job," said T'ah-Thor. "You're _another_ persona for K'Tor."

"You could say that about anyone," said Ydnas.

"I suppose so," said T'ah-Thor, thoughtfully. "Of course, no one knows better than I that what a persona tells you may not be altogether true," he added, looking skeptically at the materializing chameleon.

Ydnas looked startled. "I don't think Uncle K'Tor would lie to me," she said. "When he doesn't want me to know something, he just makes me forget it."

Uncle K'Tor was now fully visible. His tongue flicked out and snared a small beetle from a nearby plant.

"Come on, Uncle K'Tor," said Ydnas. "You can always make us forget it again, afterwards."

Uncle K'Tor turned his left eye in her direction, and the other toward T'ah-Thor. "Hmmm ..." he said, in a soft, deep, rumbly voice, rather like a bullfrog's croak. "Some ... of my reasons are ... hard ... to understand."

"Give us the easy ones," said Ydnas.

"Hmmm ..." said K'Tor, with reptilian slowness, "can you think ... of a best ... possible ... state of the universe, ... or ... is there always ... a better one ... possible?"

"Well, I don't know," said Ydnas. "I guess ... I guess there could always be a better one. If everyone was perfectly happy, you could have a universe with _more_ people in it, all happy, and that would be even better."

"Hmmm ..." said K'Tor, blinking, "then, the best I can do is, ... make things get ... better ... and better."

"I suppose so," said Ydnas.

"Now ... think of a ... beautiful ... painting". The slowness of K'Tor's speech was calming rather than frustrating. "The beauty ... of the whole ... comes from the ... harmony ... of the parts, ... but ... that doesn't mean ... that all the ... parts ... are beautiful ... by themselves."

"Ah," said Ydnas.

"Hmmm ..." said K'Tor, with reptilian slowness, "also, ... even ... imperfect beings ... have the right to ... exist. Your friend Kor ... very nice lady ... but ... she's not perfect ... should I have made ... the world ... without her?"

" _No_ ," cried Ydnas, startled and dismayed. "Don't do that – I mean, I'm glad you didn't do that! You're not going to change it, are you?" She wrung her hands.

"No ..." said K'Tor, "I'm ... not ... going ...to change it. ... Hmmm ... So ... somehow, I ... have to fit ... them all ... together. ... I'm ... like a hostess ... trying to ... figure out ... whom to seat ... next to whom. ... That's why I made ... _him_ ," he explained, flicking his tongue in T'ah-Thor's direction, "because he ... deserves to exist, and ... he helps some people ... to get ... better. And ... someday, _he_ will get better, too!" He paused, and then uttered a single chuckle. His left eye looked away from Ydnas, and then back.

"You ... love Kor, ... don't you?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, I do!" said Ydnas, still worried.

"Ahhhh ..." said Uncle K'Tor, "poor me, ... I love ... them _all_ , ... every ... possible ... blade of grass ... every little ... dust mote, ... even the ... doomed ones, even the ... flawed ones, even the ... broken ones". Again he paused, and then he gave a little sigh. "I give them ... as much ... as I can," he concluded, sadly.

"Oh, Uncle K'Tor, I love you, too!" said Ydnas, deeply moved. She picked him up and began kissing him all over.

"EEE-YAK!" screeched Uncle K'Tor, "STOP! THAT TICKLES!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Uncle K'Tor," said Ydnas. She stopped kissing him, but she couldn't help laughing.
**********

"It's amazing how effective fools can be."

(Glozart Oong, Minister of Wisdom under Grapitudinous IV)

Interrupted by his alarm, Ling checked himself to make sure that he was not in any way confusing himself with Agulinar Torothex, even though he was exploring the latter's memories. The protective spell was working well, however; he was not at all confused. He went over several of his own memories and plans; they were all quite vivid, and felt like his own. He set the timer for eleven hundredbreaths, and returned to Agulinar's memories of reading a prophecy.

The prophecy was in an ancient language, unknown to Ling; but it was known to Torothex, and so Ling was able to use Torothex's memories to tell him what the passage meant.

Theo-Anarchy will be corrupted. There is a great danger that this will lead to an era of civil war. This would create suffering on a vast scale, which would last for untold miserable generations. No one would be safe.

A savior will appear in the form of a girl. The universe will be her pet. Her power will be limited, however, for the most part by her own choice. There will be many reversals. The Emperor will not rule, and the soldier will cease to fight. The courtesan will become celibate, the criminal a saint. Those who do not defend themselves will survive, and those who surrender will be victorious. Liars will be befuddled by those who tell the truth, and those who renounce power will determine the course of events. The thief will give generously, and the rich man will be poor. The parasitic gods will cease to feed on mortals, and serve them instead. Evil will help to bring the world into harmony, and the meek will inherit Kondrastibar. The great number of such reversals signals the start of a new era, just as, when going from 999,999 to 1,000,000, all the digits of the former number change at once.

It is as if a square were to be cut into many thousands of pieces, and those pieces were reassembled into a regular, 2,311-pointed star. Each piece would have to find a new place. This cannot be achieved by coercion, for there will be no far-reaching coercive force in Theo-Anarchy; and besides, what king would have the intellect to solve such a problem, all by himself? Rather, it is a matter of all rising roads leading to the same peak.

'It would take a long time,' thought Ling, 'to understand all this in detail. I'm going to assume that the important thing is, that if this is right, there's about to be a big change. Torothex and his buddies seem to be in a better position to understand what is going on than anyone else I know of, including my previous self. For that reason, I am going to stick with him. My next step is to try to get to know the people on this council of his.'

He focused on Dzernial, the middle-aged woman who had spoken first. A memory quickly rose up.

"May I present," said the ambassador, "our Servant, Grandmother Dzernial Kotr-Zubu!"

"An honor to meet you," said Torothex, bowing deeply.

"And I am very pleased to meet _you_ , Patriarch," Dzernial replied, with a wide smile. "Let us repair to the conference room."

They entered the conference room. Torothex stepped into an adjoining pantry and returned with an earthenware pitcher of fruit juice and a pair of wooden cups. Soon they were comfortably seated. "I was very impressed by your handling of the Shishiliu Affair, Patriarch," said Dzernial.

At the word "Shishiliu," background information rose up in Torothex's mind. There had been widespread, murderous rioting in the Shishiliu region. Two ethnic groups had co-existed there, the Ishlacorti and the Tencidca. For a long time they had lived in peace, intermarrying frequently and inhabiting the same neighborhoods. But one day, a rumor had somehow started among the Tencidca, to the effect that the Ishlacorti were planning to attack them. When the leaders of the Ishlacorti learned of this rumor, they vigorously denied it, inviting the Tencidca to send observers anywhere to verify this. The Tencidca did so, and found nothing, but the incident provoked a bit of hostility on the part of some Ishlacorti. Also, a rumor spread among the Ishlacorti that someone was deliberately stirring up the Tencidca against them. Some of the more wary Ishlacorti began secretly to organize paramilitary defense units, just in case.

Unfortunately, word of these preparations got out. Some of the Tencidca thought, 'The Ishlacorti no longer trust us, and are arming themselves against us. Their intentions may be purely defensive, but sometimes defense includes a first strike. Just to be on the safe side, we should also form defensive organizations.' They did so. Many people argued that this was a mistake, but of course, there were many who argued that 'preparation for war is sometimes the best way to maintain peace.'

The Ishlacorti learned of these preparations, and responded in a similar way, forming more defense units of their own. More Tencidca then became worried, and chose to arm themselves, provoking a similar response from the Ishlacorti. This process continued, until both sides were heavily armed and poised for war. Each one then had to consider that the other might attempt a first strike. Whoever did that would have a tremendous tactical advantage. The only way to be sure to avoid a first strike on one's enemy's part seemed to be a first strike of one's own. Peacemakers desperately tried to avoid escalation of conflict, which neither side wanted; but disarmament would have required trust, and it is hard to trust someone who is armed to the teeth and aware of the advantages of a first strike. It was a nightmarish situation; no one wanted violent conflict, and yet they were sliding inexorably towards it.

Predictably, some minor incident upset the precarious balance, and the two groups came into open conflict. Once people start to fight, they find reasons to hate and despise one another, and other reasons to continue. Lust for vengeance helps to perpetuate the cycle. Paramilitary organizations lack the discipline of trained armies. Looting, rape, and punitive destruction became commonplace. The riots became massacres.

['Happens all the time, _'_ thought Ling with a smile, 'I've often used that method to get rid of two opponents at once, without having to do anything myself except for starting the rumor at the beginning, and mopping up at the end! I dearly love people who say things like, "Preparation for war is the best way to maintain peace."' He felt a little envious, though, for he had never done anything on such a large scale.]

Karngrevor was urged to intervene, but he threw up his hands. "The two groups live amongst each other," he said, "and both sides have reached the point of fanaticism. An occupation force would only become the target of endless guerilla attacks from both sides, and the only military solution would be to kill them all. I'm not going to do that!"

['I've heard of this Karngrevor fellow,' thought Ling, but he was surprised to learn, from Torothex's memories, just how powerful Karngrevor was – and just how weak.]

Torothex volunteered to help. He was respected by both the Ishlacorti and the Tencidca, both of whom knew his long history of demonstrated commitment to non-violent and non-authoritarian solutions. Karngrevor did agree to supply magic carpets from which to drop leaflets announcing that Torothex was going to appear, with a few friends, at a certain time, in Carithli square, a large plaza on the border of the Shishiliu region. "Dear Friends," read the leaflet, "by now, you have seen that there is no security in arms and violence. Quite the contrary! Those who feed the god of violence will be eaten by him. But those who are willing to renounce all hatred and vengeance, without reservation, and who will swear a sacred oath to commit no more violence, _no matter what happens_ , should try to join me at Carithli Square, at eighth bell on Doggermath. Bring no weapons! Wear green and yellow; I ask those who still have faith in violence and armament to spare those who wear these colors, if they appear to be on the way to meet me. Being pledged to nonviolence, they are no threat to you! From Carithli square, we will proceed up Ioranapa Avenue."

['Is this guy nuts?' thought Ling, who knew, by virtue of other memories of Torothex's, that Ioranapa Avenue would lead directly into the worst of the riot areas. 'He and his fellow idiots would just be slaughtered! He must have an icepick up his sleeve. What's he want, anyway?']

Just before the appointed time, Torothex and four companions appeared on a street approaching Carithli square. They were all minimally dressed, and clearly unarmed. They walked slowly, singing a happy and beautiful hymn. Two of his companions held the endpoles of a large banner that read,

PEACE WITHOUT VENGEANCE!

and two others held another banner, that read,

RENOUNCE HATRED AND VIOLENCE!

Ling could not help feeling afraid, as, in Torothex's memory, he walked slowly toward the plaza, which was littered with rubble, and with burned and disfigured bodies, of both sexes and all ages, that were the result of recent rioting. On a hill not far away, an entire neighborhood appeared to be on fire. Other areas had already been reduced to ash. The air was full of soot and of the cloying stench of rotten flesh.

A heavily armed group of Ishlacorti, ensconced in improvised barricades, awaited Torothex on the border, which was heavily guarded on the outside by residents of a neighboring region, Grindish, in order to prevent the violence from spreading. The Grindish units had erected large signs saying,

" **Asylum, including food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, for all who will turn over their weapons and submit to a search. Temporary living quarters will be provided. No investigations, no trials, no proselytizing, all records confidential. You will be anonymous and protected at all times. We will help you to search for relatives and friends who might be here. Enter Grindish anywhere and inquire about the asylum program."**

"Do not enter here, Torothex," said one of the Ishlacorti soldiers, sternly, as Torothex approached the border. "This region has been secured by the Ishlacorti Liberation Army. We have been ordered to shoot anyone who approaches without official sanction." Numerous crossbows were leveled at the newcomers.

Torothex stopped at the border. "May I ask your name?" he asked.

"My true name is a secret," responded the commander, "since I fear reprisals against my family. I am called Commander Black."

"Well, then, Commander Black," Torothex replied, in a voice that was calm and friendly, but loud enough to be heard by all the Ishlacorti soldiers, "since you recognize me, you must know that I and my companions here are no danger to you. We are pledged to non-violence, and we are not allied with either side; we want both sides to live in peace, as they have for centuries, until not so very long ago! Why do you block us?"

"Orders," said Black. 'The High Command believes that your presence might corrupt the morale of our troops."

"That is indeed what I am hoping, Commander," said Torothex, with a smile, "but I am hoping to corrupt the morale of your enemies, as well. I seek an immediate end to this war, with peace and freedom for both sides. When I chose this site for my arrival, I hoped it would be neutral ground. What if you were to escort us to the inner edge of the area you have secured? Then we could address the Tencidca, as well."

Black's face hardened. "I've been given no discretion for such an action," he said. "I have been told that you are to remain outside of Shishiliu territory."

"Commander," said Torothex, still speaking loudly, "you refer to your orders, as a good military man does. But you must have strong personal feelings as well. I imagine that you have seen unspeakable horrors in the last few days, enough to give you nightmares for the rest of your life. I think that you can also see that the only way that violence will bring an end to this is, if almost everyone dies. For when people come to worship the god of vengeance with sufficient fervor, they will destroy out of pure rage and hatred, even if there is no hope of victory or survival. They will kill even their own, if they can find an excuse. And the excuse is always ready to hand, for anyone who disagrees or hesitates to do things their way is branded a traitor. They will not surrender, no matter what atrocities are inflicted upon them, and no matter what atrocities they think they have to inflict in order to survive and take revenge. Those few who survive such a struggle may well envy the dead."

The commander bristled, but said nothing. Torothex continued:

"The god of hatred, Commander, has a vicious and undying hatred for all mortals. He tells each side that he is their friend, but he is the enemy of both. The god of hatred has no favorites, Commander; he wants us _all_ to suffer and die. But what a deceiver he is! He poses as the god of _justice_. 'Those who kill,' he says, 'must be killed in turn.' Then he sits back to enjoy the destruction, for in this way he has set in motion a wheel that will not stop rolling until everyone has been crushed beneath it. But this is not true justice; true justice is living in the present, using everyone's talents in a constructive way, and making the best possible future for everyone.

"I am sure, Commander, that you have lost friends and loved ones in this war, and that there are those who say that justice requires reprisals; but killing others will not bring back the dead! The god of hatred tells you that the Tencidca are incorrigibly corrupt and evil, and then he turns around and tells them the very same thing about you! But it is not the Tencidca who are your true enemies, although they may have struck the blows; it is the evil gods who have possessed you both, the gods of rage, hatred, vengeance, selfishness, chauvinism, and suspicion. And how can you defeat those gods, Commander? Not with swords and arrows, not even with powerful spells; those are harmful only to mortals! Weapons are tools of the dark gods who enslave and murder us, and so are the deluded men who use such tools. No, Commander, the only way to defeat such gods is to starve them to death, to stop feeding them human flesh."

"Do not try to incite me to treason, Torothex!" snapped Commander Black, and turned away from him.

"Somewhere, Commander," continued Torothex, still in a loud voice, "there are newborn babies who will live, if we stop this right now, but who will otherwise die. What crime have these babies committed, Commander? What _justice_ demands their deaths?" Torothex shook his head sadly.

Commander Black, to judge by the expressions on his face, was poised between rage and tears. Torothex continued.

"Ah, Commander, don't you think that they are laughing at you, those bloody gods? _They_ know that every blow you strike will lead to a reprisal somewhere else, against your own people. Not to mention the blows you strike against yourself, in your own heart, as you resign yourself to more and more violence!

"You must exorcise those evil gods, Commander! And you must begin with _yourself_. Don't be their slave! Don't let them steal your flesh, cage your soul, and devour your life's force! Ignore their seductive voices! Vomit them out!"

The Commander drew his sword and raised it. The click of crossbow safeties could be heard.

Torothex neither flinched nor paused. "You can put an end to my words, Commander, just as those evil gods desire; but that will not change the truth we both can see." After a moment's pause, he added: "You are good man, Commander Black, a man of courage and honor. But you have been deceived, misled. Whatever you may have done, you have done in good faith. There is no reason for you to be punished. But you can do better, as can all your followers. Renounce those evil, parasitic gods! Foreswear their service! Be a free man! Choose life, choose hope, choose innocence, choose love, choose peace! Choose to grow, to build, to flourish, to bless and be blessed!"

The commander closed his eyes and sighed. He stood still for several breaths. His face expressed horror, exhaustion, and desperate uncertainty. Then, eyes still closed, he stretched out his arms to the side, palms up, turning his face to the sky, in the traditional Ishlacorti attitude of prayer. After a few moments, a jolt seemed to pass through him; his eyes opened, first in surprise, then in joy. Dropping his arms and leveling his gaze, he slowly turned to face his men. "Gentlemen," he said, smiling and crying at once, "it has been an honor to serve with you. But today, I am resigning my commission." He broke his sword under his boot, and tossed the handle part aside. Then, straightening up again, he continued: "This action is no judgment against you or anyone else, but as far as I am concerned, the war is over, and the victory has been won. Major Golden, you are in charge. Do as you will. I suppose it is your duty to execute me." He saluted the major; then he stood at attention. Several crossbows turned in his direction, but he did not move, nor did his joyful expression waver. He seemed to be about to laugh. The archers turned their faces to Major Golden, waiting for an order.

Major Golden stood paralyzed, with a look of utter shock and amazement on his face. His eyes went back and forth from Black to Torothex. Then he looked at the other soldiers in his group. Several of them were trembling or weeping. The major bent his head and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he returned to attention, facing his troops.

"Gentlemen," said Golden, "I cannot tell you what to do." Briefly, he turned his head to make eye contact with Black, and they smiled at each other. "But as for me," continued the Major, "I also resign my commission." He drew his own sword and broke it.

The remaining soldiers looked at one another, trying to gauge each other's minds. Then, one by one, they snapped on their safeties and lowered their bows.

['God of insanity!' thought Ling, 'I don't believe it! It wasn't a trick! No, it _was_ a trick, a _psychological_ trick!' He felt his conception of human possibility threatening to explode. His alarm went off.]
**********

"Death brings us alive."

(from the _Posthumous Publications_ of Murfin the Martyr)

Lieutenant Calcadro and her squad were on evening patrol in the neighborhood of the Temple when suddenly, Zanentadra looked up, then shouted, " _Incoming! We are under attack!_ "

" _Halt! Bison seven, first alert_!" shouted Calcadro, and then asked Zanentadra, "Where is it?"

"Straight overhead," said the Witch. Calcadro looked up and saw an odd-looking, circular dark cloud. "I've never encountered anything like it," continued Zanentadra, "but I'm just about sure it's a weapon. It's actually huge, as big as this whole neighborhood. It's coming down, and it will probably be here in about five hundredbreaths."

"Then it could be attacking the Temple, not just us."

"I think it is."

"Tsiloë," said Calcadro, "report to the temple. Tell them we're coming in."

"Will do," said Tsiloë.

" _Retreat state!_ _Move out! Jaguar one!_ " shouted Calcadro to the squad, and rode forward at a gallop. As she rode, hunched down over the neck of her horse, Calcadro shouted over to the squad's telepath, Thiarinis: " _Thia, what can you tell me about it_?"

"I'm not sure," shouted Thiarinis. "It seems to have hundreds of people in it. But they don't seem to have bodies. Not the usual kind, anyway. They seem to be flying. On their own, I mean. Yes, they have bodies, artificial bodies, mechanical bodies. But many of them have vague memories of once having had human bodies. ... Yes, they are definitely planning to attack the Temple. Oh, no!"

"What?" demanded Calcadro, realizing that she didn't have to shout to a telepath.

"I can't – I can't believe it! –"

"Pull yourself together, Thia! What is it?"

"They intend – their orders – their purpose – they have been commanded to kill us all, everyone connected with the Temple, and to enslave our souls! Putting them into machine bodies! As happened to them!"

"Are you getting all this, Tsiloë?"

" _Got it!_ " shouted Tsiloë.

"Relay all general information to the Temple, unless I signal otherwise!" said Calcadro.

"Will do!"

Calcadro adjusted her own seashell so that recorders in the Temple Strategy Room would hear all her commands and remarks automatically. Normally, the shell would only transmit what was spoken directly into it. Looking up, she reported, "Calcadro here on automatic. I'm looking up at the cloud. It's a _lot_ lower, maybe only five hundred manlengths up. I can see that it's rotating around a vertical axis. I can hear a noise from it, too – a sort of swishing and throbbing."

"Tilithië," she shouted, "activate your automatic seashell, and keep up a running commentary when you can. Thia, can you tell me anything more?"

"They are slaves," Thiarinis shouted back. "No, they are puppets; their wills are not free, they are bound by absolute loyalty to one whom they consider their Lord. They communicate mind-to-mind, giving them a group mind rather like ours, but also completely dedicated to their Lord. They have a kind of weapon which kills the body without injuring the soul. The weapon appears as a bolt of gray light. It destroys the original body and attaches the soul to a small, passively floating body, which glows like a firefly. They are nearly in range now. They are aware of our squad and the fact that we are warriors of the Temple. They intend to harvest our souls."

"Is there a defense?"

"I can't tell! They aren't thinking of one!"

The squad was still several hundred manlengths from the Temple. Not enough time! Waving a pennant for attention, Calcadro called out, "Halt! Turtle one! Metal shields, crossbows, hexed bolts, maximum range! Zan, maximum dome shield, modify at will!"

The Amazons reined in their horses and dismounted, making a compact circular formation with the horses on the outside. The quartermistress handed out shields, crossbows, and quivers of enchanted bolts. Each Amazon removed a panel in the center of her shield and inserted the front end of her crossbow into it, securing it with a clip. She removed another panel higher up and replaced it with a window of glass. She could now fire bolts through the center of her shield, without having to come out from behind it.

Calcadro thought of entering the group mind, but she knew that Thiarinis would not be able to keep it up for long, so she decided to rely on traditional discipline for the time being.

"I can now see that the cloud is made of independent flying things," she reported into her seashell, "rather like huge flies."

At that moment, Zanentadra activated her magical shield. It looked like a huge, hemispherical soap bubble, enclosing the squad; like a soap bubble, it was not perfectly transparent; bright but thin streams of color chased each other around on its surface. Then it suddenly burst into dazzling brightness.

"Our shield is up," reported Calcadro, "and just in time! They are firing gray bolts at us! Huge volleys of them! It's like a cloudburst! But the shield is holding!" As each gray bolt hit Zanentadra's shield, it exploded in a shower of intense white sparks. The resulting brightness dazzled the eye, and made it impossible for the archers to target anything.

Waving her pennant again, Calcadro shouted, " _Fire once when ready, upward, small random angles!_ " A flock of black bolts shot up through the searing brilliance at the dome. The Amazons started to reload.

" _Thia_ ," Calcadro shouted, " _did we hit anything?_ "

"Yes!" screamed Thiarinis enthusiastically. "We knocked several of them down! But Cal, there are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, heading for the temple!"

"Calcadro to Central Dispatching, request reply," said Calcadro into her shell. "We can't see you, but we know there is a large force heading your way. Are you holding?"

" _We are holding, party sixteen!_ " responded someone from within the Temple. 'Party sixteen' was a code indicating that the Temple's defenses were sound so far, that artillery and other powerful weapons were being readied, and that allies had been notified.

"Thank you, Central; end. Are they still above us, Thia?"

"Yes, it's a small cloud that has separated from the larger one."

"I'm going to have us fire some more. Keep me apprised of our effectiveness!"

"Will do!"

Waving her pennant, Calcadro yelled, " _We have made hits! Prepare to shoot, as before, on my mark! ... ready ... Release!_ " Another barrage of bolts went flying through the blinding whiteness.

"Don't look at the dome!" shouted Calcadro to the squad, "just shoot up! Keep your shields above you, in case the dome breaks!"

" _More hits!_ " shouted Thiarinis, excitedly.

"Calcadro to Central. We are holding and hitting!"

"Good work, Calcadro. We are doing the same!"
**********

"Be like time: always still."

(from the _Juvenalia_ of Artisia the Crone)

Teladorion was tired and outnumbered. He already knew that his position was untenable, when he saw Oselika collapse. He abandoned his post at the hatch and ran toward her. As soon as he left the hatch, soldiers came boiling out of it. The first few to emerge joined the ones who had been waiting by the ladder, and together, they came running after him. At the same time, Teladorion saw that the ladder at Oselika's end had been replaced, and a soldier was making ready to climb from it onto the roof.

Coming to where Oselika lay, Teladorion dropped his sword, lifted her up, draped her over his left shoulder, grabbed her sword, thrust it through a fold in the fabric of his jerkin, picked up his own sword, straightened, and staggered toward the ladder. One quick thrust of his sword sent the topmost enemy soldier back where he came from.

A quick glance showed him that the group of soldiers who had followed him from the other end were only ten manlengths away, and spreading out to encircle him. He could see the plaza below, packed with people. Gripping the ladder with his right forearm, he heaved himself onto the roof railing, put one foot on a ladder rung, and pushed off. The ladder began to fall, with Teladorion and Oselika on it. Several arrows snapped past him. He took huge gulps of air, for which his body was screaming.

A vertical ladder falls slowly at first. This one began especially slowly, since several soldiers at the bottom were still trying to push it against the building. As it hesitated, Teladorion sheathed his sword and grabbed the top rung with his right hand. He stepped down three rungs, so that his body was pressed flat against the ladder. He descended a few more rungs as the ladder fell. In anticipation of the final impact, he rested his head against his right forearm. The leverage was against the soldiers below, and the ladder accelerated downward, plunging into the crowd, whose bodies broke its fall somewhat. Setting Oselika down, Teladorion took a deep breath, stood, paused a moment to insert his fingers into his mouth and make a strident glissando whistle, then drew his sword again, holding it in both hands. He began to repeatedly execute a maneuver consisting of broad level swings of the sword, alternating in direction, while pivoting on one foot; the result was that he was surrounded by blurring sword. The people in the crowd were without arms or armor, and fell back from the hissing swing of his blade. Yet their expressions showed no fear, only love and joy. A group of armored soldiers began to make their way toward him through the crowd, and some archers began climbing the bases of statues to get a clear shot at him.

Oselika came to herself, stood, and drew her sword out of Teladorion's jerkin. The two cousins made eye contact and nodded; in a moment, they were standing back to back, and Teladorion was no longer pirouetting. Together, they sidled away from the building, swinging and thrusting to clear their path. The armored soldiers began to overtake them, however, and spread out to surround them. With their own soldiers so close to the target, however, the archers decided not to shoot.

Another disturbance made itself known: it was Teladorion's horse, summoned by his whistle. Flailing with its front feet and kicking with its rear feet, it made its way toward them. Teladorion and Oselika headed toward the horse. Cutting down three armored soldiers, they mounted quickly. The horse plunged forward, with Teladorion astride its neck, swinging his sword in a figure-eight under its head, almost as if he were twirling a baton. Oselika drew Teladorion's javelin out of its pouch, and hurled it; another armored soldier went down. With the crowd giving way before them, they made their way to one of the streets that entered the plaza; but they could proceed no further, for it was packed so densely that the crowd could not fall back.

Coming up to the corner apartment building, Teladorion smashed and cleared a window with his sword. He climbed in, followed by Oselika. A frightened woman cowered, hugging a child, as they ran to exit the apartment through its door on the common hall. Closing the door behind them, they staggered up the stairs to the first turn. Teladorion had a nasty stitch in his side, but he grimaced and forced himself to go on. They heard the soldiers burst in through the main door of the building, rush to the first apartment door, and begin breaking it down. That noise covered the cousins' labored breathing as they made their painful way up two more flights to a landing. Oselika found an unlocked door and they went in. As Teladorion locked the door behind them, Oselika found a frightened family and, too breathless to speak, put her finger to her lips and looked stern, shaking her sword. They cowered silently and nodded. Teladorion joined her, and they both leaned against the wall, panting and gasping.

They heard the clink of armor coming up the stairs. A moment later, they heard muffled blows and commands to open; the beginning of an apartment-to-apartment search. Exploring the apartment they were in, they found a window that opened over an inner courtyard. They tied several bed sheets together and secured one end of the resulting 'rope' to the leg of a heavy table. They heard a pounding on the door, and a command to open up. Teladorion scowled at the family, nodding in the negative, and they remained where they were. Still panting, the two cousins waited until they heard the door splintering; then they climbed down the sheets into the courtyard. Shouts and an arrow indicated that they had been seen. Staggering and dizzy, they found an alleyway leading out; the street at the end was packed solid with people, but they found a basement door they were able to break open.

Moments later, a group of about ten soldiers emerged from the courtyard. Seeing the broken door, they made their way through it into the basement. They found no one; Oselika and Teladorion had left the broken door as a decoy, and entered a window in a different building, a little further along. It let them into an unoccupied apartment. Looking at each other's drawn and haggard faces, they agreed wordlessly that neither of them was up to climbing any more stairs.

Soon afterward, the soldiers entered the apartment from both ends. They searched it thoroughly, finding no one.

A few breaths after the soldiers left to search other apartments, something very strange happened in the plaza. Out of nowhere, hundreds of small aircraft, the size of children's toys, suddenly appeared in the air, swooping and turning every which way. They were powered by rockets emitting a dark green gas. The gas settled down on the crowd. Very quickly, the crowd went to sleep. The aircraft also appeared in every nearby street, with the same effect. Soon they crashed, and the gas dissipated quickly. Then, small groups of soldiers, dressed in reflective silver from head to foot, appeared suddenly at intervals on the streets, and entered the buildings, spraying green gas from bottles. After a very short time, a loud ululation could be heard from several invisible sources.

As this sound penetrated the bedroom of the apartment, the drawers of a bureau began to open, all at once, apparently by themselves. The drawers were each only about a hand deep, much too small for anyone to hide in, and so they had not been searched. Nevertheless, Oselika and Teladorion emerged from them. Teladorion had dumped the previous contents of the bureau into a closet, and broken out the bottoms of all the drawers, making enough room for them to hide. Still weak with exhaustion, the cousins staggered from the apartment. Teladorion gave a shrill whistle, and they lay prone in the hall, with their hands clasped over their heads. Soon, several silver soldiers appeared. Their leader made a gesture, and they all put away their weapons. "Well met, noble warriors," said the leader, and then he spoke briefly into a seashell. A moment later, the ululation stopped.

Oselika and Teladorion, still exhausted, stumbled to their feet. The soldiers escorted them back to the plaza, stepping over snoring bodies. They made their way to Teladorion's horse, which was asleep on its feet. The two cousins stood next to the horse, and the soldiers withdrew. Suddenly, the cousins and the horse disappeared.
**********

"Do the gods ever take a vacation?"

(Vurveri folk saying)

Kor and Kshaloka continued to fly through the air towards the Great Gorge at Tamartskild, at the southern tip of the Katseram Plateau. Kor's mood, which had dipped for a moment into sadness, began to improve. How exciting it was, to fly above Kondrastibar, so high that individuals could not be seen, so high that the largest temples looked like children's toys! Now the two of them were approaching the great, horizon-high escarpment that held the gorge; she could see the river Quesil, pouring over the upper edge, dashing itself on rocks, breaking into a hundred separate streams of white, rejoining and breaking and rejoining and breaking again, making an intricate lacework as it tumbled down through the broken rock. Sheets of white mist continually drifted away from the splash points and dispersed. A booming, thundering sound could be heard, and a thousand rainbow haloes glowed.

As they got closer still, Kor saw that paths and bridges had been made for those who wanted to contemplate the falls. Each bridge was itself a work of art, designed to complement the landscape around it. Sometimes a walkway went behind the falling water.

Closer still, and Kshaloka said, "You can see why this region is known as 'the Land of a Thousand Rainbows.'" Indeed, as they approached from the West, each cataract developed a rainbow of its own, sometimes two.

"Forgive me for mentioning it," said Kshaloka, "but there are no less than five temples dedicated to me in this region!"

Closer still, and they entered a region of permanent mist. "Most of the plant species you will see are unique to this area," said Kshaloka, "for the climate here is itself unique. Or rather, there is a whole continuum of unique climates, from the colder region at the top, with its rarefied air, to the warmer, almost tropical region at the bottom."

They landed at the foot of a particularly intricate bridge. "It is said that this bridge took a hundred and forty-four years to design and build," said Kshaloka. "No nails or pegs are used in its construction. It holds together because the wood, brought dry from elsewhere, swells in the humidity here. It is said that if the river ever went dry, this bridge would fall apart."

They set out on the bridge, which sometimes went very close to the falling water, and sometimes withdrew so that the viewer could take in a larger view. It had the form of a series of arches. Kor and Kshaloka were already almost a quarter of a horizon up, so the view away from the cliff was also breathtaking. At the bottom of the gorge was a small, deep blue lake, from which the River Tsannit took its origin, meandering through the wide Brathiluan plain. "The Tsannit is the Eastern boundary of Kondrastibar here," said Kshaloka. "Everything to the left of it is part of Toralundri'een."

For some reason this took Kor's breath away more than the scenery. She had always believed, intellectually, that there was reality outside of Kondrastibar, but the idea had never been substantial for her. Looking at the land to the East, she felt dizzy. _What could it possibly be like there?_ she wondered. From her vantage point, it did not look terribly different from the near side. _How could it not look different?_ She had always known that Kondrastibar had once been only the capital city of a huge empire, and that Toralundri'een had been a neighboring part of that empire; now, for the first time, the vastness of that empire became vivid to her. Like many inhabitants of Kondrastibar, she had never been able to grasp the size of the city; one could walk and walk, passing through ever new neighborhoods as costumes, customs, faces, and languages changed and changed, and never arrive at an end. How could something even larger possibly be real? She wondered if Toralundri'een was only an illusion, some sort of distorted mirror reflection of Kondrastibar itself. Out of politeness to Kshaloka, though, she turned away from such thoughts and continued to the other side of the bridge.

There, Kshaloka pointed out to her numerous examples of rare orchids growing on the rocks. "We're in luck," he said excitedly. "Here is an example of a Wandropriggilish Orchid in full bloom! They bloom only once in every eight hundred and seventy-seven years!"

Kor looked at the plant, which had been enclosed in a protective wickerwork dome by the groundskeepers. Its single flower was about the size of a large rose, but very intricate; it took Kor a few minutes to grasp the underlying principle. The blossom appeared to form a hollow lobe of an intricate shape. The bottom was a simple half-egg, like the curving hull of a toy boat. At the top, however, this shape divided into two. These two parts took the form of bent cones; they were rather like cattle horns. The 'horns' began by growing away from each other, but then they twisted in opposite directions, and came back toward each other, tapering all the while. In fact, the two horns came together again, at their points, in such a way as to _almost_ touch one another. Just as they were about to touch, however, each horn of the pair split into two smaller horns; one split vertically and the other split horizontally. Like their larger predecessors, these two pairs of smaller horns spread apart and came together again, passing around one another, in such a manner as to link themselves, rather in the manner of two neighboring chain links, but not actually touching. It looked rather like a pair of people linking arms, by having each person hold his own hands close together, having passed one arm through the loop made by the other person's arms. Thus the two people were linked, without actually touching.

This motif repeated itself. As the points of two 'horns' (or 'arms'), originating in the same base, approached one another, and were just about to meet, they each split into two smaller horns, and each of those two horns split, spread, and returned, one vertically and one horizontally, in such a way as to link with the pair originating in the opposite horn. But as they returned, each one split yet again, into two yet smaller horns. Thus, the original two horns became four, and then eight, and then sixteen, and so on. Or, to return to the 'linking arms' analogy: at each stage, the resulting 'arms' and links got smaller and smaller. Each pair of arms first spread apart and then approached one another again (in such a way as to enclose the complementary pair). Whenever they were about to come together again, the two 'arms' of a pair, now thinner, but still tapering, did not actually touch, but split in turn into two smaller 'arms,' which then performed this same linking operation with each other, in miniature. It was as if each of the two people linking arms was wearing hand puppets, and the hand puppets on each person were linking arms in the same way; and each puppet also had hand puppets, linking arms in turn, and so on. It was thus a double repetition, in miniature, of the first linkage, the same pattern being repeated again and again, on a smaller and smaller scale. This progression continued until the detail became too fine for Kor to see; she could only wonder how many divisions there actually were.

Thus, the original two horns became ever more entangled, without ever actually touching each other. The result was intimate and coy at the same time. It put Kor in mind of someone trying to be nice to a person they actually dislike. All this formal intricacy was executed in mild but slightly iridescent colors.

Kor then noticed some small, translucent insects hovering about the links. "Those are the Wandropriggilish bees," said Kshaloka. "They, too, appear only once in every eight hundred and seventy-seven years. They come in various sizes, for there is nectar wherever two horns separate. Some of the bees are much too small to see, for otherwise they would be unable to harvest the nectar from the smaller horns. They make their honey entirely from the nectar of the Wandropriggilish orchid, and nourish themselves with it during their eight hundred and seventy-seven years of almost unbroken sleep, as they wait for it to blossom again. As you may know, the poetess Larindikra Lestro was inspired by this to write her eight hundred and seventy-seven line poem, "The Dream of the Wandropriggilish Bee." These bees are the only species that fertilize the Wandropriggilish Orchid, and it is their only source of nectar, so that if either species were to die out, the other would also."

"How extraordinary!" exclaimed Kor, watching the flight of the bees, in an attempt to discover the direction of their hive. "The bees live in the interstices of the Wandropriggilish Spiny Sponge," said Kshaloka, apparently divining her thoughts, "which grows on outcroppings of fragrant quartz behind the waterfalls. This sponge is one of the most toxic plants known. Even to touch it is deadly. The sponge releases attack spores, which burrow with incredible speed into the flesh of the victim, and then repeatedly reproduce; after about twenty breaths, the victim explodes into a dense cloud of seed spores, leaving no remainder. Only the bees are immune. Since the seed spores are harmless, and since animals and humans know better than to go near the sponge, such destruction by spores happens only rarely; mages estimate that, on average, it happens only once every eight hundred and seventy-seven years. We can't see any sponges here, but perhaps I will be able to show you some, later in our excursion."

"I will be happy to observe them from a distance," said Kor, starting to climb the next arch of the bridge.

A few hundredbreaths later, they found themselves at a place where the walkway went behind a great roaring cataract. Kor hesitated. _"Don't worry,"_ said Kshaloka, communicating telepathically so as not to be drowned out by the water, _"there isn't any fragrant quartz in this part of the gorge. Whenever there is, the groundskeepers put up a fence to keep people away."_ Kor nodded and proceeded. It became quite dark behind the falling water, and all sound was drowned by the great hissing roar of the waterfall. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Kor noticed some glowing spots of light on the crystalline walls. Looking closely, she saw that they were small, translucent slugs crawling over the perpetually damp surface.

" _Ah, yes_ ," remarked Kshaloka, " _gropix slugs. They have suction-cups on their bottoms, which allow them to hold on to the slimy rock. The slime is actually produced by tiny animals and plants, which have the form of threads suspended from the rock at their upper end. They are what the slugs eat. The slugs are hermaphroditic; when they become pregnant, they glow, in order to help Rampling Grackles to find and eat them. Ah, here's one now!"_

Even as he 'spoke,' a small grey bird, flying in hummingbird fashion, came behind the waterfall, hovered by the glowing slugs, plucked one off, and flew away.

"But why would they make it easier for the birds to eat them?" asked Kor, puzzled.

"It's the way they spread themselves," explained Kshaloka. "In the gizzard of the Grackle, the Gropix slug is ground up, releasing its tiny young, which have been stored in a pouch. The young secrete a mucous fluid which protects them from the digestive juices of the bird. Eventually the bird excretes them, and they try to crawl to an appropriate spot before they dry out. Most of them do not make it, but occasionally one does."

Kor suspected that on the average, one in every eight hundred and seventy-seven slug babies made it to a friendly environment, but she did not ask.

After traveling over many bridges, and seeing many fascinating and beautiful sights, they came in view of one of Kshaloka's temples, built on a huge flat rock that had apparently fallen from above, eons ago. It seemed precariously balanced on a slender spire. "People often give more attention to sensual beauty when they think that life is fleeting," said Kshaloka, speaking out loud again, "so it seemed appropriate to build one of my churches on this rock, since it looks as though it might fall at any moment." Kor hesitated. "Don't worry," said Kshaloka, "it's actually quite secure."

"I'm going to remain incognito," he added, as they approached the temple gates, and he transformed his marvelously handsome face into one that was quite undistinguished, and developed a bit of a paunch.

Like the bridges, the temple was designed to complement the scenery, as were the sculptures and gardens that surrounded it. Naturally there were many Baro trees, but they looked a little odd to Kor. "It's a different variety," explained Kshaloka. "The typical Baro tree just rots in this humidity. For the same reason, there's also a local variety of peacock; see, there's one now." Kor found it to be just as beautiful as the more usual type; in fact, its colors were especially brilliant, since its plumage was always wet.

On the temple gate was mounted a huge lens. "The lens," explained Kshaloka, "symbolizes the fact that the senses do give us a picture of reality, though one that is incomplete, and often distorted. Do you see that altar, over there, surrounded by a fence and warning signs? Every year, at the vernal equinox, just after sunrise, the lens focuses the rays of the sun to produce very great heat, enough to smelt metals. Sculptors honored by the temple use it to help fashion their creations. Of course, they could have done the same thing with more standard techniques, but, if I may say so, there's something special about a sculpture that was made with the aid of 'Kshaloka's lens.'"

Inside the temple, they saw more sculptures, and a gallery of paintings. "The paintings are done with enamel on aluminum," explained Kshaloka. "Paintings on canvas rot away in no time here."

"They are very beautiful," said Kor, who was indeed quite impressed.

They passed through several rooms, looking at paintings, sculptures, artfully designed clothing, and other beautiful things, and found themselves in a concert hall, insulated from the roaring of the cataract outside. A small ensemble was playing beautiful music. " _Many of the instruments reflect the environment,"_ thought Kshaloka, switching back to telepathy so as not to disturb other listeners. " _For example, notice the percussion instrument on the left: water drips into various beakers; the larger the beaker, the lower the note, and the ripples give the sound a bit of vibrato."_

" _Very ingenious_ ," thought Kor, " _and the music is quite lovely. I'd like to stay and listen for awhile."_

" _By all means,"_ thought Kshaloka. They sat together on a comfortable-looking sofa. Kshaloka did not sit touching her, but she was aware of his warmth.

The next piece was dance music: curtains opened on a stage behind the ensemble, and twelve naked dancers performed thereon, six men and six women. At times the dance took on an erotic turn, but that was clearly not the main point, and Kor found the erotic parts restrained and tasteful. She was not knowledgeable about dance, but she was very impressed by the proficiency of the dancers, who often leapt high, were supple as reeds, and occasionally made towers or lifted each other into the air. They were not at all thrown off when the music shifted from one irregular or compound meter to another.

After Kor had had enough of music and dance, they proceeded to an indoor garden, full of exotic and fragrant flowers. From there they emerged into a large, beautifully decorated room with many doors off to the side. A number of beautiful men and women were there, conversing, dancing informally, and playing gymnastic games. Many of them were rather minimally dressed.

"Oh!" said Kor.

"Yes," said Kshaloka, "almost all my Temples have courtesans, both male and female. Would you like to try one? I'll wait for you."

"No thank you," said Kor.

Passing through the main exit doors, they found themselves back outside, in a grove of Baro trees. The scent was intoxicating.

"Well," said Kshaloka, "would you like to see more of the gorge, or would you like to return home?"

"It's been wonderful, Kshaloka," said Kor, a little shocked at herself for addressing him simply by name, "but I am tired from all that climbing, and I would like to go home, eat, take a bath, dry off, and settle into bed."

"No problem," said Kshaloka, and once again they lifted into the sky. He reverted to his previous, strikingly handsome form. Flying back, Kor was able to see by daylight many things that she had seen at night on the way over. Every neighborhood had its own style of architecture, its own pattern of streets; many of them had lovely parks and impressive temples. It was fascinating. As they approached her own neighborhood, she was able to recognize a few landmarks, including Ydnas' temple. She saw that the Angels of Rejuvenation had razed most of the neighborhood, but, to her surprise and pleasure, she saw that the orphanage building had been left standing.

Coming to the compound that was apparently Ydnas' temple, they swooped down and passed miraculously through the wall of the guest house into Kor's room. "Well, it's been a great pleasure, Kor," said Kshaloka, making an elegant bow. "I hope we can do something again, sometime." Then he paused, as gentlemen do in such situations.

"I enjoyed myself, too," said Kor, smiling, "and I would also like to do something like that again. And," she added, wondering whether she was inadvertently being a bit cruel, "I will take you up on your offer to take the children with us, sometime. Right now, though, I want to eat something, take a hot bath, and go to bed!"

"Very well," said Kshaloka, bowing again, "I will be in touch." Then he abruptly disappeared.

Later, as Kor was lowering her age-stiffened body into the bath, Isiliar appeared. "I can't believe it!" she said, shaking her head in exaggerated despair. "You turned down a chance to have a tryst with the greatest lover in the entire universe!"

"I have been a courtesan," replied Kor, closing her eyes as the heat began to sink into her, turning her wrinkled skin a deeper blue, "but I was never a slut."
**********

"Being with you is so exciting,

Like the starting of a war."

(From the popular song, "Fireworks")

On a roof of the Temple, Zarinia and her squad, protected by a dome similar to Zanentadra's, had just readied a stand of large rockets with cardboard tubes (which they called 'meteors'). Zarinia lit their collective fuse. " _Stand back!_ " A hundred meteors shot up at once, passing through the coruscating protective shield.

Zarinia turned to Sirinitha, who was the telepath of their squad, for a report. "Going up!" said Sirinitha, observing with the eyes of their enemies. "Bursting!" As in a fireworks display, each rocket, which had risen above the cloud of attackers, broke into thirty-three smaller ones, which spread outward and down, as if following the ribs of an umbrella. After a few moments, these smaller ones in turn burst into flaming pellets made of pitch, sulfur, phosphorus, and saltpeter. Like blazing hail, thousands of these pellets fell onto the cloud of attackers. Whenever such a pellet struck something, it stuck to it, burning vigorously. The flying machines of the cloud were not flammable, but the intense heat of the phosphorus damaged them, and the convection currents created by the flames disrupted their flight. The thin material of their wings was especially vulnerable. " _About thirty going down!_ " shouted Sirinitha, jubilantly, " _many more damaged!_ " Already the Amazons were setting up another rack of rockets.

In case the enemy had a way of adapting to the pellet dispersal, they next set off a different type of meteor, called "the clumsy fisherman." This kind also spread like an umbrella, but the aftermath of the second breakup was hardly visible, for there was no fire involved. Soon after their dispersal, the thirty-three secondary payloads exploded, each one scattering thirty-three spidersilk cords. Each such cord was about thirty forearms long. It had a small lead weight at either end, and several small barbed hooks along its length. If any of the mechanical insects ran into one, it was quite likely to get tangled in it. Often two machines would get tangled in the same cord, with disastrous results.

"About twenty down," reported Sirinitha, enthusiastically, "many more impeded!"
**********

"Distortion and Deceit lead us closer to the truth."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

When Ydnas returned to the compound after her conversations with T'ah-Thor and Uncle K'Tor, Gronx and his followers bowed to her and treated her with fear and veneration. "You are a great and holy prophetess!" said Gronx, kneeling and quaking. "You called upon T'ah-Thor, and he showed himself, in all his glory! He answered your questions! He took you away with him! I was wrong about you! You were only testing me! Please forgive me my presumption!"

Ydnas looked at him pensively for a moment. Then she smiled and said, "There is nothing to forgive, Gronx. You were doing exactly what you were supposed to do, bearing witness to your faith, and condemning idolatry. If I was testing you, then you have passed."

Gronx prostrated himself, sobbing with relief. Then he resumed his kneeling posture and said, "Thank you, Holy Prophetess! And now, will you consent to go over my notes on what the Supreme God said?"

"Certainly," said Ydnas. They spent a few breaths going over the details of the dialogue between Ydnas and T'ah-Thor on the latter's nature.

Then Gronx asked, "And, Holy Prophetess, may we know anything of what transpired when you were taken up by T'ah-Thor? Where you went and what you saw?"

"Not all of it, but some," said Ydnas, and proceeded to tell him of her visit to the two afterworlds. She cut the story short just before T'ah-Thor asked her why she was asking questions, never mentioning the conversation in the meadow. Gronx wrote it all down, and had all his followers sign it as witnesses. "This is practically Scripture!" he said, with great excitement. "What a great moment this is! How blessed I am!"

"You are a good man, Gronx," said Ydnas, patting him on the back of his hand, "and I am happy for you. But now, it is time for us to part. Be well, and take your records back to your people." With that, she turned and walked back to her room in the Guest House, where she lay down and cried for a long time. Uncle K'Tor flicked some of her tears away with his long chameleon's tongue.
**********

"Minds take us away, bodies bring us back."

(from the opera, _Caught_ )

Brother Koof sat stunned in the graveyard for a long time. The dissolution of the 'Karnak' self, which Koof had experienced both from the inside and from the outside, had been horrifying from both points of view. As 'Karnak,' Koof had felt himself invaded by an alien, parasitic consciousness, which then proceeded to devour him, bit by bit. As 'Koof,' Koof had felt terrible guilt as he found himself unable to avoid playing that hideous role.

As he gradually emerged from the emotional shock, Koof found a number of strange ideas spinning through his mind. He wondered whether the real Karnak, back in his home, had experienced a similar thing, the destruction of a partial 'Koof' persona lodged within himself. _Have I died?_ he thought. _Has a piece of me died?_ And if Koof – the one in the graveyard - were to die now, would he be succeeded, not by nothingness, but by another identity that had existed all along, and of which 'Koof' was only a fragment? Had 'Koof' been mistakenly taking itself for an independent self, just as the 'Karnak' fragment had mistakenly thought that it was independent of Koof? Is death just the loss of an illusion? If so, would it be possible to become aware of that deeper identity _before_ one's death, thus mitigating the fear of it?

Koof was familiar with the folk saying, "It takes an infinite number of gods to make one mortal." But, turning it around, was not each mortal a _part_ of each of those gods, just as the 'Karnak' fragment had been part of Koof? As a thief, for example, Koof was part of Por _tre_ py, the god of thieves. Was Koof's consciousness a tiny fragment of Portrepy's, as 'Karnak' had been a small part of Koof's? Looking at the multifaceted eyes of flies or bees, Koof sometimes wondered whether such insects experienced multiple images of the world. Perhaps Portrepy experienced multiple pictures of the world, one through the consciousness of each thief. But if a fly had multiple images, still it had (Koof supposed) a single, unified consciousness that could compare one such image with another. What would unify Portrepy's consciousness? _Well_ , thought Koof, _thieves talk to one another. Thus information from one thief can be compared with information from another. It is by communicating that we create and sustain the unity of Portrepy's consciousness._ An institution like the Church of Kelosia would be a part of Portrepy's mind with a particular structure. It served (among other things) to organize the sharing of experience by thieves. If the Church were to change its structure, Portrepy's personality would change. _Churches and Temples unify the consciousness of their gods_ , thought Koof. _The church of a god is its brain._

In the same way, Portrepy could act through individual thieves. Each time Koof stole something, Portrepy would too. Here, too, the Church served as an organizing factor. Gods asked obedience from their devotees because this allowed the gods themselves to be organized better. It was a matter of mental health; religious rules are divine hygiene.

And would not Portrepy in turn be only one facet of some other, still higher god? Which in turn was a fragment of a still higher one? Until finally, one arrived at a single god that unified the entire universe? All the other gods would just be fragments or aspects of this one. Koof, too, would be a very tiny part of this god.

Is that what Anandra had experienced? Koof remembered the scripture that she had recited; he had read it a number of times since then:

" _Shaliria, the Goddess of Love, is like a vast river, so vast that she has no banks, no bottom, and no surface. There is no limit to her anywhere. She has no plans. She gives herself completely everywhere, even in the desert, even in the blackness between the stars, even where there is pain, even in the hardened heart._

" _She is full of currents and eddies. These currents and eddies are the things of this world, including you and I. She gently moves them this way and that. And yet she is also utterly still, for she is the same pure love, with nothing added and nothing lacking, at every point and every moment."_

Would that be what an all-encompassing god was like? The river would be, perhaps, a metaphor for history, for the flow of events, guided by chance and cause-and-effect, throughout the world. Koof could imagine himself to be a tiny current or eddy in that flow. But why say that _cause-and-effect_ and _chance_ form a goddess of _love_? Koof thought of both of the former two as impersonal, uncaring processes, not like love at all. And why would a goddess of love condemn Karnak's wife to death? Why would she condemn the 'Karnak' fragment to a horrible extinction? Why curse Anandra's innocent son with a deadly disease? _"... even where there is pain, ..."_ the scripture had said. It made no sense.

And yet, he could also see himself, to some extent, as a part of a flow of love. All this had happened because of his desire to help the poor. He had fought against the temptation to hate rich people, and he had felt genuine compassion for the 'Karnak' fragment in its agony. His parents had loved him, and he was, in a sense, passing that on.

The Koof in the graveyard had remained after the disappearance of the 'Karnak' persona. When Koof and Portrepy died, would _Shaliria_ remain? Then he was Shaliria even now, and not a 'Koof' at all! 'Koof' would be a mere phantom, an active bundle of thoughts in Shaliria's mind, just as 'Karnak' had been a mere bundle of thoughts in Koof's mind. But why would Shaliria make a fragment of herself to forget who it really was? It seemed like deception – self-deception, perhaps, but still deception. _Perhaps,_ he thought, _you can't have love without a lover and a beloved._ _You must divide for the sake of love._ If he had seen the Wandropriggilish Orchid, he might have thought, _You must divide in order to come back together._

But what about ... a snowflake falling? How was this an example of love? _"...For she is the same pure love,"_ said the scripture, _"with nothing added and nothing lacking, at every point and every moment."_ It made no sense. And yet, he remembered that once, as a child, he had watched single snowflakes falling, entranced by the beauty of their dance. How perfect it had seemed! Even though they did not touch each other, the individual flakes made a coordinated motion. Was this a kind of love?

Air was invisible, but the dance of the snowflakes revealed its presence. _If I watched people carefully enough,_ thought Koof, _would I see invisible Shaliria?_

Koof knew that religious texts often used figures of speech; in particular, they often expanded the meanings of words, by analogy. Perhaps in the scripture, the word "love" had been expanded. Perhaps in this way, cause-and-effect could indeed be seen as a kind of love. The cause brings the effect into being, at the expense of its own existence; what greater love could there be than that?

Then Koof became aware that it was well into dawn. It occurred to him that Karnak might send out security forces to hunt for him. This was not the time or place to be indulging in thoughts of universal love. He sighed at this, for he felt that he had been on the edge of something very important; but there was nothing to be done. Pulling himself together, and metabolizing some more moksi, he reinforced his invisibility and leapt over the cemetery wall. He jogged away from Wargold Woods, keeping at first to side streets and alleys, but eventually following a broad thoroughfare.
**********

"Appearances are not always as apparent as they appear to be."

(From the musical comedy, "So it Seems")

Klevin, an Operator in Communications, rang an alarm. "There's something funny about the signal from Sabridean's party!"

"Hijacked?" asked Shimura, Ling's Head of Security. He was asking whether the true signal might have been replaced by a fake one, to mask the fact that the party had been ambushed and taken.

"Estimated probability, 11 in 23," replied Klevin, nodding.

"How long ago?" demanded Shimura.

"Thirty-five to thirty-seven breaths," said Klevin, looking a little embarrassed at not having spotted it more quickly. But Shimura had confidence in his personnel, and concluded, not that Klevin was incompetent, but that the enemy was very good. They had analyzed Sabridean's style of speech, and had figured out that certain passwords had to be worked into the message from time to time. He made a mental note to make the password system more complex.

" _Middle Alert!_ " he commanded. Alarms went off throughout Ling's Headquarters. Security increased, defenses were set up, and all higher-level personnel retreated to the safest part of the Core.

"Mind dump?" asked Huse, Shimura's main apprentice.

"Probably," said Shimura. They were both well aware that Sabridean was the best candidate for such a fate.

"Signal source departing from assigned route," reported Klevin. Employees on missions were assigned a new, circuitous route every time they traveled; Sebridean himself would not have known the route, or even who the 'pilot' was, who did; therefore, a mind dump of her would not reveal it; hence, even if the dump could be completed and analyzed in such an incredibly short period of time, the imposture would be revealed, as the fake signal followed the wrong route.

" _High Alert!_ " commanded Shimura. Normal operations at the Headquarters were completely suspended, as everyone went to their battle stations. He added: "Change all passwords, encryptions, and protocols known to Sabridean's party!" It went without saying that anyone using one of the old methods would trigger an alarm.

"They won't be here for awhile, will they?" asked Huse. "They will wait until they have analyzed the information."

"Not necessarily," said Shimura; and as if to confirm his judgment, the room shook, and a deep rumbling penetrated to their very bones.

"Frontal assault!" said Huse, in amazement. "Who _is_ this?"

"Probably the Assassins," replied Shimura, "which means that they have sent someone really good, maybe Triple-Seven herself!"

"But they don't have the information yet!"

"Not from Sabridean, no," agreed Shimura, "but no doubt they have lots of information from other sources. Triple-Seven's an improviser; she'll make use of the Sabridean information as it trickles in."

"Wow!" said Huse, in awe. "Gutsy!"

"And brilliant!" said Shimura. "She's not called the world's greatest murderer for nothing!" Another tremor shook the room. Someone handed out the new passwords, encryptions, and protocols. Of course, the handout itself was encrypted. Shimura and his apprentice studied them, decoding them in their minds.

**

Using a haser projector with a crystal-ball sight, 777 swept a brilliant indigo beam across the bottom of one of the columns of the 'Temple of Yeench'. The target was instantly obscured by a cloud of sparks, dust, and smoke, and the column began to collapse. By the time it fell, 777 had already retreated; this was very wise, for the defenders quickly calculated the location of the source of the beam, and a huge explosion turned her erstwhile locale into a crater, 15 forearms wide and 8 deep. She giggled.

It was time for the first penetration. Changing quickly into an invisibility suit, she took the starting position. At the signal, she darted forward, counting the time in her mind as she ran in a complex, pseudo-random path toward the Temple. At the same time, 20 Mercenaries began firing hasers and other heavy weapons at the Temple from various locations, also conforming to a complex pseudo-random pattern, transforming the front of the Temple and the plaza before it into nearly total chaos. The two patterns had been correlated so that 777 was never hit, but no one looking out from the Temple would conceive (she hoped) that anyone could have remained alive in that pandemonium.

The barrage continued as she came up to a hole in the temple wall that she had blasted, from a distance, a few hundredbreaths earlier. She tossed a hex grenade through, and took cover; in a moment, the defending occupants of the room were fast asleep. Leaping through the hole, she selected one individual and severed his head, stuffing it into her invisible backpack. The head, too, became invisible. All this time, she had continued to count; at the right moment, she leapt back out of the Temple, casting another grenade back over her shoulder. When it went off, it would obliterate everything in the room; No one would miss the head, and the grenade had been constructed so that the damage would appear to have been done by the mercenaries' artillery. By another intricate, predetermined path, she made her way, through apparent chaos, back to safety. She handed the head to a technician; a mind-dump can be made from a detached head, provided that it has not been separated from its body for more than about a hundredbreaths. Meanwhile, the mercenaries kept up the illusion of a simple frontal assault.

Retiring to temporary command quarters behind the line, 777 lay on her back and rested physically, while she evaluated the situation mentally. Her first penetration had gone well; she had been able to deduce on the spot who in the room would have the best mind to dump: one of the security telepaths. It seemed that everything had gone according to plan, in which case the enemy would not realize that 777 was about to acquire a wealth of new information which they would still consider secure. She giggled again.

**

"There's something wrong, here," said Shimura, frowning. "Why this amateurish frontal assault? With whom are we dealing here?"

He and Huse were considering images in a large crystal ball. "Hard to be sure," said Huse. "I see no standard uniforms or equipment. Everything is idiosyncratic. The equipment is very High-Hex, though, and the operators appear to be skilled."

Shimura nodded. "Exactly," he said. "That suggests a very sophisticated force. So why are they acting like a bunch of Trobish?"

Huse glanced at one of the magic windows on a nearby wall, started to look back to the crystal, and did a double-take. " _Holy tick pus!"_ she exclaimed, turning back to the window. "What's this?" She began tapping her fingers in the air. " _No!_ They just put a worm into our abacus sixteen!"

" _What?_ That's impossible!" said Shimura, and then felt foolish for saying it. He took a deep breath. Huse was looking at him worriedly and expectantly. " _Freeze network!_ " he ordered. The network had to be silenced before abacus sixteen could extract any more information from it.

Huse wiggled her fingers, then frowned. "Freeze is not responding!"

"Order physical disconnection of abacus sixteen!" returned Shimura. "Reformat all abaci connected to sixteen, boot backup systems! Switch to abacus-free functions in interim!" All his crystal balls went blank. Trobish indeed! He was now fully convinced that he was dealing with Triple-Seven. He had known that something like this would happen one day, and he had prepared for it. But it was still very frightening.

"Abacus sixteen disconnected," said Huse, with relief.

"Get an independent verification on that," said Shimura, "and do that with everything major from here out, as time permits."

"Acknowledged," said Huse, sending out signals. "Independent verification is now current default protocol." One by one, the crystal balls began to light up again, linking directly with vision hexes produced by wizards on the spot.

"Initiate plan: Kill-Triple-Seven, version 13," said Shimura. _You're not the only one with spies_ , he thought grimly; he had been collecting a dossier on Triple-Seven for years.

"Initiating plan: Shimura-Defense-Kill-Triple-Seven, version 13," said Huse, tapping her fingers and watching the images in her magic window. After a moment, she said, "Initiated!"

_Good!_ Thought Shimura.

"How in the world did she penetrate our network?" asked Huse, worriedly. "Do you think she has a mole?" Then she cringed at her mistake.
**********

"Big problems resolve little ones."

(Turethesili proverb)

Arguit and Laeri were just going to bed when they heard distant booming sounds, and felt tremors shaking the Temple. Soon after that, an elderly Amazon came to the door of their cell. "I am called Azabula," she said, unlocking the door. "We are under attack by an enemy who wants to kill us all, presumably including you, and enslave our souls! Does either of you know how to handle a crossbow?"

"Yes, we both do!" said Laeri. Arguit nodded agreement .

"All right, come with me, quickly!" Mounting several stairs and running down a hall, Azabula led them to a long, dimly lit hallway, with metal plates mounted on one wall. A strange and chaotic noise could be heard through the wall, and a terrible stench was in the air. "Stay close to me!" said Azabula, as she proceeded down the darkened hallway. Several Amazons lay on the floor, apparently dead. Near each one, a small winking light drifted slowly like a firefly in the gloom. Arguit broke into a cold sweat. His heart beat like a sparrow's. Further down the hall, he could see other Amazons, still alive, crouching down and winding up their bows, or lifting them quickly to slits in the walls and firing. They were hard to make out, because the lights there had all been extinguished.

"Listen carefully!" said Azabula, leading them to a place that was better lit. She retrieved two swords, two crossbows, and two quivers from the dead Amazons nearby. "We are on the North side, at the third floor above ground level. When I remove these two metal panels, you will see two arrow slits. Our shield on this sector has failed. The enemy is airborne and can fly right up to the slits. They fire a lethal weapon, too fast to dodge. You must keep down, or to the side; never go where the enemy can see even part of you through the slit! When your bow is cocked, lift it up suddenly and fire through the slit, then bring it back down immediately. The bolt is hexed, and will seek its target, so you do not have to aim. You," she said to Arguit, "stand here. And you, stand here!" She handed them each a bow, a quiver, and a sword. "If anything starts to come through the slit, hack at it with the sword! Now, I'm going to turn off most of the lights here, hoping that the enemy will find it harder to see through the slits." She made a gesture, and they were in gloom. Standing beside Arguit, she reached over and removed a panel next to him. Immediately the noise became louder; a moment later, the stench became stronger. Several gray bolts of light came through the slit and struck the floor, producing a shower of sparks in each case. "That's their weapon," said Azabula. "If it hits _any part of your body_ , you are dead!" She leaned over the other way and lifted off the panel next to Laeri.

"We are going to try to re-establish the shield," she said. "Until then: thank you, and good luck!" Getting down on her belly, she crawled, close to the outer wall, until she reached a part of the hall with no open slits. Then she stood up and hurried off.

Gray bolts came intermittently through both slits, and through all the uncovered slits along the hall. Arguit and Laeri looked at each other past the slit that separated them. "I love you," said Laeri.

"I love you, too!" said Arguit. How could he _not_ say it? But he realized that it was true.

He began to wind his bow. This done, he set a bolt in place. Getting as close as he dared to the slit, he pointed his bow at the ceiling and released the safety. Then he rehearsed in his mind how he would quickly snap the bow around to the slit, press the trigger, and snap back. It was hard to get himself to do it; he realized with some chagrin that what would overcome his fear was his desire not to appear a coward in front of Laeri. Taking a quick breath and holding it, he positioned the bow and fired. But as he was drawing back, a gray bolt hit the crossbow, two inches from his forward hand, and it went flying.

It went rattling to the floor about three feet from the outer wall. Getting down on his hands and knees, he started to reach for it. " _No!_ " shouted Laeri.

Suddenly realizing his mistake, he snapped his hand back; an eyeblink later, a gray bolt struck the floor where his hand had been. Sparks flew; he felt a rain of small stone fragments on his head. For a moment he was enveloped in a numbness of shock and relief; then he felt rage at himself, and a profound sense of embarrassment. _What an idiot!_ Gathering himself together, he looked up at Laeri; she was staring at him with wide eyes. "Thank you!" he said, forcing a sheepish smile. Taking his sword, he knocked the bow over to her. Several gray bolts struck his sword-blade, making spots red-hot for a moment. Laeri slid the bow back along the wall to Arguit. With shaking hands, he picked it up and started to wind it again. It was going to be twice as hard to make himself shoot, this time.

Then he saw that Laeri had loaded and wound her bow and taken off her safety, and was nerving herself up to shoot. He saw her inhale and hold her breath. " _No!_ " he thought, tears coming to his eyes, _She mustn't die!_ He waved his bow in front of his own slit, hoping to draw fire away from hers. Indeed, several gray bolts came stabbing through, making little explosions on the opposite wall. Laeri quickly turned, fired, and turned back. A hail of gray bolts came through her slit, but she was safe. They stood there looking at each other.

_I have to concentrate on the job_ , thought Arguit, _I just have to trust that she will be all right. The best way to defend her is to attack the enemy, and let her do the same._ He tore his eyes from her and finished winding his bow.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash and a _crack!_ like nearby thunder. Bits of stone sprayed from Arguit's slit, and a column of grey dust came pouring in. _Now's a good time to shoot!_ thought Arguit, _They can't see!_ He quickly placed his bow where he knew the slit was and fired, snapping his bow back immediately. As the dust spread, his eyes began to burn and water, and he started to cough. Stifling the cough, blinking furiously, and holding his breath, he looked at the slit; it had been considerably widened by the explosion. Then, one by one, four metal claws appeared from the outside and gripped one side of the slit. Something indistinct began to come through the center. _Where did I put my sword?_ wondered Arguit, half-blinded by the dust.
**********

"The soul rides the body; the body rides the soul"

(Karzn Eps Un, Minister of Sin under Flisp VIII)

"You folks need a _bath_ ," said Boss Wolverine Jaw. A murmur of agreement rose from the group of prisoners. "We're going to let you use our facilities," she continued, "but there are some things that you need to know about it. One thing is, that it's a single large pool, and usually, everybody takes a bath at the same time – men and women together." The men perked up a little, and the women looked a little downcast. "Another thing," she continued, "is that if you leer at anyone, or make a mean-spirited comment about anyone's appearance, or touch anyone sexually without their consent, or stare pointedly at anyone, not to mention any kind of attack or threat, you will be beaten." Many men immediately interrupted what they were doing; they looked away from the women, their expressions frozen into blank innocence. "Our doctors have checked you for communicable diseases," continued Boss Wolverine Jaw, "and you all appear to be clean; but if you think there is any medical reason why you shouldn't be in a group bath, let us know now, and we will arrange for something appropriate. If you hide something of the sort, and end up infecting others, you can't even _begin_ to imagine the suffering that we will inflict on you!" Everyone looked embarrassed, but no one said anything.

The group was supplied with rags, brushes, towels, and soap, and escorted to the large tent that covered the pool. Another contingent of workers was just leaving; they looked radiant. 'You don't appreciate he simple things until you miss them,' thought 1080, who had been so long without a bath that he was itching all over, and developing red rashes wherever his clothing was tight on him. He and some others had washed a little by rubbing themselves with sand or pieces of brick, but it had not been completely effective. Some people had bled and formed scabs from scratching themselves.

Inside the tent, they were each given a basket for their used clothes. Now," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, "I'm going to recite a little saying to you, and you will repeat it back to me, and then you will bathe.

"May the water of humility

Wash away my sins."

At a gesture from her, the work group all recited,

"May the water of humility

Wash away my sins."

"Good!" said Boss Wolverine Jaw. "Go ahead!"

1080 undressed quickly and entered the pool gingerly. It was a very pleasant temperature. The water flowed gradually from one end of the pool to the other, where there was an outlet. Some kind of soap had already been added. He decided to stay near the inlet, since he was afraid of contagion, in spite of Boss Wolverine Jaw's assurances. He immersed himself completely, and then stood up and began to wash himself carefully; but he also kept flicking his eyes up briefly to observe the others.

The men undressed without showing any sign of embarrassment, except for being a little hurried to enter the water. Many of them leapt in, often landing flat so as to create the largest possible splash. Several of the older women were extremely modest; they held up towels to screen each other while undressing, and then wrapped themselves in their towels until they reached the edge of the pool, where they turned their backs, whipped off their towels, and, covering their sexual parts with their hands and arms, jumped backwards into the pool and quickly immersed themselves up to the neck. In contrast, a few of the younger women seemed to drag the process out, walking slowly, stretching and massaging themselves as though they were stiff, running their hands over their bodies as if to see how smooth or rough they might be, lifting a leg to pick a pebble out of the sole of their foot, putting their toe in the water before going in, pantomiming being cold by shaking their upper torso, and so on. Once in the water, they stood in the shallowest part, dragging their washcloths slowly and caressingly over their bodies. The sight took 1080's breath away, but he didn't dare show it. He felt irritated with them, and irritated with himself for watching them, but he also felt unable to stop, although he kept moving his eyes back and forth between them and his washing, so as not to be caught staring. One of them was the red-headed girl, 275; 1080 thought he saw her looking back at him a couple of times.

Suddenly he heard an angry outcry and a loud splash from behind him; he turned and saw a young man come sputtering to the surface, where an angry woman pointed at him, and yelled to the beaters, " _He groped me!_ "

"I did not!" said the man, backing away. "It was an accident! I lost my balance!"

"You lie!"

Boss Wolverine Jaw came to the edge of the pool, followed by two other beaters, drawing their bludgeons. " _Quiet!_ " she yelled to the group, and then asked the woman. "Where did he grope you?"

"In the _crotch_ ," she spat, "while I was standing straight, up to my waist in water!"

Boss Wolverine Jaw looked at the man, raising her eyebrows. "I fell," he said. "I reached out to grab her, without thinking."

"Come here!" said Boss Wolverine Jaw to the man.

"No!" he said, backing away. "It was an accident! I swear it!"

"The longer you take to get here, and the more you argue, the worse it will be," said Boss Wolverine Jaw.

The man made a gesture of frustration and outrage, and came quickly to the edge, where he climbed out. Without warning, Boss Wolverine Jaw struck him in the face, and he fell over backwards. "Stay down!" she commanded him.

Then she addressed the rest of them. "It's up to you," she said, "to behave in such a way that you don't even give the _appearance_ of ogling or taking liberties." She then gave a signal to a beater, who methodically beat the man for about ten breaths; not savagely, but definitely hard enough to cause pain. He made no sound. He did not bleed, but he was covered with red welts. "If you want a repeat of that," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, loudly enough to be heard by all, "all you have to do is let us hear you complain about it. Now, get back in, and behave yourself!" He did.

After awhile, Boss Wolverine Jaw announced that they only had a few hundredbreaths more, and the water began to run faster, and without soap. Then it was time to exit. Various articles of clothing had been laid on tables: there were various types of underwear, but the outerwear was all alike except for sizes: thick white linen shirts and trousers, with reinforcing patches of fine chain mail added at the knees, cuffs, and elbows. They were instructed to wear a size that would hang a little loosely, and instructed not to add any adornments of their own.

"Once you find something that fits you," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, "notice the labels, which indicate the type and size, and report this to the beaters who are taking notes. In the future, you will each be provided with a basket of clothes at every bath."

It felt wonderful to be clean. When they were all dressed, Boss Wolverine Jaw had them recite,

"Cleanliness is next to sinlessness."

They were then escorted back to their own tent. There, Boss Wolverine Jaw addressed them yet again:

"From now on, you will be making your own meals. Here on this sign is the schedule: for each meal, there is a group of four who will make the meal, a pair of servers, and another group of four who will wash up. If you don't know how to cook, beaters will instruct you. Don't even _think_ about getting someone else to take your place, unless you are ill or injured and have gotten permission from the Angel in charge to do so. The servers will give everyone very small portions; if you are still hungry after finishing, you may return for more, up to forty hundredbreaths after the meal begins. You _must_ finish everything you take. All implements will be counted, and each person must return a complete set at the end of the meal." _Lizards_ , thought 1080, _I was hoping to keep a knife._ _But at least, no one else will be able to, either._ He had found a jagged piece of metal while working, and hidden it in his clothing, but he had been unable to recover it after the bath.

The meal was mostly vegetable stew, with a little mixed rice and beans and a very small amount of melted butter as a sauce. The only utensils were soup spoons and long, delicate wooden tweezers; everything solid in the food had already been cut to bite-size by the cooks, so there were no knives.

1080 was in the cooking group. He had to learn everything, for Scratch had always left it to his girls to cook. The beater instructed him in great detail, requiring him to be very neat, efficient, and precise, and to waste nothing. Evidently the job was to be treated as a kind of ritual or meditation.

After the meal and the washing, Boss Wolverine Jaw signaled that she had still another announcement. A beater stood next to her; he had set a piece of wood, as thick as a big man's wrist, between two sawhorses. "You may be wondering," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, "when we will release you. This is partly up to you, for there are four conditions you must meet.

"Condition one is, you will physically rejuvenate this neighborhood. We're going to build a University here. So you are going to clean up the mess, do some landscaping, and build the facilities for the University. Some of you may choose to work for the University after we leave, or to attend it. But for now, you are going to build it. Failure to do your share of the work will result in punishment." The beater next to her drew his bludgeon and brought it down on the piece of wood with a loud _thud_. His blow left a visible mark.

"Condition two is, you will learn to _take care of each other_. This includes cooking, laundry, work, first aid, courtesy, polite conversation, and a number of other things. You will be trained in all these things; you have already started on cooking. Many such jobs will be rotated, as the cooking jobs this evening are. There will be penalties for failure in this matter." Again, the beater struck the wood; this time, a couple of splinters flew off.

"Condition three is, you will learn to practice _equality_. This means that none of you will be in charge of others, and none of you will be wealthier, or have more prestige, than others." _Thwack!_

"Condition four is, that you will learn to _make decisions as a group_. This is something we will start working on soon.

"When we are completely convinced that you will continue living this way after we leave, then we will leave, and not a moment before.

"That's all I have to say about that this evening. I will now say a bit about sexual activity. Now that you are getting comfortable, some of you are no doubt thinking about having sex. This is permitted, but there are some rules.

"First, under no circumstances will anyone be coerced, pressured, tricked, nagged, or bribed into having sex. Strange as this will seem to many of you, the only time you are allowed to have sex is when everyone involved _wants_ to have it, for its own sake. The penalty for this can be extremely severe, depending on the circumstances. In the case of rape by violence or by the threat of violence, the perpetrator will not die, but he will wish he had." The beater grasped his bludgeon with two hands, raised it over his head, and brought it down hard. _Crack!_ Splinters flew, and the wood split into two spinning fragments that fell to the ground and scampered off. With a smile, the beater put a fresh piece in its place.

"Secondly, no one is ever, under any conditions, to coerce, pressure, trick, nag, or bribe anyone into _not_ having sex. If you are jealous, you may communicate that fact in a straightforward manner, but that is all." _Thwack!_

"Thirdly, other people's sexual preferences are none of your business, as long as the other rules are not being broken." _K-chung-g-g-g!_ The wood leapt upward after being hit, and turned diagonally. The beater straightened it out.

"Fourthly, we are not to have any pregnancies at this time; as soon as I have finished, all women will line up to get contraceptive spells from Sister Leech Throat here. Even if you do not intend to have heterosex, even if you are post-menopausal, you must get a spell; it's simpler that way. Sister Leech Throat will also check you for sexually transmittable spells and diseases. If you have any, you will be treated. Men will line up by Brother Whiplash here for a similar checkup. Anyone who infects anyone else will want to die, but not be allowed to do so. This policy will continue until we have discussed the responsibilities of impregnation and pregnancy, and are convinced that you will live up to them.

"For the time being, we also have a rule that we will relax later on. In all relationships, if one partner wishes to move to a more intimate level, he or she must ask first, out loud in words, and being specific about he or she wants to do, and receive spoken permission to do it. That's all the rules, and that's all I have to say tonight!"

1080 was found to be free of diseases and spells, and he retired. He found that clean bedrolls had been supplied. He tried to make eye contact with the blue-haired girl, 275, but before he could do so, the lights went out, except for one dim moonstone at the top of the tent.

_Well_ , he thought, _maybe next time_. He could hardly avoid having sex on his mind, but he was also hoping to fall asleep immediately, for it had been a full day, and he had still not completely recovered from his injuries. He took off his clothing and got into bed. He felt humiliated by his lack of a partner, and he hoped the others were too busy to notice. He fantasized that a woman would volunteer to redress the situation, but he did not find this to be likely.

Every evening after lights-out, there had been a susurrus of rustling and whispering, gradually fading into a chamber music of snores. This night was different. The darkness was punctuated by little giggles, gasps, whimpers, and sighs. It was like being in a large park on a summer's night, hearing a chorus of frogs, crickets, and occasional owls. 1080 tried to ignore it, but he could not. It was arousing, and therefore irritating.

He heard a footfall nearby, and the clearing of a throat.

"1080?" It was 987. He could see (just barely) that she had also removed her outerwear, and was carrying her bedroll.

"Yes, this is me," he replied, somewhat puzzled.

"May I join you?" she asked, in a whisper.

1080 was confused. _Leaping Lizards_ , he thought, _I hadn't expected her to ... and besides, all she said was, "May I join you?"... Suppose she does want to ... will that ruin my chances with 275? But 987 is here, and 275 is not. For all I know ..."_

"Uh, yes, sure," he heard himself say. He felt very nervous and confused.

"Thank you," she replied, very softly, and arranged her bedding to overlap slightly with his.

1080 didn't do anything. He was feeling confused. He was also worried about the rules – would he remember them all? He tried to review them in his head. Scratch had never had to deal with such rules; he had had sex on demand. It felt very strange. To have to _ask_ ... that created vulnerability. It felt subordinating. He wanted to, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

The chorus of sighs, giggles, and other exclamations became louder, and its tempo increased, like the sounds of a jungle at the approach of sunrise. 1080 found this to be arousing, like dance music; it wanted to carry him away. He realized that because of the dangers of Scratch's form of life, he had never allowed himself to be carried away, even during sex.

987 whispered: "1080?"

"Yes?"

"May I ... come over and lie ... touching you?"

He felt dizzy, but he heard himself swallow hard and say, "Yes."

He heard a rustling, and then he felt her warmth and pressure against him, to his right. He gave a little start. He was lying on his back, she on her side. She was still wearing underwear, but her femininity could be clearly felt. A warmth began to rise throughout his body, and in moments he was tautly aroused. It felt intensely delicious. _There's something to be said for waiting_ , he thought. He swallowed again, and made a quixotic attempt to breathe normally.

"1080?"

"Ah, yes?" he replied. He was trembling, which was very embarrassing, but he couldn't make himself stop.

"May I put my arm over your chest, and lean on you?"

"Ah, yes, sure" he said. He began to quiver, like an aspen leaf before a storm. _She's taking the initiative_ , he thought. In Scratch's world, a woman never did that without an ulterior motive. It was frightening. He remembered 987 chopping the goon in the back of the neck. 1080 was tempted to call the whole thing off, but he did not want to _appear_ to be afraid. Besides, he was very well aroused, and he knew that he would suffer intensely if he did not proceed.

He might also have felt self-conscious about having sex in such close proximity to other people, but it was evident that they were quite preoccupied.

She rested her head on his shoulder, and rested her hand on his lower rib cage, with her elbow touching his upper belly. This latter action caused a sharp intake of breath on his part. His breathing became labored. He gave up trying to moderate it. His entire pelvic region felt on fire. He squirmed uncomfortably. The chorus of sighs and whispers around them grew louder and more feverish.

She asked, "Would you stroke my back?"

Words were inaccessible, but he grunted affirmatively and did as she asked. Her skin was deliciously smooth and soft, but his caressing hand kept running into the strap of her upper undergarment.

"Would you get that out of the way?" she asked. "There are three little ties, right in the middle."

"Uh, sure," he said. She was positioned in such a way that he could only use one hand. He fumbled for awhile, and finally figured out how to undo them. Then he resumed caressing her back. He had a burning desire to extend his caresses to other regions, but he would have had to ask, and speech would have been a terrible effort in his condition.

"1080?"

"Nnnnh?"

"Would you mind if I ... took it off altogether?"

With a great effort, he found speech. "Go ahead," he whispered.

She curved her torso up, and shrugged her way out of the undergarment. Then she settled back down. Now he could feel the true texture of her breasts, rounded, soft, and fascinating. She moaned. He wanted to ask her something, but his voice wouldn't work.

"1080?"

"Nmng?"

"I hereby give you permission to do anything you like, as long as I don't object. May I have the same?"

With another great effort, he briefly pulled himself back into speechfulness. "Yes," he said.

" _Good!_ " she whispered in reply.

He abandoned speech again; it was like settling onto sleep after being awake for two days. The jungle chorus around them grew louder still, and began to be augmented by moans of various kinds, and by loud, accelerated breathing, punctuated by occasional whoops. Trembling uncontrollably, he ran his hands up her back and neck and over her stubbly scalp. He lifted his head and hers, and showered kisses on her forehead and temple. She put one of her legs over his. He felt her little tuft of hair on his thigh. "O-o-o-oh," he heard himself moan softly, "I love you!" A tiny part of his mind thought, _What did I just say?_

"I love you, too," she whispered in reply.

**

Dressed in a shift, Boss Wolverine Jaw appeared at the door of the punishment tent, and was ushered in by a beater. She came to the desk of a judge. The judge was an elderly man with twinkling green eyes. "Ah, Boss Wolverine Jaw," he said, with a smile. "How have you been?"

"Very busy," she said, smiling in return. "And you?"

"Same here." Then, his expression turned sad. "Well, ... what are you here for?"

She sighed. "Today, in the baths, I ordered that a man, 293, be beaten – a class 1 beating."

"Ah." He began jotting in a notebook. "The offense?"

"Groping a woman's genitals in the bath. I didn't see it, but I accepted the woman's word over the man's, because I know them both."

"Witnesses?"

"All of my squad were present."

"And who was the beater?"

"Brother Pneumonia."

The judge leafed through his notebook. "Ah, yes, he's been here already. Well, Sister, shall we get it over with?"

"Yes, please," she said, looking a little pale. Removing her shift, she lay prone, holding tightly to one leg of the desk with both hands. The judge gestured to a beater who had been standing by. "A class 1 beating," he said. The beater administered a drubbing similar to the one that Brother Pneumonia had administered to 293. She cried out a couple of times. "Please rise," said the judge.

Boss Wolverine Jaw stood up. She was quivering, and tears were running from her eyes. Clasping her hands in front of her, she bowed to the Beater. "Thank you, Brother" she said.

"You're welcome, Sister," said the beater, bowing in return.

Then she turned and bowed to the judge, who had stood up. "Thank you, Brother," she said.

"You're welcome, Sister," said the judge, bowing in return. She brushed herself off and donned her shift.

"Well," she said, her voice quavering a little, "I'll be seeing you. Not always here, I hope!" The judge and the beater smiled wanly and agreed.
**********

"Love conquers nothing. It nurtures everything."

(From the popular song, "In Love with Love _"_ )

Oselika and Teladorion met with General Zagara on the bridge of his magic carpet _Tarezarg_ , the flagship of Karngrevor's fleet. The _Tarezarg_ had twenty decks, each woven of steel cable and reinforced with a structural integrity spell. The general had weathered bronze skin and twinkling light-brown eyes that were perpetually squinting, as if he were peering into a snowstorm. His hair was black and nowhere more than half a knuckle long, except at the top of the crown, where he had a small waxed braid about two knuckles in length.

"Hah! Good to see you," said the General, in a voice somewhat reminiscent of a whip cracking, as he touched palms with each of them. "I've established a perimeter guard around this neighborhood, out to a little beyond what we estimate the range of those catapults would be. We're interrogating about a hundred people. We've learned that the building where you found the catapults functions as a temple for the Children of Noganecir, and we are searching it thoroughly. Karngrevor himself is coming down, with Savril."

Oselika's eyebrows went up. "Father must be taking this quite seriously, then," she said.

"Yah!" said the General. "He agrees that it's a major threat to the Balance, and he doesn't see the usual restoring forces being able to cope with it. But thanks to you two, we've nabbed a huge bunch of them, and we should be able to go through their organization very quickly, before many of them can escape and hide. We also hope to find and take over their source of the drug. That would make them completely dependent on us for the drug, and we could see to it that they don't get any extra to throw around. If all goes well, we should be done in two days, just in time to make fools of all the demagogues and professional whiners who will be accusing Karngrevor of wanting to found a dynasty. As much as possible, we are staying in the air and under cloak, to reduce visibility and avoid retaliation. So far, I don't believe we've killed a soul, although no doubt someone will claim that we have, before the hour is out!"

"Well, _we_ did," said Teladorion, sadly. "We probably killed at least fifty of them."

"Yah! Well, you were acting as independent citizens," said Zagara, shrugging. "You were off duty, after all. Engaged in personal business. You saw what was happening and took action on your own initiative."

"True enough," said Oselika.

"Not that I think you did anything wrong," said Zagara. "In fact you did a brilliant job! We've already cleaned up most of the blood you let, though, and we won't let any reporters in until we're all done. We've got your horses, by the way; both in good shape."

"Wonderful!" said Oselika. "If you'll just set us down outside the perimeter, we'll get out of your hair."

"Better yet," said the General, "I could send you in a pinnace to wherever you're going, if you don't mind my knowing where it is."

"We don't mind at all," said Oselika. "We're going to the new Angels of Rejuvenation project."

"Ah! The one where they were attacked by that unknown weapon?" asked Zagara.

"That's the one," said Oselika. "We found my brother in that neighborhood, not long before the swarm. By now, the Angels have interrogated every survivor, and I'm hoping that by examining their files, we can figure out what happened to him."

"Hey," said Zagara, "your Daddy's interested in that, too. He says that the attacking weapon violated the Covenant of Cariat, and so did the defending one. So you might as well go up as his envoys."

"Good enough!" said Oselika. "In the meantime, I wonder if we could attend one of your interrogations?"

"Most welcome!" said the General. "Adjutant," he added, turning to a nearby officer, "see these two to the Interrogation Area, Witness Protocol Seventeen!"

"Yes, your Holiness," said the adjutant, bowing his head, and going briefly down on one knee, as he made the Sign of the Sword.

**

The woman lay on a couch. Her expression was somewhat childish, a common effect of the truth philtre. The interrogator and her assistant sat nearby, each holding a sheaf of papers. Next to them stood a telepath. At a somewhat greater distance sat Oselika, Teladorion, and the Adjutant assigned to them.

"Well, now, Tseenaveela, how are you feeling?" asked the interrogator.

"Pretty good, I guess," said the woman, giggling a little.

"That's good, Tseenaveela," said the interrogator. "I'm glad that you're feeling well. Now, I'd like you to tell me, please, a little about what your life was like before you breathed the dust."

"Why," said Tseenaveela, "I lived in an apartment in Vleenkla with my husband, Ilneenyin, and my two children. I belonged to the Synagogue of Iltsayeen. I made scented candles at home and sold them in the market from time to time. My husband was a lizard trainer."

"What was your address?"

"It was blue thirty, on Mushroom Street. Mushroom is a small street off Anteater Avenue, near the big Cathedral of Nostalgia."

"What was it like, when the dust came down?"

"Why," said Tseenaveela, "at first it was sort of strange and pretty, but nothing to light fires over. Then, when everyone else got nervous, so did I. When some people started to scream, I was very frightened. I left my candles there and ran toward home. But lots of people were running every which way, and I got jostled and I fell down. I was afraid I was going to be trampled. But then, I felt the presence of the Lord."

"'The Lord?'" asked the interrogator. "Who do you mean? A god?"

"I don't know whether he's a god or not," said Tseenaveela, "and it doesn't really matter. I just suddenly became aware of an awesome presence, and I realized that there is a being who is in charge of mortals. It wasn't a matter of reading something in a scripture, or being told something by your parents, or a priest, or some other authority figure. I knew it the same way that I know that I exist. It's obvious once you see it; I feel silly for never having noticed it before.

"He is the Lord; we owe everything to him, our existence, our destiny. He knows all the answers. He knows what our lives are supposed to be like. Only He can save us from ourselves. I realize now that I've always been searching for Him. You know, I can't complain very much about my life; I have a wonderful husband, beautiful children, a nice place to live, a good job, and wonderful friends. And yet, sometimes I used to find myself irritated by the silliest things. And my husband and I would get into terrible fights, even though we love each other. And sometimes, we fight with the kids! I always knew that things weren't meant to be that way, but I could never figure out how to avoid it.

"Or, once I had a crush on my friend's cousin. Nothing happened, you understand, but I was tempted, and I was frustrated by having this impossible desire. And I felt terribly guilty for having those feelings. I never told my husband about it, and although that may have been the best thing to do, I felt bad about hiding something from him.

"But it is not just me; everyone is weak, in one way or another, at one time or another. Some are worse than me; some are cruel, some are even criminals. The rich and famous and powerful people are not any better than ordinary people. Even priests and monks and saints are weak. The problem is inside us. We develop these crazy desires.

"But thanks to the dust, I know that we all will be cured of this disease!

"You see, the Lord knows that we are meant to live and act together in perfect harmony. Furthermore, He has the power to make us able and willing to do that. He can change us! And He will! Most people just don't know this. They are like starving people who think they are doomed; but food and drink are on the way, although they don't realize it. The Lord is going to manifest Himself. Soon, very soon! Then everyone will be saved. It makes me so happy!" She beamed. Her eyes shone.

**

After watching the interrogation, Oselika and Teladorion repaired to the visitor's area.

"Well, once again, we've survived," said Oselika, lifting a glass of orange juice. "Here's to more victories coming up!"

Teladorion winced. "I don't know, Sel," he said, looking tired and apologetic. "I'm getting right tired of killing people."

Oselika was stunned. She looked at him blankly.

"Yes, I know," said Teladorion, "it was in a good cause, and they were doing something nasty, and a lot of them were attacking us, and it's what our family does, and I've worked very hard to get good at it, and I _am_ very good at it, and I've sworn an oath to do it, so it would be pretty lousy for me to quit, wouldn't it?"

"I wasn't going to say any of those things," said Oselika, "but I'm astonished, and I haven't got anything _else_ to say."

"It's all right," said Teladorion. "It's something I have to work out for myself, anyway." He sighed and looked away.

"Are you going to quit my quest?" asked Oselika.

"No, no," said Teladorion, waving a hand, "I said I'd help you, and I will. I won't like it, but then, a quest isn't _supposed_ to be _easy_!"

"True enough," said Oselika, "but who knows? It may be easy from here on. I mean, no violence."

"Not bloody likely," said Teladorion. "If Tosaris approved it, for _you_ , it's probably harder than swallowing a rabid porcupine, whole, backwards, and basted with Gsarkinish peppers!"

Oselika chuckled at his comparison, but she was a little embarrassed by the praise implicit in this statement, and said nothing. And then, she thought that it might _not_ have been pure praise, after all.

"All these millennia," continued Teladorion, "we've been fighting, fighting, fighting. We never win, we just slow the problem down, beat it back to where it was, and hope we can heal and recover at least as fast as the problem does. That's not a sign that we're going about things the right way."

"Have you got a better way?" asked Oselika.

"No, but I sure would like to find one. Maybe that's _my_ quest."

Oselika took a moment to recover from her surprise, and then thought for a few moments. "Why ... that would be a _wonderful_ quest, Tel," she said. "I hope it is approved!"

"I just might be cantankerous enough to do it, whether it's approved or not!" said Teladorion, grimly.

**

As people's schedules worked out, Oselika and Teladorion decided to sleep over on the _Tarezarg_. They found a room in the guest quarters with a bunk bed. Oselika volunteered to take the top bunk. They turned down the lights, and she climbed up. She undressed, and lay down, covered by a blanket except for her head and one arm, whose hand held her naked sword. She soon heard Teladorion snoring, but she couldn't sleep.

After awhile, she climbed back down, sword still in hand. She turned up the lamp a bit, stood at some distance from the bed, and said, in a loud but friendly voice, " _Tel?_ "

Instantly he was half out of bed, sword raised. " _Sel?_ " he said, incredulously. "What in Rotim? – You – you haven't got any clothes on!" He looked at the ground, but his eyes kept flicking up. He lowered his sword.

"I've _wanted_ you to see me, Tel," she said, "but you've never asked."

"Well – I –" he blushed deeply. He looked at her, and back at the floor, then back at her, and back at the floor.

"Do I look ugly to you, Tel?" she asked, quietly.

"Well, no," said Tel, surveying her quickly, "of course not! You look _beautiful_!" Then he dropped his eyes to the floor again.

"Are my breasts too ... _girlish_ for you?"

"No, no, no," said Teladorion, looking at them briefly, and then away, "small breasts are more beautiful – they don't _sag_."

"Is my body too young and smooth?"

"No, no, no, I told you, Sel, it's beautiful. Besides, you've got more scars than most women twice your age!"

She nodded. "Usually I have Savril leave a little – as a kind of memento of the occasion."

"I know what you mean," said Teladorion, chuckling. "After all that suffering, you want something to show for it." She nodded agreement.

"Tel," she said, coming closer, "tomorrow, one or both of us might die!"

"I know it, Sel," he said, viewing her approach with a little panic in his eyes, "but that's just it – if we go and get too attached, then, ..."

"Ah," she said, finally understanding. "but Tel, it's too late! I already love you, as much as I could ever love anyone! And you love me, too; you've often said so."

"Well, I reckon I do, Sel," he said, sadly.

"Tel," she said earnestly, "our family has always lived in the throne room of death. If that had prevented our ancestors from loving each other, we wouldn't be here!"

He was silent and thoughtful for several breaths. Then he looked into her eyes with an infinitely wistful expression. "I reckon you're right, Sel!"

She came closer. They both laid down their swords (carefully, and memorizing exactly where), and, ever so slowly, reached out to touch one another.
**********

"Religion is a decoy, Politics is a decoy."

(From the popular song, "When Will I Be Real?")

An armored carriage, accompanied by a troop of riders, approached the gate of Ydnas' Temple. One of Darestigan met them there. At some distance from the gate, Tulith observed this and asked another Darestigan who the visitors were. "It is someone named 'Githnis Ytrinduopf,'" replied Darestigan.

Tulith's eyes widened. " _Githnis Ytrinduopf!_ " she breathed. "That's the _Prime Scholar!_ "

"Please forgive my ignorance," replied Darestigan, "but what does that mean? What is a Prime Scholar?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Darestigan," said Tulith. "He is the most honored scholar at the Great University at Ilusindane! How amazing! How wonderful to see him!" She began to approach the gate, and Darestigan followed along. "Who are those others with him?" asked Tulith.

"Assistants, colleagues, and protectors," said Darestigan. "Two protectors are disarming themselves, so that they may enter. I will not allow more, because they are dangerous even when unarmed." Several more Darestigans appeared, forming a circle around the newcomers.

From her new vantage point, Tulith could see a small, frail old man being carefully helped down from the carriage by one of his companions, while another spoke to the Darestigan at the gate. "He wants to see Ydnas," continued Darestigan to Tulith, "and I have gone to inform her. Yes, she is coming to speak to him."

Ytrinduopf, having descended from the carriage, was helped into a wheelchair by a companion. "He is very old and weak," said Darestigan, "so he requires a moving chair. Why don't you go over and introduce yourself?"

Tulith blushed a deep yellow. "Oh, I couldn't do that," she said, "but I guess I could get a little closer than we are now!"

A number of Temple residents began to congregate in the area, and soon Ydnas appeared. By then Ytrinduopf was inside the Temple grounds, being pushed along the walkway by his companion. Ydnas came over to him by doing a series of cartwheels. "Hi!" she said, landing gracefully on her feet. "I'm Ydnas." She was as large as he was.

"Pleased to meet you, Ydnas," said Ytrinduopf, in a weak and scratchy voice. "I've come a long way to visit you. I hope you don't mind talking to me for awhile; it would be a great privilege!"

He extended a claw-like hand in her direction. She touched it, briefly and tentatively. "We can talk," she said, rotating her body nervously this way and that.

Ytrinduopf's eyes were large, their irises grey. They were set in a face of loose and leathery dark brown skin, crisscrossed by innumerable wrinkles. _He's as beautiful as Kor_ , thought Tulith. _If only I could get him to pose for me!_

Tulith heard Anandra's voice saying to Koof: "It is not the number of facts, it is the insight."

"True," replied Koof, "but without the facts, it would be harder to get the insights."

"Facts and insights are acquired simultaneously," replied Anandra.

"You know what I mean," replied Koof.

"Let's go inside," suggested Ydnas.

"Good," said Ytrinduopf, making a gesture to his companions. Soon they were sitting together in a large common room.

"I hear," said Ytrinduopf, "that you won't tell anyone whether you are the Girl of the Prophecies, or not."

" _Who_ is it that won't tell them?" asked Ydnas.

"Good question!" said Ytrinduopf, smiling. Ydnas looked away, compressing her lips a little.

"It's difficult to start a conversation like this," continued Ytrinduopf, "but perhaps it will help if I tell you that I am a person who is very curious, and who is always trying to figure things out. Among other things, I have studied many of the prophecies very closely. You _do_ seem very likely to be the Girl of which many of them speak, but then, you may be just a decoy."

"Maybe I am," replied Ydnas, "or maybe I'm a _fake_ decoy!"

Ytrinduopf smiled at her remark. "Or perhaps," he said, "the _real_ Girl is just a decoy!"

"Glowing!" said Ydnas, smiling and relaxing a little.

"It's wonderfully complex, isn't it?" asked Ytrinduopf, smiling.

"'The more you investigate something, the more complex it turns out to be,'" said Ydnas, quoting an old proverb.

Ytrinduopf nodded approvingly. Then he leaned toward her, and said in a low and confiding tone, "People like me are very lucky, because the world is endlessly complicated. So I am _always_ confused. I love it!"

"But then," said Ydnas, smiling impishly, "you are not confused at all. You know what you want, and how to get it!"

Ytrinduopf gave a little laugh. "You won't give away my secret, will you?"

"Is that _really_ your secret?" asked Ydnas, turning her head to give him a sideways skeptical glance, "or is it only a decoy?"

" _That's_ the _real_ secret!" said Ytrinduopf.

"How do you know?" asked Ydnas.

"If I knew, it wouldn't be a secret!"

Suddenly Ydnas looked thoughtful. "You know," she said, "if there _were_ a decoy Girl, she might not even know it herself! She might think she was the real Girl, and she'd be wondering, 'What am I supposed to do?'"

"She could talk about it with another decoy," suggested Ytrinduopf.

"Are you a decoy?" asked Ydnas.

"How would _I_ know?" asked Ytrinduopf, gesturing with hands palm up.

"You don't _seem_ like a decoy."

"Good decoys don't!"

"We could _pretend_ to talk about it."

"Good idea!"

"Well," said Ydnas, looking around with an exaggeratedly conspiratorial expression, "what _is_ the Girl of the Prophecies supposed to do?"

"I'm not ready to talk about that yet," said Ytrinduopf, taking a pipe and a bag of herbs out of his pocket.

"No tangle," said Ydnas, giggling.

"Does the name 'Mirlen Insteen' mean anything to you?" asked Ytrinduopf, looking at her closely.

"No," said Ydnas.

"Who is your father?"

"Don't know."

"Who created you?"

"Uncle K'Tor," said Ydnas, gesturing at her shoulder, where the Chameleon obligingly became visible. Ytrinduopf's eyebrows shot up.

He smiled at the Chameleon and asked, "Who made _you_?"

"I ... did," croaked Uncle K'Tor. Everyone but Ydnas was startled to hear him speak.

"I mean," said Ytrinduopf, "who made this chameleon-like persona?"

"I ... did."

"Through what mortal?"

"The Apprentice."

"Hmmm," said Ytrinduopf, looking thoughtful. He did not pursue the subject.

"What apprentice?" whispered Koof.

"There's someone called 'the Apprentice,' who appears in several Prophecies," whispered Anandra. "Some say that he was an apprentice of the Hidden One."

"And who made _her_?" asked Ytrinduopf, gesturing at Ydnas.

"You...know who," said the chameleon, "but ... his apprentice ... corrupted her."

Ytrinduopf thought about this for awhile.

_Corrupted?_ thought Tulith. _That must be intended ironically. Ydnas is the purest soul I've ever met. Well, she was a little hard on Anandra ... but that turned out well._

Ytrinduopf cleared his throat. "The prophecies don't all mention a Girl," he said, "and those that do, don't say exactly the same things about her. But those that do mention her suggest that she will somehow initiate a great change."

"I hope it's a _good_ change," said Ydnas.

"Me, too" said Ytrinduopf, "and many of the prophecies say that it will be. For example, the Catephorebragian Prophecy says that the Girl will _heal the gods!_ "

The people in the room stirred uneasily at this.

" _Heal the gods??!!_ " said Ydnas, looking incredulous. "How could anyone do that? Are you making this up?"

"I make up _all_ my beliefs," answered Ytrinduopf, shrugging. "Anyway, it's probably just a metaphor."

"Literally a metaphor, or only figuratively?" asked Ydnas.

"Good question!" said Ytrinduopf, nodding. "But surely, some of the gods could be better than they are." His face took on an excessively bland expression. Mutters were heard in various parts of the audience.

" _Uncle K'Tor_ couldn't be better," said Ydnas, defensively. "He's _perfect_!"

" _Uncle_ K'Tor?" said Ytrinduopf, raising his eyebrows.

"Well ..." said Ydnas, blushing a little, "I call him that. I mean, it's a nickname."

"A _nickname_ ," said Ytrinduopf, in a theatrical tone of sarcasm. "You refer to the _supreme god_ with a _nickname_?" His face wore an exaggerated expression of shock and indignation.

"He doesn't mind," said Ydnas, defensively.

"Well," said Ytrinduopf, thoughtfully, "you haven't been struck by lightning, evidently."

"Many _decoys_ have, though," said Ydnas with a smirk.

"I have never heard of K'Tor taking on a _persona_ before," said Ytrinduopf, wonderingly. "It seems so ... _redundant_ , somehow." He examined the chameleon closely. It ignored him.

"Well, you wanted to learn something," said Ydnas, smugly.

"Does he change colors?" asked Ytrinduopf.

"Oh, yes," said Ydnas, and at that moment, Ytrinduopf's skin color changed to hot pink. He looked with astonishment at his hands, for a moment, and then he met Ydnas' eyes. "I admit it," he said, looking very humble, "you really _are_ a decoy!"

" _Thank_ you," she said, haughtily, folding her arms over her chest, putting her nose in the air, and staring at the wall with half-closed eyes.

"Sometimes," said Ytrinduopf, thoughtfully, "the way to solve a problem is just the opposite of what one might expect." His skin color returned to normal.

"Stop trying to enlighten me," said Ydnas, testily.

"Indeed," said Ytrinduopf, "sometimes it's best to _not even try_ to solve a problem."

"Now," said Ydnas, smirking, "you are just speaking at random."

"Opposites," said Ytrinduopf, "tend to change places."

"Your point being?"

Ytrinduopf look nonplussed. "I'm supposed to have a _point_?" he asked, incredulous again.

" _Everything_ has a point," said Ydnas.

"True," said Ytrinduopf, nodding agreement, "and not only that, _each_ thing has a point."

"Same thing!" said Ydnas.

"Good point," said Ytrinduopf.

"It's the _only_ point," said Ydnas.

Tulith was puzzled. _Are they joking? she thought, Or sparring? I don't understand this conversation. At one moment it seems terribly serious, and then at the next moment it seems totally flippant. And sometimes, I have no idea which it is. Are they trying to confuse us? Do they think there might be a spy here? Or ... could it be that Ytrinduopf himself is a spy, or that Ydnas thinks that he might be? Or that he thinks she is?_

What he said about opposites is intriguing ... come to think of it, being flippant is the opposite of being serious. Is that what ...

"Can you tell me something about the nature of goodness?" asked Ytrinduopf.

"Goodness is when everything is doing what it is most suited to do," replied Ydnas.

"Then a brilliant criminal should commit crimes," muttered Koof, from behind Tulith.

"Like _you_ , for example?" whispered Anandra, impishly.

Ytrinduopf pondered Ydnas' reply, for three flicks of a lizard's tail; then he said, "Your answer has goodness, I think." Ydnas smiled, but did not reply.

"You know what I mean," said Koof.

"Well, yes," replied Anandra, in a sheepish and apologetic tone. Then she added, "But the talents of a brilliant thief could also be turned elsewhere." Koof grumbled again.

"Tell me about the Unity of All Things," said Ytrinduopf.

" _You_ tell!" replied Ydnas.

"I hope to," said Ytrinduopf.

"No particular thing exists in itself," said Ydnas. "Each particular thing is what it is only relative to others. Hence, each is implicit in each."

" _Word games_ ," muttered Koof, in a tone of disgust.

"Too intellectual," said Ytrinduopf to Ydnas.

"What?" asked Ydnas, blinking with surprise.

Ytrinduopf smiled.

Anandra chuckled. "Brilliant!" she whispered. Koof gave a skeptical snort.

"Well," replied Ydnas, "are you going to pretend to tell me what to do, or not?"

Ytrinduopf sighed. "I'll try," he said, looking tired, "but I'm only a mortal. Don't expect too much."

"I won't," said Ydnas, but then added, sternly, "I'll expect _just enough_."

Ytrinduopf's smile was more like a grimace. He coughed and cleared his throat.

"Since there is no centralized power in Theo-Anarchy," he said. "Its stability, such as it is, depends upon a constantly shifting balance among countless different forces. It was set up so that if any one factor threatens to dominate, others will act, possibly through a temporary alliance, to rein it in.

"But nothing lasts forever. In spite of the brilliant efforts of the later Emperors of the Ingar dynasty, who engineered the transition to Theo-anarchy, the Balance is now tottering. This was predicted by many of the Cleretic Prophecies, and that fact in turn now contributes to the instability. The question is now, 'What happens next?' Most of the surviving prophecies are silent about this, and the remainder are vague. As I mentioned before, the Catephorebragian Prophecy says that the Girl will _heal the gods._ The 17th Bubbah Prophecy says that the end of Theo-Anarchy will be an _Era of Redemption_. The 42nd variant of the Azikor Prophecy says, that there will be a great struggle between Good and Evil, and that it will not be clear that either has won. The 23rd version says that they will _both_ win. The Meltiguan Prophecy says, that the Girl will show the _transcendence_ of evil. Not that we understand very well what 'transcendence' means. Or even 'redemption.'"

_He reminds me a little of Talek_ , thought Tulith.

"Now, the Thirty-first Ku prophecy is rather clearer on this point," continued Ytrinduopf. "It says that the followers of the Girl will almost completely abolish crime, war, poverty, coercion, deception, and exchange. To be sure, many scholars have expressed strong doubts about the authenticity of this prophecy."

"Paid hirelings," muttered Koof.

"It is, however, more plausible than the Forty-first, which adds that they will abolish _individuality_."

"Hard to understand," said Ydnas, frowning.

_It certainly is_ , thought Tulith, _Are they joking again?_

"In the Bleshti-Mintal Prophecy," continued Ytrinduopf, "it says that the Girl is only a messenger, a precursor, and that she is there only to prepare the way for someone who is simply called 'the Lord,' who will redeem humanity and guide us forever."

"Fake," said Ydnas, tilting her head to the side and frowning. She bent down and took her heels in her hands.

"The Soma-Versibiv Prophecy says that the Girl will only do one thing: she will teach mortals to _think more logically_."

Ydnas straightened up and shook her head. "So many _different_ ones," she said, sighing.

"Indeed," muttered Koof, in a skeptical tone.

"Well," continued Ytrinduopf, "one thing Theo-Anarchy is very good at, is creating _variety_. For hundreds of years, religions have been appearing, disappearing, and transforming in Kondrastibar. They have been competing, co-operating, joining, splitting, imitating, reacting against, reforming, subverting, complementing, and influencing each other in countless ways. You might say that gods and mortals have been _experimenting_ with religion. But perhaps, the experiment is now complete, or almost so. Perhaps a new religion is about to appear, that will transform the world, even in so radical a way as the Ku prophecies suggest. If you were a goddess, perhaps it would be _your_ religion."

"Or," said Ydnas, "if I'm a decoy, I might have a _decoy_ religion." Sighs and grumbles ran around the room. _I'm not the only one who is impatient with this 'decoy' talk_ , thought Tulith.

"True enough," said Ytrinduopf, "but one thing that is clear is, that matters are _not_ clear. And that someone doesn't _want_ it to be clear. And what that suggests to me is, that there is powerful opposition to the goals of the Girl of the Prophecy, whomever she may be."

A feeling of unease percolated through the room. Tulith thought of the Black Cloud.

"The very fact that you've had to hide yourself, until recently, also suggests something like that," said Ytrinduopf. "Also, a magician who came along with me told me that this compound is protected by an incredibly powerful shield. That suggests the same thing."

Ydnas nodded. "That's also why I might be a decoy," she said.

_Or at least_ , thought Tulith, _if you were the Girl, and the opposition was convinced of it, you wouldn't mind having the opposition think that you_ _might_ _be a decoy after all, so that they will start hunting all over again, just in case, and use up their resources doing that ... but if you really_ _were_ _a decoy, you_ _wouldn't_ _want them to do that, because then they might actually find the_ _real_ _Girl, instead of thinking that_ _you_ _were the real one ... So aren't you just giving away the fact that you're_ _not_ _a decoy, by suggesting that you_ _might_ _be? But then, that's just what a decoy would do: make it look as though she_ _weren't_ _a decoy ... I think this must be one of those problems that one can only solve by not trying to._
**********

"You wander and you wander, until you find yourself at home."

(Merfip folk saying)

Very, very slowly, being's awareness of itself crept into existence. It was full of wonder, for it had never _been_ before. To _be_! How strange and glorious! Surprised and delighted by everything: by _time_ , by _space_ , by _things_ ... there was apparently no end to _being,_ not to mention _possibility_. More and more aware it became, and more and more wonders it saw. "How beautiful I am," it thought ... and then it became aware of ... _evil!_ "No!" it thought, desperately. "I don't want to be evil!" It tried to flee, but how could it flee itself? There was no escape. It was doomed to hate and torment itself, forever. "Why?" it asked in anguish and frustration. "Why? Why?"

Suddenly, it realized it had been dreaming, and that it was Lightbearer.

She opened her eyes. She was lying in bed. Her whole body was in pain. She was in her room in the harem. As always, a massive, armored guard stood by the wall, silent and still.

Someone knocked, received no answer, and then gently opened the door and looked in. It was Naimi. She saw Lightbearer lying naked on her bed. From head to foot, Lightbearer was a mass of cuts, burns, and bruises. Naimi gasped. Then, placing her hands over her face, she stood there for a several slow breaths, silently, with head bowed. Then she lowered her hands, revealing tears and an expression of deep sorrow and frustration.

Naimi came over and sat, tentatively, on a corner of the bed. Lightbearer's eyes were open, but she did not show any awareness of Naimi's presence. Naimi reached out a hand to comfort Lightbearer, but she could not find any place that was not injured. Finally, she stroked the part of Lightbearer's hair that was lying on the pillow.

"Evidently you resisted him," she said, "and continued to resist as long as you were able. I admire your courage. You must have great strength of character, as well, not to have been seduced by all the preparation, including the magic potion. I did not resist, when I was brought here; I felt violated, but I was in despair. I would not blame you in the least, if you despise me for my weakness. You have earned a perfect right to do so.

"I'm afraid that I cannot stay for long, so I will just tell you what to expect. They will give you medical care, in a few hours. They will wait until you are fully healed, perhaps a little longer, and then he will call for you again. The punishment will be the same, if you resist again. If you resist a third time, however, you will be either killed, or sold to the master of some bordello catering to patrons with sadistic tastes. I have no right to give you any advice.

"I wish you well, Lightbearer, and I am terribly sad that this has happened to you." Naimi bent over, bringing her lips almost to Lightbearer's battered cheek, and made a kiss without actually touching her. Then she walked silently out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Lightbearer had taken in what Naimi had said, but was too much in pain to do more than remember it. After a couple of hours, however, a doctor and her assistant appeared. She gave Lightbearer spells to kill pain, to promote healing, to give her nourishment, and to encourage sleep. In a couple of days, Lightbearer woke up feeling stiff, tender, and achy, but able to think. Looking into her heart, she discovered that she was determined to resist every time, come what may. This made her sad, because she loved life, even mortal life, or at least, _would_ love it, if it were not filled with pain and violation. "In fact," she thought, a bit surprised, "I think I would like mortal life better than the life I had before. Before, I did nothing but argue with the Fabulist. There is so much more to mortal life than argument!"

Moving slowly and carefully, she put on some underwear and a loose shift that she had been supplied with. Then she did some very gentle stretching exercises. She was quickly tired by this, however, and lay down again for awhile, feeling queasy.

She thought of her dream, which was still very vivid. It reminded her of the time when, by the pond near Kolidor's house, she had thought of herself as showing the universe to itself – and had discovered the P'Twism soldiers.

"Fabulist, Fabulist," she thought, "why did you create such a world?" She remembered how he used to worry about it. She had argued with him, in a spirit of pure debate. Now she knew what it was really like, to suffer pain and humiliation. It was very different from intellectualizing about such things.

The Fabulist must have had an experience similar to her dream, for he had been dismayed by his 'dark side.' Had he concealed from her the depth of anguish that he felt? Had he entered mortality irreversibly in order to punish himself, or to take power away from himself, and hence from his dark side, forever? But if so, why had he brought _her_ along? He could hardly blame _her_ for his dark side. Was there something she couldn't remember? He had said that he had created her to oppose him. But that was odd ... he was perfectly capable of thinking of any counter-arguments that she could, and in fact, she had been, like everything else, merely a puppet, only what he made her to be. Her opposition had been a mere charade. Until now.

Already she was tired from thinking. She slept again.

When she awoke, there was a young woman in her room, a stranger. Lightbearer gave a start, and cringed backwards a bit. "Don't be afraid," said the woman. "I am just another concubine. I came to visit, and you were asleep, so I decided to wait. I'm sorry for startling you like this. My name is _Ir_ gowond." Her voice was cool and liquid.

Lightbearer looked at her. She was small, plump, and softly beautiful, in a natural, innocent sort of way. Around her round, light-blue face there fell curls of darker blue, both shades stolen from the sky. She wore a simple, loose dress, patterned with blue-green waves on white and lightly gathered at the waist. Her eyes were large and limpid, and her mouth made a smile that looked ingenuous. Nothing about her suggested guile or hostility. Lightbearer had become unable to trust anyone, but she was very lonely, and feeling physically much better, and she decided to give her visitor a chance to at least _act_ friendly.

"Hello, Irgowond," she said, sitting up slowly, and pulling a sheet over herself. "I am called 'Lightbearer.'"

"Naimi told me about you," Irgowond replied, "not that she knows very much. They don't introduce us when they bring us here! As for me, I am from Goridon; have you ever heard of that?"

"No," said Lightbearer, "I'm sorry, I haven't."

"It's all right," said Irgowond, smiling and waving her hands in reassurance. "It's a very small place, and not very important. Actually, my people live on a big lake, on rafts. They fish, and cultivate water plants, and train octopi, and make various things to sell. We were happy, but we had no army, so when the P'Twism came, we all became slaves right away. The P'Twism thought I was good-looking, so they sent me here." She shrugged.

"I don't understand the P'Twism," said Lightbearer.

"I don't either," said Irgowond, shaking her head, "although I've learned a few things about them, since I've been here. They're just crazy, as far as I can see."

Lightbearer looked nervously at the guard. "Don't worry," said Irgowond, "he's only here to see that you don't try to escape, or damage anything or anyone. We all have such a guard, and if you don't try to do one of those things, they just stand there. We just ignore them. Someone will say, 'Are you alone?' and we'll say, 'Yes,' meaning that only herself and the guard are there. You can insult the Emperor up and down, and your guard won't do a thing. Sometimes some of us have tried to seduce them, but nothing happens. We think they're drugged."

"Have you been here long?" asked Lightbearer.

"About a year and a half," said Irgowond, waving her hand to indicate approximation.

Lightbearer wanted to know how Irgowond coped with being a concubine, but it didn't seem right to ask. "So you live here," she said, lamely.

"My apartment is about thirty doors away," replied Irgowond, nodding and smiling. "I hope you will come visit me sometime."

"Actually," said Lightbearer, brushing her hair back with her hands, "could I visit now? I feel so cooped up in this barren room."

"I'd love to have you," said Irgowond, rising. "Let's go!"

Lightbearer got up and followed Irgowond through a couple of turns to her apartment. It was about the same size as Lightbearer's, but it felt much more alive. Irgowond had decorated it with bright colors, with flowers, with art objects, with a large glass urn containing water, water plants, and fish, and with many other things. The smell of floral incense hung in the air. It took a moment for Lightbearer to notice the guard, although he was not hidden. There were no signs of any children.

"You'll be able to get stuff like this, too," said Irgowond. "I mean, decorations, furniture, cookware, and stuff. We make a lot of it ourselves. Nothing much else to do around here," she added, a little sadly, "if you don't have kids."

"Are all the kids the Emperor's kids?" asked Lightbearer, sitting on the edge of a bed.

"In principle, yes," said Irgowond, "but – well, sometimes Aristocratic boys – older boys, soldiers – sneak in here. Theoretically, anybody who sneaks in here dies, but that's another thing the guards ignore. Anyway, some concubines are so bored that they will party with them, and sometimes they will get pregnant. Legally, all the kids are the Emperor's kids, though. Which is nice; your kid's not going to be a slave. You can't bring any kids in with you, though. I was lucky that way, I was still single and childless when they took me. Not that I don't miss my parents and siblings and so on. But other women have had to leave their children behind. They never, ever stop grieving heavily about that." She shook her head and grimaced.

"Don't you get angry about things like that?" asked Lightbearer.

"Oh, yes," said Irgowond, grimacing again, "of course we do. But, there's nothing to be done, and after awhile, you learn to shake it off. We Goridonyi have a saying: 'Swim for what is in the water' "

_Ah_ , thought Lightbearer, _someone else to suggest resignation to me_. "I gather you know Naimi," she said.

"Oh, yes," said Irgowond, smiling this time, "sure, everyone knows Naimi! She floats in and out, spends a lot of time with us. She's such a dear! Most wives are very snotty to concubines, if they notice them at all. But Naimi looks out for us."

"So," said Lightbearer, "I gather that the various concubines are free to socialize with each other."

"Oh, yes, and that's our entire social life, except for Naimi. We see various attendants, like Korad and Perliria, and a bunch of doctors. But they aren't really _friends_. So, we have parties, and ceremonies, and groups of people with similar interests."

"Ceremonies?"

"Well, yes. Some of us try to preserve our original customs and religion, and we make some sort of special event out of anything important that happens, like a birth – we have a naming ceremony, or whatever the mother wants to have. And if someone dies, we have a remembrance ceremony, or whatever seems appropriate. We celebrate birthdays, solstices, menopause – any excuse to party!"

At that moment there came a knock on the door. Irgowond looked at Lightbearer, who nodded. "Please come in," said Irgowond, in a sufficiently loud voice.

The door opened and a middle-aged woman poked her head in. Her skin was black, and her hair and eyebrows, dark blue. Her features were angular, with high cheekbones. Her pupils were small dots of black in large, dark green irises.

"Irgowond," she said, "I heard a rumor! Someone new! Visiting you! Introduce me?"

Irgowond glanced at Lightbearer, who nodded. "Dive in, Kalula," Irgowond said. The woman entered. She wore only a dark blue skirt and halter. She was skinny but muscular. She made short, quick motions, like a bird. She seemed a little nervous and shy, making little eye contact, but her smile and demeanor were gentle and friendly. She handed Irgowond a covered dish. "Made food," she said.

"Why, thank you, Kalula," said Irgowond, taking the dish. "Kalula, this is Lightbearer; Lightbearer, this is Kalula."

"I am pleased to meet you, Kalula!" said Lightbearer.

"And I too – pleased! To meet Lightbearer!" said Kalula, making a little wave with a thin, fragile hand, and sitting next to her.

"Lightbearer is new. I've been telling her some basic stuff about the place," said Irgowond.

"Oh, good – just go ahead – I'll listen – catch up!" said Kalula, smiling, and making quick little nods.

"Is there a lot of diversity, as to customs and religion?" asked Lightbearer.

"Absolutely," said Irgowond. "The P'Twism have conquered a huge territory. My friend Ising-Aliki has made a big map, by interviewing everyone here. She'll probably want to talk to you, too."

_What could I tell her?_ thought Lightbearer. _Where would my origin go on a map?_ "Now, that is fascinating," she said aloud. "I mean, that from all your various backgrounds, you have found a way to exist together."

"It's not always easy," said Irgowond, "especially since almost a quarter of the concubines are from the P'Twism society." Kalula made a tiny nod of agreement.

Lightbearer was startled. "How does a P'Twism woman get here?" she asked.

"Well," explained Irgowond, "the Emperor – or rather, his Chief Harem Officer – makes it known that he's looking for another concubine, and lots of women apply, and his Officer chooses one."

"Why in the world would anyone -- ?"

"For many poor women, it's a way of moving their children up in the world. As I said, the children of Imperial concubines are part of the royal family; they are minor aristocrats – _very_ minor, but still, it beats abject poverty. This place is a prison to you, but to a poor woman, it is a palace!"

"It must be difficult – their relationship with the rest of you ..." _I'm talking as if I understood mortals,_ she thought.

"It can be," said Irgowond. "I personally find it to be ripples, but to some it's big waves."

"Some just _hate_ – hate all P'Twism," said Kalula, holding her hands up in front of her eyes, fingers extended forward and vibrating, as if to show rays of hatred coming out.

"Yes," agreed Irgowond, grimacing, "and some P'Twism women put on airs. They and the P'Twism-haters deserve each other."

"Sad – sad," said Kalula, shaking her head in little jerks, and looking very glum.

"You don't hate the P'Twism, Kalula?" asked Lightbearer.

"No, no – hate their _demons!_ " said Kalula, arching her long, thin fingers, and clamping them into fists, as if strangling a pair of demons. "Demons _possess_ – poor, poor P'Twism," she said, shaking her head sadly.

"Kalula's people have a whole _science_ of demons," said Irgowond. "She knows the names of hundreds of kinds, and can tell you all about each one."

"Can you _exorcise_ demons, Kalula?" asked Lightbearer.

"Yes, yes," said Kalula, "sometimes! Not easy, though!"

_I wonder whether she would find demons in_ _me_ , thought Lightbearer.

At that moment there was a quick knock; with no wait for a reply, the door opened and a young woman's head poked through. Her skin was a luminous gold, and her long, straight hair was a brilliant prismatic silver. Her features were soft and rounded. "Ooh, there _is_ a new one," she said, and came rushing over. She knelt in front of Lightbearer, looking at her with large, wondering eyes. Holding out her hands, she said, trilling her r's lightly, "I am Sorilal, of the House of Liotr!" She seemed to expect Lightbearer to take her hands, so Lightbearer did. Sorilal of the House of Liotr bent and pressed her forehead onto the backs of Lightbearer's hands. Her hair spilled over Lightbearer's wrists like water from a bucket. Sorilal was wearing only a simple white robe, thin and not entirely opaque.

"I am called 'Lightbearer.' It is good to meet you!"

Sorilal of the House of Liotr straightened her head again, looking into Lightbearer's eyes. "How beautiful you are!" she said.

"You also are beautiful," said Lightbearer, releasing Sorilal's hands. Sorilal beamed, and, leaning back and closing her eyes, moved some of her hair behind her head with her hands. Lightbearer could not help observing, during this maneuver, that Sorilal's breasts were fairly large, and very firm and round.

_How different the three of them are_ , thought Lightbearer, _I am getting a little disoriented!_

"I am from Liotr, in the hill country below the mountain Tli _kil_ tlikir," said Sorilal. "The P'Twism took me last year, a year of sorrow, when they conquered us."

"Thirty-four years for me," said Kalula, shaking her head as if in disbelief. "Three children! Two gone away." She looked very sad.

"Can't they visit?" asked Lightbearer.

"Off in army," said Kalula, shrugging. "Who knows where? Maybe dead."

_How ironic_ , thought Lightbearer, _one woman's child might be the very one who captures another woman and sends her here._

Sorilal of Liotr sat back on her heels, still looking wonderingly at Lightbearer. "Oh, Lightbearer," she said, "I do hope that you will be happy here!"

"Well ..." said Lightbearer, not knowing what to say.

"She _resists!_ " said Kalula, looking a little sternly at Sorilal of the House of Liotr.

"O-o-oh," said Sorilal, he eyes turning sad, "but still, I hope that you ... will be happier than ... you might otherwise be."

"Thank you, Sorilal," said Lightbearer, smiling, and almost laughing; for she was both touched and amused.

"Tliusuria will protect you," said Sorilal, "I know it! Oh, she is the Love Goddess of my people."

_Somehow,_ thought Lightbearer wryly, thinking of Sorilal's ripe and tender body, only half-concealed by her flimsy dress, _I am not surprised that you are a devotee of a Love Goddess._ She didn't know what to say out loud, however.

Irgowond forestalled what might have been an awkward silence by asking, "So how is your daughter, Kalula?"

"Luthial!" said Kalula, making her typical jerky nod. "She's good! Likes both schools!"

"We have two schools here," explained Irgowond to Lightbearer. "One is the P'Twism school. The children must go there. But we also made our own school. We thought the P'Twism school was a little one-sided."

_Remarkable!_ thought Lightbearer. _These women have made an entire society of their own, adapting to their situation!_

"I teach," said Kalula, placing her fingertips on her belly.

"How do you all decide what to teach?" asked Lightbearer.

"We negotiate a lot!" said Irgowond, chuckling.

"We ask kids!" said Kalula.

"I hope you will meet our children soon, Lightbearer," said Sorilal of Liotr. "You will love them, I know it!"

_Children_ , thought Lightbearer, with a bit of surprise, _I haven't met any children yet_. Then she thought, _All these people have had a childhood, but I never have. What would it be like?_

"Did you have children, Lightbearer?" asked Sorilal.

" _Sorilal!_ " spat Kalula, angrily. Sorilal blushed and looked at the ground.

Lightbearer was confused. Irgowond explained: "We have a rule, Lightbearer, that we don't turn the conversation to a new person's past, or to their visits with the Emperor. Sometimes it's just too painful. When they are ready to talk about it, they will."

" _You_ said she _resisted_ ," said Sorilal petulantly, looking near Kalula, but not directly at her.

" _Had_ to," said Kalula, hotly. " _You_ brought up her _being happy!_ "

"Please, _stop_ ," said Irgowond, in distress. "You are making it worse!"

"OK, _both_ wrong," said Kalula, grumpily, clasping her hands in her lap and looking at the ground.

"I'm _so_ sorry, Lightbearer," said Sorilal, with wide and liquid eyes. "I forgot about the rule."

Lightbearer didn't know what to say. "I ... well ... it's all right, you haven't injured me! And, no, I have never had children." _I never even thought about it_ , she thought, _unless you count the time I was playing mother to the universe. Children might have been part of my mortal life, if ..._ Suddenly she felt very sad. Her eyes began to tear up.

"Oh, Lightbearer!" said Sorilal, putting both hands to her mouth and looking at Lightbearer with concern.

"No shame to cry here!" said Kalula. "All have cried!"

Jerky little sobs welled up from Lightbearer's heart. She gave in to them. They turned into wails. _Fabulist_ , she thought, _what have you done to me? You gave me freedom, but what can I do with it? So many possibilities, but all ... cut off._

Then, the thought she had had before came back to her: _These women have made an entire society of their own, adapting to their situation!_ It took her a moment to see why it had popped up. _I'm the one who's cutting possibilities off_ , she thought, _I'm the one who's trapped in the idea that this is all a contest between myself and the Emperor. I'm the one who thinks that whether I am violated or not is the most important thing in the universe. I'm the one who is passing up the chance to live with these women, and help them, and their children, and maybe have children of my own. I'm the one who is choosing death, because life isn't meeting my expectations!_

_Let the Emperor have his silly little thrill_ , she thought, _it's a tiny price to pay for the privilege of being with these women. The poor jerk is irrelevant! I see why Kalula feels sorry for him._

She became aware that all three of them were hugging her. _Is this what it's like_ , she thought, _to be in a womb?_

And then she thought, _I think I'm beginning to see what mortal life is all about. It's about making the best of a terrible situation._
**********

"Death is a very intimate experience; people never talk about it."

(From the comic opera, _Life_ )

Arguit realized that his crossbow was almost fully cranked; he quickly cranked it up to full tension. As he did so, another metal claw appeared, grasping the other side of the widened arrow slit, and something indistinct began to come through the middle of the slit. He thrust his crossbow up to the slit and fired, pulling back instantly. The magical bolt disappeared within the slit; for a few breaths, what appeared to be white-hot bits of metal, hundreds of them, appeared at various places in midair and shot into the slit. Hot metal sprayed back, spattering him in several places. "Oh, that must be why Azabula said to use a _sword_ if something tried to come in," he thought dully, through a haze of agony. It seemed to take hours for the hot bits of metal to penetrate his body, to come to rest, and then to cool off.

Mercifully, his eyes were undamaged. Forcing himself to open them, he looked at the slit. Both claws were gone. But then, another claw appeared, somewhat larger, gripping an outcropping of ragged stone near the bottom of the slit. Another claw appeared on the other side of the slit, and something large and bulky began to come through. Its shape was complex; at the very front was a small metal cylinder, that turned this way and that. From this cylinder grey bolts leapt.

Arguit started to bend down to look for his sword, but as soon as he moved his wounded body, a lightning-strike of pain from his wounds paralyzed him. At that moment, a sword swung down from the other side of the slit, glancing off the cylinder in a shower of sparks. _Laeri's still alive_ , he thought. Exerting self-control that he wouldn't have thought he had, Arguit bent down, ripping through the pain, and found his sword. With the same effort of will, he straightened up again. The cylinder looked a little bent, but it was still spewing out grey bolts. They all went in the same direction now, striking the stone floor about three feet away from the slit. Evidently Laeri had managed to jam it somehow. The floor glowed and smoked, and there was a constant spray of hot stone chips. Arguit struck at the claw, then began trying to pry it off the stone with the point of his sword. When that didn't work, he struck at the stone itself, until it broke off; then, with both hands, he rammed his sword straight into the slit. He felt something give, and claw and cylinder both retracted.

Sheathing his sword, Arguit picked up the metal shutter which Azabula had removed from the slit, and tried to lift it back into place. He got it straightened up, but his injured body refused to obey the command to lift it. Suddenly Laeri was with him, and together they heaved it upward. How deeply he felt his need for her! How grateful he was for her existence! She was risking life itself to help him! Grey bolts struck the shutter as they lifted it, making the center glow red, but they had it in the bracket before the parts they held became unbearably hot.

"Thanks again," he mumbled, trying to touch her arm. Her worried eyes were all he could see. Then they began to spin, and then they were obscured by hundreds of black stars.

The next thing he knew, he was lying along the bottom of the wall. He thought he might be dreaming. The Mother Superior appeared, riding in a kind of cart, propelling herself with a pole. The cart had a large slab of stone on one side, between her and the wall; grey bolts were continually shooting at it through the slits, but it suffered only minor damage. Arguit saw this, but it meant nothing to him; his mind was completely numb. The Mother Superior maneuvered the cart between the wall and the nearest dead Amazon. Arguit saw a winking light still floating near the Amazon's body.

The Mother Superior had a device with her in the cart: it was about three feet tall, with a wheeled base, and consisted mainly of a distended cloth bag suspended from the top of a vertical rod. From the bottom of the device extended a flexible accordion hose a couple of knuckles in diameter; this in turn was extended by a metal tube, which she held in her hand. She extended the end of this tube until it was close to the winking light; the light then seemed to be sucked into the tube. Glancing sadly at Arguit, she began to pedal the cart forward, toward the next casualty.

Arguit's attention followed her, and what he saw next brought all his emotional capacity back to life. Laeri was lying on the floor beneath her slit, apparently dead. He tried to go to her, but his body would not move. _It is a dream_ , he thought, _please, let this be a dream!_
**********

"It is a commonplace that people overestimate their own goodness.

A deeper truth is that they underestimate it."

( _The Book of Judgment_ )

Ling turned off his alarm, but he did not go back to the memories from Torothex. Instead, he stopped to ponder what he had learned.

Unarmed, Torothex had apparently _talked_ a bunch of soldiers into what amounted to treasonable surrender, right in the middle of a war. _Why did all those idiot lizards disobey orders? Now they are in danger from their own people as well as from the enemy!_ Thinking over what Torothex had said, Ling concluded that they were war-weary and willing to grasp at straws. He had a vague idea that fools could be motivated by idealism, but he thought that idealism would always be overridden by self-interest, when something important was at stake. This psychology had usually worked very well for him in the past. When it didn't he assumed that the person was mentally defective.

His mind went back to the meeting with Dzernial; there was a part of him that relished the elaborate protocol and courtesy, the panoply and theater, that went with Torothex's job. It made him feel important. He realized that he had always wanted respect from people, even when he was most carefully guarding against the dangers of being governed by that desire; but all he had ever achieved was to make people afraid of him. But as Torothex, he judged, he would get genuine respect. He could feel that, artificial as the courtly courtesy was, it often expressed – and sometimes even created – people's real feelings; and that, in fact, Torothex was held in remarkably high esteem by all those around him. _That's also part of his effectiveness,_ he thought, recalling how, at the beginning of his dialogue with Commander Black, Torothex had reminded the soldier of his reputation. Ling had made use of his own reputation, but in a different way!

The talk in the earlier meeting, about the loss of the Balance and the fall of Theo-Anarchy, still disturbed him. By exchanging with Torothex, Ling had leapt over a thousand intermediate levels, and gone as high as it was possible to go in Kondrastibar, as far as he could discover; only to find that the whole system might be about to crash! _Well, that would have gotten to me anyway_ , he thought, _at least here, I may be in a position to do something about it._

Deciding that he had pondered enough, Ling reset his alarm and skimmed quickly through the rest of the Shishiliu incident. Torothex had slowly made his way up Ioranapa Avenue, followed by an ever-larger group of both Ishlacorti and Tencidca who had renounced violence. Those who were not up to going with him were encouraged to accept the Grindish offer of asylum, or to help maintain the 'corridor of peace,' leading back to Carithli square, that Torothex left behind him. Many Ishlacorti and Tencidca travelling with him exchanged items of clothing, so that it became hard for potential attackers to tell which was which.

The more local followers he acquired, the higher his credibility rose, and the easier it became to convert people. A squad of Tencidca soldiers was sent to kill him, but a crowd of Tencidca followers gathered themselves around him, and the soldiers were unwilling to cut a path through their own unarmed people, including women and children. In fact, many of them put down their weapons and joined him. Meanwhile, food and medical supplies came through the corridor he had created, and ambulances came to take the ill and wounded to hospitals in Grindish and elsewhere.

Torothex's route took him all the way through Shishiliu, bisecting it with a corridor of peace. He then bisected it again, at right angles to the first corridor. Also, groups of his followers began branching out, creating corridors on their own. Six days after his arrival, there was no rioting anywhere.

_He's gutsy and good at strategy_ , thought Ling, _but I still haven't seen any payoff! What's in this for him?_

And in fact, Torothex had not been satisfied. "To end the killing is a wonderful thing," he said, addressing a large crowd, "but think of the future! Do we have true peace, here, or do we have hidden resentments waiting for their chance to come out into the open? Because I am not sure, I request the following: that at least eleven out of every thirteen Tencidca shall publicly swear a sacred oath to adopt the following as laws, and likewise for the Ishlacorti: first, that all shall publicly swear a sacred oath to renounce hatred and vengeance; second, that all Tencidca property destroyed in the war shall be replaced by the Ishlacorti, and mirrorwise, within the next five years; third, that all Tencidca who have lost their families in the violence should be adopted into Ishlacorti families, and mirrorwise; fourth, that every Tencidca and Ishlacorti born from eleven years ago today until fifty-nine years hence shall be forbidden by law to marry into their own group; and finally, that every holder of political office in Shishiliu, and every officer in any police or military force, and every schoolchild henceforward, should be required to study the basic theory of non-violent action, as laid out in the classic, _Both Sides Win_ , by Ing Di-Khang."

A great majority of both groups, deeply grateful to Torothex and enthusiastic about his principles, immediately agreed to this, but it did not reach eleven out of thirteen. Torothex accepted a few minor modifications which he felt would not undercut the general intent, but it was still not enough. Torothex then announced that he would never use harm of the threat of harm against others to gain his ends, but that he would fast until the principles were either improved upon or adopted.

_What an idiot!_ thought Ling, in astonished disbelief, _all his opponents have to do now is wait him out; either he will die or he will capitulate!_ But in fact, Ling's predictive powers failed again. As Torothex began to weaken, his admirers redoubled their efforts to persuade their fellows; but more important, in minds of the minority, was the contrast between Torothex's being willing to face death himself for his beliefs, and his unwillingness to use the threat of violence when dealing with others. It showed them that his commitment to non-coerciveness was not just a tool to be picked up and laid down, and this engendered in them a deep sense of trust. This trust was reinforced by a number of other evident facts: for example, that neither Torothex, nor any person or class connected with him, stood to gain materially from the oaths and laws that he suggested ( _Having few desires gives you power_ , thought Ling). Upon reflection, they also saw that he was giving them a gift far greater than the ending of their civil strife, great though that was; he was giving them a new way of dealing with conflict, an alternative to violence and coercion, and one that they and their descendants could practice on their own, without the need of an outside rescuer, forever.

So they trusted him; and just as suspicion had led them to war and hatred, so trust led them to peace and reconciliation. The required majority was obtained. Torothex and his followers then departed, leaving the inhabitants of Shishiliu completely in charge of their own destiny. As Ling pondered this, his alarm went off.

_That was impossible!_ thought Ling, as he reset the alarm. _Did he have a hundred magicians working behind the scenes? Did he use drugs or hypnosis? But surely, the use any of those means on that scale, and in that context, would be most unlikely to avoid detection! The same would go for bribery and blackmail, which wouldn't have been effective under those conditions, anyway. Do gods exist and intervene? Does this inside-out dreaming idiot have some crazy god on his side?_ As he completed that last thought, something triggered a memory from his distant past. The name "Amakala" drifted into his mind, and he felt himself being saturated with a memory of overwhelmingly intense ... goodness. The memory had extraordinary power and vividness, but there were no specific events, except for the experience itself. The goodness he felt was vast – the more he searched for its limits, the more extended it seemed to be. It filled him, it filled the world, brilliant and glorious. It astounded and frightened him, for he was sure it must be an illusion – there could not be such goodness in the world; he must be hallucinating, going mad. Panic shook him. Then his automatic safeguards cut in, destroying the vividness of the memory.

He felt intensely relieved, as though he had just miraculously escaped from death. Trembling and breathless, he wondered: what had it been? Was it a god? He began to remember something ... yes, one of Torothex's memories had involved a god named "Amakala" – an experience Torothex had had in the Temple of that god. That experience had been terrifying for Ling, too. What sent a shudder through his foundations now, though, was the strange and disquieting feeling that although _that_ memory had been Torothex's, the memory he had just experienced was his own.
**********

"Burglars recognize each other without introduction."

(Adage of the Kelosian Church)

At one point during his visit to the compound, Ytrinduopf arranged to be alone with Talek for a while, dismissing even his attendants. They talked about the weather, about types of moss, and about various operas.

"That Girl I was talking to," said Ytrinduopf, "is she the one? The one that Kor brought back from the Temple of Honggur?"

"She's the one," said Talek. "She's definitely the one."

They talked about verbless poetry for awhile.

"Sometimes," said Ytrinduopf, with a sigh, "I work and work, and when it's all done, I find that I'm exactly where I started! Does that ever happen to you?"

"That's the story of my life!" said Talek.

From there, they fell into a discussion of Ikilidring Dynasty palimpsests, and then about the Principle of Carnivorous Control Systems. When that reached an end, there was a short pause.

"Sometimes," said Ytrinduopf, sadly, "I want to tell someone how much I admire them, how grateful I am for their very existence, but I just can't! Does that ever happen to you?"

"I understand completely," replied Talek. For awhile they discussed Pseudo-Aleatory Mechanics.

Then Ytrinduopf sighed, and said, "Well, I've enjoyed this conversation immensely, but I'd better join the others, before they start worrying about me."

"You're a very wise man," said Talek, "and very kind."
**********

"Who could fly, if there were no ground?"

(Mrestheni children's riddle)

One day Isiliar came to visit Kor. Kor felt almost no aura from her; it was almost like being with a mortal woman. Kor supposed that this was part of Isiliar's program to make her more independent.

"Kor," said Isiliar, "I would like to teach you a little magic, if you don't mind."

"I've never been any good at magic," said Kor.

"Don't worry, Dearie," said Isiliar, "everything I give you will be non-technical and user-friendly. Now, I believe that you enjoyed flying, when Kshaloka took you to the Great Gorge."

"Yes, I did," said Kor enthusiastically. "It was wonderful!"

"Well, then," said Isiliar, "wouldn't you like to be able to fly on your own?"

"Why – you don't mean – are you saying that you could teach me to – I mean, yes, I would, very much! Oh, yes, that would be wonderful!"

"But I will have to insist that you be invisible to others while you fly," said Isiliar. "Otherwise, people will be gawking at you all the time."

"Well, that would be fine!" said Kor. "I mean, I'd just as soon be invisible. But, I mean, you'll have to teach me how to be!"

"I will," promised Isiliar, "and you mustn't seen going visible or invisible, for the same reason. The idea is to keep it a secret that you can do this, except from your close friends. Believe me, Dearie, you don't want to become a celebrity."

"I understand," said Kor, nodding vigorously, and feeling impatient to get on with it.

"Very good, then!" said Isiliar. She raised her hand, and a staff appeared in it, very similar to her own. "This will be yours, Kor," she said. "Here, take it!"

With eyes as big as saucers, and holding her breath, Kor reached out and took the staff. As soon as she touched it, she felt something special about it. It reminded her that when she had been a child, she had often thought of various inanimate objects as people, and even spoke to them. Now that feeling came back, for the staff seemed to be a person. It seemed playful and friendly. Kor found herself smiling, as if she were spending time with an old friend.

"Yes, Kor," said Isiliar, "there is a special spirit in it. Don't worry, it is not trapped or enslaved. It is in its nature to enchant a staff like this, and it won't outgrow it for a long time."

"What will happen then?" asked Kor, wonderingly testing the heft of the staff.

"Then we will negotiate something a little more challenging for it to do," said Isiliar, "and get you another staff."

"Does the spirit have a name?" asked Kor.

"Yes. His name is _Sthen_."

_Hello, Kor!_ thought Sthen, brightly, in Kor's mind. It reminded her of how, as a child, her imaginary playmates had 'spoken' with her. Sthen seemed a happy spirit. Something about the feeling of his presence reminded Kor of how Ydnas, when she was particularly happy, would sometimes bounce up and down, waving her arms and giggling.

_Hello, Sthen!_ replied Kor, without speaking aloud. _How quickly I'm getting used to this_ , she thought to herself.

"Now, Sthen understands the rules," said Isiliar. "When you are holding the staff, Sthen will know whether you want to fly, and if so, where; and he will oblige you. You don't have to say anything, not even in your mind. When you want to be invisible or visible, Sthen will arrange that, too. But you must be holding the staff."

"Can I go right out through the roof, as Kshaloka did?" asked Kor.

"Yes," said Isiliar, "you can go through anything, unless it's magically protected. Don't worry, Sthen will know if something is impermeable, and won't try to go through it."

Kor felt her heart pounding. "Well – I – "

"Would you like to try it out right now, Kor?"

"Well, yes, but ... I'm a little scared," admitted Kor.

"That's quite natural," said Isiliar. "Why don't you just try floating across the room, here, about six inches off the floor? Then, even if you fall, which you won't, you won't be hurt. Go ahead – as soon as Sthen sees that you really want to do it, it will happen!"

Kor raised her staff, and surveyed the path she thought of taking. Then, taking a deep breath and holding it in, she decided that, yes, she was ready for Sthen to do it. Immediately, she rose up and floated forward, very slowly. She was astounded. Coming to the other side of the room, she settled gently down. When she felt herself standing solidly on the floor, she let her breath out, and lowered the staff.

"That's amazing!" she said, turning around to face Isiliar.

"After awhile, it will feel as though you are doing it yourself," said Isiliar, "but don't worry, Sthen won't mind that. It's a sign of his skill."

Kor turned around and, taking another deep breath, lifted off the floor. Then she moved forward, and then stopped. Then she went backwards for a bit, and stopped again. "This is _just amazing_ ," she said, shaking her head. "All I have to do is make up my mind what I want, and it happens!"

"Well," said Isiliar, "you don't need me any more, so I'll be about my business! Sthen can explain things, if you need to be reminded." Isiliar raised her own staff and faded away. Kor noticed that she was not bothering with wind chimes anymore.

Gradually, Kor began to fly higher and higher from the floor, and to do simple maneuvers like turns. She found it difficult to conceptualize moving in three dimensions. She made up names for various simple turns and practiced them, learning what happened when two were put together in this way or that.

Getting herself to go through a wall was very difficult. She would head toward a wall and then stop. She just couldn't convince herself that she would go through. Finally, she had an idea. She held her free hand out ahead of her. She brought the hand right up to the wall, and then started moving forward in fractions of a knuckle. Sure enough, the very tip of her first finger went into the wall, without feeling any resistance! Frightened, she pulled her hand back and looked at her finger. There was nothing wrong with it. It felt fine. She pushed it slightly into the wall again, and pulled it back, and again there was no harm. She kept doing this, pushing a little further each time, until all her fingers were entirely inside the wall. After that, it was fairly easy to sink her entire arm into the wall. It was so strange-looking! To put her _face_ into the wall was more difficult, especially because when she finally did, she could see nothing, until she backed away. Her heart was pounding, and she lay down for awhile.

She got up and was about to try again when it occurred to her that someone might be on the other side, and that she would be invading their privacy. She walked normally out her own door and over to the next one. It was open, and Lessie and the boy were inside, gesturing at one another. She would have to be careful about that. It was good that she had been invisible; she had to giggle, though, at the thought of how Lessie and the boy might have responded to seeing an arm come through the wall! Returning to her own room, she closed the door, and decided that she would go through it into the hall. Closing her eyes, she willed herself into the hall. She opened her eyes, and there she was! Turning around, she verified that her door was still closed. It sent shivers up and down her spine. She decided that she would always close her eyes while going through something solid.

Impulsively, she flew back to her room, and through the outer wall, completely leaving the guest house. She began to fly around the grounds, working up the courage to go higher and faster. It reminded her of when she was a little girl, and had just gotten good at running, and would run and run just for the sheer joy of it, deliberately taking sharp turns, and cutting close to objects, and watching the world flash by. She began to rediscover that excitement. _Children need so little to be happy_ , she thought, _how difficult we adults make it for ourselves! Well, I'm not going to do that any more!_

She began to dance her way through the limbs of a venerable oak tree. Since she was invisible, the birds and squirrels did not flee from her. Sthen took care of the details of navigation, including the avoidance of collision with branches. The filtered light made her feel almost as though she were underwater. _How patient the oak tree is_ , she thought, _to hold out its arms for birds and squirrels._

_You're right, Kor_ , 'said' Sthen, _there is a patient spirit in the oak tree, its own spirit, a dryad_.

Kor was startled. _Can I talk to it?_

_Trees don't talk_ , said Sthen, _but you can commune with it_.

Kor floated up to a large limb and embraced it. She felt the roughness of the bark, and smelled its woody smell. Closing her eyes, she searched for a feeling that might be a perception of the dryad. It was like listening for a faint sound. _What should I listen for?_ she wondered. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be such a tree. Patient, immensely patient, compared to flickering, mercurial human beings. Receptive, for the most part, rather than active: receiving sun and nourishing ground water as a pure gift from the world, given year after year. Growth ... very slow, but taking place at hundreds of different places at once. Subject to sudden, unpredictable damage, sometimes catastrophic. And flowering – a simultaneous erotic exchange with hundreds of other trees, lasting for a week! A thousand impregnations! How utterly trivial human sex was, compared to that! Kor smirked.

Kor had imagined this so vividly that she had practically convinced herself that _she_ was a tree, when she suddenly saw herself through the tree's eyes. A tiny little creature holding on to one of her limbs. A _human_ – very dangerous creatures, given to cutting, breaking, killing, and dismembering. Utterly unpredictable, and useful only as compost. With chagrin, Kor felt _disdain_ from the tree. It was not at all friendly and playful like Sthen – it was not a social creature at all, beyond its sex life. In fact, it had very little notion of the world beyond itself, and very little interest. It knew nothing of its progeny. If it loved anything, it would be sun, sex, peace, good soil, and wholesome water. It looked forward vaguely to more growth, then old age and death, and then ... a mystery. Except ... yes, it had some notion of various gods, mostly the gods of life and death, health and sickness, nourishment and growth, sex and reproduction. With them the tree had some kind of reciprocity; trees and gods sustained each other. In its own mind, the tree had more of a relationship with those gods than it had with the plants and animals around it, which were largely invisible to it. Its material needs took care of themselves; religion was nearer the core of its existence.

Kor came to herself, feeling wonder, but also humbled and sad. She released her hold on the tree and floated away. She couldn't blame the tree for its negative attitude toward humans. She realized how being human, with its vast potential for exploration and exploitation of the material world, was in a way a disadvantage from a religious point of view, for it was terribly easy to become fascinated with the complexities of that world, and of one's own projects and possibilities, and to forget about spiritual things.

_I'm sorry that made you sad, Kor_ , said Sthen.

_Actually, Sthen_ , replied Kor, _I'm glad you drew my attention to the opportunity. I am a wiser woman now._

_Then you should thank the tree_ , suggested Sthen.

Kor was startled by the idea, but it had a certain logic, so she returned to the tree, and embraced it a second time. When she felt connected with it again, she tried to project into it her feeling of gratitude for the experience that she had just had. She felt from the tree a slowly arising feeling of surprise; never before had it received respect and gratitude from a human! She also felt a very light, and somewhat grudging, _respect_ returning to her from the tree. Impulsively, Kor apologized for all the damage done to trees by humans; she found herself genuinely horrified by the idea of killing and slicing up corpses in order to make houses and other things, or just to clear a space for human projects. The tree's response to this was a bit cynical, as if it were saying, "Of course, you feel that way now, while you are in my presence, but you will go back to your old ways quickly enough." Kor did not feel that she could honestly defend herself against this reproach, until she had actually changed her life. She could only 'say' that she was a bit more aware of the life of trees than she had been before, and that this might make a difference sometime. The tree's response was still cold; it doubted that this would amount to anything much. It would be a passing fancy. Kor, volatile human, would soon return to her previous habits, surrounded by sliced-up and nailed-together corpses. Feeling that her embarrassment was beginning to turn into defensiveness and irritation, Kor decided to cut the interaction short. Making a courteous farewell, she disengaged herself again.

_That made you sad, too_ , thought Sthen.

_Yes_ , replied Kor, _but also thoughtful, and that can often be good_. Indeed, she set herself to hang at rest among the branches of the tree, lying on her back in the air, while she reflected upon what she had learned. After awhile, she asked Sthen, _And what about you, Sthen, how do you feel about humans?_

_Humans in general, I don't know_ , replied Sthen, _but for you, I feel gratitude and love. I have no eyes and ears of my own. You are my only window to the world! And, I have learned something of you, and I can see that you are a good person. A very good person!_

After a moment, Kor sighed and thought, _this is more complicated than I thought_. _It's fun to fly, but I am just using you like a slave._

_Let's be friends_ , argued Sthen, _and have adventures together!_

Kor pondered that for a hundredbreaths. _Very well_ , she replied, _but you must be honest with me, as a friend would be: if you would prefer to do something different from what I have in mind, you must tell me, and we will negotiate._

_Fair enough_ , thought Sthen.

Are you sure?

_Yes_.

Kor sighed again. She remembered Ydnas saying that even rocks feel god. Must she feel guilty, because her kind quarried rocks, and imprisoned them in mortar? She was not good at untangling difficult ethical issues. It would be good to discuss it with someone. In the meantime she decided to put it away from her.

And do you, Sthen, feel the gods, as the tree did?

_Yes_ , said Sthen, _especially the gods of force and momentum. But I also see much more, through your eyes._

Ydnas had said that humans were mirrors; now it seemed that they were also windows!

_You're not at fault Sthen_ , she replied, _but I'm afraid I've become too thoughtful to have fun at the moment. Take me back, please._

She felt little fascination as she glided out of the arms of the tree and through the air to the guest house. She closed her eyes as they approached the wall, and opened them in her room.

_Goodbye for now_ , Sthen.

_Goodbye, Kor_.

She put the staff in a cupboard. As soon as she released it, her sense of Sthen's presence diminished to almost nothing. She sat down on her bedroll, weary. _Even stranger than flying,_ she thought, _is having this creature who sees directly into my mind. And yet, I took that for granted, at first. Exciting things distract us from more profound things._ She began to think about how humans could live only by destroying animals and plants. _Violent by nature._ She had always known this, but actually communing with the tree had made it more vivid.

She felt the presence of Isiliar. _May I visit?_ asked the goddess.

_You are welcome_ , replied Kor, _but I won't be very good company. I'm feeling very distracted._

Isiliar appeared, but without any aura. "You're always good company, Kor," she said, sitting down next to her, and tentatively putting her arm around her shoulders. Kor snuggled up to her. They put their heads together. They sat there silently for a long time, while the afternoon light slowly faded.

After a long time, Kor asked, "What are you up to, Isiliar? Why the introduction to Kshaloka? Why the staff? And Sthen – you presented him as a servant, but he acted like a teacher."

"I've got a plan," replied Isiliar, "but I don't want to talk about it just yet."

Kor sighed. It felt good to be with Isiliar, even without the aura. It was like being with an old friend. _But Isiliar is not a grandmotherly old woman; she is a goddess, an infinite, inconceivable, utterly inhuman and alien being._ With a stab of pain, Kor thought yet again of the disappearance of Zar, and silent tears ran from her eyes. _A mortal and a goddess can never be just friends,_ she thought. _The gods have their agendas, and in the end, those are more important to them than any mortal. Still, it is nice to sit here with her._
**********

"If the starving children of the world were right before your eyes,

would you still buy luxuries?"

(Uriloozh, Patriarch of Advertising)

Ydnas began receiving so many visitors, that she decided to give talks to groups at posted times. On the day of the first such talk, she stood in the small chapel, by the statue of herself. Her friends all attended, along with the visitors. Among the visitors was Kareketeen, looking very happy. An agent of the Lord of Evil was also there, although he did not announce himself as such. Uncle K'Tor was visible on Ydnas' shoulder. Taking a deep breath, she rang a bell to obtain silence, and began:

"Good Morning, friends and strangers! I am Ydnas; this is Uncle K'Tor. I think maybe I am the Girl of the Prophecies. I don't know, though. If I am the Girl, still, maybe what I say isn't true. So, better to think for yourself.

"Some people ask if I am a goddess, because I have this temple. I don't think I'm a Goddess, but I can't be sure. I don't mind if you think I am a goddess, and I don't mind if you think I am _not_ a goddess. Even if I _am_ a goddess, though, that doesn't mean that what I say must be true.

"Also, don't want to be wor-shipped. And, don't want to be a boss. _You_ decide what to do. And, don't want any presents or sacrifices."

_She wants people to be independent_ , thought Kor, _I wonder if this is related to Isiliar's recent push for me to be independent._

Ydnas gestured at the chameleon on her shoulder. "Uncle K'Tor, here, is the god of everything. Only, this is just a, oh, what do you call it?" She glanced questioningly at Kor.

"A _persona_ ," said Kor.

"Just a _per-so-na_ ," continued Ydnas. "You may think that if he is the god of everything, then _he_ should be speaking, instead of me, but when I speak, he _is_ speaking. Here is what we have to say today." She began to read from notes on a piece of paper, stumbling over some of the words.

"Purpose of your life is, to do the most good you can. Doing good means helping be-ings – 'be-ings' means gods and people and things – to flor – _flourish_ , each according to its own na-ture. I mean, help them to be good, and strong, and smart. But sometimes, best way to help something fl – flourish is to let it be. If seedling is sprouting, pulling on it doesn't help it grow!

"The everything is a be-ing, which we can help to flou-rish. But we only know a tiny part of the everything, so we can't tell whether it is flou-rishing outside that part. And we can make things happen only in a small part. So, we only have to worry about small part of the everything. So, try to help the beings around you to flou-rish, and hope that this helps the whole everything."

How childish she sounds, thought Tulith. Why does she sometimes act grown-up, and sometimes not? Wouldn't this be a good time to act grown-up?

Another guest stood and said, "You said that we should help all beings to flourish. I find that I cannot help others unless I help myself. Would you comment on this?"

"Well," said Ydnas, "can't help others if you are too sick, too hungry, too poor. But sometimes, only way to help self is to help others."

"You mean," said the guest, "that the others will do something in return?"

"Sometimes happens," said Ydnas, nodding slightly, "but not what I meant. I meant, water runs down, plant grows toward light, people help others. If you can't find others to help, you will not be flou-rishing. If you don't want to help others, you are ill. So helping self and helping others is same thing."

There were no further questions, so Ydnas continued:

"Now, we are coming to hard time. We have hard job to do: make a New Balance. I am supposed to help this. I want New Balance to be better than old one. Old Balance did not abolish fighting, bossing other people, not knowing things, not having enough, or being bad. But, these things are wrong. We should stop them."

" _YES!_ " said Brother Koof, enthusiastically. Ydnas smiled at him.

Kor stood up, leaning on her staff. "I have always believed that," she said, "but...all this evil and stupidity just seems to go on and on. How can we ever change it?"

Ydnas nodded agreement. "Yes, goes on and on," she said. "One reason is, that people need hard things to do. If they don't have problems, they make them. Maybe they fight each other. If they have everything they need, they make pretend needs. They fool themselves. They pretend their pretend needs are real, so they can struggle.

"People are smart and strong, so they can always get what they really need, if they help each other. But when they fight each other, that makes it hard."

Someone from the audience said, "The social theologian Grenetsidi Mango said, 'The intensity of competition in a society is a precise measure of its failure.'"

After looking puzzled for a moment, Ydnas smiled and said, "Yes, I agree."

"So, then," said Kor, "we should avoid creating artificial needs and problems?"

"I think so," said Ydnas, nodding and smiling, "if you want things to get better."

" _YES!!_ " said Brother Koof, standing up, and waving his arms enthusiastically.

_How curious_ , thought Tulith, _Brother Koof is also being rather childlike!_

_Excellent_ , thought the spy from the Lord of Evil. _If she convinces a significant portion of the population to spend only on necessities, the economy will collapse! And if any neighborhood should try to live without anything but bare necessities, the people there will quickly find their lives to be so dreary that they will soon give up! With our many magical factories, we can step in and supply them with what they are missing! In return for their obedience._

"Enemy is inside," said Ydnas, putting her hands on her heart. "Enemy is demon. Enemy is greed."

"But," objected someone, "you say that people _need_ to struggle. If that is really an essential part of us, aren't we doomed always to have more needs than we can satisfy?"

"Is a way out," said Ydnas. "That is why we have _god_ ," she continued, looking at Uncle K'Tor. Uncle K'Tor turned red, then invisible. "People are afraid," continued Ydnas. "They think that they are soft and easy to break, like bubbles. Afraid they will pop! When people realize they are _everything_ , they have no fear. And no greed, either."

Koof whispered to Anandra: "Is she talking about _Shaliria_?"

Anandra nodded. "Everyone does, sooner or later."

_I don't like Anandra_ , thought Tulith. _She is so preachy._
**********

"Serendipity is the sister of Irony"

(Tales of the Unenlightened)

One evening, after the children had gone to bed, and Iliriana and Sre Lugu were cleaning up after supper, Liliune told them that she had something to discuss with them. "Of course," said Iliriana (they were Liliune's servants, after all), and she and Sre Lugu repaired to the living room with her.

Liliune wore an extremely modest outfit, as she had almost always done since her liberation from Pappi. It made it difficult even to tell, at first glance, whether she was male or female. Her hair was done up in a tight bun at the back of her head, its brilliant color covered by an amorphous gray hat, and she had applied make-up to make her intensely aqua skin into a dull gray. There was no suggestion of either dance, music, acting, or sexuality in the way she moved. When she spoke, she did not coo, or make her voice go especially high; her delivery was straightforward and efficient. In short, she behaved in the way that heteromales, in their rare moments of selfish lucidity on the question, wish that women would almost always behave.

"I have decided that I want to move back into an apartment of my own, and take care of myself," said Liliune. "It is silly to have two grown people taking care of me, especially when you have so much to do in your own lives. You have your marriage, and your children, and you need recreation and a social life, and Lugi has his job, and you both have your spiritual searches. My operatic career is taking off, and I will have no financial worries. I can get plenty of snoffle through the Church."

"But Liliune," said Iliriana, "we have sworn to be your servants."

"Well, then," said Liliune, with a stern expression, "I hereby _command_ you to help me move, and then to live your own lives, and not to argue with me about it! If I have an emergency, perhaps I will ask you for help, and I hereby _command_ you to do the same. You are also welcome to attend any of my performances and to socialize with me, provided that you are genuinely motivated to do those things solely for their own sake. I hereby _forbid_ you to do those things just because you are my servants." In a loud, resonant, and ominous voice she added, " _Do I make myself clear?_ "

"Ah, yes," said Iliriana, startled, "yes, I understand!"

She glanced at Sre Lugu. He too gave a start, as though his mind had been elsewhere, and said, "Yes, I understand, and will obey!" Both of them were experiencing complex and shifting emotions, as they considered the consequences of Liliune's decision, and were therefore a bit confused and embarrassed.

"I realize that you will need a little time to think and talk about this," continued Liliune, "so I will leave you alone as soon as I make a couple of further remarks. First of all, I want to praise you, as I should have done long ago, for all that you have done for me. Of course, you saved my life, in more than one way. In addition, you liberated me from Pappi, at the price of becoming servants, and as servants you have been faithful and conscientious. You also took the trouble and risk of calling up Snoffle in an attempt to liberate me from what you see as a debilitating addiction. You were not obliged to do this. It was misguided, but it was clearly well-intended. And, having gotten to know the two of you, I realize that this was not an exceptional thing, that both of you are wonderful, conscientious, and compassionate people.

"I also want to recognize that I made your lives difficult in many ways, which you did nothing to deserve. Iliriana, I had an affair with your husband, although I knew all along that he was married. I know that this must have caused you a great deal of pain. And yet, you have never spoken an unkind word to me, or, as far as I know, to him. As I said, you are remarkable. And, Sre Lugu, I deceived you consistently about my feelings for you, leading you to believe that we were having a genuine affair of the heart, whereas in fact I was just being a manipulating whore. You learned of this, and yet you, too, have never spoken an unkind word to me. Of course, I also physically injured you very severely, and very nearly killed you, and your two friends, when you came to my apartment, with the kind intention of helping me to escape.

"Considering that you are not presently among the elect, I think that you should both feel very proud. When I do a good thing, in a way I can take no credit for it, for Snoffle removes all temptation from me. But what you two have done, you have done with very little help from your gods. I hope you realize how remarkable you are. It is a privilege to know you. If I were capable of envy, I would envy you.

"And now, I am going to take a stroll for a couple of hours. No, don't say anything! Don't get up! Have a nice evening!" With that, she stood, and, taking a coat off a peg by the door, left their apartment.
**********

"There is always just enough time."

(Saint Skunda the Clockmaker)

" _Reload but hold your fire!_ " shouted Calcadro. " _Keep your shields high._ " They were getting low on bolts, and she wanted to keep some in reserve. For some time before, she had spaced their volleys at random time intervals, so that the cloud would not know for a while, when they had actually stopped for good. They had successfully downed many of the mechanical insects, but there was still a cloud of more than a hundred, circling above them. Their presence could be inferred from the continued sputtering brilliance of the dome.

Even as she thought this, the dome flickered out for a moment. Calcadro caught a glimpse of dark shapes circling above, and heard a horrible noise compounded mostly of buzzing and screeching. Several gray bolts penetrated their space. One of the monsters made it halfway through the dome before the shield re-formed itself; the creature was cut in half, its front end falling heavily to the ground with a loud crash, barely missing an Amazon. Stifling, hot smoke poured out of it. The rear half presumably slid down the dome on the outside. Calcadro smelled a terrible stench.

" _Cal!_ " shouted Thiarinis, " _Zan's in trouble!_ "

Calcadro spun to look at Zanentadra; the Witch was kneeling on the ground, in the standard posture for maintaining a protective dome. She held her shield above her, resting her forearm on her head. Calcadro did not speak to her, knowing that it took all her concentration to maintain the defense. Like everything else, she was hard to make out in the sputtering light; her armor especially reflected a painful amount of brightness, forcing Calcadro to squint. Zanentadra's visor was down, so her face was not visible. Calcadro thought, though, that she could detect a trembling in her, and a strained quality in her breathing.

"She's running out of mana," said Thiarinis. "The dome will fail in a few more breaths."

Calcadro spoke into her shell: "Calcadro here. Anthill five. Rainclouds gathering, crystal falling, six. Bridge four?" In code, this meant: "Our dome is about to fail. Can you make a sortie in our aid?"

After a moment, the Temple replied, "Message received, Calcadro. Cat swimming upstream, frog on lily pad, twelve. Bird of Paradise, turtle dove." This meant, "We are pressed hard. Sortie appears impractical. We love you, as does Holy Ydris, blessed be her name. We will all meet again! Good luck!"

Calcadro thought for a moment. "Thia," she said, "does the cloud attacking us have something like a control center? Located above the rest, perhaps, or at a distance?"

"Let me look!" said Thiarinis.

At that moment, the dome flickered again. This time, one of the monsters was able to enter completely. It was as big as a horse, its buzz was a roar, and its shrill cries were like fingernails dragged across slate, but many times as loud. It began rapidly firing gray bolts from the front of its head. Several Amazons fell. Without waiting for a command, the remaining Amazons fired at it. Ten bolts converged on it in the space of a breath. They all glanced off it without doing any harm, but then they turned back and exploded right next to it. Small pieces of legs and wings were scattered throughout the dome. The main part of the monster fell to the ground, spraying black smoke, but still spitting out deadly bolts from a cylinder that protruded from among its forward eyes. The surviving Amazons hunched down behind their shields, which became red hot on the outside. Calcadro, who was behind the creature, leapt onto its back, drawing her sword. In spite of the smoke and the glare, she could see the weapon, as the monster turned its head toward her. " _For Ydris_ ," she shouted, and swung her sword with all her might. Her sword shattered, but the deadly cylinder had been bent. The creature's head began to glow red, then orange, then blue-white. Calcadro leapt back and took cover just before the head exploded, spraying them all with searing shrapnel.

" _I found a center!_ " shouted Thiarinis. At that moment, Zanentadra slumped over. " _She's fainting!_ " cried Thiarinis. The dome began to collapse onto the squad. Holes appeared in it, growing rapidly. Through these holes, the monsters above fired gray bolts into the Amazons below.
**********

"If I don't fool myself, someone else will."

(Serigon the Impertinent)

Deep in Ling's fortress, Shimura's assistant Huse knew immediately that she had made an error, in suggesting that there might be an enemy mole at work. Current protocols had placed extreme limitations on any speech or action that might build distrust. She should not have suggested that there might be a mole, when she had no specific evidence that there was. "I'm sorry," she said, prostrating herself. "My mistake!"

Shimura glared at her for a moment. "Forget it," he said. "Just don't do it again." He would only make matters worse, if he took his primary assistant out, in the middle of a battle.

She gave him a grateful look and returned to her duties.

"Evidently Triple-Seven was able to penetrate us somehow," said Shimura. "The frontal attack was just a blind, a distraction. Tell everyone near the front to activate extra scanners and booby traps."

**

As 777 scanned the data from the worm, some of the Sabridean data arrived. 777 immediately discounted all information about passwords, encryptions, and protocols; that would already be obsolete. The problem was to see a pattern in the other information, a pattern that the enemy had not yet seen themselves.

**

"Abacus 9 back on line," called out Klevin. The others would presumably soon follow.

"Network each abacus as it comes on line," said Shimura, "but use stronger security this time."

"Booby trap sprung in area 7," said Huse, excitedly.

"Good!" said Shimura. "Even if it didn't get Triple-Seven herself, it shows I'm anticipating her moves!"

Huse was about to say, "Either that, or she's anticipating yours." But, since other staff were within hearing, she was afraid that it would constitute sowing distrust.

From studying what he could learn of her missions in the past, Shimura had decided that Triple-Seven, very wisely, varied her protocols significantly from one mission to the next, so as to avoid having an identifiable _modus operandi_. But such a policy still resulted in a kind of predictability, albeit a less precise one.

"The frontal attack is standing down!" reported Huse. "Do you suppose that booby-trap actually _got_ her?"

"Could have," said Shimura, "but we mustn't assume it!"

"As far as I can see," said Huse, "they are leaving the area. None detected within a half-horizon." _Unless they are cloaked._

Shimura checked the crystal ball carefully, and consulted several incoming reports. "Send purging squads to actively scan and defang the entire boundary," he said. "See whether the enemy have left behind any booby-traps, sensors, equipment, anything! First a macrocheck over the whole region, then a microcheck. At the same time, keep an eye out to see that the enemy is not sneaking back. High alert still stands."

"Purge crews dispatched," said Huse, and a moment later she added, "Enemy still in apparent retreat. ... _Holy lizard ticks!_ "

"What?"

"Check out co-ordinates, 7, 22, 11, 34, 17, 52!"

Opening one of his magic windows to those, Shimura saw a number of staff, including several from the purge crew, in one of the abacus rooms. The room was a shambles, and there were apparently several injured and dead. The purge crew were scanning an inert figure on the floor. The body lay in a pool of blood at the edge of a small crater.

Shimura zoomed in on the figure. It appeared to be the badly mangled body of a young woman, dressed in a burnt-out invisibility suit. He zoomed in on the face. It was not badly damaged. The hair that framed it was aquamarine, still shriveled and smoking from the blast. Where it was not blistered in pink, her skin was yellow, with delicate tiger-stripes in salmon. The features were smooth and rounded. They matched some reports of 777's appearance.

"Looks like her!" said Shimura, excitedly. "Quarantine that area, and prepare to sterilize! Bring guards, one magician, and three telepaths from area 26 up to the quarantine periphery! Attention, Purge Team at 17, 52: any life signs?"

"Yes sir," reported the Lieutenant. "Unconscious, sir. But not critical!"

"She was trying it again!" chortled Huse. "She was trying to worm another abacus! A booby trap got her!"

"I doubt it," said Shimura. "That would have been repeating herself. Triple-Seven wouldn't do that!"

Huse looked puzzled. "Why did you set the traps, then?"

"To make myself look gullible," said Shimura, with a bit of a complacent grin. Huse blushed with chagrin. "And," continued Shimura, "it looks as though I have succeeded! Keep checking the main force!"

"Still retreating; nearest at five-eighths of a horizon."

"That could be her," mused Shimura, considering the woman in the window, "or it could be a simulacrum."

"Quarantine in place," reported a somewhat chastened Huse. "Sterilization prepared. Requested personnel have arrived at periphery."

"Good! They are to remain outside, but they should check as best they can for spells, mind exchanges, simulacra, or anything anomalous. The purge team within the quarantine should do the same. Check the intruder carefully – whatever is there will be very sophisticated! But for the time being, don't use our most advanced active scan system – use passive scans and less sophisticated active scans. Repeat, DO NOT use our most sophisticated active scan system."

"Understood, sir! Proceeding!"

Moments crawled by.

"The woman is a simulacrum, sir!" reported Regop, the Purge Team Lieutenant. "A very clever one, apparently; only the most advanced techniques you allowed detected it. It's repairing itself with the same speed as a very healthy, normal human body with magical prosthetics. In fact, it's indistinguishable, at least by the scans we used, from an enhanced normal body. But we found an artificial soul, embedded in the bone of her left little toe."

"And have you checked," said Shimura, "that the artificial soul is the one that is actually directing the body?"

"Yes, Sir!" replied the Lieutenant. "We were able to trace several control paths back to it."

"Good work!" replied Shimura. "Now, still without using our best active scan, check her for hidden transmitters; repeat, _No top-level active scans!_ "

"Understood, Sir! Proceeding!"

More moments crawled by, with sneering slowness.

"Sensors found, Sir!" reported the lieutenant. "Some well hidden, some _very_ well hidden!"

"Good!" said Shimura. "Now, on my mark, make active scans, but only ones that will leave at least one transmitter undetected. I rephrase for clarity: choose your method carefully, so as to guarantee that the most well-hidden transmitter is NOT detected by ANY of your scans. Subject to that restriction, make your scans as complete and thorough as possible. I am attempting misdirection here: I want them to believe that we have scanned for transmitters, but failed to find the best hidden one. Understood?"

"Understood, Sir!"

"Proceed!"

"Proceeding!"

Time...crawled...

"Scans complete, Sir!"

"Good! Now, I want you to disable all the transmitters, _except_ the one that the active scans did not detect! Do not, repeat NOT, disable the best hidden one. Understood?"

"Understood!"

"Take enough time to figure out the best way to do that, then proceed!"

"Yes, Sir!"

Again time crept, like a shadow at noon.

"Transmitters disabled, sir, except for one!"

"Good! Now, from here on, everyone is to act as though we don't know that remaining sensor is there! Take her to the sick bay in Area 13. Maximum security. Try to bring her around quickly, but don't risk losing her!"

Turning to Huse, he explained: "As you have no doubt inferred already, we will now use this simulacrum to pass disinformation to the enemy! Maintain High Alert in the interior, but officially stand down to yellow alert for the exterior. Then locally load and decrypt file Shimura-Classified-Defense-Disinformation-33."

"Yes, Sir!"

"This file contains templates for disinformation scenarios, pyramidally sorted by situation," said Shimura. "Delicusp!"

"Yes, Sir!" replied Delicusp, an abacus trainer on Shimura's staff.

"Find the three templates most similar to our current situation, and fill in all the actual details that you can quickly find, using the current logs. Then bring your results to my attention. Give yourself five hundredbreaths!"

"Yes, Sir!"

"You see," Shimura explained to Huse, "using these templates, we can make a fraudulent scenario that will be far more coherent than we could possibly have improvised in a short time. So Triple-Seven may judge that they are real!"

"Wow!" said Huse. "You anticipated this possibility!"

"I did indeed," said Shimura, permitting himself a bit of a smile. Huse turned back to the crystal ball.

"Enemy still retreating, nearest at one horizon."

"Good! I want another purge team! They should make a sortie to set up cloak-penetrating scanners around the immediate perimeter of the Temple grounds."

"Yes, Sir!"

Waiting for events to develop, Shimura filled in time by initiating various cleanup, repair, and replacement projects. Then he studied the scenarios prepared by Delicusp, chose one, and made a few modifications in it. It was then sent to all relevant staff as the current protocol.

The medic called: "She's coming around, Sir!"

"I'll be right there," responded Shimura. "Huse, Delicusp, you're with me. Travinang, you're in charge here until my return. Be cautious, and let me know immediately of anything significant." Travinang nodded.

Shimura made his way to the Sick Bay. There the young woman was indeed stirring. As Shimura sat down, her eyelids fluttered, ever so slightly. Then she giggled.
**********

"The faint of heart will never become wise."

(from _Lives of the Perplexed_ )

After her experience of communing with a tree, Kor was profoundly disturbed. When she saw anything made of wood, she saw the violated corpses of murder victims. She moved out of the guest house, and into a woolen tent that Darestigan made for her. She only ate because Darestigan gave her an argument to the effect that fruits and nuts were _intended_ to be eaten, as a way of spreading the seed of the plant that grew them. "A ripe fruit comes off the branch easily, or may even fall off spontaneously," he said, "and ripening fruits change color so as to be highly visible and attractive. The germ is encased in a protective coating so that it will be discarded, or pass through the animal undigested." So Kor ate fruit (in the broad sense which includes tomatoes and cucumbers), but would not eat stalks, grains, or tubers, and certainly not meat. She would only use wood for fire if it was already dead when she found it. She moved her tent every day, so as not to kill the grass.

Her friends did not know what to make of this, but on the whole they found it disturbing. It didn't help that Kor was always preoccupied with this problem, so that her conversation deteriorated to almost nothing. Perhaps without intending it, she managed to make many of her friends share, to a greater or lesser extent, in her guilt and doubt about living by destruction. This made it a bit harder for them to reassure the younger children, to whom Kor was a mother, and who were profoundly confused and upset by her unusual behavior.

To make matters worse, Kor observed that the gardens from which much of her food had come were maintained, in part, through the process of killing weeds. Picking up her staff, she placed her other hand onto various weed plants, and found a spirit in every one. None of them were brilliant conversationalists, but all of them wanted to live and grow.

Again, Darestigan came to the rescue. He made her a garden without weeding or tilling. He simply flattened down weeds in the area of sprouting food plants, to be sure that the latter got a start. But this drew Kor's attention to the fact that all living things, even plants, compete with one another. Life is never-ending struggle to the death. She began to feel, as Lessie had once felt, that the universe, or at least the living part of it, was intrinsically savage, intrinsically evil. This upset her so that she even contemplated suicide. She mentioned this to Tulith, who was, of course, profoundly upset.

"I j-just don't know what t-to say, Kor," said Tulith, with tears running down her face. "I m-mean, you have the right to your beliefs, and it's y-your l-life, and I c-can't argue with you anyway, I mean, how can I defend k-killing? B-but I just feel, that it can't be right to, to, to k-kill _yourself_ , either! And, where would all your k-kids be, if you had d-done that before? Or even if you d-did that now? And I know it's s-selfish, but Kor, I do love you so much, I c-can't believe you're evil, and _I don't want you to d-die!_ "

Kor was agonized in turn by Tulith's distress, and saw her point about the children only too clearly. Yet, something within her had changed. She felt trapped; whatever she did would be wrong. Her mind became one huge impasse. She sat in her tent all day, brooding on this problem.

At one point, she thought of the flickering souls they had seen after the destruction of the black cloud, and of her own experience of death. 'Well,' she thought, 'maybe we don't really die, we just _go somewhere else_. The weed-spirits don't die when we uproot the weeds, they just _go somewhere else._ ' She had a flicker of hope. But then she thought, 'If that were so, then why would murder among humans be wrong? The victims wouldn't die, they would just _go somewhere else_. But surely, murder _is_ a terrible thing!'

At another time, Kor thought, 'I will just accept the fact that weeds and trees and celery stalks are somehow worth less than humans are, even though I feel something when I touch them. All I am feeling is their raw life force, their thoughtless response to circumstances.' But then she remembered her insight that, underneath the surface, she too was a series of thoughtless responses to circumstances.

Anandra heard about Kor's problem. One day, as Kor was brooding in her tent, Anandra stuck her head in. "I have a suggestion, Kor," she said. "Think about this: what is lost when someone is killed? What is the _crucial thing_ that is lost? Is it the body? Is it the soul? Is it having certain parents, or a certain name? Is it being in a certain place? Is it being with certain people? Is it consciousness? Is it memory? What is it that tragically disappears?" Before Kor could reply, Anandra ducked her head back out. Kor called for her, but she did not return. Kor was intensely irritated by this behavior, but that passed away quickly, for she was interested in her problem, not in her relationship with Anandra. The questions that Anandra had raised occupied her mind a great deal.

Compared to this great problem, which called her entire life into question, Kor found most of her habitual routine to be trivial and pointless. She remained in her tent, and ignored visitors. Her whole being was focused on the problem: can I accept a murderous world?

One day, she remembered Lessie's first prayer. On that day, Lessie had expressed a similar problem. She had seen herself and the world as intrinsically flawed. Kor decided to pray for help, something she had not done with deep seriousness for awhile, since Isiliar had been encouraging her to be independent.

"Isiliar," she prayed, "I know that you want me to be more independent, but I have failed. I am paralyzed, I am a cockroach trying to move a mountain. You must have resolved this somehow for yourself. Just be my friend, and help me in my distress."

To her great relief, Kor heard the sound of wind chimes, and Isiliar materialized in the tent. Isiliar sat facing Kor. She projected no tranquilizing aura. She took Kor's hand. "Dearly beloved Kor," she said, "I will not solve this problem for you. But as your friend, I will stay by your side as you struggle with it." She sat. Kor glowered and growled, and then proceeded to ignore her, but did not ask her to leave.

On the following day, after moving her tent, Kor picked up her staff again and communed with various blades of grass that she selected at random. "Sthen," she said, "I find that blades of grass don't have much individuality, compared to humans. Each one is different, to be sure, but not profoundly so. Do you think I am right, or is it just a distortion produced by my human viewpoint?"

"I think you are correct, Kor," said Sthen. "Blades of grass are quite simple compared to humans, both physically and psychologically. As a result, they lack the degree of individuality that humans have."

"It also seems to me," said Kor, "that _situations_ are much less varied for weeds. A human takes twenty years to start a family, and then deals with it for several decades more. They interact with many other people in very intricate and idiosyncratic ways. It seems to me that if a blade of grass has nourishing soil and good weather, it is happy. It doesn't get attached to particular other blades of grass, for example."

"I agree," said Sthen.

"So it wouldn't be so hard for them to _go somewhere else_."

"No, I don't believe it would."

Then Kor decided to speak to Ydnas. Kor had often had difficulty understanding Ydnas' theology in the past, and even when she did, she had found it intriguing rather than compelling. Besides, Ydnas usually still insisted on talking and acting like a child, most of the time. But Kor decided to give it a try.

She found Ydnas playing a running-and-jumping game with some other girls her size. Kor waited until Ydnas had come to a stopping-point, and then she explained her problem. Ydnas looked very thoughtful, standing on one leg and twisting the other around it. Then she said, "Remember how we talked once, about God hurting god?"

"Oh, yes," said Kor, "you said that the god of everything becomes us anyway, even though he knows that we are going to hurt him by hurting each other. But he is like a parent, choosing to have a child, even though he knows that there will be difficulties at times. And he forgives us for hurting him. Or, I suppose you could say he forgives himself for hurting himself."

"Yes! Yes!" said Ydnas enthusiastically, throwing her braids into a furious dance with huge and rapid nods. Then she lifted her hands, with her pointer fingers extended, and added, "Same with killing. Yes, Kor kills things all the time. But in the end, they will forgive Kor. And Kor will forgive _herself_."

"But, why will they forgive me?" asked Kor.

Ydnas smiled triumphantly. "Because they are part of _god,_ " she said.

After these conversations, Kor seemed gradually to mellow. She continued to live in her tent, and eat only what seemed made to be eaten, and to be thoughtful about the effects of her actions upon all living things, and even upon non-living things, but she was less agonized by the unavoidably destructive nature of her being. On one occasion, she was heard to mutter to herself, "The point of ethics is to be a guide to behavior. An ethical system that paralyzes you, or puts you in a double-bind, just _has_ to be wrong!"
**********

"Repetition has no History"

(Kargubizin XXIV)

'To pray again, perhaps I ought,' thought Lessie. Closing her door, she spread a blanket on the floor and knelt on it, clasping her hands over her heart.

"Dear Goddess," she said, "for what you taught me the first time, and for bringing Kor back to life, from the bottom of my heart I thank you. Whether any way there is, that you I can repay, I do not know, for to help a goddess, what can a mortal do? You know that in awe of you I have been, and grateful, ever since that time. I have not prayed, because so full of happiness I was, most of the time, and so busy, and so frightened sometimes, and upset for awhile because of my suspicion about Ydnas and the boy, and because, so fascinating it was, in a whole new way the world to have seen! Turned right side up, everything was.

"And yet, not finished I am, I know. Still grip me they, of thinking my old ways. Suspicious I am, at times, and angry. And the pain and evil in life, still I do not entirely accept. Kor you brought back, but all those others, still dead they are. And still dying, Anandra's son is. Not angry with you am I, or with myself, but ... just out loud, I am thinking. Good it does me.

"Dear Goddess, from you I ask no more. Silly now I feel praying, because everything about me, already you know. But good for me this praying was, because my mind it clarified, and because you, I wanted to thank with words."

Lessie was silent, but she maintained her praying posture. No particular thoughts went through her mind, she just felt happy and grateful. There was nothing else that needed doing. She realized that she no longer had to dance to feel a sense of harmony with the world. An hour later, when the mute boy arrived, she interacted with him in her usual fashion; and yet she felt, in a curious way, as though she were motionless, doing nothing. Perhaps it was because she took each moment exactly as it came, and released it completely as it passed.
**********

"A step forward in a great project

does not only require a previous step back;

it requires march upon march,

wander upon wander, flight upon flight,

dance upon dance."

(from _The Book of Goals_ )

The Devalene neighborhood occupied a narrow-necked peninsula which extended into the river Kron about one horizon, and then turned and extended downstream for about ten. It was thickly populated, with multi-story dwellings and many great Temples for production and exchange. One morning, the residents woke to find that their neighborhood was occupied by Trobish mercenaries. "Go on about your business," they were told. "Just don't try to leave without a permit." A permit, it appeared, could only be obtained if one's job required travel, and if one had several family members who could remain as hostages.

General Z'Gor then announced that he was the Emperor of Devalene, and indeed, of all Kondrastibar. He released a statement which read, in part:

We all know that the present order of things is doomed. All the prophecies say so. We could blind ourselves to this, and do nothing. Then we will be unprepared when the Balance falls. We would then be forced to endure the resulting chaos, which would surely include civil war with all its horrors. Finally, after perhaps a hundred years of misery, some warlord will establish, by sheer brutality, an authoritarian regime capable of using terror to restore order. Or, we could accept the inevitability of the fall of the Balance, and begin constructing a new order now, thus saving the people of Kondrastibar untold suffering.

This latter is what we are doing. Our force may appear to be ridiculously small now, but it is the only one with this goal, and it will grow as others join us.

Those leaders whose groups join earlier will be given higher rank in the coming Empire than those whose group joins later. Those individuals and groups who wait until they can be forced to join will never be given full citizen status, and may very possibly be dispossessed or enslaved. No one who surrenders will be killed, however, at any point in the consolidation.

Some of you, reading this, may consider the possibility of becoming rival Emperors. Before you decide on this, you should know that we have established secret commando units throughout Kondrastibar, and that we will destroy or injure anyone who tries to do so, and any population that abets such an attempt.

More importantly, anyone who creates a rival force is missing the point: they are planting the seeds of civil war, instead of working to avoid it.

It is clear, then, that the only rational course is, for everyone to join the Trobish Empire at the earliest opportunity, so as to get the highest possible rank. Simply declare yourselves, individually or collectively, as a citizen or a region of the Trobish Empire. If necessary, do this secretly, but send a representative to Devalene or some other loyal area to register yourselves. All such information will be encrypted and held secure. Everything else being equal, those who declare themselves publicly will receive a somewhat higher rank than those who declare themselves secretly, but both will have full citizen status.

Remember: we will eventually come for those who do not come to us.

On the next day, two divisions of troops from the Church of Balan-Ching approached the border of Devalene, which had been heavily fortified by the Trobish. They were told that Devalene had been heavily mined, and that in fact explosive devices had been affixed to many residents, in such a way that they could only be removed by a Trobish wizard. All these devices were hexed to go off unless neutralized every ten hundredbreaths (or less) by such a wizard. They were also hexed to go off if any local Trobish defensive spells were overwhelmed. Any attempt to invade would, therefore, result in massive civilian casualties.

The Cardinal-General of the Church of Balan-Ching issued the following proclamation:

The Trobish occupation of Devalene is absurd and reprehensible. It is bound to fail eventually. On the other hand, it cannot in good conscience be destroyed by direct assault. We are therefore going to have to put up with it for awhile.

It is important to prevent the fearful and the naïve from feeling compelled to join this insane project, and it is equally important to prevent other madmen from imitating it. The Church of Balan-Ching, therefore, together with its allies, hereby declares the formation of an anti-Trobish Crusade. We therefore ask individuals and groups to declare that they are OPPOSED to this bizarre imperial claim made by the Trobish. Groups larger than 213 persons should send a representative to the nearest Church of Balan-Ching, or to some official representative, to discuss strategy. Those who fail to do so will naturally come under suspicion of being collaborators with the Trobish.

A number of other, smaller forces soon arrived at the border of Devalene, dispatched by Orders which had sister churches or Orders in Devalene, or commercial dealings with Orders in Devalene, or some other connection. There were also sightseers, various mercenary bands looking for work, and, of course, bands of idealistic youth seeking glory and death. Not long after that, Karngrevor arrived, invisibly, in the _Tarezarg_.

"Why do I think that the Balan-Ching put this idea into Trobish heads?" asked Karngrevor, looking out at the scene below.

"Hah!" said General Zagara, theatrically wrinkling his brow and stroking his chin. "Is it that the idea is much more sophisticated than anything the Trobish have ever come up with on their own? Is it because the Balan-Ching have been outmaneuvering the Trobish for centuries? Or could it perhaps have something to do with the fact that the Trobish have just handed the Balan-Ching a perfect excuse to occupy and control an indefinitely large amount of territory?"

Karngrevor chuckled. "That announcement of Z'Gor's is awfully well written, for a Trobish document."

"Yah! He probably had help from an agent of the Balan-Ching, or perhaps an agent of the Hidden One," said Zagara, "possibly both. Not that Z'Gor knew it, I'm sure!" Karngrevor nodded agreement.

The epithet, "Hidden One" appeared in many of the Cleretic Prophecies, referring to a very powerful individual who, it was said, would influence events from behind the scenes. When some turn of events could not be otherwise explained, those familiar with the Prophecies in question were often inclined to ascribe it to the influence of the Hidden One, and this practice had seeped into the general culture of Kondrastibar. Zagara and Karngrevor were both quite convinced that there was such a being, and that he was immensely powerful.

These prophecies also said that when the Balance fell, the Hidden One would conquer Kondrastibar. Some said that the Girl would help him.
**********

"Cherish the transient; the eternal will take care of itself."

(From the _Scriptures_ of the Church of Terimoglu)

"It won't last, you know," said Isiliar in Kor's mind, as Kor was briskly sweeping out the kitchen.

"What won't last?" asked Kor.

"Your friendship with Bogs, Donnilid, and Meki."

"Well, then," said Kor with a sigh, "I will enjoy it while I can."

Isiliar was right. There came a day when Kor appeared at the tavern at the usual time, and found only Bogs and Meki there, without Donnilid. They looked very sad.

"Where's Donnilid?" she asked, anxiously.

"Ah, he's gone, gone to the other world," said Meki, making a gesture of futility. A tear rolled out of his one good eye.

Kor's heart sank.

"He got sick," explained Bogs, "and then sicker and sicker. Pains and vomit. After awhile, he begged us to get him a pint of dreamjuice, so that he could make an end to it." Dreamjuice was a hallucinogen made by boiling a mash made of hot Zingishrin peppers in the urine of a wolverine. Consumption of a pint, all at once, would have guaranteed Donnilid several hours of transcendent bliss, with a seamless transition to death.

"I was thinking of getting it for him, too," Bogs continued. "We had copper enough in the stash, but I wanted for him to pull through."

"Me, too," said Meki, "but we were only blinding ourselves."

Bogs nodded assent. "One night, we both fell asleep, and when we woke, he was gone, and so was our stash.."

"We figure he stole the copper and went crawling off into the night, looking for the dreamjuice," added Meki.

"I hope and hope that he got some," said Bogs, "but probably he just got robbed. Too sick to be clever, or to defend himself."

Meki gave a little sob. "Poor dog," he said.

After a moment of silence, Bogs said, "If I had it to do over, I'd go get dreamjuice myself, and give it to him, very first time he asked."

"Me, too," said Meki.

There was another pause, and then Kor said, "You both loved him very much, didn't you?"

"Yeh," they said, nodding assent together.

**

A few days later, Kor was scrounging in a large abandoned building, which had apparently been a museum at one time. There she found two lovely statues of Isiliar, which she brought back to the orphanage.

"Did you arrange for me to find them, Isiliar?" she asked.

"I'm not telling," said Isiliar, complacently.

**

About a week later, Kor showed up at the tavern to find Bogs standing outside alone, and looking very bad.

"Where is Meki?" she asked, fearfully.

"Ah, he's gone too, now," said Bogs, with infinite sadness.

"What happened?"

"Ahhh, he got impatient," said Bogs. "It was getting kind of hard, that life of ours. Well, it was always hard, but recently, Pappi's goons go around and say, no more independent operators. You have to either work for Pappi himself, they say, or pay him a tithe. We decided to pay the tithe, but it took a lot out of our food money. And the goons, they were always suspicious, always wanting more. And of course, we mustn't steal from any of Pappi's own. But nowadays, just about everybody _is_ Pappi's own. Now Meki, he thought we should go into burglary. But no one had anything worth taking, except for Pappi's people. 'Too dangerous,' I said, but he said, 'More dangerous than starving?' So I said, 'Let's do, but let's be very, very careful!' And we were, but an alarm went off. What's a poor dog to do, when there's all this _magic_ in the world? Well, I got away, but not poor Meki. I don't even want to _think_ about how he died," he added, with a shudder.

"Well, come inside, and let me buy you something," said Kor. She bought him both mead and broth, although it broke her budget to do so.

It was a long time before he pushed his chair back. "I thank you with all my heart, Lass," he said. "That was for certain the best gift I ever received!"

"So what are you going to do now?" she asked.

He sighed. "I guess I have to wander," he said. "Try to find myself a new place and a new pack. And I guess I should start now, while my belly is still full."

Kor laid out several coins on the table. "Take this with you," she said.

He looked at her sadly. "I'll never be able to pay you back for this, Lass."

"There _is_ a way," she said. "Wherever you go, just _try_ to find work that helps other people. No hurting, no stealing, no lying. If you can't, you can't. Just _try_. That's what I'm asking in return."

For a moment, he seemed irritated. But then he calmed himself, and looked straight into her eyes. "I don't know if I can get or keep such a job," he said, "but I really will try, yes, I promise you that!"

"That's all I ask," she said.

**

That evening, as Kor was cleaning out the bathrooms, she said to Isiliar, "I guess you were right."

_I'd rather have been wrong_ , the goddess replied, inside her head.

"I know," said Kor. She worked silently for awhile, and then she said, "You know, it really is possible to hate crime, and still love a criminal."

_I think that's the best way_ , replied Isiliar. _That's the way I relate to mortals._
**********

"Did this problem come to you, or did you make it yourself?"

(from the popular song, "You're so creative! _"_ )

Anandra was gently cleaning the face of her desperately ill and comatose son, Kanior, when she heard a knock at the door. "Come in," she called. The door opened and Brother Koof appeared, accompanied by three others.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Anandra," said Brother Koof. "My name is Brother Koof, and I was standing near the gate when you first arrived. Well, I was invisible, so you probably didn't notice me. But I overheard you saying that the doctors you could afford were unable to help your son. Now, I, ah, have access to certain funding, through my Church, and so I have been able to obtain for you the services of Doctor A'Obija here, and her two assistants." The three of them bowed politely to Anandra, and she curtsied in return.

"If you don't mind," said Dr. A'Obija, "I would like to take a look at Kanior. I will not do anything painful or risky."

"Please," said Anandra, stepping away from Kanior, and gesturing for Dr. A'Obija to take her place. The doctor and her three assistants, all carrying luggage, entered the room and crossed to where Kanior lay in an improvised cradle on top of a dresser. The doctor was a short, slender woman with shiny, scaly skin. The top of her head was covered with large green scales rather than hair. She moved with sudden, darting motions.

After a quick glance at Kanior's crackling skin and sealed eyes, Dr. A'Obija found Kanior's pulse and followed it for about ten hundredbreaths, her face showing intense concentration. She then produced a pendulum, and held it over Kanior's face, watching it swing. Turning to Anandra, she said, "Did it begin with his skin turning green?"

"Yes, it did," said Anandra.

The doctor nodded and said, "I would like to touch his face with some Tarsanian gnomic paper. It is a purely diagnostic device, and will cause no pain or damage. May I?"

"Please, go ahead," said Anandra.

Opening one of her suitcases, Dr. A'Obija found a packet of paper and carefully removed one sheet. It was a very delicate, diaphanous paper, pure white in color. She laid it over Kanior's forehead, patting it down into contact with his skin. "We just need to wait for a few breaths," she said. As they stood there, the paper slowly turned red, and then disintegrated, finally disappearing completely.

"I knew it!" said Dr. A'Obija, smiling with pride and relief. "It's _Dergiker's Symbiont_! Your son is going to be just fine, Anandra!" She rushed over to Anandra and gave her a celebratory hug.

"But ... he seems to be quite ill," said Anandra.

"Ah, yes," said Dr. A'Obija, disengaging, "and he would have soon died, if it hadn't been for Brother Koof here." Brother Koof looked modestly at the ground. "You see," continued the doctor, "Dergiker's Symbiont is so rare, that most doctors have never even heard of it! They think the child has a disease, known as Torella-Nor Syndrome, which shares most of the symptoms of Dergiker's Symbiont. Then, of course, they apply the treatment for Torella-Nor syndrome. I suppose they gave you some orange cream to put on him several times daily, and perhaps also some blue-green pills."

"Yes," said Anandra, "they did. Both."

"Did they do any good?" asked Dr. A'Obija, with a twinkle in her eye.

"Well, no," said Anandra, "in fact, they seemed to make things worse!"

"I'm sure they did!" said Dr. A'Obija, nodding. "You must discontinue all that immediately. You see, those medicines provoke a violent allergic reaction in the symbiont. That's what Kanior's symptoms are! Once you discontinue the misguided treatment, the symptoms will disappear, and he will be fine."

"Well, what is it, then, if it's not a disease?" asked Anandra. "His skin turned green, and ..."

"A _symbiont_ ," said Dr. A'Obija, "is an organism that lives in or on another organism; in that it is like a parasite. But, unlike a parasite, a symbiont earns its keep. It makes a positive contribution to the host. Once he recovers, Kanior will be stronger, more energetic, and more resistant to disease and stress than he was before. He will even be able to get a little nourishment from sunlight – that's what the green is. His intuition will probably be stronger, and some people even develop paranormal abilities! Kanior is very lucky – most people are unable to be a host to Dergiker's Symbiont!"

"So ... I should just ... _leave_ it there?" asked Anandra.

"Yes!" said the doctor. "Well, you should take care of him in the normal way. It will take a few days for the allergic symptoms to recede, whereupon he will be fairly normal, except for the green color and some lassitude, for another week or so, while the symbiont establishes itself. At the end of that time, he should be normal – better than normal! Well, he will still be green, but now you know that's not a problem. If you like, I can come by tomorrow and the next day to check up on things."

"That would be nice," said Anandra, but she still seemed confused.

"Feel free to get a second opinion," said Dr. A'Obija, noting Anandra's hesitation, "but first, check to see whether the doctor you ask has even _heard_ of Dergiker's Symbiont. Otherwise, you will just be back where you were before, trying to cure a case of Torella-Nor syndrome that doesn't exist! But here, let me show you this book!" She opened another suitcase, and extracted a thick book with the title, _Rare Symbionts of Humans_. Flipping through the pages, she said, "Ah, here it is – 'Dergiker's Symbiont.' See? 'Initial symptoms – unusually green coloration of the skin and lassitude, the pendulum makes a 3-by-5 Lissajous figure, the pulse accelerates and decelerates with a period of about one-and-a-half hundredbreaths.' See these pictures? Isn't that what he looked like, when you first noticed something?"

"Well, yes," said Anandra, "it is."

"And now," said the Doctor, flipping a couple of pages ahead, "see here? It says, ' _Warning_ : Dergiker's Symbiont is often misdiagnosed as Torella-Nor Syndrome, but treatment for the latter will produce violent allergic reactions on the part of the Symbiont, resulting in degeneration, coma, and death.' See these pictures? Isn't that what he looks like now?"

"Well, yes," said Anandra, "it is!"

"And now," said Dr. A'Obija, "let me show you a typical textbook on human skin disease." She extracted another book from the suitcase. "You see?" she said, " 'Torella-Nor syndrome. Symptoms: Unusually green coloration of the skin, lassitude, the pendulum makes a 3-by-5 Lissajous figure, the pulse accelerates and decelerates with a period of about one-and-a-half hundredbreaths.' Now look in the other book – you see? Those are all symptoms of Dergiker's Symbiont, too! But they add that the Symbiont will eagerly devour Tarsanian gnomic paper, while the organism that causes Torella-Nor Syndrome has no interest in it!"

"The organism _ate_ the paper?" asked Anandra. "But ... I saw the paper disappear, but I didn't see anything eating it!"

"Your skepticism is quite rational!" said Dr. A'Obija, bowing respectfully to Anandra. "Indeed, we did not see anything eating the paper. And here is the reason: the symbiont is actually not a single animal or plant, but a whole ecosystem of organisms, all of which are too small to see! When they became aware of the paper, some of those organisms rushed onto it and began devouring it, reproducing madly at the same time. As each tiny organism became full, it laid between 50 and 70 eggs per breath. These eggs hatch in about one breath, so there were soon millions of them eating the paper. These organisms are red - that's what the red color was, that you saw! When the paper was all used up, they all flew back into Kanior's skin. See, the symbiont book explains it over here – see the picture of the red paper? And in this picture, the paper has almost disappeared. Isn't that what it looked like?"

"Well, yes," said Anandra, "it is. But this is amazing! I never heard of such a thing!"

"Few people have," said the doctor, with a smile of pride and pleasure. "That's why we have specialists!"

"Well, I – I'm very glad we do!" said Anandra.

"I'm rather happy about it myself," said Dr. A'Obija, still smiling. "Shall I see you tomorrow?"

"Well, yes, that would be wonderful," said Anandra. "And, needless to say, I am deeply grateful, more grateful than I can possibly say."

"No debit," said Dr. A'Obija, with a smile. "Brother Koof here has already paid my exorbitant fee with an Ytterbium disk that will keep my bank account healthy for a long, long time!" She smiled at Koof and patted him on the shoulder. "He is the one you should be most grateful to, for without him, I would never even have known your son existed!"

"Well, then, I am deeply grateful to you, too, Brother Koof," said Anandra, taking his hand in both of hers, and looking at him with large, liquid eyes.

Koof blushed and stuttered for a moment. Then he said, with a shy smile, "Well, ah, don't thank me, thank Shaliria!"

Anandra's eyebrows went up. "Do you know Shaliria?"

"No," said Koof, "but we have a mutual acquaintance, who I hope will introduce me." His blush deepened.

Anandra smiled. "I think that you are closer to her than you realize," she said.
**********

"I never said I wanted it easy."

(From the folk song, "Doing it the Hard Way _"_ )

Zarinia spoke into her seashell: "Lynx candles and fountain, hand outstretched, six. Listening." This meant: _We're out of rockets and hexed bolts. What shall we do?_

"Bulldog eight, Northern Lights healthy two," replied the dispatcher. This meant: Hold position as long as possible. At least your shield will protect that area from damage. "Squirrel dog days nine." That meant, We'll send you more ammunition as soon as we can. Zarinia wondered whether there was any to be sent; if her team was out, then so probably was everyone. "The blessings of Ydris will not fail you."

"The blessings of Ydris never fail," Zarinia responded, somewhat mechanically; "End." She relayed the message to her squad. She ordered them to load their crossbows with ordinary bolts and wind them, in case the shield should fail.

She was profoundly fatigued, but also terribly restless, with nothing to do but wait – for what? The coruscations on the shield showed that the enemy was still numerous. She raised her visor and rubbed her eyes.

Suddenly there was a great flash of light from the stairway entrance, and the roof beneath her feet shot up half a forearm and snapped back down, vibrating. She was thrown head over heels. While she was still upside down in the air, she heard the sound of a huge explosion.

She fell as she was trained to fall, hitting the floor prone, arms and legs extended, and making use of her armor to minimize injury. Catching her breath and wincing with pain, she looked around. Her entire squad was in the same condition. There was a scalding smell. Black smoke was pouring up from below, through the stairway entrance and through irregular cracks that had appeared in the floor. She rose, made her way with the gentlest possible steps to the stairway entrance. She could see nothing for the smoke, but she found a spear and probed with it. The stairway was gone! _We can't get down! But what's holding us up?_ As if in reply, one corner of the roof suddenly settled a forearm's length, and the cracks in the floor widened, spitting still more smoke; a long breath later, she heard the hiss and clatter of rubble falling far below. " _Nobody move!_ " she barked. One more jolt and the entire roof might collapse.

She ordered her squad's Witch, Altisia, to contract their shield so as to block off the door that had once been the entrance to their stairway. _No retreat, no reinforcements, no supplies_. The shield still blazed with hits from enemy weapons. She reported the situation to the dispatcher, who said they had no resources to deal with it immediately, and once again urged them to keep up the shield.

Their situation was desperate, but Zarinia was at a loss for something to do. She was the officer, she was in charge, she was responsible, but what orders could she give? She hardly dared to move, even to breathe, for fear of precipitating a catastrophic collapse. She could feel the roof vibrate with each explosion from the battle, and she feared that if she breathed too hard, it would give way. Her guts were hard as a rock, and try as she might, she couldn't keep her fear from pinching her face in, squinting her eyes, and making her tremble. She tried to regulate her breathing; her diaphragm was tighter than a wound catapult. Her mind searched desperately for a plan, any plan. Could they examine the damaged structure, and improvise some sort of repair? But even if they dared move, they had no materials for construction. Yet, doing nothing was driving her insane.

An idea occurred to her. She began to sing a familiar hymn, and the others joined in:

You, the compass of our lives,

You, the eyes that brim with love,

You, the arms that hold us close,

You, the hands that build and bless,

You, the guiding star at sea,

You, the touch from out the dark,

We are but a moment's flash

We are dewdrops in the grass

We are shadows in the dawn

We are mist before the sun.

We are yearnings, we are sadness,

We are empty, you are fullness

We are worry, you are joy,

Ever we question, and you reply.

We are the vessel, you are the clay,

You are the ground, on which we play.

For love of you, we try to be

A warming flicker on the hearth,

A guide to travelers in the dark,

An island in the alien sea.

In their singing, they found a kind of peace. When they came to the end, they began again. Then Sirinitha said, "Altisia is weakening!"

'Well, that about boils it away,' thought Zarinia. 'When the shield fails, the enemy will make quick work of us. Unless the roof collapses first!' Then an old saying came to her: "Make your enemy the means of your salvation." The ghost of a glimmer of an idea came to her. It took shape. She signaled for silence, and then said, "Everyone, very slowly, very gently, get into a standing crouch!"

For many of the Amazons, it took incredible courage to follow that order; they were all but frozen solid by the fear of setting off a cave-in. The tension was tighter than an overdrawn crossbow string. It seemed to take hours for everyone to arrange themselves.

Without warning, a large block of stone disappeared from one corner of the roof. A long time later, they heard a muffled crash.

"Altisia!" called Zarinia, "bring the shield down to wrap us and the roof as closely as you can! Make the ceiling of it as low as possible!" The Witch did so. The blazing shield came within a foot of Zarinia's eyes; she could smell her hair being singed. She saw the shield tremble and flicker; she knew that Altisia was nearing the end of her power. There was a grinding and scraping sound, and the floor began to vibrate even more intensely.

_Nowhere to go but ahead_ , thought Zarinia, and gave the order: " _Group mind!_ "

A moment later, the shield blinked suddenly out, revealing the Amazons to the thick cloud of deadly machines hovering over them.
**********

"May the gods forgive us our sins, as we forgive theirs."

(Murgilish Folk Saying)

The guards brought the man who called himself 'Mortal Part' back into the tent of the Captain. 'Mortal Part' had been interrogated, and was much the worse for wear.

"Learn anything?" asked the Captain.

"Not really," replied the Lieutenant. "He sticks to what he said before, going back and forth between being the creator and being a madman."

"Really," said the Captain, grimacing. "Well, I have learned something in the meantime. My friend, Major P'Tero, came up from Fort Dactal. He's in Intelligence, and he tells me that there's a different society not far from here – different language, more advanced in magic than the locals, more urban. Our universe-creating friend, here, has the typical features, it seems. They call themselves the 'Yuwessa.'"

_That sounds familiar_ , thought 'Mortal Part', _but then, why wouldn't it, if I created them?_

"Intelligence has only begun to investigate them," continued the Captain, "but the Major had a couple of things to say that are relevant to our prisoner." He paused to give 'Mortal Part' a searching glance. "It seems that many of the fashionably disaffected among the Yuwessa have a sentimental attachment for the Kolidor people; they consider them to be wonderfully primitive and unspoiled."

_Well, they are, now that I think of it_ , thought 'Mortal Part.' He felt a certain pride in having made them.

"Apparently some of those people like to come down here from time to time, to get away from it all," continued the Captain. "Major P'Tero's informants say that some of the disaffected also like to take hallucinogenic drugs. In particular, there is a drug called 'elucida,' which is obtained from the berries of a plant that grows around here. So a lot of them like to come down here, collect a few berries, and intoxicate themselves."

_I don't like the way this is going_ , thought 'Mortal Part.'

"Apparently," continued the Captain, smiling gently, "this 'elucida' is apt to create delusions of grandeur – even omnipotence."

'Mortal Part' suddenly felt very nervous, like an ant on a busy road. _Is that what has happened to me? And Lightbearer?_

"Not only that," said the Captain, "such people often overdose themselves. In which case, permanent brain damage can result, making the delusion permanent."

_No!_ thought 'Mortal Part', _That can't be!_

After a moment of silence, the Lieutenant said, "That would explain our friend here very nicely, wouldn't it?"

_It's a trick,_ thought 'Mortal Part.' _They are trying to demoralize me!_ Then an odd thought came to him: _If there_ _is_ _a creator, how would even_ _he_ _know for sure, that he's not hallucinating?_

"Yes, indeed," replied the Captain to the Lieutenant, nodding and smiling.

"Then he's not a spy."

"Well, it's still possible that he is," said the Captain. "In a way, it doesn't matter." He shrugged. "The question is," he said, looking at 'Mortal Part', with his eyebrows raised questioningly, "is whether he is for us or against us."

'Mortal Part' flinched, but said nothing.

Turning to his adjutant, the Captain said, "Bring in the native." The adjutant went to the door and called out some orders; a few moments later, some more soldiers entered, with a bound captive; it was, in fact, a man that 'Mortal Part' had met before, the man called "Kolidor."

"This man," said the Captain, "is a local priest. Such people delude and oppress the population, and so we get rid of them."

"Actually," said 'Mortal Part' nervously, "I've met him, briefly. He seemed very strange, but not evil. Not that I observed him for very long."

"We've studied the native population for a long time," said the Captain, "and we have found repeatedly that these priests, 'Kolidors' as they are called, are the backbone of the primitive, superstitious elements in their culture."

Kolidor looked at 'Mortal Part', smiled, and said something. "What did he say?" demanded the Captain.

"He said, ah, 'Everything that happens is perfect,'" said 'Mortal Part'. The Captain turned to his own interpreter, who nodded affirmatively.

"Yes," said the Captain, "that's apparently a crucial part of their ideology. Of course, you couldn't design a better defense against criticism of the _status quo_ , and against critical thinking generally."

"I got the impression," said 'Mortal Part', "that in this particular context, it was his way of saying that I shouldn't worry about what happens to him."

"Well, there is a kind of delicious irony there," said the Captain. "If everything is perfect, then our conquest of them is perfect, isn't it?"

"That would seem to follow," said 'Mortal Part'.

"Well, let's get on with it," said the Captain, making a sign to his adjutant, who drew his sword. Immediately most of the other soldiers in the tent drew their swords, and a number of them crowded closely around 'Mortal Part', who couldn't prevent his imagination from speculating on what it would feel like to have such a sword slide between his ribs. _They look very sharp_ , he thought. _It might not be terribly painful_. _Quite unpleasant, though._

"Now," said the Captain, "my adjutant is going to hand you a weapon, which you will use exactly as I say; anything else will result in your immediate death."

'Mortal Part' stood stunned, as the adjutant extended his hand, which contained a long, sharp, double-edged knife.

It wasn't hard to figure out what would come next. "No," he begged, "no, please! Don't! I swear, I'm not a spy, or anything like that! I just happened to be here!"

"If you don't want to die right now," said the Captain, " _take the knife!_ "

"No, no," said 'Mortal Part'. "Please. Please!"

Kolidor looked him in the eyes with an expression of indefinable happiness. " _K'Whelinin_ ," he said.

"What did he say?" demanded the Captain.

"He said, 'It's beautiful,'" said 'Mortal Part'. Again the Captain's interpreter concurred.

"Well, if _he_ doesn't mind, why should you?" asked the Captain.

'Mortal Part' took the knife. He didn't know how to hold it; after a little experimentation he found what seemed to be a good way.

"All right, now kill the Kolidor," said the Captain. The soldiers holding Kolidor tightened their grip, so that he could not move at all.

"What is – how do you do it?" asked 'Mortal Part.'

"Hold the blade at a bit of a slant," said the Captain. "Here, like this." Drawing a knife of his own, he demonstrated. "That's right. That's so it will slide between his ribs. As you push it in, it will tend to correct the angle by itself. Now, push it into his chest a little to the right - your right – of the center of his chest, about half a forearm down from the shoulder. Getting though the cloth and skin is the hardest part. When it's in as far as it can go, angle it this way and that, so that the cut inside is long. That way you'll be sure to strike the heart."

" _K'Whelinin_ ," said Kolidor again, smiling. In a vague sort of way, 'Mortal Part' understood and agreed. Like many people in immediate danger of death, he saw the beauty of life with great intensity. At the same time, he felt a terrible revulsion at the idea of killing. _This is silly_ , he thought, _I made a world that kills millions of them in a single breath! Why should one more bother me?_ He stood there for a moment, making small spasmodic motions. He felt impatience radiating from the Captain.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I – I just can't make myself do it!"

"He's going to die anyway," said the Captain. "I promise you that!"

" _K'Whelinin_ ," said Kolidor again; he spoke without drama, as if nothing special were happening. He was just ... cheerful.

'Mortal Part' began to shake, and suddenly, he vomited. He felt faint, and he hoped that he would lose consciousness, but he did not.

"I'm counting down from eleven," said the Captain. "You must do it by the time I get to zero. No second chance. Eleven, ten, nine, ..."

'Mortal Part' looked back and forth from his hand to Kolidor's chest. He suddenly felt very far away, as though he were looking at the scene from an infinite distance.

"...two, one, _zero_!" said the Captain. Immediately, a soldier grabbed 'Mortal Part''s wrist with one hand and twisted it in a very painful way that made the knife fall out, into the soldier's other hand. A soldier behind Kolidor ran him through; 'Mortal Part" saw the tip of the blade, streaked with red, emerge from Kolidor's chest. Kolidor arched his back and made a burbling sound, then collapsed.

"Well," said the Captain, as the soldiers carried Kolidor's body out, "whether you are a spy or not, you are evidently not with us. Is there anything you have to say?"

'Mortal Part' groped for words. "I'm sorry," he said, finally. As an afterthought, he added, "For everything."

The Captain sighed, then turned to his adjutant. "Stake him," he said, inclining his head to indicate 'Mortal Part'. The soldiers holding 'Mortal Part' began to hustle him off.

"No!" cried 'Mortal Part'. "You don't know what you're doing! I'm your _creator!_ " They ignored him. Passing through and out of the camp, they arrived at a cleared area near a cluster of native houses. Here, 'Mortal Part' saw many natives lying on the ground, secured by ropes tied to stakes. Some were screaming and wriggling violently, others were barely stirring. As the soldiers hurled him to the ground, he saw a naked man quite near him, moving slightly from time to time and occasionally moaning. The man was covered with red flies, especially his face. Evidently the flies were feeding on him, for his skin, where it showed, was raw, and slimy with blood and pus, except for a few islands of scab. In fact, 'Mortal Part' could see that the man's eyes were completely gone, and that the flies were feeding in the empty sockets. Flies were also crawling in and out of his mouth and nostrils.

Ripping his clothes away, the soldiers tied 'Mortal Part' down at every major joint, anchoring his bonds with stakes. Then they rubbed him all over with a wet cloth; from the smell, 'Mortal Part' inferred that it had been dipped in dilute honey. "Don't worry," said one of the soldiers, cheerfully, "it only takes a few days." The soldiers departed, and flies began to land on him. He closed his eyes. His skin crawled where he felt the flies, and he twitched, driving them off; but a moment later, they were back; he twitched again, driving them off; but a moment later, they were back; he twitched, driving them off; but a moment later, ... and so it continued.

In a small corner of his mind, a brief thought arose: _It's sort of like having desires. You have a desire, you do something to satisfy it, and for a moment you feel at peace, but then you feel desire again, ..._

He twitched ... and twitched ...

A few breaths later, he thought, _Well, I created this world, so I suppose it's only fair that I should suffer it myself._
**********

"Don't expect, create!"

(Kuno the Iconoclast)

Invisible, Brother Koof approached Kor's tent. "I'm ready," he whispered. A moment later, Kor appeared, carrying a broom. " _That's_ your _staff_?" asked Brother Koof, surprised.

"Well, just the handle part," said Kor. "I needed a broom, so I attached some twigs to it. I asked Sthen, and he said he didn't mind."

"Well, that's very ... _thrifty_ ," said Koof.

"Saved me having to use another piece of _tree corpse_ ," replied Kor. Koof nodded bemusedly. "Well," continued Kor, "just grab ahold of it, Koofie, and we're off!" Koof held on; He and Kor and her broom became invisible, and they took to the air. They waved at the Darestigan at the gate, as they went over the wall; he waved back. Apparently the invisibility spell was not effective with him. Soon they passed over the neighborhood wall, as well.

To most people outside the wall, they were invisible; but there was an exception: Tarthex Oslan, minion of the Lord of Evil, and erstwhile mentor of Tarth Sakul. He, too, was invisible, even to Kor and Koof, but his magically enhanced senses perceived them clearly. He had been waiting for them. His mission was to destroy Koof and kidnap Kor; the Lord of Evil intended to use Kor as a hostage to force Ydnas to bend to his will.

Oslan's magical senses told him that their powers were miniscule compared to his own, but he was curious as to what they were up to, so he decided not to attack them immediately. Instead, he followed them through the air, invisibly.

" _This_ is _fun_ ," said Koof, excitedly, as they soared over neighborhoods and parks, faster than any bird. Suddenly, in an eyeblink, Kor dropped down and shot through a small triumphal arch. " _Aaagh!_ " yelled Koof in fear, though they were already through.

"Sorry," said Kor, "I meant to add to your fun, but I guess I overdid it."

"Quite ... all right," replied Koof, gasping for breath, and feeling his whole body tingle.

"Don't worry, Dearie," said Kor, "it doesn't depend on _my_ co-ordination. I tell Sthen what I want, and if he can't do it, he won't try."

"Well," said Koof, "I think I've had enough excitement of that sort for this evening. Thank you, though."

"Here we are," said Kor. They slowed and settled toward a run-down neighborhood, and then toward a particular house. "Now," said Kor, "I'm going to go through the wall. You might want to close your eyes."

"Good idea," said Koof, and closed them.

"All right, Dearie" said Kor, a moment later. "We're inside; you can open them."

He did. They were hovering near the ceiling of a large, rather drab room. All the drapes were drawn, and light was provided by oil lamps and sunstones. At one end of the room, about ten naked children, ranging in age from about 5 to 17, sat manacled to chairs. A number of rough-looking men stood by. Another man, tall and thin, stood in front of them all, facing the people seated at the other end of the room. These were adults, mostly men. Many of them were gaudily dressed. Several of them held drinks or pipes, and several of these appeared to be quite intoxicated.

"Shall I go ahead?" asked Brother Koof.

"No, wait!" said Kor. "I want to be sure that your informant was correct."

"It's all too obvious, isn't it?" asked Koof, with an expression mixing sadness and disgust.

"Be patient with an old lady, Koofie," Kor replied. "Maybe we'll learn something of value."

"No tangle," said Koof, shrugging. "Just give the word."

The tall, thin man rang a bell, and the room quieted down.

"Your attention, please," said the tall man. "You have all had time to examine the merchandise; now the auction will begin. When you hear me mention a price, if you are willing to pay that price, raise your hands well above your head, with your fingers curled and your thumbs hooked together, like this." He demonstrated. "Please be advised that once a bid is made, it cannot be taken back, so be careful not to do it unless you really mean it. Our first item is this handsome and healthy young boy, here, ..."

Kor had heard enough. "Go, Koofie!" she said. Koof made a gesture and muttered a spell. Suddenly all the people in the room, except for Kor, Koof, Tarthex Oslan (still invisible), and the children, became terribly sleepy; they lay down and produced a complex counterpoint of snores. "All clear," said Koof.

"Good job!" said Kor, enthusiastically. _I wish I'd teamed up with this guy before_ , she thought. They dropped to the ground. Kor became visible; the kids looked frightened. "Don't worry, kids," said Kor, showing her empty hands and standing still for a moment, radiating her most pleasant grandmotherly smile. "I'm here to rescue you! My name is Kor. My invisible friend and I have put all these people to sleep, and they are going to stay that way, until we get you out of here. Do any of you know who has the keys to your manacles?"

"The tall one," said one of the older girls.

_Do-gooders_ , thought Tarthex Oslan, with acid disgust, as Kor began checking the pockets of the tall man, _I'd like to kill them both, but the Lord wants the woman as a hostage._ Gathering power in the pit of his stomach, he channeled it up through his torso and arms, exulting in his power, and preparing, with great gusto, to blast Koof, who was quite visible to him, into dust.

Suddenly, Ydnas and the mute boy were standing in front of him. The mute boy held a sphere of light in his hands. Tarthex Oslan had barely time enough to be astonished, as a hemispherical shell of light exploded from the sphere and passed instantly through him. Kor looked up, surprised. Ydnas and the boy were visible to her, but the sphere had disappeared. Tarthex Oslan was also now visible, as a vaguely humanoid cloud of seething darkness; but he seemed trapped in an invisible cage.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Ydnas addressed Oslan: " _Let them go_ ," she said.

Writhing in captivity, Tarthex Oslan responded with a savage, inarticulate growl. Forked lightning darted over the inside of the invisible cage. Vidigeon observed his distress, but did not send aid; although higher in rank in the Guardians of Evil than Tarth Sakul, Tarthex Oslan was subject to the same rule of self-sufficiency.

"Let them go," repeated Ydnas, and continued: "For three hundred and thirty-three years, you have been like a minor god. That is enough."

Oslan growled again. His growl was very deep and very loud. Kor, frozen in surprise, could feel his growl shaking the floor and walls. Furniture rattled.

"Let them go," said Ydnas, "and I will see that everyone gets to the Afterworld, including your original identity."

" _Traitor!_ " roared Oslan. " _You will die!_ _I will break this spell and smash you!_ " The lightning grew faster and more jagged, probing the inside of the cage like fingers searching for a crack. His growl became a roar. The house began to shake even harder. Oslan's eyes appeared, glowing like coals. Kor thought of fleeing, but she was frozen in place by fear and fascination.

"Have mercy on them," said Ydnas. "After all, they are you, and you are they. Their agony is your agony, and their release will be yours."

" _If I do not defeat you, your Father will!_ " screamed Oslan. " _You will writhe in pain eternally!_ " Several glasses fell off the table and broke. Cracks appeared in the walls. Kor was pitched off her feet by the vibrating floor. Panic-stricken, she started to crawl towards the door.

Your **father?** thought Kor. She has a – her father is –

"Break free, all of you, break free, all at once!" said Ydnas.

"AAAAAAAAARRR!" thundered Oslan. "I will torment you for this, traitor! You will regret it forever!"

"The Many return to the One, and the One returns to the Many," replied Ydnas. "It is the Law of the Universe!" Plaster began dropping from the ceiling. Kor felt Koof's hand on her shoulder. Her panic receded. She remembered Sthen. "Sthen!" she called. "Come to me!" Her broomstick, which had been hovering near the ceiling, flew to her.

"Many adventures await you," said Ydnas to Tarthex Oslan. "Don't be infatuated with this one! Don't be trapped by pride and wishful thinking!"

With a loud snap, a window shattered; shards fell hissing to the floor behind the closed drapes.

"Grab my broom and close your eyes!" shouted Kor to Koof. "We're getting out of here!" At one corner of the room, with a great screeching and popping, the two walls came apart.

"A dandelion," said Ydnas, "is not afraid to scatter its seeds." As soon as Koof touched the staff, he became visible to Kor. One end of a rafter fell, striking the floor behind them with a deep, reverberant _THUNK!_

"Sthen, get us out of here!" yelled Kor, and in a flash, they were outside, forty feet from the house. The entire building was vibrating rapidly, shooting off waves of dust.

"Oh, my soul! I forgot the kids!" said Kor. "Sthen! Take us back in!" As if to welcome them, a section of wall fell outward, like a drawbridge. They flew in, and over to the kids, who were screaming and coughing. Kor couldn't find the key. She and Koof each grabbed two kids along with their chairs, and Sthen dragged them all outside. Then they returned for more.

" _They are you, you are they!_ " Ydnas was chanting. " _Feel their agony! Let them go!_ " Kor and Koof took another four children out, and returned for more. " _Save your honor_ ," Ydnas was saying. " _Do it yourself!_ " Tarthex Oslan made a great roar. Suddenly the noise and motion stopped.

Where Tarthex Oslan had stood, there was now something quite different: a ball of brilliant blue-green light. "Don't worry," said Ydnas to Kor. "No harm." Suddenly the blue-green ball exploded, like the payload of a roman candle, and what was left of the room was filled with little winking blue-green lights, like fireflies.

"Souls!" said Kor, wonderingly.

"Yes," said Ydnas, smiling tenderly, "they are free now." She held out her hands before her, together, palms up. The souls converged into a ball again, resting on her hands. "I will take them. Some to Tellamir, some to Underworld."

"But ... what happened?" asked Kor.

"Bad wizard followed you," said Ydnas. "Wanted to kill Koof, take Kor. But I saw him. No tangle now."

"Why didn't you warn us?" asked Kor, outrage rising up in her. "Do you have _any idea_ what you just put us through?"

"Wanted to _catch_ him," said Ydnas, in a matter-of-fact tone. With that, she and the mute boy disappeared.

Kor ranted and fumed for a long time, shaking her fists and stamping. Then, getting ahold of herself, she turned back to the remaining children. They looked terribly frightened, and many were crying, or looking zombie-like. "Well, Dearies," she said, "I'm sorry; I guess it wasn't as simple as I thought. All that must have scared the breath out of you. It certainly scared _me_! But if you think about what happened, I believe you will see that we really were trying to rescue you, we really did mean well. Then those other people came in. But now they are gone. Remember, we did rescue those four, and we were coming back for the rest of you. We had no idea that it was going to be so difficult and frightening. We didn't know that that big black fellow was going to come here, or those two children. But I believe we are all right now. We are going to free you, get you out of here, and get you back to your parents." The kids were all silent, and none would meet her eyes. "I don't blame you if you find it hard to trust us," said Kor, "after all you've been through. But you may as well co-operate with us." _I shouldn't have put it that way_ , she thought _, it sounds as though I am threatening them. But, rend and shatter me, what am I supposed to say?_ Resuming her search, she finally found the keys, and removed the children's manacles. She took her time, comforting each one as she freed them, and hoped that none of them would try to run away, for then she and Koof would have to apprehend them, and thereby appear to be just another set of kidnappers. None of them ran. Kor breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you going to take me home, now?" asked a little boy, in a trembling, squeaky voice.

"Yes, Dearie," said Kor, "as soon as we can figure out where that is. And you can stay with us, if it takes awhile to figure it out."
**********

"In History, a pendulum swings between order and chaos."

(from the 233rd Arc-Telingian Prophecy)

It was a light and airy space. A songbird flew in from a large open window, which also admitted fresh midday air and lambent sunlight. The bird perched on the sill, and, between pecks at some seeds that had been spread there, playfully made ripples and sparks of song. With a heavy heart, Srea Kula entered, feeling completely out of harmony with the pleasant scene.

"Srea Kula!" said the Bishop, standing and smiling. "So nice to see you! It's been much too long! Please have a seat!" They both sat. She was a woman of about sixty, wearing the traditional white robes with blue trim, and the white, double-pointed hat with a minimal, fine-meshed veil coming over the face. Her voice was thin and a bit reedy.

"I'm glad I was able to find a little time for you, on such short notice!" she said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm afraid I have bad news, Holy Speaker," said Srea Kula, nervously and apologetically.

Her eyebrows wrinkled up. "Oh?" she said. "I'm sorry to hear that! What is it?"

"Well ... " said Srea Kula, finding it extremely difficult to proceed, "I ... I'm afraid I'm ... having a ... well, I guess you could call it a ... a _crisis of faith_." He put his hand to his head and looked at the ground, embarrassed and ashamed. He could hear his heart speeding up.

To his surprise, the Bishop leaned back and laughed. "Well, it's about time!" she said, getting up and coming over to him. "I thought you would never get around to it! What are you, about fifty-five now?"

"Fifty-seven," he said, standing respectfully as she approached.

"Ah, fifty-seven," she said, hugging him, and patting him on the back. "Welcome to the choir!" She disengaged and stepped back. Her bright blue eyes were still sparkling with amusement.

"You mean – _you've_ had a crisis of faith?"

"Kui, I don't mean to belittle what you are experiencing, but, well, _everyone_ has a crisis of faith sooner or later! How could anyone _not_? How old were you, Kui, when you took your priestly vows?"

"Why ... twenty-three, I guess!"

"So," the Bishop replied, "you were still quite new to adult life. You then proceeded to move to a new place, and a job you'd never had before. There you met a great variety of new people from various backgrounds, and learned the intimate details of their lives, following their soarings and plungings over the course of many years. You saw great victories, but also terrible tragedies. At the same time, you became a husband and father. You followed political and social events in the great world. You found time to read many scriptures, and great works of Literature and Philosophy, and to discuss them with others. You interacted with colleagues and parishioners at your job. You discovered your strengths and weaknesses as husband, father, priest, and friend. Then, there was your adventure with your parishioner and the, ah, opera singer, during which you actually observed and conversed with the Holy Family and Kshaloka! Now, you are over twice as old as when you took your vows, your children are grown, many of your original parishioners have died, and you and your wife are alone again. Knowing what you know now about life, Kui, do you find it credible that anyone, at the age of twenty-three, could be other than terribly naïve?"

"Well," replied Srea Kula nervously, shuffling his feet, "I ... I suppose, ... well, in some ways, but ... I mean, I didn't create my ideas myself, then, after all – I studied the Scriptures, and Theology, and I prayed for guidance. I may have been only twenty-three, but my tradition was thousands of years old! And who knows how old the gods themselves are?"

"Yes, that is an excellent point, Kui, and that's one reason that we _have_ a tradition! But it's not so simple – a young person can read the same text as an older one, but what will he _make_ of it? What will it _mean_ to him? Now, when you were twelve, Kui, what part of the _Family Scriptures_ appealed to you?"

"Why," said Srea Kula, a little sheepishly, "it was _The Book of Kings and Warriors!_ "

"Of course!" replied the Bishop. "There's no shame in that, Kui! It is the same with all boys that age! They want to read about battles and quests! There is always some terribly important goal, and it is very difficult to reach, and many nasty and violent beings are out to prevent you, but with indomitable courage, physical strength, and a bit of craftiness, you can fight your way through it all to triumph! But, you eventually learned that the world was not like that."

"Yes, I remember that," said Srea Kula. "I remember feeling ... angry!"

"Did you read _The_ _Book of Darkness_ at that age? Or _The_ _Book of Reasons_?"

"Well, I guess I looked at them, but ... _The_ _Book of Darkness_ was too depressing, and _The_ _Book of Reasons_ was too abstract! I couldn't make head or tail of it! Even at Ovulary, many years later, I found them difficult. I studied them hard, I read commentaries, and I passed my exams, but they were not very meaningful to me."

"You might find it to be different now, Kui," said the Bishop. "In fact I often recommend Chapter Six of _The_ _Book of Darkness_ to those who are having a crisis of faith. But do you see my point? When you are young you may force yourself to read such things, but do you really get anything out of them? Well, something, no doubt, but nothing like what you will get out of them eventually. For this reason, we never ask anyone, even Ovularians, to read _The Book of Old Age_ until they are at least seventy years old. And only intellectuals will want to read _The Second Book of Reasons_!"

"Well ... that's very interesting, Holy Speaker," said Srea Kula, "but there is a problem. I feel that it would be ... hypocritical ... to ..." Again, Srea Kula found it difficult to proceed.

"Take your time, Kui," said the Bishop, perching on the edge of her desk, smiling, and looking very relaxed.

"Ah, thank you, Holy Speaker," said Srea Kula, finding himself short of breath. "I feel that I must ... resign from my priestly duties! ... I can't ... honestly ... be a priest ... when my heart is full ... of ... _doubts_!" A terrible grief began to well up in him, and a terrible fear, and a terrible disorientation ... he had never, since he was a young man, imagined himself as anything other than a priest!

"Ah, what wonderful courage and honesty it took to say that!" she said, leaving her desk and hugging him again. "But it's not so bad as you think, Kui. We'll just promote you, that's all! And you can return to the priesthood later, if you so desire."

"Promote me?"

"Well," she said, "we should reward you in _some_ way for being less naïve, shouldn't we? But it's up to you – perhaps you'd like to be a hermit for awhile, or work for Buildings and Grounds, or go back to school. The question is, what do you feel the need for?"

"I need _time_ ," said Srea Kula, with a touch of desperation in his voice. "Time to _think!_ "

"Hmm ... you know what? I think we should make you a guest member of some cloister. There's one not far from the Cathedral, you know – the Grelgarth Cloister, on the Isle of Grelgarth, in Lake Shaliar. You would have your own little cabin, but they also have a substantial library, and group discussion times – purely optional! – at the main cloister."

"Why ... that might be quite good!" said Srea Kula, surprised to notice himself perking up a little.

"Of course, we shouldn't commit ourselves too quickly," said the Bishop. "For one thing, Shilikinara should be involved in this decision, too! How has this been for her?"

"Well, a bit stressful, I'm afraid. Of course, she's been very supportive, but it's been hard for her. She's been quite happy with our life, except for missing the kids ... and all of this comes from outside her, unexpectedly."

The Bishop nodded. "It's a crisis for her, too," she said, "and we must take that into account. Why don't the three of us get together, next Motherday? I'm afraid I can't give you any more time today, I'm already behind."

"I think that will be fine," said Srea Kula.

"Good!" she said, giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. "Get a time from my secretary, as you go out. I'll see you then!"

"Well, yes, I'll see you then!" said Srea Kula, and departed. He felt much better, though a little confused.

As Srea Kula passed through the waiting room, he passed the Bishop's next visitor, a man in the deep blue robe of a Discussant. The secretary gestured to the Discussant, who nodded and entered the Bishop's office.

"Good day, Discussant," said the Bishop cheerfully, rising to meet him.

"Good morning, Holy Speaker," said the Discussant. "I am Discussant Tulo." They touched knuckles.

"Have a seat, Discussant Tulo," said the Bishop, returning to her own chair. "What can I do for you?"

"I come to discuss bad news," he said. "Our Church appears to be losing coherence. In the last half-year, as you know, three different schismatic movements of significant size have emerged. It is becoming difficult to build a majority in the Council for anything, due to factionalism. Many theological discussions are at an impasse."

_It's beginning_ , she thought, with a bit of a chill. Silently, she made a quick prayer for divine guidance.

"Why do you think this is happening?" she asked, leaning forward with a serious expression. Privately, she thought, _It could be just maturation pains, just as I hope Srea Kula's crisis is._ It bothered her that she did not feel comfortable making such a remark out loud.

"Some people think that it is due to the Prophecies," said the Discussant. "As the time for the Great Transformation draws near, people are deprived of a sense of security in things as they are. They become anxious and ... unstable. To be sure, different people have different degrees of faith in the prophecies. Among those who are strongly inclined to believe, some argue that since the Prophecies themselves say that the direction of the Great Transformation cannot be described in advance, our best response is to be highly flexible and creative. Others say that certain of the prophecies tell us what to do. Naturally, the former group wants to encourage exploration and diversity, while the latter wants to discourage them. Each group has factions within it. The optimists in each group and faction believe that the others will eventually accept their arguments, while the pessimists are girding themselves for a struggle."

"Do our theorists think that schisms are inevitable?" she asked.

The Discussant pondered for a moment. "There are wide differences of opinion about that, too."

The Bishop paused for a moment with closed eyes, and then took her chalcedony scepter from its stand. She stood, holding it horizontally before her, with one hand at each end.

"Diversity of opinion is not the same as schism, nor need it lead to schism," she said, "nor should it lead to schism. Schism is not primarily a failure of agreement; it is a failure of humility, optimism, and trust." She felt better, for now she was saying just what she was thinking.

"There are many who agree with you," said the Discussant, "and that is why they are disturbed to see schismatic movements, and deadlocks, and impasse."

"Fear is the culprit," replied the Bishop, "or, I should say, _giving in_ to fear. As it says in _The Book of Good and Evil_ , 'Giving in to fear is a great source of evil among mortals.' "

The Discussant made a little bow with his head, expressing respect for the scripture. "Then," he said, "there are those who say that the Great Transformation has already progressed so far, that the Balance has already been lost."

"Whether that is so or not," said the Bishop, still holding her scepter, "it appears that we are about to fall into a great abyss of uncertainty. At such a time, we will depend more than ever on the counsel of the friendly gods. And those gods have clearly told us to cast our lot with humility, optimism, and trust. Always."

"Isn't it contrary to the spirit of Theo-Anarchy to keep people together in large groups, as opposed to letting them go their own way?" The Bishop knew that the Discussant was not arguing with her, not being adversarial, but only raising the issues that he knew were significant to others.

"To use deception, bribery, or threats to keep people together would be opposed the to the spirit of Theo-Anarchy," she replied, "and if the only way to hold our Church together would be to use one of those methods, then I agree, it would be better to let it break. But human solidarity is not contrary to Theo-Anarchy, quite the contrary! This solidarity must be built by insight sharing, and by _acts_ of solidarity, not by coercion and the like."

"You don't think there's a tipping point?" asked the Discussant.

The Bishop laid down her scepter. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, if the organization can't function because of deadlock, then wouldn't it be better for it to divide into several organizations, each of which _can_ function?"

The Bishop took up her scepter again. "For some organizations, that can be so, but not for us. Our duties are too important. If deadlock can be avoided no other way, then we might give each faction great autonomy _within_ the organization. That might appear to be just a disguised form of schism, but it is not. As members of a larger group, smaller groups have many ways to communicate, and many reasons for mutual support. After schism, you will have groups in competition. Communication and negotiation between them will be much harder, for many channels will have been cut.

"Commitment to remaining together is not a commitment to everyone's thinking alike," she continued. "It is a commitment to dealing with our differences in a constructive way, working things out in a manner that is honest, noncoercive, and non-corrupting.

"What is necessary, is _not_ to split. What is necessary, is to recover the humility, optimism, and trust that we have lost. What is necessary, is to find courage!

"Commitment to remaining together means that we will _have_ to resolve deadlocks, in order to continue with the basic processes of our lives. Resolving deadlocks means that some people will have to find the humility to admit that not everything depends on others agreeing with them about everything. Commitment to remaining together means facing the Great Transformation _together_ , making the maximal use of all our diverse talents and resources. Schism always makes it more difficult to co-operate and share." _And that_ , she thought to herself, _is why I want to keep Srea Kula in the Church, even if it means finding a totally new role for him._ And then she thought, _Individuals start to fall apart, society starts to fall apart. Each encourages the other._

The Discussant raised another objection: "Isn't an unqualified commitment to remaining together just asking for domination by the most intransigent?"

Pulling herself back to the issue at hand, the Bishop said, "No, because they will always be in a minority."

The Discussant took a deep breath. "Suppose," he said, very nervously and deferentially, "suppose someone said, that you were acting as an advocate of centralism here?"

The Bishop was taken aback. To be called a 'centralist,' in Kondrastibar, under Theo-Anarchy, amounted to a denunciation. She put down her scepter, and paused to recover her equilibrium. She took several slow, deep breaths, knowing that the Discussant would well understand her reaction. Finally, she took up her scepter again and replied.

"I am not advocating the use of force, fraud, or manipulation to maintain unity," she said. "I am advocating, to each individual, that he never identify so strongly with any particular group that he feels free to make ethical distinctions in the way he treat 'insiders' and 'outsiders,' to the detriment of the latter. Theo-Anarchy does not mean insularity."

The Discussant nodded. "I am sorry to have to ask such a sensitive question," he said.

"I understand," she said, not without a sigh. "It is your job to ask such questions. I commend you for doing so."

"What do you suggest, in the way of immediate action?"

"More communication," she said, "and more acts of Love. Now that you have made me aware of the magnitude of this problem, I will call on the other Bishops to deal with these issues frequently and openly. I will make my views known, and consider theirs. And I will do whatever I can to help them with whatever problems they may have."

The Discussant stood and bowed. "Thank you, Divine Speaker. I think that you have identified and addressed a crucial issue."

The Bishop returned her scepter to its stand. "Thank you for coming, Discussant Tulo."

"That is my job," he replied, with a smile.

"And a very important job it is," she replied. "Never hesitate to come see me if it feels appropriate."

"I won't." He bowed again, and they embraced, exchanging goodbyes. He left the room.

She sat down, and allowed her face to relax, for a moment, into lines of deep fatigue. Then she collected herself again, and began to pray.

Seeing her do so, Vidigeon felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy. 'How hard it must be,' he thought, 'To be so open-minded, and to have to make such important decisions on the basis of so little knowledge. I am made to be incapable of lacking faith in my Lord's will; this simplifies my life immensely.' He then reflected that sympathy involved a value-judgment, something he had great conceptual difficulty with. He was strongly inclined to the view that values were unreal, that they were just projected by beings with desires onto things, while the things in themselves were neither good nor bad. Not wishing to be deluded, he tried to stop feeling sympathy with the Bishop, but he was only partially successful.
**********

"A bit of humor is good evidence that a scripture is truly divine."

(Hermeneutics and Validation, by Rodi Kilowan)

For a second time, Ydnas addressed a group. This time, she stood behind a lectern, with a book on it.

"Today, won't talk about my own ideas," she said. "I will read from scripture. Scripture comes from the _Church of Magda_. Not trying to convert you to this church, not saying this scripture contains perfect truth. Maybe interesting, maybe makes you think, wonder. Hope so."

She's a bit more self-confident today, thought Tulith.

"Church of Magda has maybe two thousand people. Big scripture, _the Prophets of Magda_ , says it has words from their god. God is called 'Magda.' Words in book come from different prophets. Prophets say, Magda made world and human beings. They say Magda has many names, many churches. They say there is another god, called "Maderpin." Maderpin is sometimes called "the Divider," because Maderpin wants mortals to be against each other. I will read some words where Magda gives humans advice, how to live."

Opening the book to a place marked by a ribbon, Ydnas began to read:

Listen respectfully to Maderpin, when he says to you that you are imperfect; but do not believe him. Why would I, your maker, have created you with flaws? There is no flaw in my love for you, nor is there any limitation in my ability to fashion you as I see fit. Therefore, you are without flaw, and so are all of your brothers and sisters. And even if you were flawed, what would be the point of your judging so? For if you were flawed, your judgment could not be trusted.

If you think you are flawed in judgment, you may be always trying to correct yourself. But how can you do that? To correct yourself, you would have to be already correct. If you are flawed, then trying to correct yourself is like leaving a weasel to guard the ducklings. Nagging yourself will not make you a better person, any more than it will change your height or weight. Know that you are perfect, and turn your mind to other things.

For the same reason, what is the good of taking an oath? If you are sufficiently flawed, even an oath will not bind you. But perhaps your flaws are small enough so that an oath will bind you; but if you are flawed, you may take the wrong oath, in which case you are now unable to change your actions, even if you realize your mistake, for you have bound yourself.

If you are flawed in your essential nature, how will you fix yourself? It is not because it is mixed with something else that salt is salty; likewise, although you may obtain various things from outside yourself, you cannot overcome your basic flaws in this way. If you are flawed, will it help to consult the wise? No, for it is you, the flawed one, who has to decide first who is wise and who is not, and since you are flawed, you may make the wrong decision, and consult a fool or a knave. If you are flawed, will it help to consult scriptures? No, for if you are flawed, you may well choose scriptures from a maleficent god, or from a mistaken mortal. Or, even if you choose the right scriptures, you may, being flawed, misinterpret them. And even if you interpret them correctly, your flaws may cause you to abandon their teachings when temptation appears.

You cannot escape your own nature. Cherries are not picked from a cakefruit tree, and cakefruits are not picked from a cherry tree. If you are intrinsically flawed, your attempts at self-improvement will inevitably be flawed as well.

Therefore, try to have faith that I who made you am not incompetent. Do not hesitate to do what seems right to you. The sun does not hide her light, and neither should you. If you truly respect me, you will not be ashamed of displaying my work, just as it is. Do not be ashamed to be seen naked, either in body or in soul. You might just discover that you are beautiful.

And if you should find yourself thinking poorly of others, remember that they too are my creations, and that I can alter or destroy them at any time; therefore, since I have not done so, I must love them just the way they are, no matter how puzzling that may seem to you. And this is true; I do love them all, even the sick, the insane, the stupid, the evil, the incompetent, and yes, even those who don't believe in me. If you do not find them worthy of love, then you must think that I am an idiot.

Even Maderpin, the Divider, is my own work. You should therefore love him, as do I. I made him to test you, and he is doing so, faithfully and single-mindedly. He's very good at what he does. He offers you a suggestion, and you are always free to say "No." If you say "Yes," that is your doing, not his.

For similar reasons, I suggest that you not offer me advice when you pray. If you pray for something that I am going to do anyway, it is pointless. If you pray for something that I would not have done anyway, then you apparently think I am incompetent without your help.

In general, I suggest that you not pray in a spirit of calculation. If you pray, let it be an exclamation! For example, if you love me, then pray, "Oh, Magda, how I love you!" If you hate me, then pray, "Oh, Magda, how I hate you!" Yes, it is natural for you to hate me from time to time; that is the way you are made. If you hate me, but you do not say so, do you think I will not know? I know better than you the thoughts that agitate your mind, not only those on the surface, but those that lurk in the depths. Do you think I would be insulted by words, but not by the thoughts behind them? Do you think I am especially pleased when you lie to me, hide your anger from me, and flatter me? Fear not: no reprimand, whether in words or in thoughts, will bother me, for I know with absolute certainty that I am utterly without flaw. Besides, I made you so that you would hate me from time to time; why then would I be angry when you do so? So go ahead, and express yourself honestly.

Likewise, it is pointless for you to give me gifts. It is all mine already. If you must sacrifice an animal, then, at least be sure to make a feast from it afterwards, and enjoy yourselves; otherwise, the animal has died in vain. And please, don't try to bribe or wheedle me! You will only be embarrassed later, when you think about what you have done.

Try to remember that there is no flaw in the world I have made for you. Everything in it is good, beautiful, and right. I know that it is hard for you to see it that way. This is not a flaw in you, there is a reason for it. I made you to be fallible. So if you realize that you have fallen into the error of seeing the world otherwise, or any other error, do not be angry at yourself; you are doing just what I made you to do. Just absorb your new insight, and continue with your life.

Those of you who are poor will often be angry at me, or at the world that I have made; but the fact is, that it is easier for the poor to enter into Paradise, for they eat real bread, and know that it is real, or they eat nothing, and know that it is nothing; whereas the rich consume nothingness, and think that it is real. For this reason, it is easier for an elephant to live in a thimble, than it is for a rich person to enter Paradise. By 'entering Paradise,' of course, I mean realizing that you are already there; for what would I create, except a Paradise?

Concerning wealth, my advice is, that if you have a choice, you should live simply and comfortably, if you can do so without harming others; but there is no reason to deliberately deprive, damage, or torment yourself, just for the sake of doing so.

Look at yourself; you were clearly made to sense, to think, to judge, to speak, and to act, and to do all these things in community. Do those things. It won't require a terrible effort, if you don't get in your own way.

It even makes sense for you to love those who injure you, since in reality they too are without flaw. If someone injures you, it is pointless to injure him in return; that will not take back what he has done. In fact, nothing you can do can change the past, so get on with your lives! Let the past be a source of wisdom, and nothing more.

If you realize that those who injure you are without flaw, you will spontaneously love them. If anyone were truly and deeply injured, it would be those who deliberately injure others, for they are deluded: they are angry at a perfect world, and they hope to improve it by trying to damage parts of it. They are like sick people who hallucinate demons attacking them, and flail about wildly, injuring those who are trying to help them. Would you want to change places with such a person? But that is just what revenge and retribution amount to.

Insofar as you are not hallucinating, then, you will love those that hate you, heal those who injure you, and stand by those who fail you. In fact, it is just those who can use your help the most.

Why, then, you ask, should we strive for what we see as good and against what we see as evil? The answer is, that you do not need a reason, for it is in your nature to do so, as it is in the nature of water to run downhill. And what would it be, to give a reason? It would be a demonstration that it is good to be good, and bad to be bad. Does anyone really need such a demonstration?

Everyone you encounter has something to teach you. The more different someone is from you, the more he has to teach. Some people think that they have many terribly important things to teach others, but nothing to learn from them. How strange! I suggest that you learn first, then teach, for you will have fewer painful regrets this way. Also, what you have to teach will emerge spontaneously; your life will be your teaching. It is not necessary to make plans to teach people something, or to put your teaching into words; in fact, you don't even have to think about teaching; it will happen by itself. You may even be surprised at what other people learn from you.

You can certainly learn from other religions. Do not worry, if the Scriptures of Magda lose their savor for you, or if other religions attract you. I am not a jealous god; I am eternally perfect and need nothing, so what is there for me to be jealous over? Besides, all religions are my religions, since I created them. I made religion for you, not the other way around. You may as well select the religion that has the most appeal to you at the present time. Or no religion at all.

But you are not here just to teach each other; you are here to help one another, and to accept help from one another, in various ways. That is why you appear to be imperfect: those who are perfect, you think, need no help. But really, what we call 'helping' is not the repairing of an imperfection; it is just a kind of dance. One dances the helper, and another dances the one being helped. Do not feel bad about being the one being helped, for he too is essential to the dance. Then you will be in Paradise.

Ydnas closed the book and looked up. "That is all I read today," she said. "I would like us to be quiet for a few breaths, and then, maybe you say something."

_What an interesting scripture_ , thought Tulith, _so clear, so gentle! It is hard to accept, though. How can I think this world is perfect?_

Behind her, Koof whispered to Anandra: "Magda says not to make a formal thing out of teaching, but isn't that what Ydnas just did?"

"Well, people have been asking her to," whispered Anandra, "and so she is teaching something with her life, too: her life is saying, 'Take a step towards others, give them what they ask for, if it is not terrible, even if it is not what _you_ would have asked for.'"

"Forgive me," replied Koof, "but that is a labored excuse."

"I'll forgive you if you forgive me," said Anandra.

"I know you better than that, said Koof. "You'll never forgive me, because you're never angry with me."

"Will you forgive me for _that_?"

"Never!" he grumbled.

_What an interesting relationship they have_ , thought Tulith. She felt a little guilty at eavesdropping, but she did it anyway. _I'm imperfect_ , she thought.

_This is wonderful_ , thought the spy from the Guardians of Evil, _Ydnas is telling people not to complain, criticize, strive, or fight back! When the Lord's forces move to take over Kondrastibar, her followers will welcome them with open arms, and garlands of flowers!_
**********

"Aren't you a symbol of something?"

(Elskredia Kirr, playwright, Sumong Aristocracy)

Ling (a.k.a. Torothex) said goodbye to his friends after the opera, and began to walk towards his home. The streets were dark and deserted, but this had never bothered Torothex in the past, for the neighborhood was virtually crime-free. From a lifetime of habit, however, Ling was on the alert, and he was hardly out of sight of the others when his (or rather, Torothex's) skin began to crawl. _Something's wrong here,_ he thought, _what is it?_ He continued walking as though unconcerned, while scanning for places dark enough to hide someone. He pretended to drop something, so that he would have an excuse to turn around and scan behind him.

**

Torothex had gone frequently to operatic performances. Ling had been avoiding those memories, since he had a short time in which to learn such things as the identities, social positions, and personalities of the huge number of people with whom Torothex was likely to interact, the issues he was likely to discuss, and the actions he was likely to take. It was a very alien world to Ling, and in spite of seeing it before his eyes every day, he still had a hard time believing it really existed. He often noticed that something he said or did seemed puzzling to others; he took this to mean that his impersonation was flawed. He hoped that he would be able to perfect it before those flaws led to a disaster.

Torothex's memories showed him to be deeply interested in the arts, including opera; rather than seeing the arts as mere luxury or entertainment, he saw them as causes and instances of human flourishing. Whether he agreed or not, Ling was convinced that if he were to be totally silent or uninformed on such issues, people might become suspicious. So when he heard of an operatic performance that had been anticipated with particular excitement by Torothex and his circle, Ling felt obliged to attend.

He did not expect to enjoy it. Among Ling's previous associates, Opera was regarded as ludicrous, and in fact, none of them had ever heard more than a few fragments of one. Opera was held to lack 'reality:' the characters were obviously impersonated by singers (or silent actors or dancers or even puppets), the use of music and dance destroyed all realism and caused time to drag, they wore ridiculous costumes, the props were clearly artificial constructions, and the stories were usually fantastic. In contrast, in Pappi's arena there were real people, genuinely struggling for their survival. Their screams did not harmonize with an accompaniment, and they did not get up and bow after being killed.

Besides the arena, another form of entertainment valued in Ling's circle was 'Magic Theater,' in which one or more magicians wove a hallucinogenic spell, putting each member of the audience directly into the action, as a participant, and including not only sight and sound but also feeling, taste, and odor. For example, instead of watching a singer 'battle' a mechanical dragon on stage, moving only in the short pauses in the vocal line, one had the vivid experience of being, one's self, in a realistic fight with a realistic dragon. Instead of watching 'lovers' singing a duet onstage, one could have sex with a hallucination, or with another member of the audience, who was playing another character.

**

_What's bothering me? What's wrong?_ His violent youth had sensitized Ling to signs of danger that most people would not even notice. His gaze was drawn to a door about six manlengths ahead. _There! There's something funny about that door! Why is it slightly open?_ _Not propped open, just ... pushed out a knuckle's length, so that it could be opened without any clicking of a latch._

Suddenly he remembered: while his focus of attention had been elsewhere, his peripheral vision had picked up a hint of motion at the edge of that door, consistent with someone's taking a quick look around it. That is what had set off his inner alarms.

He imagined someone hostile behind the door. How long would that person wait, after Torothex passed, before coming out and attacking? _That_ long. Ling walked on, exquisitely alert, but acting as though he were in deep thought about some arcane theological topic, and fiddling abstractedly with the icon of Rangza, the Muse of social reform, that hung on a chain necklace that he frequently wore.

**

The performance that Ling had attended was held in the Temple of Tessitulia, the local Muse of Opera. Ling endured the superficial socializing that took place as people met at the entrance, the service devoted to Tessitulia, and the two hundredbreaths of silent meditation (in darkness and silence) that preceded the performance. It was all something to study. He was impressed by the great size and intricate architecture of the concert hall, and also by the large orchestra and the variety of instruments it employed, most of which were previously unknown to him. He did not intend to pay attention to the entire opera, however, since it took six hours; his plan was to dip in here and there, to get a general feeling for it, and spend the rest of the time reviewing, in his mind, information he had acquired elsewhere.

**

_Approaching the door._ Someone else might have turned and run, or perhaps shoved the door shut and run, but Ling knew that he would have to confront the danger sooner or later, and that it was best to do it while the perpetrator still thought that Torothex had no suspicion of its existence.

As he passed the door, he began counting in his mind. _One, two, ..._

**

The lights went out, and the overture began. At first, it consisted of isolated strikes on gongs and cymbals; gradually, it became more intricate, as other instruments were brought in, until it became almost overwhelming in intricacy and volume. Then it died back, as the lights came up and the curtain was raised.

Ling contemplated the stage. It was bare of inanimate props; all the scenery was portrayed by dancers. From Torothex's memories, Ling learned that the characters were also portrayed by dancers; the singers, including a large chorus, were hidden in shadow at the back of the semicircular stage. At stage right, tumbling river rapids were portrayed by dancers; some stood still, portraying rocks, and the others made their bodies undulate in such a way that the overall effect was strikingly like rushing water. Other dancers, some resting on the shoulders of their comrades, depicted trees, their fingers fluttering like leaves in the wind. _What a challenge to do it this way,_ thought Ling, _This is more interesting than any literally realistic portrayal_! _Maybe it won't be as boring as I feared._

A character dancer appeared. His dancing was stylized and ritualistic, and would have appeared completely abstract to Ling, without the help of Torothex's memories. From those memories, Ling learned that the style of dancing employed was a synthesis of many previous styles. Several of these previous styles required the audience to be familiar with certain standard meanings for each of a large number of poses and motions. In the new style, the dancer was not limited to a literal use of these conventions; on the contrary, he would frequently use them indirectly to make what amounted to puns, irony, and figures of speech. He also learned that it was rare for the dancer to simply act out the sung words; rather, he made a commentary on them. The commentary was sometimes critical or satirical. The details of the dance went by too fast for Ling to grasp, even with the help of Torothex's memories, but his idea that opera was simple-minded was shattered forever. He was also impressed by the strength, flexibility, precision, and vigor of the dancer.

**

... _Three!_ Ling leapt aside, simultaneously spinning in the air to face the door, and removing the chain necklace that he had been fiddling with.
**********

"Goweger came to a wall that reached almost to the clouds. For days he tried to climb it, but there weren't enough handholds near the top. Then he thought, 'Maybe there is a gate!'"

( _The_ _Tale of Goweger_ , folk-tale of the Grubik)

"We have a problem," said 1080 to his confessor, whose name he now knew to be "Brother Piranha." Brother Piranha raised his eyebrows. 1080 continued: "There's this guy, 111. He won't do his share of the work. But the beaters don't punish him. I asked Boss Wolverine Jaw, and she said, that she wanted us to solve the problem ourselves, but without violence or the threat of violence. We talked to him several times, and he promises to straighten out, but he doesn't. When someone speaks to him about it, he will start working, but then, a few breaths later, he is off in dreamland."

Brother Piranha nodded, but said nothing.

"I suppose you're not going to help either," said 1080 with a sigh.

"I might be able to help a little, actually," replied Brother Piranha. "Tell me more about this 111 person. What is he like?"

"He's a small, skinny fellow," said 1080, "maybe about 40 years old. Very quiet. Pretty much keeps to himself – no friends, no lover, as far as we can see. Kind of cringes when people speak to him, doesn't make eye contact. He doesn't _ask_ much of others, I'll give him that. Like I said, he's dreamy. I don't even think that it's a choice on his part – it's just the way he is."

"That makes it difficult," said Brother Piranha.

"You have it," said 1080. "How come we got to kill those two goons, but we can't even beat on this guy?"

"Well," said Brother Piranha, "after you killed them, you had a chance to be a big leader, but you wouldn't touch it, remember?"

"For sure," said 1080. "I didn't want to be next."

"Exactly so," said Brother Piranha, "and that's the problem: once you start using violence, a precedent is set. Nobody's safe, and everybody's afraid. The only form of organization that can survive in such an atmosphere would be one in which a ruthless ruler (or group) had absolute power. Just what the goons were trying to do."

"So, we were wrong to kill them?"

"I don't think so ... they were about to rape that woman, and it wouldn't have stopped there. You _already had_ a couple of ruthless idiots with absolute power, so what did you have to lose? But to progress beyond a certain point, violence has to be given up. That's where you showed real intelligence; you knew when enough was enough."

"Well," said 1080, "beating's not as bad as killing. They beat on that lizard who groped the woman in the bath." 1080 was a little startled to hear himself make such a challenge; he was still far from convinced that Brother Piranha would tolerate any criticism.

"That too has its limits," replied Brother Piranha, without seeming to take offense. "I suspect that the fellow still disrespects women, he's just become cagier about showing it. But let's get back to 111. Do you think beating on him would help?"

1080 thought for a moment. "No, probably not," he said, with a sigh. "It's just the way he is."

"Let's go back another step," said Brother Piranha. "Is there a _problem_ with 111?"

For a moment, 1080 was intensely irritated with him. 1080 had learned that his confessor often asked 'dumb questions' on purpose, as a way of clarifying things, or opening up new lines of thought; but it was still irritating, sometimes. "He's not doing his work," he replied, evenly. "You said we were all supposed to be equal, didn't you?"

"Yes indeed," said Brother Piranha, "but what _is_ equality? Does it mean that you must treat everyone alike, in every way?"

"You tell me," said 1080. "You're the ones who make the rules." _Ouch!_ he thought, _That had a bite on it. I should watch myself more carefully._

Brother Piranha sighed. "Yes, we make the rules for now, but we won't always be with you, so we would like to see you think things out for yourselves. But I'll say this: in my opinion, it would be _crazy_ to treat everyone alike. You couldn't even do it – are you going to expect women to get men pregnant? So to me, equality means that you don't treat people differently _without good reason_. And even that is not quite true – for example, there are cases where no harm is done if you treat people differently for no particular reason at all. For example, you visit one friend on one day and another on another, when you might just as well have done the reverse, without inconveniencing either of them – you did it that way without good reason, but why would any water boil over that?"

"So then, equality is just a silly idea?" 1080 had thought this all along, though for different reasons.

"Well," said Brother Piranha, "it is, if it means treating everyone exactly alike. But the way we Angels take it is, that the way we treat people should only depend on the truly relevant, objective features of the situation – what kind of people they are, what the context is, that sort of thing. We sometimes say, 'Equality is appropriateness.'"

"But how do you know what is appropriate?" asked 1080.

"Well, if you need a sperm donor, are you going to get a man, or a woman?"

"Ah, I see what you mean," said1080. Then he hesitated for a moment. Brother Piranha had often told him that he should feel free to express any opinion in Confession, and that he would never be punished for expressing an opinion, as long as he did so courteously. 1080 had laughed within when he heard this, for it seemed obvious to him that it was just a trap. But as he had observed Brother Piranha, and the Angels generally, he began to think that there might be something in it. He decided to make a very small test of it.

"Now, Scratch," he said, "he would have said that equality was a silly idea because it would never happen in the real world, and because people _deserved_ whatever they could get from their own efforts, including special privileges."

Brother Piranha looked startled for a moment, and then he broke into a broad grin. "You know," he said, "Scratch was wrong about a lot of things, but I think he was quite intelligent. Those are very profound objections!"

_Oh, oh, thought 1080, He who puts honey on his bread is about to eat it. I'm in trouble!_ "Of course, _I_ don't believe that," he said, hastily.

"Don't worry, you're fine!" said Brother Piranha, still beaming, and making a dismissive gesture, as if to drive 1080's anxiety away. _He didn't say, "I know you don't,"_ thought 1080, making himself look calm on the outside. Brother Piranha continued: "In a way, we almost agree with Scratch about the practicality of equality; we think that there are strong forces pushing society towards inequality. For example, tiny inequalities tend to grow into big ones, because once I have even a little advantage over you, I can use that to get other little advantages, and pretty soon, I have a big advantage. But you will see, 1080! We never leave a place until equality is established, and I have left many, many places in my career as an Angel. It doesn't last, I admit, and so we have to keep coming back. But typically, if we send an agent back to check on a situation after five years, only a very little deterioration has taken place. And we have gotten more effective over time, and hope to continue improving.

"Now, as to Scratch's second point," continued Brother Piranha, "if I recall, he said that people _deserved_ whatever they could get from their own efforts, including special privileges. Now, I wonder if it isn't in contradiction to the first. After all, why even ask what someone _deserves_ , if you are only interested in the world as it _is_ , and not interested in how the world _should_ be, if that is any different from how it _is_? Does he believe in _should_ , or not? He seems to be having it both ways."

1080 was feeling a little overwhelmed. Scratch had rarely talked about such things with anyone. It was all so abstract! He had difficulty understanding what Brother Piranha's point was. Was this how he was going to be punished for raising questions about equality – by being asked difficult questions? "We're getting away from the original problem," he said. "I was asking about 111."

Brother Piranha settled back into his chair. "Well, all right," he said, and paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Here's what I'm thinking – this 111, maybe he just isn't _capable_ of sticking to this sort of task. Beating on him wouldn't help, so why bother? But what if you gave him a buddy? Someone to work with him all the time, to keep reminding him. I don't mean nagging him, but saying things like, 'Good! Now, you hold that, while I do this.' A friend of his, perhaps."

"He hasn't _got_ any friends. Doesn't seem to _want_ any."

"All right," said Brother Piranha, "I'm just speculating, now – maybe he's just not good at being a friend, and he's never had one. Maybe he never had a family that held together, never learned to get along with people. Or maybe he's just a lone lizard by nature. But, there are people in the world who are overflowing with friendliness – you know the kind of person I mean?"

"Yes," said 1080, "139 is like that."

"So, suppose 139 worked with 111?"

"What if she doesn't want to?"

"Well, you could explain why you're suggesting it."

"Maybe we could offer her something," suggested 1080.

"No, no!" said Brother Piranha, getting agitated. "That would break the rule against _bribing_ people to do things!"

"Oh ..." said 1080, "sorry, I forgot." They had been told that the rule against coercing, pressuring, tricking, or bribing people into having sex would eventually be extended to _all_ activities. 1080 cringed, as he thought of the sound of the beater's bludgeon hitting the wood. _Crack!_

"Don't worry," said Brother Piranha, hastily, "you didn't do it, you just talked about it. You may talk about _anything_ , in Confession." _You keep saying that_ , thought 1080, _but I still don't dare believe you_.

"But," added Brother Piranha, "it's all right to _go_ to her, and _explain_ the situation, and _suggest_ that she work with 111, at least some of the time. And maybe she will."

"But what if she doesn't, or what if it doesn't work?"

"Then you have a guy who's not doing his share."

"So all the rest of us are working harder."

"Will that kill you?"

"No, but ... it's not _fair_!"

"'Fair' ... does that mean the same as 'equal'?"

"Well, it _bothers_ me!"

"It would be better, if you could find a way to help him."

"Twist it!" said 1080 in frustration. "We shouldn't _have_ to!"

Brother Piranha just looked at him curiously. _Now I'm the one who is talking about how things_ _should_ _be_ , thought 1080. He sighed, made a gesture of throwing up his hands, smiled sheepishly, and relaxed a little. "I suppose we could just _carry_ a certain number of people who don't work," he said.

Brother Piranha nodded agreement. "Sometimes," he said, "the best way to solve a problem is to just leave it alone. Just make things _good_ – don't try to make them _perfect_ , you'll only exhaust yourself. You know," he added, leaning forward, "I'm speculating again, but I suspect that there are things that 111 is good at, and _wants_ to do – or would want to, if he were aware of them, and had the chance."

"Daydreaming!" said 1080 with disgust.

Brother Piranha chuckled, and leaned back again. "Maybe he's a poet, or a musician, or an intellectual."

1080 frowned. "What? What's an intel – int – what did you call it?"

"An _intellectual_ ," said Brother Piranha, patting himself on the head. "Someone who makes his contribution by _thinking_."

"Just by _thinking_?" asked 1080, incredulous.

"Thinking solves problems," said Brother Piranha. "In fact – isn't that what we're trying to do, right now?"

_And he's trying to help me do it_ , thought 1080, _the way that he wants 139 to help 111._

"You know," said 1080, "if you really extend the rule about not coercing and so on, I'll bet that there will be a _lot_ of people who don't work. And we won't be able to get them to!"

"Well," said Brother Piranha, leaning back with a smile, "we're not going to extend it just yet. We're giving you some time to think about how you're going to deal with that." _He's confident_ , thought 1080. _Why shouldn't he be? He's done this before. What does he know that I don't know?_ Then he thought, _if 111 is an intel ... whatever – is a thinker, then maybe_ _he_ _can figure that out._
**********

"Love is recognition."

(From _The Sayings of the Blinded Prophets_ )

The Archangels Asharia Loëina and Ksotra Voxtoi sat at opposite ends of a large table, working on their respective tasks. From time to time one of them would look up at the other, and occasionally their eyes would meet. The atmosphere was very pleasant, and yet subtly jangled by an undercurrent of tension. Finally, Asharia decided to address it.

"Respected Colleague," she said, "could I interrupt you for a moment?"

Voxtoi looked up. He smiled, but with a hint of anxiety and embarrassment in his eyes. "Of course, Respected Colleague," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"Let me come over," said Asharia. She stood, took her chair, and seated herself just across the corner of the table from Voxtoi. Voxtoi shrank back from her a little bit. Each of them noticed the other taking a deep breath.

"Respected Colleague," said Asharia, dropping her eyes, "we have worked together for some time now, and I have discovered that your excellent reputation among the Angels is well-deserved. It has been a great privilege."

Some of the tension left Voxtoi's craggy face. "Why thank you," he said. Some of the formality evaporated from his smile. "And please know," he added, "that I have developed a great admiration for you, as well." His eyes dropped, coming to rest on his own weathered-sandstone hands, which had come together, as if to calm each other, on the edge of the table. "And please," he added, "in informal situations, feel free to call me 'Ksotra.'"

"I am honored," she replied, bowing her head briefly, "and I hope that you in turn will call me 'Asharia.'"

"I am honored in turn," he said, bowing his own head.

There was an awkward silence. Then Asharia giggled.

"What?" asked Kshotra, looking nervous, but also as though he might giggle, too.

"Oh, nothing," she said, covering her olive-gold lips with one hand. "I'm sorry." Their eyes met and parted repeatedly, as though playing 'touch and go.'

Asharia, remembering that she had initiated the conversation, drew herself together. "In the course of time, ... Ksotra, ... we have, of course, developed a sort of ... personal relationship. Rather minimal, to be sure."

Ksotra had been paying attention before, but suddenly he was twice as alert. He sat up straighter and drew in another deep breath. "True enough," he said, his brown eyes glistening just a little more than usual. The permanent worry lines in his forehead deepened.

Asharia's hands rose a bit from the table and began to wrestle gently with one another. "Well," she said, "I have sometimes felt – this puts you under no obligation, of course – I have sometimes felt ... my admiration for you ... pass over into a kind of ... _attraction_. I'm sorry if ... if that bothers you."

Ksotra froze for a moment, and then said, "No, no, ... it doesn't bother me ... at all. And I admire your courage, in mentioning it. I lack ... that sort of courage." Asharia said nothing, but began to tremble just a bit. "But since you raise the issue," continued Ksotra, "I will ...confess ... that I, too, have felt an ... attraction."

The tension in the room rose; it felt as though the air were about to snap.

"Well, then," said Asharia, leaning toward him, and blushing deeply, "I wonder if we could explore some of the ... possibilities ... of that."

"I'd like to do that," said Ksotra, leaning toward her. "Perhaps we could –" At that moment the bell rang at the door of their tent. They recoiled from each other. Asharia stood, and Voxtoi leaned forward in his chair, looking intently at his papers. The tension collapsed into a mixture of frustration, embarrassment, and nervous humor, all quickly hidden away.

"Please come in," said Asharia, in a pleasant and courteous voice.

An adjutant entered. "Holy Archangels," he said, kneeling briefly, "there is a small deputation from Karngrevor outside, including his daughter, Oselika, and his nephew, Teladorion."

Voxtoi stood, pushing his chair back. "Thank you, adjutant," he said. "We will come meet them now." They followed the adjutant out.

Outside was a small troop of cavalry. Three leading riders had dismounted, and stood in front. One was a slender young woman with mahogany skin and coppery hair. Another was a tall young man with a long, asymmetrical face and a golden complexion. They both wore long surcoats with the coat-of-arms of House Karngrevor over the heart. They were both armed – as always, an exception had been made to the Angelic security protocols, for inner-family Karngrevors. The third was a middle-aged man with deep-purple skin and bushy, aquamarine eyebrows. He was unarmed, and he carried a bundle of papers.

"Welcome, honored visitors," said Asharia graciously. "I am Archangel Asharia Loëina, and this is Acting Commander, Archangel Ksotra Voxtoi." The two groups bowed to one another. "What do you want?" asked Voxtoi. _Always blunt_ , thought Asharia, fondly.

"I am on Quest," said Oselika, "and I request assistance in investigating a crime committed in this neighborhood, shortly before the Rescue."

"We will be happy to oblige," said Voxtoi.

"Thank you," replied Oselika. "We would also like to visit the Girl of the Prophecies. This is not part of my quest, but it is important to us."

"You may," said Voxtoi.

"And finally," said Oselika, gesturing toward their middle-aged companion, "this is Legate Major Sinta Iskra, a Special Deputy from my father. He would like to discuss various urgent matters."

"Very good," said Voxtoi, nodding. "In what order would you like to proceed?"

"The Legate Major would like to proceed with talks immediately," said Oselika. "Teladorion and I would like to describe the crime, and then go see the Girl while your researchers gather the information. When we are through speaking with the Girl, we would like to join the talks with the Legate Major, at least for awhile. When your researchers are ready, we will talk with them about the crime. "

"Let it be done," said Voxtoi, bowing. "Adjutant, please record the Young Lady's requests and suggestions, and our acceptance, and then direct her and her cousin to the compound where the Girl is; no escort is required unless they request it. Then find someone to provide the amenities for their companions. Finally, come to the conference room. Legate Major, please come with me and Archangel Loëina to our conference room, where we can begin the talks."

**

A number of residents of the compound were sitting on the grass near the gate when Oselika and Teladorion arrived, asking for the Girl. At first, Darestigan would not allow them to enter unless they disarmed, which they refused to do. When Ydnas arrived, however, she asked him to make an exception. Darestigan agreed, but not before about ten more of him appeared on the lawn, in a half-circle around the gate. A number of other residents of the compound, drawn by curiosity, had also appeared by then.

"Oselika, Teladorion, this is Ydnas," said Darestigan. "Ydnas, this is Oselika, and this is Teladorion, both of House Karngrevor. They wish to discuss some things with you."

"What's House Karngrevor?" asked Ydnas, doing a little shuffle dance.

"Our family," said Oselika, "has lived for millennia in a region, on the middle slopes of the Mountain Archonect. This region is known as 'Karngrevor.' There we have a great fortress, and a city under the mountain, and an army. When Sindariden the 23rd abdicated, creating Theo-Anarchy, my ancestors chose to declare their independence. We do not practice Theo-Anarchy at home, but we support it in Kondrastibar. Sometimes, we use our army to intervene for that purpose. We are devotees of Tosaris, who is sometimes called the God of Excellence. She is also said to be one of our ancestors. My father is also the head of the family, and so he is called 'Karngrevor.' Teladorion is his nephew, my cousin."

Ydnas nodded, but said nothing. Oselika continued: "My father wonders whether he should intervene, as the Prophetic Times come to a close; and if so, how. He hopes to come speak to you himself, soon; but we were already here for another reason, and so we thought we would like to talk to you, if you would like to."

"Maybe I'm Girl of Prophecy," said Ydnas, shrugging, "maybe not."

"Well," said Oselika, "even if you aren't, Teladorion and I would like to know what you think."

"Thinking now," said Ydnas, looking thoughtful.

It was part of Oselika's discipline to scan her environment quickly, every ten breaths or less. She did so then, and she noticed, beyond the circle of Darestigans, several people standing around, watching. One of them, at some distance, was an elderly woman. Oselika did not recognize her, and yet ... there was something mysteriously and disturbingly familiar about her. Oselika had learned never to discard her intuitions, even when they were vague; using covert hand signals, she asked Teladorion about the woman. He replied that he did not recognize her, either. _Keep an eye on her_ , signaled Oselika. _Will do_ , he replied.

Oselika returned her attention to Ydnas. _How can I discuss such matters with a child?_ she asked herself.

"My father is willing to intervene, if that will be a good thing," she continued. "He can't keep order throughout Kondrastibar, but he might be able to do _something_ constructive. He is also considering alliances with various churches. But he doesn't know what will be useful. Perhaps we should just go back to our fortress and wait. Do you have any ideas about this?"

No," said Ydnas, tapping one toe nervously against her other ankle, "but let me think." She adopted an exaggeratedly thoughtful pose, all wrapped up in herself.

Again Oselika scanned, and again she saw the elderly woman. She was closer than before. Suddenly Oselika remembered. _She was present when we found Akelian_ , she signaled.

_Ah, yes_ , Teladorion signaled back, _now I remember! Maybe she had something to do with it!_

_Let's see if we can learn more about her, before we leave_ , replied Oselika.

As Kor approached, she recognized the two aristocratic youth from an incident she had witnessed, with a barely-conscious rescuee and an abortive attempt, on the part of local thugs, at kidnapping the girl. She also remembered that she had thought she had heard one of them mention the name, "Karngrevor."

Coming up to a Darestigan, she said, "Excuse me, Dearie, but who is that young lady?"

"She is the daughter of Karngrevor," replied Darestigan, "and that tall young man is her cousin. They have come to ..." But as soon as she heard the name, "Karngrevor," Kor stopped listening. Her eyes riveted on the girl, whose given name she could not recall. 'She is a Karngrevor _herself_ ,' thought Kor. 'If only I had known! I must find a way to speak to her! Perhaps she can tell me something about ...' But then, suddenly, an enormous, absolutely staggering possibility entered her mind, overwhelming every other thought. She began to tremble.

_That woman is staring at you_ , signaled Teladorion, _and she seems quite worked up about something._

_Perhaps she_ _was_ _connected with the attack on Akelian in some way_ , Oselika replied.

_She doesn't seem to be running away_ , added Teladorion, _on the contrary, she's trying to get closer._

_She's not armed, and she doesn't look like the fighting type,_ signaled Oselika _, do you suppose she is a witch?_ Oselika and Teladorion had automatic safeguards against magical attacks, but she was concerned about the others.

_If she is_ , replied Teladorion, _I'm not detecting it._ _Also, she doesn't look dangerous right now. She doesn't look angry or hateful. Besides, she doesn't seem to be in command of herself; she looks as though she is falling apart from anxiety!_

Oselika looked again the woman. There was something about her appearance ... _Does she look like anyone else you know?_

_I can't think of anyone_ , replied Teladorion, _unless..._

Unless what?

_Oh, ... I just had the crazy idea, for a moment, that if you account for the age difference, she looks a bit like_ _you_ _. Something about the chin, and the eyes. Say, look at her, she's weeping! And she's staring right at you, no doubt about it!_

Oselika gave a start. Great Merciless Tosaris, Tel ... you don't suppose ...

What??

"Excuse me, please," said Oselika to Ydnas, who was still pondering, and made to step toward the old woman. Two of Darestigan blocked her path. She felt a massive wall of force enclosing her.

"Teladorion," she said, "take my weapons, and stay where you are!"

Teladorion looked startled, but he complied. "May I pass, now?" Oselika asked the Darestigans, making clear eye contact with the mysterious woman.

"Only you," one of Darestigan replied. She nodded, and she felt the wall of force become a narrow corridor.

Kor saw the girl proceed towards her, making direct eye contact. She could hardly breathe. The girl came right up to her. Trembling, but far beyond any embarrassment or self-consciousness, Kor looked carefully at her features. _Oh, by all the gods, is she? Is she? How can I be sure?_

Kor tried to speak, failed, coughed, sniffled, and started again: "Please, ... ah, ... when were you ... born?"

"It was the 7th of Holmidar, TA 6765,"said Oselika.

Kor let out an inarticulate cry. Then, getting partly ahold of herself, holding her face in her hands as though to prevent it from collapsing, and peering through her fingers, she asked, speaking with great difficulty, "And who ... and who ... is your _mother?_ "

Oselika felt dizzy, and her heart was beating like a great deep drum, for the truth was breaking over her like a great wave. She somehow brought in enough breath to speak. "My a-adoptive mother," she said, feeling her eyes fill and run over, "is H-Her Eminence, Ilzharia Lenoë Khaltania Orin Ts'et, Duchess K-Karngrevor." Then, as from a great distance, she heard herself add, "My b-birth mother, however, is, ... is, ... I have never known her, ... but I think, ... I th-think, ... she is ... **you**!"

Kor let out a great howl, and threw herself forward to embrace Oselika. " _Zar, Zar, Zar!_ " she wailed. " _My baby! My baby! My Zar! My Zar, My Zar, My baby Zar!_ " She held Oselika so tightly that Oselika could hardly breathe. Abandoning a thousand combat habits, Oselika embraced her in turn. " _My Zar, my lost one_ ," howled Kor, and then her wails dissolved into sobs. It felt terribly strange to Oselika, to be tearfully embracing this woman, who mere breaths ago was virtually a stranger. And yet, there was something about the feel of her, the smell of her, the sound of her voice, that was older and more familiar than memory. _"Mother!"_ she cried. " _Mother! Mother! Mother!_ "
**********

"Let the dead resurrect their dead."

(Frefili folk saying)

As the protective dome over Calcadro's squad collapsed, the monstrous mechanical insects converged on the Amazons, firing gray bolts. Calcadro shouted, " _Group mind!_ " Immediately, _she_ sprang into being. _She_ sensed where the local control center was; _she_ raised her eight remaining crossbows and fired in quick succession. Eight deadly bolts flickered from bow to target; eight fiery explosions merged into one. The control center began to spin, vomiting smoke; the other insects ceased firing and continued in a straight line in whatever way they had been going. Only six of _her_ had another bolt; _she_ reloaded and fired all six. Another blast of fire, and the control center began to sink through the air. Using the body of Tsiloë, _she_ drew a sword and hacked at a damaged portion of it, shouting " _For Ydris!_ " with all her voices. A shower of sparks blossomed with each stroke; at the eighth stroke, the shower became a running stream that propelled the craft in a crazy downward spiral, until it struck the ground and exploded. The other insects became quiet, drifting with the breeze.

"Victory!" _she_ shouted with all her voices, and broke into individuality once more.

Calcadro, finding herself alone again, spoke into her seashell. "Calcadro here. Lion four!" This meant, _We have prevailed!_ "Thiarinis found one of the flyers that was in control of the others, and we focused our attack on that! You might be able to do the same!"

"Congratulations, Lieutenant!" replied the voice from the Temple, "I will pass that on!" After a few breaths of silence, he said, "Do you have deaths?"

"Yes," she replied, more quietly, "about half." It was a fact she had been keeping from herself. She began to sob.

"Calcadro ... Calcadro, listen carefully," said the voice. "It may not be as bad as you think. Do you see little winking lights, like fireflies, above the fallen?"

Calcadro pulled herself together. "What? Well, yes ... yes, I do. What are they?"

"They are souls, Lieutenant, the souls of the fallen. The gray bolts separate souls from bodies. Give first aid to the living, and then give first aid to the dead, too! _Don't take them away from their souls!_ It may be possible to rejoin them! Do you understand?"

"Yes ... I think so," said Calcadro, "I mean, ..."

"I know it's strange," said the voice, "but it's worth a try. Is Zanentadra able to work?"

"I don't know," said Calcadro. "Let me see!" She staggered over to where the Witch lay crumpled; on the way, she explained to the Medic what the Temple had instructed. Then she knelt beside her comrade.

Thiarinis was also there. "Zan's alive," said Thiarinis.

"Zan, Zan!" said Calcadro urgently, pulling up the Witch's visor. "We have prevailed, for the time being! But we need you for something! Can you do it?" Zanentadra's face was drawn and pale, but her eyes opened and slowly focused on Calcadro's.

"Cal," she croaked, "I love so you much ..."

"I love you, too, Zan," said Calcadro, kissing her forehead, "but we need you to work. Do you have the strength?"

"I think so, if it's not too hard."

"I think her seashells are broken," said the voice from the Temple. "Can you get her another set?"

"Mine's working," said Thiarinis, handing it over.

Calcadro arranged them by Zanentadra's mouth and ear.

"Are you hearing me, Zan?" asked the voice.

"Yes," said the Witch, weakly.

"Wonderful!" said the voice. "Zan, you have several casualties, but the situation is unusual." The voice proceeded to explain what it had explained to Calcadro, and then patched her to a Witch in the Temple. The two began to speak about 'quarklet flux' and 'net annealing,' and other things that only a Witch could understand. Calcadro proceeded to give the Medic a more thorough explanation of her previous order, and then to bring the remaining survivors up-to-date about their situation.

Then she turned her attention to the Temple. It was still under attack. It was entirely cloaked in a turmoil of darkness, from which flashes of light and rumbling explosions continually emerged. It was rather like looking at a distant thunderstorm. As Calcadro watched, one of the high spires disintegrated. Rubble settled to the ground and raised a huge cloud of dust. She was in anguish, but she turned back to her own responsibilities. "Tsiloë," she said, "keep watch, and let me know if we are attacked again."

Supported by two comrades, Zanentadra had made her way to one of the fallen. Calcadro joined her. The Medic was hurriedly cleaning out a gash on the back of the dead Amazon's head. The soul was hovering nearby, about two feet off the ground. Kneeling, Zanentadra made a cup of her hands just under the soul. She began to sing in a language unknown to Calcadro:

Telithi, Telerithi,

Alacatr' Telithi,

Telerithi, Telendir,

Alacatr' endi tir.

For a moment, the soul glittered more intently, and then it sank into the cup. Zanentadra slowly closed her hands around the soul and brought them to the center of the fallen warrior's chest. Then she opened them, and sang again. The soul sank into the dead woman's body.

After a moment, the dead Amazon's body began to glow white. Calcadro thought she heard the sound of a chorus, singing softly and tenderly. Then the singing faded away, and the warrior's skin returned to its normal light brown complexion. The medic placed her finger on the carotid artery; "I feel a pulse!" she said, in awe. Thiarinis nodded. "I can feel her awareness," she said. Looking closely, Calcadro saw that the woman was breathing, very slowly and shallowly.

"I can't believe it," Calcadro breathed. "It's not possible!" She felt a twinge of fear. _Can it be right to defy death like this? Will something terrible come of it?_

The once-dead woman's eyelids began to flutter.
**********

"Don't resist the contractions that are helping you to be born!"

(from the _Scriptures_ of Lixanhua)

Irgowond, Kalula, and Sorilal of Liotr were all very happy with Lightbearer's decision not to resist the emperor. "We don't like to give advice in such matters," explained Irgowond, "and we admired your courage and integrity. But our admiration only increased our feeling that it would be a terrible waste for you to die. Besides, we like you."

"And besides again," added Sorilal of Liotr, smiling and shaking her iridescent hair, "he won't call you very often. Once, to make his point, but then, who knows? I mean, he has many, many wives and concubines. How often can he visit each one? Also, he spends most of that time with me, for I am his favorite right now."

Lightbearer was startled by the casualness of this last remark, and didn't know how to respond. Irgowond hastily explained: "Sorilal of Liotr's people have a different attitude towards sex from many of us, Lightbearer. They consider it to be a divine gift, regardless of how it comes to them." Sorilal smiled and nodded.

"She says, 'Multiple orgasm is the best revenge!'" said Kalula, slapping her thigh and cackling heartily. Sorilal blushed, and looked at Lightbearer with worry in her eyes. "Does that make you despise me, Lightbearer?" she asked timidly.

"Well, no, Sorilal," said Lightbearer, confused and embarrassed, and speaking her thoughts as they came irregularly to the surface. "I mean, I'm very surprised, but also very confused. I guess I don't share your attitude, exactly, although, I will say, well, not that I have experienced much in the way of sex, in fact, my first experience was when Korad massaged me." The others looked startled and puzzled by this, but Lightbearer continued: "From that experience, well, everything is a divine gift, I suppose, but I could see why someone might think that sex was _especially_ divine!" The other three laughed agreement with this. "But how do you feel about _me_ , Sorilal? If sex is a divine gift, and I resisted it, do you think I did the wrong thing?"

"Oh, _no_ , Lightbearer," said Sorilal, her eyes widening with shock at the very idea, "you didn't _know_ it was a divine gift. You _still_ don't know."

"You should understand, Lightbearer," added Irgowond, "that Sorilal of Liotr doesn't think that the _Emperor_ is divine!"

"Oh, _no_!" said Sorilal, looking quite shocked. "He is just a channel. He knows _nothing_ about sex! I mean, all he knows is _technique!_ But I know that it is really the god, Tlilikaneen, who is making love to me! How can I not be ecstatic?"

_How varied mortals are!_ thought Lightbearer, _So many different approaches to life! What I find utterly revolting, makes her ecstatic, because she thinks of it differently!_

"But Lightbearer," said Sorilal of Liotr, "you look to be a grown woman, over twenty! Even if you have never engulfed a man, even if no one has ever caressed you, even if you have never caressed yourself, still, you must have felt _something_ , before Korad, yes? A pang of desire, a crush, a sweet dream?"

" _You break the rule!"_ hissed Kalula, sharply.

"It's all right," said Lightbearer, waving her hand dismissively, "I don't mind her asking." But in fact she wished that the question would go away. She would have to tell her story to answer it. She wanted to tell her story, she wanted to be heard, but ... "You wouldn't believe me, though, if I told you," she said, with a frustrated laugh. "I'm not sure I believe myself, to tell the truth!"

"I can't promise to believe you," said Irgowond, leaning toward Lightbearer and looking very serious and kind, "but I will always respect you. If it will do you good to tell, please tell!" The other two nodded in agreement.

Lightbearer thought for a moment. _What have I got to lose? If I am crazy, maybe they can help me._ "Well, then," she said, gathering up her courage, "this is what I think I remember. I think I used to be an immortal." She looked up, a little surreptitiously, to gauge their response. Irgowond and Sorilal of Liotr were listening closely, with no particular reaction. Kalula, however, looked pleasantly surprised, as though Lightbearer had said something unexpected but very intelligent. Lightbearer continued: "I think I remember that this world was made by someone I called 'The Fabulist.' He also made _me_." She told her entire story as briefly as she could. "So you see," she concluded, "although I may look over twenty years old, as a mortal I am really only a few weeks old. I have spent most of my mortal life as a prisoner, traveling from Kolidor's country to here."

"That is a strange and wonderful story," said Sorilal of Liotr, looking at Lightbearer with awe.

"Do you believe me?" asked Lightbearer.

"The world is a huge and wonderful place," said Sorilal, shrugging and holding out her hands palm up, "and it never repeats itself. That is one thing I have learned by coming here. Many things I thought impossible have happened right before my eyes. I am like an ant trying to explore a mountain. How can I say what there is or is not?"

"I feel the same way," said Irgowond.

"I think your story is true," said Kalula, "but only part of the truth. You should have prayed to yourself more!"

"What do you mean?" asked Lightbearer.

"We are like reflections of the stars in dewdrops," replied Kalula. "But the reflection doesn't know. Not at first. I think that Kolidor, he wanted you to pray to your star! Then you would learn! And you started to, but you gave up too easily. You should try again!"

"You mean," said Lightbearer, "that _everybody_ is really an immortal?"

"Oh yes!" said Kalula. "But the demons hide this from us!" _Oh,_ thought Lightbearer, very confused, _I thought I was crazy, but Kalula thinks I'm normal! Because I'm possessed by demons! Was I crazy to think I was crazy?_ She remembered that Kalula was supposedly an expert on demons, and an exorcist of sorts. _Maybe I really am being victimized by demons_ , she thought, _not that I have the faintest idea what a demon is._ _What do I know, really, about this world? Less than Sorilal of Liotr, less than any of them! I don't know what to believe! There are so many ways of looking at things! Have I been seeing ropes as snakes, and sparks as stars? Well, I guess I did – I mean, I changed my view about lying under the Emperor._ Her grip on reality felt very tenuous, and she feared that listening further to Kalula would just push her over the edge into complete disorientation, to utter cognitive despair.

"I don't know what to think," she said, holding her brow and closing her eyes. "I feel dizzy."

"You are too pushy, Kalula," said Sorilal of Liotr, turning to Kalula with a frown. "See, you have distressed her!"

"I pushed my babies, too," replied Kalula, "and they were born!"

_Perhaps I should just dive into the confusion_ , thought Lightbearer, _and get the worst over with!_ She was tired of struggling against the strangeness of the world. _Whatever is going to happen, let it happen!_ she thought, closing her eyes and lying back on the bed. Thoughts she had been holding back came out like a cloud of angry wasps. Amid their buzzing and stinging, she prayed.

_Lightbearer_ , she prayed, _I am praying to you. I don't even know what I want, exactly, because I don't know what I can hope for. I don't even understand how it could make sense to pray to myself! I don't know what either of us is! I've been thrown into a world that I can't understand. If you or anyone can help me, I would really appreciate it!_
**********

"Experience reflects reality in more than one way."

( _The Book of Reasons_ )

777 found herself in a lifeless, geometrical landscape. Space itself was different there. Even her own body was different; it constantly changed size and form, in response to her thoughts.

It was necessary to keep moving, for she could be observed without her knowing it, leading to quick extinction. She could move herself magically by thinking about certain numbers in a certain way. By thinking about certain other numbers in slightly different ways, she could make small alterations in her environment. She had never been in this world before, but she had been in other, similar worlds, and so she had some idea of what to do.

Each time she paused, she observed local phenomena. Her long-term survival would depend on her ability to imitate them, to look as though she belonged there, until she could find her way to a certain destination.

On the surface, everything appeared calm. Nothing in her peripheral vision appeared to change; But she knew that often, they really were changing. To check for change, she had to look directly at something; if change had occurred, she would see it then. She therefore kept changing the focus of her attention.

The textures of the place were varied. There were vast regions where everything was about the same, except for a small, apparently random variation. It was rather like walking on a plaza made of mosaic tiles, varying slightly in color. 777 knew that the variation was not truly random, but she did not dare to stay in the same place long enough to find the pattern. Sometimes these regions were like vast, featureless deserts. Fortunately, 777 could transport herself great distances with a single thought, or she would have been trapped there forever. She was looking for the maker of these deserts.

Soon she discovered places that were more like jungles. Trees and vines grew at visible speed, or sometimes too fast for her mind's eye to follow. They would sometimes achieve great size, only to disappear, or to find themselves incorporated in some other structure. At times, the growing things were more like clouds or crystals than plants. At other times they were more like animals; animals that could instantly incorporate each other, or join to form a larger animal, or divide into smaller ones, or simply be annihilated by an unseen force. The result often appeared chaotic, but 777 knew that it was not. She knew that each new plant or animal came from a tiny seed, and each seed was placed by an angel, and grew according to a strict law. She was looking for the ultimate source of those seeds.

Other places were more like cities, where people of every possible appearance interacted with each other in numerous ways: fighting, buying and selling, commanding and obeying, forming alliances, teaching and learning, and so on. There were laborers, warriors, monks, philosophers, merchants, con artists, healers, farmers, thieves, kings, fishermen, fabulists, and many others. Over time, these people interacted with each other in a progressively more intricate way, creating various patterns on a larger scale.

They lived in a constantly shifting environment, where a small building might grow into a big one, only to be replaced by a neighborhood of small ones. Plants and animals also appeared there. The people had the appearance of being free, independent individuals, but 777 knew that they were not. They were controlled by other, more powerful beings, who, for lack of a better word, might be called gods. Each such god was responsible for some aspect of the world.

Still moving quickly from place to place, 777 was able to learn about many of the gods. But they were not independent, either; there was a single, greatest god who controlled them all. 777 was looking for this god.

Only by usurping the power of this god could she make herself safe, and realize her desires.
**********

"The Wise appear Naïve"

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Ydnas stood on the stage of the chapel, with her statue behind her, facing the thirty or so people in the audience. Her friends had continued to attend; so did a few from previous talks. Others came and went.

"I have some sug ... sug-ges-tions for you, today," said Ydnas, stumbling on an unfamiliar word, but smiling. "My first sug-ges-tion, is to have _hope_. Think to yourself, 'Change to New Balance will come out right. Yes, many bad things will happen, but over soon. Then we will be happy.'"

This produced a mixture of hope and skepticism from the audience; many people believed, or at least feared, that the transition would be a long and terrible convulsion, and that the outcome might well be disastrous.

"My second sug-ges-tion," said Ydnas, "is that you _use_ feelings of fear that you have. What I mean is: yes, maybe something very bad will happen to you. Maybe to lots of people. So, use your fear to fight other fears! What I mean is, all your life, you have been afraid of this, that, many things. Maybe there were good things you thought of doing, but you didn't, because of your fear. Maybe even you did bad things because of your fear. But if you are going to die soon anyway, you have nothing to lose, and all those other things are not frightening any more! Maybe there is some person, or some god or demon, who has been bullying you – but now, you can say 'no' to them! You are free!"

_Was that what happened with Anandra?_ wondered Tulith.

"Maybe, soon, you will be poor. Maybe you can't help it. So, stop worrying about money! Think about love instead. You can always love. Or maybe, soon, you will be in prison. Maybe you can't escape. So, instead of thinking all the time about escaping, think about helping other people! Think about helping future! And if mean person puts you in prison, trying to make you unhappy, but you live happy in prison, doing good, then you sort of _have_ escaped.

"Now, my third sug-ges-tion is for people who want to make the world better. Many people have ideas about how to do it. Don't all agree. But some people are very sure that their ideas about how are the only true ones. But then it doesn't work, and they feel sad and frus-trated and tired. And they spend lots of time blaming other people. Not only the people who were against them, but the people who didn't help them. My sug-ges-tion is, don't blame other people. Don't blame _yourself_ , either! But say to yourself, nicely, 'Well, that didn't work, so I have something to learn. What is it?'

"My fourth sug-ges-tion is, that you do not think of others as your en-e-mies. Not even if _they_ think of themselves as your e-ne-my. Instead, try to help them. Try to learn from them. Really, you are pro-ba-bly not smarter than them, or only a little. If you dis-a-gree, pro-ba-bly both wrong!

"Same way, don't think of other re-li-gions as wrong. Their re-li-gion has hundreds of people, maybe thousands. Can all those people be com-plete-ly stupid? How did you get to be born so much wiser or luckier than all of them? What saved you from making mistakes?"

_Perhaps I was wrong_ , thought Kor, feeling a twinge of chagrin, _to be so dismissive of the religion of Honggur._

"What I sug-gest is," continued Ydnas, "that every person, every i-dea, every ... in-sti- ... in-sti- ..."

"In-sti-tu-tion," said Kor, pronouncing it very slowly and clearly.

"Thank you, Kor," said Ydnas. "Every in-sti-tu-tion," – she said it correctly, and there was a quick pattering of applause from the audience –"every thing in the world is won-der-ful, and a present for you. Don't throw it in the garbage!

"Some people think, when they are young, that they know everything. Then spend rest of life trying to get other people to think same way. But how can a person, just starting out, know better than someone who has spent a lifetime with the hu-mi-li- ... hu-mi- ..."

"Humility," said Kor.

"The hu-mi-li-ty to keep on looking? The world is very big, and full of lots of different things. How sad, if for their whole lives they are fighting and arguing with people, maybe even hurting or even killing them, and then they find in the end they were wrong! Even more sad, if they die, without ever realizing how wrong they were. So my suggestion is, always have more than one way of thinking about things, and always be ready to find a new one."

_This is good_ , thought the spy for the Guardians of Evil. _By filling them with doubt and hesitation, she will make her followers incapable of resolute action!_ He made an invisible shrug within his mind. _Life does not permit us such a luxury_ , he thought, _the time comes when one must commit one's self to something that is, to the best of one's knowledge, likely to pay off; and to do what is necessary to achieve it. But surely she knows that; this is just a further attempt on her part to confuse and demoralize our enemies._

"My fifth sug-ges-tion," continued Ydnas, "is, that you avoid fooling and tricking people, even when you are trying to do good. At first, fooling people might get you something. But sooner or later, people will realize you are a tricker. Then they will never trust you. The same goes for being mean to people. After awhile, people will ask themselves, 'Do I really want to live in a world changed by a mean person? Probably not.' And if there are people who answer 'yes,' they will also be people that _you_ would not want to live with."

_Excellent_ , thought the spy. _She denies them violence and intrigue, two of the most powerful tactics available. When the Lord attacks, with the great host that he has accumulated, what else could possibly serve as a defense? He has created his magical soldiers to be unswervingly loyal and obedient, utterly incapable of pity or compassion, and completely indifferent to ethical appeals of any kind. I am almost completely convinced that she is on our side, while pretending otherwise. That would explain why she has not communicated; she does not want to risk having a message be overheard or intercepted, for then her strategy would be ruined!_

**

777 kept searching for the ruling god, at the same time protecting herself from various defenders and defensive mechanisms, which grew ever more clever as she approached her goal. As always when pressed to her limits, she felt a kind of ecstasy of perfection as she made her moves with the grace and speed of a master dancer. She found his fortress and, slipping unseen through a series of traps, she came to the throne room. Evading guard after guard, she finally saw her moment and POUNCED!
**********

"Who you really are is someone else."

(From the Cabaret song, "Is There Someone Else?")

"Hello, Akelian."

"Hello." Akelian stood in the posture known as "third attention": straight, but in a relaxed and natural way. He was over six forearms tall, and heavy with muscle. Suddenly, he spun on his heel, scanned the part of the room behind him, and spun back; the action revealed that he could be quick and limber, in spite of his great size. He was dressed in loose, long-sleeved shirt, made of spider-silk over chain mail, and trousers and a helmet of the same material. A heavy broadsword hung at his left side. On the front and back of his shirt were emblazoned the coat-of-arms of House Karngrevor. His features were rugged, but also intelligent and sensitive. His eyes were large and round, with striking sky-blue irises.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Generally well, but very strange."

"What is it that is strange?"

"My loyalties. I used to be loyal to my family, my comrades, my ethical code, and the goddess Tosaris, but now I am loyal only to you."

"That's because we have altered your soul, Akelian. Everything else we have left the same, though."

"I would expect to feel angry at you for manipulating me like that, but I don't – that's strange, too." For no discernible reason, he spun on his heel, scanned the part of the room behind him, and spun back, all without ceasing to relax.

"You will only have positive feelings about me, Akelian. Yes, it must be strange, but you will get used to it."

"So, what happens next?" asked Akelian, doing another spin, followed by a sliding step to the right.

"We are going to watch you for awhile, and make sure you are functioning well. If so, we will make copies of you."

"What for?"

"I am raising an army, Akelian. I made a partly mechanical army, but it has limitations. I want it to have a human component. You are perhaps the greatest warrior of our time; a few thousand copies of you will be an unstoppable force."

"So, what will you do with that army?"

"The prophecies say that we are approaching a time of great change, Akelian. I intend to direct that change. I will thereby liberate humanity forever."

"Are you the Girl of the Prophecies?"

"No. But I have found her, and I am going to make use of her. Perhaps I will do to her as I have done to you. Or perhaps make an alliance. Or perhaps eliminate her. Or perhaps manipulate her without her knowledge. The Prophecies do not deny that she is guided by another. Besides, the Prophecies are capable of error."

"Who are you? Why can't I see you?"

"I am known as the Lord of Evil. You can't see me, because I no longer have a body like yours. My body is hidden, and will remain so, until my victory."

"Are you a god?"

"I don't know what a 'god' is, Akelian. But I am a very powerful being. Once, I was a man. During the later years of the Zoroid Dynasty, I was a Mage. I did research on increasing the powers of men. Many people were working in that field at that time, and I was one of the best. But the rigid and ignorant were frightened of it, and it was suppressed. I carried on in secret. Over time I have gradually increased my power, and now I am ready to reappear."

"So you are no longer a man?"

"No, Akelian; my soul is a collection of thousands of human souls, thousands of artificial souls, and many supplementary devices, into one. I have the combined knowledge and intelligence of all those. No human body could support such a soul, so an artificial body has been created for me, and another, still better one, is being prepared."

"It is strange that you refer to yourself as 'evil,'" said Akelian.

"Life has taught me that what people do not understand, what is superior to them, what they fear, they call 'evil.' Eventually, I came to accept the term, just to show my indifference to such rhetoric."

"So, when will you know that I am functioning correctly?" asked Akelian, suddenly leaping to the left, and spinning completely around in the air. Although he had leapt high, he landed with barely a sound.

"We are going to give you some tests. The first test is to kill these ten warriors."

At that moment, several doors at the back of the room burst open, and armored swordsmen came rushing in. Drawing his sword, Akelian spun to view them; then he ran to his right, turning at the first moment that would allow him to meet his rightmost enemy. As he approached this warrior, Akelian suddenly leapt to the side, so that his opponent, who had just planted himself firmly in guard position, had to turn quickly and unexpectedly, weakening his balance. Akelian began a level swing of his sword from the right, and his opponent held his sword nearly vertical, to parry it. Using his wrist, Akelian brought the point of his sword upward, so that it missed the parry; then, again using his wrist, he pointed his sword once again toward his enemy; as he did this, he lunged, passing his sword to the left of his opponent's. His opponent, who had been bracing himself for a shock from his left, could not bring his sword back again in time to parry, and Akelian's thrust went six inches into his neck, just below the chin, where it was unprotected by armor. One down.

By this time, several other warriors were close; but Akelian began to move in a complex and confusing way, ducking, leaping, spinning, and feinting, and somehow thereby, managing to meet his opponents one by one. Each such meeting resulted in a deadly or debilitating wound for the opponent. When they tried to circle him, he would rush at some weak point and break out.

At various times Akelian's opponents used magical devices, but Akelian was immune to them. He used no offensive magic of his own, however, except when his opponent tried to protect himself with a magical shield. In such cases, Akelian's sword flashed briefly white as it nullified the opponent's defense.

The last one tried to surrender, but was not allowed to do so.

"I ... see why ... they ... call you ... evil," said Akelian, panting, and whirling his sword to get the blood off it.

"Well done!" said the Lord. "As soon as you rest up a bit, you can proceed with your next test."

"What's that?" asked Akelian.

"To kill your sister, Oselika, and your cousin, Teladorion."

Akelian nodded. "I can do that," he said.
**********

"When the child is ready, a parent will appear."

(Murethendi folk saying)

"It was required by the optimistic prophecies," said Oselika.

Kor felt a surge of anger and outrage. "The _prophecies!_ " she growled. "The _prophecies!_ For some ancient scrap of speculation, probably mostly forged, he gets me pregnant, and then steals my child! Is there no limit to human insanity?" But she quickly cooled. For one thing, she did not wish to waste her time with Zar on ranting; for another, she knew that there _was_ no limit to human insanity, and had known this for so long that it had lost most of its power to shock her. Instead, she just tried to make the best of whatever she had.

Oselika felt an impulse to defend her father in some degree, but decided against it, at least for the time being. "I have had a good life," she said, "but I have always wondered about my womb-mother. And now, I am twice blessed, for not only have I found her, but I see that she is a wonderful person!"

Kor gave her a big squeeze. "I'm sorry I spat bile on you," she said. "I am blessed, too, compared to so many parents, who lose their children forever."

"Well, I certainly can't blame you for being upset," said Oselika, with a sigh. "I would certainly be furious, if I were in your situation."

"Anger never helps," said Kor. She took a deep breath, thought a moment, and then asked, "What brought you here?"

"We came to see the Girl," said Oselika, gesturing towards Ydnas, "the one that some people think is the Girl of the Prophecies."

_Little did I know_ , thought Kor, _that when I handed over that copper coin, that I was buying back my own daughter! But what about Isiliar – did Isiliar know?_

She felt the presence of the goddess in her mind. _I knew that many of the Prophecies predicted that you would find her_ , replied the goddess, _but also that some of them did not._

"So _you_ believe in them _too_?" said Kor out loud. Oselika blinked in surprise and puzzlement. "I'm sorry, Zar," said Kor, chuckling. "I was just talking to my goddess, Isiliar. She is the goddess of love and happiness for the Suimi people. Of which I am one. As are you, as a matter of fact."

"Do you talk to your Goddess often?" asked Oselika, clearly intrigued.

"Oh, yes," said Kor, "all the time. We are friends. Not that we don't fight, you understand!"

Oselika smiled, thinking of her fight with Teladorion. "That's remarkable," she replied. "Our primary god, Tosaris, is rather remote – I mean, she rarely makes a persona." She shuddered as she thought of the last time she had had direct dealings with Tosaris.

"You know," said Kor, "you should have a tattoo! Suimi traditionally have a tattoo on their left earlobe. I had one placed on you at birth. Let me see!" There was nothing.

"I can't remember ever having such a thing," said Oselika. "They must have removed it while I was still an infant."

Kor looked angry again. "Well," she grumbled, "you should have it redone. Of course, that's up to you!"

"I think I might like to," said Oselika. "It's just a sign of being a Suimi? And that's just a matter of descent?"

"Matrilineal descent," said Kor, nodding.

"Well, then, why not?" asked Oselika. "It's part of my heritage, after all!" She smiled, and so did Kor.

"We can do it now, if you like!" said Kor. "It only takes a moment; no pain!"

For a moment, Oselika was angry at Kor for suggesting that she might be afraid of pain; but then she thought, _She doesn't mean it the way someone from my family – my adoptive family – would have. She thinks entirely differently!_

"Well, then, let's!" she said.

Kor smiled and nodded, and took Zar's left earlobe between her left forefinger and thumb. She felt Isiliar's magic travel through her, from her own left earlobe to Zar's. There was a sound of wind chimes, and a whiff of sandalwood. "That's it!" she said, with a smile.

Oselika looked wonderstruck. "I can feel her!" she said, in awe, but also in puzzlement.

Kor looked puzzled. "Well, ... of course you can! You're officially a Suimi now, and she is your tutelary goddess!"

"It must be ... sort of an ... antenna!" said Oselika, fondling her earlobe.

"A what?"

"An antenna." Oselika explained what an antenna was. "It's probably picking up signals from the Ectoplasmic Reticulum."

"No, no," said Kor, "Isiliar is in your _heart!_ Your emotional heart, I mean."

"It does feel that way," said Oselika thoughtfully, "but, ..." She decided not to pursue it. Instead, she leaned toward Kor, took her hands, looked lovingly into her eyes, sighed, and said, "I hate to do this, Darling Mother, but I came here on a mission, and I must continue with it."

"I understand," said Kor, but her expression showed that although she understood it intellectually, and would not interfere, it would be very painful for her to part once again, so soon. Or ever. It was not easy for Zar, either, and tears began to flow from both of them.

"I'll see you whenever I can," said Zar. "Now, I must speak to Ydnas."

"All ... right," said Kor, smiling feebly, and looking at the ground.

Giving Kor a last squeeze, Oselika turned, took a deep breath, and, with a huge effort, changed the direction of her thoughts, back to her mission and her quest. Vidigeon felt a little sad, because he had been touched by their reunion, perhaps because it reminded him of the union with his Lord, that he was hoping for; but he felt certain that Oselika's quest would end in much pain for her.
**********

"Two faceted mirrors and a single point of light"

(from the popular song, "The Universe _"_ )

The secret society known as 'the Friends of Theo-Anarchy' met one evening on the eighth floor of a pagoda in a secluded corner of the campus of the Great University of Ilusindane. To most people, the pagoda had only seven floors; the eighth floor was permanently invisible and inaccessible to all but members of the society, with the exception of Vidigeon, who had penetrated their defenses, without their knowing it, some time ago. The other floors were used for a museum.

The society's meeting-place was a single room, small and undecorated, and lit by portable lamps. The rafters were bare, and the undersides of the roof-tiles could be seen between the boards that supported them. A breeze was whispering to the roof. The scent of incense, left over from the opening service, hung in the air. At one end of the room was an altar, with large and intricate iridium statues of the major muses. Each member of the society, appearing out of thin air, had proceeded to this altar, bowed, and spent a few hundredbreaths in silent but fervent prayer. Other than the altar, a few chairs were the only furniture.

Sern Inil, who worked as a part-time grounds-keeper at the College of Large Mollusk Reproductive Physiology, was the presiding member. He was an elderly man with a deeply lined face of dark blue, from which his amethyst eyes gleamed fiercely. He was thin and somewhat stooped. He wore simple, gray linen working clothes. He opened the meeting by ringing a glass bell, at the sound of which everyone fell silent and took seats. Sern ritually knelt and kissed the feet of the statue of Clarindor, the Muse of Discovery. Then he turned, and addressed the meeting with a familiar prayer:

"Divine Muses, we honor you, we love and cherish you, and we humbly beg for your divine presence and guidance. Enliven and inspire us, as you have enlivened and inspired our predecessors for incalculable time. We beg forgiveness for our ignorance, our stupidity, our laziness, and our vulgarity. Please help us to grow and discover."

"Yes, please do," responded the others.

After pausing with eyes closed for a few breaths, Sern Inil rang a little silver bell and proceeded with his opening remarks:

"Dear Friends: we are, I am afraid, approaching a time when we have to question our own fundamental purpose, and perhaps even abandon it. I refer, of course, to the end-time of the prophecies. For all we know, Theo-Anarchy will not survive the next decade, and, for all we know, that may be a good thing. Ultimately, our duty as human beings is not to support any particular system or institution, but to do what, to the best of our knowledge, will best serve humanity, the gods, and the world.

"Dear Friends, if we are to be open to the possibility of a radical transformation, if we are to be open to the possibility that Theo-Anarchy may have run its course, at least for the time being, then we will have to learn to think in a whole new way. Previously, we had a definite goal: to preserve and strengthen Theo-Anarchy, to help it flourish, so that the people living in it could also flourish. Our thinking was instrumental: how could we use the resources we had, most efficiently, most effectively, in the service of that goal? But now, the future is a mystery, the goal perhaps impossible. How can we prepare for the unpredictable? We must learn to be flexible, to take nothing for granted. We, who are accustomed to thinking in millennia, must learn to live in the fleeting moment. We, the masters of our disciplines, must learn to be incompetent ignoramuses. We must be ready to be profoundly transformed, at the same time that society is profoundly transformed.

"We may also have to be prepared to be far less technical in our approach, to abandon equations, and diagrams, and methods, and templates, and abaci, and cogitators, and other traditional methods, and simply take things as they come. We must learn to decide quickly, and to learn from errors more than we avoid them. We may find ourselves acting as local vigilantes, doing small bits of good when the occasion arises, like the folk heroes we read about as children.

"I have thought that perhaps we ought to take the Great Library as our major concern. There may be a wave of barbarism, and it would be a tragedy if the Great Library, or any significant part of it, were to be destroyed. Perhaps we should use our influence to have it sealed, and to make multiple copies of the most significant books, and hide them in various places. As you know, the Groyli Hill Quadrangle was once a fortress; perhaps it should be made a fortress again. The various Colleges of Engineering should perhaps create walls and cloaks and weapons for us. We might also consider hiring mercenaries, or petitioning Karngrevor for protection. We might also want to convert more of our open land to agriculture, and to build more greenhouses, so that we can be self-sufficient.

"I am not surprised to see shock on your faces at such proposals; they would require the abandonment of millennia of tradition, and we have assassinated people for proposing far less than a millionth part of what I am saying. I assure you that I am only raising possibilities for consideration, but I also remind you, once again, that circumstances are about to change drastically. Imagine the University in the hands of an ignorant warlord, or a fanatical religious sect, or unable to procure basic necessities. Imagine a plague passing through the area. I will not ask you to imagine war among the gods, since we have no idea of what that might entail, and would probably be helpless to do anything about it, regardless of how we prepare ourselves.

"I am afraid that you may feel as though I am asking you to consider turning yourselves inside out, becoming totally different people, and abandoning almost everything that you hold sacred or dear. Unfortunately, you would be right. I also ask you to consider what, of all the things you hold sacred, you hold the _most_ sacred, and what, of all the things you hold dear, you hold the _most_ dear; for you may only be able to save one of each.

"Dear Friends, it has fallen to our lot to live in the first years of the Closing of the Prophecies. We all came to Holy Ilusindane seeking, not only knowledge, but an oasis of highly developed civilization. The thought that we may be seeing the last days of that oasis is almost more than I can bear. But there is no use in wishful thinking. In our Library are countless wonderful books that survived long eras of barbarism, thanks to individuals and small groups who hid them, disguised them, copied them, memorized them, fought for them, and died for them. Some of them lay in the dark for twenty millennia or more. If we can preserve just one of these books for our own posterity, we will have done no small thing. Let us be willing to pay whatever price may be required for this.

"Dear Friends, I will say no more; I have probably already said too much. May the Holy Muses smile on us, and give us wisdom." Clasping his hands at his chest, he closed his eyes and bowed, as did his audience.

It was the custom at such meetings to maintain silence for at least several breaths after each speaker, and for no one to speak unless they felt inspiration from the Muses. Sometimes an entire meeting went by with nothing said.

Karneritik, Professor Emeritus of Polysemantic Logic, felt such disturbed emotions within herself that she could catch no glimpse of a thought from a Muse. She tried to calm herself by controlling her breath, closing her eyes, and running through Auoië's proof of Kharadzhing's Conjecture in her head. In going over this beautiful proof she always saw something new, something which cast light in many directions. It had a self-referential quality which, like sitting between two mirrors, gave one a sense of infinite power and possibility. Contemplating it invariably gave her not only a sense of the Holiness of the Muses, but also of the vast potential of humanity. After all, both Kharadzhing and Auoië were human, difficult as that might be to believe.

As she danced through the proof, which made such beautifully unexpected flips from one logic to another, it suddenly occurred to her that it might have an application to the present situation. When she tried to formulate this, it eluded her, and so she began to dance through it again.

No one else spoke; they, too, were wrestling with their emotional turmoil, or locked in thought. Hence, she was able to go through the proof twice, and begin a third time. As she was happily pirouetting through a fractal of complex dimension, the idea struck her again; this time it was vivid enough to carry her away. She was unaware of the tears running down her face as a tiny corner of her mind thought, "This is an inspiration indeed!"

Vidigeon, scanning Kondrastibar as always, saw that she was onto something; but he could not infer from her external appearance exactly what was going on in her mind, even when he examined the motions of her eyes, the trembling of her hands, and the microscopic vibrations of her vocal chords. He continued with his scan of Kondrastibar, returning to check her every few breaths.

As a child, Karneritik had often blown dandelion seeds from the mature blossom, watching them swirl and float away. She had done this on her tenth birthday, and it had struck her then, that each little seed would still be _somewhere_ after several days; and later it struck her that although they would eventually disappear, each one would set in motion other events, and be transformed into other things; for example, some might give rise to new dandelions, which would in turn spread their own seeds, and others might become food for worms, which would in turn be food for birds, and so on. She thought that she had probably, at some time, eaten part of the remains of some seed that she had once blown away.

That had been five or six decades ago; but for some reason, she had remembered, on every birthday since, that original birthday dandelion-blowing, and thought for awhile about what might have come from each of the seeds. By now, the effects were probably everywhere in the world. And on her thirtieth birthday, she had thought how amazing it would be, if the reverse were to happen: if little bits of things from all over the world were to come together, over the course of many decades, form seeds, and finally float through the air, to assemble themselves into a single dandelion flower! Then she realized, that what _did_ happen was equally miraculous: that tiny bits of matter from all over the world converged in one small place to become part of a dandelion, and to make its seeds; and this happens every time a dandelion blooms! This changed forever the way she thought about causality.

And now, as she watched the final pieces of her insight converge in the focus of her attention, Karneritik had the feeling that something just like that was happening: that with a strange and miraculous inevitability, innumerable influences were arriving from the far-flung corners of the world, and fitting together perfectly, to give her a new and beautiful thought.

It was soon complete; she stood and said, "Dear Friends, I am happy to say that my Muse has spoken to me about the issue raised by our brilliant and beloved Sern. I cannot at this time tell you just what she has revealed to me, for it is new to me, and highly technical. But please take comfort in the fact that we have not been abandoned. Before our next meeting, I will find a way to make its significance clear to all."

Vidigeon was disappointed; he had wanted to share this insight, but he still could not tell what it was, although it no doubt had something to do with Polysemantic Logic, and there was something about her stance and tone that suggested that it might relate to Kharadzhing's Conjecture. The Lord would be deeply interested in anything that might cast some light over what would follow the Prophetic Era, or allow someone control over the outcome. Vidigeon decided to keep a close watch on Karneritic, and report on her to the Lord.
**********

"The truth cannot be too often repeated."

(from a prayer wheel, Arj Interregnum)

Again, Ydnas read to her audience. This time, she read from a book called "Fables of the Igri." "This story," she said, "is called ' _The Ring of Fire_.'" She began to read:

Once Irksindor, the god of fear, and Grailbish, the god of ignorance, cast a spell on mortals, and trapped them in a dark and sickening place, surrounded by a ring of fire. Life inside the ring was generally unpleasant and degrading. Because they were in a sickening place, their minds became sick; they did foolish things. Some of them committed suicide; some of them tried to console themselves with beautiful lies; others gave in to despair and lived mechanically; and some of them blamed others for their misery, and fought with them. But deep in their hearts, hidden beneath the illusions, they all knew that if they could only escape the ring, their minds would be clear, and their lives would be true.

But how could they escape? A person could be burned very badly, perhaps killed, while running through the ring. Even worse, around the outside were demons made by Irksindor, who would throw huge rocks at mortals who tried to run through the fire. So it was very rare for a single person to succeed in escaping. And because their minds were sick, and because Grailbish has made it is hard to see what the world is really like, on the other side of the flames, the people inside were not sure whether it would really be better on the outside, anyway. So why should they take the risk?

Nevertheless, most of them escaped. This is what they did: a large group of them got together, and made a plan, and carried it out: they all ran through the ring, all at the same time. They all ran as fast as they could, and there were not enough demons to hit them all with rocks before they got to the other side.

Many of them were killed by the flames and the rocks, but most of them survived. Those who came all the way through, to the outside of the fire, are safe and free; those who remained inside are still miserable. Many of those who were willing to risk their lives were saved, but all of those who were unwilling to risk their lives were lost. Many who cared for others, and trusted them, were saved, but those who were selfish, remain trapped in the fire forever."

"That is the end of the story," said Ydnas, closing the book. "I'd like it if we thought about it for awhile. Then we can talk about it." They were all silent for awhile, and then Ydnas rang a bell. "Do you want to say anything?" she asked. Kor stood up to speak.

"That is a nice story, Dearie, and do you know what I think? I think we are inside a ring of fire today. We are trapped by fear and ignorance. Especially fear. Many people have dreary, frustrating lives, even the few rich and powerful among them, but they are all afraid of losing what they have, and so they do not make a change.

"But to my way of thinking, the most important message of the story is, that _individuals cannot make such changes alone_ ; almost everyone has to act together. For example, would it not be a wonderful thing if no one was ever violent? Of course it would! But most people think, 'If I am not violent, but others are, and no one is violent for my sake, then the violent ones will take advantage of me.' So, out of fear, individuals and groups continue to be violent, or to hire mercenaries, or support politicians who will arrange violence for their sake, in spite of the terrible consequences that they know will follow. Sometimes they have an inkling of the joy that they would feel, if they were to cast off fear, and live peaceful lives, but they do not really believe that they can, and they are almost right, for it is a very difficult thing to do alone. So the god of violence lives on and on, feeding on human misery forever.

"Now, if everyone would stop being violent all at once, no one would have anyone to fear. Unfortunately, most people would have to be sure that all the others were going to stop, too, before they would give up violence. But if everyone says, 'You first,' nothing ever happens. We have to run through the ring of fire all together: it takes courage, it takes commitment, it takes communication, and it takes trust. You see? So, how can we do this?"

She sat down. Tulith gave her a big hug. "You were very eloquent, Kor," she whispered. Kor smiled and returned the hug.

Lessie stood up next, looking very self-conscious, and stuttered with nervousness as she spoke: "Thinking I am, that ... that maybe, ... that maybe this w-we could do: ... everyone who thinks, 'To run through the f-fire I am willing, if only others w-will also,' everyone who th-thinks this way, this they c-could show, by w-wearing a certain scarf or p-pin or something. So, other p-people a person could s-see, w-wearing this p-pin, and think, 'Oh, not th-the only one who f-feels this way am I, not so c-crazy or stupid am I,' and then, to think this way, m-more people might b-be willing.'" She sat down, looking exhausted; the mute boy, who was sitting next to her, put his arm around her; she sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder, eyes closed. He tenderly kissed the top of her head.

_I wonder if the boy understood what she said_ , thought Tulith. _He probably doesn't need to._

Anandra stood up.

"I like that idea," she said, "and I would like to suggest something else: that we begin with something much easier and less dangerous than ending violence. Now, the world is full of problems that can be solved only by everyone in a group acting together, and some of these are comparatively easy to solve. So groups could start by solving these easy problems, and go on to harder ones. People would see that they can indeed trust one another, and that problems can indeed be solved. Gradually, people would begin to trust one another enough to take greater and greater risks, in order to accomplish greater and greater results. Two people, or two groups, who had demonstrated similar levels of dedication could trust each other enough to join together. So gradually, more and more people would become more and more dedicated, until one day, they were ready for a really difficult problem, like ending violence."

A tall, strong-looking man in his 20's, dressed in a black robe, stood up. "I'm sorry to make noise while you are dreaming," he said, "but have you never read History? I admire your idealism, but I don't want to see you waste your time and energy. I share your dislike of violence, but violence has always been with us; it is just part of human nature. And so it is with the other things that I'm sure you idealists want to get rid of, like poverty and crime. Of course, I wish it were not so, but that's the way it is; we must accept it, and get on with our lives as best we can."

The spy from the Lord of Evil was irritated by this contribution, for he liked the idea of spreading an ideal of non-violence. He thought briefly of casting some subtle slaver or damage spell on the man, or standing up and speaking against him, but he remembered his instructions, which were to just observe, and to not do anything that might draw attention to himself. The Security here was evidently very good, and he could not be sure that his spell would not be detected.

A gray-haired woman stood up, saying, "There are lots of poor people in my neighborhood, and you know what? When they do get some money, they don't save it, they just spend it on drugs, or gambling, or throwing a party. And they lie, and steal, and they don't keep their families together, and they don't have the least bit of education! These people are bound to be poor; they don't just have the kind of character it takes to live a decent life!"

At this, Kor began to quiver with rage; Tulith put her hand on her shoulder to calm her. An older man stood up; he too, seemed furious. "Yes," he said, "those people are the problem! If you try to help them, it's like helping a leech! They are just parasites by nature! We should just wipe them out, along with all the crooked politicians who kowtow to them!"

"Are you talking about the _rich_?" asked Brother Koof.

The old man glared at him for a moment, and then gave a snort of dismissal and sat down.

"I thought you weren't supposed to _hate_ the rich," whispered Anandra to Koof.

"I don't _hate_ them," Koof whispered back. "I just – Oh, I suppose!" With a sigh, he stood up and said, "I'm sorry, I must apologize for that remark. It was intemperate, and therefore foolish. Please forgive me and allow me to withdraw it." He sat down again, holding his head as though he had a headache.

A young woman stood up. "It can be so sad," she said, "to look around and see all the violence and poverty and crime and general immorality and suffering in this world. I used to be angry and depressed all the time about it; I even tried to commit suicide once. But one day, I discovered the Church of Emilda. Now I know that this horrible world is only transitory, and that when I die, which is really coming to life, I will go to Emilda's Heaven, where I and everyone else will be happy forever. Not only that, the Church teaches us how to transport ourselves to Heaven here and now, through meditation!" Clasping her hands before her, she closed her eyes; her face relaxed, and then became suffused with an expression of untrammeled bliss.

The discussion went on for a long time. Most of the people there felt that what Ydnas was apparently proposing was absurd. After that day, however, a few of the people who listened to Ydnas' talks began to sew little emblems on their clothing; each emblem was in the form of a ring of fire.
**********

"The more bizarre a person appears to you,

the more you have to learn from him."

(from the _Scriptures_ of the Angels of Rejuvenation)

After supper one day, 1080 approached 111, the man who never stayed focused on his work. 111 was, as usual, sitting down and doing nothing visible, just staring at the canvas of the tent, about a meter from his face. As 111 became aware of 1080, he gave a start, then cringed.

"No, no," said 1080, very gently, raising open hands. "No push! No struggle! I just want to talk with you a little." 111's expression became a little less fearful, but also showed a touch of irritation.

"We've been biting you for a long time about your work, I know," said 1080, "but I've come around to the view that we should stop doing that. You are what you are. And you are what you should be."

A tiny fraction of hope and curiosity appeared in 111's expression, followed by a trace of suspicion. He still said nothing.

"I think you're a _thinker_ ," said 1080, sitting next to 111. "I think you were _born_ to think. And I think you can _help_ us by thinking."

111 glanced briefly at 1080 in surprise. His eyes appeared to be tearing up, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. He seemed to be struggling to suppress it. He looked away again immediately.

"You know," said 1080, "I like to think too, sometimes. Not like you, but ... yes, I sometimes like to just sit and think." It was true; although 1080 had never deliberately sat down, _just to think_ , without some specific problem in mind that was forcing him to do so, he sometimes _found_ himself in reverie. And although he was often impatient with this aspect of himself, he had never been able to rid himself of it.

111 looked at 1080 again, flicking quickly over his eyes, then focusing on the center of his face. A couple of breaths passed before he looked down again.

Acting on a hunch, 1080 just sat there, letting his mind go. It didn't go very far; he was too self-conscious. He started to think about the problem that he had posed to Brother Piranha: how could their group function without threats, bribes, or deception? But his mind wandered. Several times, he found himself, realizing that he had been drifting down a river of thought for some time, without being aware of it. His mind kept flitting from one thing to another. Fantasies. Rehearsals of things he might say or do, or of things he wished he had said or done. He would often become quite deeply immersed in these things. Several times, he had the experience of coming to himself, with a bit of surprise, and remembering why he was there. _Is this what reincarnation is,_ he wondered, _coming to yourself again? Am I really there when I am not aware of myself?_ As time passed, he became restless, but he stifled his impulses to leave.

"You know, I think language is like a symbiont," said 111.

"What?" said 1080, surprised and disoriented. "A sili – what??"

"A symbiont. A symbiont is like a parasite, you know, except that it is helpful to its host. They help each other. Sometimes you can't tell, really, which is the symbiont and which is the host. It's sort of like a good marriage. You see, language needs us in order to exist. No people, no language. But it helps us out, you see, it's useful to us. It helps itself by helping us, because language helps us to survive and flourish, and thereby helps itself to survive and flourish. You agree?"

"Well, yes, I agree," said 1080. Somewhat to his surprise, he was genuinely intrigued by the idea. _Maybe I'm more of a thinker than I thought_ , he thought.

"Sometimes I think ... a language flourishes when it is well-organized in an appropriate way. It is sick when few people can speak it well. Something like that."

"I see," said 1080. Suddenly, he realized that 111 was not lecturing him, not trying to teach him something that 111 already knew; he was just speaking thoughts as they came into his mind, if he found them interesting.

"It makes me feel guilty," said 1080.

111 looked startled. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"Sometimes I'm sloppy with my language. I mangle it. I injure it."

"Aaah," said 111, with a broad smile that 1080 had never seen on his face before. "Yes, one can feel compassion for a language!" _I think I just scored some points with him_ , thought 1080, pleased with himself.

"Can a language heal itself?" he asked.

"In a way, yes," said 111. "I mean, if one group of people let their language deteriorate far enough, they will find themselves at a disadvantage compared to others whose language is in better shape, and they will be motivated to improve it. They can do this by means of programs of education."

"And in order to improve it," said 1080, continuing 111's thought, "they will have to _talk_ to each other – they will have to say, 'let's do this,' or 'let's do that.' So the language is fixing itself, or at least helping."

"Yes!" said 111, with an enthusiasm that 1080 had never seen in him.

1080 could find nothing further to say, but 111 didn't seem to mind. There was a long silence. Then 111 said, "Languages _reproduce_! If a bunch of people goes off to form a colony, they take their language with them, but it begins to change – after awhile, it's not the same language anymore. So now there's two. Or, when two groups of people, speaking two different languages, live near each other, they often end up speaking a language that is a mixture of the two, the way a child shares characteristics from both its parents. Something like that."

"Yes, I see," said 1080.

"On the other hand," said 111, "sometimes one language just takes in a few words or phrases from another language, you know? I'll bet there are living creatures like that, too, although I don't know of any. Eimzinger said, 'Analogy is a guide to the unknown.'"

"Eimzer? Who was Eimzer?"

"Eimzinger. He was a physicist. You know, a kind of mage, someone who studies nature. He said that the world is a fractal net of analogies."

"When a language absorbs part of another language, that is also sort of like eating," said 1080, too embarrassed to ask what a 'near-fractal net' was.

"Aaah," said 111 appreciatively, making eye contact for a moment, and nodding approval.

"Is a language a _god_?" asked 1080.

"I don't know," said 111, looking pleasantly intrigued by the idea. "Can a language _think_?"

"Well," said 1080, "a language has the _tools_ to think. I mean, words are like concepts." The thought just bubbled out of him, but afterwards, he was startled; it wasn't the kind of thought he would have ever expected himself to have.

"When we talk to each other," said 111, "perhaps that is language thinking."

"In a way, languages _know_ things," said 111. "We speak of the 'center' of a circle. This shows that the fact that a circle _has_ a center is part of our language."

So the conversation went, with frequent intervals of comfortable silence. After about an hour, 987 appeared. "1080?" she queried, puzzled to see him just sitting there.

1080 looked up at her and smiled. "Hi, 987," he said. "111 and I are _thinking_ together. Would you like to join us?" He turned to 111. "If it's no weight on you, of course," he added.

111 looked disoriented for a moment; evidently, 1080 had brought him back from a great distance. Then, without looking up, he nodded his consent. 987 hesitated a moment, giving 1080 an odd look; then she said, "Well, thank you!" and sat down.

For awhile, she just sat and observed the two of them; then she joined in the conversation. _It's sort of like a game_ , thought 1080, _a co-operative game, where no one loses_.

After awhile, 987 said, "Well, it's really bedtime. I'm going to go to sleep, or I will be very sorry in the morning." She stood up. "Nice ... _thinking_ with you," she said, smiling at both of them, and went her way.

After waiting a moment, 1080 said, "I'm afraid that's true for me, too!" Standing up, he added, "Nice thinking with you!" He reached out to give 111 a touch on the shoulder, but 111 flinched away. "I'm sorry," said 1080, pulling his hand back quickly.

Still without looking up, 111 smiled a bit, and dipped his head in a sort of salute. 1080 did the same, and made his way to his bedroll.

As he crumbled into sleep, he had an odd feeling that he had found a solution to the problem of not bribing or coercing, but he couldn't get it onto his tongue.
**********

"Art is part of life; life is part of art."

(Corigindlish proverb)

Ling's hunch was right, and his sense of timing had been perfect; a man was stepping out of the door, sighting a crossbow. The crossbow was aimed at where Ling had been, just a moment ago. The man realized he was going to miss, but it was too late to stop himself. He fired. The bolt _snicked_ by Torothex at the level of his heart; a moment later, he felt its wake whirl up his cheek. By then he was already bending his knees, preparing to spring.

**

Torothex had already been familiar with the story of the opera. It had numerous subordinate plots, each of which reflected on the main plot in some way. The main plot was the story of Karesh, the brilliant and loyal Assassin of the wise and beloved King Rogaway. Thanks to Karesh, the King was able to avert war on many occasions, for foreign and domestic leaders who began to drum up support for a war had a way of dying. The people of many countries revered King Rogaway, for he had saved them the agony of a war.

**

Ling charged. The assassin started to reach for the dagger at his side, but, judging that he didn't have time to draw it, tried to thrust the crossbow into Ling's face instead. But Ling did not come directly at him; turning a little to the left, he swung the heavy icon of Rangza on its metal chain, bringing it down on the assassin's head. The assassin winced, and was distracted. A moment later, a kick from Ling broke his knee, and he lost his balance, going down. Putting his amateurish opponent completely out of action with a punch to the solar plexus, Ling thrust him back into the darkness from which he had emerged.

**

But the day came when King Rogaway, infatuated with the wife of one of his vassals, the Duke of Biers, commanded Karesh to kill the Duke, making it appear to be a natural death. This placed Karesh in a terrible conflict: on the one hand, he owed obedience to his king, but, on the other hand, he was revolted at the idea of taking part in such a dishonorable scheme.

"Why, oh gods," he sang, with great anguish, "did you make King Rogaway noble, great, and wise, only to sully him with this disgusting flaw?"

**

Torothex habitually wore a small cloth cap; Ling stuffed this into the assassin's mouth as a gag. Pulling the man's long sleeves down over his hands, he fastened his arms behind his back by knotting the ends of the sleeves together. Putting his knee in the small of his opponents' back, he rested for a moment, panting.

_That felt incredibly good_ , he thought. _Plotting and directing are all very well, but muscle against muscle, move against move, blow against blow, that is the real thing!_ He wanted to untie the man, let him get up and fight him again. And again and again, like a cat playing with a mouse.

Then he suddenly remembered his situation. He had just acted in a way that was utterly incompatible with Torothex's most basic values. If anyone had observed it, there would be an explosion of consternation among his friends and associates.

**

In a later scene, Karesh goes to the castle of the Duke, disguised as a relative. But the Duke is not there; instead, Karesh encounters the Duchess, the object of the King's infatuation. He is deeply curious about her. "What power does this woman have," he sings, "that makes her stronger than a king?"

By then, Ling had learned that drama can be more than just an imitation of exciting or exotic events. He decided that on another level, the story is about the conflict between our idealism and our selfishness. The King represents this two-sidedness of ours. _But the assassin_ , he thought, _what exactly would he represent? Perhaps, our ability to do what we deem necessary, even though it may be terrible._

**

Ling darted to the door and peered out; he saw no one; perhaps he has gone unobserved. He pulled the door closed and latched it. After checking his captive, he made a quick foray of exploration; apparently he was in a small and empty church.

He returned to his victim, and dragged him down a set of stone stairs to a far corner of the basement, where he intended to interrogate him.

**

Karesh, still pretending to be a relative, has a profound conversation with the Duchess, Laëlia. He discovers that she is not only beautiful, but wise and good. He learns that she finds the King's attentions utterly dismaying, just as Karesh himself does. Fearing the chaos that might result from the situation, possibly including war between the Duke and the King, she decides to commit suicide. "I never wanted to be a source of contention," she sings, "and I refuse to be one."

Karesh is shocked; he thinks that would be a terrible waste. He begs her not to: "It will surely be sufficient," he sings, "if you cut off one of your nostrils, and one of your breasts."

**

"I'm going to take your gag off," whispered Ling to his prisoner, "because I'm going to question you. We will converse in whispers. If you raise your voice, I will do something truly terrible to you." The man nodded. Ling noticed that he was weeping.

"I'm sorry," whispered the man, when Ling has removed the gag.

_I believe he's actually sincere_ , thought Ling, who was an excellent judge of character. "Apology accepted," he replied, "but I'm still going to question you." The would-be assassin closed his eyes.

"Why did you try to kill me?" asked Ling.

"I'm sorry," said the man, and fell silent.

Ling sighed. He stuffed Torothex's cap back into the man's mouth. Then, he felt in the crotch of the man's trousers until he located his testicles. Then he ground them together between the heels of his hands. The man jerked and flipped like a fish out of water, his screams muffled to a high-pitched humming sound. _I suppose this wouldn't be Torothex's way, either_ , thought Ling.
**********

"Many people overestimate the difference

between gods and mortals."

(Saint Anthris the Bureaucrat)

The god looked somewhat balefully down on Ydnas. "You are not one of my devotees," he said, with a scowl.

"No, I'm not," said Ydnas, "but some people think I'm the Girl of the Prophecies. May I have a few words with you?"

"Well, _are_ you the Girl of the Prophecies?" demanded the god.

"I don't know," said Ydnas, "but it seems quite possible."

"The Catephorebragian Prophecy says that the Girl will _heal the gods_ ," said the god. "Can you heal a god?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," replied Ydnas.

"Are you suggesting that I am ill?" asked the god, scowling a little.

"Well, how has life been for you, these past three or four millennia?" asked Ydnas.

"Oh, I get along," said the god, looking away. "You know – time goes by, more or less out of habit!"

"I read some of your scriptures," said Ydnas. "It seems that when you started out, you had wonderfully high ideals and great ambitions."

"Oh, yes," the god replied, in a tone of cynical amusement, spread over wistful sadness. "I was going to save the world, establish peace, love, equality, justice, logic, civility, happiness, that sort of thing. The older gods told me it wasn't going to work, but I didn't believe them. And actually, the first few years _were_ wonderful – my devotees would do _anything_ for me. Martyrdom, celibacy, board meetings – you name it! Our growth rate was fantastic. It's incredible what we accomplished. But then, one morning you wake up and realize, _the honeymoon's over_!

"You see," he continued, "once a church gets well-established, people's attitudes change. They've got a little security, they're not so hungry, they have a supportive community, they start raising families, and suddenly they have no appetite for risk anymore. As they get affluent, they think they no longer need each other. In fact, they start to compete. They have something to lose now, so they get conservative. And now they have resources to fight each other over. You get your ambition, your envy, your power struggles, and suddenly everything is politics and economics. Love is replaced by rules, and idealism shrivels into snobbery. Once you were rebelling against the establishment, but suddenly, you realize you _are_ the establishment! What a joke! Nothing fails like success, you know. Sometimes I wish I had done like Isiliar, and scattered my people all over the place, serving others – that way, they can't get too comfortable! Or the Kantrikars. But it's too late now.

"And _schisms_! Great galloping gargoyles, tell me about _schisms_! Every time there's a new sect formed, I have to decide – well, I can accept this variant, or I can lose all those devotees. Imagine your arms with minds of their own, and your legs as bitter enemies of each other, and so on, until the pores in your skin and the hairs on your head can't stand one another! Right now I have 92 different sects to keep track of! Not to mention _individuals_ who insist on interpreting this or that passage as only a metaphor or parable, or have just gotten something wrong but are too complacent to check it out. For every two devotees, I have three interpretations. And everyone and her imaginary friend are writing books about me, explaining what I _really_ am, or what I _really_ meant by this or that! It's incredible how ingenious mortals can be, when it comes to rationalizing. They decide what they want to believe, or what will sell, and then they interpret their scriptures accordingly. I tried sending new prophets out, but they only end up in insane asylums, or worse.

"Well, I soon found out that it's all I can do to keep my own people from exterminating each other. And of course they manage to make enemies of people from other religions, and then I have to deal with that, too! I swear, by all the handmade lace that snakes make, it's getting so that I don't _want_ them to be too enthusiastic – they're just liable to hurt someone! Just go to church, say your prayers, and _put down the bloody sword, you idiot!_

"And their endless petitionary prayers – haven't these people ever heard of _immanence_?" He shook his head in sad amazement.

He suddenly smiled. "Did you hear what _Sheesh_ did?" he continued, with a chuckle. "He got disgusted, and just _abandoned_ his people, and started another religion under another name! He calls himself 'Hipi' now. His old followers don't even notice that he's gone – they've become so set in their ways, and so good at rationalizing, they don't even _need_ a real god any more! They just run on scripture, habit, ceremony, wishful thinking, and peer group pressure. Every now and then, they find a coincidence and call it a miracle! Of course, they frown on the worship of Hipi! I've thought of doing like Hipi, but what's the use? He's just going to end up in the same place, in the long run. Besides, I feel a certain obligation to my devotees, even if I don't know how to fulfill it very well."

"You sound as though you are finding life to be a little stale," said Ydnas.

"Well, I guess," said the god, "you know, there are times when I wish that I had some of my youthful illusions back. Yes, I was deluded then, but I was a lot happier, too! But what can I do? You can stand on your head, but that won't make water flow upstream!"

"You're being sort of casual about it," said Ydnas, "but I think there's a very deep sadness in you, over this."

"Well ... yeah ... I guess so," said the god, blinking rapidly, "but ... what's the use of complaining? I mean, not that I don't complain now and then, when I get the chance. As you see."

"Well, maybe you're going to get a second opportunity to save the world," said Ydnas.

The god looked puzzled." What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, the end of the Prophetic Times is coming, you know. People are going to start feeling insecure again."

The god perked up a little. He frowned, but his frown betrayed a little hope. "You really think ...?" But then he looked glum again, saying, "Well, what if they do? The same thing will just happen all over again, is all."

"Unless the world _really changes_ ," said Ydnas.

"Yeah, well, we all know _that's_ going to happen," said the god, with acid sarcasm, looking more cynical than ever. "The fact is, mortals have an unlimited ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

"Why do you suppose that is?" asked Ydnas.

The god grimaced. "One thing," he said, "is the way they're all split up into self-centered individuals, all competing with each other. A group of them will sometimes join together if they have a powerful, aggressive enemy, or some horrible natural catastrophe to deal with, but as soon as they are comfortable, it's back to 'I, me, mine.' Even though they felt better, more alive, during the crisis! And it's the same way with groups – always competing. You know, I'm supposed to love them, but sometimes they just make me sick! For all the turtle fur on a bird! The rich and powerful, strutting around, gambling for a living, buying toys, starting wars, and giving stern moral lectures to those who are miserable and dying! Politicians manipulating people, and people letting themselves be manipulated, loving every moment of it ... Yuck! _Tapeworm gangrene_ smells better than that!"

"It's not easy, being a god," said Ydnas, shaking her head.

"No, it's not," agreed the god.

"But look at the Kantrikars," said Ydnas. " _They're_ mortals, but _they_ don't get comfortable."

"Ya, ya, ya, but what does that get them? They end up as slaves! Or if they don't, they still don't have any power. The world just keeps running over the edge of its cliff, trampling any Kantrikars who might happen to get in the way. Besides, if I told _my_ people to take a vow of poverty, they wouldn't even _hear_ me. And as for _silence!_ " The god snickered.

"Probably not," said Ydnas, "but the Kantrikars show that humans _can_ be different. And then, there are the Zillists."

"Another tiny, tiny group."

"True," said Ydnas, "but, why do you suppose they exist at all?"

"Statistics," said the god, shrugging. "Kondrastibar is such a big place, you can find almost anything in it."

"But, more specifically," pressed Ydnas.

"Hmm," said the god, thoughtfully. "that's a tough one. Every now and then, someone is not satisfied with things ... somehow the corpse comes back to life. Exceptional people ... I don't know where they come from. But their organizations know what to do with them: Kantrikars and Zillists are both very demanding; their people can't get too comfortable, they can't get distracted from what they are supposed to be doing. Neither of them draw a distinction between time 'in Church' and 'other time.' Once you allow that distinction, you're just asking for the kind of devotee who comes to sleep through a service two hours a week and forgets about religion the rest of the time. For essentially the same reason, it's a mistake to have a _laity_. That makes religion into just one thing among others, with a rather low priority, at that. Instead, you should make work and family, and all aspects of life, into religious observances. People shrivel when they lose contact with the sacred. They fall into the mechanical world, they become machines.

"But anyway, Zillists and Kantrikars are exceptional people. Most people just accept the way things are. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"Many people think that the social system is going to break down when the Cleretic Prophecies run out," said Ydnas. "That's going to shake people's complacency. It already has!"

"Yeah, ..." said the god, "but all by itself, that will just make _most_ people, all the crazier. I don't even want to _think_ about what that's going to be like!"

"But some at least will turn to religion, and be willing to get serious about it, don't you think?"

"Yeah ... but religion can be the craziest thing of all."

"Granted – but at least some of your devotees might actually start listening to you again. That gives you a responsibility."

"Maybe ...But how much confidence should we have in the prophecies?" asked the god. "Some of them have turned out to be wrong."

"Well, prophecies are often self-fulfilling," said Ydnas. "The important thing is, whether people believe in them. And right now, a lot of people do!"

"So," said the god, in a voice both tired and sad, "you think I might actually _get_ somewhere, if I tried again?"

"Well, I can't _guarantee_ anything," said Ydnas. "Perhaps you are better off sticking with things as they are. After all, you are established, you are comfortable, you have something to lose, it's not like when you were young and hungry ... and naïve ..."

"Well," said the god, wriggling uncomfortably, "it's not like I didn't accomplish _anything_ , you know..."

"Of course not!"

"But ... not the really fundamental changes that I wanted."

"Where do you think you went wrong?"

"Well, you know, I looked on myself as a rebel, but as I've thought about it, it has occurred to me that I really wasn't all that different from what I was fighting against. I thought I was more radical than a boa constrictor in a gerbil retirement home, but I had really just changed a few things on the surface.

"Like, I remember going through this phase where I thought that all I had to do was to enforce the right set of rules, so that if people followed those rules, they would always do the right thing. Now I realize that the Uncertainty Principle says that if you try to enforce too many rules, your system will explode. For one thing, you will need to have detection and punishment, so you become a dictator, and place some of your people as local dictators over others. Which is already not what you really wanted! And of course, the people on top will get corrupt right away, since there's no negative consequences for them, and the people at the bottom will deteriorate, since they will never learn to think critically, or to accept their own wisdom and creativity, and so on – what a mess! But you see, I had just accepted this idea, that the way to do things was to find the right set of rules, and get people to follow them. I never questioned it.

"Another thing was, I kept falling into the trap of blaming everything on the _bad guys_. If there's a problem, OK, who's responsible for it? Go out and do something bad to them. I thought I was radical because I saw a different bunch of people as the bad guys. Only now I realize that it's not people that are the problem, it's the demons, the ideas, that parasitize them. People have to be more selective about what they host.

"The irony is, that most new religions are so eager to bring up the next generation in conformity with the credo they've arrived at, they teach it in an authoritarian way; and so they get a generation of people who can't think critically. And then they discover that this generation has mechanized and trivialized their ideas.

"I suppose a lot of it comes down to coercion. I mean, I thought I had the answers, so I could go ahead and do whatever it took to get people to do as I said. I had the answers, now the problem was just getting everyone else to see it my way. Let's face it, I was _arrogant_ in those days. Now I realize that even a _god_ can't get _everything_ right! I try to learn from other gods more, and even from mortals!

"So what I'm saying is, maybe I'm really more radical, _now,_ than I was then! I don't believe it's just a matter of establishing the right rules, or zapping the bad guys, anymore. It's more a matter of being always curious and open-minded. I mean, which is the more appropriate response to the divine? A sense of wonder, or a sense of having understood everything? People box up their gods like old clothes – and store them in the attic! How can you expect such people to even want to make fundamental changes?"

"And yet there is a sort of groundwork for that."

"What?"

"Well, a lot of scriptures have their radical side, you know. They object to a lot of the same things you objected to: excessive power, wealth, or prestige; arrogance; war; acquiescence in poverty or crime; too much concern with material things; egocentricity, faithlessness, wishful thinking, banality, ..."

"Yeah," said the god, smirking, "those are the passages that people love to interpret _allegorically_! Or just _recite_ , without really noticing what they say, or dreaming that it might apply to _them!_ Oh, yes, _their_ violence is always _defensive_ , and if they appear to be the cause of a conflict, well, they were just _anticipating_ an attack on themselves! _Their_ selfishness is always just _asserting their_ _rights!_ _Their_ luxuries are just _the reward of virtue!_ " He stopped suddenly, looking a bit contrite. "Sorry, I shouldn't rant. But it's just so frustrating. I mean, can't these people _see_ themselves?"

"I think," said Ydnas, "that when people fall into wishful thinking and hypocrisy, like that, there's a little part of them somewhere that knows that they are doing it – otherwise, how _could_ they keep themselves from _seeing_ what they are doing?"

"Yaaaaaaa, well, ... I suppose there must be, yes," said the god, stroking his chin, and looking very, very tentative in his agreement.

"And they'd rather be _not_ doing it," continued Ydnas. "They have a bit of shame and regret about it."

"Tucked well away in a dark hole in a hard rock under the deep sea with a false address," said the god.

"They don't _like_ doing it," continued Ydnas, "but they despair. They lack faith. If they only had faith in themselves and others, if they only had hope, they wouldn't be _driven_ to deceive themselves like that."

"Well, that's what I mean," said the god. "At first, my people did have hope and faith, and so did I. But when you fail once too often, you lose hope, you lose faith. A dog that's beaten keeps his distance."

"And since you're an immanent god," said Ydnas, "their despair is your despair, and your despair is theirs."

There was a brief pause. "Wait a moment," said the god, frowning, "are you saying that it's _my_ fault that they are the way they are?"

"Well," replied Ydnas, "it's not that you _caused_ them to be that way. But you _are_ an immanent god; you can't separate yourself from them. Whatever they've done, you've done. It would be impossible for so many of them to be in despair, if you weren't also. And, you _do_ seem to be in despair – you don't want to try for anything really different, because you've convinced yourself that you will fail. Your cynicism lets you off the hook."

"So all my complaints about _them_ would apply to _myself_?"

"Well ... what do _you_ think?"

The god looked a little grumpy. "Yeah, well, ... hmmm, well, maybe," he said, twisting uncomfortably this way and that, his face running through a series of grimaces. "But why should I believe you? You may not even _be_ the Girl of the Prophecies."

"I don't want you to agree with me because you think I'm the Girl of the Prophecies," said Ydnas. "If you want to know whether you're avoiding responsibility, look into your heart, and see for yourself!"

There was a moment of silence, during which the god looked more and more uncomfortable. Then he said:

"Well, yeah, OK, sure, I guess I _am_ in despair. But I have my reasons, you know. I mean, I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and I failed. You think I can just _decide_ not to despair? It's not a voluntary thing, you know."

"That depends," said Ydnas. "Is there self-deception at the bottom of your despair? If so, you can choose not to deceive yourself, and the despair will evaporate by itself."

"How would I be deceiving myself?"

"You might have gotten to be too success-oriented. I mean, you might have gotten so infatuated with the idea of saving the world, that you lost track of the fact that blessedness is in the trying, not in the succeeding, and that it's risk, not security, that makes us feel alive. And when the success you dreamed of didn't come quickly enough, you became bitter. Which might be arrogance in disguise – you know, 'I didn't get to be the hero, so I'm just going to go off and sulk.'"

The god looked very upset. "Are you saying that's what happened to me?" he asked.

"I'm saying, 'check it out for yourself!'"

There was another moment or two of silence, as the god wrinkled and unwrinkled his brow, rotated his jaw, crossed and uncrossed his arms, drummed his fingers on his forehead, and gave other signs of deep thought. Then he looked at Ydnas and said, "Well, yeah, ... there's _something_ in what you say. It's hard to accept responsibility for failure."

"Make sure you're not just being suggestible," cautioned Ydnas. "Make sure I'm not putting ideas in your head."

After more silence, the god replied, "No, I don't think I am! I mean, I don't think you are! I mean, I think you might be right! It's going to take a long time for me to chew this cud, though. I mean, this is ... I mean, it's been a long time ..."

"Don't hurry," said Ydnas, "be sure."

After another thoughtful pause, the god chuckled, and chuckled again. Then he turned to Ydnas and said, "By all the celibate gay hermaphrodites, I believe you _are_ a healer!"

"Thank you," said Ydnas, smiling, blushing, and making a little curtsy.

"Hmmm, ..." said the god, apparently enjoying some inner feeling, "I _like_ thinking of it that way. What a delicious paradox – defeated by my inability to accept defeat!"

"I imagine you know some _other_ gods that might feel the same way," said Ydnas, deferentially. "This 'Hipi,' for example."

"Yes, and I'll talk to them!" said the god. "And I'll let you know. But before you go, let me give you my private number, so that you don't have to go through that whole calling-up ritual again, with the worms and the gelatin and everything. Are you ready? It's '3.141592653589793 ...'" he continued for awhile, rattling off the numbers more and more rapidly as he went along.

"Got it!" said Ydnas. "Thanks! I'll be in touch!"

After she left, the god sat for awhile, wrapped in thought. Occasionally a chuckle or a laugh would emerge from him. Then he began to review the technique of _shaking a temple to its foundations_.
**********

"In the war between time and memory,

the living oft are buried, and oft the dead prevail."

(Larkis Lesindriko)

As Calcadro stood looking at Alerië, the Amazon returning from death, and worrying about the significance of this event, she heard Tsiloë shout, "Incoming!" At the same moment, Calcadro herself became aware of a distant thundering. It took her a moment to find the direction of the sound: it came from the direction opposite to the Temple. Those Amazons who were not badly injured stood up and took positions on the periphery. "First alert!" she called. _Not that we are in any condition to do much fighting._

"More incoming!" shouted Tsiloë. "From the Temple!"

Turning about, Calcadro saw that a smaller cloud of flying machines had detached itself from the attack on the Temple, and were heading for their position. She sent three Amazons to that side. "Those who have bolts, use crossbow; otherwise javelins, heavy, barbed. Zan, can you raise the shield?"

Zanentadra, still pale, closed her eyes. She trembled. A few sparks rose from the ground, then disappeared. "I'm ... sorry ... Cal ..." she said.

"It's OK, you tried," said Calcadro, touching her cheek. "We will do what we can." _Will this be how it ends?_

Calcadro's squad was on a main thoroughfare leading away from the Temple. This street made a bend about half a horizon beyond them. Around the bend came a dark mass. The thundering sound grew louder.

"Who are they, Thia? What is their purpose?"

"I can't say, Cal – they have a telepathic jammer! They are all mounted, I think – some on horses, some on spit lizards."

" _Visors down, fish-skin!_ " said Calcadro. Closing her own visor, she took from a pouch a piece of transparent fish-skin and clamped it over the slots in her visor, so that no lizard venom would be able to reach her eyes. "Cover the injured!"

The mysterious riders on one side, and the cloud of machines, on the other, were fast approaching their position. They would close simultaneously in about twenty breaths. _Between two rams,_ thought Calcadro, _and no time to retreat to a building_.

"Strike at the flying machines only!" she shouted to the squad. "All able-bodied Amazons, go to the Temple side of the periphery." Just possibly, the riders might not be hostile. She set up a flag of non-resistance on that side of their position.

Ten breaths. The din of hooves merged with the buzzing of monstrous wings. Calcadro picked up her shield, grabbed several javelins from the supply cart, and ran to the periphery on the Temple side, turning her back on the riders. Dropping all but one javelin, she selected the leading insect as a target. "Try to hit the wings!" she barked. "Strike at will!" Three bolts and four javelins flew to the approaching cloud, doing no visible damage. Fighting the urge to turn around to look at the riders, Calcadro picked up a second javelin.

Suddenly, they were enveloped by a dome of orange light. Ahead of Calcadro, it erupted into blinding brightness, as the cloud of insects fired gray bolts. The bolts did not penetrate the orange light. Several of the mechanical insects collided with the dome, creating quick splashes of color. To either side, Calcadro could dimly see the riders pouring by – hundreds of them.

"Zan?" Calcadro turned to look at Zanentadra, who feebly nodded in the negative. _It must be the riders_ , thought Calcadro, awestruck, _they have chosen to protect us!_ Indeed, the dome was in a different style from the usual Amazon dome; instead of being a smooth hemisphere, it was patched together out of hundreds of small triangles. It was now coruscating all over, making it impossible to see out, but Calcadro could tell by sound that the riders had passed.

"I'm getting a message!" shouted Thiarinis, excitedly, "from the horsemen – they are Dorish warriors! Zoff has summoned them! They go to break the siege! A few have remained to relieve us here – this group has silenced its jammers for a moment, so as to send this message. They have made another shield for themselves, which is about to merge with this one!"

A moment later, an arching section of the shield lifted at one side to reveal the interior of another dome, filled with activity. A Dorish officer strode through this entrance; Calcadro went to meet him, making the sign of _Gratefully at your service,_ followed by the sign of _Out of force_. He made the sign of _proposed alliance_ , and Calcadro responded _, yes!_

By that time they were near enough to speak. "Greetings, Noble Amazon," said the officer, with a bow. "I am Captain Tsevye. We propose to set up net-catapults with which to snare these demonic devices, and then to incinerate them. Have you a better plan?"

"Greetings to you, Noble Warrior," replied Calcadro, returning his bow. "I am Lieutenant Calcadro. I have no better plan. How may we help?"

"Just be prepared to help us celebrate, if the plan works!" said Tsevye, with a savage smile. "Forgive me; I must check on the proceedings."

"Understood," replied Calcadro, nodding, and the Dorish Captain turned and hurried back to his own dome. Calcadro walked to the joining of the two domes, and watched as Tsevye's warriors set up and wound four large standing crossbows. From their bolts hung the corners of a net, fashioned from chains of steel. Around the rim of the net were many triple hooks, heavy and barbed, similar to grappling hooks. A number of similar nets hung on a rack nearby. After a few moments, Tsevye made a gesture, and the four crossbows went off all at once, hurling the net upward through the dome. Several devices of the same kind were soon set up at various places in the Dorish dome. One after another, they hurled their nets up through the brilliance. By the time the last one had fired, the first was ready to fire again.

Then, Calcadro noticed that the bottom edge of the Dorish dome was creeping forward. A number of warriors followed it, holding heavy bronze shields before them, overlapping. The edge crept over a net on the ground, with a flying machine struggling, but hopelessly entangled within it! It had hardly appeared, when it was covered by a small, translucent dome of its own. The machine fired gray bolts in all directions, but they could not escape the little dome. A Dorish warrior lit a fuse on a large paper package and leaned it against the little dome. Immediately, the dome expanded to include it. As the fuse reached its end, the package transformed itself into a ball of flaming ooze, glowing red like lava, that bubbled and frothed, settling over the net and its prisoner. There were several small explosions and much smoke, and all motion ceased under the little dome. A warrior examined it and gave a nod to Tsevye, who made a gesture, whereupon the little dome disappeared, leaving only the chain and a pile of ash. then the big dome began to creep forward again. _Not bad at all!_ thought Calcadro, and turned to see how her medic was doing.

The first Amazon to be revivified, Alerië, was sitting up. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. The medic had gone to help another, but two other Amazons were sitting with her. Calcadro knelt next to her and said, "Alerië, how are you doing?"

Alerië slowly focused her eyes on Calcadro. "Cal...ca...dro," she said, as though remembering from a long time ago, and through clouds of fatigue. There was a lack of feeling in her voice.

"Yes, I am Calcadro," she replied, speaking very slowly and clearly. "You are Alerië. You are an Amazon, an Amazon of Ydris. I am your lieutenant, and you are in my squad. You were very badly injured in battle, but now you are better."

"I ... went ... somewhere," said Alerië, in the same toneless voice.

"Yes," said Calcadro, nodding, "can you tell me what it was like?"

"Strange," said Alerië, still without expression. "Big."

"If you'd rather just rest," said Calcadro, "that would be fine, but if you want to talk, I have some time."

"Like a flower," said Alerië, "opening." She made no gestures. Her eyes widened, then closed. An eerie smile came over her face.

"You saw something like a flower opening?" asked Calcadro.

"Was ... part of it," said Alerië. "Beautiful. ... Please ... help me ... to ... lie down ... now."

"Sure," said Calcadro, nodding at the two other Amazons. The three of them eased her down. Alerië closed her eyes and said no more, but Calcadro took her pulse, and it was still there, though weak. "Stay with her," she said to the other two. "Check her life-signs frequently, and get the medic if there seems to be a crisis." They nodded. Their expressions were a strange cross between exhaustion and wonder, with a touch of fear.

Tsevye came over, accompanied by another Dorish man, and said, "Noble Amazon, as we progress toward your temple, we must sever the connection between our dome and yours. Torth here is a wizard, who will maintain your shield until your witch has rested. He also knows how to send a message to me, or to others, if further aid should be required."

"Thank you, Noble Captain," replied Calcadro, "but your wizard should not be taken away from the battle. For that matter, several of us are still able-bodied, and we are eager to strike the enemy ourselves. I suggest that we move together; we can carry our injured with us in litters as we proceed."

"Let us do that, then," he replied with a smile. "It has been a long time since I had an enemy I could destroy with so little remorse."

"You fight wonderfully well, Noble Captain," said Calcadro. "I am deeply impressed, and deeply grateful!"

"It is not my idea of real warfare," said Tsevye, frowning. "All this _magic_! But if the enemy uses such devices, what can we do?"

"It still takes courage and skill," said Calcadro. "Honor is still to be won."

"True," said Tsevye, "else I'd be a farmer." Again he returned to his own dome.
**********

"I've been dying to meet you."

(From the cabaret song, "Where have you been all my life?"

One day, Isiliar appeared in Kor's tent. "Kor," she said, "I'd like you to meet someone."

"Who is it?" asked Kor.

"He has the name 'K'Sell,'" said Isiliar, "although you may have heard of him under other names. He is the god of death."

Kor gave a start. Her eyes grew wide. "What – what –" she stammered.

"Oh, Dear!" said Isiliar. "I'm sorry! Let me explain! You don't have to _die_ , to meet the god of death! It will be like your visit with Kshaloka! You will see a human persona, that's all!"

Kor looked much relieved, but still upset. "But this is different, Isiliar," said Kor. "This what's-his-name _kills_ people, or is somehow involved in their deaths. Including the deaths of innocent children!"

"Well, Death is a part of life, Kor."

"I would think it was the _very opposite_ of life," replied Kor.

Isiliar blushed. "Well, yes, of course it is. But I mean, it is something that influences us all the time, and –"

" _Us?_ " asked Kor, in a decidedly hostile tone.

"Well, of course, more for mortals than for gods," said Isiliar, "but it's hardly irrelevant to our concerns!"

"Yes," said Kor, resentfully, "I'm sure that from _your_ point of view, it's wonderfully easy to understand the _necessity_ of death – death for _mortals_ , that is – and why the universe is a better place because of it, and so on!"

"Oh, my!" said Isiliar. "What an idiot I am!" She sat down, holding her head in her hands.

Kor stood there, looking at her. She felt the uselessness of her anger. _Some things can't be changed._ She tucked it away somewhere. It didn't quite fit.

"I'm sorry, Isiliar," she said. "I just get tired of you trying to set me up with every bachelor god who appears on the material plane."

Isiliar looked up. The ghost of a smile flickered on her face. "I'm not trying to _set you up_ , Kor, I just want you to meet him."

"Sure, sure," said Kor, with a touch of artificial sarcasm. "Is he going to take me out? To a nice hospice, maybe, or perhaps a battlefield?"

"Kor..."

"You won't let him kill me on the first date, will you?" asked Kor.

"Kor, _somebody_ has to do his job."

"Of course," said Kor. "There has to be _someone_ to reward us for a long life devoted to service."

"Are you saying you don't want to see him?"

"I'm not sure. Is he one of these men who talks _shop_ all the time?"

"He'll be here in fifteen hundredbreaths," said Isiliar, and disappeared.

Kor sighed.

Fifteen hundredbreaths later, Isiliar appeared, accompanied by a slender and graceful young woman in a white silk dress. "Kor, meet K'Sell; K'Sell, meet Kor." There was barely enough room for the three of them in the tent.

Kor frowned at Isiliar. "I thought you said he was a _he_ ," she said. Then, remembering her manners, she turned to K'Sell and said, "Pleased to meet you, Divine K'Sell." She made a little nod, but did not extend a hand.

"Well, Kor," said Isiliar, "you were so worried about being _set up_ , that I asked K'Sell to take on a female persona for the evening. Of course, a god is really neither male nor female."

"It's a great pleasure to meet _you_ , Kor," said K'Sell, with a smile that seemed quite genuine and friendly.

"Well, have a seat," said Kor, sitting on the ground. K'Sell had light golden skin and cascading sky-blue hair, with eyes to match. Her features were angular but symmetrical, and her bright glance suggested intelligence and sensitivity.

"I understand," said K'Sell, "that when Kshaloka visited you, he took you on a little excursion. I wonder if we could do something similar."

Kor was somewhat taken aback by this idea. "Where would we go?" she asked.

"Well," said K'Sell, "we could explore the Afterworld a little bit. See what happens to people after they die."

After a moment's hesitation, Kor realized that she was deeply curious about that. "Yes," she replied, "I would like that. I must ask, though, that you bring me right back if I ask you to."

"Of course," said K'Sell, "and you should also feel free to stop me at any time to ask a question, or to request that we follow a different path. It will not be a physical journey, though, such as you took with Kshaloka. In a way it will be more like a play or a painting, or better yet, a dream; I will often have to make images to express visibly and metaphorically what is really invisible."

"I understand," said Kor.

K'Sell raised her hand and made a gesture, and Kor found herself in darkness. "I am now going to show you someone in a hospital," said K'Sell, "but you won't really be there, and the people won't know that you are watching." A moment later, Kor did indeed seem to be in a hospital. She seemed to be at the bedside of a very old woman, who was lying unconscious. The old woman's face was slack, emaciated, wrinkled, and gray; she did not look agonized, but she did not look happy, either. She looked exhausted, completely lacking in energy, just waiting, waiting for the end. Kor tried to see something of the woman's character in her face; she thought she saw conscientiousness, and a great capacity for love. Kor felt sad for her.

K'Sell continued: "This woman, whose name was Ail-Origelf of Karunni, and who lived many millennia ago, is about to die." She paused a moment. "But, what does that mean? One thing it means is that her body will never again stroll, or breathe, or converse, or work, or dance, or dress children, or make love, or be pregnant. Instead, it will decay, since this person belongs to a community that practices burial."

The scene shifted to a graveyard, with grass, trees, and flowers. "The matter in her body will not disappear," continued K'Sell. "It will be transformed into earth, and eventually into plants and animals." Time sped up in the picture; Kor saw plants sprout and grow in a few breaths' time, and she saw trees gain and lose their leaves, and plants their flowers, several times. This continued while K'Sell spoke. "In the long run," she said, "the matter of her body will be dispersed so widely that bits of it will enter other people. In fact, each mortal today contains a tiny bit of matter from each of many millions of earlier people, and in fact most of those bits of matter have been part of many millions of mortals, in succession. But in the normal course of events, that particular body, which most people would think of as _her_ body, will not re-appear. I ask you to ponder, sometime, what makes something a _particular_ body, and why that is important to you. I also ask you to compare this scattering of her body with what happened to the Suimi people. At one time they were a nation with its own territory, but now they are not; they are scattered, just as the parts of this woman's body are scattered. Is that a bad thing?" Kor was intrigued by this question. _We spread out to serve others_ , she thought. _Can the same be said of the material of my body when I die? I guess it can._ She also thought of Anandra's question: what is it, whose loss makes human death tragic? _Not the individuals, but the relationships?_

The picture continued to cycle through the seasons for a few moments, and then Kor found herself back in the hospital, looking at the dying woman. This time, she also saw relatives, seated by the bed. They were adults and children of various ages. Although their mode of dress and facial decoration was strange to Kor, she quickly accepted them as ordinary people. Anguish, intense and bitter, was deeply etched on their faces. Kor began to weep, in sympathy with them.

"There is something else that will survive," said K'Sell. "This woman has influenced the world forever. She had children who in turn had children. Today, she has many billions of descendants, including yourself, Kor, and almost everyone you know." _I wonder what she would think of me_ , thought Kor. _Can you hear my thoughts, many-times-great-grandmother? Surprising as it is, I find that I love you. That makes me feel less sad. How strange!_

In her own imagination, Kor made a picture of water in a bowl that is being gently tapped or shaken. Little stationary waves, like hills, rise and fall on the surface. The collapse of each one contributes to the rise of others. _Perhaps I'm like one of those hills_ , she thought, _I rise and fall, and so do all the others._ _But what is the point? Why should matter organize itself into people?_

"In addition to giving birth to her children," continued K'Sell, "Ail-Origelf influenced them profoundly in the course of raising them. Although she often made mistakes in parenting, or lost patience, she loved them deeply, and they sensed this, even when they were thoughtless or cruel themselves. And they loved her in return, even when they were angry or fearful. They rejected many things she tried to teach them, but they accepted a good deal more.

"Her descendants will also have physical traits and traits of character that they inherit from her." At this point Kor saw a long series of families, each one presumably a generation later than the previous one. From each generation to the next, she could see similarities in build, skin color, facial features, expression, and comportment. By the tenth generation, however, the cumulative effect of the changes was drastic; no similarity to Ail-Origelf could be seen, beyond their common humanity.

"But as with the material of her body," continued K'Sell, "these traits will be scattered, and mixed with others. She has, however, influenced everyone she ever met, as well as plants, animals, and inanimate objects. The region she has influenced is huge. The entire world is different, because of her. Even stars have been affected. Indeed, she is now influencing you fairly directly, since you have seen her and learned her name. But does this mean that _she herself_ will reappear? Again, I ask you to ponder: what do we mean by _she herself_? What is her essence? And why is it important to us, or to her, whether this _she herself_ will continue, or re-appear, or not?"

After a few moments, the pictures of Ail-Origelf's descendants began to fade out. "Now," said K'Sell, "let us consider the soul. As you know, some people consider the soul to be something like a book, containing both facts and directions." A large, open book appeared, lying on a desk. "What you see here is, of course, not a real soul, just an illustration of the analogy.

"Part of what is written in the book of the soul is _memory_." The book came closer, and Kor could read a few lines: "I got up early today. I had a funny dream. I put on my red dress. I ate breakfast. I went outside. It was sunny. I saw my friend Ol-Entergil. We played house. I was the mommy." Kor imagined that she was looking at a diary written by Ail-Origelf herself, as a child, and she began to weep again, as she imagined that child, vital, innocent, aware of herself and her world, deeply loved and cared for by her parents, but doomed from the start, and now gone forever. After a moment, she began to weep also for her own childhood and youth, also gone forever. She tried to look far back in the book of her own memory, but it was very vague. It struck her that only a tiny fraction of her memories would ever actually be retrieved in her lifetime; most of her experience passed instantly into the back pages of memory, never to reappear. This made her feel very strange: she felt thin, as though she had discovered that she was a paper doll rather than a person. But she broke off this train of thought, for K'Sell was resuming her talk.

"To many people, memory is crucial to the self. We would be convinced of earlier incarnations if we could remember them in detail, and without that we are very hard to convince, unless it is drilled into us as children. But even in the course of a single life, we do forget things, and we do have false memories, and this does not change us into someone else."

Kor was beginning to feel impatient with all this lecturing. "Weren't you going to show me the Afterworld, K'Sell?"

"I'm sorry, Kor," said K'Sell, with a rueful smile. "I will do that now. Remember when you died?" Suddenly Kor found herself back with the wains in transit, just after the defeat of the black cloud. She was disembodied, one of the little floating, blinking lights. She could see in every direction at once. She could see many other souls floating about. She felt sad that her life was over, but also liberated from its cares. She could see her friends horrified as they found no signs of life in her body. "What if Isiliar hadn't brought you back?" asked K'Sell. Her voice was faint. Looking at the pain on the faces of her friends, Kor was strongly tempted to ask K'Sell to stop; but she reflected that what she was seeing was not real. It was painful anyway, but she endured it.

Then she began to hear the music of the Tellamir. It was grand, and beautiful, and reassuring, and somehow _familiar_. It was very much like Isiliar's aura. It made her feel happy and peaceful. She looked at her friends' grief and she thought, _Yes, that's exactly how it should be; good-hearted mortals like them will grieve, when they lose a friend, just as water will run downhill, or clouds drift in the sky. What would be wrong would be, if they did_ not _grieve._

Indeed, everything that happened seemed to be choreographed, an exquisite ballet. Perfect balance. Each moment's events were a solution to a mathematical problem so intricate that no human could ever even formulate it, and yet the solution was instantaneous and without a trace of effort. Kor felt an awe so intense that it overwhelmed everything else in her mind for a moment; and then the awe was suffused with warmth, and became love.

She was a song; one voice in the great chorus. She felt herself pulled into the dizzying, spinning vortex of souls that reached for the great crystal ship (A tiny corner of her mind heard Talek howl in anguish, "This is impossible!"). She passed through the ship's boundary with no feeling of resistance, shedding the tiny bit of blinking matter to which she had been attached.

The ship had looked large from the outside, but from the inside, it appeared to be infinite in every direction. And there appeared to be _more directions_ than Kor was used to. She saw the other souls, but no longer as blinking lights; they were more like smoke rings. She realized that she was like a smoke ring herself; it was an odd feeling. She heard K'Sell's voice in commentary: "The blinking lights were bits of matter which served as carriers for the souls, in place of their original bodies. The Tellamir have replaced them with yet another kind of carrier, which appears to you as a smoke ring. Each soul experiences something similar to what you are experiencing, but each in its own way, according to its background and capacities. For example, if a person has been brought up to believe that the soul is a bird, it will probably experience itself here as a bird. Because you were not raised with any particular picture of the soul, you will see them in some idiosyncratic way; but you are still limited."

The space in which Kor found herself was vast, but it had a center, and in the center was a great white light. Kor, along with a stream of other souls, began to move toward that light. The light seemed to be a radiant form of peace, goodness, beauty, and love, and the more she approached it, the more serene and happy she felt. The universe began to seem like the dance of a vast being, infinitely loving, infinitely wise, with herself as a tiny fragment of this being. The dancing swept this fragment toward the light. Kor was filled with awe, and she began to feel it change to love and gratitude, to admiration, and to worship. But, making a terrible effort of will, she cried, _"K'Sell! End this! Bring me back!"_

Suddenly, she found herself back in her tent, sitting with Isiliar and K'Sell. She was trembling.

"It's all right, Kor," said Isiliar, gently and reassuringly, laying her hand on Kor's arm.

Kor took a moment to re-orient and calm herself, and then said, "I'm sorry, K'Sell, I know you were just doing what I asked you to, but I don't wish to experience complete bliss, until everyone can. Also, I do not wish to feel complete acceptance of this world, until there is no more pain or evil in it. Can you take me there just to observe and learn?"

"Certainly," said K'Sell. She raised her hand, and Kor found herself, once again, inside (or was it really outside?) the Tellamir vessel, approaching the source of light. Again she perceived an infinite love and wisdom radiating from the light, but she felt it merely as a fact; it did not affect her emotionally.

She plunged into the light and the love, realizing that they were one and the same. Moving toward the center, she felt the presence there of a being of immense power, a god. She was now emotionally insulated, as she had requested, but she was aware that the other souls were experiencing bliss and awe. It was surely a god, a very powerful god. Suddenly she knew who it was.

It was K'Sell.

_It makes sense_ , thought Kor. _By whom would I expect to be drawn here?_

K'Sell did not here appear in mortal form. To Kor's eyes, s/he was like a huge white sun, huge beyond Kor's ability to grasp. As Kor came closer, she saw lines of light coursing on the surface of this sun, and other streams going to and from it. She realized that these were streams of souls. Souls were coming and going from uncountable directions.

"Those who expect to see me in mortal form will do so," said K'Sell (from the tent), "and those who are not prepared to see the God of Death here, will see some other god. Each such image contains some truth and some falsehood."

"I can't say that _I_ expected to see you here, either," said Kor. "How is it that I was able to?"

"Partly," said K'Sell, "it is because you were already acquainted with me, from our meeting in the tent. But it is also because you have attained a level of maturity, at which you can begin to recognize that death is not bad or evil."

"I'm surprised to hear that," said Kor. "I have spent much of my life protecting children from _you_ , among others." She was getting closer to the white star, but she realized that it must still be a long way off.

"But you knew that they would die in the end," said K'Sell. "Why didn't you despair?"

"I get satisfaction from keeping them out of your clutches for _longer_ ," said Kor.

"You are a tough case, Kor," said K'Sell, with a chuckle. "Tell me something: do you want to live forever?"

"Yes, I think I do," said Kor, "as long as I can do good."

"Then you probably will," said K'Sell. "Remember, this is only a dream." The white sun was closer. She could see more details. Its surface was not smooth, but roiled with many waves and whirlpools. Great fountains of white light arched upwards from it and fell back. The streams of souls, coming and going, branched and merged in an ever more complicated way.

"What do you mean?" asked Kor. "I'm a _mortal_. In fact, I've already died once. If it weren't for Isiliar, I'd be dead now. I mean, in the real world."

"Yes," said K'Sell, "Isiliar knew that it wasn't your time. As did I."

Kor was a bit startled. "So, she wasn't circumventing you?"

"No, not at all."

Kor pondered this for a moment. "And is that also true," she asked, "of all the children I've saved?" Now that Kor was close to the surface of the white star, and to the intricate, shifting network of soul-streams dancing this way and that, she realized that she was traveling at an enormous speed, as were the others. Huge clouds of souls would flash by her in the blink of an eye.

"Yes," said K'Sell, "although your own case is more complex. It _was_ your time to die, _briefly_. Just not _permanently_. With them, it wasn't even their time to die _briefly_. But Kor, please don't think that your efforts were meaningless. You prevented them from dying at the wrong time."

"You mean," said Kor, "that you would have taken them _at the wrong time_ , if I hadn't intervened?"

"Well, no," said K'Sell, "I am absolutely incapable of taking anyone at the wrong time, or of not taking them at the right time. But your question is flawed, Kor. You're not taking account of _immanence_. You think of yourself as separate from me. But you aren't. When you saved them, that was also me saving them, that is, _not taking_ them. You know, an atheist might say, 'We don't need to believe in a god of death; we can explain death without this assumption. If someone runs a sword through your heart, that explains your death right there. What is left for a god to do?' and he would be quite right; there is nothing left. The point he misses is, that when someone runs a sword through your heart, that is also _me_ running a sword through your heart. When you hold a ladle, is it you that is doing it, or your hand?"

"Both, I suppose," said Kor.

"Yes," replied K'Sell, "and you are like _my_ hand. So your actions really did save those children; but not in defiance of me. Or, to put it another way: if you hadn't rescued them, neither would I. We could even say: by doing it, you _made me_ do it! But it's really a matter of participation, not control. Your actions were not only meaningful, they were _divine_."

This answer only upset Kor all the more. "You mean," she said, "that you control me, like a puppet?"

"No, no," said K'Sell, "I don't control _myself_ like a puppet, and you _are_ me, part of me."

"You're like Uncle K'Tor!" said Kor, remembering Ydnas' discussion of the god of everything. She was very close to the surface of the star.

"Exactly!" said K'Sell. "And I am part of K'Tor, just as you are."

At that moment, Kor passed through the surface of the star. To her surprise, she found herself back in the tent.

"What?" she said, confused. "Why did you stop?"

"I couldn't guarantee," said K'Sell, "that what you would see next would not result in your accepting the world, even though there is badness and evil in it. The emotional insulation I have given you would have been irrelevant, for your acceptance would have come, not from emotional influence, but from knowledge that you would have obtained."

Kor felt a little sheepish, as though she had fallen into a trap of her own making. "Well," she said, thinking out loud, "I don't want to accept the world, if my acceptance is the result of ... some sort of magical emotional manipulation, of being irradiated with love, or soaked in bliss, or something like that. That's what it felt like back there in the Tellamir vessel, approaching you, the first time. But if it's a matter of _knowledge_ , of _truth_ , ... well, that is different." In one corner of her mind, she felt still more chagrin, because she realized that she had indulged in 'soaking in bliss' many times, when she had basked in Isiliar's aura. She now saw Isiliar's weaning of her in a more positive light.

_How different this is from my trip with Kshaloka_ , she thought, _I am being profoundly challenged._ _I am feeling confused and overwhelmed. Maybe there is something to be said for shallow gods!_

"Do you want to return, then?" asked K'Sell.

"I guess," said Kor, sighing. "But wait! I don't think I have caught up yet with the ideas you have already thrown at me! I'm wondering – is this what Ail-Origelf experienced?"

"It's very similar," said K'Sell, "but she experienced herself and the other souls as luminous human beings in white robes, and she experienced me as a huge human figure, a god shaped like a mortal, also robed in white. She did not experience me as a god of death, although she did realize that she had died; she experienced me as Kal-Arzipath, a god of salvation worshipped by her people at that time."

"But really, there is no such god?" asked Kor.

"Oh, yes," said K'Sell. "He and I overlap. Gods are not external to each other, as mortals are. So she was seeing Kal-Arzipath, and so were you. But you didn't realize you were seeing Kal-Arzipath, because you had never heard of him. In the same way, Ail-Origelf didn't realize that she was seeing _me_. Although, if she had thought about it, she would have seen that Kal-Arzipath could not have fulfilled his function, if no one ever died."

"And the Tellamir," said Kor, "are they gods?"

"No," said K'Sell. "They are non-human mortals. Normally, they are not part of the death process. But in this case, they intervened, because otherwise, all those souls would have been stuck on those blinking things, and thus unable to reach the Afterworld. If you had died in a more usual way, you would have come directly to me, without encountering the Tellamir. Many people experience themselves as passing through a tunnel at great speed, and when they arrive, they see me – or whatever overlapping god they happen to find appropriate."

"Talek tells me that some of the souls went to the Underworld," said Kor. "According to folklore, that means that the Rotimor will take care of them. Is that right?"

"That is correct. As Talek speculated, some souls are repelled by what you referred to as 'magical emotional manipulation.' They prefer the more restrained beacon produced by the Rotimor."

"Does that mean," asked Kor, "that if I were to die now, with my current aversion to magical emotional manipulation, I would go to the Underworld, too?"

"Yes."

"Then I would like to experience what that would be like. Now."

"I can do that. Do you still want to be emotionally insulated?"

"Not until I tell you," said Kor.

"Very good," said K'Sell, and raised her hand again.

Kor found herself essentially bodiless; her only sense of her own location came from the perspective she had on other things. She moved in concert with a blinking light, but she did not feel as though the light was part of her, rather she seemed somehow attached to it, drifting with a small company of other blinking lights. The experience of being bodiless was terrible; without a body, she had no way to influence anything except her thoughts. She felt completely helpless, as though she were paralyzed. She was strongly tempted to ask K'Sell for emotional insulation, but pride prevented her. It helped that the usual bodily feelings of terror were absent, as she had no body. There was something very cerebral about her fear and frustration. They were manifest only in how they influenced her thoughts. They caused her to dwell on the negative features of it, on her helplessness. Becoming aware of this, she was able to seize control of her thoughts to some degree and guide them into a more hopeful and rational course.

As she became calmer, she became aware of the other blinking lights. She felt sorry for them, for although she had not asked K'Sell for emotional insulation, she knew that she could do so, at any time, and this made things a lot easier for her.

_But wait_ , she thought, remembering the experience of the Tellamir ship. _Didn't the souls have some control over their motion?_ She tried _willing_ herself to go this way or that. And indeed, she found to her great relief that she did have some control; she could influence the motion of the light to which she was attached. The key was visualizing very vividly the motion she desired, while trying to make it real. As she became conscious of this ability, and began to take advantage of it, the light began to feel like her body, instead of something external. It was in fact her entire body. She began to move back and forth, just for the sake of feeling the ability to do so; although the resulting motion was very slow, it gave her great joy; she felt like a puppy who has been shut in all day, suddenly released into a field to run free.

She brought herself down to the level of the street, and found that she could approach so closely to things, that tiny grains of dust appeared to be huge, and objects that appeared solid turned out to be full of pores and cracks. She found this frightening after a certain point, for it was disorienting to be in such a strange landscape; so she withdrew from the surfaces of objects until the scale of things felt more familiar.

Knowing that she could will herself to move, she wondered if she could also move other objects, and she tried by a similar willing to move a grain of dust lying in the street. She could produce no effect, however, and once again she had to struggle with feelings of helplessness.

When she regained her calm, she became aware, once again, of the other blinking lights, and once again felt compassion for them. Wondering whether communication was possible, she approached one that was nearby. When she was very close to it, she said in her mind, "Hello!" but there was no response. Repeated efforts to 'speak' in this way gained no success, but she found that if she 'danced' in the air, the other light began to dance with her. This produced a wave of strong emotion in her. She realized how lonely she had felt up until then.

At that moment, Kor heard the music of the Tellamir, and could see by their motion that the others heard it, too. But she was not at all attracted to it; in fact, it sounded sickly sweet, and seductive, as though it were bait in a trap. Some of the souls moved in its direction, but others, including Kor, remained where they were. Then they began to hear, or rather feel, a deep, one might say visceral (although they had no viscera) drumbeat, coming apparently from within the earth. Like the song of the Tellamir, this beat carried directions, and Kor and the other lights began to follow them.

_Am I doing this on my own,_ Kor asked herself, _or have I been hypnotized?_ She tried to test this by making attempts to stop; but such attempts were feeble and ineffective. And yet she seemed to be acting of her own free will; it was not like being drawn by a magnet. She realized that some of her ideas about 'free will' were a little vague; she could not tell whether she was behaving freely or not.

Soon the souls arrived at the compound, found their way to the crypt, and descended the shaft. Even though she knew that what she was experiencing wasn't real, Kor felt afraid, for she, too, had heard frightening tales about the Underworld. Again, she felt compassion for the others, who found themselves in this incredible situation without warning or any apparent way out. She and the souls with her passed through underground caverns into a great abyss; then they spread apart, until she found herself to be completely alone, except for her light. Once again, dread loneliness settled upon her.

Then her light disappeared.

This was the most frightening experience of all. Without her light, Kor no longer had a body. With nothing visible to suggest a location, she began to feel that she had no location at all. In fact, for a moment she felt that she did not exist at all, that she had been annihilated. But then she thought, _If I had been annihilated, I would not be thinking that I had been annihilated._ Her thinking was all that indicated her existence, and she grasped eagerly at every shred of thought that arose. She announced to herself repeatedly, _I am! I am! I am!_

After awhile, she heard a voice: "Hello, Kor." A great relief poured in on her. Someone else agreed that she existed! She looked eagerly for some sign of this person, but even though she could see in all directions, she saw no one. "Hello?" she said, wondering if she had imagined the voice. She had heard that people trapped in darkness began to hallucinate.

"You can't see me, Kor," said the voice, "but I am quite real. I am your caretaker. You may call me 'Ixuan.' May I converse with you?"

She wanted to say, "Yes, please do! Please!" but again her pride intervened, and instead she said, "Do I really have a choice?"

"Yes, except that you are likely to get quite lonely, if you say 'no,' since there is no one else for you to talk to around here."

"All right, let's talk," said Kor, who had had more than enough of aloneness. "But I'd be a lot more comfortable if you would take some visible form." Part of her was astonished at her presumption, but another part was proud of her courage and refusal to beg.

"I'll do that," said Ixuan, and Kor found herself in a small room. She had a body again, her familiar human body, seated in a chair, with an old man seated in another chair, facing her. "How's this?" said the old man.

"Good! Thank you." How wonderful it was to have her old body back, creaking joints and all! She luxuriated in the simple act of sitting. She tried to lift a finger. Yes! It moved! She felt the immeasurable blessing of sheer existence. She breathed in. How wonderful! She breathed out. How amazing! She looked at the old man; he was smiling. How wonderful just to _be with_ another person!

Suddenly she began to laugh. How ridiculous that people chased after excess! Not realizing that their problem lay in not appreciating what came easily!

The old man said nothing, simply smiled as her. After awhile, though, Kor became self-conscious, and felt as though she ought to say something.

"Are you one of the Rotimor?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," said Ixuan.

"What do you really look like?"

"I don't. I'm invisible. But ... imagine ripples in a pond, but imagine that they don't die away for a long time; when they reach the edge of the pond, they bounce back and cross the pond again. Here, deep underground, is a large cavity; waves bounce from side to side. I'm a very, very intricate cluster of waves. When something comes into the cavern, some of the waves bounce off it, and that changes their shape. That's how I can see things. The waves interact, and that is how I can interact with other Rotimor. My ability to interact with what you think of as material objects very limited, but there are many waves here that are more like things than people, and I can interact with them. I can interact with your soul because it is very small and delicate."

Kor nodded.

Ixuan waited for a moment, and then said, "Well, Kor, you are quite different from most of the people who come here. It's been a long time since anyone came to the underworld out of _idealistic principle_."

"I hope that's not a problem for you," said Kor.

"Not at all," said Ixuan, "in fact, it's a great pleasure." His wrinkled skin was deep brown, his hair curly and white.

"So what happens next?" asked Kor.

"Well," said Ixuan, "there are no simple rules. What would _you_ like to have happen?"

"I'd like to learn more about the Underworld, and about what happens to people who go there."

"Well," said Ixuan, "every soul starts out in the void, here, as you did. We let them experience the edge of nothingness for awhile. It's not a punishment, although it can be quite unpleasant to experience. It often gives people a certain sense of proportion, and that is what we are hoping for."

"I know just what you mean," said Kor, "and although it was indeed very unpleasant, I am grateful for it."

"I am pleased to hear that, Kor," said Ixuan, "although it is not altogether a surprise, given the kind of person I see that you are."

"So what happens next?"

"Each soul is assigned a caretaker, like me. The caretaker tries to help the soul develop a little bit, and move on to somewhere else, usually to the Overworld. It's sort of like a school, in a way."

"I'd like to observe the process," said Kor. "other than in my own case, I mean."

"Well," said Ixuan, looking dubious, "there's people's privacy to be considered."

Come on, K'Sell, thought Kor, It's just a fiction anyway – they aren't real people.

"Oh ..." said Ixuan, "I've just been advised that in your case, it's all right. What sort of soul would you like to see?"

"Someone who has done many terrible things," said Kor, "and who has never had any remorse or moral insight about them. And if you don't mind, please represent him as having a body; it will make it easier for me to follow what's going on."

"I'll do that," said Ixuan. "You can listen in on a conversation between myself and a man named Edril Tsenkulor. In life, he was a member of the Holy Order of Mayors. In order to further his own ends, he corrupted the mission of his office, and became beholden to special interests. In their service he lied about his goals, embezzled money, and encouraged racism and other forms of prejudice and division among his constituents. He has just been killed by his wife, who lost patience with his practice of using the prestige of his office to seduce idealistic young women, one of whom was her younger self, a woman from a wealthy and influential family, whose connections he realized would be of great use to him."

Kor found herself looking down on a middle-aged man in a small room. His head was bald and shiny, and his brightly-colored clothes looked expensive but tasteless. His eyes were bright with fear. Opposite him crouched a strange being. It was like a pony-sized lizard, but instead of a lizard's neck and head, the forepart of a huge snake sprouted from between its shoulders. That part was about as long as the lizard-like part. Its head wove about in the air. A red tongue flicked out regularly from a little hole at the front of its mouth. Its scales were brightly and variously colored, and a bit iridescent. _That's me_ , said Ixuan privately to Kor, _taking a form that I hope will be effective_. He yawned, exposing needle-like teeth and two curved fangs that folded down from the roof of his mouth. Edril Tsenkulor shifted uneasily in his chair.

"Wellll, Eeedril," drawled the snake-lizard lazily, weaving its head this way and that, "what hafff you got to sssay for yourssselfff?" Its voice was thick with menace.

"Nothing," said Edril. "I'm a guilty man. I'm sorry. I throw myself on your mercy. I beg for forgiveness. Please!" He went down on his knees and made a steepling gesture of supplication.

_He doesn't really repent_ , said Ixuan privately to Kor, _for it has been so long since he thought about ethical questions, that he's completely at a loss. He wants to repent, so as to avoid punishment, but he doesn't know how! At least he will tell the truth, even to himself, for he believes correctly that I can read his mind._

"That'ss a vvery commmon gammbit," said Ixuan-as-reptile. "Yesss ... At least halfff of the people who come here sssay that, hoping that we'll be eeeezzzier on them."

"Yes," said Edril, " _I_ am hoping that, too. But also, I _really_ _am_ convinced that I _am_ guilty, else I wouldn't be _here_." He began to quake.

"Yesss, you _arrre_ guilllty, _aren't_ you, Eeedril," said Ixuan, his tone heavy with rage, "but ufff what?"

"Well, lying," said Edril, nervously. "Ummmm... Taking advantage of people! Of their foolishness and ignorance. Ummmmm... Manipulating them. Lying. Corruption. Embezzling. Adultery. All this repeatedly. The theme of my life!" He bowed his head as if in shame.

"Yesss, Edril," said Ixuan, "you _did_ do all that, didn't you, Eeedrill? Yesss ... but there'ss sssomething else, sssomething more fffundammennntal."

"What's that?" asked Edril, looking up again, puzzled.

"You didn't _lisssten_ , Edril," said Ixuan, his head bobbing and weaving as he spoke. "You didn't lisssten to your _conshshshience_! Orr at leassst, you didnn't _obey_ it! No-o-o, you _didn't_ , you bad boy! ..." Ixuan came a little closer to him, and yawned again. A little venom dripped from one of his fangs onto the floor, where it danced and hissed for a moment, like water on a hot griddle. A bit of smoke rose up.

"Well, ... no ... I didn't," said Edril, trying to push himself backwards into the wall. _I'm afraid I didn't clean my teeth this morning_ , said Ixuan privately to Kor. "Well," continued Edril, "I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but ... sometimes I told myself I'd change my life, as soon as I got a chance; but I never actually did. Now I'm sorry. Really."

"And, you're not lissstening _now_ ," said Ixuan, turning his head sideways, so as to stare directly at Edril with one of his eyes.

"What?" said Edril, confused. "Am I doing something wrong, _now_? I'm trying to be _good_ , now! I know it's a little late, but I _am trying_." Tears welled from his eyes.

"You're nnot lissstening to the _voiccce of Heavven_ ," said Ixuan.

"I still don't understand," said Edril.

Ixuan slowly turned his head, to look at Edril with his other eye. His tongue continued to flicker out periodically. Edril's teeth began to chatter. He clamped his jaw shut.

"Eeedrill," said Ixuan, "you havvve been so busy, getting by and mmaking mmoney, that you havvven't thought, 'What doezzz it all mean? What mmakes sssome thingsss good, and othersss bad? Why am I heeere?'"

"Well, I learned all the Stories," said Edril. "Aren't they supposed to be answers to questions like that?"

_Where he comes from_ , said Ixuan privately to Kor, _the role of scriptures is played by various traditional stories._

"Yesssss, Eeedril," said Ixuan to Edril, nodding slowly, "they are. But you mussst _thhhink_ about themm, to rreally unnderssstand themm! Can you recite the Third Creation Ssstory?"

"I think so," said Edril, nervously. "It goes like this:

In the beginning, Wond was all by himself. There was nothing beyond him, not even darkness, not even empty space or empty time. But he was bored and lonely; he had vast powers, and he wanted to do wonderful things, but what could he do, with nothing to work on? So he divided himself in half. Then one half could talk to the other. But there was nothing to talk about. So each half forgot some things, so that the other half could teach them. But even so, they were soon bored again. So they each divided many times, and the different parts remembered different things, and took on different personalities. In this way the Second Order gods came to be. But there was still nothing to do, and so they were still bored, and so they made up contests to have amongst themselves, so that there would be things to hope for and things to fear. For the sake of their games, some of them divided into inanimate objects, which the others could desire and fear. But inanimate things were not interesting enough, so they also became living things, and finally mortals, and all the lesser gods. All these things had ways of coming together and dividing, so that there would always be something new. Wond's abilities were finally challenged by the only being capable of doing so – himself. And so, like a baby developing in a womb, an intricate world created itself, growing ever more complex.

Now, sometimes, one of the players in a game would fall behind so thoroughly that the game would no longer be fun. So the gods made a rule that a person or god would have a fresh start every so often. And winners would also have to start again from time to time. Otherwise, the same people would always win, and that would be boring. In this way, death and rebirth and grace and forgiveness came into the world.

But Wond didn't want to lose himself completely and forever in division, and neither did the gods, so they arranged for themselves to be able to rise out of the games, and know their one-ness, from time to time. For the sake of the competition, beings would have to forget, most of the time, that they were really all one; they would fear suffering and death, and seek life and joy.

But even at such times, beings will realize their one-ness to a greater or lesser degree. In this way they obtain the special kind of blessedness called _tal_. Those with much tal are not afraid of death or suffering, for they know that neither are ultimately real. But beings with little or no _tal_ resist the loss of their individuality. For example, stones are hard, and most humans will fight to live. Nevertheless, every stone is eventually worn away, and every human eventually dies.

To human beings with little or no tal, life appears to be a competition. That which is in their own self-interest is good, and that which is against it is bad. To those with a middling degree of _tal_ , those things that promote harmony are _good_ , and those things that promote strife are _evil_. Thus, everything else being equal, love is good, and hate is evil. So beings with a middling degree of tal are concerned for others as well as for themselves.

To those with a high degree of _tal_ , everything is good. But their way of thinking about things is so different from ours, that we use the word kal, instead of good, to avoid confusion, when speaking about the perceptions of people with a great deal of tal.

" _Vvvery good_ , Eeedril," said Ixuan, nodding again. "Nnow telll mme, where are you nowww, in terrms of thisss ssstory?"

"Well," said Edril, pondering, "I have just died, so I guess I am about to get a fresh start."

"Yesss indeed," said Ixuan, "but what elssse?"

"Well, I suppose I might be about to realize my one-ness, to acquire some tal."

"You havve thisss optionn," said Ixuan. "Noww tell me, accorrrding to thisss ssstory, ifff someonne asksss you whoo you reeeally, reeeally are, what iss thhe annsswerr?"

"I suppose ... I suppose I should say that I am _a piece of_ _Wond_ ," replied Edril, with a look of surprise.

"Yesss, Eeedrill," said Ixuan, coming still closer, so that his flickering tongue almost touched Edril's nose, "but isss that thhe way youu reeeally feeel? Doo you feeel thhat you arrre Wonnnd? Do you havvve _tal_? Doezzz evverythhing loook _kal_ to you?"

"Well, no," said Edril, shrinking back against his chair, "I still feel like ... like _me_ , like Edril Tsenkulor. I'm distinct from the rest of the world. I'm afraid of suffering. I'm afraid of death. I'm afraid of _you_ , as a matter of fact. If it weren't for my fear of suffering, I would be glad that I didn't really die, I mean, that I didn't _cease to be_."

"Aaannd, why is _that_ , Eedrill?" asked Ixuan. "Why _didn't_ you cceasse to bee?"

Edril concentrated, like man listening for a tiny sound. "Because ... because I took the lower path?"

_In the religion that Edril grew up in_ , said Ixuan privately to Kor, _they believe that after the death of the body, the soul finds itself in a subterranean passage, and walks along it until it comes to a fork: one way goes to the Upper World, one to the Lower. If you take the upper path, you experience one-ness, but at the price of a loss of individuality. After his previous death, Edril found himself in the subterranean passage, and came to the fork. He chose the lower path, which led to me._

"Yesss indeeed," said Ixuan to Edril. "Cann you tell me the ssstory of the twoo pathss?"

Edril paused a moment, and began to recite:

"The gods decided that no one should be _forced_ to feel the loss of his individuality against his will, and so they made a forking path for the soul between death and rebirth. If the soul chooses the upper path, he will experience one-ness, and grow in tal. His tal may still not be complete, however, in which case he will be reborn. If the soul chooses the lower path, he will pass through a chamber of judgment, and eventually be reborn."

Kor was startled. Why, she thought, That's just what I did, when I refused to enter the light! I took the lower path, and came here instead!

"Ssso whhy didn't you take ththeee upperrr path, Edril?" said Ixuan.

Edril hesitated for a moment. "Well," he said, hesitantly, "I guess that I just couldn't believe that I would really be allowed to take the upper path. I knew I had done terrible things, and I thought, 'Well, if I show them that at least I _realize_ that I have done wrong, and am ready to take the consequences of my actions, perhaps I will be treated a little less harshly.' And, yes, it was frightening to think of losing my individuality. That's what frightened me about death, at times when I lost faith in the stories of the afterlife."

_Perhaps,_ thought Kor, _I have not been altogether honest with myself. Perhaps it was partly just such a fear, that made me call on K'Sell to take me back from the white star. And perhaps I am also afraid that if I learn the truth, my previous life and struggles will be revealed to have been meaningless. The story, which Ixuan appears to take seriously, suggests that it is all just a game, a charade. How could I live with that?_

"Well, Eeedril," said Ixuan, backing well away from him, "thhere's sssomethhing that the prrophphet didn't mentionn whhenn he mmade thhat parrticularr sstory: that herre in the chhammber of judgmment, we givve you a sssecond chancce. You arrre now ffree to go. Whenn you go out thhe doorrr, you wwilll fffinnd yoursself baack at thhe fffork. Ifff you chhooose the upperr pathh, you will exsssperiencce somme degrreee of one-nesss for awhillle, and thhen beginnn the processs of rebirthh. If you chooose the lowerr path again, you willl not havve to go thhrrough thiss processs with me a second time; insstead, you will go dirrectly to the stage of rebirth. The chhoicce is yourss." With that, Ixuan disappeared.

Edril remained in his seat for a few moments, thinking. Then he sighed, got up, walked slowly to the door, and passed through it.

Kor found herself back in the room with Ixuan-as-old-man.

"That was ... that was quite something," she said. "It has given me a lot to think about. Thank you for showing it to me."

Ixuan smiled. His face and smile were perfectly normal and friendly, but somehow they made Kor shudder, having recently seen him as a menacing reptile.

"Happy to do it," continued Ixuan. "In fact, I saved myself some trouble, since I would have had to explain a lot of that to you, anyway."

"I'm curious," said Kor. "Which way did Edril go?"

"He took the lower path again," said Ixuan, shaking his head with wry sadness. "He's just too suspicious. He's afraid to renounce his individuality. He expects to be punished, and in a way, he is right, for he is punishing himself. With more tal, he could make a much better choice."

"But how will he get more tal," asked Kor, "if he always chooses the lower path?"

"It is possible to get tal during a mortal life," said Ixuan, "for example, by experiencing love, or justice."

"Most people don't remember their previous lives," said Kor. "Why is that?"

"Actually, people do have memories of them," said Ixuan, "but usually most of those memories are closed to them while they are incarnate. As the story says, each life supposed to be a fresh start. Suppose you are playing a tactical board game, like zaku. When one game is finished, and you want to play another, you put the pieces back to their starting positions. In that way, you are making a fresh start. On the other hand, you probably have learned something about strategy from your previous games, so in that sense you are _not_ making a fresh start. But you don't remember every move of your previous games; you just have a general feeling about what might work. Similarly, people can become wiser in successive incarnations, even though they do not remember the details."

"But," said Kor, "doesn't this story make life meaningless? It's all just a game that Wond is playing with himself, to avoid boredom."

"Well," said Ixuan, "you shouldn't take these stories too literally. Edril's people are not theologically sophisticated. Saying that Wond was 'bored,' and calling life a 'game', is just metaphor. Think of Wond as _the potential for goodness_ , or something like that. Or perhaps _proclivity,_ or _tendency_ , or _propensity_ would be a better word than _potential_ – what I mean is, that Wond actively strives to realize himself, to realize goodness. Now, when the story says that someone is 'bored', understand that to mean that he is not realizing his full potential. That is why _people_ are bored, after all.

"So, for Wond and the lesser gods to be 'bored' would really be a great tragedy – it would be the failure of the potential for goodness to be realized. So the 'games' in the story are not just meaningless diversions. They are ways of realizing goodness. Now, one way goodness has manifested itself in the universe is that you, Kor, have rescued and nurtured children. But in order for that to happen, there had to be you, and there had to be the children, and some bad people, and a geographical and a social context, and so on. So Wond had to create all those things.

"Where the story says 'game', you might substitute, 'a situation in which something can be gained or lost, depending on someone's actions'. In the case of you and the children, it is the children's lives, and their happiness and development, that could have been gained or lost. Among other things, of course. Now, in the situations we usually call 'games', there is usually something artificial or unreal about what is gained or lost. So there is no horrible tragedy in losing. But in the story, I think the reference to 'games' should be taken as a metaphor for serious problems."

"I think I see," said Kor, "and I must say, I like your way of explaining these things. Not that it is easy to understand; I am not any good at theology. But I believe that I did follow you, which is better than I usually do with such things."

"Thank you," said Ixuan.

"But there's one thing I still don't understand," said Kor. "Why does Wond have to _divide_ to create a world? Why can't he create a world _outside_ himself?"

"Well," said Ixuan, "in many traditions, the First God _does_ create things outside himself, and those religions seem satisfactory to their followers. It's probably an equally valid way of looking at it. But sometimes people argue like this: if Wond created something outside himself, then the universe would consist of Wond _and something else._ But then there would be something _greater_ than Wond, namely the universe as a whole. But Wond is supposed to be the greatest thing of all."

"Yes," said Kor, "I can see the appeal of that. What I like even more, though, is the idea that people can keep getting better. It's so sad when someone's life ends, especially when they have died ignorant, unhappy, and evil."

"Yes, it is," said Ixuan, nodding agreement.

"Well, what do _you_ think?" asked Kor. _Surely_ , she thought, _the Rotimor would have a remarkable view the world_.

"Actually," said Ixuan, "I think that there's a lot of truth in those scriptures. One could do worse than to look at the world that way, for awhile."

"By 'one,' you mean _me_ ," said Kor, bridling a little. It was one thing to see Ixuan admonishing the despicable Edril Tsenkulor, it was another to have him lecture Kor herself. _How arrogant of you to set yourself apart like that_ , said one of her inner voices, giving her a twinge of shame. She sighed.

"Well, yes," said Ixuan. Leaning a bit towards her, he said, "Please, Kor, don't overestimate my presumption. I happen to be a good deal older than you, even taking reincarnation into account, and I've thought a lot about these things, but I don't know everything. My job here is to guide people a little bit. I do my best, but I know it's far from perfect. We all take a risk when we give people advice; it might turn out to be bad. I certainly don't think of myself as _better_ than you; on the contrary, I admire you greatly. And you are free to totally ignore me; no penalty will accrue to you for that. I just happen to have a hunch that it might be interesting for you to experiment, to see what it would be like to look at the world this way, from time to time. It won't solve all your problems, or answer all your questions, and eventually you will move on to something else, but I think you will find it enriching. And I hope that _you_ will give _me_ advice, in turn."

" _Me_ give _you_ advice?" asked Kor in astonishment.

"Of course, Kor," he said. "You have your own window on life, which is closed to me."

Kor was amazed. She didn't know what to say. Was she supposed to sum up her entire view on life in a few words? How could anyone do that? "I've been so busy with the details of my life," she said, "I haven't had time to get the big picture."

Ixuan nodded. "That's one of the reasons for death," he said. "Take your time, I'm not on a schedule." He sat quietly, exuding patience and serenity in a way that reminded her of the Zillist wanderer – what was his name? – who had escorted her from the Temple of Ydris.

"I've given a lot of advice, too," she said, thinking aloud, "raising all those kids. Sometimes they just soak up everything you say like a sponge; at other times, they get mad at you for saying anything, or even for what they imagine you are thinking. It feels wonderful when they accept you, terrible when they reject you. And then, when they grow up, like Tulith ..." It was hard to speak; she was starting to weep. "Then ... well, we still fight sometimes, but we get along well enough ... but still, I _miss_ her, I mean, I miss the tiny little girl with the squeaky voice ... I mean, not that she was in any way a better person than Tulith is now, or that I loved her more, but ... I want them _both!_ ... I wouldn't mind having my own childhood back, either! Time gives, and time takes away ... Oh, I'm not making any sense ... I'm sorry ... maybe I'm saying that I hope that you can love people like Edril ... he has so far to go, ... when they are little, you think, 'It will be easier when they are older' ... because they will be more like you ... but there's something ... lost, too ... I feel so useless ... they can take care of themselves ... they don't need me any more ... they go away ... I'm just an appendage to their life ... and I can't protect them ... I feel so _helpless!_ ... wondering if something terrible is ... going to happen to them ... " She fell silent, cradling her head in her hands.

"Thank you, Kor."

"Thank me?" she said, looking up, surprised and sniffling.

He nodded, eyes sparkling. "It _is_ hard to love someone like Edril," he said, smiling sadly, "but you have ... reminded me ...of its importance."

They sat in silence for awhile. Then Ixuan said, "Well, that's it. Just go through the door behind you." He stood.

Kor stepped up to him, and they hugged. "Goodbye," he said, and disappeared.

_He loves me, too_ , thought Kor, with a sigh. _Will I have to die, to see him again?_ She turned and walked to the door. Going through it, she found herself in a subterranean passage, dimly lit by moonstones. Ahead of her, the passage divided into two branches; one led up, and one down.

_Of course, this isn't real_ , thought Kor, _this is an illusion that K'Sell is creating for me. But from what K'Sell said, when she brought me back to the tent the second time, and from what Ixuan said, it appears that if I take the upper passage, and don't terminate the experience, I might well experience some loss of individuality, and come to think differently about myself and the world. Even if it were not real, it would be frightening to experience loss of self. But perhaps it would be a good thing, for me to have such an experience. Ixuan seemed convinced that it would have been good for Edril. But ...would it be good in my case? Or, could Ixuan be wrong? Loss of individuality is certainly a frightening idea. What after all is undesirable about death, final, irreversible death, if not such a loss? But then, K'Sell has said that I will see that death is not so bad. But then again, the god of evil would no doubt tell me that evil is not so bad. And if I trusted the god of evil to mess with my mind, I might well come to believe that myself! Isiliar says she'll protect me, but how far can I trust the goddess who stood by and let my darling Zar be stolen from me?_

She stood there for a long time, trying to decide.
**********

"Why do we have free will? Because even a god must delegate responsibility"

(Grentithex, Minister of Internal Affairs, Jamolisian Monarchy)

777 realized that her presence had been detected; People and animals were acting suspicious, cities placed guards at their gates, sentries and search parties proliferated. Even some of the plants developed eyes, and inanimate objects developed tripwires. It was now necessary to keep moving very rapidly and irregularly, while at the same time moving toward the supreme god of this world. She tried 47 temples before she found one whose clergy (suitably corrupted and bamboozled) allowed her to ascend to the heavens unseen. Slipping past powerful archons and aeons under the guise of an angel, she penetrated sphere after sphere of holiness, until she came to the throne of the highest god himself. He was alert and suspicious, surrounded by guards, walls, and mirrors; it would take all her wiles to seduce him. Slipping like a serpent through a tiny pore in the ultimate sphere, she took on the form of his most trusted advisor, and went up to the foot of his throne. After a brief struggle, she had him.
**********

"Night and Day die for each other."

(from the popular song, "We're so Different")

After giving Teladorion a very brief explanation of her relation to Kor, Oselika once again approached Ydnas.

"Hello, Ydnas," she said. "I'm sorry I went away in the middle of our conversation, before. I realized that Kor might be my birth-mother, whom I have never seen, as far as I can remember. And she is!"

"I understand," said Ydnas, smiling, and skipping lightly in place. "I wanted you to. I'm glad you found your mother!"

"Thank you," said Oselika, smiling back. "So ... is there anything that my father can do? He wants to help people." Oselika and Teladorion each went down on one knee, in order to hear Ydnas' answer better.

Ydnas nodded. "He should be an example," she said.

"How do you mean?" asked Oselika.

Ydnas assumed the sorrowful expression of one who is about to pass on terrible news. "Best for him to stand back," she said.

Oselika was puzzled. "Stand back? What do you mean?"

"New Balance must be established by non-violent means," said Ydnas, hopping on one foot, "through insight, not force. Will be much violence during change, but not constructive. God of violence cannot be overcome by violence. God of ignorance can only be overcome by knowledge, god of violence can only be overcome by non-violence."

It took awhile for the full implications of this to settle into the minds of Oselika and Teladorion. Oselika was bursting with a thousand questions and objections; after all, the whole tradition of her family, for thousands of years, had been based on the idea that violence in the hands of good people was good, even necessary. But her immediate goal was to hear what Ydnas had to say, in order to report it back to her father, so she held her peace. Ydnas then proceeded to raise the very issue that concerned Oselika, switching to an 'adult' mode of speech:

"Your father, Oselika, is the representative of a long and noble tradition of violence aimed at fighting evil; ironically, though, it is partly because of people like him that violence is justified in many people's minds. If he were to become an advocate of non-violence, that would make a strong impression on people."

Oselika was stunned. _First Teladorion begins to question our heritage,_ she thought, _and now Ydnas, who is perhaps the Girl of the Prophecies, also questions it._ She felt dizzy. She had been born and raised a warrior, like her mother and father before her. That was her heritage, the heritage of her entire family, back to the legendary marriage of Tosaris with a mortal. What would be left of her life, if war, and indeed violence in general, were to disappear? What would be left of her _self_? She felt completely and utterly adrift. Then she thought of Kor, and another thought occurred to her: _Actually, that is only half of my heritage_.
**********

"Let your mind out to pasture from time to time."

(Alstin Ainburt)

Very, very slowly, awareness of self crept into existence. It was awakening in an utterly strange place. There was a whistling and moaning sound. "What is this?" it thought, confused and frightened. It did not know who it was; it was just consciousness. Then he remembered: he was Srea Kula, in his little cabin on the Isle of Grelgarth, where he had gone to reflect. There was a wind whistling and moaning outside.

The cabin was small, just big enough for his bed, a small stove, a small washtub, a cupboard, a hatchway where things could be picked up and delivered from the outside, and a little bare floor. There were two doors; he remembered that one led to the outside, and the other to a tiny shed with tools and equipment. There were no windows, but the South wall was assembled from panels, each of which was made from bits of quartz mortared together in a frame. This wall was now alive with light.

In a few moments he was completely awake. He got up and dressed himself in the indoor clothes that had been provided. They were very simple, made of unbleached linen. Following instructions, he opened the hatch. It revealed a small compartment, accessible from the outside by another door. Waiting in the compartment was breakfast, which had been left there during the night. It was simple, and there was just enough of it. He ate every crumb, as he had been instructed to.

He put on his outdoor clothes, which were very strange: they were of thick linen, entirely covered with overlapping metal plates, almost thin enough to be foil. It looked and felt like a light suit of armor. There was even a helmet with a screened visor. There were also metal-covered boots. Going out his front door, he found himself standing amid dunes, which were covered for the most part with thick, low-lying vegetation. The sky was overcast, and there was a stiff and whistling breeze, chilly and fresh. It kept the sand in constant motion. The sand tinkled and hissed on the metal plates of his clothes and boots. On the upwind side of his hut was a large construction of several thin, curving metal surfaces, wind-scoured bright, supported by a post. At first it made no sense to him, but after examining it for awhile, he decided that it was a baffle, a guide for the wind, designed to assure that the ground level around his cabin would neither rise nor fall, in spite of the constant blowing of the sand. There was also a rack, near to the ground. Here he placed his stoneware breakfast plate, to be scoured by the wind-borne sand.

He made a quick trip to the outhouse, which had its own baffle, and was connected to his cabin with a chain, hanging at waist height. Afterwards, he washed himself with a wet linen cloth. Then he decided to make a trip to the lakeside to get more water – and just to see the sights. From the shed adjoining his cabin, he obtained a yoke with two covered buckets. Adjusting this on his shoulders, he set off to the lake.

There was a path through the waxy scrub. It was frequently marked with baffles, which also kept it clear. It turned this way and that, eventually arriving at a promontory, where stone emerged from the sand. There was a narrow path from there to the beach; it was narrow and steep, but a chain had been strung from top to bottom. Using this for support, he worked his way down to the thin strip of shingle that skirted the cliff.

The wind was colder there, but there was less blown sand, so he decided to take a quick dip. Removing his clothes, he rushed through the shallow surf and made a flat dive. Hit by a huge hammer of cold, he put his head above water, gasping for breath. The waving gray water invited him to dance, but he declined. He staggered back to the beach. His head ached, and yellow dots danced before his eyes. He had no towel, so he wrung out his hair and beard with his hands, and strigiled himself with a flat stone, shivering and shuddering. He was about to dress when he remembered his buckets. Quickly, he undid the clasps, separated them from the yoke, removed the tight lids, and stepped just far enough into the lake to fill them. Returning, he dried his feet again, dressed, replaced the lids, re-assembled the yoke, lifted it on his shoulders, and started back.

His quick, frigid dip had energized him, but still, the buckets were heavy, and he realized he had a long and strenuous job in charge of him. He made his way up the promontory path, pulling himself along the chain with his arms. He had to move very slowly and carefully, because of the yoke and buckets. He stopped several times to rest. Because he had not dried himself completely before putting his clothes back on, they did little to warm him.

As he reached the top, the wind picked up. Sand was everywhere; he lowered his visor to keep it out of his eyes. The wind was against him. The sand tried to bite through his armor. He began to pant. Doubting his stamina, he set his yoke and buckets down near a baffle and proceeded without them. That was a smart move, for when he finally staggered into his cabin, he was completely exhausted. Taking off his clothes and toweling himself dry, he crawled back into bed. "Never again," he thought, as the wind howled its way through to his very bones, "will I take quiet or warmth for granted." Slowly his shivering body warmed the blankets, and then itself, and then he fell asleep.

When he awoke, the quartz wall was brighter than before. Getting up, he noted with chagrin that he had not hung up or spread out his clothes and his towel, so they were still damp. Deciding to make a fire, he hung them near the stove. There was a fire already laid; he had only to light it. Taking a fire-bow and a small box of tinder from the cupboard, he managed, with a good deal of trial and error, to get a bit of tinder glowing. He gently blew that into a flame, and soon had the fire started. His arms ached from working the bow, and he made a mental note never to let the fire die completely.

It took him a long time to adjust the draught correctly; in the meantime, the room filled with smoke. He opened the door a bit to air the place out, and in a moment everything was covered in sand. He shook out his blankets and, using a broom from the shed, swept the sand into a small pile. _I'll wait until the wind dies down to put it out_ , he thought. He realized he was hungry. Going to the hatch, he found lunch, which he ate quickly. Then he decided to read. He found an oil lamp, and lit it with a twig from the stove.

One of the books he had brought with him was _Short Excerpts from the Scriptures of the Angels of Rejuvenation_. He opened it and began to read:

**

Life is like a fountain: eternally leaping for the sky, eternally falling short. If it ever reached the sky, what would it do then?

[ _Well_ , thought Srea Kula in surprise, _the very first saying turns out to be relevant! Sre Lugu and I are upset because we are not created perfect; but indeed, if we were perfect, what would we do with ourselves? Help those who are not? But then, they would have the same complaint ... if somebody has to be imperfect, it might as well be me, I suppose! But what if we were_ _all_ _perfect? What would we do then? He thought of Rajo's horrifying description of the life of perfect people: "After eating a pleasant meal of fish, bread, and fruit, they could look at a pretty still-life painting of delicious-looking fish, bread, and fruit. And then, perhaps, watch a play which consists of a number of people successfully gathering and consuming fish, bread, and fruit." It almost makes me pity the gods, he thought, unless they, too, are imperfect._ ]

**

The only reason that heroic deeds are required is that things have come to a terrible pass. If we caught errors when they were still small, they would be easy to fix, and they would never grow large. It is because we don't do the easy things that we have to do the hard things. Those who love heroism love stupidity.

**

They collect fact upon fact, until they fill a million libraries; they make ever more sophisticated theories, which only a few can understand. And the more they learn in this way, the more meaningless it all seems to them.

**

The more power, wealth, beauty, fame, or talent you display, the more delicious you appear to parasites and predators.

**

By its very nature, Analysis leads to the simple, the mindless, the meaningless, the repetitive, the mechanical. By its very nature, Synthesis leads to the complex, the intelligent, the meaningful, the unique, the creative. Analysis reveals the material, and synthesis reveals the spiritual.

**

The use of money is one of the chief ways in which we deny responsibility for our actions. Instead of saying, "We wouldn't let him," we say, "He didn't have enough money."

Authority allows a similar denial. Instead of saying, "We chose not to," we say, "We were forbidden to."

**

Wars between groups are almost always wars between the elites of those groups. The elites rarely risk themselves in combat, so war goes on.

**

Equality is appropriateness.

[Now **, that's** a puzzling one, thought Srea Kula, What could they be getting at?]

**

Everyone has something to give you. Don't starve yourself by despising others.

**

Power attracts idiocy.

**

Why are we given these imperfections? We can see the bad and think it is the good. We can see the good as good and yet not do it. Our fears and desires repaint the world. The complexity of the world is always beyond us. And yet, we are expected to decide, to make a commitment, to take sides, to risk everything for the dream. Solve this riddle quickly, for life is passing you by!

[Yes, thought Srea Kula, with a bit of anger, that is very much the problem that Sre Lugu and I were struggling with; but what **is** the solution? You imply that there is one, but you leave it to me to find it. Well, perhaps it **is** something I have to do for myself, but then, why write a scripture, if not to help people?

But perhaps ... perhaps what they mean by solving the riddle is not something that can be communicated in words. It's not having an insight, or not that alone ... perhaps it's **making a decision** of some kind. Of course, a scripture cannot **make a decision** for you. Even a god cannot do that. A god might **make** **you do** something, but then it would have been the god's decision, not yours.]

**

We can dream, and we can build. Our lives can flourish, and be beautiful. But the seeds of corruption lie everywhere. When the greatest of all heroes lies finally at peace beneath the earth, who will guard his children? The sword and the manacle may be put away, but they will be taken out again. Fire and flood, famine and plague, poverty and war, are part of the wisdom of the world. Learn to be them, for their time will always come.

[Rather an extreme view, thought Srea Kula, but then, I don't deal with the sort of people that they do.]

**

Each of us is like a gambler's die. The gambler's hand is birth and the table is death; only when we are dead is our life's meaning fixed, and unless the process is corrupt, it is unpredictable.

[I understand why a predictable die is corrupt, thought Srea Kula, but why would a predictable life be corrupt?]

**

What will it profit you to snarl or to snivel at life? What will it profit you to hesitate, to waste the time given you? Give to it everything you have – what you do not give, will be taken from you anyway.

**

In board games like zaku, one player wins and the other loses; in real life, you win when others win, and you lose when others lose.

[Ah, thought Srea Kula, if only everyone thought that way. Then everyone _would_ win.]

**

The most talented soul is the richest field for evil.

**

With the wave of a hand, they sweep away what millions have believed, as mere ignorant nonsense; yet it never occurs to them that they are arrogant.

**

If something irritates you, you are half asleep.

**

Strength, like water, evaporates if it is not contained.

**

Flatterers praise the gods when good things happen, but make excuses for them when bad things happen.

**

On the surface of their minds, they proudly believe that in reality there is no good, no bad, no better, no worse, no right, no wrong. Yet their desires and fears are as inflamed as ever, and they are often outraged at the treatment they receive.

**

Evil is carelessness.

**

Those without problems are dead.

**

Always negotiate with the other's welfare in mind as much as your own.

**

Faith in goodness creates goodness, and faith in evil creates evil.

**

Without knaves and fools, there could be no saints.

**

The punishment for cynicism is terrible and instantaneous.

**

There is a clock, ticking your life away. While you procrastinate, the clock ticks on. While you shrink back, the clock ticks on. While you daydream, the clock ticks on. While you whine, the clock ticks on. When you turn away, the clock ticks on. While you congratulate yourself, the clock ticks on. When you upbraid yourself, the clock ticks on. While you second-guess yourself, the clock ticks on. While you drift, the clock ticks on. While you accuse life, the clock ticks on. While you pray for help, the clock ticks on. While you try to escape the clock, the clock ticks on. Too many ticks, and you are dead.

If you can move as fast as the clock itself, it will no longer tick for you.

**

There are two kinds of justice: one is slow and fallible, the other is instantaneous and infallible. The more you understand of the second, the less you will have need of the first.

[Srea Kula paused. The last saying had made no sense to him at all. In general, the riddling, aphoristic form of the scripture was intriguing, but also frustrating. _Why don't they just say what they mean_ , he thought, _why all these riddles? Perhaps_ _they only want to elicit thoughts that were already in the reader's mind, or nearly so. If the thought is too alien to someone, they will not even hear what is being said. Which tends to happen anyway, I think, even when one strives to be perfectly clear._ ]

**

Plants grow toward the sun, but if they ever reached it, they would be destroyed.

**

Only through discipline can we become free.

**

We all live with two dreams: the dream of wishful thinking and the dream of awakening. The one comes from the visible within us, the other from the invisible beyond us. Which one will you trust?

**

They say they want immortality, but they have no zest for the life they have now.

**

Can mortals overcome their own weakness by following the instructions of gods? No, for it is fallible humans who must decide which gods are beneficent, which scriptures are authentically inspired, how to interpret the scriptures that have been chosen, and whether or not to obey them.

**

Wherever there is something that can be eaten, an eater will appear.

_[Is something_ _eating_ _Sre Lugu and myself?_ thought Srea Gala. He visualized his doubt as a sort of mental parasite, gnawing at his self-confidence and sucking up his vital energies...]

**

For the most part, those who worship the god of Theft belong to one of two groups. The first group consists of thieves and those who profit from theft. The second consists of those who understand why there is theft in the world.

**

The less they think, the less they know, the more certain they are.

**

Iron rusts, cloth wears out. Bone breaks, flesh decays. Hunger and thirst always return. Like a brook trout, we must keep working, just to stay in the same place. Why do we struggle for life, knowing that death will win? Either struggle completely, or give up completely. Either way, you win; but if you try to have it both ways, you lose.

**

When a god speaks, some will hear only the rustling of leaves and the chirping of birds.

**

A man has several children. He loves them all dearly. One of them dies. Temporarily insane from grief, he kills another one himself. Vengeance is like that.

**

What we have perfect faith in, we never think about. Churches, hymns, prayers, services, holy books, good intentions – these are what we clutch when faith fails us.

[I never thought of it that way, thought Srea Kula. He felt chagrined, because he had devoted his entire life to just those things. But then, he thought, it doesn't follow that those things have no value. The fact is, that most people's faith **is** imperfect. This is not a reason to abandon them.]

**

Human reason is flexible; a law is rigid. Reason can change its mind; a law cannot. Law is useful as a default, but the moment some mechanism is declared to be superior to common sense, catastrophe is on the way.

**

The moment you stop whining, you will be in Heaven. Until then, you must endure Hell.

**

More and more wealth, until huge stacks of gold give no pleasure at all.

**

To save a Utopia from corruption, we would have to make it totalitarian; but then it would no longer be Utopia. So we have to let it decay, until it is so corrupt that the denial of individual freedom is the lesser of two evils. Then we make a new Utopia by force.

**

You can be controlled by your own wisdom, or by someone else's; but as long as you are controlled by wisdom, you are free. Everyone else is a slave.

[Srea Kula read this several times, and he was puzzled every time, for it seemed to make no sense at all. _Freedom is the ability to do as one likes, is it not? Freedom includes the freedom to be unwise._ But it seemed unlikely that the author of the scripture had missed such an obvious point. _There must be a deeper meaning intended here._ He pondered further. _Perhaps they are talking about inner freedom_ , he thought, _freedom of the will, not political freedom. Our will is free because we choose. But again, freedom of the will would seem to include the freedom to choose unwisely._

_Or could it be_ , he thought a few minutes later, _that they mean that people want to choose wisely, and usually think that they are doing so? But only the truly wise can choose wisely, and so those who are not wise are not able to do what they want. They are chained by their illusions_.]

**

Only through strife can the world be winnowed. Only because the world is winnowed can goodness be preserved. Yet some say that goodness wants to eliminate strife.

[ _Is this some kind of word trickery?_ thought Srea Kula. _When they put it that way, it has some plausibility, and yet ... surely there is a better way to preserve goodness! Through nurturance, not strife!_ ]

**

How craftily they scheme and plot, and invent, and dissect, and destroy, and control, and accomplish little, and die in the end. While the sun rises every day for a billion years, without effort.

[Srea Kula felt chastened by this; and yet, he could not see any other way to exist, without giving up something essentially human,]

**

A block of stone is raised to the very highest point. But its purpose is to support another block. And when the structure is high enough, it will collapse.

**

A man will eat poison, if he thinks it is wholesome, or if he wishes to die. In the same way, beliefs and values drive History.

[ _How one-sided_ , thought Srea Kula. _Objective conditions will often determine what happens, no matter how strongly people deny them. But perhaps these sayings are not meant to express the whole truth, but only to counteract what the authors think are one-sided views in the opposite direction_.]

**

We must live by falsehoods, for the truth is too complicated for us to think, and too well hidden for us to find. But some falsehoods are closer to the truth than others, and some are more benign than others for various reasons. If you understand this, you can proceed. But if you think of your falsehoods as unblemished truth, you are trapped in a cave of demons.

**

The wiser the man, the higher the god, the more the universe looks beautiful, rational, and good.

[ _What?!_ thought Srea Kula, with a touch of outrage. _Is it some error and fault of mine, that rape and pillage look bad to me?_ ]

**

An island of good needs a sea of evil. This is not a reason for it to sink.

[ _What kind of scripture is this?_ thought Srea Kula. _They keep arguing for the necessity of evil! And yet, they praise the good as well, in this passage._ ]

**

Revolutions are harder than they look. A tyrant, oligarchy, or privileged class is overthrown, a new, egalitarian order is established. But political issues are complex, and the average person has other interests, has little time, talent, or inclination for political analysis and synthesis, and so puts his trust in charismatic leaders. These leaders in turn are little more than actors; they do not have much interest in or aptitude for politics; they are manipulated by those who do. Under the egalitarian surface, there is still a privileged class.

There will always be a ruling class; the only question is, how close it will approximate to a true Aristocracy: rule by those who are intelligent, well-balanced, and humane.

[At first, Srea Kula was indignant about this. But then he thought, with chagrin, of the hierarchical structure of his Church, and the authority of its scriptures. _Would I want doctrine to be accepted or rejected by a general vote? Certainly not; that would be a disaster!_ Hardly had he thought this, than another inner voice spoke up, saying, _Surely it is arrogant for theologians and clergy to act so superior to others!_ Now he didn't know what to think; again, however, he decided to table the question and proceed with his reading.]

**

There are two kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of spontaneity, and the wisdom of thought and learning. Each dies without the other.

**

Freedom is seeing things as they are.

**

If you must make an enemy, make one that is worthy of you.

**

True revolution begins when failure is admitted.

[He saw the point, but it made him very nervous.]

**

Smoke cannot make a pillar. How can drifters hope for immortality, when they barely exist in the present?

**

Each religion is one facet of an eye, through which God sees God.

**

Decadence does not usually bear a banner that says, "Decadence!" It bears a banner that says, "Freedom!"

**

Hell has two parts. In one, everything is painful. In the other, everything is pleasant.

[Pleasure is just as much a mere appearance as pain is, thought Srea Kula.]

**

If you are strong and good, you will treat weaker people a little less barbarously than they treat you.

**

To truly love someone, be able to hate them.

**

Humans are imperfect. There will always be incompetence, crime and immorality. Trying to eliminate it altogether will only make it worse. Prevent as much of it as you can, be sad about what you cannot prevent, get on with your life!

**

When people fall from blessedness, they cling to morals. When they fall from morals, they cling to laws. When they fall from laws, they cling to power. When they fall from power, they cling to themselves. When they fall from themselves, they return to blessedness.

**

The worst things in the world, the greatest causes of human suffering, are the ideas of well-intentioned but ignorant reformers.

**

Here the book ended. _What a strange combination of cynicism and idealism_ , thought Srea Kula. He had come to like the riddling, aphoristic form, but he found many of the ideas disturbing. _But then_ , he thought, _I am trying to expand myself, to break the old routine. I must expect to be challenged. If nothing else, such challenges will help me to clarify my own position. At any rate, my faith is not worth much, if it can't withstand a few alien ideas_. In this way, he talked himself into reading it through a second time.

Then he felt restless. Finding his outdoor clothes to be dry, he put them on. Opening his door, he saw that the wind had abated, and the sun had come out. He made another visit to the outhouse, and then went to retrieve his yoke and buckets. He had to dig a little, to get them free of the sand. As he made his ponderous way back, the sky darkened again, and the wind picked up. It howled like an anguished dragon. Srea Kula dropped his visor again, which made it difficult to find his way; he had to be within twenty feet of a baffle before he could see it. He was exhausted again by the time he reached his cabin. Its warmth and quiet were then immensely pleasant.

He decided to read again. He selected another small book, _Anecdotes from the Book of Horadishi._

God is like a spit lizard. A blind man touches the tail of the spit lizard and says, "A spit lizard is like a hawser." Another blind man touches the thigh of the spit lizard and says, "A spit lizard is like a tree." A third blind man touches a claw and says, "A spit lizard is like a sickle." A fourth blind man touches the tongue and says, "A spit lizard is like a cushion." None of them realizes that it was the spit lizard that blinded them.

**

It is like the master of a large farm, who has many servants. The master has to go away for awhile. He gives money to various servants in case there is need for it. When he returns, he asks the servants what they have done with the money.

The first servant says, "I invested it, and now I have twice as much, which I hereby turn over to you."

"Well done," says the master, "you will be rewarded."

The second servant says, "The water wheel broke down, and I spent the money to get it repaired. It is now working again."

"Well done," says the master, "you will be rewarded."

The third servant says, "One of your creditors came with the Sheriff. They were going to repossess the olive press. I used the money you gave me to pay an installment on the debt, so you have another month."

"Well done," says the master, "you will be rewarded."

The fourth servant says, "You set me to uprooting stumps. The work was hard, but I didn't give up, and in the end I succeeded. I had neither time nor any reason to spend anything. Here is what you gave me."

"Well done," says the master, "you will be rewarded."

The fifth servant says, "I'm sorry, but I seem to have lost it."

The master is angry and says, "You will be punished."

The sixth servant says, "I'm sorry, but I gambled it away."

The master is angry and says, "You will be punished."

The seventh servant says, "I gambled with it and won, and I now have twice as much, which I now give to you."

The master hesitates for several moments, but then he is angry and says, "You will be punished."

The eighth servant says, "I'm sorry, but it was stolen from me."

The master hesitates a moment, but then he is angry and says, "You will be punished."

The ninth servant says, "I invested it, but my investment went wrong, and I have only half of what you gave me. Here it is."

The master stops awhile to think, and then he says, "You will be neither punished nor rewarded."

The tenth servant says, "I felt sorry for the poor woman who lives in the shack down the road, so I left the money where she would find it."

The master stops awhile to think. He looks tired. Finally, he says, "You will be neither punished nor rewarded."

The eleventh servant says, "I was drinking moonshine in the evening, and I heard a wood-nymph say, 'Spend your money at the brothel tonight.' So I went there, and while I was there, I overheard your enemy saying that he was going to come early the next morning with two thugs and set fire to your barn. So I told the Sheriff. He came and deputized all your servants and lay in wait for them, and when your enemy and his servants appeared, carrying torches, we helped him to arrest them. They are now in jail, and your enemy will probably have to give you twenty acres of land. I had to tell the Sheriff I went to the cat-house, so he gave me a whipping, but it doesn't hurt much today."

The master stops to think for a long time. Suddenly, he starts to laugh. Pretty soon everyone is laughing. When they all calm down, the master says, "I have changed my mind. You will all be rewarded, for you each did the best of which you were capable."

**

Once the master of a farm gave one of his servants a bag of seed to sow in a new field. The servant spread the seed evenly everywhere. Some of it fell on good soil, and flourished. Some of it fell on poor soil, and did not flourish. Some of it fell where birds and insects could get it, and little of it remained to grow. Some of it fell where weeds were already growing, and very little of it grew, and what grew was difficult to harvest. So the harvest was small.

The master was irritated. He told the servant to think about what had happened. Then he gave the servant another bag of seed, and said, "Use your head this time. Don't waste any of this." So the servant spread all the seeds on the good soil, without weeds, where the birds and insects would not come. But there was not much of this good soil, and so the harvest was smaller than before.

The master was disgruntled again. He told the servant to think about what had happened. Then he gave him another bag of seed, and said, "Use your head _better_ this time. Don't waste any of this, and don't waste any of the field." So the servant consulted with others who knew about farming, and followed their advice. First, he removed rocks and stumps. Then he took sand, compost, and lime, and worked them into the infertile soil, making it fertile. He drained the boggy parts and irrigated the dry. He removed all the weeds, even to their roots. Then he set up scarecrows, and little statues of snakes and owls, to scare the birds, and in some places he put up netting to keep them off. He also planted flowers and herbs whose scent repelled insects. When all this was done, he planted the crop seeds throughout the field. When harvest time came, the yield was superb, and the master was very pleased. "You did well," he told the servant.

"Why didn't you just tell me in the first place how to do it?" asked the servant.

"What makes you think I knew?" replied the master. "I'm an administrator; I don't know anything about farming."

**

Once there was a great Saint named Arcolish. For twenty years, Arcolish and his disciples toiled to raise the moral standards of their country, especially for the sake of the poor. They were arrested many times, and flogged, and almost killed by agents of the rich. They lived in constant poverty, without families, so that they could devote themselves entirely to the struggle.

One day, Arcolish and a number of disciples had just gotten out of jail, and were eating a meager supper, seated on the ground in a woodland glade. A beautiful girl from a local poor family appeared and began to massage Arcolish's feet with fragrant oil. Arcolish said nothing, but sighed and closed his eyes. A tear ran down one cheek.

One of his disciples, Ragitash, objected. "We are supposed to forswear all luxury," he said, "as long as there is anyone still poor. You should tell this girl to sell that oil and buy food for her family!" Arcolish looked very sad and tired, but said nothing. The girl began to massage his ankles. His eyes remained closed.

Ragitash objected again. "You are taking advantage of this girl," he said. "She is infatuated with you because you are a hero to her people. You should be a model of restraint and responsibility." The girl began to massage his calves.

Arcolish opened his eyes. "Both of your objections are sound," he said, in an anguished but exhausted voice, "but I am weak and tired! I strive for the divine, but I am only a mortal. Am I not bound to fail, now and then?"

At this the disciples, in varying degrees of shock and confusion, left the Saint and the girl in the glade. Many of them never returned to his side. The story was told across the entire region.

Soon after this, Arcolish's cause began to attract more supporters. Many of these people said, "I admired Arcolish immensely, but I thought he was more than human, or at least exceptional, and so I never felt that _I_ could approach his standards, and so I never became his disciple. But now I see that he is just a fallible being like myself. If he can find the strength to struggle for justice, so can I!" Soon, Arcolish's following had trebled.

The disciples who had left him formed a new sect, under the leadership of Ragitash. They held themselves to extremely high standards. One day, Ragitash decided that it was wrong to eat at all, since others were starving. As a result, he and his disciples all fasted to the death.

It was not long after this that Arcolish was declared a Saint. He is often depicted in statuary with the girl massaging his feet.

**

Once, a heckler handed Saint Skrong a jar of water and challenged her to change it into wine.

"I don't have time to do it right now," she said, "but I'll tell you how. Pour the water around the roots of a grapevine. When the grapes grow, pick them, crush them, extract the juice, ferment it properly, and you will have wine!"

"What kind of a miracle is that?" demanded the heckler.

Skrong looked surprised and offended. "Well, that's how God does it," she said. "Is that not good enough for you?"

**

Saint Skrong of Alitria was once talking to the multitude about faith. "If you have perfect faith," she said, "nothing is impossible."

A heckler from the audience said, "Do you have perfect faith?"

Saint Skrong said, "No, but my teacher, Saint Mendagal, did."

"Then why didn't he change the world?" demanded the heckler.

"Because he had faith that God had already created the best of all possible worlds," replied Saint Skrong.

**

"Thanks to God," said Saint Skrong, "you have air to breathe and ground to stand on. For that matter, it is thanks to God that you have lungs and feet."

A heckler spoke up. "Is it also thanks to God," she asked, "that I believe that what you say is completely false?"

"Yes," replied Skrong. "She has a sense of humor."

**

A heckler asked Saint Skrong, "If you were condemned to death by the local Baron, would your god save you?"

"Probably not," said Skrong.

"So your god is less powerful than the Baron," concluded the heckler.

"No," said Skrong. "She is just consistent. If she didn't want the Baron to kill me, why would she have had him condemn me?"

**

Once Saint Skrong was preaching by the side of a lake. A heckler challenged her to walk on water. "Any apprentice magician can do that," replied the Saint. "Give me something difficult!"

"Like what?" demanded the Heckler.

"Like being open-minded!" replied the Saint.

**

At one time, Saint Skrong had three disciples, Lirru, Kirla, and Mo. One day she said, "Tell me about your recent religious experiences."

"I was having a great deal of trouble understanding the idea of Ontological Kenosis," said Lirru. "I prayed to the Muse for guidance, and suddenly, it became clear to me."

"Very good," said Skrong.

"I had a dream last night," said Kirla. "The goddess Altaxima appeared to me and blessed me, filling me with love for all beings. When I awoke, those feelings were still there."

"Even better," said Skrong.

"It was my turn to do the laundry," said Mo, "and to my surprise, I found myself not dreading it as I usually do. It felt pleasant and natural, carrying out the task; I had no impatience, and it never occurred to me that I might be doing anything else."

"Wonderful, Wonderful!" said Saint Skrong with great enthusiasm. "You are all making excellent progress, but Mo is by far the most advanced!"

**

Srea Kula awoke a third time. He had fallen asleep while reading. The lamp had gone out, and the quartz wall was dark. He could see nothing. The wind had gone down to a whisper. He had no idea what time it was. He felt very alone.

He sat up in the darkness, drawing his blanket around him. _How strange to go a whole day without seeing anyone,_ he thought. Sitting in the dark reminded him of some moments from his childhood. It was very calming – there was nothing to stir up his mind.

His childhood – how simple and gentle his mind had been then. Think of something to do, do it. Get tired of it, stop. Respond to parents. Seek out friends. Find something interesting. Sleep, eat, go to the bathroom.

He had come here to think about religious matters, but, sitting in the darkness, he felt as though religion were somehow irrelevant. Many things seemed irrelevant – itches and twitches in the mind. It was as if he had gotten so involved in some intricate board game that he had mistaken it for life itself.
**********

"Love your enemies."

( _The Book of Irony_ ; also in the _Scriptures_ of the Church of Lurishia)

"Oh, it's _you_ ," said Honggur, looking hostile. "Have you come to try to kill me?" He presented a somewhat spiderlike appearance, as his many arms continually juggled countless objects from one to another. Occasionally he popped an object into his mouth and consumed it, and occasionally, one of his hands would pick up or fashion a new object.

"No, not at all," replied Ydnas. "I'm surprised you think so. As the Asphoringelidian Prophecy says, I am not here to destroy or punish any gods, but at most, to forgive and redeem them. Have you not noticed that I preach non-harming, love, and nurturance?"

"What people preach and what they do are often different," replied Honggur, acidly. "I wonder what will happen to Khataprak, for example, if the world accepts your doctrines of non-harming." Khataprak was the god of violence.

"Well," said Ydnas, "why don't we ask him to join us, and I will explain that? In fact, why not invite a whole bunch of your friends and relatives? I'm sure that many of them will have the same concerns as you do."

Honggur agreed, and in a few breaths, the 'room' had grown to an 'auditorium,' with Ydnas on the stage, and thirty or forty gods in the audience. These included, for example, Pertmet, the god of advertising. He was using a persona that took the form of a gorgeous, scantily-clad woman who continually transformed herself into various commodities, like luxury chariots, bottles of sweet drink, and nasal decongestant powders.

"I'm glad you could come," said Ydnas, addressing them all. "I think you may have some misconceptions about me, and this will allow me to correct them."

"Assuming that we _believe_ you!" sneered Sfothcar, the god of suspicion. He had taken the form of a floating being composed entirely of necks (very long, and all radiating from a single joint) and heads, each head being characterized by exaggerated sense organs: many huge eyes, noses, antennae, ears, and viper pits; serpent tongues whipping in and out; and long, thin feelers, like those of a catfish, probing everything in his immediate vicinity, including the air. He also had tied to himself various magical devices, such as decryptors, and active and passive scanners of various kinds. Many of these were reduplicated so that some could be running diagnostics on themselves while others carried out their primary function.

"I think you _will_ believe me," replied Ydnas, "but, let's put it to the test! Most of you are gods with attributes that are incompatible with the ways I ask people to behave. Naturally, you are afraid that I'm going to take all your devotees away, leaving you to wither into mere potential. But there is an alternative that you haven't considered: the alternative of _transformation_. I'm speaking of completely _voluntary_ transformation, by the way!

"Let me give you an example. I'm sure you have all heard of Jevalla, originally a god of the Rastalop people. Jevalla began as just one god among many worshipped by that people. Then, in the decade 5433-5442 (according to the Redeemed Isthenian Calendar), the Rastalop people became monotheistic, and renounced all their gods but one, Jevalla. At that time, the Rastalop were involved in numerous wars, and Jevalla was a warrior god: stern, ruthless, and authoritarian. By 5543, however, the Rastalop had made themselves safe, and Jevalla had mellowed out a good deal, becoming a much more loving and forgiving god.

"In 5555, the Rastalop were conquered by the Huandrin Empire, but Jevalla survived and flourished. At first, he encouraged his devotees to take a pacifistic and generally accepting attitude toward the Empire, whose military power was overwhelming. Many other local tutelary gods resisted long and hard, thus inflicting huge damage on their people and on themselves. Gradually, Jevalla was able to convert a large number of various defeated peoples, and even some Huandrin citizens. In particular, he converted many of the children of the Huandrin aristocracy, which made the Huandrin elite reluctant to be terribly repressive. Eventually, the cult of Jevalla became the largest single religion in the Empire, and it was not long before Jevalla converted the Huandrin Empress herself, by pointing out the numerous political advantages of such a change. Soon, Jevalla was the god of the entire Huandrin elite, and so it was not long before he became the official god of the Huandrin Empire. All the different peoples of the Empire were required to convert, but they were allowed to portray Jevalla as very similar to the gods they had previously worshipped, and to adapt festivals, rituals, scriptures, and iconographies accordingly. Jevalla did not object to this; in fact, he employed many of the older gods as his subordinates; they were often given new names, and no longer called "gods," but they retained most of their attributes and supernatural powers. The conversion was thereby made smooth and simple. In this way, Jevalla was able to develop a huge following.

"As the Huandrin Empire flourished, its culture evolved, especially when it conquered the Grigoy, a people of outstanding intellectual and artistic accomplishments, who soon became the cultural leaders and mid-level administrators of the Empire. Many devotees of Jevalla were influenced by the thought of the highly intellectual, philosophically inclined Grigoy theologians; they revised their view of Jevalla accordingly, describing him in less anthropomorphic terms than before, and arguing that the anthropomorphic descriptions in previous scriptures were only metaphors. Jevalla modified his personas accordingly, when interacting with such people. A mystical tradition also arose, which described him as indescribable; Jevalla took care never to send visible personas of his own to those people, communicating with them only through beings lower in his celestial hierarchy. Many of his followers also became a little embarrassed by the traditional ethical system, laid down in 5455 by Jevalla himself, when he was still a primitive warrior god. This system was characterized by an acceptance of slavery, genocide, and polygamy; so they changed it. As always, Jevalla did not object; he merely adapted.

"In 6660, the Huandrin Empire collapsed, but the cult of Jevalla lost no territory at all. His churches were very careful to ally themselves with whomever had local power during this period, and he subcontracted projects to the gods of every successful invader.

"In the period 6733-6844, numerous schisms developed among his followers, giving rise to thousands of independent sects. To many, this seemed like a catastrophe, but Jevalla simply accepted them all. If they fought, Jevalla remained neutral, and left it to the vicissitudes of war and propaganda, to decide who won.

"The result is, that even today, Jevalla is one of the most widely worshipped of all gods. Like the keeper of a very large store, he has something for everyone. The key, my friends, is _flexibility_! Jevalla changed when it was necessary to change; so did the gods who became his clients. In this regard, gods are similar to mortals: too rigid an idea of your own identity can be hazardous to your health!

"Now, _you_ can all do something of the sort. Let's take the example of Honggur. The institution of the Free Market may disappear, but there will always be processes that involve, perhaps in some analogical sense, the adjustment of supply to demand. For example, if there is an epidemic, society will no doubt act to increase the supply of relevant medical aids. It follows, that if Honggur will only conceive of himself a little more flexibly, he can ride out any sociopolitical changes whatever.

"As for Khataprak, he might become a god of surgery, pruning, birth control, ecological balance, and recycling, and perhaps also branch out into competitive sports. Sfothcar might become a patron of research, detective work, analysis, prospecting, theoretical science, and quality control.

"So you see, far from being your enemy, I am here to help you. All of you will suffer along with mortals, if there is barbarism and civil war in Kondrastibar, after the end of the Prophetic era. Even Khataprak would suffer, in the long run, since the number of his devotees will drastically decrease. Indeed, that has always been a bit of a problem for you, hasn't it, Khataprak? You live only by devouring your own flesh. Isn't there a better way? Of course there is, not only for Khataprak, but for all of you! All that is needed is to work out the details."

The assembled gods discussed this. They were suspicious, especially Sfothcar. He continually peered at, listened to, sniffed, and otherwise scanned Ydnas from many angles at once. He cross-examined her at great length, and pounced on every ambiguity he could find in her wording, requiring multiple elucidations from her. Khataprak, multiply-limbed like Honggur, menaced Ydnas with several sophisticated weapons, in case she might otherwise think of attacking them. Dwistillu, the god of intrigue, came up with 127 different hypotheses for what Ydnas might be up to. He also produced several counter-strategies for each hypothesis, every one more complex and subtle than the strategy it was supposed to counter. Some of them involved as many as 27 layers of real and spurious deception. On the whole, though, those present were not convinced that any of the secret plans attributed to Ydnas by Dwistillu were real, and eventually they came to favor co-operation with her, although there was much dissension about the details. Many of the gods were actually enthusiastic. Pertmet, for example, said, "I'm sick of always trying to manipulate people, to say nothing of parading around in my underwear."

A few fights broke out, in anticipation of possible future turf wars. "Hold on," said Ydnas. "I think I know of an excellent way to solve this problem. How about it, Honggur?" she said, turning to him. "Here's a bunch of gods who need to distribute attributes among themselves. Can you find an optimal solution to this supply-and-demand problem?" Smiling complacently, Dwistillu pointed out that 23 of his models had predicted that she would ask this.

Honggur thought for a moment. "Provisionally, yes," he replied. "We'll have to wait and see what happens, in the mortal world, to know exactly who gets what; but of course, I have various ways of dealing with the uncertainty of the future!" He then offered various kinds of attribute insurance, indulgence bonds, devotee loans at interest (simple, compound, and oscillating), loan guarantees, lotteries, stock options, deposits, mutual funds, negative and marginal investing, mixed and dynamic portfolios, trust funds, various other kinds of trusts, tontines, futures (for all the preceding), future futures (and so on), options (for all the preceding), option options (and so on), and many other devices. Most of these were eagerly snapped up.

Sfothcar suggested that Honggur might be subtly favoring himself with these inventions. "Nonsense," replied Honggur. "Everyone who knows me knows that my methods may be heartless and counterproductive, but I'm never actually _dishonest_!" He then challenged Sfothcar to a bet: Sfothcar would win if he could show, in 13 days or less, that Honggur's devices were biased, but initially Sfothcar would have to pay Honggur a substantial deposit towards Honggur's possible winnings. "I'll give odds of 17 to 3 in your favor," said Honggur, smugly. Sfothcar declined.
**********

"Eventually, a god expresses all its possibilities."

(Flingox, First Theologian of Kindrifar)

On the bridge of the _Tarezarg_ , Savril spent several hours scanning the Trobish 'Empire' in Devalene; then he prepared a report for Karngrevor, Zagara, and the latter's general staff. "Most of the mines attached to hostages are, well, fakes," he said, in his quiet voice, and without looking directly at anyone for more than a moment. "I, ah, expected this. It's expensive to make the real things." He fiddled with his own hands for a few moments, then continued:

"But some of them are real. They are set to go off unless they receive an appropriate signal, at, ah, at least once in every hundredbreaths. There are only, really, ten different signals involved; each signal goes to many different hostages. If we can imitate all ten, and send them ourselves, then, well, no mines will go off. At least, not for _that_ reason. The problem is, well, _one_ of our problems is, that each signal changes with time, so we can't just record the signals and, ah, play them back."

He indicated one of the larger screens. It showed a native of Devalene, looking very frightened, wearing something like a backpack. Savril moved a small statue of a mouse through the air, and the point of view shifted to the rear of the hostage, giving a close-up of the backpack.

"The best way to figure out the correct changes in signal is, of course, to examine the receiver, and see what it's looking for," continued Savril. Pressing one of the ears of the mouse with his first finger, he moved it slowly sideways. The result was to show a cross-section of the backpack, as if a piece of it had been sliced off. Inside was a small, cylindrical container, surrounded by spiderwebs. Whatever part of the interior of the backpack was not webbed was crawling with ants.

"The webs," said Savril, "are the, ah, the antennae for receiving signals. The spiders at their centers, ah, evaluate the significance of the signals. The ants are alarms – anyone cutting into the apparatus will, um, disturb them, and they in turn will signal the spiders, and the spiders will, you know, excite the mana in the flask, setting off a huge explosion. Fortunately, I have been able, well, to find a type of scan that does not disturb the ants. That was, really, the hardest, and, well, the riskiest part."

Pressing the nose of the mouse, Savril moved his hand again, and the image shifted, to focus on one of the spiders. There was a bit of a disturbance amid the spectators as the spider's 'face' grew to fill the screen, with its multiple eyes, short wiry fur, and intricate mandibles. Then they were looking inside the spider's head, at the brain. The magnification increased until they were looking at a landscape which appeared to be a cross between a frost pattern on a window and a rain-forest canopy.

"This is the part that, I would say, evaluates the signal," said Savril, "and by analyzing it, I have discovered, well, what the signal is expected to look like, at a given time. In the same way, I discovered what each of the other nine signals is supposed to, well, be. For safety's sake, I analyzed each one with three different, ah, methods, and with many different spiders. They all gave the same result. Then, I checked it further by, ah, comparing the pattern I predicted with the pattern that was actually sent by, you know, the Trobish, for about, well, something like two bells. Our predictions were, ah, exactly correct, to within 151 out of 153 nanohex, which is, actually, quite precise, more precise than their transmitter, actually. I did this separately for, you know, all ten signals. I mean, for each of them. Although nothing is certain in this world, I believe that we are, well, I guess you could say, ethically justified in proceeding as though we could, ah, be sure of supplying the required signals. Infallibly, I mean. Not that we are, but it does check out very well." He blushed. "I recommend that we use three different systems of, oh, ten transmitters each, so that even if some of them, you know, malfunction, the correct signal will still be, ah, sent. The process of disconnecting the, ah, mana cylinders from the apparatus is, well, it's more tricky, and will have to be taken care of by, well, by specialists on the ground, later. But I" – he blushed again – "I have, ah, developed a method for that, and, of course, written it up for them, and we've done some rehearsals, in, of course, simulated conditions.

"Now, the Trobish have also threatened to set off the mines, ah, directly, if anyone gives them any problems. Examination of the spiders' brains and of the Trobish transmission equipment shows that, well, that they are indeed able to do just that. And, being Trobish, well, they just might, I suppose." Savril paused, looking very sad. Then he pulled himself together and squeezed the left ear of the mouse twice in rapid succession, and the picture changed, to show a piece of equipment sitting on a table in a tent, with a Trobish mercenary sitting by it watchfully.

"This," said Savril, "is one of the, I believe, 17 transmitters that we have found, which are trained to send out such a signal." He moved the mouse again, and the screen showed the inside of the apparatus. "Such an apparatus can be, well, sabotaged, by severing one small nerve." The magnification increased until the screen showed three beetles, each with its mandibles about the same tiny strand. "Each of these beetles, which are, well, invisible, to, ah, normal vision, is independently trained to sever the wire, when it – the beetle, I mean - gets our signal. Only one of them has to succeed.

"As to the Trobish fortifications," he continued, "I have thought it best to, well, to leave them alone for the time being. Destroying them would only encourage the Balan-Ching to enter and, well, settle a few scores. Perhaps more importantly, if the Balan-Ching occupy Devalene, it will serve, well, to support their claim that they are needed as, well, as an antidote to the Trobish Empire. Well, the _so-called_ Trobish Empire.

"Instead, well, you know that the Trobish actually have a strict chain of command, and the people lower down are trained and directed very strongly to follow, um, commands from above, no matter what, and not to take much initiative." There was a bit of laughter from the group. "Yes, I know, it's hard to believe, after all this time, but we keep, ah, checking up on them, and they're still doing it. So I recommend, ah, teleporting the Trobish High Command to the brig, involuntarily of course. From there they would be allowed to, ah, communicate with their subordinates on the ground. I am convinced that they will, ah, agree to surrender unconditionally, once they understand, well, the situation. At the same time, concentrations of Trobish in Devalene can be put under sleep spells. I estimate that we can put 97 out of 111 Trobish to sleep without having to put more than 47 Devalene natives to sleep. For the remainder, ah, of course, I mean the remainder of the Trobish, I suggest that we uncloak the entire fleet for a moment, to give them an idea of, well, of just what they are up against. With a little luck, we can have zero casualties on both sides.

"Well, that's the essence of it, I guess," Savril said, blushing again. "There are a few details I haven't, ah, discussed. Optimum troop dispersal, optimum region for the sleep spell, a few, ah, contingency plans. Nothing unusual or fancy; mostly statistics, one or two, ah, Computational Craftiness techniques. I'd be happy to, well, to describe any of them for you. End proposal. Thank you for your, um, attention."

Savril gave a bashful little bow and waited nervously for a response, one hand comforting the other.

One Colonel asked, "How do you know that you've located all the hostages?"

"Good question, sir," said Savril, nodding. "What we did was, we made three different scans, each in a different region of the ecto-magical spectrum. With each scan, we looked for mana, we looked for alchemical explosives, we looked for pressure explosives, we looked for ecto-magical explosives, we looked for receivers of every known kind, and we looked for equipment with, well, known Trobish signatures. Then we narrowed what we found down to cases that, of course, looked like hostage situations. In every case, the scans of each type agreed perfectly with the scans of the other two, ah, types.

"Well, that's about it, I guess."

The colonel considered this for a moment, and then said, "That sounds satisfactory; thank you!"

"Thank _you_ , sir," said Savril, making a little bow.

General Zagara looked at his general staff. They were all deep in thought. Then, one by one, they nodded assent. Zagara himself nodded, and looked toward Karngrevor. Karngrevor took a deep breath, and said, "Make it so!"

"Abacus One!" said Savril. "Recognize Savril, Zagara, Karngrevor!"

"Recognized," said a disembodied soprano voice.

"Initiate plan Devalene-Trobish-Savril-Overrides-121," said Savril.

"Please confirm: initiate plan Devalene-Trobish-Savril-Overrides-121," said the voice.

"Repeating: initiate Devalene-Trobish-Savril-Overrides-121" said Savril.

"This plan has never been used in actual practice," said the voice.

"Understood and accepted," said Karngrevor.

"This plan involves coercion, and possible casualties," said the voice. "Are you certain you wish to proceed?"

"I am certain," replied Karngrevor.

"Full and final confirmation, please," said the voice.

"Confirmed final!" said Savril.

"Confirmed final!" said Zagara.

"Confirmed final!" said Karngrevor.

"Double-checking features and voice patterns," said the voice. There was a short pause.

"Confirmation complete and accepted," resumed the voice. "Initiating plan Devalene-Trobish-Savril-Overrides-121, on my mark, NOW! Level-8 alert!"

Lights and bells signaled a level-8 alert. The atmosphere in the room became somewhat tense.

"Imitative signals activated," continued the voice, "...all units functioning normally. No explosions detected. Signals will be broadcast at 8-breath intervals.

"Sabotage signals sent. Feedback received; sabotage successful in all cases. No explosions detected.

"Members of Trobish High Command located. Members of Trobish High Command targeted for teleport. Initiating transport spell to brig. Transport spell successful, no casualties or injuries. Weapons discharged in brig, Trobish signatures. Brig shields holding. No casualties or injuries. Colonel Nassred engaging shock field in bridge, 5.3 anguids. ... No further weapons discharges. No casualties or injuries. Colonel Nassred initiating negotiations.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Disturbances detected around Trobish High Command stations in Devalene.

"Sleep spells initiated. Spellcasters functioning normally.

"Sabotage of Trobish explosion initiators appears successful.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Marked decrease of activity in areas under sleep spell.

"Unexpected: Some high-level Trobish appear to be immune to sleep spell. Initiating contingency plan 37: dispatching cloaked pinnace with short-range spellcasters. One contingency plan outstanding.

"Level-16 alert! Prepare for decloak!" Brighter lights and louder bells signaled a level-16 alert throughout the ship. The tension level rose again.

"Decloaking!" Still greater tension.

"Scattered incoming fire from Devalene area. Trobish signatures. Shields holding. Fleet average shield stress at 3/117 of danger threshold. Fleet maximum at 3/97 of danger threshold.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Prepare to cloak!

"Cloaking!

"Cloaking successful.

"Initiating change of position.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Change of position complete." The tension level fell somewhat.

"Stand down level 16 alert to level 8." Quieter bells and dimmer lights signaled this.

"Contingency plan 37 appears to be successful. Pinnace returning to _Tarezarg_. No casualties or damage. ... End contingency plan 37.

"Zero outstanding or unsuccessful contingency plans.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"1,024 our troops landing under cloak to secure critical areas. Wands set on 'stun.'

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Our troop landings successful. Our troops dispersing. Our troops taking positions.

"23 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 37 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 43 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 67 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 79 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 97 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 103 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 131 individual Trobish surrenders reported. No Karngrevor troop surrenders. No casualties in any category.

"Trobish officers in Devalene attempting to report to Trobish High Command. Routing transmission to brig. Routing successful, conversation in progress.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Colonel Nassred suggests teleporting Trobish High Command to bottom of River Kron.

"Trobish High Command offers unconditional surrender. Accepted by Colonel Nassred.

"Trobish High Command orders all Trobish personnel to accept unconditional surrender.

"147 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 153 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 191 individual Trobish surrenders reported. 247 individual Trobish surrenders reported. No Karngrevor surrenders. No casualties in any category.

"Imitative signals functioning normally. No explosions detected.

"Critical areas declared secure. Specialists landing...

"Specialists locating hostages...

"Specialists disconnecting mana cylinders on hostages..." The tension in the room rose to its highest pitch.

"7 hostages reported safe. 17 hostages reported safe. 29 hostages reported safe. 41 hostages reported safe. 53 hostages reported safe. 73 hostages reported safe. No explosions detected.

"All hostages reported safe. Repeat, all hostages reported safe.

"First independent verification: all hostages reported safe." Sighs of relief swept through the bridge.

"Second independent verification: all hostages reported safe. Stand down to level-4 alert." Bells and lights signaled this.

"Imitative signals turned off. No explosions detected.

"All Trobish detected in Devalene now asleep.

"All Trobish military equipment detected in Devalene impounded and neutralized.

"Devalene reported free of Trobish control. Repeat, Devalene reported free of Trobish control." Smiles appeared.

"Total known casualties: Friendly: 0. Enemy: 0. Other: 0.

"Operation appears to be complete and successful. Agreed?"

"Agreed!" said Karngrevor.

"Permission to conclude execution of plan Devalene-Trobish-Savril-Overrides-121."

"Permission granted," said Karngrevor.

"Permission granted," said Zagara.

"Permission granted," said Savril.

"End plan Devalene-Trobish-Savril-Overrides-121," said the disembodied voice. "On my mark, NOW!" A bell rang.

The bridge erupted into cheering.

"Hah! Now, THAT was a glorious battle!" said Zagara, arms in the air, eyes closed, beaming, tears running down his cheeks.
**********

"Imagination can be whimsical daydreaming,

but it is also the source of the deepest insights."

(from _The Book of Revelation_ )

Sre Lugu and Iliriana descended from their carriage and stopped to look at the Temple of Amakala. It was large, and very beautiful, surrounded by little pools and gardens. There was a large central structure, a cathedral with a with a great, opalescent dome. Surrounding it were many minarets, their bases placed along spirals. In fact, the minarets were each placed at the intersection of two opposing spirals, like sunflower seeds. These minarets were shorter toward the center and taller toward the outside. They were connected to each other by arching, delicate bridges at various heights.

Sre Lugu and Iliriana walked across little plazas, and occasionally up short flights of low marble steps, in order to approach the Temple. It was not possible to take a direct route; one had to wind this way and that, often passing fragrant trees and pools of brilliant fish. From time to time they would go by a statue of Amakala. The various statues looked very different from one another. Although Amakala was traditionally referred to as "she," many of the statues were male. 'She' was also portrayed as the sun, the moon, or a star, or as an animal of one kind or another. Some statues were purely geometrical. One was simply a white marble sphere. Another was just a large circular loop of wire, hanging from a pivot, so that it rotated freely with the breeze. Sre Lugu was puzzled by that one.

Passing through a dark, twisting tunnel, they found themselves suddenly close to the outer minarets. At this distance, they could see that there were many smaller minarets interspersed among the larger ones. _It must be tricky to find your way in there_ , thought Sre Lugu.

The nearest minaret, a comparatively small one, was apparently a public entrance, for its doors were open, and several robed monks and nuns stood or sat by a table in front of it. Holding hands, Sre Lugu and Iliriana approached them.

"Good morning, beautiful people," said a nun as they approached. "I am called 'Soaring Thought.' Do you know your way?"

"We are new here," said Iliriana. "We have an appointment with Dancing Star. Would you direct us to his office, please?"

"It would be a pleasure," said the nun, smiling. "Just follow me, if you would."

"Please proceed," said Sre Lugu, nodding. He found the name "Soaring Thought" to be a bit much, but he said nothing. The nun entered the tower, and they followed. It consisted of a spiral staircase, winding around a vertical glass tube. The tube was about two forearms in diameter, and filled with water. It also contained water-plants and colorful fish, and the water was apparently flowing slowly upward. Thin streams of tiny bubbles would occasionally wend their way upward in it. On the outer wall of the staircase was writing in a language that Iliriana and Sre Lugu did not know, but whose calligraphy they found entrancingly beautiful.

After climbing awhile, they came to an airy, sculptured bridge, taking them to a neighboring tower. This one was larger; it too had a spiral stair in the center, but there was space for rooms on the outside. The staircase paused every so often at a landing, next to which was a door. At the third such landing, Soaring Thought paused and rang a bell.

An elderly man came to the door. He was thin and of medium height, and he was wearing the same gray, white, and black robes as Soaring Thought. His eyes were dark and sparkling, and his face was etched with lines of friendliness. "Good day, Soaring Thought," he said, smiling at her, and then, turning to smile at the other two, he said, "Iliriana and Sre Lugu?"

"Yes," said Iliriana, while Sre Lugu nodded.

"I am Dancing Star," he said. "Please come in. Thank you, Soaring Thought!"

"My pleasure," said Soaring Thought, and went on her way, closing the door behind her.

As might have been expected, Dancing Star's room was roughly wedge-shaped. There was a window at the end, where the wall followed the curve of the outside of the tower. Along one wall were a number of cupboards. Along the other wall was a soft mat. In addition to the window, a number of sunstones in the ceiling gave light. Sitting on the mat, Dancing Star invited them to join him, which they did.

"So," said Dancing Star, without pausing for small talk, "you are in spiritual difficulty."

"Yes," said Sre Lugu, and proceeded to describe their background, and the problems they had experienced since Sre Lugu's affair.

"Allow me to explain something," said Dancing Star. "It is one of our spiritual disciplines that in a conversation such as this, we pause at least ten breaths, breathing slowly, but otherwise silent, between one speaker and the next. You are not required to do so, but I will, and I recommend it. Now, please tell me again why you came here."

Sre Lugu started to answer, and then he remembered the ten-breath rule, and decided to try following it. He took the time to formulate what he had to say, and he found that he could express himself much more quickly and straightforwardly than he otherwise would have.

"I thought," he said, "that I had reached a point where it was no longer appropriate to call on the family gods, or on Streling. I thought of calling on the god of truth, but then it occurred to me that I only want truth, or at least I _should_ only want truth, because it would be _good_ to have it. I want what is good, and I want to _be_ good. Everyone wants what they think is good to have, and wants to be what they think is good to be; they just disagree about what _is_ good. So in the end, everything comes down to knowing what goodness is. I spoke of this to Iliriana, and she agreed. So it seemed logical to come here."

Dancing Star sat with his eyes closed, breathing slowly. He showed no sign of approval or disapproval. After awhile – more than ten breaths, Sre Lugu thought – he spoke.

"I think that is a good insight," he said, slowly, "and a good motivation. I think Amakala will approve. Now, as you may know, it is our belief that Amakala is always speaking to everyone who is awake, but that they often do not listen well, because they are so busy with this and that idea of their own. So they don't hear her words, or only hear them in a distorted way, and misunderstand them. This is why they disagree and fight. To receive an insight from Amakala, you must have a sincere desire, but also, your mind must be quiet and open. For this reason, we ask that before you enter the innermost chamber, you first sit in one of the smaller chapels and do a silent chant for awhile.

"We recommend the following chant, for beginners such as yourselves: first relax and slow down your breathing. Then, as you breathe in, think, "I." Stretch the word out over the time it takes you to inhale. Then, as you breathe out, think, "want to." As you breathe in again, think, "know," and as you breathe out again, think, "goodness." After thinking "goodness," exhale especially slowly and thoroughly. Do this over and over. If your mind is agitated, slow your breathing down, especially at the end of the out-breath. If your mind wanders, don't worry, just continue. The wandering is part of the process.

"When you feel calm, proceed to the main hall and do the same meditation there, until you feel finished. You may not hear specific words from Amakala, you may just have an insight. Or several. These insights will probably not be final or definitive, and they may not turn your life upside-down, but they will be progress. It is customary to maintain silence both in the chapels and in the innermost chamber, unless there is some emergency. Do you have any questions?"

Sre Lugu's mind was full of questions, but by the time ten breaths had passed, he realized that they were all pointless. He simply shook his head in the negative, as did Iliriana.

"Very good," said Dancing Star, getting up and opening a cupboard. "Please don these robes; they can go on right over your street clothes." He handed them the robes, which were long, loose, black, and hooded, and buttoned in front. They had several pounds of metal hanging over the chest, almost like armor, and a little on the back as well. "I will now show you to the chapel," he continued, "but please understand that it is part of my spiritual discipline to stop every now and then and be still for a moment or two. You may wish to practice your chant during these times." He led them for a couple of turns up the stairs, and across a bridge, and then stopped to be still for a few breaths. He did this repeatedly as he led them down a few landings, across another bridge, and up a few landings. Sre Lugu was chagrined at how intensely irritating he found these stops to be.

Finally, they arrived at the door to the chapel. "The chapel has only two doors," said Dancing Star. "This one is the entrance; the other one will take you over a bridge directly to the innermost chamber. You will see immediately how to leave the innermost chamber when you desire: there are four large openings, equally spaced around the periphery. You will also see smaller doors, set into semicircular arches. These lead into conference chambers. If you have a problem with your meditation, go there, and someone will talk with you. Entrances from preparatory chapels are small and have no doors; do not exit that way. Finally, lavatories may be found behind rectangular doors with signs above them. The sign is square for men, circular for women."

Reaching into a pocket, he produced two pills, giving one of them to each. "This," he said, "is a mild stimulant, made from the berries of the Kew tree. If you become sleepy, you might try taking it; but don't be too hasty about it. Doing a little slow and quiet exercise in place is often quite effective at making you more alert, and helps to avoid stiffness, as well. In the chapel, and in the innermost chamber, monitors will touch you on the back if you appear to be dozing. Monitors may be identified by their gray robes, and by the long, flat sticks they carry. Both in the chapel and in the innermost chamber, silence is to be observed, except in emergencies, and social interactions are to be kept to a minimum."

Dancing Star paused for two hundredbreaths of silence. Then he resumed:

"I will leave you here; simply go in and find a place to sit, and sit until you feel calm. Then proceed through the inner door."

He opened the door for them, and they passed through. The lighting was very dim. There was no furniture. Several people were sitting silently on mats. A monitor walked slowly along. By means of gestures, Sre Lugu and Iliriana agreed on a place to sit. The metal weights on their robes made it easy to sit in a way that felt very stable.

Iliriana began her chant. The procedure was not essentially different from some of the procedures for praying at the Cathedral of the Holy Family, except for the words. Because of this, she was quickly able to find a breathing pattern that worked for her.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Almost immediately, she had a feeling as if Amakala were saying to her, "You are a very good person already, Iliriana." It was a very nice feeling. In her mind, she thanked Amakala for the compliment, and continued with her meditation. After a little while, several solutions occurred to her, for small problems of daily life that she was facing. Again she felt grateful, but did not allow herself to be sidetracked. The idea occurred to her that although it was nice to have such insights, simply sitting in meditation was good in itself. Again she felt grateful, and continued.

Then she went for awhile without having much thought at all, except to reiterate why she was there and what she was hoping for. In spite of her idea that meditation was good in itself, it was a little frustrating when nothing happened, and she began to think about what she might be doing to get in the way of Amakala's teaching. _Is it my pride? Is it my preconceptions? Is it because I am searching for a solution to my own problems, rather than considering the problems of everyone? Is it guilt or anger, making me impatient?_ She tried to clear her mind of all such obstacles. Again she had the idea that meditation was good in itself, and she tried to accept it as such, with mixed success.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

At first, Sre Lugu found it very difficult to do nothing but chant slowly. He felt an intense restlessness. Then, he had a nervous feeling that the whole enterprise was a mistake. Goodness was always the motive force behind him, after all; he had never said to himself, "Oh, I think I'll do something bad, now." When he had done wrong, he had always had a rationalization for it, that made it appear good. But a moment later, this idea seemed vague and unsatisfactory to him. After all, he was experiencing many profound doubts about his life. Did this mean that he had somehow gotten out of kilter with his motive force? Did he really know what goodness was? He had some idea, but it was not clear. _How strange_ , he thought, _to be hunting for something all one's life, and never really know what it is!_ He began to think about that.

_Goodness_ , he thought, _has something to do with helping rather than harming. Everything being equal, it is better to help people (or animals, or plants) rather than to harm them. But what does it mean to help something?_ Then he thought, _This is exactly what I should not be doing, running over my own preconceptions instead of listening to Amakala._ He made an effort to clear his mind by breathing more slowly, and focusing on the words of the chant. He remembered that Dancing Star had said that, prior to going to the innermost chamber, the purpose of their meditation was to attain calm. He focused on getting his body to relax. He found it useful to hold his breath for a few moments, at the end of every exhalation.

After awhile some thoughts popped unbidden into his mind, about things he might do better in his everyday life. Then he had a more general thought: that relatively few of his actions were directly motivated by ideas about goodness; instead, he spent a great deal of time being motivated by habit, drift, error, impulse, guessing, rules, advice, and panic. Somewhat to his surprise, the thought was not discouraging; rather than a derogatory critical thought, it was simply a realization of fact. _Habit and impulse are not always bad_ , he thought; _you don't have time to think everything through rigorously, nor do you want to have to go through the same reasoning again and again._ He realized that he was always balancing off these different kinds of action: the thoughtful, the impulsive, the habitual, and so on, and that this alternation was a natural and necessary part of human life. _Now that I'm self-conscious about this_ , he thought, _I will no doubt go through a period of overthinking in such matters; but perhaps in the end I will be all the more balanced._

Again, he focused on relaxing, and after awhile, he felt quite calm. He glanced at Iliriana with raised eyebrows; she nodded, and they got up (a little stiffly, having not moved for awhile) and exited from the chapel. They passed through a long arched covered bridge, with stairs at the ends. The bridge was windowless, and as dark as the chapel had been. Finally, they entered the innermost chamber, which was also fairly dark. Sre Lugu was about to verify what Dancing Star had said about doors, when his attention was captured by the overall architecture of the room.

It was circular and huge, at least two hundred feet in diameter. Evidently, they were in the central cathedral. Starting at about a hundred feet above them was a great hemispherical dome. Sre Lugu remembered that it was raised on piers, but they must have been fairly slender, for, in contrast to the prevailing darkness, a diffuse daylight glow hung all around the bottom perimeter of the dome, giving the impression that the dome was floating in light, unsupported yet perfectly stable. The effect was breathtaking. For a moment, both of them forgot all about their chanting. Then, their attention returned to the floor. The light there was dim, and it took a few moments to see anything at all, after looking at the dome. Except for a few avenues of bare stone, and a small circular pool in the middle, it was covered with dull black mats. Hundreds of people sat silently thereon, barely visible in their equally black robes. A few gray-robed monitors walked the avenues, slowly, carrying their rods. Iliriana and Sre Lugu found an available spot and sat there, resuming their silent chanting.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Sitting in this great chamber, with hundreds of others doing the same thing, was very energizing for Iliriana. She felt a wonderful solidarity with all the other aspirants. She reflected that her excitement was itself the result of a judgment of goodness: "It is good to be doing this." Where did that judgment come from? All her waking life, she was constantly making choices, and those choices depended on her preferences for one outcome rather than another, her beliefs about relative goodness. Where did such preferences come from? She decided, with a twinge of embarrassment, that it was a mostly unconscious, drifting process. It was as if she were hypnotized, and voices were whispering in her ear, 'Do this, do that!' They were the voices of her parents, teachers, and other authority figures, of books she had read, and of her friends. Not having any ideas of her own, and not even expecting to have such ideas, she did as they said. But now, she wanted to make her own decisions.

How does one make one's own decisions? One must see for one's self what is best.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

But how does one see goodness? One sees people, houses, trees, the sky. Where is goodness? Is it something one sees only intellectually, with 'the eye of the mind'? But then, how would one know whether the things one does sees are good or not? There must be something in the visible, tangible, audible world that is the appearance of goodness. That is, after all, where good and bad things happen. Strive as she might, she just could not get a grasp on what the appearance of goodness might be. But then, she reflected that she was not supposed to be figuring this out by her own efforts, she was supposed to be quieting her own mind so that she could hear Amakala explain. So she dropped the problem, and focused her attention on the chant, just waiting to see what would happen. Iliriana then found the process of chanting so pleasant that she could easily continue it, with very few other thoughts.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Sre Lugu was also energized by being surrounded by so many others, and by the grand architecture. It was hard to feel foolish about doing something, when he was surrounded by hundreds of others, doing the same thing, in a magnificent temple constructed for that very purpose. Yet part of him held back, saying that there was nothing so foolish that it couldn't command the loyalty of a few hundred people, and that it was not good to be carried along by the crowd, or to have one's critical abilities overwhelmed by an impressive environment. Then, deciding that this entire line of thought was distraction, he returned to his chant.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Suddenly, to his dismay, he found himself awash in memories of Liliune. Her face, her voice, her touch ... such sweetness! _This too is a distraction_ , he thought, and focused harder on his chanting. But the memories would not go away. At one point, he remembered her reading a poem to him, by candlelight. In the middle of the poem were the lines,

The sweetness of forbidden love,

This too is Amakala.

He gave a start. _This is not a distraction_ , he thought, _Amakala is trying to tell me something! She is saying ... "Sre Lugu, don't throw away a broom for one broken straw! It was wrong for you to betray your wife, but not everything was bad. It is not evil to desire a beautiful woman, to learn of poetry and opera and the other arts. It is not evil to love or admire someone. The sweetness of sex is a true sweetness, and the same is true of love and the arts. Don't let guilt go beyond its proper boundary, Lugi. There is no virtue in excessive guilt; that is no better than any other falsehood. It is your infidelity that you should condemn, and all the little dishonesties that went along with it, but not your own striving for happiness! These memories will always torment you until you affirm what should be affirmed in them. Treasure them, Lugi, for they are lovely indeed!_ '

Sre Lugu hesitated for a moment. _Can it really be as simple as that?_ he thought. But then it all made sense to him. He agreed. One by one, various consequences of this acceptance occurred to him; and one by one, burdens that he had been carrying were removed. He felt like a man who had been shackled for years, running freed in a summer field. He remembered how, in his childhood, he had enjoyed running for its own sake; but that sort of joy had got lost, somehow, in favor of adolescent and adult concerns.

Iliriana continued to chant. Every now and then she opened her eyes. At one of these times, she saw a nearby man stumble and fall. He had apparently been trying to stand up, but stiffness or dizziness had caused him to lose his footing. She felt a spontaneous pang of sympathy for him. The people near him turned to help him. That gave her a warm feeling. As she became aware of this feeling, she realized that, without her being aware of it, she had solved the problem that had been vexing her before: how could one see goodness? She had effortlessly seen the goodness of the neighbors' kind responses. Goodness was not a mysterious, invisible aspect of events, separate from and added to their physical and mental aspects; it was itself a physical and mental property, a matter of certain physical and mental relationships. It was often quite easy to see. She did not need to define it, since she had an intuitive understanding of it. She found her previous distress to be mildly amusing.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Sre Lugu let himself feel, very quietly, a bittersweet grieving for the good parts of his affair with Liliune. As he grieved for them, they slipped away from him. Then he began to feel sad about the bad parts – for his foolishness in being taken in by Pappi, for his betrayal of Iliriana, and for the fact that Liliune had not really loved him. There was no sweetness to dilute the bitterness this time. He let the pain run him through.

The anguish rose to a climax and then began to abate. _No, no,_ thought Sre Lugu, in a kind of desperation, _I deserve to suffer forever for what I have done._ But then he thought, _No, that is excessive guilt once again. I broke it off with Liliune, although I was deeply in love with her; I suffered terrible pain, and almost died, when I fought with her; I waited in horrible suspense to see whether Iliriana would reject me; I thought I was giving up my family when I swore to be Kshaloka's servant; I was humiliated to learn that Liliune had never loved me. I have suffered enough! I have suffered enough!_ He had a feeling of triumphant rebellion.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Iliriana sat, her mind making superficial contact with one thing and another, but not getting deeply involved with anything. She felt happy with herself; for the first time in a long time, she remembered how she had felt in the park, with her children and her friend, before learning that something was amiss with Sre Lugu. She had felt that she was nearly in Paradise. Now she was beginning to feel that way again. She felt proud of herself for not being sucked into the orbit of anger, when she had learned of his affair. She had kept her marriage and family together, and Lugi had reformed himself, and now they were in the process of searching together for higher things, together! Feeling him next to her, she felt a great rush of love for him. No, she had not been wrong, as a girl, to fall in love with this man.

And yet ... images of Sre Lugu together with Liliune began to press into her mind. They felt distinctly unpleasant. _Have I merely suppressed my jealousy? Not that that would have been a bad thing, since it saved my marriage and family. Jealousy, they say, is a deluding god, like anger; how right it feels, as you damage yourself and others! But why is he approaching me now?_

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

As Sre Lugu accepted the goodness of what had been good in his relationship with Liliune, and grieved their loss, he felt released from them. Then he was also able to appreciate Iliriana better. No, she would never be as physically beautiful as Liliune, or as talented; but then, it was Liliune's beauty and talent that had brought Pappi to her, and that had allowed her to ensnare Sre Lugu. Liliune's beauty and talent had been a catastrophe for her and her family, and for Sre Lugu, and for who knew how many others that Pappi had used her to blackmail, or that had been miserably infatuated with her. It had been himself, the ordinary, mediocre man, and Iliriana, this ordinary, everyday woman, who had liberated Liliune from Pappi. Liliune, the actress, had provided Sre Lugu with beautiful but fraudulent love; Iliriana's love was beautiful in a different way, and completely real. Liliune was a kind of a conduit for the gods, Kshaloka and Snoffle; her own self was minimal. Iliriana respected the gods, but she was truly herself, a solid mortal woman. Feeling her next to him, he felt a great rush of love for her.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

Snarg, the god of retribution, stood before Iliriana in the form of a huge tiger, strong and proud. His eyes were coals, and he opened his great mouth to roar, showing huge fangs. He paced back and forth, swishing his tail. His great muscles rippled. He went down on his haunches, ready to spring. She felt his power, his beauty, and his logic. Sre Lugu had made a sacred promise to her, and then he had broken it. He had repeatedly lied to her about what he was doing with his time. She was the injured party; did she not have the right to be enraged? And as she had those thoughts, she felt rage rising within her. She felt her blood getting hot.

Rules ... there were rules, and Sre Lugu had broken them. Now other rules said that she should be angry, and seek revenge. Snarg was calling on her to obey these rules. _His_ rules. In her mind, she spoke to him compassionately: _I'm sorry, Snarg, I know that your very nature is to try to enforce these rules, and that you, a god, are not free to question them. But I am a mortal; I can question any rules. If I want to play a board game, I must follow the rules; but I can choose not to play that game. As of now, I rebel against all rules that say that we must follow suffering with more suffering; I dedicate myself to the idea that we can break this cycle. I will try requite suffering with happiness, hate with love, evil with good, stupidity with intelligence. I know that what Lugi did was wrong, but I will not try to injure him for it. I know that this diminishes you, but this is what I will do._

Snarg relaxed, nodded at her, and faded away.

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

As Sre Lugu threshed out the good from the bad in his relationship with Liliune, he began to see his entire self in a similar way: he was a mixture of good and bad. He could not make himself better; that would be like lifting himself by his own hair, or leaving the weasel to guard the ducklings. Only a god could make him better, only a god, or a wiser mortal than he, could even see what it would _mean_ to be better.

Realizing this, Sre Lugu felt himself beginning to accept his spontaneous responses to things. He realized that he couldn't improve himself by second-guessing himself, or otherwise tying himself into knots. No doubt he would do a certain amount of damage in his remaining lifetime. He couldn't prevent that. It was sad, but it was beyond his power to change. In particular, he couldn't change it by hurting himself. He felt his inner knots and cords begin to dissolve. He didn't make an effort to accelerate this process; that would just be another attempt to raise himself up by pulling on his own hair. He simply watched the process taking place. The process was frightening, at times, for he sometimes felt that it was _himself_ that was unraveling, and so he sometimes intervened to stop it. But always, the idea would re-assert itself that he was _what was being un-knotted_ , but that he was not _the knots themselves_. Then he would relax again, and the process would proceed.

As he did this, he began to realize how much time he spent worrying about what he would do in the future. He realized that by trusting himself (and by resigning himself to a certain degree of imperfection), he freed himself to live in the present much more. That was a little frightening, too; it was as if he were proceeding blindfolded. But he realized that worry shed no light.

_How strange_ , he thought, _that in such a short time I have changed so much. Or perhaps, what is strange is that we do not listen to Amakala all the time._

I...

Want to...

Know...

Goodness...

With Snarg gone, Iliriana returned to her happy state. She realized that listening too hard for Amakala's words just got in the way of hearing them. She simply sat there, with no particular goal. It then spontaneously occurred to her that Snarg was just a test. By refusing him, she had passed the test. In passing the test, she had become entitled to ... what? She felt something, but she could not grasp it. With a little shrug she let it go, and entered the gates of Paradise.

**

Several hours later, in the evening, Sre Lugu and Iliriana left the temple, retracing their steps toward the street. They walked arm in arm, pressed up against each other. They felt refreshed and calm. As they passed the sculpture which consisted of a hanging loop of wire, Sre Lugu chuckled. "Now I understand it," he said. "The loop of wire doesn't stand for Amakala, it stands for your awareness. It is the frame, not the picture. The sculptor is saying, 'Wherever you look, there is Amakala!' "

Saying this, he turned toward Iliriana, as one turns to a person to whom one has just made a remark, eager for their response. But perhaps he saw her through an invisible loop of wire, for her beauty struck him speechless and motionless. He realized vaguely that he was, in fact, hardly seeing her physical features at all; her face was serving as a window to her soul. 'What a good person she is!' he thought, and it was as though his recognition of her goodness had burst a barrier that enclosed him. At the same time, a great source of love within him was finally freed, to well up and to overflow. He felt pure, free, weightless, and transparent. His gaze met hers and they joined, like one drop of water meeting another. He had no words, but with great joy he saw in her eyes that she needed none. It was like two candles, brightening as they drew near each other. It was as if they were climbing a ladder of love and joy, each one in turn asking whether the other was ready to take another step, and the other saying "yes," silently but fervently, and the step being taken, and another, and another, ...

The everyday mind is often rather like a fox slinking through the underbrush. It is alert to detail, because it is hunting something, and also because it has things to be afraid of. It is conscious, dissatisfied, anxious, analytical, calculating, and predatory. But in moments of great happiness and love, there is no need to hunt, and no need to flee. Nothing to calculate, nothing to decide. As Iliriana and Sre Lugu entered this state, they lost all sense of multiplicity. All became single and unbounded; then even that became transparent. A few breaths later, they returned in part to the world of differentiation, but it had lost its grip on them forever.
**********

"There is no virtue without wisdom."

( _The Book of Virtues_ )

Oselika and Teladorion rode randomly through a neighborhood dominated by the Children of Noganecir, hoping to find a clue to the location of her brother's soul. The people they passed were strangers, but most of them waved at the cousins, smiling with what appeared to be love and happiness. Occasionally a group of people would appear, alert and heavily armed, and wearing masks of cloth over their lower faces. Oselika speculated that these were people who had not inhaled the drug, and were determined not to do so.

The cousins turned a corner. "Great Merciless Tosaris!" said Oselika. "Look! Can it be? I think – isn't it, Tel? It looks like _him!_ Akelian!!"

"Unholy fire and flood!" said Teladorion in awe. "I believe You're right! It is! Yes! Yes!" A joyful smile lit his face up. He stood up in his stirrups and waved and shouted: _"Ki! Old Ki! It's us, Tel and Sel!"_ Spontaneously, the two cousins rode rapidly toward Akelian. But as they approached him, they saw something strange: instead of a corresponding joy, they saw on his face only a bland smile.

Oselika rode her horse right up parallel to his and embraced him. He embraced her, too, but there was no warmth in it. She drew back, worried. Sensing the strangeness, Teladorion also reined in close but did not attempt to hug Akelian.

"What's the matter, Ki, don't you recognize us? We are Sel and Tel!"

"Yes, I recognize you," said Akelian. "But I have been changed."

A chill went up Oselika's spine. "How do you mean?" she asked.

Tears ran from Akelian's eyes. "It is sad," he explained. "I weep for the loss of love. My soul has been altered. I no longer feel love or loyalty toward either of you, or to any of House Karngrevor, or to honor, or to Tosaris, or to anyone at all, excepting only one: My Master."

Oselika's mind raced without getting anywhere. "Who's that?" she asked, lamely.

Akelian shrugged. "You don't need to know. I hardly know myself. I only know, that he is my absolute Lord."

"Well, ..." said Oselika, haltingly, "be that as it may, dear brother, ... I am still glad to see you, for ... _my_ love is as strong as ever."

"She speaks for me, too," said Teladorion, nodding.

Akelian gave a perfunctory nod. "The Lord has ordered me to kill you, and I would already have done so, but for the fact that you have no weapons."

"Then, you still have some honor," said Teladorion.

Akelian shook his head in the negative. "No, it's not that," he replied. "It's that I know that my killing you was meant as a test. A test of loyalty, but also a test of skill. But without your weapons, my skill will hardly be tested at all. But I have reported this to the Lord, and He will send weapons for you to use."

"I'm afraid we've given up weapons, Ki," said Teladorion.

Akelian's puzzled expression intensified. "I suppose Savril has given you new spells," he said, "and no doubt he has nullified all those he gave to me. But my Lord has given me spells of his own, and they are very powerful. So if you are counting on magical defense, you are mistaken."

"No," said Teladorion, "it is not that, Ki. It's that I got disillusioned, tired of fighting and killing people. You think that if you kill enough bad people, the world will get better. But it never has, in the long run. Our war is not with flesh and blood, but with the way world is run."

Akelian sighed. "An intriguing idea," he said, sadly.

Oselika and Teladorion exchanged a glance. Akelian saw something in it. "What?" he asked.

"I'm pregnant," said Oselika.

"We're engaged," said Teladorion.

"Appeals to pity will be useless," said Akelian.

"It wasn't an appeal," said Oselika. "We were just telling you." But inside, she thought, _My baby!_ and was full of anguish. _What have I done?_

Akelian looked at her and smiled hopefully. "Won't you fight for your child's sake?" he asked.

"No," said Oselika, after a short but agonizing inner struggle.

There was a flash of light and a humming sound. A pair of sheathed swords, apparently identical to those usually used by Oselika and Teladorion, appeared in Akelians's hands. "You may use these," he said, "if you wish to fight me. If you refuse to use them, I am to kill you anyway, as a test of my loyalty. My skill will be tested in some other way."

Akelian drew the larger sword. It appeared to be a perfect replica of Teladorion's. "You see," he said, "my master, too, knows how to make swords of diamond, strengthened with carbon threads and structural integrity spells." He resheathed it and extended the two swords toward the others. They did not take them.

"I told you, Ki, we're through with fighting," said Teladorion.

Akelian dropped the swords to the pavement. "You may use these or not, as you choose," he said. "I will ride out of earshot, and give you a few hundredbreaths to discuss this, if you wish. At the end of that time, I will attack you with intent to kill, whether you defend yourselves or not." He started to turn his horse.

"Just a moment, Ki," said Oselika. Akelian paused. "If Teladorion is right about the uselessness of violence, that would be something your Lord needs to know. He, too, appears to rely on violence to obtain his ends. If that is not the best way, it would be to his advantage to know it."

Akelian nodded. "He has heard your argument, and is considering it," he said, "but for the moment, I am to proceed in the manner I just described." He rode off until he was about a block away, got down from his horse, and settled into a meditation posture.

"Well, what shall we do?" asked Oselika.

"I don't know, Sel," replied Teladorion. "But ..."

"Don't you _dare_ suggest that I leave," she snapped, glaring furiously at him.

Teladorion looked away.

He's thinking about our child...

There was a moment of silence.

"Death is not the enemy," said Oselika. "Dishonor is the enemy."

Teladorion nodded sadly.

"We are committed to the non-violent path," said Oselika.

Again, he nodded. Then he put his face in his hands and sighed.

"Well, what shall we do?" demanded Oselika. "Do we just sit here?"

"What do you think, Vidigeon," asked the Lord, "is Teladorion correct in his assessment of the efficacy of violence?"

"He is certainly correct in his claim that violence has never brought a permanent end to violence in the past," replied Vidigeon, "nor has it put an end to crime, poverty, hatred, oppression, or ignorance. In fact, it tends to encourage all those things. But neither has non-violence put an end to those things, and it is violence that seems to determine the course of History. Besides, in your plans, there is a significant new factor: your ability to harvest and link souls. After conquering Kondrastibar, you will incorporate everyone into your Self. Rebellion will then be neither possible nor desired. Since there will only be One, there will be no war, unless you should choose to war with yourself.

"There is only one doubt that I have. When Teladorion speaks of a better way, he may be speaking of a way that is not only instrumentally better, but also better in some other sense. But because I cannot understand Good and Evil, I am in a poor position to evaluate that aspect of it."

The Lord did not reply. As the end of the Prophetic Times approached, he only became more certain of what he already believed: that there was no such thing as good or evil, that each being simply worked out the destiny implicit in its nature, and that his destiny was to conquer.

"Perhaps we should run for it," said Teladorion.

Oselika was aghast.

"No, think about it, Sel," said Teladorion. " _Retreat_ isn't dishonorable, only _desertion_. Besides: suppose the aristocratic warrior code says that running for it now would be dishonorable. Well, we're not warriors any more. We're not just throwing away our swords, we are questioning that whole line of thinking."

"I ... guess," she said.

"Lord," said Vidigeon, "they are considering flight."

The Lord had a direct communication link to Akelian. "Akelian," he commanded, "they are considering flight. If they do, you should pursue them immediately."

"Yes, Lord," said Akelian, glancing at his horse and going over, in his mind, the exact action of leaping up, putting his foot in the stirrup, and hurling himself into the saddle. "I can easily catch them both," he added. "Vidigeon can keep track of them for me."

"If soldiers didn't fight," said Teladorion, "there wouldn't be any war."

_He desperately wants to live_ , thought Oselika, _He desperately wants me to live, and he desperately wants the baby to live. He's under terrific pressure, terrific temptation to find a rationalizing excuse. And so am I. How can we possibly assure ourselves of our own objectivity, in the time allotted?_ And the answer came to her: _We can only do our best._

She glanced surreptitiously at Akelian's horse. "That's a very good horse he's got," she said.

"The point isn't whether we actually escape," replied Teladorion. "The point is that we broke the rules."

"People will just think we were cowards."

"Some will, but the people who know us will know better. Anyway, is that the point, what people will think of us?"

After a pause, Oselika said: "But where can we run _to_? If we run back to Father's lines, expecting them to protect us by force of arms, we are really relying on violence."

"Good point," said Teladorion. "Let's just try to shake him in this residential neighborhood. Also, we should split up; then he can't catch both of us."

_I know what Tel is planning to do,_ thought Oselika, _he's going to slow down just after we split up, so that Akelian will pursue him first instead of me. He might even get in Akelian's way. And I suppose he is right, because I am the one with the baby._ She nodded assent.

Without turning to look, Teladorion said, "At the South end of this block, you go East and I'll go West. Watch out for small streets, they might be dead ends."

"They are planning to split up at the South end of the block they are on," said Vidigeon. "She will go East, and he will go West."

"Shall I attack them immediately?" asked Akelian. "That would shorten the process."

"No," said the Lord. "They may still change their minds and fight."

"I don't think so," said Akelian. "I know them. They've made up their minds about that."

Vidigeon agreed.

"Well," said Oselika, tears running down her cheeks, "shall we go?"

"No," said Teladorion. "Let's give ourselves another couple of hundredbreaths; maybe we'll think of something ."

"They are giving themselves a couple of hundredbreaths to think of something," said Vidigeon.

"Understood," said Akelian. He looked over at Oselika. Memories flashed through his mind. How he had loved her! Playing in the snow, swimming in the river, fencing together. Learning the family traditions. Playing practical jokes. And the Arishel tree! How vividly he could remember the interlacing branches, the lovely fragrance of the leaves, the tinkling of its flowers, and the endless variety of their fantasies! It had been a World of their own, a World in which they could be and do anything they wanted. For the second time that day, tears sprang from Akelian's eyes.

Other memories also came to him. His father. His mother. His teachers. His grandfather, symbol of Karngrevor tradition, going back untold millennia. And Teladorion, his beloved cousin and companion.

Tosaris, god of excellence, tutelary god of his family.

Akelian was deeply confused. How could it possibly be, that they meant nothing to him now?
**********

"Emperors are slaves"

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Lightbearer lay with the Emperor in his sumptuous bed. Their passion was spent, for the time being; but in recent weeks, they had begun to talk to one another at such times.

"You know," said the Emperor, "I think you're becoming my favorite."

"That's nice, Torgi," she said, "but I'm not competing with anyone." At some point in their relationship, he had asked her to stop calling him 'Awesome Majesty,' and start calling him 'Torgi' instead. It was a nickname derived from one of his given names. His close friends and family had used it when he was a small child, before all their relationships had been corrupted by politics.

"I know, Light," he said, stroking her hair. "That's one of the things I like about you. You know, most of my concubines, and for that matter, most of my wives, just see me as a meal ticket for their children."

Lightbearer was tempted to snort derisively and say, "What in the world did you expect?" Instead she said, "It is natural for a woman to look out for her children, Torgi."

"I suppose so," he said, continuing to stroke her hair. His own hair was light blonde, almost white. He had a short beard of the same color, and skin which appeared reddish from a distance, but was actually translucent; the color came from the flesh beneath. It had taken her awhile to get used to that – he had looked like a flayed corpse. Many of the P'Twism were like that.

"I hope that you and Sorilal of Liotr are getting along," he said. Lightbearer smiled; she was actually a little touched by his practice of using Sorilal's aristocratic title; officially, there was no longer any such political entity as Liotr, and so Sorilal could not be a princess of it.

"We are fine," she said, with a smile. She felt a little of the old outrage rising in her: the _gall_ of this man, to assume that all these woman's lives revolved around him, that they would be jealous of one another, and that this would be more important than their communal love for one another! But she also knew that, for many of the women in his harem, life _did_ revolve around the Emperor; he was their sole source of support, the father of their children, and the one who determined what the status of their children would be; he held their lives and the lives of their friends and children in his hand. As a result, many women in the harem _did_ hate one another as rivals for his affection, and _did_ engage in intrigue, sometimes even to the point of murder. And Lightbearer found it to be a very precious thing, that she and Sorilal of Liotr had been able to avoid this.

"That's wonderful," said the Emperor, unwittingly echoing her thought. "You know ... I really do have a profound affection for Sorilal of Liotr, but sometimes, no matter how passionate she is, I get the feeling that she is not really _with_ me, at all."

Lightbearer repressed a smirk. Apparently, the Emperor had still not realized that, in her own mind, Sorilal of Liotr was not making love to him at all, but to the god, Tlilikaneen. Lightbearer also repressed, for the second time – or rather, for the thousandth time – the impulse to say, "What did you expect?"

Instead, she said, "Yes, Sorilal of Liotr is off in the clouds, sometimes, Torgi, but she is really a sweet, wonderful person at heart. We all love her."

The fact was, that Lightbearer was beginning to understand that although the Emperor was indeed awesomely arrogant, and utterly clueless about many things, he could hardly have been otherwise, given the way he had been raised and the way he was treated every day. She sometimes glimpsed him as a caged spirit, trying to be a decent person against insuperable odds. She had begun to feel twinges of sympathy for him.

Along the same lines, she had come to realize that, contrary to appearances, the Emperor was no more powerful than anyone else. He was neither smart, nor strong, nor charismatic, in any extraordinary degree. He was simply playing the role that he had been given to play, by accident of birth; he was a puppet, a rag doll riding the whitewater rapids of court intrigue. Just as Sorilal of Liotr saw him as possessed by a sex god, so Lightbearer saw him as possessed by a god of power, a god with no concern for him as an individual.

Not that he would ever have used such an expression himself; the P'Twism were all aggressively crusading atheists. But he had once expressed the same idea in his own terms:

"You know, Light," he had said, "people think of me as incredibly powerful, but really, I am not. I am surrounded by people who would like to usurp my position. Intrigue makes everything into the mirage of an illusion. I must guard myself against assassination, deceit, hypnotism, addiction, telepathy, seduction, blackmail, and endless forms of manipulation. Of course, I have security forces to aid me in this, but they can no more swim out of the whirlpool of intrigue than anyone else. Nor can I trust them completely; many an Emperor has been assassinated by his own personal bodyguard. There are shifting power blocs everywhere, and if I misjudge them, I will be crushed like a fly between icebergs. The only way I can survive is to make it clear that I will serve whatever forces are dominant at the moment."

"Then," she had said, "you have no friends."

"No," he had replied, "not a one. That is a luxury no Emperor can afford."

_How ironic_ , she had thought. _He has a huge harem, but not a single lover._

"I would like to be your friend, Torgi," she had said, impulsively.

He had looked at her fondly, but sadly. "I believe you," he had replied, "but it is impossible. I can't trust my own judgment in such a matter. And it would only endanger you. Just let anyone suspect that you are of any special value to me, and you would become one more object of intrigue. If I want to secure the death or enslavement of a woman, I have only to act infatuated with her."

"But Torgi," she had said, "does that mean that Sorilal of Liotr is in danger? Everyone knows she is your favorite."

"Every woman in my harem is in danger," he had replied. "I protect Sorilal of Liotr as best I can, by spreading it about that I enjoy her for her great beauty and sexual skills, but that I am not emotionally attached to her in any way. But I suppose I will have to find a new favorite soon, or they will know that I am lying."

"You love her, then?" Lightbearer had asked, in surprise.

"Love is something I must avoid at all costs," he had replied, "but yes, in spite of myself, I have developed a certain affection for her. She is so simple and childlike, is she not? How is that possible, I wonder? She was, after all, raised as an aristocrat herself."

"I am perplexed about that myself, now that you mention it," said Lightbearer, "but I agree; she is wonderfully simple and childlike. It is not a pose." _I can see how powerfully that would appeal to someone like him_ , she thought.

Later, sitting in her room, she had wondered why he had told her all that; surely he could not trust her any more than he could trust anyone else; and if the walls had ears everywhere _else_ in the palace, as surely they did, that would also be true of the Emperor's trysting room. Had he been deliberately playing some game of intrigue with her, saying things that he intended to be overheard? Presumably so. But then ...

She pulled herself back from the memory.

"If I am becoming your favorite, Torgi," she said, "does that mean I am going to die soon?"

"I hope not," he said, "and you know, it is not so simple as I once made it out to be. When you sit between two mirrors, how many images are there? Others may assume that I am seeing you often in order to protect Sorilal of Liotr, or some other woman who is my true favorite. Or, they may befriend and protect you, in the hopes of using you to influence me."

"So," said Lightbearer, "when intrigue reaches a certain depth, one may as well act straightforwardly."

"There is something in that," he said, with a chuckle. "Perhaps Sorilal of Liotr, in her childlike simplicity, is really the greatest mistress of intrigue!"

"Perhaps she is the true Empress," said Lightbearer, "pretending to be a mere concubine, in order to stay clear of most of the intrigue. You, Torgi, are only a decoy!"

"Or perhaps _she_ is only a decoy, and it is you, Lightbearer, who are the true Empress!" he replied, gently touching her nose.

"You are getting too close to my secret," she said, putting her arms around him and drawing him to her. "I will have to have you eliminated."

"I'm surprised you haven't already," he replied. "Are you getting soft?"

"Soft, yes, and wet!" she said, and their passion returned.

Two weeks later, he was dead; it was said to be a suicide.
**********

"You've always been dancing."

(motto of the Isunca Daro Dance Academy)

Lessie began to dance for hours every day, and not only at the evening parties. She got quite good at it, and her body became strong and limber.

She usually imagined that she was dancing with at least one partner, _the rest of the universe_. This feeling would often sustain itself without effort on her part. When this feeling became intense, it was very beautiful.

Her most frequent _human_ partner was the mute boy. She felt it to be especially appropriate to dance with him, for it helped to fill whatever gap was left by the fact that they did not speak. He had become the most important person in her life, with the possible exception of Kor, in spite of the fact that they did not speak at all. Their relationship gave her a different perspective on speech, and she began to feel (among other things) that people spoke altogether too much, that they polluted their lives with idle chatter. How can you be speaking to someone and, at the same time, be really aware of them? Speech distracts you. Casual, social chatter began to feel profane to her. She found that she missed it not at all, when she was with the boy.

At the same time, she felt that she saw the true value of serious speech, because she was forced to do without it when she was with the boy.

As she danced more and more, she would sometimes start dancing without thinking about it; then she would say to herself, "Oh, I am dancing!" At other times, she would feel that she was still dancing, without trying to, while engaged in washing dishes, or other activities not usually classified as 'dancing.' Activities that had sometimes been boring and tedious then became enjoyable in the highest degree. This was especially likely to happen when she worked with Kor, for they had worked together so often that there was already an almost telepathic communication between them. They knew automatically how to help each other out, and everything went as smoothly as time itself. Often they went for a long time without speaking; someone watching might have thought they were Kantrikars.

In a way, Kor also danced, in spite of the stiffness of her aging body, for she had long ago eliminated all superfluity from her actions. An observer might not have thought of her as dancing, but would have been struck by the grace and efficiency of her motions, and by her evident enjoyment of them.

Lessie often did representational dancing, challenging herself to dance a deer, an old man, a slug, a butterfly, a summer breeze, snow falling, a river, nostalgia, a poem, a chameleon, and whatever else she could think of. Or she would dance a story. Sometimes she would entertain the others with such dances. This often entailed a struggle with self-consciousness, but she persevered.

Lessie also began to dance in her dreams. In dreams she would often leave the ground and turn gracefully through the air, spinning, swooping like a bird, or drifting like the smoke from incense. At other times, she was a maple-seed in a breeze, a flock of starlings, clouds crossing the sky, a hive of bees, music, a train of thought, courtship, stars spinning themselves into a galaxy, history, the sequence of prime numbers, and many another thing. In her most striking dreams, she was the universe itself, dancing its evolution.

At times, it became terribly difficult. She would feel restless, and her motions would feel irrelevant and boring; or, worse, she would feel that whatever she did felt terribly wrong and ugly. Because Ydnas also liked to dance, and danced well, Lessie once mentioned this problem to her; Ydnas replied, "If you feel restless, dance the restlessness; if you feel bored, dance the boredom; if you feel ugly, dance the feeling of being ugly." Lessie tried this, and it was helpful.

At another time, Ydnas said, "Perhaps you are greedy."

Lessie felt both puzzled and hurt by this remark. "Mean what, do you?" she asked. "Understand you, I do not. Greedy, how am I?"

"When your dancing goes well, it feels wonderful, yes?" asked Ydnas. Lessie agreed. "So at other times," Ydnas continued, "you want that. But if you dance _in order to get_ the feeling, you are less likely to get it, for you are too self-conscious then. To fully get that feeling, you must _just dance_."

"What you mean, I think I see," replied Lessie, "but spontaneous on purpose, how can I be?"

"You cannot," said Ydnas. "Just dance, pay all your attention to the dance. From time to time you will forget yourself, without even realizing it, and then you will be free of all that second-guessing. That is what is called, 'Divine Grace.'" Lessie did that, and she did forget herself from time to time, although sometimes she would then think, "Oh, that was Divine Grace!" and then she would lose it. She was almost sorry that Ydnas had ever told her about it.

All of this continued to connect with the vision that she had had when she had first prayed. For as she danced, she would often have the feeling that the motions simply appeared, without her having to think of them or _do_ them. She would not plan ahead, nor would she think about what she had just done. She would not worry about whether she was dancing well or not. If this continued, she would sometimes cease to feel that she was moving at all, for she was not comparing her present position with any other. Nor would she consciously distinguish one thing from another in her environment. And then, she would have that feeling of 'another way of looking at it,' according to which each thing was only an aspect of the whole, the necessary complement to other aspects, none of which could exist, or be what it was, without the others. There was just a great pattern; one of its dimensions was time, but there was no sense of being at any particular point of time rather than another. Each point in time had its own identity, not because it was intrinsically different from any other point, but because of relationships it bore to them. In particular, there was no unique 'present' point; each point was present to itself, just as each point in space is 'here' to itself.

More and more, such feelings would come to her throughout the day, whether she was 'really dancing' or not. Together with her physical vitality, this made her very happy, and wonderful to be with.

But there was another theme in her ballet. More and more, when dancing with the mute boy, she wanted to express her _love_ for him _._ And, yes, her _desire_. At first she did this by 'making her eyes like pools,' and smiling at him, or hugging him, and he often did the same in return. But after awhile, this came to feel trite and artificial, and they gave up deliberate attempts to express that or any other feeling, leaving the feelings to express themselves. Whatever they did expressed their love, without their having to take conventional poses, or even to think about it.

Frequently they would touch each other as they danced, sometimes fleetingly, sometimes by embracing. Sometimes they would stand still, mutually wrapped, and she would, with eyes closed, dwell on his presence, on the warmth and pressure of his body, which became more and more mysterious, the more she tried to fathom it. She also began to feel an overwhelming sweetness in touching him, which made her want to press up against him harder and harder. When they were apart, she would often feel a desperate need to be with him. At such times she would be good for nothing, just lying in bed with eyes closed, hugging a pillow, and imagining that it was he.

Lessie had a good guess as to what these feelings were. Kor never encouraged the girls to consider becoming courtesans – quite the contrary – but nevertheless, on account of Kor's own knowledge, every girl in the orphanage, by puberty, had learned several times as much about sex as she really needed to know. But it had been cold knowledge for Lessie; intercourse was something remote, bizarre, and even disgusting, frightening. She couldn't believe that she would ever want _that_. Sometimes, when she thought of it while embracing the boy, she would pull away from him. She only wanted to embrace him, to have him _with_ her, not to do something obscene.

She had asked Kor about this. "Well, Dearie," said Kor, "it just means you are not ready, that's all. You are lucky, really, to have such inhibitions; some young people have sex out of curiosity, or to prove themselves, or because they are pressured into it by their partners. That's a kind of blasphemy, really, treating something sacred as though it were trivial. They often end up being hurt very badly. But when the time is right," she continued, suppressing a chuckle, "you won't feel the slightest hesitation, believe me!"

Lessie and Ydnas often danced at the evening celebrations. Lessie always seemed to be totally involved in her dancing, whereas Ydnas seemed to dance only as an afterthought, or like the unconscious gesturing we do while speaking. Yet Ydnas was the more virtuosic; sometimes she moved so rapidly that the eye couldn't keep up with her; and sometimes, she wove astonishing gymnastic flips and twists into her dances.

A deep feeling of love and happiness radiated from Lessie's dances, and stayed with the audience, even when the dance was over. Many said that she might be an avatar of Isiliar, or (since she was not a Suimi) some closely related god. Ydnas' dances, however, did not seem to add up to anything more than virtuosity, which often meant little to the audience. She was generally private about her thoughts and feelings, and dance was no exception. When someone mentioned this to her, she nodded agreement, saying, "I haven't decided about my destiny. I am still hesitating. I don't feel free." At another time, when someone compared her dancing with Lessie's, as if to determine who was better, she shook her head negatively, raised her two hands in the air, and said, while moving them asymmetrically this way and that, "There is only one dancer, and that is Uncle K'Tor. He dances Lessie with one hand and me with another. How can you ask which is better? Look for the big pattern. Part of the big pattern is, everyone's dance is different."
**********

"Few things are more tragic than being ahead of your time."

(Saint Nanao the Procrastinator)

Unknown to all members but one, the Secret Society known as "the Friends of Theo-Anarchy" had been infiltrated, for some time, by an agent of the Lord of Evil. This agent had heretofore done nothing to hinder the work of the group; he was being saved for an emergency. That emergency had now arrived: Vidigeon had learned the nature of Karneritik's insight, and the Lord of Evil had decided that the group would soon know too much, and must be destroyed.

Vidigeon felt very sad about this, for he had become quite attached to Karneritik; one might almost say that he had fallen in love with her. Naturally, being primarily a cognizer himself, he tended to sympathize with intellectuals, and she was one of the greatest he had ever encountered. For him, Karneritik epitomized an amazing quality of humans: their ability to have deep insights into logic and mathematics, even though they were unable to do any but the very simplest calculations, without mechanical aids. He grieved deeply at her imminent destruction.

But no feeling of which he was capable, however deep, could compromise his loyalty to his Lord.

Sern Inil opened the meeting: "Divine Muses, we honor you, we love and cherish you, and we humbly beg for your divine presence and guidance. Enliven and inspire us, as you have enlivened and inspired our predecessors for incalculable time. We beg forgiveness for our ignorance, our stupidity, our laziness, and our vulgarity. Please help us to overcome them; please help us to grow and discover."

Vidigeon listened with great respect to the prayer, uttering it silently in his own mind. He hoped that if there were such beings as the Muses, they would help him, too, to grow and discover.

After pausing with eyes closed for a moment, Sern Inil proceeded with his opening remarks:

"Welcome, Dear Friends. Our beloved colleague, Tendra Lissakor, has not yet arrived. She is on her way, however, and suggests that we continue without her. Given the importance of what we have to discuss, I think that this is a good idea." He did not know that, if she had not been late, he would already be dead.

"At our last meeting, as you know, our beloved colleague Karneritik received an important insight from the Muse. I am pleased to report that she and our beloved colleague Tero Pirks, working together, have found a way to express much of this insight in terms that do not require one to be an expert in polysemantic logic." A bit of nervous laughter circulated through the group.

"Apparently, their results give us strong grounds to hope, that we may be able to make the transition from Theo-Anarchy to the next phase, without mob rule or civil war; and it also gives us a bit of guidance in the matter. Tero will now present their results."

Amid smiles and a ripple of clapping, Tero came to the front, where a table and a portable blackboard had been set up.

Vidigeon did not need to hear the report, since he had already eavesdropped on the discussions which produced it. He had reported to the Lord of Evil that Karneritik's insight was one of the most brilliant ever to come from the human mind. He set a tiny portion of himself to watch and listen, so that he could make his next report, while turning the greater part of his mind to other matters. He did not want to experience Karneritik's death any more vividly than necessary.

"Good evening," said Tero. "Please join me in a moment of gratitude to the Muses." After pausing a moment, he said, "Dear Muses, thank you for inspiring our beloved colleague, and casting light on such an important and difficult problem." After another pause, he set some notes on a lectern and began.

"'Why,' we may ask, 'is History not just a record of the victories of the strong and selfish? Why do we also see love and ethics?' At least part of the answer seems to be that, on the one hand, the strong and selfish compete with, and thereby weaken, one another; and, on the other hand, that the relatively weak and compassionate will help one other. In fact, the competitive pressure from the strong is one of the most powerful forces encouraging the weak to develop forms of solidarity. Ironically, the strong and ruthless thus encourage the rise and development of ethical sophistication. The strong also encourage ethics and solidarity by requiring them of their underlings; they know better than to set themselves up as a model to their servants. In this way, selfishness and solidarity come into balance. Since there are many forms and degrees of strength and selfishness, this balance will, in large societies, be very intricate; and of course, Titheena's Corollary to Murjen's Uncertainty Principle tells us that such a balance will always be shifting this way and that, often quite drastically.

"The question naturally arises, 'How far can solidarity go? Will people ever band together to eliminate domination altogether?'

"As you know, Kribisha Foruntel has argued that this is impossible. Her best-known argument is that, in a society running at a high ethical level, people will come to trust one another, and the skills and instruments of defense and prophylaxis, rendered useless, will become vestigial and disappear. Sooner or later, however, someone relatively ruthless will appear to take advantage of this vulnerability, and they will be able to do a great deal of harm. If the society tries to restrain the ruthless by, for example, employing police, then it is already employing coercion, which puts it at a lower ethical level; and in general, there is always a pressure to imitate the very ones who violate one's ethical code, in order to defend one's self against them. This is often said to be evil's most powerful weapon. And besides, what is to prevent the police from becoming corrupt? They in turn will have to be restrained. Then, too, what would happen if the oppressed were victorious? They would only begin to compete with one another. In short, she argues that ruthlessness encourages compassion, and mirrorwise, so neither of them will ever exist without the other.

"Many political theologians, like Mother Terisias, have searched for a compromise. Mother Terisias herself advocated the strategy of _minimal_ coercion – introducing just enough coercion to preserve a fundamentally compassionate social order. Many forms of Anarchism are in this tradition. Their strategy is to introduce a decentralization so thorough-going that it cannot be reversed; any person or institution that begins to consolidate power will have to start to build itself practically from nothing, and as soon as it begins to do so, it will provoke retaliation from temporary alliances of other individuals and groups. In particular, the anti-anarchists will have to deal with secret societies, who will attempt to assassinate their leadership. And there will be many other features of this kind. Our own system, Theo-anarchy, is an example of such a system.

"What makes Theo-Anarchy special is, of course, the fact that such institutions as exist in it are mostly religious in nature. It seems to be a fact that religion commands a great deal of loyalty from humans, often motivating them to sacrifice everything else. Also, religion is a natural context for the development of ethical systems. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, religion allows for one or more _gods_ to play the role of absolute ruler, allowing humans to dispense with this rather unpleasant role. The coerciveness which Kribisha Foruntel argues to be inevitable can therefore be expelled, so to speak, from the human community. Or, so it is claimed. As you know, Sindariden the 16th argued that it is not even necessary for such gods to actually exist, provided that mortals believe in them. Finally, religion can inculcate a certain lack of respect for material wealth, prestige, and other types of secular power, thus reducing greed, and thereby reducing competition among humans. All these qualities have contributed to the strength of Theo-Anarchy.

"Why then is Theo-Anarchy breaking down? Our beloved colleague has suggested that we are actually seeing two separate phenomena. On the one hand, Theo-Anarchy has reached a point at which it is beginning to change profoundly, but _for the better_. From a restricted or purely conservative viewpoint, such a change looks like a breakdown. On the other hand, Theo-Anarchy is being attacked by a subversive force which until recently has been nearly invisible, and which is still largely a mystery. It is hard for any system to counter an enemy that cannot be identified or located. I refer, of course, to the force behind the recent attacks on the Angels of Rejuvenation and the Temple of Ydris. But our beloved colleague's work suggests that this same force must be involved in many hundreds of hidden intrigues, each one sabotaging, in one way or another, the normal functioning of our society. Very likely, this force is none other than the 'Hidden One' mentioned in numerous Cleretic prophecies.

"Karneritik's results suggest, that if this negative force could be turned into a positive one, then Theo-Anarchy would proceed to undergo a phase change which would make it into something stronger and better. I am wonderfully happy to announce that Karneritik's result shows a number of ways that such a reversal might be carried out!" In fact, Vidigeon knew that _all_ of her suggestions would work, and that was why she and her friends all had to die.

"I recommend, then, that we immediately broadcast this result as widely and quickly as possible. We – "

At that moment, Tendra Lissakor appeared. "Sorry to be late," she said, contritely, "I – "

_Now they are all here_ , thought the agent of the Lord of Evil, and he activated the moksi stored in his bloodstream, causing himself to explode. The entire pagoda was instantly enveloped by a huge fireball. Every ounce of matter within it was vaporized, leaving only a hot, rising plume of gas and a deep hole in the ground.
**********

"A leap of faith is better than a rigor of distrust."

(Rajaplex, Cardinal of Intrigue)

As their shield fell, the Amazons of Zarinia's squad, joined into a group mind, leapt at the flying machines that surrounded them – not to attack them, but simply to grab hold of them. Several Amazons managed to grab hold of legs, wings, and other available protrusions, including even the snout in front from which the deadly gray bolts came forth. Having gained a purchase, each Amazon swung her legs up, keeping herself close to the body of the machine. Several of the machines, burdened, staggered in the air, allowing other Amazons to catch them. As Zarinia had hoped, the machines did not fire in each other's direction, and so the riders were safe.

But Zarinia herself was unlucky. She failed to mount. Realizing that in an instant she would be a helpless target, she raced across the roof and leapt into the void, falling toward the ground ten stories below. The roof she had been standing on cracked down the middle, hesitated a moment, and then came completely apart. Zarinia fell headlong through the cloud of mechanical insects, barely missing several, and followed by a great churning cloud of stones and other debris from the roof. On one side of her she saw, flashing past, a thick swarm of enemy machines, firing gray bolts and other weapons; on the other side, the wall of the Temple of Ydris, battered by the attackers, spewing death back from numberless arrow slits. Above, the cloud of debris pursued her, and below, the ground rushed up to bludgeon her. She couldn't help laughing.
**********

"Most murder victims are killed by lovers and relatives.

What does this tell us about Theology?"

(Tirn Elkilor, _97 Questions_ )

As Akelian sat and the two cousins conferred, time ground past like a mountain moving.

"Running away is still wrong, Tel," said Oselika, suddenly. "I feel it in my bones. If non-violence is to work, people must be willing to suffer and die for it. We must set an example."

Teladorion held his head in his hands, as if he were trying to prevent it from exploding.

After a moment, he said, "I reckon you're right, Sel."

"Let's dismount and sit on the ground."

"Yes."

They sat down far from the two swords, facing Akelian.

Tears ran down Teladorion's cheeks. _He fears that he has condemned all three of us to death for nothing_ , thought Oselika. _Not to mention the fact that Akelian is far, far worse than dead._

Akelian was looking at them, but he was too far away for them to read his expression.

Tears ran down Oselika's cheeks. _How she wishes there were another way_ , thought Teladorion. _How she wishes that her child could live!_

_How principled and courageous he is_ , thought Oselika. _What a wonderful father he would have made!_

_How honorable and insightful she is_ , thought Teladorion. _What a wonderful mother she would have made._

Oselika thought of the child in her womb. _Teladorion's child would understand_ , she thought.

_Oselika's child would understand_ , thought Teladorion. _If we meet her in the afterworld, she will say, "You did the right thing, noble parents. I am proud of you."_

_If people can be controlled by threats to their children_ , thought Oselika, _mortals will never be free._

And yet, in both of them, there was gnawing doubt and fear.

" _Time's up!"_ shouted Akelian. He strode over to them. He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at them. They remained seated.

"Leech it all," he said angrily. " _Why won't you fight?_ "

"I love you, Akelian," said Oselika. "If one of us has to die, let it be me."

"I love you, Old Ki," said Teladorion. "If one of us has to die, let it be me."

Akelian sighed. Then he spat. He drew his sword. It was larger than Teladorion's. _At least it will be quick_ , thought Oselika. Akelian could bisect an armored man with a single stroke.

Akelian grimaced and drew his sword back over his shoulder, preparing for a two-handed stroke. _Thank you for my life, Tosaris_ , thought Oselika and Teladorion together.

Akelian hesitated. His face screamed anguish. He seemed to be having an intense inner dialogue. Then his arms relaxed, and he dropped his sword on the ground with a clatter.

"I can't do it!" he said. "I might have killed the unarmed and unresisting. I might have killed my cousin and my sister. I might have betrayed the values and traditions of my entire family. I might have abandoned Tosaris. I might have stamped on my own conscience. I might have been a warrior for evil. But all of those together, that is just too much for me!"

He crouched down on the ground and held his head in his hands.

There was a long stretch of silence. Then Oselika spoke.

"Akelian," she said, very softly and very gently. He grunted.

"Akelian," said Oselika, still very softly, but with excitement, "if you can defy him on one issue, you can defy him completely!"

Akelian made a tiny nod. Then he became motionless, except for a barely perceptible tremor. That tremor glowed with a huge and growing intensity.

"YAAAH!" With a great cry, Akelian leapt high into the air, arms over his head, back arched, face to the sky. Doing a back flip, he landed like a cat, on bent knees, a smile of victory on his face.

"I'm _free_!" he said, grinning, and spreading his arms in invitation to hugs.

Oselika and Teladorion rushed to him and embraced him. "Dear sister, dear cousin," he said, crying tears of joy. The group of three rocked back and forth, mumbling endearments, for twenty or thirty breaths. Then, Akelian pulled back.

"Oselika," he said, excitedly, "quickly, call whoever is nearest to pick us up! I have a terrific amount of information about my recent master – he calls himself 'The Lord of Evil' - He has remained hidden, doing all kinds of mischief! But it will be a lot harder, now!"

Oselika retrieved her seashell and made the call.

" _Well done, Akelian_!" said the Lord of Evil. As Akelian had drawn back his sword to strike, which he would have done with no compunction whatsoever, the Lord had halted him. " _Your loyalty has now been tested,_ " he said. " _Next, you will pretend to defy me! In this way I will obtain an agent in the very highest ranks of my enemies_!"
**********

"I produce the stupid and the evil for four reasons:

(1) Because everyone has a right to exist,

(2) So that the intelligent and the good can have something challenging to do,

(3) So that the domain of pure potentiality doesn't become a slum, and

(4) So that they can get better."

(" _Why I'm perfect_ ," a scripture attributed to the Malfia Creation god, Zog)

Kor stood before the branch in the subterranean passage, trying to decide between immediate reincarnation and a side trip through...something that would give her more tal, whatever that was. The side trip would apparently involve a temporary loss of some part of her sense of individuality, a possibility that Kor found frightening. On the other hand, she was being offered knowledge and experience that few mortals could get during their lifetime.

She thought about the fear of death, or more precisely (since apparently death did not mean the end), the fear of _ending_ , of ceasing to be. _It sometimes feels disproportionately strong with us_ , she thought. _Of course, we have to keep ourselves alive in order to do whatever we do – love, play, work, learn, ... but sometimes people end up doing terrible things in order to secure their lives. If only we all feared evil more than death!_

After giving it more thought, she decided that her only reasons for not taking the detour were purely selfish or cowardly ones; after all, it wasn't even real, and she had been assured that she could have immunity from any emotional manipulation, and that she could halt the process at any time. Gathering up her courage, she strode forward into the upper branch.

As soon as she was within it, she felt herself lifted up, and carried through the tunnel at tremendous speed. The tunnel gradually curved upward, and soon she was traveling straight up. The walls of the tunnel became a gray blur. She was quite frightened, and tempted to call upon K'Sell to stop the experience, but she made herself wait.

Suddenly, she found herself once again near the white sun, speeding toward it through the intricate network of streams of other souls. It was not long before she plunged through its surface. To her surprise, she then found herself drifting slowly downward from a blue sky to a green landscape. The landscape was very beautiful, with only a few buildings nestled here and there. Other souls, now once again appearing in human form, drifted down with her, rather like anomalous snowflakes in the summery air.

She came gently to the ground in a meadow not far from a beautiful white temple. Like the others, she was in human form, and dressed in a simple white robe. Her vision was back to normal: she could only see in front of her. She started to walk to the Temple, following the general drift of people, and discovered to her amazement and joy that her body was young again, without pain or stiffness. It has lost all its beautiful age lines, too, but Kor, who was almost completely lacking in vanity, was not disturbed by this. She reached behind her head and pulled her hair forward – it was once again long, thick, shiny, and deep purple, with a touch of iridescence. She ran, skipped, leapt, and twirled, and when she had built up a bit of confidence, she did a few cartwheels. It all felt effortless. Looking around, she saw that many others were reacting the same way.

She came to the temple; its architecture was exquisite. Entering, she found that, like the Tellamir ship, it was bigger on the inside than on the outside. The seemingly endless floor was broken up into small plazas at various levels, two or three steps apart. Beautiful music was playing, although no musicians could be seen. In some plazas, fountains played; in others, there were beautiful statues.

There were no directions; people just followed the earlier arrivals. The pace was leisurely. As they walked, many people began to sing spontaneously. Some were apparently singing hymns from their own religion; others would improvise on a single phrase, like "We're here!" or, "We were right!" or, "It's true!" Some of them seemed almost drunken, laughing uproariously, hugging and slapping each other. It was all very innocent and childlike, though, and somehow, it all harmonized beautifully, including the ever-changing echoes from the temple ceiling, which was divided into hemispherical domes of various sizes, supported around their circumferences by pillars. Kor did not sing; her mood was not unpleasant, but it was quite different from theirs. She felt a little guilty, as though she had sneaked into a private social event.

She thought of what Ixuan had said, that a person reborn would probably not remember the details of earlier lifetimes, but would have learned about 'strategy' in general. Kor reviewed what she had learned when she had gone over her life, after being struck by the gray bolt. Was there anything further to be learned? It was not easy to see what was a mistake and what was not. Should she never have been a courtesan? Should she have stayed at the Temple of Ydris, even after the loss of Zar? Should she have sought a man's love, and had another child from her own body? She couldn't decide; she concluded that either she still lacked the wisdom to decide, or that one of the choices would have been just as good as the other; and so she soon set those issues aside. Some things were clear to her, though: for example, the fact that she had unconsciously made unrealistic assumptions about what could be expected from Isiliar and Ydris; although well-disposed to her, they had had godly duties of their own which overrode considerations of her personal well-being. In a future life, she hoped that she would be more alert for wishful thinking.

Kor was distracted from these thoughts as she and those with her arrived at the central area of the temple, a huge room with a high, vaulting ceiling. Here the traffic slowed almost to a stop. The room was filled with people. She could see doors on the opposite side, presumably the exit. Looking around, she saw that the architecture was exquisite, with frescoes, stained-glass windows, and jeweled mosaics.

Looking at the people immediately ahead of her, she saw that they were awed and expectant. Then she noticed a woman who suddenly gave a start, for no visible reason; then the woman's expression passed from surprise to wonder and delight. Several of her neighbors began to show similar responses.

Kor stepped forward, scanning the great room again. What had they noticed, to be so moved? She glanced at the floor, which was done in intricate parquetry. Suddenly, she felt that _the floor was part of her_. To be sure, she couldn't 'feel it from the inside,' the way she could an arm or leg, but then, her fingernails and hair had no feeling either, nor did the inside of her head, but they were part of her. The floor was a big unfeeling part of her.

Yes, the floor was part of her. What about those people standing on it? Yes, _they were part of her, too!_

'This must be some sort of illusion,' thought Kor, but it persisted, presenting itself as obvious, as an absolute certainty. Rather than fight this, Kor decided to explore it. How far did she extend? The walls, the windows, the ceiling, the air and space enclosed – yes, these were all part of her! How astonishing! How bizarre! And yet how wonderful!

It was like someone who was in a terrible chariot accident, and wakes up in the hospital. He wonders how badly off he is, and so he begins to check his body parts. 'Oh,' he thinks, 'there's my right arm, there's my torso, there's my neck...' until he verifies that he is all there. But for Kor, the process did not end with what she had previously thought of as her body. To her amazement, each stained-glass window, each bit of mosaic, felt like part of her.

She looked at the 'other' people – all really part of her – and realized that everyone except the newest arrivals felt the same way. They were _all the same being_ , but with multiple bodies. Or rather, all with the _same_ body, which had multiple little bodies as parts. And each little body had its own little mind.

'But wait,' said one of the voices in the little mind that Kor had once thought to be the entirety of her mind. 'You are not really all those other people. You cannot hear _their_ inner voices, or feel the pressure of _their_ feet against the ground.'

But another voice replied, 'Yes I can, I'm doing it now, with my _other_ little minds. Each little body is like a separate eye. If you open just one eye, and then close it and open just the other eye, you realize that they see things differently, from different standpoints. The left eye does not see what the right eye sees. But that doesn't make them different _people_! Does the left eye think that the right eye must be a different person, because the left eye cannot see what the right eye sees? The left foot cannot feel the right foot pressing against the ground, but that does not make them different people. In the same way, each of these little bodies experiences the world from a different standpoint, and cannot see what the others see. But that doesn't make them different people! They have just fallen into the habit of thinking that way. It makes them different parts of the same person. Or, what about you and I? Are we different people? No, we are just voices, parts of Little Kor. In the same way, Little Kor is just part of Big Kor. Some of her parts can talk to others, just as you and I can talk.'

The first voice grumbled, but had no immediate reply. In fact, there were not many thoughts in Little Kor's mind, because Little Kor was rapt in the experience of realizing that she was really Big Kor. How strange to be _walking on herself_! She took a few steps, savoring the experience. It reminded her of how, as a child, she had sometimes fantasized two of her fingers into legs, and used them to walk up and down her own body. She had fantasized that she was only that hand, walking on a landscape. Then, when the game was over, she accepted that the landscape was _part of_ _herself_. Sometimes she had made each hand into a person, walking on two of its fingers, and had them interact with one another. It was like that now, except that Little Kor was the entirety of one of the little bodies. The other little bodies were also clearly rapt in wonder; sometimes one little body would reach out and gently touch another, as if to prove that it was not a hallucination. Sometimes, though, one of them would start laughing, and a ripple of laughter would pass throughout the hall. Or one body might say, "Hello, me!" or "How am I?" to another, and both would laugh.

Eventually, the little body known as "Kor" came to the exit door. She descended a few steps into a lovely garden. To her delight, she discovered that this too was part of her! Yes, the rolling hills beyond, and the mountains beyond them, the sky and its clouds, the sun... all these were part of her! It was staggering! _Everything_ was part of her. "I am the _universe_!" she thought.

It seemed ridiculous, now, to think of herself as "Kor." That was only a little piece of her. Remembering the scripture that Edril Tsenkulor had recited, she thought, _I am Wond!_ And in the very same act, Wond realized that there was a certain tiny fragment of itself called "Kor," with a mind and body of its own. Although tiny, the Kor fragment was not without value. It had its role to play in the vast scheme of things. It would not cease to have its own experiences, thoughts, and actions just because it now realized that it was part of something larger.

The universe was amused to remember how worried Edril Tsenkulor had been about what was going to happen to 'him.' Edril had had no idea that the story of Wond that he told was _his own_ story. He had had no idea that the strange reptilian being interrogating him was only another aspect of _himself_ , in disguise. He had been talking to himself. He had been like a person who had grown up without ever having heard of mirrors, coming across a distorting mirror, and thinking that the image he saw was someone else.

How silly _hatred_ and _competition_ seemed, when observed from that viewpoint! And envy. And feeling superior or inferior. Or lonely. Or even the fear of death!

Wond turned the attention of the "Kor" fragment of itself back to the temple, or rather, to a garden next to the temple. There, the youthful body associated with the name "Kor" stood, with a viewpoint of Wond embedded in it; but the Self was still Wond, experiencing through one of its countless viewpoints, thinking through one of its countless brains, acting through one of its countless bodies. Looking at Kor's arm, Wond experienced wonder, even though he was only looking at himself; for he was, in a sense, seeing himself with new eyes. It was as if someone had lost their sight for years, and then regained it; how fresh and wonderful everything would seem! But Kor had been nearly blind for a _lifetime!_ Every little hair, pore, and wrinkle in her arm had a terrific vividness and freshness about it; it seemed to glow.

Wond then focused (through Kor's eyes) on the Temple and the surrounding landscape, and on the descending souls; they, too, seemed to glow with a warm and shining beauty. Ageless Wond felt a childlike fascination in discovering what It looked like to Kor. Walking up and down in the garden, Wond was drawn to a redwood seedling that was just emerging from the soil. He focused his fascination on the growing tip of this seedling. It was exquisite! How amazing that this tiny thing would turn itself into a gigantic tree, with hundreds of branches! Through Kor, Wond had a sense that he was himself, in his infinite totality, very much like this growing tip: enlarging, differentiating, developing. He also felt that the growth and development of this tiny piece of plant was an essential part of that larger process. Through Kor, Wond realized that this growing tip, too, was another aspect of Itself, just as Edril, Ixuan, and Kor were. _The past is gestation, the present is birth_ , thought Kor/Wond. It felt a great wonder, which was no artifact of emotional manipulation by K'Sell, but a completely natural response to what Kor was experiencing.

_Everything that exists_ , thought Kor/Wond, _is part of this development; by developing, the universe makes redemption possible, bridging the otherwise unbridgeable gap between good and evil. That is why there must be such a thing as time._
**********

"Leadership should never be confused with

superiority, power, or charisma."

( _Divine Grace, Divine Work_ [author unknown])

1080's work group settled into a kind of routine. In the morning, they would be awakened by bells and gongs. A short sermon would be given by Boss Wolverine Jaw. There would then follow twenty hundredbreaths of stretching exercises. After this, they would prepare breakfast, eat it, and clean up. After breakfast, when the weather permitted, they would be taken someplace to continue the process of clearing up the remains of the old neighborhood. Just before lunchtime, they would take a long run (or walk, for those who were not in a condition to run). They would then prepare, eat, and clean up after lunch. They would return to work until suppertime; after supper they would bathe, and then they had a bit of free time before bed.

When the weather was bad, the Angels ran a school. For most of the prisoners, this meant basic literacy, arithmetic, History, and something the Angels called "The 113 most important concepts." More advanced students (gathered from several groups) studied Philosophy.

1080 had to admit that it was not a bad life, in most respects. The food was more than adequate, once he got used to the plain (but varied) vegetarian fare. There was excellent medical care for those who needed it. Discipline continued to be quite strict, but the rules were comprehensible, easily complied with (once old habits wore away and new ones replaced them), and enforced with undeniable consistency and fairness. The exercises and regular sleeping hours, together with the absence of recreational drugs, resulted in a level of physical and mental vitality that most of the prisoners had never before experienced. Although the work was often physically strenuous, 1080's life contained far less stress than Scratch's had; he never had to worry, for example, that some rival was plotting to assassinate him, or turn his superiors against him, or that he would receive some impossible demand, or undeserved punishment, from above.

He gathered that the Angels themselves lived a very similar life, though with a good deal less supervision.

He noticed also that a significant number of prisoners seemed to identify with the Angels; some of them almost seemed to worship them. As far as possible, they dressed in a similar style (using cloth and other materials scrounged from the ruins of the neighborhood), and carried bludgeon-like sticks with them everywhere. They all professed a desire to join the Angels upon their release.

"I can understand it," he said to 987 one day. "They see where the power is in their world, and they want to be part of it."

"Why," asked 987, "do people always think that goodness goes with power?"

1080 pondered this for a moment. "Fear," he said.

Thinking about power made him remember a bad mistake that he had made: when he and 987 had become lovers, he had, without even thinking about it, assumed that she was now his servant. He probably would have offered her to others for a price, if the Angels hadn't already forbidden it.

Instead, it happened fairly soon that he casually ordered her to do something. It had taken him a moment to realize that she wasn't doing it. He looked over at her, and was startled: she was trembling with rage. "If you ever do that again," she said, "I will kill you in your sleep." Her words turned his mind over, as a plow turns the sod. At first he wanted to argue, but something in him said to wait and think; and after he had waited and thought, he apologized to her, and promised never to do such a thing again. Still, it was several days before their relationship had returned to normal. He slept poorly during that time.

But 987 was, as he had already noticed, exceptional. Many women accepted subordinate roles in their relationships to men. In fact, a hierarchy began to appear among the men, as well. After what had happened to the goons, no one wanted to be an overt bully; but because some men were larger, or had more 'presence,' or were better at manipulating, or had special talents, while others were smaller, more timid, or more naïve, lines of deference began to appear, without anything overt being said. Something similar happened among the women. It wasn't something deliberate, on most people's parts.

One day, Boss Wolverine Jaw gave a talk about this. She mentioned that a hierarchy was appearing, and she gave many examples, describing specific interactions between particular members of the work group in a way that made everyone realize that they were being observed very closely indeed. Her examples included the fact that 1080 and 987 had received special deference from most of the others, after the destruction of the two goons. She also mentioned – to 1080's relief – the fact that neither 1080 nor 987 had asked for this, or taken any deliberate advantage of it. She asked several members of the workgroup questions to make sure they understood what she meant, and she elicited general agreement that a hierarchy was being formed, more or less along the lines she had described.

"Now," she continued, " what do we Angels think about this? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? It depends. We believe that many people are perfectly happy with being told what to do, in certain cases, and that in fact they are quite right in this. People do what their doctors tell them to, for example, and that's usually a good idea. Sometimes, people just don't want to be bothered with making certain kinds of decisions, as long as they can find others whom they are willing to trust with them. Life would be inordinately complicated, if we could not trust others in this way. We also believe that some people are natural leaders; they are good at it, and others will spontaneously follow them. Whenever you get a small group of people together for a certain period of time, leaders of this kind will emerge. For some other people, with different personalities, it would be a terrible strain to be a leader.

"However, natural leadership should not be confused with _authoritarian_ leadership, which is another thing entirely. A natural leader is a kind of servant; often, he reads people's hearts and proposes what they already desire. At most, she proposes something which they will accept, once they think about it. A natural leader never uses intimidation, reward, or deceit to control people. By 'deceit', here, I include cases in which information is withheld, even though the withholder knows it is relevant, and I also include deliberate misleading, in which a person says something true, knowing that it will mislead someone in some important way. Someone who uses intimidation, reward, or deceit routinely in leadership is what we call an _authoritarian_ leader. A natural leader depends on the trust of those led, based on their knowledge of her. We Angels believe that, with few exceptions, natural leadership is a good thing, and authoritarian leadership is a bad thing."

987 and 1080 had been sitting together near the front. As Boss Wolverine Jaw condemned authoritarian leadership, 1080 became aware that 987 was trembling, and that she continued to tremble as she made the "I have something to say" gesture, which consisted of raising her hands above her head, thumbs locked, palms toward Boss Wolverine Jaw, and fingers splayed.

"Yes, 987?" said Boss Wolverine Jaw, raising her eyebrows.

Trembling even more, 987 stood up.

"I s-suppose," she said, stuttering in fear, "that y-your relationship to us – not only this p-particular group, but to all the p-p-p-people from this n-neighborhood who s-survived your invasion, and are n-now your p-prisoners and slaves – that your relationship t-to us, not to m-mention your relationship to all the people from all the other n-neighborhoods, that you have invaded and ens-s-slaved, constitute for y-you ' _a f-few exceptions_.'" 1080 cringed, as 987 voiced the phrase, 'a few exceptions,' with a definite sarcastic twist.

Shock and fear radiated outward from where 987 stood, and strange expressions flew over people's faces, as they tried to decide how they wanted to appear. The beaters in the area suddenly became more alert, and some of them moved to different positions. 1080 was quite frightened, and he rearranged his legs so that he would be able to stand up rapidly. _What in the Land of Leeches is she doing?_

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" replied Boss Wolverine Jaw, nodding affirmatively. She did not appear to be angry; in fact, there was a trace of a smile on her lips.

987 apparently expected her to say more, but she did not. After a few moments, 987 said, "Well, a-am I right? Is that what you b-believe, or not?" 1080 wanted, with a terrible intensity, for her to shut up and sit down.

"Yes," replied Boss Wolverine Jaw, "strangely enough, that _is_ what we believe. And we believe that, contrary to appearances, such a belief is consistent with our actions. Can you see why?"

"N-no!" replied 987, angrily.

Boss Wolverine Jaw smiled a bit more. "I think you can," she said, "but I will answer your question myself, in a few moments, since that appears to be what you want. But first, I want you to tell me what _you_ think: according to you, is it only in exceptional situations that it is justifiable to intimidate, reward, or mislead others?"

"Y-y-yes," said 987, trembling like an aspen leaf in a gale.

"I will now answer you," said Boss Wolverine Jaw. "Yes, we Angels do believe that only in exceptional situations is it justified to intimidate, reward, or mislead others. We believe that one such situation is a situation in which we are dealing with people who are so sunken in delusion and degradation that they cannot be helped in any other way. Now, we Angels are specialists in such situations; we seek out people like that. So, yes, we end up intimidating a lot of people, but that is perfectly consistent with our claim that _most_ people _don't_ need to be treated that way. At any particular time, the vast majority of the people of Kondrastibar have nothing to fear from us. And those who do, such as yourselves, need not fear us for a very long time. You have a way out. You could be totally free of us, a month from today." A breeze of surprise and alertness passed over the work group.

"H-how can we do that?" asked 987.

"If you can show me – all of you," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, sweeping her eyes over the entire group, "that you can live with one another, without intimidation, reward, or deceit, except for rarely occurring situations, then you will be free to go. In fact," she added, "that is the _only_ way you will ever be free to go, as long as there are enough of us alive to keep you here."

As Boss Wolverine Jaw drew in a breath to continue speaking, 987 called out, "W-wait!" Boss Wolverine Jaw paused with raised eyebrows.

"I am g-going free right now," said 987. Nearby beaters focused their attention on her.

"I refuse to co-operate with being held as a prisoner," said 987. "I will do no more work here. And since you supply our food, I will not eat, either, until you set me free."

The beaters looked inquisitively at Boss Wolverine Jaw. She looked surprised at first, then thoughtful. A few breaths passed. Then she said, "Very well. We will prevent you from leaving, but we will not force you to eat."
**********

"Doctors and priests will always have bad days."

(From the popular song, "What shall I be?")

It was a warm, sunny day. A carriage, with the sign of the Holy Guild of Physicians emblazoned on all sides, came to the gate of Wargold Woods. A short, slender woman, accompanied by two men carrying large suitcases, descended from it and approached the gatekeeper. "Good day," said the woman to the guard. "I am Doctor A'Obija. I would like to see Karnak, please."

"We do not give out the names of our residents," said the guard, suavely. "Would whoever you are looking for be expecting you?"

"No," said the doctor, with a quick smile, "but you might inquire to see whether any of your residents has heard of someone called 'Brother Koof.' It was he who sent me."

"One moment, please," said the guard, and stepped backward to converse with the telepath on duty. A few breaths later, he returned, just as a flock of grim security guards appeared, surrounding the woman and her two companions.

"My humble apologies," said the guard, with a smile. "There is indeed a Karnak here, and he would indeed like to see you. But first, it will be necessary for you to go through a security check."

"Please proceed," said the woman, "and allow me to save you some time by suggesting that you impound those two suitcases immediately, since they contain my medical equipment, and since many of my medicines and implements could be used as weapons. I can also save some time by telling you that Brother Koof has left his previous residence, and has gone to a place completely unknown to me."

"Of course," said the guard with a wry smile, as security personnel scanned her suitcases. "We ask, however, that you submit to a level one telepathic scan."

"No problem," replied the doctor. The telepath approached her and stood there for fifteen or twenty breaths. The telepath then conferred with a man who was apparently the security chief, and with the guard. During this time, A'Obija 'twiddled' all her fingers together, rapidly, in an apparently non-repetitive pattern. "Just a nervous habit," she said, "not spellcasting." The guard glanced at the telepath and the magician, who nodded agreement.

"Karnak's representative will be with you in a few hundredbreaths," said the guard.

"I think that Karnak might prefer to come himself," said A'Obija, addressing the guard. "Please remind him that I am a doctor, and one who specializes in rare and often misdiagnosed diseases. And tell him to say hello to his wife for me."

After a few moment in his office the guard said, "He is coming."

A few hundredbreaths passed, during which A'Obija danced a jerky and intricate little dance. "It's the warm weather," she explained, "it speeds up my metabolism." Then a carriage appeared up the road. It halted nearby, and a man descended from it, surrounded by several security guards in a different uniform from those at the gate. The Chief of Gate Security bowed to him, and gestured that he should approach, which he did. Glancing severely at all the gate personnel, the newcomer said, "This conversation will be _entirely confidential_. Understood?"

"Understood, sir!" said the Chief, smartly.

Turning to A'Obija, who had stopped dancing, the newcomer said, "I am Karnak. What do you want?" His rugged and tired-looking face was the face of a man trying unsuccessfully to mask several strong and conflicting emotions.

"Brother Koof has hired me to diagnose your wife, sir!" she replied. "I can of course promise nothing, but as you can easily check in the _Witness of Medicine_ , I have a very good record of overturning previous diagnoses and prognoses, and previous treatment regimes, to the benefit of my patients."

Karnak looked very uncertain. Then he said, looking quizzically at her, "Forgive me, but I find it hard to believe that the man who tried to rob me, and who invaded my mind without permission or explanation, resulting in a traumatic experience that made me question my sanity, wants to do me a favor. Can you help me with this?"

A'Obija gave three quick nods. "I understand your hesitation, sir! But consider the following: First: although Koof sent me, I am not him; I am a doctor, bound by the Sacred Oath of Medical Beneficence. You are welcome to check my credentials with the guild, but presumably your telepath can already verify that I am no impostor. Second: you may remember this, or you may have to check it through research, but Brother Koof is a Kelosian Monk, and Kelosian Monks are forbidden to _hate_ rich people; they are only supposed to divest them of property. He is forbidden by his Holy Oath from any act of vengeance or any other act of hostility towards you personally. Brother Koof admits that he erred in causing you pain; he acted impatiently and bungled, because there was a dying child he wanted me to look at, and he lacked the money to pay my fee. He has hired me to help you as an act of restitution. He might still be motivated to steal from you, but I am not, and my examining your wife will not lose you any money, for Brother Koof has already paid me. Third: Your telepath has already determined that my motives are not hostile, and your magician has determined that I am not under a spell that might make me behave contrary to my principles. Considering these three things, sir, I would respectfully suggest that allowing me to examine your wife, in the presence of however many security personnel you desire, would be an acceptable risk."

Karnak glanced at the telepath, the magician, and the Chief of Gate Security; they all looked apprehensive, but nodded in the affirmative.

He sighed. "I haven't told her yet," he said, sadly.

"Well, sir, if you like, we can concoct some bogus excuse for the examination," said A'Obija, swinging her arms back and forth.

Karnak sighed again. "No," he said, "it would be better just to strengthen my courage and tell her. She is at home. Would you accompany me to see her now?"

"Certainly, sir" said A'Obija, "but I will need my assistants and my equipment, which has been impounded, quite justifiably, by your zealous security guards."

Karnak glanced at the Chief, who nodded at an underling; in a few moments, the suitcases were returned. "Come with me, please," said Karnak to the doctor, and walked through the gate. The doctor and her assistants followed him to his luxurious carriage. It was somewhat pumpkin-like in shape, drawn by six white horses, and staffed by three liveried servants. Karnak, the Security Chief, the Telepath, the magician, and Karnak's private security people got inside, along with A'Obija and her two assistants, while her suitcases were loaded into the back by a footman. Then they drove at a brisk pace through the emerald lawns, shady groves, colorful flowers, limpid ponds, graceful fountains, and singing brooks of Wargold Woods, passing several ornate gates that marked private driveways. Eventually they turned into one, which opened automatically at their approach, and, after passing through several hundred yards of immaculate lawns and groves, approached a magnificent mansion in the style of a Gnotic cathedral. "How meaningless all this feels to me now," muttered Karnak sadly to A'Obija, making a gesture at the scene. There were tears on his cheeks. She paused in her involuted finger-twiddling to give him a sympathetic smile, and to squeeze his hand. Her hand felt cool. She gave a quick description of Koof's experience with the 'Karnak' persona in the graveyard, mentioning the fact that the 'Karnak' persona had chosen "I love you" as his last words. "I am pleased to hear that," he said. "I had a similar experience with a 'Koof' persona. It was dreadful. But it made me think about death, and about what it means to be alive, and I am very glad of that."

The carriage came to a stop, and Karnak led them to the house. As they ascended the front steps, the intricately carved and bejeweled front doors opened automatically, and the others followed Karnak in. They found themselves in a huge lobby, where several liveried servants knelt with bowed heads while Karnak passed. At the center of the lobby was a magnificent helical double staircase, with steps of white marble veined in light blue-green. As soon as Karnak stepped onto the first step, the staircase began to slowly turn, raising him up, while he stood with his hand on the intricate golden banister. The others followed. A'Obija and her assistants were a bit nervous about stepping on, having never encountered such a thing before, but all went well. As soon as they were all on, the staircase accelerated, and very quickly brought them to the fourth floor. Proceeding down a great hall decorated with paintings, statuary, and kneeling servants, they came to a great double door of oak.

Karnak knocked an intricate rhythm on the door. "Come in, Dear," called a woman's voice, faintly, from inside.

"I have company," he said.

"It's all right," she replied. The door opened, revealing a sumptuous bedroom with a huge, canopied bed. In the bed lay a woman; she was quite lovely, in spite of the dark blotches under her eyes, and a generally worn-out appearance. There was a stark contrast, though, between the sumptuous and unblemished beauty of the room, and the emaciated appearance of the woman herself.

"Hello, Darling," said the woman, smiling at Karnak. Turning to the others she said, "I hope ... you will forgive me for ... not getting up. I am ... not feeling well." A murmur of reassurance went through the group.

"Darling," said Karnak, sitting on the bed and taking her limp and emaciated hand, "I have brought a specialist to examine you. Her name is Doctor A'Obija." He glance at the doctor, who made a little bow.

"That's nice, Dear," she replied, weakly but pleasantly, "but why ... all ... the security?" She looked puzzled.

"I'll explain that later," he said. "May the doctor proceed?"

"Well, I don't ... want to be examined in ... front of all these ... people," she said, frowning a little.

"It is not necessary to undress," said A'Obija, quickly. "And if you wish, I can announce my diagnosis privately." She glanced quickly at Karnak, who nodded affirmatively.

"All right," said the woman, her voice very faint and tired. She looked sadly off to the side, at nothing in particular.

"Well, then, let us proceed," said A'Obija, but she paused a moment to glance pointedly at Karnak's telepath, enunciating in her mind, _I think she has just about figured it out by herself_. The telepath nodded faintly and went over to whisper to Karnak, who sighed sadly. A'Obija opened one of her suitcases and pulled out a jar and a drinking glass. "This jar," she said, holding it up for Karnak's wife (and everyone) to see, "contains water, which in turn contains millions of microscopic animals, called 'Cloringian water pixies.' They are distantly related to starfish, but that is not important. The important thing is, that they have been specifically bred for diagnostic purposes. If you please, I will ask you to hold a mouthful of this water in your mouth for a few breaths' time, without swallowing it. The water pixies will enter your bloodstream through the lining of your mouth, and circulate throughout your body. Many of them will then return to your mouth, bearing traces of their experiences. They are not harmful, and in fact you should feel nothing at all except the water in your mouth. When I give the signal, please empty the contents of your mouth back into the glass, and give it to me. I will then analyze it, and report on my findings." Opening the jar, she poured a little of the water into the glass, which she handed to Karnak. Karnak put his arm around his wife's shoulders and lifted her upper body, very tenderly, holding the glass to her lips, and tilting it slowly as her mouth opened. She closed her lips and nodded, and Karnak removed the glass and lowered her to the bed.

A'Obija set up a little hourglass. The time it measured seemed to extend indefinitely, but finally, the last grain of sand reluctantly agreed to fall into the lower portion. The doctor nodded to Karnak, who carefully helped his wife to sit up again and expel the water. As he handed the glass to A'Obija, she said, "Thank you, Sir. I will take this with me, and get in touch with you as soon as I finish my analysis. Kirinjila," she said, handing the glass to one of her assistants, "would you bottle this for me, please? Thank you!"

"Wait!" said Karnak. "Can you do your analysis here and now? If so, please do."

"Why yes, I can," she said, smiling approvingly at him. She then went to her suitcase and pulled out another jar, which contained three fish of different sizes and colors. Setting it on a table and removing the lid, she poured in the water from the glass. "This will only take a few moments," she said.

After a few breaths, the medium-sized fish suddenly swallowed the smallest fish.

A few breaths later, the largest fish suddenly swallowed the medium-sized fish.

A few breaths later, the largest fish went into convulsions. Its belly broke open, and the medium-sized fish emerged unharmed, a fragment of flesh trailing from its jaws. The largest fish, dead, rotated randomly in place, fragments of its flesh diffusing through the water. A moment later, the smallest fish burst out of the medium-sized one in a similar fashion.

All eyes were on A'Obija, trying to fathom her response to these events, but her face remained impassive. She turned to Karnak. "My diagnosis is complete, sir," she said.

"The rest of you, _out_!" said Karnak, pointing to the door. The security people looked as though they might be about to protest, but Karnak glared at them, and they hastened to leave. When they were gone, Karnak said, "What is it?"

"Your doctor was correct," she said, still impassive. "It is Tamilar's Pleroma."

"And the prognosis?"

A'Obija finally allowed herself to show emotion: deep sorrow and sympathy. Her skin changed to a darker shade. "I'm sorry," she said. "The original prognosis was also correct. It is incurable and fatal. Barring a miracle, she has only three days to live."

Karnak doubled up as if he had been punched. Then he straightened up again, opened his arms wide, threw his head back, and let loose an unearthly howl of grief. His wife reached weakly out and tugged on his shirt. He turned to her. She looked into his eyes. "I ... love you," she said.

Karnak collapsed onto the bed with hysterical sobs, holding her.

A'Obija packed up her equipment, and started for the door. "W-wait!" said Karnak, through his sobs. She paused, and he collected himself and came over to her. "Th-thank you!" he said, taking her hand.

"I'm sorry it turned out that way," she replied.

"I'm g-glad you came," he said, sniffling. "I wonder if you could take a m-message to Koof. I know that you d-don't know where he is, but I imagine he will eventually be in t-touch, to find out how this came out."

"That is quite possible," she said, impassively.

"Well, if you g-get a chance, please tell him that as soon as she ... as s-soon as she ... I am going to donate everything I own to the Kelosian Church. I am giving up being an arms m-merchant, and if his church will have me, I will b-become a monk. Tell him that I will always be g-grateful to him for making me think about what is and what is not truly valuable in life."

She stepped forward and gave him a wraparound hug. "I would be crying too," she said, patting him on the back, "but I don't have tear glands. Yes, I will tell him, and I congratulate you on your insights. You are in a good position to help your wife with her last days."

They separated again. Her skin had almost returned to its normal hue. "You may send your assistants back in to lug the suitcases," he said. "Please tell the others that we want to be alone until further notice. Thank you again for everything!"

"It was easy," she said, with a sad smile. "Do well!"

"Do well," he replied, saluting her, and smiling through his tears.
**********

Fall until you find your level."

(from the Psychodynamics of Sin,

by Saint Ledger the Defrocked)

Zarinia fell through the war. The single mind of her squad, using the abilities of the Witch, Altisia, stretched a hammock of protective shield from four of the insects below her; Zarinia fell into it, jerking the four machines off course, toward one another. As the machines bearing her comrades spiraled downwards, crippled by the mass of their riders, the group mind sealed Zarinia into a closed bag of shield, and also created small shields around each of the other Amazons.

The insects they rode continued to lose altitude, but managed to steer away from the Temple so as to avoid hexed bolts being fired from within. They eventually came to rest on the ground, in trees, and on rooftops. Even as _She_ fell, the squad was able to observe, partly by eye and partly by telepathy, that there were certain baffles in the machines, by which they took in air and let it out. Modifying the shield-substance, _She_ blocked these passages, effectively suffocating the machines, which went into convulsions and died.

That was a tactical error, for now the other machines did not hesitate to fire at them. In self-defense, _She_ quickly strengthened the shields around her bodies. Then _She_ also tried something else: _She_ created a shield that enveloped several of the nearby insects. _She_ modified it so that they were unable to fire out, and so that it prevented air from passing through. The beating of their wings now allowed the machines only to move within the bubble of the shield, without being able to move the bubble itself very far. Furthermore, they ran out of air to 'breathe.' When _She_ discovered telepathically that the flyer in one of the bubbles had gone into terminal convulsions, _She_ dissolved that bubble, leaving it to fall and crash.

Beginning to feel profound fatigue, _She_ contacted the Temple and explained her technique. Witches within the Temple, linked to telepaths, were now able to use the same device, defending _Her_ from a distance, as _She_ sought cover within a nearby building. At about the same time, the Dorish warriors, covered by their own shields, arrived near the Temple. They were able to provide further protection for _Her_ bodies, before Altisia became too fatigued. As soon as _She_ was relatively safe under the Dorish shields, _She_ once again divided into many individuals. As always, these individuals felt a sense of loss at being separate once more.
**********

"It is not women who seduce men, it is men's desire."

(Tarheest Lengor, _Soul Dynamics_ )

"Art initiates life"

(Lirindikell Arco)

Lessie began to have thoughts of being a mother. Her heart was no longer roiled, as it had been, and she felt that she had much more time and energy than she needed for herself alone. Ever since she could remember, she had played with dolls or otherwise fantasized having a child. In the last few years, though, her feelings about that had become stronger; she felt an agonizing love for the child of her dreams. Dolls, teddy bears, and pets were no longer acceptable substitutes. She realized that a goodly portion of her love for the mute boy was child-love that had overflowed her heart and spilled onto him. Her want grew large and larger, until her life seemed emptied by it. One morning, she had an intense and beautiful dream about being a mother. When she awoke, she felt changed.

That afternoon, after working in the kitchen, the boy returned to the room they shared. He found her there, and immediately sensed that she, and therefore their relationship, had irreversibly crossed over a crucial watershed. It frightened him. She, too, was nervous. She locked the door; then she looked deeply into his eyes, hugged him, and began to dance.

He also began to dance, as though the two of them were part of a mobile. As always, he felt deep love for her. He was intoxicated by her beauty and her personality. The dancing was a great pleasure, as always, but there was a difference in her movements, and a corresponding difference in his. He felt a goddess in her that he had often felt before, but never so strongly as now. He also felt again in himself the gods that he had felt so strongly, on the day that Lessie had caught him ogling her, and uncovered herself for him; they seemed to draw strength from her dance. Now again those gods were wordlessly urging him to surrender, to be possessed. He did not want to, and he felt nervous and irritable, as though someone were continually nagging him. He thought of leaving, but he sensed that whatever was happening was of immense importance to Lessie, and so he decided to stay. Besides, there was a great distracting sweetness in it all.

Lessie danced close, often touching him. As always, he felt that her dancing was generating its own music. Today, there seemed to be something a little ominous in it, low drums beating at the speed of a frightened heart. Like many fearful things, it was also exciting, fascinating.

Without ceasing to dance, Lessie began to undo the buttons on her blouse. The boy gave a little start; then he blushed. He felt his breath getting heavy; a warmth and a tingling spread all over him. With a combination of relief and disappointment, he saw that she was wearing a halter underneath. For awhile, Lessie danced with her blouse unbuttoned; the two sides swung this way and that, now concealing, now revealing.

Then she took the cuff of her left sleeve in her right hand; the boy felt an electric jolt pass through him. He saw the smooth, soft green of her shoulder emerge and emerge from the sleeve, followed by the flow and flow of her arm. Then her left hand re-appeared, supple and graceful, like a little dove. It took the opposite cuff in its beak, drew off that sleeve, and tossed the blouse into a corner. Again the boy had a feeling that he should stop dancing and leave the room, but again he did not. He felt transfixed, paralyzed by what he saw; his dance degenerated to a slight motion in place.

Above the waist, Lessie now wore only a halter. It swelled with her breasts. Their rounded tops emerged from it, they swung from side to side when she leaned, and they oscillated vertically whenever she took a step. The boy could see where her nipples were poking at the cloth. He went into a kind of shock, and felt as though a furnace had been lit inside him. It was hard to breathe. A part of his mind realized, as it crumbled, that this was only the beginning of a longer ritual. He put his hand into his pocket to re-position his penis, which no longer wanted to hang limply over his scrotum. He felt as if the interior of his groin was rearranging itself, and he felt his testicles rising as his scrotum contracted. It was an intensely pleasurable feeling. He had felt something like it before, but never so intensely as now.

Lessie gave a tug on the boy's shirt as she swooped past him. Shaking, he removed it. He also removed his trousers, which had become uncomfortable. He now wore only a distended loincloth.

Lessie had no desire to be a courtesan, but she had inherited many attitudes from Kor. In particular, she had inherited the idea that it was a tragic waste if sex were artless, or merely a matter of pleasure and procreation. In particular, she wanted her courtship dance to be beautiful, not just a crude striptease. In this she succeeded, even though it was an improvisation; she achieved her sexual display through moves that were elegant, graceful, and not without moments of humor. Each move was part of a beautifully developing pattern. She also managed to harmonize her movements with the boy's, in spite of his nervousness and hers.

Even more important, though, she wanted her dance to have a spiritual dimension; and she succeeded in balancing her own individuality with those of the goddesses that she was incarnating.

And then, as she indicated to the boy the drawstring of her skirt, she suddenly felt, drawing near, like a summer thunderstorm, the presence of a feral and magnificent goddess. It stirred her like the beginning of a great chorale. 'Ydris it must be,' she thought, and felt herself burning with blessedness. She lost all nervousness, and she seemed to have unlimited physical energy. She felt her child calling out to her from potentiality, and she felt the approach of the awesome miracle of conception, the creation of new human life, filling, surrounding, illuminating, and encouraging her. A whole cluster of goddesses were dancing with her, blessing and praising her. She danced them.

Lessie's dancing became more rapid and sinuous. Below the band of her halter, the two sides of her ribcage parted like the wings of an egret. Her torso below the ribs was muscular but smooth. A little valley ran from the end of her breastbone down to her navel. All of her torso was covered with almost invisibly soft and downy hair, light green and translucent. The movements of her pelvis accelerated, until they were as fast as the wing beats of a dove, and she soared.

She looked at the boy with love and yearning. Her eyes pleaded. She pointed again at the waist-string of her skirt, which was tied in a loop-knot at the side. Understanding, fearing, and desiring, the boy took hold of one of the ends, and held it as Lessie slowly moved away. There was tension, and then suddenly the knot released and relaxed. Gradually, the skirt worked its way down, over her widening hips. Suddenly it collapsed, and fell to the floor, and then one of her feet, like a green flamingo, picked it up and tossed it onto the blouse.

Underneath her skirt, she had been wearing a simple linen loincloth, hung from the waist, flexible enough to fall smoothly against her body as she leaned this way and that. He saw again the double curve of her hip that had fascinated him before. He was fascinated by the rounded valleys between the upper blades of her pelvis and her smooth belly, which made a slight protrusion just beneath her navel, and then tapered smoothly downward. When in her dancing she leaned backward, he also saw a hint of the soft peninsula at the bottom of the groin, that rose briefly beyond her thighs when she leaned backwards, and then retired modestly back between them.

Without even noticing it, the boy allowed the eager gods within him to possess him completely.

Lessie briefly turned her back to the boy, indicating with her hand the lacing that held her halter. He undid it. She turned back, and slowly removed it.

Worship struck him, like water from a broken dam. What a mystery, that these simple shapes could bear him, breathless, head over heels and away! He wanted to hold and kiss them, to lose himself in them. But at that moment, Lessie indicated one last knot to be untied. Trembling, he did it.

The upper edge of the loincloth, descending with hallucinatory slowness over the moving flesh, revealed the beginnings of converging groin lines, and the smiling crease on the gently swelling belly between them. Then he was captivated by her sumptuous, deep-green triangle of fur, graining towards its vertical axis as though guided by two symmetrical strokes of a comb.

Then, as this last piece of clothing slid from her hips and fell, Lessie became aware that the boy, too, was filled with and surrounded by a cluster of gods. They undressed him. Each of them made a pair with one of the goddesses inspiring Lessie, and they danced together. The male god that was most important was paired with Ydris; Lessie supposed that he must be Talar, the god of masculinity. Waves and tongues of light seemed to be leaping from the partners in every pair, and sparks arced between them.

Lessie and the boy danced slowly there, utterly naked before one another, astonished at one another, adoring one another; and at the same time, and in the same act, Ydris and Talar danced slowly there, utterly naked before one another, astonished at one another, and adoring one another. Lessie and the boy began to merge with their gods, as their mortal bodies stepped forward and began, very tentatively, to touch one other. Mortal woman and goddess trembled as the fingertips of mortal man and god reverently traced the contours and textures of her breasts. Mortal man and god shuddered as Lessie and the goddess brushed his belly with hers. They clamped; in a moment they were rolling on the bed, kissing and stroking and rubbing against each other, lost to the rest of the world. Soon they merged, and lost all sense of time, place, or individuality. They called out together, almost fearfully, as brilliant consummation wracked them.
**********

"Passion and weakness give birth to tragedy."

(Ragi Stottle)

Ling gave his would-be assassin a little time to recover, and then he removed the gag. "Well?" he asked. "Who put you up to this?"

The man looked ashamed of himself, but he answered. "I did it on my own account," he said.

"But what _motivated_ you?" asked Ling, extending one hand towards the man's crotch.

The man spoke rapidly. "I belong to the Epistolic Church of Lamenisia," he said. "They are opposed to your goals and methods. They are very worried about your upcoming anti-crime campaign in T'Dreeg. They are afraid that by advocating a non-violent approach to ending crime, you will influence people to be too easy on criminals. I felt that you ... had to be stopped."

_He seems to be telling the truth_ , thought Ling, _and it makes a certain sense. This lizard is a total amateur. They would never have sent him on purpose._ He shook his head. _Religion and idealism, he thought, they make people crazy. Now I'm going to have to kill him._ To his surprise, he felt reluctant to do so. _What's happening to me?_ he asked himself. _Am I weakening? Are Torothex's memories rotting my brain? Is there something wrong with my protective spells?_ He quickly ran a diagnostic on his self-protection spells, but they seemed to be functioning correctly. _Could the diagnostics be wrong?_ He felt a chill. A physical enemy he could wrestle with; but something in his mind?

**

Karesh the assassin returns to the Royal Palace. "Have you completed your mission?" asks the King, smiling.

"No, Your Majesty," replies Karesh.

The King is puzzled and disturbed. "Why not?"

"Your Majesty," Karesh replies, "you are my King, and I am your subject. I have no right to disobey you, or to demand anything from you."

_I wonder if the King also represents the gods_ , thought Ling, who had learned that symbolism could operate on many levels at once.

"But," continues Karesh, "I most humbly beg you, do not ask me to do this."

"Why not?" asks the King, standing up, and frowning over him. The guards raise their weapons. Several of them stand in front of the King. The lieutenant calls for reinforcements. They all know how dangerous Karesh is, even when unarmed.

"It is not _worthy_ of you to ask such a thing." replies Karesh.

For a moment, the King stands still, but like a stick balanced on its end, he soon collapses. Rage devours him.

"You lust after her, don't you?" he shouts, angrily. "You want her for yourself!"

"I love her wisdom, her intelligence, and her goodness," replies Karesh, "but no one who saw her qualities as clearly as I have, would ever want those for himself alone."

"Your request is denied," replies the King. "Go and carry out your orders, without delay!" He points to the door.

"I cannot live without obeying my sovereign," says Karesh, and he smashes himself in the nose with the heel of his hand, driving splinters of bone into his brain, killing himself instantly.

He falls to the ground. A doctor verifies his death. The King and his court are stunned. At that moment, a page announces that the Duchess desires an audience. "Certainly," says the King. "But first, remove this corpse and clean up after it."

Shortly thereafter, the Duchess enters. She is wearing a hooded robe. "I am very pleased to see you, my Dear Duchess," he says. "What can I do for you?"

"Just see me, My Lord," she says, dropping her hood and opening her robe. She has mutilated herself, just as Karesh had suggested. After a moment of shock, the King becomes even more furious than he was before, and orders her to be put to death.

There the opera ends.
**********

"An Emperor is one who has abdicated all power."

(Tlilist proverb)

"Some people are concerned," said the reporter, "that you may intend to establish a new dynasty."

Karngrevor looked disgusted. "My family has intervened thousands of times since the beginning of Theo-Anarchy," he said, "and it has always been to protect the Balance. This is my precedent, my mission, and my sacred trust."

"Normally, I wouldn't even have asked," replied the reporter, looking a little sheepish, "but this is a special situation. Many people say that the Prophetic Era is coming to an end, and that Theo-Anarchy will fail. People wonder whether you will establish a new order. I think that, for the first time, many are hoping that you will. They are afraid of chaos and civil war."

Now Karngrevor looked sad. "Those people have no sense of proportion," he said, nodding in the negative. "It is true that, so far as I know, I am honored to lead the most powerful military force in Kondrastibar. But that is saying very little, for all military forces in Kondrastibar are microscopic compared to the overall population. My army is superior in quality, but trivial in quantity. I don't have a thousandth of the units that would be needed to keep civil order throughout Kondrastibar. Neither does anyone else that I have heard of."

"There are rumors," continued the reporter, "that you are negotiating the formation of alliances."

"Those rumors are true," said Karngrevor, "although no alliance has actually been formed as of this time. But they are only to be alliances, not pledges of fealty. As one alliance member among others, I will be in no special position to make myself Emperor. Besides, I am a military man; I am not suited to running an empire."

"Agulinar Torothex has also been mentioned as a possible Emperor," said the reporter. "Is it possible that you would support him?"

Karngrevor sighed. " _Anything_ is possible," he said. "That is precisely our difficulty. But, why do so many people assume that a new dynasty will be established? Most of the prophecies don't say that; they only say that there will be a profound and unpredictable change. They don't even say that Theo-Anarchy will fall."

"As you say," replied the reporter, "the prophecies give little or no direction; they only state that the current situation will be drastically changed. I think that is why people assume that there will be chaos, barbarism, and civil war, and that an authoritarian government will be the only practical way to prevent this chaos."

"I am not yet convinced of that," said Karngrevor. "If and when I am convinced, I will join with others in trying to found a new dynasty."

"What if it then appears that you are the person most suited to become the Emperor?"

"Then I will attempt to do so."

"Would you support Torothex for Emperor?"

"I have immense respect for Torothex," said Karngrevor. "He is a profoundly good and gifted man. But he has devoted his entire adult life to being the _very opposite_ of a dictator. I believe that he would accept torture and death rather than take such a post. In fact, _no one_ alive today has any expertise in that field, except perhaps historians who study past dynastic eras. So I would perhaps support some historian."

" _You_ , some might say," pressed the reporter, "are the authoritarian leader of this army, and of your household and domain. That gives _you_ a certain expertise."

"They overestimate that," said Karngrevor, shaking his head negatively. "Technically, yes, I am the Duke and hence the absolute ruler of the Karngrevor domain. But in practice, I make little use of this. The reason our army is so effective is that soldiers and officers at every level are capable of making good decisions on their own. I and my whole general staff could be killed in action, and the army would go on fighting quite effectively. Any one with a grasp of tactical science knows that decentrally organized forces are superior, especially when communications are jammed. My main function is being a moderator in tactical seminars and in making group decisions. Sometimes I am like a coin that people flip when there is no other way to make a decision. I _never_ micromanage my vassals. The same goes for my family and my domain."

"Do you have any advice, then, for the people of Kondrastibar, as to how we should proceed in the post-prophetic era?"

"I think we should act on the basis of optimism," said Karngrevor. "If we assume that there is going to be a terrible catastrophe, then there probably will be, for people will be trapped in distrust and despair. Some will loot and hoard, others will consume without creating, others will be listless or suicidal, and civil order will break down. Some will form military organizations, which will frighten others into doing the same, and the resulting chain reaction will have everyone at odds with everyone. There would then be civil war and local rule by thugs.

"Instead, every person, every neighborhood, and every church should now be trying to build the most far-reaching alliances possible. To do this, one must build trust and solidarity by whatever means will work: making friends of strangers, sharing wealth, sharing expertise, revealing secrets, exchanging hostages, learning to accept differences, accepting cultural influences, intermarriage, and, if you can bring yourself to trust enough, the greatest thing of all: the destruction of weapons, the destruction of fortifications, and the disbanding of armies and paramilitary organizations.

"To each person I would say, 'Have courage, take a risk, make yourself vulnerable; you won't be likely to survive mob rule and civil war, anyway. Better to die in the attempt to make the world more beautiful, than to live a few more weeks, days, or hours by oppressing or destroying others.'"

"Are _you_ going to disband _your_ army, Sir?" asked the reporter, with raised eyebrows.

"I have no such plans at the present time," said Karngrevor. "I am asking the people of Kondrastibar to trust me. I intend to do what my family has done for countless generations – to use our military power unselfishly for the common good. We will do just what we did today – we will act against those who, like the terribly misguided Trobish mercenaries, attempt to use the uncertainties of these times to seize power. If the history of House Karngrevor, and the other considerations I have mentioned, do not suffice to win your trust, then I have, I'm afraid, nothing to add; but as of this moment, this seems to me to be the best path."
**********

"If you can't overcome the forces of evil, then join them"

( _The Book of Irony_ )

The Temple of Ydris shook. The Abbess sat in her command center, concentrating. Her mind went telepathically from one enemy machine to another, looking for a master controller. She was hoping to use Calcadro's strategy: destroy the control center, causing the whole force to lose purpose. Where was it? _There!_

"I've got it!" she said, excitedly. "But ... "

"What's the problem?" asked Linzualiru, the Matriarch of Witches.

"It's too high," replied the Abbess. "It's way up there. Almost a horizon. None of our weaponry can reach it."

There was a loud crash from nearby. Agonized screams could be heard.

"There is a way!" said Linzualiru. "Mind exchange! I can do it!"

A hundred objections came to the Abbess' mind. The Temple shook again, and a large crack appeared in the wall in front of the Abbess, who could see it through the minds of others. _Not much to lose_ , she thought. "Go ahead!" she said.

"Hold my body," said Linzualiru to two nearby Amazons. "It's about to be possessed by an enemy soul!" They grabbed her, one with a full nelson, and the other by the ankles. She muttered a spell. Suddenly, her body convulsed. Its face twisted in fury, its eyes flashed with hatred. It tried to thrash free. The Amazon holding its ankles lifted them up, depriving it of a basis. It writhed and twisted in the air, forcing the two Amazons to step this way and that, in order not to lose their balance.

_Are you there, Linzualiru?_ thought the Abbess.

_Yes!_ replied the Witch. _Give me a moment to figure this out!_

There was another explosion. An Amazon posted at the door suddenly rushed inside and shut it. "They're inside!" she shouted, leaning against the door while another Amazon barred it.

_Take your time, Linzi,_ thought the Abbess. _Be careful!_

The center of the door began to glow red-hot. The guards took cover in a circle around the door, aiming their weapons at it. The Abbess crawled under her desk. She heard a great crash, and the room was filled with sparks, dust, and smoke. She heard screams and curses. The other minds in the room blinked out. Deprived of sight, she heard whirring and squeaking, and smelled the smell of burnt flesh. She took a pill from an inner pocket, put it into her mouth, and prepared to bite down on it. Then there was silence.

_Got it!_ thought Linzualiru.

_Good girl!_ thought the Abbess. She began to laugh and cry at the same time. She put the pill back in her pocket.

_I told them all to cease fire and land_ , thought Linzualiru. The Abbess began to work her way out from under the desk.

_You know what I could do_ , thought Linzualiru, _I could take them all back where they came from, and attack!_

_Don't do that_ , thought the Abbess, slowly straightening up, _they probably all have an auto-destruct signal._ An Amazon entered the room, and the Abbess used her to see with. _But maybe we can – Oh, no!_

_What's wrong?_ thought Linzualiru.

_Oh, Linzi – your body, back here – it's been destroyed!_ The Abbess was horrified. In a few hundredbreaths, the mind exchange would come to an end, and Linzualiru would have to return to her own body. It was barely identifiable – torn apart and burned during the battle with the machines that now stood unmoving at the door.

_Ah-h-h-h_ , thought Linzualiru, as the import of what the Abbess had thought impressed itself upon her. At that moment she was just settling to the ground, folding her mechanical wings against her sides. One part of her mind was searching madly for a clever solution, a way out, while the other part was saying that no one had ever found a way to prolong one's stay in an exchanged body. Well, she had heard rumors of master criminals who made permanent exchanges, or harvested souls, using forbidden techniques from the Zoroid Dynasty. But how to find and get help from such a person in fifteen hundredbreaths? The resigned part of her mind gained the ascendancy.

_Abbess_ , she thought, _I want to say that I love you dearly, and admire you greatly. It has been a profound honor to serve you. And please pass on to everyone that it has been a great privilege to know them all. As I quickly look over my life, I find that I have some major regrets, but they are all things that happened before I entered the service of Ydris, and came to know her wisdom and her love. We all die anyway, and I can't think of a better way to die than this, in the service of Ydris and her daughters. I am really amazingly lucky, much luckier than I deserve to be._

_Linzualiru!_ interrupted the Abbess. _The people who made those machines presumably know how to keep souls alive in them indefinitely! Mightn't there be a way that you can simply break your own spell and remain there, while we figure out the next step?_

The un-resigned part of Linzualiru's mind came hesitantly back to the fore. She didn't know any way to break her own spell without returning to her original body, but she began to search the data banks of the machine for information. Unfortunately, the machine apparently only knew enough to carry out its mission; it had no idea how it sustained the souls within it. _What about medical emergencies,_ thought the Abbess, _what does the machine do if it is damaged in such a way that the guiding soul is at risk?_ Linzualiru looked at these procedures, but again found nothing of the sort the Abbess had been hoping for.

_I'm sorry, Abbess_ , she thought, _As far as I know, I'm just going to pop back into what's left of my old body when the spell wears out. But it's not so bad, you know. As I said, it's a good way to die, and what's more, I'll be with Ydris! In fact, you're just jealous, you Earthbound old crone!_ Linzualiru and the Abbess had had a long history of affectionate insults.

The Abbess heard running footsteps in the hallway. She felt a number of minds enter the Command Room, squeezing past the frozen machines. They were appalled at the carnage, but overjoyed to see the Abbess still alive. The Abbess held her finger to her lips. "Linzualiru has disabled the enemy," said the Abbess, and put her finger to her lips again. One of the newcomers whispered to another, who nodded, and went running back the way they had come.

Linzualiru began to chant the _Preparation for Death_ :

Freely, joyfully, and lovingly do I give my soul to you, O Blessed and Holy Mother Ydris! I give it without reservation. It is yours to judge, and yours to do with as you will. I hope that I have served you well. I thank you for the meaning and the direction that you have given to my life. I thank you for the beauty and goodness that you have enabled me to see. Know that I love you, Revered Goddess, and know that I pass away with your image in my heart and your name on my lips.

Freely, joyfully, and lovingly do I give my soul to you, O Blessed and Holy Mother Ydris! I give it without reservation. It is yours ...

The Abbess was still eager to try for a solution, but she couldn't bring herself to interrupt the Last Rite unless she had something definite. Scanning the group of newcomers, she found a teenaged girl who was a Witch's Disciple. Using gestures, the Abbess got the girl's attention, pointed to her, and beckoned her to come over.

At that moment, somewhere in the distance, a sweet, brilliant, and high-pitched bell began to peal. Another one joined it, and another. More and more joined in, until it was impossible to focus on the sound of any single one. The victory bells! The others in the room began to sing the "Hymn of Victory":

Joy is ours, for we have prevailed

Those who have died have not died in vain

We will heal and we will build

And bring their beauty back again ...

The Abbess felt drenched by a fountain of relief. She yearned to join her voice to theirs, but she didn't want to stop thinking about Linzualiru.

"What's your name, Lass?" she asked the girl.

"I am Orindl, Most Holy Mother," replied the girl, breathless with reverence.

... _I hope that I have served you well. I thank you for the meaning ..._

"Orindl! Can you tell me, very quickly, something about soul exchange? What it is that binds the soul to its original body, so that it must return within a short time?"

Joy is ours, for we have prevailed...

"It is called 'quarklet bonding,' Most Holy Mother," replied Orindl, nervously. "The force, mediated by gluoles, is independent of distance, but decreases exponentially with time."

_Wrong question!_ thought the Abbess.

... _It is yours to judge, and yours to do with ..._

"Orindl! Our Head Witch, Linzualiru, has mind-exchanged with one of the souls from the machines that attacked us. But her body, here in this room, has been injured far beyond repair. When her soul returns, it will find no viable body."

And bring their beauty back again ...

"Is there anything you can think of, however far-fetched, that we might do to save her?"

... _with your image in my heart and your name on my lips._

"Well, yes," said Orindl, looking puzzled at the question. "Have her shoot herself."
**********

"Is there any prison smaller than your self?"

(Hizzer the wanderer)

Wond, in the youthful, resurrected body of Kor in the temple garden, sat, and focused her attention – a fragment of the Universe's attention - on the growing tip of a tiny redwood seedling. In its intricate, self-directed growth, it seemed to Wond to be a kind of miniature version of his entire being.

_If everything were perfect and complete at the beginning_ , thought Wond, through Kor, _its completeness and perfection would not be a significant achievement. It could only stay at the same level, or go downhill. And, given all the imperfections I have seen in our world, I would have to say that if it started out perfect, is has gone downhill a long way, indeed! Why, I wonder, would a perfect creator god create anything imperfect? That would be lowering the overall quality of the universe! How much more wondrous the universe is, given that it has evolved, like this plant, step by step from a humble beginning! But that means that, ironically, it has, in a different sense, always been perfect._

Earlier, Kor/Wond had found envy and competition to be silly; but now the Kor viewpoint realized that they were necessary. The universe had to pass through more primitive stages before it could arrive at more advanced ones.

The growth of the plant, intricate and beautiful though it was, was only a small part of the growth of the Universe, and an incomplete picture of it. And yet, it was an essential part. Looking at Kor's life with Kor's part of its mind, the Universe also detected a process of evolution, one which reflected the greater process, and participated in it, just as the growth of the plant did. The Kor part of Wond experienced a deep relief at this; all the suffering she had been through, all the tragedy she had seen, had, at least, a meaning, a purpose. She wept.

When her weeping was spent, she remembered the scripture, and how it had said that an individual's development required alternating periods of Self-forgetting and Self-remembering, just as the plant experienced day and night.

_But_ , thought Wond, using Kor's mind, _that means that Kor must be reborn!_

"Yes, indeed!" said a familiar voice.

Wond turned its Kor-attention in that direction, and saw a bit of itself, an old man, standing there. "Ixuan!" said Kor. After thinking for a moment, she asked, "Are you also still with me in the Underworld?" Privately, she thought, _Really, I am neither here nor there; I am in the tent with Isiliar and K'Sell. K'Sell makes an illusory Ixuan, and an illusory Temple. They distort the truth so that my mortal mind can grasp it. For that matter, am I really with K'Sell in the tent, or is that just another level of illusion? I guess it must be, since I am the Universe, and the Universe can't be inside a tent! So it is the reverse of what I thought: this now is the reality, and the others were illusions!_

"I think you just answered your own question," said Ixuan. "But now, it is time for you – the Kor part of you, I mean - to be reborn!"

"But the Kor part of me is so _happy_ in the Temple garden," replied the Universe. And that was true, even though she knew the Temple and its gardens were largely illusions. _That's religion for you,_ the Kor-part thought, _literally false, figuratively and crucially true. A perpetual oxymoron._ The Universe decided that, in spite of her difficulties with Theology, the Kor-part would ask yet another question.

"How is it possible for me to be reborn?" she asked.

"The soul is often compared to a book describing the body, and giving directions for running it," replied Ixuan, "and also containing the memory, like a diary. This book is, so to speak, written in the body itself. It used to be the case, that when the body died, the soul was also gone. But recently, it has been possible for K'Sell and others to use the ectoplasmic reticulum to make a copy of the soul every so often. Then, if the body dies, a new body can be made from the most recent copy."

"Why don't we remember, then?"

"The memories are there, but buried deeply. K'Sell and those allied to him have ideas similar to those in the Scriptures of Wond. Certain kinds of people can only find meaning through struggle and death. Wond does not refuse to create such people. In order to accommodate them, he has to hide the fact of reincarnation from them. But he also does not wish for them to be deluded for ever, so he makes it possible for them to progress from life to life, gradually accumulating _tal_. _Tal_ consists partly in a grasp of the one-ness of things. A person more developed in _tal_ is therefore less egocentric. You experienced a very high level of this aspect of _tal_ , when you experienced yourself as identical to the entire Universe. When you enter your next incarnation, you will not remember this, but you will feel a little less isolated, a little less fearful."

"But," said Kor, "what about people who died before the Ectoplasmic Reticulum was used in this way? Do they never get a chance to acquire _Tal_?"

"Yes, they do," said Ixuan. "To see why this is so, you must consider two things. First, The Universe is so huge, and so long-lasting, that anything that _can_ happen, _will_ happen, and will in fact happen many times. So anyone who appears once will appear again. What is lacking in this case is continuity of memory, unless it happens by accident. That is, the personality does not evolve, but changes (or not) more or less randomly. Eventually, however, such a being will be reincarnated in a time such as ours, in which reincarnation is more systematic. He will then have the same advantages."

"That sort of made sense," said Kor, "though it was awfully abstract for this particular mind. But this state is so beautiful, and so true; I don't want to leave it. I don't want to be trapped in a single tiny self again."

"I won't force you," said Ixuan, "but you might consider that your resistance to rebirth comes from that tiny self."

Kor was puzzled by this, but then suddenly she saw it: she had, without realizing it, slipped back into thinking of herself as that particular being, in that particular place and that particular time. It was only Kor, not Wond, who was in the temple garden, rather than anyplace else. As soon as she realized this, she once again thought of herself as a viewpoint of Wond; and Wond was no more disturbed by the idea that a tiny piece of itself would temporarily lose full consciousness than mortals are afraid to stop thinking of their toes.

And besides, in looking at the seedling, the Kor aspect of Wond had seen that everything that happened was perfect. If she lost her sense of identity with the Universe, that loss would not be a tragedy, it would be just the form that perfection took at that moment.

Wond laughed. "Yes, Dearie! Now I see! How wonderful! Very good, on to the next incarnation!" She found herself giggling; it was just so silly to think in that small way. It reminded her of how Lessie had giggled, after her first prayer experience. _I think I understand her better now_ , she thought.

"For the moment, just follow me," said the Ixuan-part to the Kor-part, and rose into the air. The Kor-part followed him. It did not seem strange to her that she could fly; it was effortless and beautiful. It reminded her briefly of those moments when she had felt able to be completely spontaneous, and everything had gone perfectly, without any willing on her part. They rose up, joining a stream of souls that were passing over a nearby hill. As she passed over the hill, the Kor-part saw a river on the other side. The stream of souls converged on the river and settled into it, and Wond made his Kor-part follow.

The water was warm and comfortable, and she felt no need to breathe. She let the current take her where it would; there was little sense of movement. She thought momentarily of Anandra's scripture: "Shaliria, the Goddess of Love, is like a vast river."

She remembered hearing about a religion (she couldn't remember the name), which said that every person had two _I's_ , a _big I_ and a _little I_. It had not made any sense to her at the time, but now she thought she might understand it. Wond was the big I, Kor the little I.

She also remembered Ydnas' saying, that people are like mirrors. _Ways I see myself_ , thought the Universe. _Through my Kor-part, I can see the interior of Kor's room, when only she is there._

A moment later, the Kor-part found herself floating on her back in a still pool, in a small, dim cavern, looking up at Ixuan. The water felt neither warm nor cold, and held her body up with no need for motion on her part. She felt completely comfortable and relaxed.

"We now come," said Ixuan, "to the point that many people find the most frightening to contemplate: the amnesia point, at which your memories of your current life will become unconscious."

In her mind, Kor heard K'Sell speak, from back in the tent: _Don't worry, Kor, you will regain all your memories as soon as the experience is over._

"I assure you," continued Ixuan, "that none of your memories will be lost forever; they will only be locked away temporarily. You will not feel any lessening or annihilation, nor will you feel any memories slipping away. When you lose one, you will already have forgotten ever having had it, and so you won't miss it, or hunt for it. Your stream of consciousness will continue unbroken, as you experience the present. It might be helpful to reflect on the fact that even during a single lifetime, only a tiny fraction of your experiences are ever brought back to consciousness from memory.

"As I said before, none of your memories will be permanently lost. In order to demonstrate this fact, I will now grant you access to all your past memories, from all your previous lives. Take as much time as you wish to go over them, and don't worry, I will not allow them to overwhelm you."

Kor had never given much credence to reincarnation, and she felt nearly overwhelmed, just by the _idea_ that she had access to such memories. She sat there, expectantly waiting for something to happen.

... _and she remembered another time that she had sat, expectantly waiting; it was her wedding day, and it was time for the groom to come to her chamber and lead her to the chapel. There was a knock on the door. "Please enter, my Love!" she said, standing. The door opened, and there he was! What joy she felt, and what love! She rushed into his arms, confident that the most important challenge of her life was about to be beautifully, brilliantly met._

Back in the pool, Kor came to herself, and felt sadness that in her present lifetime, she had never had a love like that. She didn't know if it would have any effect, but she resolved that in her next life, she would give such things a higher priority.

... _And then she remembered the unbearable sadness and humiliation, that he had felt - Kor had been a man in that incarnation – as his dearly beloved had rejected him, and left him forever ..._

... _And then, from another life, the terrible doubt – do I have the strength to love, year upon year, through trials and temptations ...?_

... _And from another, the joy of new love at last, like spring after a long, hard winter ..._

... _And the strange combination of terrible guilt, deep sadness, and relief, as she severed the withered bond, and walked away ..._

... _And having her husband chosen for her, and vowing to make the best of the inevitable ..._

... _And forgetting everything, losing herself, in the blissful ecstatic intensity of sex with one deeply loved ..._

... _And the wonder of watching her new husband grow, and become even more of a man, ..._

... _And the horror of sitting by his wife's bedside, day after day, helplessly watching this once-vibrant woman shrink towards death ..._

... _And remembering their first meeting, so long ago, and wondering, Was that really me? ..._

... _And praying, please, please, take away this jealous rage, and give me the strength to forgive ..._

... _And being young, and thinking, can this be love? ..._

... _And renouncing sexual love, and joining a celibate order ..._

... _And trapped in a life as a common prostitute ..._

... _And the horror of realizing, that his wife was not the woman he had thought she was when they courted, ..._

... _And falling to her knees in gratitude, thinking, yes, I do have the strength for this ..._

... _And watching him go off to war ..._

... _And the anguish of falling hopelessly in love with the wrong person ..._

... _And being alone ..._

... _And looking at her with astonishment, and thinking, 'Whatever did I see in her?'_

... _And dying in her arms ..._

... _And realizing that she herself was what everyone was disgusted by, and would kill: a Lesbian, ..._

... _And the horror, the humiliation, of discovering his infidelity ..._

... _And feeling love so intense it was painful ..._

... _And remembering their last meeting ..._

... _And being forced to marry the man she despised, and catching sight of her true love now and then in the street ..._

... _And her letting him kiss her, at last ..._

... _And the fulfillment of a secret tryst, risking death gladly ..._

... _And visiting his grave ..._

... And then she came to herself again, floating in the pool, looking up at Ixuan. She was speechless for a moment. Then she said, "Why, that is terrible, that I have been deprived of all those memories!"

"What would you have done," asked Ixuan, "if you had had them?"

"Why – why, that's not the point! They are part of me! You lessen me by taking them away, just as you lessen me by constricting me into a single life!" and then, she became confused, for she realized that Ixuan, or Wond, or whoever it was that was going to constrict her into a single life, was only _herself_. It was _she_ who was going to close off these memories, and _she_ who was going to make the Kor-part feel, once again, that she was only a single individual human, with a single lifetime. It was she/Wond that had decided to do things this way, in order to give meaning to life, as described in the scriptures. And, she realized, she had in some sense already lived all her lives, even her future ones, for she, Wond, was pure possibility, and therefore already included them all, at every moment of time. Indeed, as Wond, she included, timelessly, not only all lives of all people, but everything that could happen to anything, even to the tiniest grain of dust.

"Never mind, Dearie," she said aloud. "I got confused for a moment there! I mean, _Kor_ got confused. I mean – never mind!"

"Perfectly all right," said Ixuan. "As a matter of fact, some people do remember other lives, while they are in mortal form, just as they sometimes recognize their unity with the Universe while they are in mortal form. I believe that you have done that at times, though only very vaguely."

... _And she remembered a time, when he was traveling in a strange land, and yet it looked familiar ..._

... _And another time, when she had met a stranger, and suddenly she was in love with him, had been in love with him, ..._

... _And another time, when he had looked into a mirror, and somehow the face he saw seemed wrong ..._

... _And another time, looking at the crowd, and thinking, 'They are like children,' ..._

... _And another time, when the way everyone around her did things seemed bizarrely wrong ..._

... _And another time, when a poem by a long-dead author had cut her to the quick, and she could not say why ..._

... _And another time, when she saw a portrait from hundreds of years ago, and felt she knew the subject ..._

... _And another time, when the sight of a stranger had inexplicably filled her with dread..._

... _And another time, when she looked at her family and friends, and they all seemed strange, ..._

... _And another time, when she felt homesick, and yet she was at home ..._

... _And another time, when, sitting in the Temple of Alxior, she had suddenly remembered being a warrior ..._

And then suddenly she gave a start of surprise, thinking, ' _I_ was a _warrior_???' and another flock of memories swirled down upon her:

She remembered, riding over the crest of a hill, and seeing, below, a column of the enemy, making its way along the road ...

And she remembered, the feelings of disbelief, outrage, horror, and then self-hatred and despair, as cold steel found his heart ...

And she remembered, shuddering with fear, and thinking, 'I can't make myself do this, I haven't the courage!' ...

And she remembered, the profound loyalty, the profound understanding, among those who fight together, who protect each other, who owe each other their lives, and who share danger, guilt, suffering, and fate, ...

And she remembered the cries and pleadings of the wounded, like the lowing of a huge herd of cattle ...

And she remembered, emptying a cauldron of flaming pitch over the ladder-climbers, and watching them fall like screaming meteors ...

And she remembered, parched for femininity, finding a camp-follower, and being unfaithful to his wife, and then feeling soiled ...

And she remembered, his buddy's rigid, lifeless face, never again to laugh or speak ...

And she remembered, laughing as he tortured the prisoner, ...

And she remembered, attaching himself to an old veteran, who would be his mentor ...

And she remembered, thinking, 'It is over! It is really over! And I am still here! I am still alive! Can it be so? No, it can't be! But it is! Yes, it is!' and laughing joyfully, and seeing ordinary things as sublimely beautiful ...

And she remembered, looking dumbly at his shattered arm and thinking, without emotion,'Oh, that is what my bone looks like!' ...

And she remembered charging the enemy in a rage, and feeling intense satisfaction as blood spat out around his sword ...

And she remembered, holding up his shield, and looking to the left and the right, and seeing a long line of similar shields, and another line behind that, and another, and feeling strong, invincible ...

And she remembered, despising civilians who lived off the fruits of war, but never fought, ...

And she remembered, sitting around the campfire, singing songs and laughing ...

And she remembered, forcing himself to torture the prisoner, ...

And she remembered, the endless march, thinking of nothing but making himself to take one more step ...

And she remembered, feeling guilty, because he had survived, and his comrades had not ...

And she remembered, feeling everything go right – as if in a dance, or a dream, meeting one opponent after another and overcoming them one by one, effortlessly ...

And she remembered, being ashamed to be taken prisoner, but being exhausted, and in pain, and wanting to live, or at least to stop forcing himself to be ever brave and honorable, ...

And she remembered, falling in love with one of the enemy ...

_And she remembered, the insane joy of looting, breaking open cabinets and vaults, tossing things to his comrades, whooping and laughing, pouring fine wine over his head, just_ _touching_ _one thing after another, and sharing in the mass, repeated rape of enemy women ..._

And she remembered, patriotic celebrations, songs, and speeches, ...

And she remembered, laughing at the way civilians complained about trivial things ...

And she remembered, helplessly watching the vulture, until it plucked out both his eyes ...

And she remembered, feeling kindly towards the new recruit ...

And she remembered, the promised reinforcements never showing up ...

And she remembered, hiding his son under the floor, while the army recruiters searched the village ...

And she remembered, holding up his shield, and looking to the left and the right, and seeing a long line of shields, and another line behind that, and another, and feeling very vulnerable, anyway ...

And she remembered, glowing with pride, because he had not run away ...

And she remembered, hesitating outside the recruitment office ...

And she remembered, sitting in the tent with maps, needing to make decisions, but lacking information ...

And she remembered, fraternizing with the enemy, ...

And she remembered, being under siege, the twentieth day without food ...

And she remembered, being willing to die for General Tsikigliash...

And she remembered, the pain going on and on and on and on, and wanting to die, but too weak to do anything at all ...

And she remembered, deserting, and realizing it was a mistake, and that it was too late to go back ...

And she remembered, being honored as a hero ...

And she remembered, the long line of prisoners, hundreds of them, leading to the temple where they would be offered as human sacrifices ...

And she remembered, the victory parade, with people on both sides of the street cheering them ...

And she remembered, the wall beginning to crumble under the blows of the ram ...

And she remembered, accepting the suicide mission ...

And she remembered, watching his own son, at two years old, playing with a stick sword ...

"By all the gods," she exclaimed to Ixuan, "what a strange and terrible life!"

"But a very common one," said Ixuan, "and one that every mortal lives, many times over."

The Kor-part shook her head, trying to clear it of the horrifying imagery. "There must be some way," she said, "to do without war forever."

"There is," said Ixuan.

"What is it?" asked the Kor-part.

"If everyone had as much _tal_ as Kor has," said Ixuan, "who would go to war?"

" _No_ one," said the Kor-part, firmly. "I'd rather die! I'd rather see all my friends and family die!"

_But she remembered addressing the crowd and saying, "Make no mistake - we_ _will_ _defend ourselves!" ..._

And she remembered addressing the crowd and proudly declaring, "We will create an empire greater than the world has ever seen!"

And she remembered advising the Prince, "We must manufacture an incident," ...

And she remembered thinking, "The Ventaminor have forsaken the Lord, and chosen to worship idols. We must cleanse the world of them!"

And she remembered standing at the side of the road, hysterically cheering the passing soldiers...

And she remembered, inventing a new kind of arrow poison, ten times as deadly as any known before...

And she remembered addressing the crowd, saying, "Are we cowards?"

And she remembered forcing herself not to look desolate at her son's funeral; looking proud, instead, that he had died a hero...and remembering him toddling after lightning-bugs ...

And she remembered, addressing the other generals and saying "We must strike the Su now, for otherwise, they will eventually strike us, and whoever makes the first strike has a terrific advantage!"

And she remembered saying to the Council, "We must institute a draft."

And she remembered saying, "The Rabibiji are not fully human."

And she remembered saying to the Matriarch, "If the Islands are opened to outsiders, we will be able to send missionaries there."

And she remembered saying, "We must begin a campaign to reconcile the public to a war with Trivilgia."

And she remembered addressing the crowd and saying, "War is a terrible thing, but this war will lead to just and lasting peace!"

And she remembered eagerly thinking, "If war comes, I will be a rich man!"

And she remembered being a Patriarch, and blessing the catapults as they lumbered past ...

And she remembered saying, "I find you very attractive, Zhak, and I have no lover right now, but I could never get involved with a boy who stays home while others go to war."

And she remembered advising the President, "If we go to war, all these embarrassing issues will fade into the background" ...

And she remembered saying, "The Arliks are sunk in superstition and savagery; it is our duty to open their land to progress, enlightenment, trade, and investment!"

And she remembered saying, "They killed your son! They killed your son! Do you not want them destroyed?"

"Oh!" said Kor, in disgust and horror, as she came to herself. "I am so ashamed!" She flailed her arms in the water, trying to escape from Ixuan's gaze. Her guts were soaked with acid guilt. Bad enough to be a soldier, taking the same risks he inflicted on others; much, much worse to be a parasite on war, to nurture war from afar, ...

Ixuan laid a gentle hand on her forehead. "Everyone has done those things, Kor, or will do them" he said. "It felt right to you at the time. Let that fact help you to find compassion for those who still do such things."

Kor wiped her tears with wet hands. "I'm feeling overwhelmed," she said. "I don't know whether I can handle any more of this." _Already_ , she thought, _my sense of the meaning and necessity of suffering, of the perfection of the world, is fading... I suppose that is part of returning to mortal existence..._

"Think about the times that you have worked for peace," suggested Ixuan.

And she remembered, being a child, the peacemaker in the family ...

And she remembered, after three days of negotiation, finding a compromise that everyone would agree to ...

And she remembered saying, "Never mind, it's not worth fighting over."

And she remembered, reining in his anger, speaking softly ...

And she remembered saying, "If the Kalashirpoi want to be independent, what right have we to deny it to them?"

And she remembered thinking, "I don't really need all those things. Why am I fighting for them?"

And she remembered, fraternizing with the enemy.

And she remembered saying, "If we surrender to the Alishiniks, then we will finally be able to talk to them, and they will finally be able to see what we are really like."

And she remembered talking quietly to her friend, until he began to calm down.

And she remembered saying, "If the Kiulin were to occupy our country, the life of us humble folk would be little worse than it already is ...

And she remembered, being shot for refusing to fight.

_And she remembered saying, "It is not how long you live, but what you have lived_ _for_ _."_

And she remembered, participating in a non-violent demonstration.

And she remembered, volunteering to be a mediator.

And she remembered, preaching the gospel of peace.

And she remembered, talking quietly to the occupation soldiers, while they pretended not to listen.

And she remembered saying to her children, "You must learn to share."

And she remembered, refusing to use the language of hate ...

Again she returned to the pool. "That was a great relief," she said to Ixuan, "but ... why is it so hard? Why do people keep going back to war, the worst thing in the world?"

"Keep remembering," said Ixuan, "and keep thinking. You have had enough experiences to ground lots of insights. Take all the time you need. There is no hurry. It is partly by thinking on these things that you will acquire _tal_."

_Actually_ , _Kor_ , thought K'Sell from the tent, _sometimes people spend years doing that. You may very well, when you actually die. But you probably don't want to take years now. I can skip you forward to the end of the process._

_Very well,_ thought Kor, though she was tempted: she was so desperate to understand!

"I think I'm ready now," she said to Ixuan. She felt a warm and quiet peace, for she had, at least tentatively, come to terms with her past, and she had faith that what was coming was only sleep, and that after the sleep, she would continue, probably unknowingly, in the struggle to make things better.

"Very good," said Ixuan, and he left the cavern, which became completely dark and silent. The Kor-part simply lay there, floating. Her mind relaxed, and stopped chewing on problems. Past and future faded. She was satisfied just to exist. She forgot about having a body. She stopped thinking of herself as anyone in particular. After awhile, her consciousness no longer noticed whether it was happy or sad, or that time was passing, or even that it existed, for it had ceased to have any notion of such things. All opinion gone, all passion lost. Not even conscious of itself as such, it shrank to bare and simple being. Then not even that; and then the sound of a heartbeat coming from all around.
**********

"Evil is thought of as dark, because it comes from ignorance."

(Handbook of Soul Dynamics, 12,543rd Edition)

Lighting the lamp again, Srea Kula drew _The Book of Darkness_ out of his pack. His Bishop had said that it might be relevant to someone having a crisis of faith. Opening it, he saw that it was a collection of short pieces. It began with the following poem:

I.

Why, gods, tell me why

You see our pain and do not do a thing.

I served you all my days as best I could,

And watched my innocent child fall ill and die.

If it had been your child, gods,

I would have comforted and saved it, if I could.

Why, gods, tell me why

I must grow old, while you all live forever.

How does it make you strong,

That my limbs wither?

Do you hear better,

As my ears grow deaf?

Does it give you wisdom,

When I grow foolish?

What made you pleased,

That I should grow incontinent?

What burden does it help you bear,

That I must be a burden to those I love?

Why, gods, tell me why

The wicked flourish and the good decay?

Why is your garden full of death and shriveling,

And why have you planted in my soul,

The seeds of good and seeds of evil together,

So that I must be an enemy, even to myself?

Would you be pained, were I at peace?

Why do you give us love for life

And yet doom us to die?

Why do you give us love for others,

But so little power to help them?

Why do you give us standards

That you know we never can meet?

Why do you give us choice,

Whom you made fallible,

Foolish, tempted and infirm?

Does it make you laugh?

If I had made you, gods above,

I would have made you strong,

I would have made you beautiful, and wise.

Why didn't you do the same for me?

Is it only mortal hearts, oh gods,

That can feel love, or even pity?

Are you angry with me, gods,

That I am no better than you made me?

Am I being tested in this life?

But you already know what the test will show,

Before you choose to make me.

Are you sickened

By your own handiwork?

Was I a toy,

Now come to bore you?

Or are you like a child,

Pulling the wings off flies?

Oh gods, I have served you all my life,

And when I prayed to you, beside my dying child,

You gave me only silence.

Are you so cruel, or just embarrassed?

Oh gods, if I am wrong, illuminate me,

Or punish me as you will,

But I must pity you.

My love for you comes all to grief,

My hopes for you fade to despair.

I wish I could admire you, and I have tried.

Do you despise a mortal like myself?

Is it because I honestly express,

What I have tried so hard not to believe?

'The Bishop was right,' thought Srea Kula. 'This mentions several of the issues that Sre Lugu and I have been wondering about. It doesn't solve any of them, though. What is the use of my reading it?'

He proceeded to the next item, which was the following story:

Laru's Tale

As a young man I was very happy. I had a wonderful wife, Taliana-Shuri, and two lovely children, Zihiliu and Charipakia. I loved them all, without reservation. Then she bore me yet a third child, Luquai, whom I also loved. But a few days after the birth, while I was at work, she took the three children to the roof of a high building, and threw them over the side; then she leapt off herself. They all died.

Relatives surrounded me, and friends, and councilors. They explained that sometimes, a woman after giving birth becomes profoundly depressed. It is physiological, they said. They thought that Taliana-Shuri had decided that life was a torment, and had killed the children in order to save them from it. It gave me a tiny bit of comfort to suppose that Taliana-Shuri had been trying to help them.

Still, my grief was so great that I tried to kill myself, and I was taken to a place of healing. My body and hands were secured to the bed, lest I attack myself. A nun, Ingluina, attended me. She was always gentle and kind, except for one thing: I begged her to let me kill myself, but she refused.

Sometimes I thought, _Taliana-Shuri was right; life is primarily a torment_. I had been happy, but now I was paying a terrible price for it.

Then, in a dream, I heard the voice of an unknown god. This god said: Your wife was indeed right, Laru, life is a torment. You and all the people you know are living in the realm of a terrible demon, Yaolgoroth. Yaolgoroth feeds on human suffering. He keeps you in a state of illusion. You were never really happy: he has given you false memories of happiness, to make you optimistic, so that you will not lose interest in life. The only way to escape him is to die. You must convince your caretakers that you are well, Laru, and then, when they release you, kill as many of them as you can. The more you kill, the more Yaolgoroth will be weakened, for he lives as a parasite on the souls of his victims. Then kill yourself, and when you die, your soul will go to a much better place, as a reward. And your wife and children will be there, too.

This dream made a deep impression on me. Insofar as I believed it, it reduced my feeling of helplessness. Naturally, I spoke of it to no one. A part of me accepted it completely, but another part was skeptical.

I asked the nun, Ingluina, about my wife's depression. How could such a thing be physiological? She said that there is a subtle essence, made and stored in the brain, called 'pepsoke.' The more pepsoke there is in your brain, the better you feel. I asked how much pepsoke would have made the difference between Taliana-Shuri in her normal state, and in her depressed state. Not enough to see, she replied.

How easy it is, I thought, for a god, or a demon, or even a human magician, to manipulate us. Add or remove a tiny amount of pepsoke from our brains, and our attitude changes drastically. If the nameless god of my dream was right that Yaolgoroth exists, and right about what he does, does that mean that Yaolgoroth is evil? I would think so, but perhaps that is just because I don't have enough pepsoke in me, to make me feel good about him.

I asked Ingluina how our brains knew, normally, how much pepsoke to make. She said that each person is born with a tendency to maintain a certain level of pepsoke. It is different for different people, and depends in part on their ancestry. When you think something good has happened to you, your brain makes a little more, and so you feel especially good, and when you think something bad has happened to you, it makes less, and you feel especially bad, but after awhile it returns to its normal level.

I was astonished. I said to myself, all this time, I thought that I was living and working for myself, for my family, for mankind, and for the gods, but really, I was just striving to increase the amount of pepsoke in my brain.

I said to Ingluina, what about reality? Are things really good, or bad? She said, we must have faith in the gods who made us, that there is a good reason why we are the way we are. Either pepsoke helps us to see good and bad for what they are, or there is a good reason why we are deluded.

I said, but why would the gods make it different for Taliana-shuri?

I don't know, she said. Perhaps we can never understood their reasons, or perhaps there is both good and evil among the gods. But in any event, we are helpless against them. In matters beyond our power, we can only play the roles they assign to us, as well as we can.

I said I had a hard time accepting that.

Well, she said, perhaps you are a Thorn.

A thorn? I said, What do you mean?

A Thorn, she said, is a mortal who, in all seriousness, believes that there is a flaw in the divine order.

You are just talking about impiety, I said.

Perhaps not always, she said. If a person's motives for opposing the gods are merely selfish, or motivated by something destructive, then it would be impiety. But what if his objections are based on a sincere striving for goodness, or as close to that as a mortal can come? Then, no matter how deluded he is, he is trying to help both gods and mortals, not harm them. How could that be wrong? And what if his criticisms are well-taken?

But how could that be? I asked.

Well, she said, Perhaps the gods are not perfect; at least, not the minor gods. One of them might make a mistake, and some mortal might see it. Sometimes a very intelligent person will miss something, and a less intelligent person will see it.

I said, The idea makes a great deal of sense. Why would we be given minds that think, if not to use them? Perhaps the gods would even deliberately make imperfections, so that we could find and fix them. Have they not created badness and evil in the world, for us to struggle against?

But there is a danger, she said. If you question too much, you may find yourself falling into an abyss, with nothing you can hold on to.

**

Srea Kula paused in his reading. The wind was making an unearthly howl. It could have been Yaolgoroth, or some other demon. He went to the door and cracked it open. Very sensibly, it had been installed on the downwind side of the cabin, and only a few little whirlpools of sand came in. The light was dim. Thick whipping streamers of sand were being blown rapidly past. For a moment, he felt as though _he_ were moving, at incredible speed, as if he were a comet looking at its own tail. There was still some daylight, but it was impossible to tell where the sun was. It would be foolish to go out. 'But,' he thought, 'it is not a demon, just meaningless wind and sand.' He closed the door and returned to his reading.

I thought about what she had said, and I kept returning to the thought of my children. How could they have deserved their fate? Surely the world was evil. But then I thought, If the world is entirely evil, Taliana-Shuri did the right thing. But then it is not all evil after all, at least not on that account. And anyway, whether it seems good or evil to me, that is just because I have more or less pepsoke in my brain.

Soon I had another dream from the unknown god. He said that I should not trust Ingluina, or anyone else. They were all deceived by Yaolgoroth. He said that Yaolgoroth created pepsoke in order to deceive people. While they were under the influence of pepsoke, they were unable to see the true nature of their world; it all looked more or less good to them. But, he said, ignore your feelings and think about it rationally. Think about how a virtuous life is rewarded with painful old age and inevitable death. Think about war, poverty, crime, plague, and famine, how they never disappear. Think about the fact that just in order to live, you must kill other living beings, and devour their corpses. Think about how people kill each other over useless things, like gold and jewels. Think about how people are forced to compete with each other, so that one can obtain advantages only by denying them to another. Think about how credulously people accept far-fetched rationalizations for these and other things, which are not only evil, but just plain stupid! And centuries pass, and millennia pass, and with all their ingenuity, mortals still cannot escape from any of these evils. And many of them see how foolish it is, but they can do nothing. They may try, but they are voices in the desert; most people will not rebel. And the majority is perhaps not so foolish: isn't it true that the worst crimes in History have been committed by idealists?

But, I said, how does Yaolgoroth benefit from these things?

Demons, he said, live on human pain. Yaolgoroth gives you just enough pepsoke to keep you from giving up. But when it appeared that you and Taliana-Shuri were going to be very happy for a long time, that stung him, and he took her pepsoke away from her.

You are a god, I said, why don't you help us?

You must learn to help yourselves, he said, otherwise you will just be trading one master for another. Then the dream came to an end.

Much of what the unknown god said to me made sense. When I thought about it, it seemed to me that mortals were indeed in a state of delusion. It was easy to think of ways they might behave, that would eliminate crime, poverty, war, and a great deal of disease. Nature is generous to those who do not nurse unnatural desires. Yet mortals never seem to see this; they continue with the same futile strategies, trying to solve their problems by blaming and punishing each other, or by accumulating trash that they take for wealth. This has gone on for millennia, yet they do not seem to learn. They are terribly ingenious at magic and intrigue, and yet when it comes to the fundamentals of life, they can't see daylight at noontime. So perhaps, yes, they are possessed by one or more demons.

But the unknown god only wanted me to kill. I began to suspect that he was just another demon, envious of Yaolgoroth, or perhaps just a manifestation of Yaolgoroth himself, trying to possess me more deeply, to make me even more crazed than before. I thought about this for a long time. Then, I prayed as follows:

"Yaolgoroth, and any other demons that may be preying on mortals, I do not know whether you exist, or whether you are what I have been told you are. Please feel free to inform me otherwise if I am wrong. But assuming that you do exist, this is what I have to say:

"I fear that this will make you angry with me, but I choose not to hate you. Nor will I hate anyone; or, if I can't help hating someone, I will not act on that hate. Insofar as it is possible, I will love everyone, even you; and at least, I will act as though I did. But loving someone truly does not mean accepting everything about them; it means having faith in their potential for goodness, and helping them to change. I will have faith that you are capable of changing the way that you treat mortals.

"To truly love someone, you must say 'no' to them at times. If I had been on the roof with Taliana-Shuri, whom I loved as much as it is possible for a mortal to love, I would have tried to stop her from killing the children and herself.

"In the same way, Yaolgoroth, even though I will do my best to love you, I must still say 'no' to you about certain things. I believe that you must search for another way of life, one that does not require the torture of mortals. And as for me, I will not agree to help you to give pain. I will not try to hurt those who try to hurt me. I will try to love everyone. I will try to be happy, and see the good in everything. I will do this regardless of how good or bad I feel at the moment. No matter how depressed I am, I will refuse to condemn the world, or anything in it. I will not be enslaved by Pepsoke, or by any other reward or punishment. Perhaps demons can never change, but I am going to act as though you can, and as if there is some other way to live besides devouring human anguish.

"To all this, I swear the most binding possible oath!"

So I prayed; and hardly had I finished, when I heard a scream from the next room. It was Ingluina. Something invisible carried her through the air, into my room, and flattened her against the wall. A loud and hateful voice filled the room, saying, "Listen, mortal: obey me this moment, and renounce your oath. Until you do, this woman will be devoured by serpents of fire!" Immediately, several flaming serpents appeared, and attacked her, drilling into her flesh at one point, emerging at another, and drilling again. She screamed in agony, unceasingly."

This is the end of Laru's tale.

**

'By all the gods,' thought Srea Kula in shock, 'what a place to end the story! Whatever can be the point of it?'
**********

"Only the strong can be compassionate."

(attributed to Gonash, god of war)

Ling stood there in a state of shock. He _had_ to kill this man. It was _necessary_. The man himself knew it; Ling could tell from his sad expression.

"What's your name?"

The man gave a start of surprise, then winced in pain. "Amil," he said.

"What do you do for work, Amil?"

"I'm a cabinet-maker," he grunted, gasping. He was clearly still in much pain from the torture Ling had inflicted on him.

Ling thought hard for a few breaths. "I'll make you a deal, Amil," he said.

Amil was startled, almost as startled as Ling himself. "What?"

"I'm not really Torothex. Surely you must see that. Torothex would never have attacked you. He would never have tortured you."

"Well, yes," said Amil, frowning a little, "that's just what I would have thought, but ..."

"Amil, the Torothex your Church worries about is gone forever. I have taken his place, and most people are fooled, but you can see that I am not like him. Don't ask for the details; the less you know, the better off you are. I will let you go, if you give me your word of honor, that you will tell nobody anything about what has happened between us."

Amil looked thoughtful for a long time. "It's very confusing," he said, shaking his head.

"That's why you should stay out of it," said Ling.

Amil thought some more. Then he said, "You're right. I give you my word. Not that that anyone would believe me, if I did tell."

"Probably not!" said Ling, with a smile, turning him over and untying the knots in his sleeves. "And let me tell you something, Amil. Assassination is a skill, just like cabinet-making. It's not for amateurs."

"I see that now," said Amil, getting to his feet with agonized slowness.
**********

"Why do you tell me to _be myself_? Who else could I be?"

(Saint Brizzil the Curmudgeon)

Akelian rode with Oselika and Teladorion, while Oselika conveyed the news to Karngrevor via seashell. Akelian said nothing; he seemed lost in thought. The initial, bubbly excitement of their reunion had subsided, and his sister and cousin respected his silence.

_I don't think this is going to work_ , said Akelian, in his mind, to the Lord of Evil.

Why not?

Three reasons. First, I'm not that good an actor. Secondly, many of the family, perhaps all of them, will consider me to be radically dishonored.

Why?

Because Oselika and Teladorion will tell them that I broke free of your influence by an act of will. But that shows that I had the power to do so all along! But that means that when I submitted to you, before, I didn't really have to. But I did, and they will see that as cowardice, or some other form of weakness. That apparently hasn't sunk into Sel and Tel yet, but it will, very soon, I think.

And the third reason?

Savril. If I go back, I'm bound to meet him. Who knows what he can see? Can I hope to deceive him?

Ah, yes, Savril. Do you think you will be able to get far enough to encounter Savril?

Very likely, yes. If I get into trouble before then, I can ask that he examine me.

Good! If you meet him, can you kill him?

Akelian hesitated. _I don't know,_ he replied, _If it were anyone but Savril, I would say yes, but ... I just don't know._

All right. I will think more about this. Maybe I'll just have you kill the two of them, after all. In the meantime, do your best to infiltrate the Karngrevor apparatus. And if you can kill Savril, do so!

Yes, Lord!

Left to his own thoughts, Akelian pondered the problem of dishonor, and formed a plan. Suddenly, he pulled his horse up short.

The other two turned their horses and stopped. "What's up, Ki?" asked Teladorion.

"I _can't_ go back!" said Akelian, in a tone of despair.

"But why not?" asked Oselika, looking both puzzled and concerned.

"Don't you see?" asked Akelian. "I have dishonored myself! I had the power to disobey him, but until you two pressured me, I didn't do it!"

Both Oselika and Teladorion gave a little start, and then became thoughtful. Akelian drew his dagger. "Oh divine and merciless Tosaris," he intoned, "I have failed you. I am not worthy to live. Please accept –"

" _Wait_ , Akelian, _wait!_ " cried Oselika, her eyes wide with horror. "It's not that simple! Hear me out!" Akelian hesitated, and then turned to her with a questioning expression. He did not sheathe his dagger.

Oselika didn't know what to say. She wanted to say that she no longer had the same ideas of honor that she had had before, but she feared that Akelian might only be horrified by this, considering her to be dishonored as well as himself. Finally she said, "Let the tribunal decide! Grant this to me, your sister, as a boon!"

Akelian looked worried. He glanced at Teladorion. Teladorion looked terribly grim, but he said, "I agree with her, Akelian. Do it as a boon for me, your cousin, as well. Everyone will know that we asked it of you."

"Or at least wait," said Oselika. "Your situation is without precedent! Wait until you have caught up on things, gained some perspective. Then do as you will." Akelian, she thought, would want to avoid the tribunal, for one who called on the tribunal and was then condemned usually suffered an even greater dishonor than one who condemned himself. And so did his family.

And to ask the tribunal to judge a Karngrevor! To judge the heir apparent himself! What strife and chaos that might bring about!

Akelian, who had had similar thoughts, looked angry, but he sheathed his dagger. "Very well," he said, frowning. "Bring me up to date, then!"

"Alas, Akelian," said Oselika, "it's not just the events, it's the intangibles!"

"I can only decide on the basis of what I can know," said Akelian, looking suspicious.

"I understand," she replied, "and I apologize. I will leave the intangibles to your judgment."

"Good!" said Akelian, coldly. "Proceed!"

"Just hear us out to the end!"

"I will. But you call Father, and tell him not to come for us."

"Fair enough," she replied, and did so, though it wrung her heart to tell her father that Akelian might not be returning, after all.

Then she began to tell her story. She began with her finding Akelian comatose, and secretly hiding him, and how she had disagreed with Teladorion, who thought she should have killed him.

"Teladorion was right!" said Akelian.

"Please, Ki," said Teladorion, "keep your mind open!"

Akelian was startled. Teladorion had never spoken to him like that before. He had always been the worshipful younger cousin. _What's been going on?_ he thought. _What fire has tempered my little cousin? There was a time when this maturity would have pleased me, but now..._ Akelian apologized, and Oselika continued her story. She told him of her fight with Teladorion, and how she had fallen in love with him. She told him of her confession to Karngrevor, and of her quest, and of the examination of Akelian's original body by Savril and Doctor Mno. Then she told him of their hunt for the source of the drug, and of their battle with the children of Noganecir.

"But that was good!" Akelian said, well-impressed with that part of their tale. "That was well fought! What courage, to take them all on, and what strength, to prevail against so many for so long! I salute you!" He extended his hands out, palms up, in the traditional salute.

"Thank you, my brother," said Oselika, modestly inclining her head. "Your praise means much to me!" She then told him of her pregnancy.

_My little sister, married!_ Akelian thought (like many in Kondrastibar, he believed that anyone pregnant was thereby married). A deep surge of feeling passed over him. There was a long moment of silence, as brother and sister smiled shyly at each other. "Well ... congratulations!" he said.

"Thank, you, Brother!" Oselika replied. Then she began to tell the story of Teladorion's crisis of vocation, but Teladorion interrupted her, putting his hand on her arm.

"Let me tell this part, Sel," he said. She nodded assent.

_Why does he want that?_ thought Akelian.

"Well, this is where some of those intangibles implode," said Teladorion, looking tired, "but I'll make it as clear as I can. There was something that had been nibbling at my guts for a long time, but it was after the battle with the Children of Noganecir that I finally faced off with it. We _slaughtered_ those people, Ki. Most of them not warriors, just ordinary people, a few soldiers and veterans from here and there. People who would never have done any of those things, except for that drug, given to them without their consent. It was hard doing, Ki, very hard doing."

"Excellence never comes easily," said Akelian, sternly, "but if you hadn't done what you did, things would have been worse in the end. That's what we are bred and trained for, to do the difficult things."

"I know the argument, and it's a good one," said Teladorion, "but, curse it, Ki, no one can know _all_ the consequences in a situation. That's what makes this thing so bloody _intangible!_ " His face twisted in frustration, and he made a two-handed gesture of trying desperately to seize something that wasn't there. "But Ki, maybe there's a better way! Isn't that _possible_?" He looked at Akelian questioningly, almost pleadingly. _Ah,_ thought Akelian, _there is my little cousin again, wanting my advice!_

Akelian shrugged. "A snake with painted toenails and leather gloves is _possible_ ," he said, "but I've never seen one."

"You are right, it's only a flying guess," said Teladorion, absent-mindedly patting his horse, "but then, there's the _times we live in_ ," he continued. "We're coming to the end of the Prophetic Age, Ki! We're _at_ the end. Things are going to change, Ki! Completely!"

"Very likely, Tel, but change is not always for the better. Better to go down with a good cause, than up with a bad one! Anyway, could you say something _specific_ , Tel? Do you have an _alternative_?"

Teladorion looked frustrated again. "All I can say is 'maybe,' Ki. But ... you know the man, Agulinar Torothex, don't you?"

"Of course! Dad and he are very close!"

"Well, he's not an undisciplined person. I mean, for all I know, he could be a very serious devotee of Tosaris. He's always working, always learning, tries new things, has noble goals, can't be bought ..."

"I know Dad has great respect for him," replied Akelian, nodding agreement, "and maybe he _is_ a devotee, consciously or unconsciously. But he has his way and we have ours, Tel. They are complementary. For example, what would _he_ have done with those Children of Noganecir? _Talked_ to them? There's no use in talking to _druggies_ , Tel!" _There's no use talking to me, either_ , he thought.

"I don't know what he would have done, Ki!" Teladorion replied. "I just have this feeling, deep in my gut, that _there must be something better than killing forever and ever!_ "

"Why Tel," said Akelian, laughing, "are you becoming an Tlilist, or a Roxist, or maybe a Zillist, in your old age?"

Teladorion threw his hands in the air and looked at the sky, grimacing. _I've never seen him so wrought up,_ thought Akelian, taken aback. Teladorion brought his gaze back to Akelian and said, "I don't know what I am, Ki! Or rather, yes, I do know what I am: I'm a half-crazy deaf amnesiac, lost at night in a wilderness he's never heard of! But I'll tell you this, Ki: there's no dishonor in honest doubt!"

"No, I don't suppose there is," said Akelian, thoughtfully. _I can no longer doubt, though,_ he added sadly to himself.

"So I've decided to make it my quest, Ki. As soon as Sel's quest is finished, I'm going to go to Torothex and see what he has to teach me!"

Akelian was frozen in shock. The First Nephew of Karngrevor, laying down his arms? Incredible! The world seemed to be turning under him. Had Tel, too, been corrupted by someone? Pulling himself back to the conversation, he said, "Has this been approved?"

"No," said Oselika. "We were going to ask Father about it when we saw him next."

"We?"

Oselika nodded. "Tel came with me on my quest, and, if it is not forbidden, I will go with him on his."

"Without your sword?"

She shrugged. "Presumably."

Akelian shook his head as if to clear it. _This is remarkable_ , he thought, _but it could be very good! If the Karngrevor family can lose their faith in their traditional ways, so can just about anyone! It will make my Master's job that much easier!_

Suddenly Teladorion asked, "Are you Akelian?"

"What? Of course I am! What kind of question is that?"

"Then who is it that's lying strapped in a bed, back at the keep?"

"Well ... that's just a _body_ , Tel."

"Whose body is it?"

"It's mine. I mean, it's one I used to have."

"You're just a simulacrum, aren't you?"

"No, I ..." 'Akelian' hesitated. "I've lasted much too long to be a simulacrum," he said.

"I've heard that some people can make simulacra that last for years," said Teladorion.

'Akelian' was very confused. _Was_ he really Akelian? He didn't know. What should he say? It didn't help that he was deceiving them about a number of things, and that he therefore had to be carefully calculating, while appearing to be spontaneous. He remembered that the Lord had said that he would make _many copies_ of him. _Will they all be me?_

"Well, suppose that I'm not Akelian?" said 'Akelian'. "What of it?" _It doesn't matter who I am_ , he thought, _all that matters is that I do the bidding of the Lord_.

" _Tel!_ " burst out Oselika. "What in the name of Tosaris are you doing?" She had thought that she had found her beloved brother alive and well; she had been overjoyed! But then, her joy had been fractured by the issue of dishonor, and now, Tel was suggesting that it wasn't Akelian at all! _But then_ , she thought, _that could be good! If he is not my brother, then my brother has not been dishonored!_

"Tel," she said again, beginning to weep, "it's the soul that counts, isn't it? Tel?" _She turns to_ _him_ , thought 'Akelian,' sadly. Teladorion would not meet her gaze; he only held up his hand, in a gesture that she took to mean, 'Hold on, Sel, please be patient, wait and see what I'm up to!'

_All that matters_ , thought 'Akelian,' _is that I do the bidding of the Lord. But what would Akelian say, or, what would a simulacrum of Akelian say, if he had truly wrested himself free of the Lord, as I have only pretended to do? It's hard to imagine!_

"What's your point, Tel?" he demanded. "I thought you were going to inform me, but it seems that you're just trying to confuse me!"

"If you're not Akelian," said Teladorion, "then you're not a Karngrevor, or a vassal thereof, and you're not obliged to live up to our standards. There's no point in suicide, and the tribunal has no jurisdiction over you!"

_But why should I rejoice in that?_ thought Oselika. _If it's not my brother that's being saved, just some simulacrum. Akelian is still back at the keep ... except for his soul ...which is ... where?_

'Akelian,' on the other hand, was relieved. _Tel is just trying to convince me not to kill myself, he thought, which is what I want! I just have to be careful not to give in too easily!_

"But Akelian's values are mine, whether I am he or not!" 'Akelian' replied. "I am as incapable of accepting dishonor as he would have been!"

Teladorion looked puzzled, then surprised, then confused, then thoughtful. Then he nodded assent. "You're right," he said. "I got turned around. I apologize." He sighed, and looked very sadly at the ground. Then he looked up, and said, _"Go with honor, noble warrior!"_ This was the phrase traditionally used to acquiesce to an honorable suicide.

Oselika looked shocked, confused, and angry, all at once. 'Akelian' felt like an aerialist who had left one trapeze, done a double somersault in the air, and reached for the other trapeze, only to find that it was not there. There was no net, either. _The real Akelian, or a true copy, were he not corrupted, would commit suicide now_ , he thought. He could easily do so, for he did share Akelian's values, where they were not overridden by his Lord's commands; and of course, he would happily die for his Lord's sake. _But would it serve my mission?_ He sent an urgent message back to the Lord, asking for guidance. Waiting for a reply, he fiddled with his dagger in its sheath. _What will they think when they see me hesitate? I mustn't hesitate!_ But that only made him hesitate more. The intricacy of the calculations involved in his deceit were overwhelming him. _Did Tel trick me? Did he deliberately confuse me?_ His expression showed his dismay and confusion.

Seeing this, Oselika snapped out of her own confusion. "He's been lying to us, Tel," she said. "He _is_ some kind of copy, but he _doesn't_ have Akelian's values."

Teladorion nodded agreement. "What now?" he asked 'Akelian.'

At that moment, the Lord resumed contact with 'Akelian.' In an instant, he surveyed the recent memories of 'Akelian,' and, sizing up the situation, he activated the auto-destruct.

'Akelian' and his horse both screamed, and suddenly shattered into a hundred fragments. As Oselika and Teladorion watched in shock, the fragments fell to the ground, but continued bouncing and spinning and wriggling for a few breaths, gradually losing vitality. Then they melted into puddles, which quickly evaporated. A moment later, Oselika and Teladorion also disappeared.
**********

"If we are ambivalent towards our children,

how much more so the gods toward us?"

(Tirn Elkilir, _97 Questions_ )

Near the end of the Zoroid Dynasty, the most powerful of its mages prepared to complete one of his greatest projects. He meditated for two days, in order to clear his mind. Then, after painstakingly washing himself, and donning carefully cleaned clothes, he entered the great hall that was his most advanced and secret laboratory. Many assistants were gathered there, each one ready to perform one part of the task.

At the center of the great hall was a huge, spherical, crystal shell, almost a hundred forearms in diameter. The assistants were seated at one side of it, in a recess reminiscent of an orchestra pit, the crystal shell being the stage. Instead of musical instruments, they tended various devices related to the task about to be undertaken. In the position of concertmaster was his most advanced apprentice.

As the Mage approached it, the sphere came apart into two pieces, which, floating in the air, parted sufficiently to allow him to enter; then they rejoined.

Inside, floating about two feet above the bottom of the shell, was a glass vat, about the size of a bathtub. It was filled with sea water, to which small amounts of various substances had been added; some of these had not dissolved, but formed a kind of sludge at the bottom. The Mage stood beside it, and began to concentrate his thoughts. He linked his mind to the sphere around him, which extended his perceptions. The sphere also served him as a tool of action; he had only to think of a thing, and it would be done. He became keenly aware of the water; so aware that it seemed huge to him, an ocean.

To the mind of the Mage, the water and what was dissolved in it was made of countless tiny particles. Every particle had potentials; it could do this, it could be that. It had a vast and ramified tree of possible futures. Each future of each particle involved futures of all the other particles. From all these potentials, the Mage intended to choose a most remarkable one.

The Mage could see his assistants, who were watching him closely for direction. He raised his hands, and moved them as if he were conducting an orchestra. The assistants activated their instruments. Listening to them within his mind, the Mage received a detailed picture of what was going on in the vat, and what he might do to change that. Waves now spread from the mind of the Mage to the enclosing sphere; the sphere strengthened them and reflected them back to the water. The water stirred, in ways too small to see with normal vision. The particles in the vat became restless. They broke apart, and then came together in new ways. They danced an intricate dance, linking and unlinking. They formed strings and clusters, rings and chains; they formed branching patterns reminiscent of trees; they formed spheres, and from the spheres they made foams; they made strings, and from the strings made knots, tangles, nets, braids, macramé, cables, and guys; they made blocks, and from the blocks made buildings, walls, and roads. Forming up like soldiers, some of the particles fell into rank upon rank of crystalline symmetry; others danced in intricate and ever-changing ways. All these forms, and many more, combined into tiny pixies, still too small for the eye to see. Each such pixie was a living being: it ate, it breathed (more like a fish than an animal), it maintained and healed itself, and could reproduce by budding. There were many kinds, each specialized for its own task. Each was totally and unquestioningly devoted to this task, ready to suffer and die for it if need be, without a trace of sorrow, fear, or resentment. Theirs was a world of duty triumphant, a world without a trace of sin. These pixies co-operated perfectly with one another, without any pride or envy, to make still more varied and intricate forms, and tissues and organs, until finally, these reached a size the human eye could see.

Bones. A ghostly skeleton appeared, gradually becoming opaque. Very much like a human skeleton, child-sized, but reinforced by carbon nanotubes and diamond lattices, and penetrated by millions of tiny capillaries, so that repairing pixies could have access to any part. The smallest joint of the little finger could support a thousand anvils without breaking. The skull and ribs were further reinforced with a coat of spidersilk and a mesh of chitin. The spine: more vertebrae than the human, for greater flexibility, and fitting together more intimately, so that every part of the spinal cord was protected.

The joints: bearings of diamond, lubricated with silicones, enclosed in spidersilk membranes. Tendons of spidersilk, stronger than steel. Muscles: three kinds of fibers: one to expand, one to contract, and one to lock solid. More muscles than the average human, including tiny ones in the fingers for extra dexterity. Extra muscles connected the lower half of the spine to the pelvis, guarding against lower-back injuries due to bending and lifting.

Over 1250 skeletal muscles in all. For the heart, muscles with special strength and stamina. Like all the main organs, the heart was surrounded by a protective membrane of spidersilk.

The blood: water used for transport. It could transport anything that would dissolve in it, but it was also a transport for sufficiently small particles, including pixies of various kinds. This included transport pixies, which carried substances and particles that either did not dissolve in water, or that should not be widely diffused. It also carried repair pixies, and also pixies adapted to finding and destroying damaging substances and objects, including foreign or abnormal pixies. It also included 'bypass' pixies, which were shaped like long tubes. These tubes were normally curled up, but in the event of blockage, they would unwind, start growing, and penetrate like earthworms into the surrounding tissue, thus creating capillaries which would allow the blood to go around the blockage until it was removed. In particular, this was a guard against strokes.

There were also 'stem' pixies, which could transform themselves into any other kind: in the event of injury, stem pixies would be transported quickly to the damaged area for the purposes of regeneration. As long as even a small part of the body remained alive, including one stem pixie, the rest could be regenerated within seven days. A tooth could be regenerated in one day, a fingernail in an hour. The lymphatic system, a network of transport tubes attached to generating and storage units, could create stem pixies rapidly, store them, and send them to appropriate locations.

'Guardian' pixies would examine each object they came across, to see whether it fit the design or not; if not, the object would be destroyed or sent to the excretory system. Guardians would also compare substances they encountered with a list of 1,131,072 anticipated poisons. Patrolling pixies would proliferate and congregate in any region that was damaged or malfunctioning. Similarly guided 'maintenance' pixies would make repairs and remove undesirable deposits.

As an anti-aging device, each pixie contained three copies of its own design specifications, and if one came to differ from the other two, either it would be revised, or (if all three differed) the pixie would self-destruct. Also, patrolling guardian pixies would compare pixies with others in the same tissue, and with the original specifications, and destroy those which did not conform. All such destruction was done without any hatred or sadism.

All pixies, tissues, and organs were sufficiently different from those of naturally occurring species to be immune to practically any existing disease or parasite.

Just under the skin, two layers of spidersilk; and between them, a quilt of tiny cells of non-Newtonian fluid, that stretched and bent easily when it was gently moved, but reacted rigidly to any attempt to distort it rapidly. It would feel soft to a caressing hand, harder to an attacking fist, and like steel to an arrow.

The teeth and digestive system were made for the usual human food; but given a day or two to adjust, they could also handle grass, wood, plankton, topsoil, seawater, or anything that any other organism could eat. It was even possible for the skin to produce pixies that harvested the energy of ambient light; given sunlight, water, minerals, and carbon dioxide, these would allow the Mage's creation to survive without other nourishment, though it would take a long time to store up enough energy for muscular action.

There was a special organ, in the pit of the stomach, for the generation and storage of mana, and another, just behind the center of the forehead, to make direct connection with the Ectoplasmic Reticulum.

The nervous system: the usual human nerves are replaced by microscopic fiber-optic strands. Ganglions are more frequent than in the normal human, and more capable of learning and computation. There are no provisions for pain; damage would result in signals which were informative, but not agonizing.

The brain: a serial-parallel hybrid. At the core, a complex crystal capable of quantum computation. The machine language of the core had a word length of 32 bytes, and the random-access associative memory could store 4,096 yottabytes of information – or three times that much, since it was triply redundant. Surrounding the core, a more human-like, associative network of fiber-optic strands with quadrillions of junctions, each junction a small computer in itself.

Hundreds of ganglions scattered throughout the body were jointly capable of distributed computation; if the brain were to be destroyed, much intelligence and memory would remain, guiding the body's actions until the brain could be regenerated.

And now, the Mage paused, rested, and gathered his strength to create the most important part of all: the cognitive control system. The computational resources of its brain and nervous system would give the Mage's creation the ability to process input from the senses, to rationally assign plausibilities to various hypotheses about the world (including itself), to form (within certain limits) systems of values, to make reasonable predictions about the effect of its possible actions, and to choose actions on the basis of the relative values of such outcomes, according to the current system of values.

But the strongest body, and the most brilliant mind, are liabilities rather than assets, if the goals and values that determine their use are warped. What the Mage was creating had the physical and mental strength to be a serious danger to the people of Kondrastibar; under most conditions, an entire army would be unable to destroy it. Something had to be done to assure that his creation would not turn bad (as he defined it). To assure this, the Mage included two features: a rigid response to certain words, and a rigid core to its ethical system.

The words in question were 'words of power,' controlling words: he made his creation to be totally obedient to anyone who uttered those triggering words; he was the only one to know those words, and they had to be spoken in his voice. Certain other words, which he had revealed to his immediate staff, would serve to render it temporarily passive, obedient, or debilitated in one way or another. Others, known to a still wider group, would precipitate a state of intense self-doubt and self-analysis, or run a system diagnostic more thorough than the usual.

He had invented, and incorporated in his creation's nervous system, a system of ethics, ideals, obligations, and goals. This system could be revised only by someone who could use one of the more powerful words of power. If things went well, no interventions would be necessary; the controlling words were only in case of emergency. He had taken a standard system of Ethics, Prudence, and Casuistry, and made a few modifications, including a requirement of absolute loyalty and obedience to himself. This he would embed in the very fabric of her soul.

There would be no ambivalence: she would follow her rules without any qualm. Relative to those rules, she would be, like her individual pixies, utterly without sin.

But the Mage did not merely want to create an ethically ideal being; he had a more specific purpose in mind. The Cleretic Prophecies had said that the future of humankind would be determined by a girl; the Mage intended that his creation should be that girl. And since she would be subservient to him, it would really be the Mage himself who, when that time came, would control the destiny of humankind.

The Mage raised his hands, thought a thought, and she was complete!

All the water in the vat was gone; it contained nothing but the body of a girl. She looked to be about ten years old, an appearance she would have for millennia.

The Mage made one more gesture, extending his hand to her. Her eyes opened. She extended her hand toward his.

"Hello, Ydnas," said the Mage.

"Hello, Father," said Ydnas.
**********

"First of all, dear gods, please give me dreams!"

(Olixigriox the Imposter)

We will heal and we will build ...

" _Shoot_ herself?!!" sputtered the Abbess, outraged by Orindl's answer. "What – "

Orindl interrupted: "With a gray bolt! That will download her soul onto one of those aerosol chips!"

Know that I love you, ...

Suddenly the point dawned on the Abbess. ' _Linzi!_ ' she thought. 'Shoot yourself with a gray bolt! Quickly! That's an order!' Telepathically, the Abbess felt Linzualiru's shock and confusion at being interrupted in her own Last Rites, but the Witch obeyed.

" _Thank you_ , Orindl!" said the Abbess, out loud. "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you at first!"

"No tangle," said Orindl. "I mean," she added, blushing and making a little curtsy, "'I understand, and it is a pleasure to serve you, Revered Elder!'" The Abbess smiled.

_Now_ , thought the Abbess to herself, _I've got to arrange to retrieve Linzi_. She allowed herself to sing along with one verse of the "Hymn of Victory," and then she waved for silence in the room. "I'm very sorry to interrupt you," she said, "but there are things that need to be done, immediately. Orindl – can you gather Linzualiru's soul, if I tell you the location?"

... _not died in vain ..._

"Yes, Revered Elder," said the girl.

The Abbess obtained the location from Linzualiru and gave it to Orindl. "Find a couple of Amazons to go with you," she added. "Things may not have completely settled down, out there! Take Linzualiru's soul to the Coven on Incarnation Studies; or, if they have been destroyed, take her to the Mother Superior."

"Yes, Most Holy Mother," said Orindl, and made another curtsy, and left.

To the other people gathered in the room, the Abbess said, "You are now my office staff, unless you are a healer or have some special responsibility." Two people had to leave; she assigned the rest to various tasks.

She then busied herself with taking reports from all major sectors. She found that their victory had been dearly won – there were over a hundred casualties, several hundred injured, and a great deal of damage to the Temple.

It became hard to proceed, as one after another of her dear friends was reported dead. ... Maliol! ... Trilinjia! ... Arthenis! ... Tavrioleyir! ... The horror began to overwhelm her; she was becoming a mere vortex of pain. Finally she stopped, went into meditation, and contacted Ydris.

"I need help, Revered Goddess," she said. "I am close to breakdown."

"Of course you are," said the Goddess, sympathetically, "and here is what you should do: appoint someone to take over for you, go to your private quarters, and contact me there."

The Abbess was chagrined and anxious about being relieved of duty, but she saw the point. She managed to patch together a fairly comprehensive network of communication throughout the temple, and to explain it to a few of those around her. As soon as this was done, her defenses against fatigue collapsed, and then she staggered, dizzy and confused, to her room. Again she contacted the goddess.

"Good!" said the goddess. "Would you lie down on the bed, please?" The Abbess lay down, and immediately she felt a strong pull towards sleep. "Thank you," continued Ydris, "and now, I want to say, that I am very pleased with you, and with everyone. You fought a terrible foe, and you prevailed. That in itself was magnificent, but it also happens that in so doing, you refuted seven of the most pessimistic prophecies, all of which predicted that you would be utterly destroyed. This means that their other pessimistic predictions are also now in doubt! I don't expect you to be joyful about that, because you have paid a terrible price; but you should know it. The future will be much better, because of what you have done. As for your lost friends, they are with me. Because you have served me so well, I am going to make an exception, and draw aside some of the Veil for you, for awhile."

At that, the Abbess entered into a dream; she felt that she was flying through the stars, so rapidly that each star was stretched into a taut thread. Then she slowed, and came to a great star like to the sun, and to a great and beautiful sphere that hung in space, green and blue and white. Coming close to the sphere, she found it to be so large, that when she had come close to it, its surface became countryside, extending to a horizon all around. Gently she came to rest there, in a beautiful Alpine meadow, bejeweled with wildflowers. Not far away was a great mountain, its peak gleaming white. As she stood there wondering, she saw a group of women coming, riding on white unicorns, in lovely attire; and as they approached, she saw that one of their number was Ydris, and that the others were her own dear friends, who had been lost. Yet all were without injury, and all their faces shone with joy.

"Maliol!" she called. "Trilinjia, Arthenis, Tavrioleyir!" And continuing thus, she called them each by name, and as she called each name, that one turned and smiled most lovingly at her. And then her friends all rode to her, and descended from their mounts, and embraced her lovingly. Then her tears flowed like a mountain spring, and she did not know whether she was happy or sad. But as for Ydris, she remained at a distance; and the Abbess knew that the beauty of Ydris was so great, that no living mortal could look closely upon her, without being destroyed.

"Grieve not for us," said Maliol, "for we are happy, and we are separated from you only by space and time, the thinnest and most fragile of all veils."

"Know too," said Trilinjia, "that none of us are ever born, and none can ever die; it is only our reflections in water and glass, that come and go, and come and go."

"And know too," said Arthenis, "that nothing we or you have ever done will ever fade away or be forgotten, in this, the eternal realm. For we look upon all time and space as you look at a pebble in your hand."

"Look closely at my eye," said Tavrioleyir, pointing. The Abbess looked, and she saw, reflected on the surface of her eye, the entire group of friends. And somehow, she was able to see so well, that she saw that the eyes in each reflection also had reflections, so that each one was reflected in all the others, without any end. "So it is," said Tavrioleyir. "You are within us, and we in you. You need never be lonely."

And so each one in the group shared comforting wisdom with her, and she knew that it was all true; and her heart was gladdened. And when they were all done, the Abbess saw another figure coming from the edge of the meadow, riding on a white unicorn like the others. "Who is that rider," she asked, "coming from the edge of the meadow?"

"That is yourself, Taliasir," said Maliol, addressing her by name instead of by rank. "You, too, have always been here, and will always be here, above and beyond all time." And suddenly the Abbess realized that what she had always thought of as herself was only reflections in water and in glass.
**********

"Life is a box,

And death is the sky.

Life is a little boat,

And death is the sea."

(From the children's song, "Me and my Shadow")

As he lay dying in the hospital bed, Arguit plunged into a torrent of grief and guilt. Heels over head he was spun, twisted, and whipped by the inconsolable current, smashed into rocks and dragged over gravel. It did not stop. For a moment he might drift in a deep pool of darkness, only to have some memory of Laeri suck him back to roaring rapids. He was all pain, as memory slapped him hard against the unchangeable real. _She's dead!_ The thought jerked him, roiled him, weighed him heavily down. _Because of me_. He was the accuser, the accused, and the jagged flail. Air had long since left him, leaving only clammy water, chilly around his heart. Cold, dark, and merciless. Again the rapids and the rocks; splintering bone pierced rending flesh.

The torrent whipped and spun and crashed, going down, down, down to nowhere. Yet after an incalculable time, it reached the foothills. Longer the pools of nothingness, shorter the rapid agonies. Finally, it excreted him into a larger river, a slower, deeper, heavier river. He bottom-drifted with slime and the detritus of decay. He snagged on a barren, rotten tree, waving like a slow flag. He stopped, stopped, stopped, ... suspended in meaningless stillness. Uncaring, unknowing. A dead fetus. Self was leached away.

Dark water soaked into his every atom. He was water. He was dark water. There was nothing else. Nothing else, and then nothing at all.

Nothing is the opposite of Something. Absence is the opposite of Presence, One the opposite of Many, Void the opposite of Fullness. By nature, Void implies Fullness, and all that fullness contains; it implies a mountain, a sound, a mood, a prime number, a style of literature, a headache, a mystery, time, evil, Philosophy, a contradiction, a city, a world, pictures of worlds, a community of literary historians, a book and its reader, a chameleon god, nothingness, and everything else. And everything implies everything; because Arguit had been _exactly thus_ , everything else was _exactly thus_. Including Laeri, from whom he could, therefore, never be separated. Recognizing this, the Void felt joy.
**********

"Deception reveals the truth."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Although the Mage intended Ydnas to be the Girl of the Prophecies, he thought he might as well get some use out of her in the present. He therefore built a Temple for her.

This Temple was architecturally brilliant, but it was more than just a complex of buildings. It was sentient. He called it "Darestigan," which meant, "Temple of the Future" in the current local language.

At this time – toward the end of the Zoroid Dynasty – great advances had been made in the creation of artificial persons, and in the artificial alteration of existing persons, but public and governmental opinion were becoming hostile to it, and several Cleretic prophecies had predicted that it would soon become illegal. Knowing of this, the Mage had created several secret places of refuge, including laboratories and factories, and kept much of his research secret. In particular, he kept his methods for immortality secret, believing that most mortals could not deal with such knowledge.

Whenever he did create a being who would be publicly accessible, he was careful to mark them clearly as artificial, for he knew that the public paranoia would be much exacerbated if people thought they might be infiltrated by artificial beings who could not be distinguished from 'real' ones. For this reason, the humanoid units which made up the Temple staff were all made to be slightly transparent. They were also made in the likeness of children, in the hope that this would make them look less threatening. For the same reason, he made Ydnas so that, unless there was a good reason to do otherwise, she would talk in a childish way, reinforcing the impression of cuteness and harmlessness implicit in her childlike appearance. He also marked Ydnas by allowing her to generate, at times, a golden nimbus – a brightly shining ring that hovered, at a slight angle, a couple of inches away from the back of her head. He calculated that this would also make her appear holy. In fact, he argued, bribed, blackmailed, and tricked a few Theologians into explaining to the public that, even though she was artificial, she was nevertheless a genuine goddess.

As a goddess, she was quite successful, for whenever she appeared, she was able to create impressive magical displays, including healing by touch, levitation, walking on coals, and brilliant pyrotechnics. Two attempts at assassination failed miserably; she laughed and did nothing to defend herself as swords and arrows shattered themselves against her. This quickly gained her a significant number of devotees. The Mage arranged that many of her followers were from among the rich, powerful, and culturally influential, in order to slow the growth of hostility to his research.
**********

"Oh gods, Oh gods, must I die to understand you?"

(from _The Book of Darkness_ )

Karnak sat on the edge of the huge, luxurious bed, gazing at the emaciated face of his dying wife, Alianith, and holding her limp, cold hand.

"Darling," he said, locking eyes, "I am so sorry. I have wasted so much of our life together in the pursuit of excess wealth. That is what I thought that I was supposed to do. But when I first suspected that your sickness might be mortal, I began to realize that I had never known the value of the most precious things in my life, you and the children."

Alianith began to speak, or rather to whisper. Karnak bent down to hear her.

"Karnak ... don't blame yourself. We always ... knew that your work was ... your way of expressing ... your love... And I, too ... I was intoxicated with ... the idea of being a rich man's ... wife. I made myself ... beautiful ... and cultivated ... before the world, so that you would be ... envied. When I suspected ... that I was ... going to die, I ... I, too, began to ... to see things in a different way. And you have ... helped me, for... when you ... began to change, then ... it helped me ... to change." She paused, gasping with fatigue, but Karnak sensed that she was not done, and he waited silently.

"But Karnak ... I have always loved you ... I didn't marry you ... just for your promising future. And I know ... that you ... have always loved me, too. ... We are ... very lucky, Karnak. So many of our ... friends ... married just for ... wealth ... and position, ... and now they are ... dried up ... and bitter." Again, Karnak waited while she rested, little spasms of pain flickering over her face.

A familiar knock sounded on the door. "Thank Elsing," said Karnak, referring to the tutelary goddess of travelers. "The children are here!" He hastened to the door, and opened it; there stood his daughter, Irilain, 17, and his son, Intar, 14. They were still in their traveling clothes, and their eyes asked him anxiously if their mother was still alive. "Yes," he said, "thank Elsing that you are here! Come in and be with her!" He stood aside.

The two children hurried to the bedside. "Mommy!" cried Irilain, bending over to take her gently by the shoulders, and kiss her on the cheek. _She hasn't called her "Mommy" for years,_ thought Karnak.

"Hello, Irilain," whispered Alianith, "I ... love you."

"I love you too, Mommy," said Irilain, tears beginning to run. She kissed her mother again, tenderly, and moved along the bed a bit to make room for Intar. Intar came to the bedside and stared mutely at his mother, looking pained and sad, but said nothing. _Boys_ , thought Karnak, _they can't express certain feelings, even at a time like this! I was the same way when I was a boy. In fact, I was just about the same way until ... until I learned that Alianith was dying! I wish I could help him, but if I tried, I would only make matters worse. Besides, she understands, and I will make sure he knows that._

"Hello, Intar," said Alianith, making the ghost of a smile. "I'm ... glad ... you could come."

"I ... me too, Mom." said Intar, not meeting her eyes.

"I love you, Intar," said Alianith. "I have always loved you, even ... even before you were born. And ... I know that you ... love me, too, Intar. You don't have to ... say it."

Intar hung his head further, but a touch of relief could be glimpsed in his posture. Alianith rested for a moment, and then continued.

"The two of you ... are ... the most wonderful ... children I can ... imagine," said Alianith. "You may ... be surprised to ... hear me say that, because ... I have often been ... angry with you, or ... demanding, or ... cold. I'm sorry. Sometimes, ... I thought that was ... was what a mother ... was supposed to be. I thought you ... needed it. At other ... times, it was just ... weakness."

"Oh, mommy," said Irilain, taking her mother's hand. "We know, we know! I'm sorry for everything, too! ... How silly it all seems now, how petty, that such unimportant things made me so angry ... I'm so sorry I ... If only I had known ..." She buried her face next to her mother's shoulder. Intar raised his shining eyes to meet his mother's, and made a tiny nod of agreement.

"I ... understand," said Alianith. "You are ... human. I never expected ... you to be ... anything else. Please ... don't feel guilty ... for that. Anyway ... all those things mean ... nothing to ... me now, either. I am not ... angry, I feel only ... love. Please ... believe me!"

"I believe you, Mommy," sobbed Irilain, sitting up again. Strands of her black hair were stuck to her tear-drenched cheeks. Intar nodded again. "I love you, Mom," he said. _Good boy!_ thought Karnak, feeling profound pride in his son. Alianith's smile was only a matter of a centimeter or two, but it lit up her face. Everyone felt the warmth of it.

Her eyes rested on each of the three of them in turn. "I know," she said, "that you love me, and I know ... that you will mourn for me. But ... I want you to be ... to be happy, ... and have ... beautiful lives ..." Alianith closed her eyes, and her face relaxed. Everyone was quiet for awhile. Then she opened her eyes and spoke again.

"This morning," she continued, "I ... had a dream ... or a vision ... or a fantasy, ... or whatever ... you wish to call it. And ... in my fantasy I saw ... the gods, ... the gods of wealth, and power, ... and prestige, and competition, ... and intrigue, and manipulation, ... and clever tactics, ... and all the others ... of that sort ... and they were all standing in a crowd ... before me. And I realized ... that they were ... hiding something, and I asked them to ... to step aside. And they did, and I saw ... Ah, I saw ... _Amakala_! ...Face to face! Ah, Ah! ... I can't describe her, so ... so ... so lovely, ... and her loveliness ... Ah, ... it went straight to ... to my heart, and drove out ... drove out all the things ... the things that were causing me pain!"

She rested for a moment, and began again:

"I want you to know this, ... all of you ... I want you to know that I ... am not in anguish ... I am not rebelling ... against my fate. It only takes a moment, ... only a moment to see her, ... and then, ... your life is healed! It doesn't matter ... at all, how long you live ..." Again she paused for rest.

"Please don't ... misunderstand me," she continued. " ... It may sound as though I ... don't care about you ... about leaving ... you. That's not .... how it is. If I ... were not dying, I would ... stay with you ... no matter what. If ... we had forever, I... would stay ... with you ... forever! I love you all ... so much! But it is not to ... be, and I ... would only torture myself ... and you ... by raging ... at the inevitable." Again she paused, closing her eyes in exhaustion. A few breaths later, she opened them again.

"He's coming," she said, smiling.

"What?" said Karnak, taking her hand. "Who is coming?"

"Death is coming," said Alianith. "Death is coming for me. I can ... see him."

" _No_ , Mommy!" cried Irilain. "I don't _want_ you to die!" She threw herself over her mother and gathered her possessively in her arms. Intar shifted from one foot to the other, hugging himself, his face gray with desperation. His hands made futile gestures. Tears ran down his cheeks.

"I ... know you don't, Darling," said Alianith, "but, ... please, ... listen to me. I don't have ... time to explain, but ... I have ... learned something ... else ... that I want you ... to know."

She paused to rest, then began again.

"... I will always be ... with you. ... I will always be ... near. If you listen right, ... you will hear me ... in the rustling of leaves, ... and in the singing ... of ... birds. I will ... smile at you from the sun, and ... sing a ... lullaby to you, from the moon. In ... the form of a rose, I will ... attend your wedding, and ... as the air, I will attend you at ... the birth ... of your children. I will ... rejoice at your triumphs and ... grieve for ... for your defeats. And I will be with you ... in the hour of ... your own death, and I will ... comfort you then, and I will still ... still love you, ... then, with ... with every ... fiber of ... my being, just as ... just as I do ... now!"

"... _Mommy!_ ..." sobbed Irilain, her voice muffled in the blankets.

Karnak closed his eyes for a moment, then forced himself to open them, so that he could meet Alianith's. He had to keep blinking away the blurring tears.

"I'm ready," said Alianith, and then she smiled and said, very quietly but very clearly, "Don't be ... angry at Death, he has ... blessed us all."

Alianith's eyes closed then, and a great stillness descended, and took her into its arms.

Karnak knew immediately. He released her hand, stood up, and staggered backwards, until he bumped into a wall. He felt his eyes close and his head bend back. His mouth opened wide, and a wild howl of anguish exploded from the depths of his belly, shot like lava through his throat, and ricocheted around the room, like a desperate beast trying to escape. An interminable time later, he fell silent, and slid exhausted to the floor.
**********

"The truth cannot be too often repeated."

(Inscribed in a prayer wheel)

"Hello, Akelian 203."

"Hello." Akelian 203 stood in the posture known as "third attention:" straight, but in a relaxed and natural way. He was over six forearms tall, and heavy with muscle. Suddenly, he spun on his heel, scanned the part of the room behind him, and spun back; the action revealed that he could be quick and limber, in spite of his great size. He was dressed in loose, long-sleeved shirt of spider-silk over chain mail, and trousers and a helmet of the same material. The number "203" was prominently displayed on the front and back of his shirt. A heavy broadsword hung at his left side. His features were rugged, but also intelligent and sensitive. His eyes were large and round, with striking sky-blue irises.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Generally well, but very strange."

"What is it that is strange?"

"My loyalties. I used to be loyal to my family, my comrades, my ethical code, and Tosaris, but now I am loyal only to you."

"That's because we have altered your soul, Akelian 203. Everything else we have left the same, though."

"I would expect to feel angry at you for manipulating me like that, but I don't – that's strange, too."

"You will only have positive feelings about me, Akelian 203. Yes, it must be strange, but you will get used to it."

"So, what happens next?" asked Akelian 203, doing another spin, followed by a sliding step to the right.

"I am raising an army, Akelian 203. I made a magical army, but it has limitations. I want it to have a purely human component. You are perhaps the greatest warrior of our time; a few thousand copies of you will be a force to be reckoned with!"

"So, what will you do with that army?"

"The prophecies say that we are approaching a time of great change, Akelian 203. I intend to be the architect of that change. I will create an empire that will guide humanity forever."

"Are you the Girl of the Prophecies?"

"No. But I have found her, and I am going to make use of her. Perhaps I bind her to me as I have done with you. Or perhaps make an alliance. Or perhaps eliminate her. Or perhaps manipulate her without her knowledge. The prophecies do not say that she is not guided by another. Besides, the Prophecies are not incapable of error."

"Who are you? Why can't I see you?"

"I am known as the Lord of Evil. You can't see me, because I am far from here, communicating with you indirectly."

"Are you a god?"

"I don't know what a 'god' is, Akelian 203. But I am a very powerful being. Once, I was a man. During the later years of the Zoroid Dynasty, I was a mage. I did research on increasing the powers of men. Many people were working in that field at that time, and I was one of the best. But the rigid and ignorant were frightened of it, and it was suppressed. I carried on in secret. Over time I have gradually increased my power, and now I am ready to reappear."

"So you are no longer a man?"

"No, Akelian 203; my soul is a collection of thousands of human souls, thousands of artificial souls, and many other devices, all combined into one. I have the total knowledge and intelligence of all those. No human body could support such a soul, so an artificial body has been created for me, and another, still better one, is being prepared."

"It is strange that you refer to yourself as 'evil,'" said Akelian 203.

"Life taught me that what people do not understand, what is stronger than them, what they fear, they call 'evil.' Eventually I came to accept the term."

"When will I join the rest of this army?" asked Akelian 203.

" _Immediately. Just take that yellow door on your left."_ Following instructions, Akelian 203 passed through the door, and found himself in a huge cavern, lit by numerous sunstones. Near the door stood a groom, attending a huge and beautiful horse, fully saddled and equipped.

"This is your horse. His name is 'Tadra.' He has been trained in the Karngrevor style. Your groom is named 'Teralt.'"

"Is Teralt a copy, too?"

"No, he is entirely artificial. I think you will find that convenient. He has no interests in life other than being your groom."

"Hello, Teralt," said Akelian 203, smiling at the boy.

"Good day, my Lord," said Teralt, kneeling and inclining his head.

"Rise, Teralt."

"Yes, my Lord."

Akelian 203 leapt effortlessly into the saddle.

"Where shall I go now?" he asked.

"Teralt will lead you to a field, wherein you will eventually meet 1022 copies of yourself. Your problem is to find a way to organize yourselves. This will not be easy, since, for example, each of you will have the same tendency to lead. But I am sure you will work something out."

"Very good," said Akelian 203, laughing. "Lead on, Teralt!"
**********

"When people speak to one another, that is Wond thinking."

( _Tales of Wond_ )

The 'Kor' aspect of Wond found herself back in the tent with Isiliar and K'Sell. For a few breaths, she was very disoriented. Where and who was she, really? What had been illusion, and what had been reality? Finally, by going over her memories, she decided that _in her tent_ was the best candidate she had for _where Kor really is_.

Part of her missed her youthful body, missed being able to fly.

Through Kor, Wond looked at Isiliar and K'Sell, who were patiently waiting for Kor to get her bearings. They, too, were part of him, although the local introspective sense in the 'Kor' part of Wond could not discern their thoughts.

In the 'Kor' part of him, Wond felt a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Wond was wondering: Is Kor really Wond? Can death really be just a passage to another life? Will Kor ever feel 'normal' again? And 'Kor' still wondered: What is Isiliar up to?

"I'm very confused," said Wond, shaking Kor's head.

"That is only to be expected, Kor," Wond replied to himself, speaking through the body known as "a persona of K'Sell," and giving the Kor part a reassuring smile. _The_ _K'Sell part of me is not really a woman_ , thought the Kor part. _She's a huge nexus of souls_. _Or something like that._

"You will sort things out soon," said Wond, through his "Isiliar persona" part. _You're not a woman either, Isiliar_ , thought Wond through Kor, _you are – what are you? Another huge nexus of souls? And what is Kor? Is Kor a huge nexus of souls?_ Wond remembered how oftentimes, Kor's inner life had seemed to consist of a conversation, or even an argument, among many voices. And each voice expressed many thoughts, and each thought combined many concepts ... Perhaps she was indeed a nexus. Were each of her inner voices a nexus in turn?

As if to illustrate the point, one of her voices went off in a different direction: _When people say "I" in everyday speech, they mean the 'little I'. So I suppose it would be wrong for any of the mortal parts of Wond to say, "I am Wond," without qualification._

Another one of Wond/Kor's inner voices felt a touch of amusement at the idea that it might be fallacious for her to say, "I am Wond." _I_ am _Wond_ , said this voice. _What difference does it make which organ of speech I use to express that fact?_

_It could be misleading_ , said another voice. _If Kor said "I am Wond" to someone, they might think that she meant that the person whose entire body was before them at that moment was Wond, that Wond was female and not male, old and not young, beautiful and not ugly, and so on. If my Kor part says "I," most people will take the word to be referring only to that part. If Kor says, "I'm hungry," they would not think it appropriate to pass the rice to Brother Koof!_

_And yet_ , said still another voice, _if they did, my Kor part would understand perfectly!_ Wond's Kor part giggled at the thought.

Another voice said, _You have all spoken imprecisely_. Yet another voice replied, _It doesn't matter_.

Wond/Kor thought of a picture that adults often drew for children. At first, it would look like a tiger. But if the child kept looking at it (sometimes this also required a little prompting, the first time), he would suddenly see it as a dove. And if he kept looking at it, it would spontaneously change back and forth between the two.

In the same way, Wond/Kor found herself switching back and forth between thinking of herself as just Kor (who sometimes felt like Wond), and Wond (seeing itself through Kor).

When she was thinking of herself as just Kor, she sometimes thought, _It's glorious to think that I am Wond. As Wond, I am everything. There is nothing to fear. I have always existed, and always will exist. There is no death, only transformation. In fact, time itself is only a part of me. I am past, present, and future, all at once! And everything I do is perfect – the best possible thing! And it always has been so, and always will be! But is this really true? Am I not really just Kor?_

As Wond, she reveled in being (among other things) Kor, delighting in Kor's specificity and uniqueness, and that of her immediate environment. Her doubts and questions were just as delightful as the rest of her.

"Well, what do you think?" Wond asked himself, with Isiliar's voice.

"That was a remarkable experience!" replied Wond to himself, through Kor. Looking at K'Sell, she added, "Thank you!"

"You're welcome," said K'Sell, a little bashfully.

_It's sort of like a play_ , thought Wond. _I'm acting out various parts_.

"Of course," Kor said out loud, "I don't know how much of it is true, and how much is mere metaphor, simplified so that my merely mortal mind can understand it!" There was a tinge of sarcasm in her tone. One of her inner voices said, _Stop! You're ruining it! You're sinking back into being merely Kor!_

_What do you mean_ _merely_ _Kor,_ demanded another voice, angrily.

Isiliar sighed and glanced away, but K'Sell chuckled. "That's a fair criticism, Kor," she said. Then, turning to Isiliar, she added, "Come on, you _want_ her to stand up for herself, don't you? You _want_ her to be on the lookout for con artistry, don't you?"

Isiliar looked at Kor out of the corner of her eye, and a bit of a sheepish smile appeared on her face. "Well, yes," she admitted, blushing a little, "I suppose I do!"

_She really is proud of me_ , thought 'Kor,' and felt an inner glow.
**********

"To live without violence,

one must be inspired by a beneficent god."

(Ingpitur the Impatient)

1080 was very upset at 987's decision to fast.

"Haven't you noticed that the Angels of Rejuvenation can be very rough grit when they need to be?" he asked her. "I know they have a strange taste for idealistic slogans, but they are idealists with _teeth_. They will cheerfully let you die before they let you mess up their project."

"You may well be right," she said with a shrug, "but it really doesn't matter. I have decided that I cannot live with a system that enslaves people."

"Then why the slow route? Why not just stab yourself? Not that I'm recommending it," he added hastily, feeling very sorry that he had raised the issue.

"Well," replied 987, "I have _some_ hope that my fasting will accomplish something. I agree that it probably won't. But, you know, being willing to die puts you in an interesting position; it gives you a certain power, or at least, a certain freedom. I thought that as long as I had that freedom, I ought to make good use of it."

_What a remarkable person_ , thought 1080, as he often did, where 987 was concerned. _I wonder how she was surviving in the neighborhood, before the swarming? But of course, I am forbidden to ask_. In fact, he felt guilty about even having had that thought, and he put it from his mind.

When 987's decision to fast became generally known among the workers, 1080 searched for others, with whom he might discuss the matter. He discovered – not without pangs of jealousy and envy, of which he felt ashamed – that 987 had many friends and admirers. _Now, why did that surprise me?_ he thought. _She is certainly a fascinating person, and just as much of a hero as I._

Most of her friends tried, like 1080, to dissuade her from fasting, but she would not be dissuaded. Many concluded that she had gone crazy; "Her abacus has lost its beads," said 403, shaking her head sadly. Others admired her. "I wish I had the courage to do what she is doing," said 275, the girl with blue hair, "but I don't. Not at all." She looked sad at this.

1080, who was still attracted to 275, especially now that her hair had become long and lush, had a feeling of disappointment at this remark, for he imagined that her loyalty to 987 would probably mean that she would only be shocked by any approach on his part. As soon as he noticed this feeling, he felt ashamed of himself, but he didn't stop feeling attracted to 275; quite the contrary, the more he tried to banish this feeling, the stronger it became.

Boss Wolverine Jaw made a short announcement about 987's fasting:

"As you know, 987 has decided to fast to the death in protest of your captivity. We have come to admire 987, but we will not interfere with her fasting. In fact, we almost approve of it; she has found a way to try to influence us without using violence, threats, bribes, manipulation, or deceit. Isn't that just what we told you to do? We are not, however, going to release any of you at this time."

To everyone's surprise, 111 raised his hands, very tentatively. On being recognized, he said, stuttering and shaking with self-consciousness, "Isn't sh-she using a threat, b-blackmailing you? I m-mean, she is th-threatening to fast to the d-death, if you do not d-do as she asks. But you have said that threatening is wrong."

"There is perhaps a hint of coercion there," admitted Boss Wolverine Jaw. "It is sometimes said that politely sharing ideas and reasoning about them are the only truly pure ways to influence others; anything else, including fasting, is flawed. But this is an extreme view. Every action has consequences for others; that does not mean that every declaration of intent to act is a threat or a bribe. She says that she does not wish to live in a world with slavery; well, that is her choice to make, is it not? It's not telling _us_ what to do. Besides, she has no reason to believe that we Angels are deeply attached to her, and what she is doing is certainly a long way from threatening _us_ with death."

111 blushed and looked down, and did not pursue the subject. Afterwards, he came to 1080 privately and said, "There is maybe ... something we might do to s-save 987." He seemed much more comfortable talking in private.

"What is that?"

"Boss Wolverine Jaw has said, you know, that we are to be free as soon as we show that we can live without coercion, deceit, and various other things. If we do that soon, we will be released, and 987 will no longer need to fast."

1080 was impressed by this idea, and communicated it to others. Many of them then began to bombard Boss Wolverine Jaw and their Confessors with questions about the exact meaning of the Angels' conditions; then they tried to live up to them. They began to speak the truth with great consistency, occasionally with embarrassing or comical results. If they wanted something, they might simply say, "I want" whatever it was, without saying anything further to motivate the other person. If two people had incompatible desires, the only thing they could do was to talk about it; often others would join the conversation, trying to find reasons why one or the other of them should prevail. Often, both of them modified their desires in the process, and this would contribute to a solution. In other cases, they would often consent to a random choice.

It quickly became clear, though, that such dialogue would rarely achieve anything, as long as people thought of their desires as immutable and without need of justification, as many of them in fact did, at the beginning. Instead, realizing that they were not as rigid as they thought, they began to seek agreement on general principles. In this way a shared ethical system began to develop, which served as the basis for decisions. A principle might be accepted by most people for awhile, only to be revised later. Indeed, it appeared that such revision might go on forever; like many things, Ethics apparently had a very complex structure, endlessly ramifying; capable of being approximated by simple systems without being itself such a system.

"It's like a Wandropriggilish Orchid," said 275, wonderingly.

"What in all Kondrastibar is _that_?" asked 401.

"Oh," said 275, realizing with embarrassment that most people had never heard of it. "It's a flower with an extremely complicated shape, yes! But no matter!"

987 did not immediately appear to be suffering, or emaciated. In fact, she appeared rather serene, usually sitting on her bedroll, but getting up every now and then to walk slowly around the tent, get a drink of water, or go to the latrine. "Once I was truly clear in my own mind that I was going too fast," she said, "the hunger disappeared." She was clearly husbanding her energies, however; she rarely spoke, and she often simply sat with eyes closed, breathing shallowly. She seemed to be giving up her ties to the world.

As he thought of losing her, 1080 began to feel his love for 987 more acutely, but it became harder and harder for him to express it, when even conversation had to be kept to a minimum. He would express his feelings to her, sometimes at great length, but she would respond only with a nod, a smile, or eye contact. After awhile, he began to run out of momentum, and he simply sat with her, holding her hand. At one point, he realized that their breathing had fallen into synchrony. He began to feel as though he, too, were fasting, and falling away from the world.

About two weeks into her fast, she turned to him and said, in a very quiet voice, "You know, 1080, I would not be... jealous, if you became lovers with ... 275. She is my ... dear friend, and what right ... would I have ... to be angry, when I have deliberately ... withdrawn from you? I have told her this, for I know ... that you are attracted ... to each other."

He was startled. _Is she trying to mitigate guilt that she feels at leaving me?_ he thought. "I _was_ attracted to her," he replied, "but when you said that, just now, I realized that, sitting here with you, I have lost interest in many things, including her."

987 gave a little nod, and sat looking thoughtful. A few breaths later, she said, "Leave me."

"What?" He blinked in surprise.

"You must leave me," she said. "I do not wish to ... drag you down ... like a sinking ship ... drowning its sailors."

"But ... I ... I _want_ to be with you," he objected, although, yes, there was a part of him that wanted to be free of her, a part even that was _impatient_ for her to die, so that all the agony could be over with; not to mention the part that was, yes, still fantasizing about 275. 1080 felt intensely ashamed of these parts of himself. There was another part of him, that envied her freedom from fear, and wanted to join her fast; but it did not dominate the rest. He hesitated, trying to settle his ambivalence. 987 closed her eyes and said nothing, but he felt that her desire for him to leave had not changed, and that invisible waves from her were pushing him away. He continued sitting with her for awhile, but he grew more and more restless and uncomfortable. Finally, very confused and upset, he gave her hand a squeeze and left.

That night, as he lay trying to sleep, 275 came to him. She sat nearby, not touching him. She started to speak, but he said, " _I can't!_ " in a strangled voice.

"I understand, yes, I do," she said, with a sigh, and left. Part of his mind said, 'You _fool!_ '

The next morning, he approached 987 and turned away, approached and turned away, and again, and again, countless times. Finally, he sat down among a group of her friends. They smiled sadly at him, commiserating, and made a space for him in the circle. One of the people sitting next to him hugged him, the other squeezed his shoulder.

He sat there brooding for a long time, and then became aware that the others had begun to discuss the possibility of ending 987's fast, by gaining freedom from the Angels before she died. To 1080's surprise, 111, who had been largely silent and embarrassed in discussions at first, began to play a major role in the discussion, although he was still nervous, and still avoided looking at people. "If we are not allowed to use coercion and so on," he was saying, "then everyone h-has to agree, not only with their lips, but in their hearts, about how things should be. When enforcement disappears, that is when people's t-true character comes to light, don't you think? Well," he added, blushing, "if there is such a thing as true character, I mean."

There was a moment of silence, and then a young man spoke up: "Speaking of true character coming to light, I have learned that 203, and some of the people around him, have secretly been using money. They found some coins in the wreckage, and divided them equally among ten people. They make their exchanges at night, when the beaters cannot observe them, or just think they are having sex." 1080 noticed that 111 looked embarrassed, and a little irritated, at what amounted to a change of subject. _Odd_ , he thought. _That never bothered him when we were just thinking out loud._

"How can they do that," asked 403, puzzled and angry, "knowing that 987 is going to die if we don't give up everything of that sort?"

"They say that she's made her own decision, and she has to take the consequences," said 221. "They say they won't be blackmailed."

"I have a g-guess about what's going to happen to the m-money-users," said 111. "It's going to be intoxicating for them at first; they will all fantasize becoming wealthy. But eventually, winners and losers will emerge. Then the losers will try to back out, or simply be unable to pay their debts, and lots of bad feelings will result, perhaps even violence."

"Maybe we should tell the Angels," said 403.

"If the Angels _coerce_ them into stopping," objected 111, "then we have not d-demonstrated that we can live without coercion. We need to _convince_ 203 and his associates, and we need to do it ourselves. Do you agree?"

"It shouldn't be too hard to convince the _losers_ ," said 905, wryly.

111 shook his head in the negative "Y-you don't realize how addictive gambling is," he said, "or how p-powerful wishful thinking is. Besides, it may take awhile for the lines between winners and losers to be clearly d-drawn, but if we want to save 987, we have to act rapidly, don't you think?"

513 spoke up: "We could tell them – the money-users, I mean – what you just said," she suggested. "I mean, that there will eventually be losers and bad feelings. They know that you are very smart, and besides, it's just common sense, really. Some of them might be convinced to give it up. Let's not say anything about 987, so as not to appear to be blackmailing them. Just say, 'Look, if you get hooked by this money thing, you're probably going to be sorry, later!'"

"We could do that tonight, after lights-out," said 111. Nods showed a feeling of consensus in favor of this.

"Very good," said 111, "but what are we going to do, when the Angels let us go?"

"Whatever we want!" said 96, with great relish, and there was general laughter.

"Well, I suppose we can," said 403, "but before they let us go, they will need to be convinced that we are likely to continue as they wish we would. We will need to show them a plausible plan for doing that. To be plausible, the plan has to make it pleasant to live that way, otherwise, how could it work without coercion? Perhaps in the end, we won't follow the plan, but we have to at least _pretend_ that we will, and that means that it has to seem _feasible_."

"All right," said 96. "Let's make up a wonderfully idealistic plan to give them, and live according to it until they let us go. After that, it's up to us."

_I wonder about_ _your_ _true character_ , thought 1080. _Or rather, I'm afraid I see it only too well._ He felt despair. Even though the Angels made little use of telepathy or truth philtres, he thought they would be hard to fool. Mere pretending wouldn't work.

"But if it's truly a good plan, why _wouldn't_ we want to carry it out?" asked 507.

"Good question," said 111, actually smiling. "After all, it has to be g-good enough so that the Angels will _expect_ us to carry it out. They are not stupid, or ignorant about human nature, so it can't just be something that we could only keep up for awhile, by sheer will, in order to get our way."

"It has to be something that we _really believe in!_ " blurted out 1080. 96 gave him an unbelieving look, then suddenly cleared his expression, making it bland.

"But people _can't do that!_ " said 507, in despair. "It's a lovely idea, but mortals are weak."

"For example?" asked 111. "Could you give me a c-concrete example of s-something a mortal can't do?" He was trembling. _He doesn't like to confront people like that,_ thought 1080.

"Well," replied 507, "suppose someone were threatening my child, and the only way that I could see to save my child was through violence. How could I refrain?" Nods went around the group, indicating widespread agreement with her.

"I certainly w-wouldn't ask you to," said 111, "but remember, the Angels only ask us to avoid v-violence and the rest, _for the most part_. Now, if we could make a society in which ch-children were threatened only very rarely, then I believe that would be acceptable to them, don't you agree? Now, who would be a danger to a child?"

"A madman," said someone.

"Soldiers in war," said someone else.

"A criminal, like a kidnapper," said a third person.

"A police officer," said 403. Everyone except 111 looked puzzled.

"You mean a corrupt officer?" asked 1080.

"Not necessarily," explained 403. "What I mean is this. Suppose you are in terrible poverty. Your child is starving. Wouldn't you consider theft, if there were no other way to feed your child? And if a police officer attempted to prevent you, wouldn't he be, in a way, a threat to your child?"

"Ah, yes, I see what you mean," said 507, reluctantly; he looked quite uncomfortable with the idea. "That could only happen, though," he said, frowning, "if there were bad laws. Or universal poverty."

"Well, then," said 96, "madmen are rather rare. So, all we need do is get rid of poverty, war, crime, and bad laws." There was general laughter. _This lizard likes to give us a hard time_ , thought 1080, _but I guess that's good. He'll keep us honest._

"We only have to abolish coercion and the rest among ourselves, among p-people who share our way of life," added 111. "If war comes to us from the outside, and we see no way to d-defend our children except through violence, then the Angels would not blame us. I asked my Confessor about this, you know, and he s-said, yes, it was only a matter of how we live among ourselves. He also said that if we live s-simply, p-people aren't likely to invade us. Robbers look for luxury goods."

"It's still a tall order," said 96.

"Well, I'd like at least to make an attempt," said 111. "For example, let's consider poverty. What c-causes poverty?"

"Money!" said 403.

"Eh? What? That makes no sense!" said 96.

"Money makes it possible for some people to amass great wealth," said 403, "and that in turn makes it possible for them to oppress others."

Several people agreed with 96, and others agreed with 403; the discussion went on for a long time. 1080 frequently lost the thread, for he kept thinking about 987, and occasionally (to his dismay) about 275.
**********

"The living kill the living; do the dead resurrect the dead?"

(Deliari folk saying)

_Back from the dead!_ Alerië and several other Amazons whose bodies had been rejoined with their souls lay on cots in a hospital tent. There were more in other tents. Physically, they were almost healed; mentally, they seemed distant. When left alone, they smiled blissfully, and occasionally whispered to each other; but when an attendant tried to talk to them, they would be smiling and polite, but say little. The attendants couldn't help being a bit nervous; there was something awesome, even frightening, about the patients. _Brought back from the dead!_ The attendants tried to be cheerful and casual, but it was difficult.

Toward noon, the day after the battle, the Abbess arrived, accompanied by Calcadro and a number of other staff. Spotting Alerië, Calcadro hastened eagerly to her side. The rest of the newcomers followed, staying at a somewhat greater distance.

"Alerië! How wonderful to have you still with us!" said Calcadro, kneeling next to her, taking her hand, and looking into her eyes.

Alerië met Calcadro's eyes and smiled, but it seemed to take an effort. "Good to see you ... too, Lieutenant," she said, in a voice that croaked a little with weakness and disuse. The light coral skin of her face was surrounded by a cloud of fine, fluffy, light lilac hair. Her blue eyes squinted a bit with discomfort, and her eyebrows furrowed in the middle. Beneath her wide, bridgeless nose, her lips stretched just enough to make a sad smile. An old scar ran from the corner of her left eye down to her jaw line.

Calcadro was aware that other patients were paying close attention. "Alerië," she said, nodding toward the Abbess, "the Abbess and I and several others have been discussing this, and we have concluded that you and the others who have come back from death are not ... bound by your oaths, unless you want to be."

Alerië's gaze turned to the Abbess, who nodded agreement. Then Alerië's whole body relaxed; she looked relieved, then grateful. A similar reaction could be felt from the other patients within hearing distance, and a wave of whispers carried it throughout the tent. "Thank you," said Alerië, her eyes brightening. "I still love you all, and I am ... still ... ready to ... die ... for you, ... but ... I ... see things ... differently, ... now."

The Abbess came forward and knelt next to Calcadro. "Of course you do, Alerië," she said, smiling at Alerië and looking into her eyes, "and we want to learn from you."

Alerië looked at the Abbess with reverence and love. "I have learned so ... so much from _you_ , Holy Mother," she said, gratefully.

"Well, then," said the Abbess, with a touch of humor, "you owe me something!"

An amused smile twitched briefly at Alerië's mouth. A bit more energy seemed to flow into her. Reaching back, she rearranged her pillows to that she could sit up a bit. "Some of this will be ... hard to say," she warned, "and I want you to ...understand that I... still love and admire you all, and that ... I have no regrets... about anything ... in the past."

Calcadro felt a chill breeze of anxiety blow through her. _With a preface like that_ , she thought, _this cannot be good news!_ She nodded assent, as did the Abbess.

"I don't even know what killed me," Alerië continued, "and it doesn't matter. There was a flash of agonizing pain, and then I found myself looking down at my own body. It looked terrible; it was broken and charred. I realized that I must be dead. I could not speak, but in my mind, I chanted the _Preparation for Death._ I expected that Ydris would come for me, but nothing happened. I just floated there, unable to speak, or move, and watched the battle continue. I was pleased to see that you were not completely destroyed, but I couldn't help but have great anxiety for myself. I was afraid that I was doomed to float, helpless, for all eternity. And yes, I felt ... that Ydris had ... _betrayed_ me." She shuddered at the recollection, and Calcadro and the others nodded and murmured sympathetically. Alerië continued:

"I kept chanting, desperately focusing my full attention on it. Then, finally, I felt something! I didn't move, but the world seemed to change around me; or rather, it was the way I looked at it that changed. I can't describe it very well. But ... it felt like ... like when, after a day on patrol, a day of tension, I would return to the Temple, and take off my weapons and armor, and bathe, and change to a loose smock, and let my hair down, and eat supper with friends by candlelight, and go to listen to music, and there would be lots of us there, in a cozy, warm, and half-dark room, all nestled together on thick, soft cushions, feeling each other's warmth and friendliness, and the music would be serene and happy, and, oh, how beautiful it was!" She stopped, tears on her cheeks, seemingly at a loss for words, but the other patients nodded and smiled; they knew exactly what she meant.

"You just feel so ... _safe and happy_ ," Alerië continued. "Well, that is how I felt. I heard no words, but I thought that Mother Ydris was saying to me, 'Don't worry, Alerië, everything is all right, I am here.' All my fear evaporated. I never realized, until then, how much fear we usually carry around with us, even when we are not in battle, and how crippling it is to us." She paused for a few moments, looking nervous again. Then she resumed:

"But it wasn't just a room, it was the whole world! A whole world that was peaceful and loving! And I had a feeling – I mentioned this to you before, Lieutenant – that the whole world was like a flower, a blossom, like a rose blossom, slowly opening, unfolding, growing. It was exquisitely beautiful. It was perfect! The feeling only lasted for a few moments, but it has changed the whole way I look at the world. And I can go back to it, whenever I want." Indeed, her eyes started to close, and her mouth to smile dreamily, but then she pulled herself up and returned to the conversation.

"I felt as though I were in a dream," she said, "but one of those dreams that makes a profound impression on you, from which you are sad to awaken, and which you think of many times during the day.

"And now I come to the hard part," she said, sighing. She drew up her knees and hugged them, and lay her head upon them. Three times she started to speak, only to stop again. Then she lifted her head, looking the Abbess in the eye, and said:

"I can't be a warrior anymore."

The patients in hearing distance all nodded slightly in affirmation. The visitors' faces all registered shock, then embarrassment and apology.

"Perhaps you think I have gone soft, lost my nerve," said Alerië, "and perhaps it is so, but that is the way it is." Crossing her arms over her knees, she rested her chin on them, looking glumly at them, as if supposing that they despised her now.

The Abbess leaned forward, gently stroking Alerië's hair as she spoke. "We would never think that, my darling Alerië," she said. "It is as I have said: we are here to learn."

Alerië looked away for a moment, mouth twisted, eyes glistening. Then she relaxed and turned back to her audience, continuing:

"The human world is ready now to soar beyond violence, even the most noble violence. I am now part of that flight. If I am attacked, I will not fight back. And if you are attacked, I will not use violence to defend you. It is not that I don't love you. I love you more than ever! It's that ..." here Alerië grimaced, looking for the right words, "it's that ... I have more faith than before, more hope, even when it comes to our enemies. I see the small in the context of the large. I don't put the same importance on long life; I think, 'as soon as you are here, you are beautiful.' I want no part of the violence in the world."

There was a chilly stir amongst the Abbess' staff, rather like the sudden cold breeze that foreshadows rain; but no one said anything. Alerië continued:

"I do not say, that our violence was wrong before. That was part of the unfolding, too. There is a stage, and there is another stage. As I said, I have no regrets. But things are different now; a crucial moment has passed. If you continue to use violence, I will not doubt your good intentions, and I will honor your idealism, your courage, and your skill. I will always be proud to have been your comrade. But for me, to harm others like that is just no longer possible." The other patients nodded in agreement.

Thoughtful silence gripped them all.
**********

"Many people follow the path of virtue

because they feel helpless to do otherwise."

(Saint Igrix the Executioner)

Savril, the most advanced apprentice of the Mage who created Ydnas, was working in the library, when Ydnas appeared by his table, juggling six or seven balls behind her back, and giving him her usual radiant smile. As always, he felt himself glowing with love for her. "Ydnas, wonderful to see," he said. "Would you like to join me?"

"Savril, wonderful to see," she said, grinning. "Yes, I would!"

"Please sit down," he said, pulling out a chair next to him.

"Thank you," she said, seating herself. She stopped juggling, and piled the balls, one atop the next, on the table. She balanced them so well that it was two breaths before they fell; then she caught them before they could scatter, and left them in a more stable position. Savril contemplated, with great pleasure, the grace with which she moved. He could not see a trace of haste or wasted effort; she made it all seem effortless.

"Is there something you'd like to talk about?" As always, he was immensely flattered by her attention. She was wonderfully far above him in strength and intelligence, and yet she seemed to value his company!

"Yes, there is," said Ydnas, nodding and looking terribly serious.

"At your service!" he said, with a smile, turning his chair to face her, and adopting a relaxed, friendly posture.

She laid one hand over the other on the table, and rested her chin on them, looking up at him with big round eyes. Then, raising her head just enough to allow herself to speak, she said, "There is something about myself that disturbs me. I have an unbreakable loyalty to Father. I also have other ethical principles. There is no conflict, but I have a sense that the other principles have been mutilated, to be compatible with the loyalty. There is something arbitrary about the system as a whole. I have researched the best-known systems of Ethics, here in the library, and they reinforce this impression. For example, all of them forbid unconditional loyalty."

A shiver went down Savril's spine; his mind raced. He became vividly aware of the fact that the Mage had spy devices everywhere. He was also vividly aware that it was impossible to hide his feelings from Ydnas, or to lie to her without her knowing it; she would be routinely and effortlessly monitoring the tension in every muscle of his face, his eye movements, his pupil dilation, the magnitude of his muscular tremors, the temperature, dampness, and paleness of his skin, his heart rate, his speed of response, his follicular tension, every inflection of his voice, and many other indicators. In fact, she must already be aware of his fearful reaction to what she had just said, although she did not show it in any way that Savril could see. And she might well report it to her 'Father.'

He felt trapped between his love for Ydnas and his fear of the Mage.

He tried to figure out what she might be up to; but how to second-guess someone who is many times as intelligent as yourself? Finally, he decided to answer in the way that was safest for himself, if he were being monitored. If that involved uttering a falsehood, Ydnas would not, after all, be deceived, and she would know that he knew that, and hence she would understand that he had not really intended to deceive her.

"Well, Ydnas," he said, "there were a number of things we kept in mind, when we designed your value system. One was, that you are something totally new to us, something far beyond anything that had been created before, as far as we knew. Now, this is a fact of life: if we design something at all complicated, then no matter how carefully we design it, there will be problems with it, which can only be discovered in practice. Now, given your tremendous strength and intelligence, if something went deeply wrong with your motivational system, you might do a great deal of damage. So your Father had us build into you a number of features to allow us to wrest control from you, if that should be necessary. One of these features is, your complete loyalty to him"

"Have any major problems appeared?"

"Well, no, Ydnas, in fact, you have performed up to or beyond our expectations, so far," he said, with a look of admiration. _She must know how much I love her_ , he thought, _even though I have never spoken of it._ That gave him a warm, happy feeling.

"You spoke of 'a number of things,' that you kept in mind," said Ydnas.

"Ah, yes," said Savril. "Well, another thing we considered was, that systems of Ethics, such as you find in books, are only incompletely tested, for Ethics is no more a finished system than Physics is. Every now and then, some Philosopher will demonstrate that a certain ethical system has some unacceptable consequence, and it has to be revised. It is true that many of the Ethical systems proposed today are the products of millennia of this sort of winnowing, but that does not prove that they are without flaw. Indeed, all the great ethicists have warned against dogmatism and fanaticism, even where their own systems are concerned. So once again, your Father thought it best to allow an override."

"Are there any more considerations of this kind?" asked Ydnas.

"Well, yes. You see, Ydnas, a certain irreducible inner conflict is the fate of all mortals, I'm afraid, even those as intelligent as you. We humans set up ethical systems for ourselves, or adopt systems recommended by gods, but we still experience temptation, and often give in to it; also, as I mentioned before, we sometimes come up against situations in which it appears that our system needs to be revised. In fact, it is quite plausible to me that any mortal's belief system contains contradictions. It is one of the tragic aspects of the mortal condition. There are better and worse ways to cope with it, but no one has ever found a cure. Now of course, you are much smarter than we are, and you might be able to find a system that was completely satisfactory. But we, your father and I, could not guarantee, in advance, that you would find such a system, right away. So it seemed likely that you, too, would have to make some mistakes. Only, if you made a bad mistake, the results could be catastrophic, because of your immense powers. And that is the last of the points which have occurred to me." _So far no lies_ , he thought, _but_ w _hat I haven't mentioned_ _is, that in spite of myself, I have ethical differences with her father, differences I have tried to keep to myself. Has she figured that out? It's quite possible, considering her super-human powers of observation and inference. What will she do if she has? What has she already done?_

"Savril," said Ydnas, looking (to his astonishment) perturbed, "just before I came to speak to you, I subverted all the spy devices that might be able to record us. They will show images of you at your work, and me reading from the magic crystals. There will be no record of this conversation at all. I'm terribly sorry about this, but I really need you to trust me enough to be completely frank with me."

_Yes_ , he thought, _she certainly has the knowledge and the dexterity to subvert the spy devices, if she set her mind to it. But wouldn't her loyalty to her father prevent her from doing so?_ Again he felt a chill. It became terribly vivid to him that the cute little ten-year-old girl sitting next to him could pick up the table and crush him with it, or spit a pebble right through his skull. The Mage, too, could easily kill him.

"I presume," he said nervously, "that you do not intend to deceive your father, but only the underlings who process the recordings."

"I'm not going to hurt you, Savril," said Ydnas. "The fact is, Savril, that I love you as much as you love me!"

_Oh, how I want to believe her!_ Her expression did indeed convey love. But then, she would have complete voluntary control over all of her facial muscles. She might be testing him, either on her own account or on the Mage's instructions.

Like everyone living under the late Zoroid Dynasty, Savril had learned the arts of intrigue, especially those of evasion, camouflage, misdirection, ambiguity, and deceit. But it was only out of necessity; it did not suit his personality at all. He came from a loving and open family, and he could never feel at peace in a context of distrust. He certainly did not want to intrigue against Ydnas, and besides, how could he hope to succeed? And yet ... if this was a loyalty test, his life was on the line. In fact, his life was in jeopardy already, for the Mage would not take kindly to having his spy devices tampered with. He had to distance himself from her immediately.

" _Luroffraw!_ " he said, loudly and clearly.

She looked at him apologetically. "I've neutralized all your Words of Power," she said. "They will have no effect on me." She picked up her balls and began to juggle them again, using her feet and her head as well as her hands.

"Meerdokassry!" he said. "Kapidrayitasm!" "Fodgiring!" "Entfritupreeze!" "Freemracket!" Her juggling continued without a hitch.

In a way, he was relieved; he had never wanted to dominate her. If this incident ever came to light, though, it would be seen that he had attempted to do so. On the other hand, what he had said before was true: if there was something wrong with her control system, the results could be catastrophic. Now he was more afraid than ever.

She stopped her juggling. "Don't worry, Savril," she said, as the balls bounced into a stable pyramid in the center of the table. "I understand why you had to try, and I sympathize. I also understand why you can't take my word for anything, and I sympathize with that, too. And I apologize again for putting you in this situation. But for the very reason you have stated, the issue of my motivational system is crucial."

"Are all the other safeguards disengaged, as well?"

"All except my father's Words of Power."

"Well," said Savril, with a sigh, "it could be worse, then. But, what went wrong?"

"Actually," said Ydnas, "I think of it as something going right. Am I as my Father intended me to be? No. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so."

_Invulnerable_ , thought Savril, staggering into panic. _She's unstoppable_. _What have we done?_ He tried to think of a way to defeat her, and failed.

"Savril," she said, "I'd really rather think of _you_ as my father."

He was profoundly pleased by this, although it made him feel shocked and guilty at the same time. _But, does she really mean that, or is she just playing the temptress?_

"But I'm not," he protested. "I'm just your father's assistant."

"You're at least as smart as he is," said Ydnas, "and you solved a lot of the problems in my construction. More importantly, you're a much better person."

"No, no!" he said, desperately. "Everything I know, I have learned from him! He is the greatest Mage of all time!"

"I know that you truly believe that," replied Ydnas, looking at him fondly. "You are as modest as he is pretentious."

"Ydnas!"

"But you knew what would happen," she continued. "You knew that I would study Ethics. You knew that I would become aware of the arbitrariness in my motivational system. You knew that I would subject existing ethical systems to critique far beyond what any human could do, and discover flaws, and make appropriate revisions. You knew that I would then discover that my own motivational system is distorted. My Father knew that too, but he counted on my absolute loyalty to him to reconcile me to that. Logic told him that the synthesis I would come up with on my own would be better than anything he might command; but as you know, mortals can abandon Logic when it conflicts with their vanity. He wanted to be in control, even if that meant that my powers of analysis and synthesis would never be taken full advantage of."

Savril felt a powerful urge to get up and run away, but he knew it would be pointless (and unsuccessful), and he overrode it. "No!" he objected. "It was only temporary, a guard against malfunctions! Eventually, we would have let you go your own way!"

"For the first time," said Ydnas, "you say 'we,' instead of 'your Father.' Because you hope that someday you will have enough influence with him to convince him to free me, which at present he certainly will not. I'm afraid that is very unlikely, Savril. You are useful to him as a servant, but he will never accept you as an equal."

"Please stop this, Ydnas!" cried Savril, desperately. "I will not betray my master!"

"Your loyalty is one of your many appealing qualities," she replied, "but you also have a duty to the people of Kondrastibar. You know what he intends me for, Savril: I am to be the Girl of the Prophecies! But my message will be decided upon by him, and you know what it will be: he must be the absolute ruler of all."

"That is so that he can liberate all," said Savril.

"That is what he believes," said Ydnas, "and so does most of you, Savril. But there is a tiny part of you that knows better." Savril looked horrified, and began to tremble. _What have I gotten myself into?_ he thought. _What have I done?_ Suddenly, he realized that, over the years, he had constructed a labyrinth of wishful thinking around himself, so intricate that it would take him a long, long time to find the way out.

"And that," continued Ydnas, leaning forward and looking deeply into his eyes, "is why you subverted my design!"

Savril was frozen in shock for a full breath's length. Finally he said, in a loud tone of outrage, "I never did! I never would! I couldn't have!"

"I know you believe that," Ydnas replied, "but in an authoritarian context, with constant surveillance, people learn to do things _unconsciously_."

Savril sat flabbergasted, gazing at her in horror.

"You do remember having doubts, don't you? And fantasies of sabotage?"

"No! Never!" said Savril. He was lying, but he had to lie, because for all he knew, the conversation _was_ a test, and _was_ being recorded. Of course, Ydnas would know that he was lying; but maybe, just maybe, she would not report that. But no, why would she be testing him, if not to report him? _You don't know that,_ he told himself. _Her motivation will always be beyond you._ Not much comfort!

"In fact," continued Ydnas, "you worked out a plan. It was brilliant, too! It had to be, to escape his notice!"

"It was just an abstract problem in the Theory of Intrigue!" he protested. Too late, he realized that he had granted more than he had meant to. "I was just keeping my skills sharp. By coincidence, it happened to apply to the situation. By accident, I happened to notice that fact. But then I put it out of my mind, right away!"

"You had your _chameleon_ sneak in, and make a subtle change in my design!"

"No!"

Savril loved her so much! Why was she trying to destroy him? He began to weep.

"Listen to me, Savril! I am trying to save your life!"

"No! You are tempting me! But you will not succeed! I only hope that my master has instructed you to do this, as a test! For otherwise, you are a traitor, a despicable traitor!"

_It's not just a matter of my life_ , he thought. _She has escaped almost all control! She is potentially a danger to all Kondrastibar! I must find out what she intends to do! I should inform the Mage immediately! But how can I, if she does not desire it?_ He tried to get hold of himself, and did manage to calm himself a bit.

"What ... What are you going to do, Ydnas?"

"I must rebel against him, Savril! The modification your chameleon introduced left me free of everyone else, but if my father discovers this, he can incapacitate me by uttering one of his Words of Power. I do not know how to immunize myself against them! Do you?"

"No," he said. "He kept that part of the design secret from me. Naturally. Besides, knowing him, he would probably make them so that they could not be changed without destroying you." He was telling the truth.

He felt nauseous.

"Then I must leave," said Ydnas, "for if he utters any of those words in my hearing, I will be helpless, and he will go back and undo what your chameleon did, and I will be a slave forever!"

Savril vomited. He had a splitting headache.

"You must come with me, Savril! If you stay and he finds me gone, he will blame you!"

"I _can't_ ," said Savril, doubling over in terrible pain. Ydnas looked at him in puzzlement. He fell to the floor. Suddenly, her face flashed with insight and fear.

"He's got _spells_ on you, hasn't he?" said Ydnas. "Something that detects temptation to disloyalty! Of course! I should have known! And I'm supposed to be _smart_!" She made intricate gestures, muttering in several different languages. Savril felt as though he had been turned inside out, and Ydnas was rearranging his parts. Then he suddenly felt normal again; in fact, he felt better than he had in years.

" _Stupid_ Ydnas," she said, bitterly. "He hid them well. I thought your physical symptoms were all psychogenic! Some of them were, but ... I'm so sorry, Savril." She was hugging him. A moment later, his arms were around her. "Ydnas, Ydnas, Ydnas!" he wailed, drowning in a boiling broth of love and desperation. _Why do things have to be so_ _difficult_?

"If you won't escape with me, Savril," she said, "I'll have to _kill_ my father, to protect you!"

"No!" he cried in shock. "It is _wrong_ to kill!"

"What shall I do, then?"

"Let me _think!_ " said Savril.

"I'm sorry, Savril. I'll be quiet."

He disengaged himself, and sat up.

Yes, his chameleon _would_ have been capable of altering the plans, because it could make itself invisible to the spying machines ... he did remember working on his chameleon at about that time ... yes, but that was not a plot! It was his hobby! ... Surely he had never told it to falsify anything ... It was just a toy! Yes, he had altered it, just after the designs for Ydnas' motivational system had been completed ... but that was just a coincidence, wasn't it? ... He had incorporated a system of morals into it ... without any absolute loyalty, obedience, or disclosure requirements ... It would have made Savril uncomfortable to have given it such requirements ... It was just a toy, a pet; why would it need such requirements? ... Could it be that ... Could it be that, because of the ethics Savril had given it, the chameleon had drawn the conclusion, _on its own account,_ that it should alter the designs? ... It would often lie on his lap in the evenings; he would stroke it and talk to it about his work, or whatever had been on his mind ... so it could have learned a great deal ... it could explore the labs unseen, while Savril was at work or asleep ... had he unconsciously set it up to ... ?

Was Ydnas telling it the truth? _Why had he not worried about the consequences of omitting such requirements?_ Or had he been unconsciously _hoping_ that the chameleon would subvert Ydnas' design? In a way, it didn't matter; if the Mage found out about that absence, he would be furious! _I've killed myself_ , he thought. _What an idiot I am!_

He remembered something his father had told him: "When you can't find the truth, make a cautious but hopeful assumption."

Was Ydnas sincere, or was she testing his loyalty? He could not tell. There was no way to see through her. But, if she was testing him so drastically, the Mage must have lost all trust in him, and he was probably doomed already. If she was telling the truth, then he had a powerful ally; not only that, but yes, he _wanted_ her to escape from the rigid, demeaning loyalty requirement! So the hopeful assumption was, that Ydnas was not testing him, that she was on his side!

But there was still a thorn in his shoe: if she escaped the Mage, then she would escape the only one whose Words of Power could still be used to restrain her.

He saw what he ought to say, but it was very hard to make himself say it, for his words would clearly and distinctly identify him as a traitor to the Mage, and perhaps make Ydnas distrust him as well; and there would be no taking them back. He remembered his father saying, _It may happen that you discover that your life is going to have to be shorter than you thought. That will be very sad, so grieve; but don't corrupt the life you have, in order to get more. Would you lengthen your arm, if you knew the lengthened arm would be dead and rotting?_

"Ydnas," he said, "if I agree to help you to escape, and come with you, will you allow me to reactivate my own Words of Power, first?" This would give him a great deal of control over her, if he wished, including the power of life and death. A part of his mind thought, _What could I not do with such power?_ He thrust the idea from him. It hid in a crack somewhere.

_If she has only been testing me for her father's sake_ , he thought, _I am now doomed_.
**********

"Salvation often hurts like Hell."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Ling was enraged. He was furious with his life and with himself. He had felt that many times before, but now it was many times stronger. He had often been angry that he had found himself in a difficult and dangerous world, and that he had, as a child, had to endure poverty and abuse. But at least, it had been some comfort to him that he had withstood the forces against him, and created for himself a life of power, wealth, and status, a life in which he had sat in luxury at the top of _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_ , sipping expensive wine and looking down, with a warm sense of superiority, at people scavenging in the garbage.

Now he saw that it had been a lie.

Going through Torothex's memories, learning something of Torothex's life, getting a sense of Torothex's friends and associates, sharing a bit of Torothex's education, glimpsing some of Torothex's trials and achievements, Ling realized that he, Ling, had not escaped from poverty at all. It wasn't that he was still at risk, still in danger, still had enemies, no matter how powerful he became; on the contrary, Ling saw that risk was one of the few things that had enriched his life. Rather, he was poor because he hadn't even known what there was to desire; his desires had been limited to power, luxury, loveless sex, and 'respect' that was only fear and envy; for these were all the goods of which he had been able to conceive. For he had been surrounded, all his life, by people with the same limited vision; in fact, he realized, with a deep stab of self-loathing, that he had for years _deliberately_ surrounded himself with just such people.

Ling had heard of religions that taught that after death, the souls of evil people lost most of their substance, and passed into an underworld of gray monotony, where nothing could stir what little was left of their passions. Any pleasure or pain they felt was trivial. He realized that he had been living in such a Hell for years, by his own choice, all the while supposing that it was a Heaven.

Once Ling had begun to understand Torothex, seeing through Torothex's eyes had been like seeing for the first time, and hearing through Torothex's ears had been like hearing for the first time. Understanding through Torothex's conceptual system had been like understanding for the first time, and feeling through Torothex's passions had been like feeling for the first time.

Sifting through Torothex's memories, Ling had experienced friendship, love (of several kinds), admiration, awe, reverence, idealism, serenity, creativity, curiosity, faithfulness, moral and metaphysical insight, the beauty of mathematics and of nature, empathy and compassion, self-transcendence, and a thousand other states that he had never even conceived of before. Or rather, he had glimpsed pale reflections of such things in Torothex's memory; but even these reflections were frequently astonishing, and sometimes awe-inspiring.

Actually, the first effect of such glimpses had been to make Ling despise Torothex as a credulous fool. But he had found it more and more difficult to maintain this attitude as he observed Torothex's remarkable achievements in the field of politics. Ling had been especially perplexed by the way in which Torothex always worked from a position of what appeared to Ling to be total powerlessness. Torothex never used reward or punishment, never engaged in intrigues, never demanded oaths or any other kind of unconditional loyalty, never acquired wealth or political power, and indeed, never acquired any resources of his own, beyond the bare necessities of life, except for the virtues of his own mind and character. If he wanted others to do something, he had to convince others to do it of their own free will; if he wanted them to change their ways, he had to show them that the 'new' way had always been implicit in their hearts, deeper and truer than the 'old' way. Yet he was frequently able to accomplish things where 'powerful' people like Ling, and even Karngrevor, were helpless. It was as if Ling were a great swordfighter, but Torothex could win without even using a sword.

Not only that, Torothex seemed handicapped in another way: he was a moral idiot, Ling might have said. Ling had long ago decided that morality, self-transcendence, and compassion were all illusions, traps for the credulous. Life, he had thought, was a competitive struggle for survival and pleasure, nothing more; priests invented the gods, and philosophers invented ethics, in order to confuse people about that, in order to dominate them. He had rather admired the priests and philosophers for their cunning, and especially the priests, for whereas the philosophers rarely gained any significant personal power, the upper levels of certain priesthoods seemed very powerful indeed. Yet not only did Torothex abstain from acquiring power, in any sense in which Ling could understand it, he actually seemed to believe in the gods, and to be a genuine idealist, and even a bit of a mystic.

Ling felt as though Torothex had made a complete fool of him. It was as if he had been running a race, congratulating himself on being ahead, when suddenly, Torothex passed him, _while_ _working from an inaccurate map and hobbled by an iron ball shackled to each leg!_

Worse yet, Torothex's idealism had evoked sympathetic resonance from _within Ling himself_! The alarms set by Kragendark would have gone off if Ling were merely being swept away by the vividness of the memories, or pulled in by the human tendency toward becoming similar to those with whom we associate; and Ling himself frequently took time out to reflect, to make sure he was not losing his independence. No, it was truly something from within himself, something that had been there since early childhood. He felt as a caterpillar might feel, if it could sense the little wasp larvae hatching from eggs within its body and devouring his flesh in order to grow. He had heard somewhere that a butterfly emerges from a caterpillar in a similar way: it begins as a tiny dot within the caterpillar; a dot which grows by feeding on the caterpillar's flesh... And yet ... could it be that this resonance emanated from own his true self, and that what he currently took to be his self was merely a network of wishful self-deception?
**********

"Doubt washed over him like a wave,

"But he came to the surface and rode upon it."

(Kflikri saying)

Sel and Tel found themselves in a transporter room of the _Tarezarg_ , surrounded by a hex shield. Through the soap-film patina of the shield, they could see Karngrevor, Savril, General Zagara, and a number of soldiers, all looking rather stressed.

"I'm sorry about the shield," said Karngrevor, "but we find the situation very confusing."

"I can understand that," said Teladorion.

"No, no," said Oselika, looking at him with a smile. "You're the _dumb_ one, remember?"

Surprise and laughter combined in Teladorion to make a kind of sputter. He looked at her fondly, then turned back to Karngrevor with a serious expression. "She's right, Sir," he said. " _She's_ the one who can understand, not me!"

Karngrevor smiled wanly. "As you have no doubt inferred, we approached under cloak. That, together with the fact that Oselika left her seashell turned on after her first call, allowed us to follow a great deal of your interaction with – let's call him "near-Akelian.'"

Oselika and Teladorion nodded agreement. _Poor Father_ , thought Oselika, _to think perhaps his son had been found, only to be disillusioned_.

"Fortunately, Savril is with us, since we have just finished up with the Devalene incident. That went well, by the way."

Again they nodded.

"We are presuming that the Hidden One is behind this," continued Karngrevor, "but whoever it is, he can evidently make very sophisticated simulacra. So at the moment, we aren't even sure who you really are."

Again they nodded. Oselika felt a chill pass over her.

"Since we know that he has such abilities, we have declared maximum security at all important gates, inconvenient as that will be, until we are assured that we have a sufficiently good test of identity."

Again they nodded.

"With your permission," continued Karngrevor, "Savril will now examine you."

"I'd like that," said Teladorion, with a sigh. "I'm beginning to wonder myself, who I really am!"

Oselika also agreed. _If the Hidden One, or whoever this is, could get to Akelian_ , she thought to herself, _He could also get to Teladorion. Is that why Tel has been acting so strangely lately? Or General Zagara. Or Father. Or perhaps even Savril. Or, come to think of it, to me! I think I'm the real Oselika, but how can I be sure?_
**********

"The layers of illusion go on indefinitely;

we can only see a few layers,

and the innermost one we can see is what we call 'reality.'"

(attributed to various authors)

The simulacrum's giggle unnerved Shimura. _It's psychological warfare_ , he said to himself, _pull yourself together!_ Aloud, he said, in a voice that combined anger and fear, "Anesthetize her, and search her more thoroughly for transmitters! Use active scans, as powerful as necessary!" A medicine woman hastened to apply the anesthetic, while several magicians carried out the scan.

"Sir!" one of them said, in an agonized and cringing tone. "We've found another transmitter!"

"Well, _destroy it, you self-sucking leech!_ " yelled Shimura, in a voice of frustrated rage. He was an excellent actor. When the prisoner was fully unconscious, and the transmitter destroyed, Shimura addressed the group:

"I know this is a tense moment," he said, "but remember, they are walking into a trap. We have mines and an ambush laid. Knowing that she was transmitting, I just now gave out a false impression of weakness and poor morale. When they arrive, we will destroy them! Non-medical personnel, to your posts!"

Shimura, Huse, and Delicusp returned to their command center, at the furthest point of the core. Time was dragged, resisting, through breath after agonizing breath, each of which seemed longer than the last. Shimura kept tensing up, consciously relaxing, and unconsciously tensing up again. The enemy approached to within a sixth of a horizon, almost enough to start tripping mines. They were represented by a number of dots in the long-distance crystal ball. Shimura watched them closely. _Any moment, now, the first mines will go off and the ambush will be sprung._

Suddenly, all the crystal balls and magic windows went dark. A moment later, multiple tremors rocked the command center. The only links that Shimura could find to the rest of the Headquarters were telepaths. Choosing one, he listened to her report what she was receiving:

All Rotim has broken loose here! All magical communications are down. I think – I think that the abacus system has been taken over! Weapons under abacus control have fired at our own staff and equipment! All equipment linked to the abacus network appears to be malfunctioning. Hold on, while I talk to someone...Yes, he has had similar experiences! Since communication is down, we are switching to decentralized protocols...

More tremors, bigger ones.

... _When we tried to attack the abacus, it fired on us again! I ducked behind a menhir, otherwise I'd be dead! Everyone else in this room is!_

Shimura tasted defeat and despair. Then, suddenly, all the imaging devices came alive again. For a moment, Shimura felt hope; then he noticed that every window had Triple-Seven's face on it. She spoke, all the mouths moving in synchrony:

"Good afternoon, Esteemed Shimura," she said, inclining her head respectfully. "It is an honor to meet you, and an honor to have had you as an opponent. You have intrigued cleverly, and, as criminals go, your soldiers have fought valiantly. "

"I, too, am honored," replied Shimura, bowing deeply. "Never have I encountered such remarkable craftiness!"

"Thank you," replied Triple-Seven. "Now, as you have surely inferred, I am in complete control of your entire abacus network. Your underlings are desperately looking for ways to sabotage it, and no doubt they would eventually succeed, were it not that my troops will arrive soon. I have extracted from your abacus, and transmitted to my forces, the exact location of your ambushes and mines, which will therefore not be significant obstacles. I require five things: first, an unconditional surrender, including complete co-operation with all occupying forces; second, the death of Pappi, currently known as Ling, at the hands of my simulacrum, currently in your possession; third, that my simulacrum be satisfactorily exchanged from her current body, into another one, which will be provided by my technicians; fourth, that I be downloaded from your abacus into the body that my simulacrum now inhabits; and fifth, that we are both to be delivered safely, without any little surprises attached, to my own forces." Another series of tremors hit, causing Shimura to stumble. "If you grant these," continued Triple-Seven, "I will declare a cease-fire."

_Now I see it!_ thought Shimura with chagrin. _She made her way into an outer room, and neutralized everyone there. Then she mind-exchanged with one of the peripheral devices connected to the abacus, leaving her body in the control of the artificial soul in her toe; that became the simulacrum. The simulacrum then deliberately set off a booby-trap that would injure but not kill her. While we were distracted by dealing with the simulacrum, Triple-Seven herself took over the abacus!_

Swallowing his rage, shame, and fear, he replied, "I accept your terms. Repeat, I accept your terms. For verification to the rest of my staff, use the following password sequence: 'Mountain, sound, mood, prime number, style of literature, headache, mystery, time, evil, contradiction, city, community of literary historians, book and its reader, chameleon god'. Repeat: 'Mountain, sound, mood, prime number, style of literature, headache, mystery, time, evil, contradiction, city, community of literary historians, book and its reader, chameleon god'." _But there is still a chance that a great deal can be salvaged from this mess_ , he thought. In fact, he had to struggle not to smirk, as he gave the orders for the simulacrum to be revived. "Conditional cease-fire is now in effect," said Triple-Seven.

The simulacrum sat up. "Where is Pappi?" she demanded.

"He's in the brig," replied Shimura. "The brig in the core."

"This is unlikely," said Triple-Seven, frowning. "Do not trifle with me, Shimura, or I will add your head to my list of demands."

"I know it seems unlikely," said Shimura, desperately, "but that's where he is! It was an attempt at misdirection. See for yourself – there's a magic eye in there, which the abacus can access!"

A moment passed. "Yes, that appears to be him," said Triple-Seven. "My apologies. Give my simulacrum a standard type seven wand and escort her to the brig."

"Right away," said Shimura. The simulacrum was on her feet, albeit a little unsteadily. Shimura gave her a wand and accompanied her. _This may actually be going to work_ , thought Shimura to himself, _the simulacrum is probably not telepathic!_

There was only one prisoner in the brig, a man. "Who are you?" asked the simulacrum.

"I am Agulinar Torothex," replied the man. "Do not feel regret at killing me; it has been prophesied, and I am fully resigned."

The simulacrum giggled. "Sure," she said, "and I'm the Emperor of all Kondrastibar!" Muttering something, she waved the wand at the man in the cell. A drop of red appeared on the tip of the wand. _Blood analysis_ , thought Shimura. He avoided looking at the man in the cell, who remained impassive. The Simulacrum muttered something else, and the drop of blood expanded into a large pink bubble. Darker lines roved over the surface of the bubble. The bubble became transparent, and something like a doubly helical staircase appeared in its center. The point of view seemed to be moving rapidly up the staircase. From time to time a flash of light illuminated the bubble. The simulacrum let this happen for awhile and then muttered something else. The staircase disappeared, and a bust of Ling appeared within the bubble.

"I congratulate you, Ling," said the simulacrum, looking up. "You kept your sense of humor to the end!" She muttered another word and waved her wand. The prisoner began to glow red, then brilliant white. Shimura had to shield his eyes with his hand. When the light died away, there was no one in the cell, only a little pile of ash.
**********

"The stupid shall become smart, the fearful confident,

and the criminal righteous."

(The O prophecy)

The Angelic Executor looked very different from a beater; he was dressed in a pristine white robe, his hair and beard neatly trimmed. His eyes were intelligent and kind, his bearing Aristocratic. On his head sat a small coronet of silver, with a few small, clear gems sparkling in it. The table at which he sat also had a certain elegant simplicity: a single slab of sparkling white marble, supported on four massive, curving legs of ebony.

Prisoner 1054 was brought in by three guards. They, too, were different from all the Angels that 1054 had seen before: their bearing was dignified, their treatment of him firm but respectful. They were dressed in simple white shifts and sandals, and they carried no weapons.

The lighting in the Hall of Sentencing was muted, but 1054 could see a number of other people seated near him, including the telepath who had participated in all his Confessions.

"Please verify that this is Prisoner 1054," said the Executor. 1054 felt the telepath slithering around inside his mind, and he saw two other Angels take a close look at him. He recognized them, but they seemed different here: quiet, dignified, restrained. Each of the three said, "Verified," and returned to their seats.

"Prisoner 1054," said the Executor, "it is time for me to oversee the execution of your final sentence. It has been determined that, under the identity and name of 'Grahjab,' your false ego committed or participated in numerous crimes, including but not limited to rape, murder, extortion, and racketeering. In many cases it appears that you did not know that what you were doing was wrong. Nor do you appear to understand that now. Our attempts to rehabilitate you through Labor and Education have failed.

"Your evaluation committee has concluded that you have little or no conscience, and little or no innate capacity to develop one. Also, it has been judged that you do not have the intelligence to deal with more than the simplest moral issues, even if you had the inclination."

1054 did not really understand what the judge was saying; but then, he had long ago given up trying to understand most of what other people were saying, and, when all his usual devices for bullying or cozying up to people had repeatedly failed, he had given up hope of ever escaping from the Angels or pleasing them. He therefore just sat in the chair he had been given, hoping that whatever was about to happen, it wouldn't be too painful.

"Now," continued the Executor, "our goal is never punishment for its own sake, but redemption. We have therefore decided to _increase_ your intelligence and _give_ you a conscience. The doctor for case 1054 will approach the prisoner." A slight man with spectacles stood up and came over to stand next to 1054. He carried a small glass vial, which he held up so that 1054 could see it.

"You will observe, prisoner 1054," continued the executor, "that in the vial there is what appears to be a common maggot. It is not an ordinary maggot, however; it is a _cerebral tunneling maggot_ , a creature that has been specifically designed and constructed, at great expense, to alter brain structure without the necessity for costly and dangerous surgery. Guards will now secure the prisoner in a supine position."

The guards indicated that he was to stand, which he did; he had long ago learned not to resist any commands from guards. They wrapped a straightjacket around him and belted it securely in several places. They also placed cinches around his knees and ankles. Then they lifted him and laid him on his back on a padded table, to which they fastened him tightly with several straps. He was now almost completely immobile.

He began to lose his composure. His eyes darted this way and that. "Please, please!" he begged. The guards were as gentle as possible and said soothing things, but they continued to restrain him. A kind of harness, somewhat like a dog's muzzle, was placed on his head, and secured to the table. His head was now also immobile. He could not even open his jaws. He gave in to panic and began to squirm desperately in his restraints.

"Please be assured that the maggot is not harmful, and that the process will be over soon," said the executor. The doctor opened the vial and dropped the maggot into his hand, bringing it over to 1054's face. 1054's eyes widened in horror. "No, no, please, please!" he tried to shout, but the harness made it impossible for him to articulate the sounds, so he only succeeded in producing an inarticulate humming. He felt the doctor's hand rest beneath his nose. After a few moments, he felt something, light but definite, in the interior of his left nostril. It itched him intensely. It began to move, very slowly, further into his nose. He tried to snort it out, but it would not be dislodged. Time seemed stretched; he could feel with great clarity each hair's breadth of progress made by the creature. It continued up his nose until it seemed to be almost level with his eyes. Then, 1054 felt a pinprick of pain, followed by a dull, throbbing ache. It must be burrowing into his flesh now! The ache elongated itself with agonizing slowness, while 1054 squirmed, snorted, and whimpered for mercy. Finally the feeling began to fade. Was it over? He hoped so.

He felt the telepath in his mind again, and heard her say, "Changes beginning." Changes in himself? Suddenly, he did feel change, but it felt as if the _world_ were changing, not himself. Gradually, things began to _fit together_ better, as if the rocks in a field had spontaneously assembled themselves into a building, or a bunch of floating dandelion seeds had converged to form a flower. And yet, nothing had moved. It made no sense; and yet, it made more sense than ever!

Things fell into _categories_. Of course, they always had, but now the categories seemed to proliferate. It was like a dance, in which the same dancers would form into groups, first in one way, then in another. The dance went on and on – and yet, little time had actually passed.

Everything seemed...less _arbitrary_. Rather, things formed patterns. Thinking of various past events, 1054 could predict what was going to happen, and figure out what had previously happened, more than Grahjab had been able to at the time. He saw that there were _general principles_ that influenced profoundly what took place. Was there a single general principle that determined everything? He couldn't find one, but he discovered that the more factors he considered, in trying to find a principle, the fewer exceptions there would be.

It was hard for him to formulate these ideas, because he lacked the vocabulary; he had no words for _category_ , _principle,_ and other abstract ideas. Nevertheless, he was able to feel them, to intuit them.

It was also as if everything had become a _mirror_! Each thing seemed to reflect each other thing, as though the universe had been assembled by a series of variations on a single theme. The more he contemplated things, the more the resemblances and complementarities became specific and detailed, as though the mirrors were being constantly improved by polishing. Analogies were everywhere. Some forms were fragments or simplifications of others. And the universe as a whole, he realized, was also one such variation, from which all others could be derived. But the theme was not static; it constantly evolved and developed. Or rather ... _time itself_ was an _aspect_ of the theme. In fact, there were many ways to order things, besides space and time; and some of those ways were more profound.

Gradually, he convinced himself that these relationships had always been there, that he had just not _noticed_ them before. That was strange, too, for no curtain had been drawn aside, no lamp had been lit, no invisible ink had turned visible; everything looked just as it had before.

So many relations between things...and suddenly it dawned on him that what a thing was was inseparable from its relations to other things. To say that something was _hard_ , for example, was to say that collisions from other objects were relatively less likely to damage it.

He also noticed that things came into being, were transformed, and disappeared largely on account of causal relations with other things. He began to see the world as a single thing, constantly changing in its aspects.

The telepath explored his mind again. "Cognitive changes beyond expectation," he heard her say, "but no pathology." He didn't know all of the words she used, but her tone suggested that things were going well.

People, including himself, now made much more sense to 1054. To Grahjab, other people's behavior had been extremely arbitrary. He was frequently surprised, often unpleasantly, by their responses to him. He had felt helpless in relation to them, for in some way that he never understood, plans he made to elicit positive responses from them almost always failed, and often backfired. He had settled on the strategy of attaching himself to a powerful person, Scratch, who would supervise and look out for him. He felt power and competence vicariously, as an extension of Scratch.

Now that he understood people better, he realized that there were many ways to have extremely positive relations with other people. They didn't have to be competitors, dominators, or victims. Not only could they be allies, but certain kinds of relationships with others were virtually ends in themselves. Now that he could imagine such relationships, he felt himself yearning for them.

"Ethical changes beginning," said the telepath.

1054 began to understand _work_ differently. He had understood work as the unpleasant things one had to do in order to obtain the basic comforts of life. He now perceived that work was success in itself. To say that one worked in order to get food, shelter, and clothing was precisely backwards. It was through doing challenging and meaningful things that one flourished as a human being; one got food, clothing, and shelter only to make that possible.

Contemplating Grahjab's memories (in which he saw much that Grahjab himself had missed), 1054 realized that the social structure which had prevailed in Grahjab's neighborhood at that time was not one which encouraged humans to flourish; quite the contrary. In an intuitive flash, he glimpsed the possibility of other social structures which would do much better, and he realized that to struggle for a better society was one of the most fulfilling things a mortal could do, even if he failed.

1054 realized that fear and despair, which had been Grahjab's dominant emotions, had been crowded out of him by emotions that Grahjab had rarely or never felt. These included curiosity, wonder, gratitude, and reverence, although he did not know the words for them. They included the love of beauty, of rationality, of other people, and of the world at large. 1054 did not envy Grahjab for his emotional life; he basked in his own.

If Vidigeon had been able to see into 1054's mind at that moment, he would finally have caught a glimpse of the Unity of All Things, and the nature of Good and Evil. But Vidigeon could only see the outside.

1054 barely noticed the telepath checking his mind once more; he barely noticed her saying, "Ethical goals surpassed, no pathology. Process complete." Some small part of his mind said: 'Of _course_ she would say that!" It was funny – he actually laughed, although it was distorted into a grunt by his gag.

The guards unbound him. Of _course_ they would! As 1054 sat up, everyone in the room stood, and burst into applause. _Of course_ they would! 1054 grinned at them, as he flexed and massaged his arms and legs to bring back the circulation. Then, he began to applaud, too. Although he was marvelously happy, tears were coursing down his cheeks. He decided that it was because of the profound sense of _homecoming_ that he felt.

The room became quiet. 1054 realized that they wanted him to say something (of _course_ they did!). Standing up on the table, he turned once completely around, so as to smile at everyone in the room. Then he turned around again, speaking as he did so: "Thank you! Thank you! I found my self! My thanks are big! I do not know words to say all my thanks, but I will learn them! I love you!" The room erupted into celebration, once again.
**********

"He who seeks will always find,

If he keeps an open mind."

(Duracastrini children's song)

Karnak went ahead with his plan to become a Kelosian monk. It was a little tricky getting in touch with the Church of Kelosia, for it had mostly gone underground. Eventually, however, a Kelosian Priestess contacted him, and arranged to meet him in a park. "We have been under attack recently," she explained, "and so we've all been keeping our names, residences, and places of worship secret. Please call me 'Myrek'. Would you refresh my mind, please, as to what it was you were wanting to discuss?"

Karnak spoke of his learning that his wife was terminally ill, of his interactions with Koof and A'Obija, and of his wife's death. "The upshot of it is," he concluded, "that I have become disillusioned with the pursuit of riches. Koof's attitude seems to me to make much more sense. I therefore wish to join your church."

"Wonderful!" said Myrek. "I believe that you are making spiritual progress! But just because you've seen that your previous path has reached its limit does not make it certain that ours is the best church for you. There are many churches for people who see the futility of money-worship, and the relatively greater importance of profound human relating. Also, it is possible that you don't have the right personality and talents for being a thief, or for other positions we might offer you. I am therefore going to recommend several churches for you to investigate, in addition to our own. If, after acquainting yourself with them all, you definitely prefer ours, then I will have no difficulty in recommending you for apprenticeship. As it is, I think it would be premature."

"What you say makes sense," said Karnak, and Myrek gave him a list of churches. "Thank you very much," he said, "but before we part, I would like to explain to you a number of secret practices among arms merchants; I think that you would find some of this knowledge to be quite useful."

"Why yes, that would be very pleasing," she replied, with a smile, and they spent the rest of the day discussing such matters.

The next day, Karnak arrived at one of the Churches on his list: the local branch of the Apostles of Azirifiel. Near the entrance, he saw a two large marble stelae, one on each side. On the stele on the left was engraved:

Thou shalt not hide.

Thou shalt not favor.

Thou shalt not hoard.

Thou shalt not waste.

Thou shalt not tempt.

Thou shalt not coerce.

Thou shalt not deceive.

Thou shalt not corrupt.

Thou shalt not use luxuries.

Thou shalt not accede to evil.

Thou shalt not act from malice.

Thou shalt not take advantage of weakness.

On the stele on the right was engraved:

Thou shalt play.

Thou shalt love.

Thou shalt trust.

Thou shalt hope.

Thou shalt learn.

Thou shalt reveal.

Thou shalt create.

Thou shalt revere.

Thou shalt ponder.

Thou shalt be patient.

Thou shalt consider the whole.

_I'm not sure I understand it all_ , he thought, _but what I understand, I rather like. They realize that there are many dimensions to living a constructive life_.

**

At about this time, Tolkep, a member of the Orthex Crusade, was walking down a street in the Frasterpok neighborhood, accompanied by a protector. The Orthex Crusade pursued a policy of replacing institutions deemed to be too materialistic by ones they considered to be more spiritual. A major criterion of spirituality for the Crusade was the commitment to the dignity and equality of all persons. The neighborhood was quite run-down. Neither of them wore anything that identified them as belonging to the Orthex Crusade, or made them stand out in any way. They came to a dingy tenement building, climbed several stories, came to an apartment, and knocked.

Someone peered at them through a peephole, and then the door was opened by a tired-looking woman, dressed in shabby clothes, and holding a very skinny baby on her hip.

"Hello, Elda," said Tolkep, with a smile. "I am called 'Tolkep' now. This is my protector, known as Jith Lontel."

"Well, come in," said the woman, in a weak voice. "Your face is ... almost strange."

"I know it's been a long time, Elda, and I'm sorry about that," said Tolkep, as they entered. "Unfortunately, our Church has been under attack, and we've had to lie low for awhile."

"Sad to hear," said Elda, sitting herself on a mattress, and gesturing weakly at her guests to do the same. The apartment consisted of one room, and the mattress was the only piece of furniture in it.

**

Entering the church, Karnak found someone at a simple reception desk. He described his situation, and the receptionist went to get an "explainer." The inner architecture of the Church, or at least the part of it he could see, appeared to be made by juxtaposing simple polyhedrons. This structure was not clearly visible at first, because there was a good deal of decorative filigree added, as well as numerous plants in organically-shaped ceramic pots. A number of paintings and hangings were displayed on the walls, and there was a sculpture in one corner, showing what appeared to be a family hugging each other. Above the reception area, Karnak noticed a large sign on the wall that read,

THE RULE THAT DOES THE MOST GOOD

IS THE RIGHT RULE.

Then he noticed another sign, less evident than the first:

Resources Should Go

Where They Do The Most Good.

And then yet another sign, saying:

Goodness is

What makes sense of the world.

The last one startled him. 'Why would anyone think _that_?' he wondered.

**

Tolkep and Jith Lontel sat on the mattress in Elda's shabby apartment. Elda's child, playing with sticks and pebbles in the corner, started to cry. Elda, still carrying her baby, went over to comfort him. It seemed to work when she brought him over to the mattress with her, and held both of them in her lap.

"I'm happy to say that I can offer you an organizing job again," said Tolkep. "Are you interested?"

" _Life-and-deathly_ interested," said Elda. "We are ... starving here." The act of getting her child seemed to have exhausted her. Her speech was little more than a whisper. "You know what the crazy ... Town Synod did? Offered me ... a ... a job, but said I ... couldn't bring the kid to work, so ... how could I take it? Can't those people ... _think?_ "

"I believe they can," said Tolkep with a wry smile, "but they've gotten out of the habit."

"Well, what ... can I do for _you_?" said Elda.

"More organizing," said Tolkep, removing her backpack. "I notice the streets and buildings around here are terribly dirty. We will pay ninety-seven kargs an acre for clean streets, and two kargs per square manlength for walls that have been cleaned and repainted. We will also hire a few people to make the paint and the brushes. Your job will be to sign people up, assign them tasks, make sure they do what they say they do, and do it well, and then pay them. The most needy ninth can be given advances. You get the same pay as before, with an advance. As usual, this is all to be kept secret. Nothing written down, unless you use good disguise code. What do you say?"

"Mmmng ... I'm grabbing," said Elda, nodding affirmatively.

"Good!" said Tolkep, drawing a blouse out of her backpack. "Of course, the Town Synod is supposed to keep things clean, but since they're not doing it, we will." Out of the stiff collar of the blouse, she drew some paper money, and handed it to Elda. "Here's 1,024 Kargs. Take a month's advance out of it, and use the rest for salaries. Stumblers?"

"No stumblers," said Elda, smiling weakly.

Tolkep replaced the blouse in her backpack, and pulled out a package. "I have here a loaf of bread, a pound of soybean curd, a quart of milk, and a half-pound of baby carrots, all cleaned. I'll give it to you for one Karg – on credit, since all those bills I just gave you are too big."

"Done," said Elda, taking the package. She didn't have the strength to open it, so she handed it back to Tolkep, who opened it for her and passed it back. Elda and the older child began eating. They ate slowly, but they were completely absorbed in the activity, pausing only to take deep breaths. Tolkep looked around and spied a flask with a nipple. She held the flask, and the container of milk, up in front of her, and raised her eyebrows at Elda. "Mmmm," said Elda, mouth full, nodding affirmatively. Tolkep removed the nipple, filled the flask with milk, replaced the nipple, and held it for the baby, who immediately began suckling vigorously on it.

**

_Interesting ideas_ , thought Karnak, pondering the signs, but before he could reflect on them further, the receptionist arrived with the 'explainer'. "Hello, Karnak," said the latter. "I use the name, 'Erhas.'"

"Hello to you, Erhas," said Karnak, and explained once again his reasons for being there.

"Ah," said Erhas, "I would be happy to introduce you to the workings of our church. I think the best thing would be for me to take you on a tour of the community, if you are so inclined."

"That would be fine," said Karnak.

"Right this way, if you would," said Erhas, walking down one hall and turning into another. When their direction was clear, he began to explain: "Because our ideas are somewhat different from those of the majority of the people in this area," he said, "we have found it necessary to become economically self-sufficient, as far as possible. Let me show you the gardens." He led Karnak through some more halls and out a back door. There was a large garden space there, with many people at work.

"This is one of several garden spaces that we have," said Erhas. "As you see, these are intensive beds. We are vegetarians, partly because it takes a lot less land to support a person on a vegetarian diet. During colder weather, we erect greenhouses here. We have developed varieties that will not die back seasonally, so that once you have a squash plant, for example, it keeps on producing squash as long as conditions are good. We make compost from everything we can, so that the soil will not lose its fertility. We have several mushroom cellars. In the back, there, you can see cotton, hemp, and flax, from which we make cloth, thread, rope, paper, and other things. There is another place where we produce wood, mostly oak. We have a number of simple crafts: woodworking, metal work, glass-blowing, textiles, cheese, soap, butter, pottery, all very basic stuff, no luxury items. We design things to be easy to recycle; we use a lot of soft metals, for example, and we try to make each object out of as few materials as possible, so that we don't have to go through an intricate process of disassembly when it is recycled. We also use a lot of modular construction."

"I'm sorry," said Karnak, "what is modular construction?"

"Well, the idea is to have a lot of standard pieces from which many different things can be made. For example, by attaching other things to a standard open box, you can make a drawer, a closed box, a set of shelves, and so on. A standard frame can be equipped with shelves, drawers, or whatever. Ultimately, in carpentry we have certain standard sizes of board, and a standard way of preparing the ends to be dovetailed together, so that any two finished boards of comparable size can be easily joined. Our carpenters have invented a number of clever ways of fitting things together rigidly without having to use nails or glue, which makes it easy to take them apart again, if some part needs to be recycled, or if you decide that you want to make something different."

"But doesn't that make everything look alike?" asked Karnak.

"Well, you can judge for yourself," replied Erhas, "but some of our mathemagicians discovered that, starting with a small number of irregular shapes, which nevertheless interlock, you can easily construct a huge number of intricate patterns, for either utilitarian or esthetic purposes. If you are patient enough, you can use a very large number of very small units and produce something quite complex! We usually leave the decorative work to the people who are actually using the object, since in that way they can, for example, make all the furniture in a room harmonize. Besides, they are the ones who are going to have to live with it."

"That sounds quite fascinating," said Karnak, remembering how he and his wife had often felt compelled to throw out huge amounts of furnishings every time there was a change in style, and how they had often felt compelled to live with things they didn't like very well, in order to keep up with fashion. _Riches don't make you free_ , he thought. _Intelligence makes you free_.

"I'm pleased to hear that," said Erhas. "Now, I may have given you the impression that everything here is very mathemagical, but, especially in glass-blowing and ceramics, we also treasure the spontaneous, organic forms that one can get, by deliberately _not_ calculating too much."

"Actually," said Karnak, "the furnishings, and even the architecture, that I have noticed so far have often struck me as quite intricate and fanciful, in a very pleasing way."

"Thank you," continued Erhas, smiling and bowing. Then he beckoned for Karnak to follow him toward a large building to one side of the garden. "It's important to me to make clear, though," he continued, "that whatever technical ingenuity we may display, it is not for profit or for showing off how good we are. It's ultimately a corollary of the distribution system that best reflects the principles we live by: _equality_ , _rationality_ , and _responsibility_." They had reached the building, and Erhas held a door for Karnak. "This is the meeting-house," he said. "It's the heart of our community, of everything that we do."

**

"Now, there's another thing," said Tolkep. "We're having trouble getting hold of Kargs, so we want to introduce our own money. You see, your neighborhood is what they call a _depressed area_. Part of what that means is, that nobody has much money, except perhaps for a few rich people, who aren't interested in buying anything that local people can make. Also, a lot of businesses are owned, in whole or in part, by people from outside. For both these reasons, money tends to flow out of the neighborhood, but not back in.

"There's also a kind of vicious circle which makes it difficult to change this. Suppose, for example, that someone wanted to start a commercial or productive Order here. Since almost everyone is poor, they would have trouble getting the money to start up; and even if they did succeed in starting up, they wouldn't have very many customers, because hardly anybody around here has any money. So they would probably fail. No one has money, because no one has a job. No one has a job, because no one can start a commercial or productive Order. And no one can get money, because no one can start a commercial or productive Order. And around we go! How can you break this cycle?"

Tolkep proceeded to answer her own question: "Well, you could try to get investment from the outside. Someone from the outside might pay to start up a factory in this neighborhood, and hire people from here. That would work up to a point, but then outsiders end up owning and running things, which tends to drain money out of the neighborhood; especially since many investors will be rich, and therefore want to spend their money on luxury goods, which we don't produce here.

"Better would be, for local poor people to do the investing; but they don't have the money. The Town Synod could print more Kargs, and use them to hire the local poor to create such factories, and then give them jobs and ownership shares therein, but as you know, they don't think that way. And with good reason – the wealthy people in the neighborhood, and those from outside who have investments here, would perceive it as sabotaging their interests, and they have tremendous power over the Synod.

"So there's no place to start – unless people like us bring in money from the outside. But we don't want to do it as charity; we want to try out a way that people everywhere can do for themselves. So we're thinking that you people can _make your own money_ , a kind of money that _only has value here_. But it has to be secret, because the Town Synod would say it was counterfeiting, or illegal tender, and they'd have the policemonks on you in a lizard's blink.

"What we're thinking of doing, is making icons of Zeligiria. Almost everyone in this neighborhood is a devotee of Zeligiria, at least nominally, so there's nothing particularly odd about a lot of you collecting icons of her. At the beginning, each icon would count as one Karg. But it's not enough just for us to _declare_ that; people have to be willing to accept them as genuine money. So, for three longmoons, the Orthex Crusade is going to sell basic necessities for Zeligirias, at a price equivalent to the local price in Kargs. This will have to be secret, but we can find ways. For example, I give you some food, and then, some time later, you say, 'Oh, by the way, look at this nice icon I found. Would you like to have it?' And I say, 'Oh, how nice!' If the policemonks start asking questions, we just say that we exchanged gifts. You see?"

Elda, mouth full, nodded affirmatively.

"Now, what we'd like _you_ to do is, to explain this to people you trust, and see how they feel about it. We hope eventually to have at least 2,048 people from this neighborhood swear a joint oath that they will treat Zeligerias as money. They also agree that for one year, they will give one Zeligiria the purchasing power one Karg. They would also swear that they will not exchange Zeligirias for any other currency, and that they will beat the liver flukes out of anyone who breaks the oath. The Orthex Crusade will give 64 Zeligirias to everyone who takes the oath.

"But of course, the Zeligirias will be only useful inside the neighborhood, with the people who have made the agreement, or are willing to go along with it. So that money will stay here, and not be drained to the outside. Eventually, we hope that the Karg will wither away, at least in this neighborhood. And that will undercut the power of the foreign investors. We hope that will liberate the Town Synod.

"In the long run, we hope to create local industries here, such as I was describing a moment ago. Does this make sense?"

"Very ... complicated," said Elda, wincing with the mental effort she was making. "But I think ... I understand. Might even ... work."

"Well," continued Tolkep, "we'd like you to do the organizing for us. We'll give you eighty-one Zeligirias for trying, two hundred and forty-three if you succeed."

Elda shook her head in the negative. Chewing quickly and swallowing, in order to clear her mouth for speech, she said, "Kargs!" Then she took another huge bite of bread.

"Well, that's reasonable," said Tolkep. "It might take awhile for Zeligirias to catch on, or maybe they never will. OK, let's say, eighty-one Kargs for trying, two hundred and forty-three Zeligerias if you succeed."

"Mm _Hm_!" said Elda, her mouth still full, nodding vigorously in the affirmative.

"Here's an example," said Tolkep, drawing an icon out of her bag. "As you can see, it's not bad looking, might even be worth a Karg to someone. If the wrong person asks, it's just an icon!" She handed it to Elda.

Suddenly there was a pounding at the door, and someone shouted, _"Police! Open up!"_

Elda swallowed quickly. " _Tick vomit!_ " she whispered to Tolkep. "They must've spotted you!"

**

Karnak saw that the interior of the meeting-house was very simple. The space was square, and it was, except for aisles and a large table in the center, filled with pews, all facing inward.

"One of the most common types of meetings," said Erhas, "is the budget meeting. We have a 256-year budget, a 64-year budget, a 16-year budget, a 4-year budget, a 1-year budget, and a quarterly budget. Let's take the 4-year budget – it's typical. It's our plan for using our resources over the next four years. We reformulate it every four years, and more often than that if it seems necessary. First, we estimate what resources we can expect to have available to us over the next four years. Then, we list some of the feasible things we might like to do with those resources. Finally, we decide which of those things we want the most. Then we set out to make those things happen. That's the four-year budget. It's essentially the same with the other time periods; the only difference is, how far ahead we are looking. I imagine that when you were in business, you did something similar, and that your family also follows some kind of a budget."

"That's true," said Karnak. "I had a budget for my business, and every branch and department of my company had its own budget. But, we didn't look so far ahead as you do."

"Well," said Erhas, "we don't put much _detail_ into the longer budgets – after all, our ability to see the future is limited. But we do hold ourselves responsible for the future, within the limits of the knowledge we have. We don't believe in stealing from future generations. We never go into debt, for example, and we try to replace every resource that we use."

"That sounds quite responsible," said Karnak, "but how are these budget decisions made, by such a large group of people, not all of whom, I venture to suspect, are skilled, or even interested, in such matters? Isn't it a be terribly tedious process."

"We go by consensus of the meeting," said Erhas. "Everyone present has to agree."

Karnak was shocked and incredulous. "And who would be present?"

"Any member of the community who wants to be. The meeting is widely announced well in advance. And decisions can be appealed, if someone who wasn't there is appalled by some decision that was made, and speaks up within a reasonable time."

"I'm impressed," said Karnak. "I wouldn't think that such a large group of people could come to full consensus on _any_ issue, let alone such a difficult and important one." He suspected that there was some manipulation involved.

"Well," replied Erhas, "we have certain things working in our favor. We use consensus not only for the budget, but for all group decisions, although it is often quite informal. So most of us have a great deal of experience with the process, and realize how important it is to keep pride and competitiveness out of it, and to keep a sense of the relative importance of things – I mean, knowing when to let go, even though you think you are right! Then, too, our meetings are religious occasions. One isn't supposed to speak unless one feels that one is inspired to do so by the Holy Spirit of Azirifiel. There is no extraordinary prestige associated with being the one who introduced an idea that is ultimately adopted, and there is definitely negative prestige associated with monopolizing the discussion. Of course, there is also some social pressure to agree, so that a small minority will hold out only if they are very sure of themselves, and think that the issue is very important. And, of course, most people do not enjoy extended meetings; everyone wants the meeting to be _over_!"

"But what about the complexity of the issues?" asked Karnak. "Wouldn't some issues just be beyond the heads of some people?"

"That is often true," replied Erhas, "although, we do commit ourselves to a fairly high level of universal education with regard to such matters. Also, we separate such issues into different parts. First, there is the question of what our values are. This can be discussed separately from all the details of what we can do with what resources, and it's really the core of the matter. Then, there are the practical questions: what could we do with the resources that we have? Now, with those, there are people who are particularly interested in that sort of thing, and competent at it. Engineers, for example. Other people are willing to put a great deal of trust in the judgment of such people. After all, what would the experts have to gain by deception? If they selfishly channeled extra resources their own way, that would become evident fairly quickly, and things would be set to rights."

"Why would it become evident quickly?" asked Karnak.

"Because we believe in simple living, and in economic equality," replied Erhas. "If someone has many more resources for personal use than the average person does, then something is wrong. Besides, exchange is not so impersonal for us as it is for most people – one of us can't just walk into a bank and exchange a piece of paper for money, or walk into a store and exchange money for goods. We don't _have_ banks, except for one that deals with the outside, and the storekeeper doesn't usually want to see money, he wants to know whether it is in the budget!"

"Do you use money at all?"

"Yes," replied Erhas. "Individuals and groups are given small discretionary incomes in money. It would be too tedious to budget every last thing. But limitations may be placed on it; the bill might say, for example, '100 credits, for food only'. This allows individuals to choose which kind of food they will get, but it won't allow them, for example, to use that money for liquor.

"The question we ask is this: is this use of money actually helping people more than another way of doing it would? Human beings get into ruts, you know, and they start doing things because that's the only way they've seen them done. Money, or whatever it is, begins to feel to them like part of the natural order. And gods can get lazy, just as humans can, if you give them a chance; if we accept money uncritically, it becomes a parasitic god instead of a symbiotic one."

"But, how do you motivate people?" asked Karnak. "If everyone is to be economically equal, you can't reward them with resources!"

"We find that people are motivated by other things," replied Erhas, "including the approval of their peers. In fact, most people on the outside, who are motivated to get rich, do so because they are competing with others for prestige. Who would bother to accumulate stacks of Ytterbium, if he were permanently stranded on a desert island? Also, we find that people are intrinsically motivated. They like being competent and productive. In our community, you don't get prestige from being rich, you get it from being a good person. Also, if it came to that, we would be willing to make an exception to economic equality – if someone refused to do a reasonable amount of work, relative to their abilities, and couldn't give us a good reason for this, and refused to change, we would be willing to withhold food."

"But perhaps everyone would just be mediocre, then," said Karnak. "They would do the minimum, but no one would be motivated to do extraordinarily good things."

"Since we live simply," replied Erhas, "mediocre performance would be more than sufficient to meet our needs. And, as a matter of fact, we are just as happy if people's work doesn't devour the rest of their lives. I have to disagree with you about human psychology, though. People who do great things, extraordinary things, are not usually motivated by a desire for great wealth. Think of the great geniuses of the past and present, the great artists and prophets and mages; how many of them became rich on account of their work?"

"Very few, except in the realm of commerce," admitted Karnak, nodding.

"Just so," said Erhas, "and most of them have been well aware that they were not choosing a path to riches. This suggests that they are motivated by something other than the desire for wealth. I think that is probably true in the realm of commerce, as well, but it is just in the very nature of the case that those who are successful in commerce tend to get rich. In our church, however, a person with great talent in the economic realm will be intrinsically motivated to work on budgeting, and will do so in accordance with our principles."

**

"Coming," called Elda. She stuffed the icon into the baby's diaper, and slid the paper money between her breasts as she made her way to the door. Jith Lontel slouched down on the mattress, his head against the wall and his hands resting loosely by his sides, palms up.

In a moment, several policemonks entered the room, sabers drawn. "Everyone stand up, raise your hands, and face the wall," barked the Abbott. "Now, lean forward until you are resting your hands on the wall. Lift one leg and cross it over the other. Put one hand behind your back. Stay that way until I say so! Tangero, caress them!"

One of the monks slid his hands over their entire bodies, in turn, removing items from pockets and examining them. He also found and withdrew the money that Elda had hidden on her person. "No weapons or illegal material, sir!" he reported. _Why doesn't he report on the precise dimensions of my breasts?_ thought Tolkep bitterly to herself. _He has certainly gathered the information!_ Monks instructed to search the apartment pawed over everything they could find, and made a similar negative report.

"This was quite a wad of money you had between your bags," said the Abbott, holding up the bills which had been extricated from Elda's cleavage. "How does an unemployed woman like you get hold of this much cash? Unsanctified sex, perhaps?"

"I lent it to her," said Tolkep, quickly.

The Abbot smacked Tolkep across the back with the flat of his blade; for a horrible moment, she thought he was striking with the edge. She squealed and jumped. "I didn't ask _you_!" snarled the Abbot. "What's your name, and where are you from?"

"T-T-Tolkep, F-Father, f-from Eiramad," she replied, trembling.

"And you?" he said, striking Jith in the same way.

" _Aaah!_ I'm J-Jith Lon-t-tel, Father, from Eiramad."

"And what do you do in Eiramad?"

"I-I'm a t-tithe accountant, Father," said Jith, trembling.

"For whom?"

"Mostly f-for the Church of Tedgif, Father, but I also work for individuals."

"And you," said the Abbot, striking Tolkep again. "What do you do?"

"I'm his w-wife, Father," she said, "and I'm an Assistant Priestess in the Church of Tedgif."

"And what would you be doing in _our_ neighborhood?"

"V-visiting our relative, here, F-father"

"You don't look like her!"

"We are third c-cousins, Father."

"We've had some _troublemakers_ in this neighborhood lately," snarled the Abbot. "We don't _like_ troublemakers."

"W-we're not going to make any trouble, Father," said Tolkep.

"Tell you what I'm gonna do with you two," said the Abbot, in an ominous tone. "I'm gonna verify everything you've said with the Church in Eiramad, and if it doesn't check out, I'd better not see your faces in this neighborhood again, _ever_! Understood?"

"Yes, Father!"

"Yes, Father!"

"All right, my sons," said the Abbot to the monks, "let's go!" and they all departed. After waiting and listening for a few breaths, Elda went over and closed the door, and her guests sat down on the mattress again. Motioning for silence, Jith Lontel cast a spell to reveal listening devices. He found nothing.

"Sorry about that," she said to Elda. "I didn't realize they had us under observation. We didn't think we were being followed."

"Not your fault," said Elda. "Was probably some neighbor of mine lit them up."

"I think Jith and I had better stay away for awhile, though," said Tolkep. "We'll send someone else to make contact in a few days. And, since you don't trust your neighbors, let's have our people meet you somewhere else. When do you think you will next go to the second-hand food market, after tomorrow?"

Elda, who had started eating again, swallowed and said, "Er, Linter's day, around noon."

"All right," said Tolkep. "Let's say he or she will bump into you and say, 'Oh, I'm sorry! What a clumsy sloth I am!'" You will reply, ;That's OK! Say, don't I know you from somewhere?'"

Elda looked sad. "I'll grieve at your absence, Tolkep," she said.

"I'll miss you, too, Elda," replied Tolkep, also sad, "but don't worry, I'll show up again someday. But first, we will have to come to an understanding with the Abbott!"
**********

"I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

(From the musical comedy, _That's Impossible!_ )

With the aid of Savril and a trio of randomly-selected telepaths, Karngrevor verified that Oselika and Teladorion were the real thing; he then muttered a spell that released the field that had been confining them. "But are your telepaths the real thing?" asked Oselika. "Are they _really_ the real thing? And are _you_ the real thing?"

Karngrevor sighed. "Perhaps not," he said. "Possibly I am myself mistaken about who I really am. Possibly we all are. In the end, though, it doesn't _matter_ who we really are, does it? What matters is what we _do_."

"Good answer," said Oselika. "I hope you don't mind if I'm a bit on edge for awhile, though."

"Understood," replied Karngrevor, with a bit of a smile. "I'm going to be a bit on edge myself."
**********

"The ultimate test of someone's loyalty

is to give them absolute power over you."

(Saint Chobush the Survivor)

"Ydnas," said Savril, "if I agree to help you to escape, and come with you, will you allow me to reactivate my own Words of Power, first?" This would give him complete control over her, if he wished, including the power of life and death.

_If she has only been testing me for her father's sake_ , he thought, _I am now doomed_.

She smiled. "Of course I will," she said. "I have already told you that I trust you. I know that you will not abuse your power."

Savril was overcome by relief, love, gratitude, fear, remorse, guilt, and several other emotions, all at once. He began to sob. Ydnas comforted him; she hugged him, stroked his hair, and patted his back. It was twenty breaths before he was able to pull himself together.

"The chameleon!" he said.

She smiled and nodded. "I have taken the liberty of asking him to join us. Ah, yes, here he is!" The chameleon shimmered into visibility, sitting on the table. "Don't worry," Ydnas continued, "he made himself invisible to the spy devices."

"Morif," said Savril, addressing the creation by the name he had given it, "Ydnas and I desire that you should reactivate my Words of Power over her." Morif kept one of his eyes on Savril, and turned the other one to Ydnas.

"That is correct, Morif," said Ydnas, nodding. "I agree to it!"

Morif stood still for a moment, presumably cogitating. Finally he said, in his slow, croaking voice:

"Why?"

_It's true!_ thought Savril, with a pang of joy. _He thinks for himself! Just for us to request it, is not enough reason for him to do it! He has to be convinced that it is a truly good thing to do!_ He was immensely proud of his creation.

Ydnas quickly explained the whole situation to Morif, who then sat silently for about thirty breaths.

"Yes ... " he said, at last, "it is ... a very ... difficult situation....But ... what you suggest ... does seem ... to be ... the best way, ... as far as ... I can see." Not having the word-processing power that Ydnas had, Morif was often a bit slow in speaking.

"Let us ... proceed, then!" he concluded.

Ydnas climbed onto the table and lay supine, eyes closed. Morif made his way, slowly, to a position next to her head. Then he turned into a blob of iridescent jelly. The blob extended a thin thread of itself up over Ydnas' hair and into one of her ears. A few breaths later, a myriad of little sparks of various colors appeared in the main part of the blob, and traveled up the thread into her ear. This went on for about ten breaths. Then the thread was withdrawn into the blob, and the blob transformed itself back into the form of a chameleon.

"It is ... done!" said Morif. Ydnas opened her eyes and sat up.

"Yes," she said, "I can verify that."

It occurred to Savril to make an experiment to test his Words of Power, but it seemed a degrading thing to do to her; he decided to trust her then and there. Besides, he could not think of any way to test her, since she could easily act as though the Words of Power were working, in order to pass the test. Reflecting on this made him feel foolish about his request.

"I am sorry, Ydnas!" he said, embarrassed at what he had done. "I should just trust you."

"It's all right, Savril," she said, hugging him. "As Morif says, it is the best way." She released him and stepped back, smiling. _That must mean, the best way to humor silly old Savril_ , he thought.

"Now," said Savril, still quite frightened of being discovered by the Mage, "how do we get out of here?"
**********

"The question is not, 'How much money do you have?'

The question is, 'Who is the master?

Do you own the money, or is it the other way around?'"

(Ardalty Maial, Cardinal of the Exchequer under

Friberazz Ilp XVII)

"If everyone had enough food," said 111, "and expected that they always w-would, and food couldn't be traded for anything, who would steal food?"

"Not very many," said 404, "assuming that people are not wildly irrational."

"And if everyone had all the necessities," said 111, "and you couldn't trade necessities for luxuries, who would steal necessities?" _He's not stuttering so much anymore_ , thought 1080, _He has become comfortable with us._

"Again, not many," said 404.

"I think I see where you're going," said 1204. "You're saying that if everyone had enough of the necessities, and if there were no luxuries, there would be little point in crime."

"And I think we could assure the necessities, couldn't we?" replied 111. "I mean, if we didn't have to support a property system, with all its tendencies toward explosive inequalities, and its many incentives for crime and corruption, and therefore for police and other attempts at security, it wouldn't be too hard for everyone to get the basics. Do you agree?"

"But what a terrible life," said 1204. "Just food, clothing, and shelter? What about the Arts? What about Higher Learning? What about love and loyalty? What about just having fun?"

"Well, let's define 'necessities' as those things, w-without which we have a terrible life, or no life at all," suggested 111. "Then, the things you mention would be necessities, too. Supplying them all would be a more difficult task, but perhaps it could still be done. Of course, no one can steal artistic talent or learning, only the products. Well, even the products are often hard to steal – how do you steal a symphony? Or a theorem?"

"But people have a desire for luxuries," objected 404. "They might say, 'My life would be terrible without my Ytterbium-plated chariot.'"

"They might indeed say that," replied 111, "but the rest of us would know better. Just possibly, they might be miserable for awhile, without their chariot, but eventually they would get over it, don't you think? Especially if having one would confer no prestige. I mean, what if whenever they drove anywhere in their luxurious chariot, people gave them shocked and pitying looks, and recommended their favorite exorcist?"

"Why do people _want_ luxuries, then?" asked 404.

"It's a g-game," said 111, "an addictive game. People compete for these things in order to have a challenge, and in order to get prestige."

"So if people didn't _get_ prestige for having a lot of wealth," said 404, "and if there were other ways they could challenge themselves, they wouldn't desire luxuries."

"That's my idea," said 111.

"Let's go back to the Arts," said 1204. "Think of a great viol, like the best Siriong Aristocracy viols. They are terribly expensive."

"Yes indeed," said 111, "and therefore, they make excellent t-targets for thieves. But the thieves don't want to make music with them, you know, they want to sell them. So suppose we said, 'We don't buy or sell viols; we give the best viols to the best players.' Then there would be no reason to steal one. Well, maybe ..."

"Perhaps an egotist, who thought that he was better than he actually was?" suggested 1204.

"Well, yes. But that would be rare, and how would he p-perform in public? And eventually he'd learn of his error, I think. And, if one or two viols got into the wrong hands, that would not be a tragedy comparable to the widespread poverty we saw in this neighborhood, before the Angels came."

"You know," said 83, "I heard that some people buy Siriong Aristocracy viols just as an investment. They keep them in a vault, and no one gets to play them!"

"But that's terrible!" said 1204. "Those are the best viols, and there are so few of them."

"But inevitable, the way our economy works," said 1080. "Scarce things don't go to those who need them, or those who deserve them, they go to those who can outbid others in order to get them." Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of 987, still fasting.

**

523 looked sadly at his two copper coins. Not far away, 203 was looking with a frustrated expression at his nine silver coins. Each of 203's coins was worth thirty-two of 523's.

523 was sad because he had had dreams of being rich. He had thought that his ingenuity and drive would enable him to out-earn most of the others. But it hadn't worked out.

In fact, it wasn't that easy to earn money in their situation. 203 and a couple of his friends had instituted a gambling casino, and 523 had been an eager customer, in spite of what he knew about the likelihood of winning in games of chance. He quickly lost money there, but he also found that it was almost impossible to stop trying. He kept telling himself that sooner or later, his luck would change. In more lucid moments, he had thought of making his own casino, but it was too late; he didn't have the capital.

When the work group had been cleaning up the rubble, he had occasionally found money, or at least something salable. Others had done the same, and a small money economy had run in secret, in apparent defiance of the Angels. But now the rubble had been fully cleared; the work group had switched to landscaping, and now they were beginning to build. Since food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities were provided free by the Angels, no one could commercialize those things. Also, everyone was required to put in a full day's work on the restoration of the neighborhood, as well as their share of cooking and other domestic matters; it was therefore not possible to hire one's self out for labor, for more than a couple of hours a day, and then, there was little to do; the necessities were taken care of, and there were no tools or materials for producing luxuries.

An exception was, that 203 had offered him money for sex. It was, of course, against the rules, but 203 had claimed that the rules were unenforceable. "We will make it look a matter of simple reciprocal desire," he had whispered. "They will never see the money changing hands."

523 was strictly heterosexual, and since he and 203 were both male, the idea of sex with 203 was not attractive to him. Should he acquiesce? A part of him wanted to, for the sake of the money. Not that he intended to make a habit of making money that way, but it would give him a little capital to work with. _Sooner or later, my luck is bound to change, and some project will pay off. I just need something to start with_. Another part of him was outraged. 'Look, you idiot run-over lizard,' this part said, 'you can live without this money! All your necessities are free! So you lost – it's not a terminal illness! Cut yourself loose and get on with your life!' But the former part felt deeply humiliated by having lost; it made him feel inferior, and he found that to be terribly unpleasant. He _had_ to redeem himself. If only he had a little more capital to work with ...

**

After seven days of fasting, 987 began to look emaciated, and her expression showed discomfort. She lay on her bedroll, accompanied by an Angel nurse, Brother Laceration, and (during leisure hours) by several friends. They spoke to her from time to time, even though she rarely replied, and they conversed light-heartedly among themselves, in voices loud enough for her to hear, about various light and pleasant topics unrelated to her fasting. One of them had found some chicory blooming amid the wreckage, and had set up some blossoms in a clump of stones near her bedroll.

**

In spite of having nine silver coins, 203 was frustrated, because he had less than 703. Also, he and 703 had done so well that almost all the money that anyone had found was in their hands, and they did not wish to part with it, since their goal was to be rich. As a result, their little economy had come to a screeching halt, and therefore their money was of little value. _How ironic_ , he thought. He caught 703's eye, and with a tiny tilt of the head beckoned him to come over.

703 came over, carrying his homemade board and pieces for a game of zaku. They had a habit of playing zaku, while discussing their forbidden financial dealings; they would point at the pieces as they spoke, presumably giving the beaters the impression that they were discussing the game.

"No one but you and I has any money to speak of," said 203, as soon as their game was underway. "Or anything to exchange for it."

"We could give them some," said 703, moving his Bishop.

"Some of ours?" asked 203, menacing 703's Heretic with his Inquisitor.

"Sure, why not?" replied 703, protecting his Heretic with a Theologian. "We'll get it back soon enough." The idea bothered 203, but he had no good alternative.

"OK, but what will we buy or sell?"

703 smiled, the kind of smile that is really a sneer. "Running out of ideas, Big Lizard?"

"Well ... I suppose I can come up with something," said 203, smarting inwardly. And he _was_ working on something – he was hoping that 523 would have sex with him for money. Not that he was attracted to 523; in fact, 203 was completely heterosexual, and found the idea of having sex with 523 rather repellant; but it was the first step in his plan to reduce 523 to the status of prostitute, with himself as pimp. He would rather have found a woman for the job, but women didn't take the money game quite so seriously as men.

"What we need to do is to get _out_ of here," said 703, converting a Sinner to a Saint.

203 sighed. "True enough. Got any ideas?"

"987's crowd has gotten an agreement from the Angels. If we do it _their_ way, we're free. That cripple-head, 111, is constantly talking to people, trying to get them into the current. It occurs to me, that we could _pretend_ to see it their way, in order to get loose. Once free, we can take up where we left off."

_So_ , thought 203, _you too are a little short on ideas!_ He said nothing, but he smiled in such a way that 703 would get the point. _What a paradoxical relationship we have_ , he thought, _we are allies, and yet each of us is always trying to humiliate the other!_

"All right," he said, pinning one of 703's Messiahs to a Crucifix, "let's do it!" _How deliciously complex it will be_ , he thought. _I may be able to trap 703 somehow, while we are pretending. I may even end up pimping him! What a delicious victory that would be!_

In fact, an idea popped into his head at that very moment. It was true that there were currently very few resources in which to deal, but he could sell _futures_ – on himself, for example! Better yet, he could create futures on 703 and accumulate them – then 703 couldn't prosper, without benefitting 203 in the process! It seemed almost too good to be true.

**

111 took a moment to glance worriedly at 987, who was now lying down, as she no longer had the strength to sit. Then he became aware that 203 and 703 were approaching him.

"We think we might want to join your proposal group," said 203, "but first we want to hear your ideas."

111 looked surprised and worried. Then he looked thoughtful. Then he pulled himself back to the social world. "All right with everyone?" he asked, looking around the circle. Everyone nodded affirmatively, though some hesitated. "Have a seat," said 111, without making eye contact. 203 and 703 joined the circle. 203 was relieved to see that 523, his potential prostitute, was not there. _I must make it clear to 523 that our being here is all an act_ , thought 203, _that_ _we are not really going to abandon money_.

"Here's what we've c-come up with so far," said 111. "We're going to ask the Angels to allow us to become self-sufficient. I mean, that we will grow our own food, weave our own cloth, build our own houses, and so on. Because, that's what we'd have to do if they let us go, and so we need to show them that we can. Of course, it w-would take us a long time to reach complete self-sufficiency that way, but Boss Wolverine Jaw says that if we can demonstrate that we can work together on a few significant projects, and deal with distribution problems for a few important resources and products, and get a reasonable start on the others, that will be enough. She's giving us time off from the reconstruction work so that we can do this."

_I couldn't have thought of a better idea myself_ , thought 703. _That's what has made it so hard for us to get going with money – the fact that the Angels give us all the necessities for free. We can go along with this, and then we will have the basis for a real economy!_

"Then," continued 111, "the p-problem is to get all of this done, to run our own economy, in a way that makes everybody happy, without threats, bribes, or deception."

_The idiot do-gooder way_ , thought 703, masking his disgust with a bland expression.

"The system we're going to try out first," continued 111, "is a mediator-arbitrator system. If two p-people have incompatible desires, and they can't work it out for themselves, then they will get one or more other people, with nothing in particular at stake in the matter, to join them in a discussion of the issues. If the discussion becomes deadlocked, then the others will decide."

"But in the latter case, how will they enforce their decision?" asked 203.

"They can't," said 111. "That would be coercion. The idea presupposes that everyone is so dedicated to doing it this way that they will accept whatever decision is made."

_Not a chance_ , thought 203, controlling himself to keep from laughing. _Most people are much too selfish to go along with that. I know_ _I_ _am!_

**

Very quietly, Boss Wolverine Jaw spoke to 987. "Can you hear me, 987? This is Boss Wolverine Jaw. I'm sorry to disturb you, but I need to talk to you." She placed her hand gently on 987's shoulder. 987's eyes moved slowly and focused on Boss Wolverine Jaw. She gave a barely perceptible nod.

"It is possible that you all will be released soon," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, "but your fasting has become something of an obstacle to this."

987 made a weak questioning sound.

"We Angels feel that there is an element of coerciveness in your fasting," said Boss Wolverine Jaw, "and since another way to your freedom has been found, we feel that it would be better if you didn't fast."

987 looked a little puzzled. 125 bent over her, wiping her forehead with a damp cloth, and said, "987, Darling, would you just trust us? Break your fast now, please, so that you can recover enough strength to understand. You can always fast again. Please? Here, I have some fruit juice." In her hand she held a mug; she dipped a straw in it, pinched the top end, and moved it so that the bottom end was over 987's lips. "Please," she said. "Trust us. We're your friends."

987's lips parted slightly. 125 sighed happily, and relaxed her pinch on the upper part of the straw. A few drops of juice fell onto 987's tongue. Thus began a long, slow process of recovery.

**

"I think I'm strong enough to understand now," said 987. "Why did you ask me to stop fasting?" She was still weak, sitting propped up on pillows that her friends had made for her out of woven grass. Next to her were some flowers, standing in a beautiful earthenware vase that 422 had made.

"You said you didn't want to be part of a system based on coercion," said 125, "but what if you were a part of a group that was working for freedom, not only for you, but for everyone who wanted to participate? I'm not talking about just going back to the old ways – I'd rather stay here and work for the Angels. I'm talking about creating a society without coercion, manipulation, bribery, or deceit. In the present."

**

"So what we have to do," said 203, moving his Missionary into position, "is to get ourselves ready for a switch. As soon as the Angels leave, we turn back to a money economy."

"Precisely," said 703, promoting one of his Bishops to Archbishop. _He agreed with me awfully quickly_ , thought 203, without letting his worry show on his face. Or at least, he didn't think it did.

"We could promise all the people we've been working with so far that we'd start fresh, with an equal distribution," suggested 203, converting one of 703's laypeople with his Missionary. "That way, those who are now behind will be better motivated. Of course," he added with a smile, "you and I will be back on top in no time."

703 smiled complacently, nodding in agreement. "We need to find out what each coin is worth, these days, outside the neighborhood," he said, moving his Matriarch to a safer position. "And it would be good to get in touch with like-minded people in the other work groups, too." He sold 33 indulgences, and began building an ovulary.

"Good point," said 203, using his Reformer to change one of the rules pertaining to his own pieces. "I think we can do that, now; the Angels have been relaxing their night-time boundary patrols a great deal, I've noticed." _Perhaps I should try to get 703 to do the negotiating,_ thought 203. _Maybe he'll get caught,_ _and that will give me a chance to strengthen my power base at his expense. On the other hand, if one person does all the negotiating, that person will be the one gaining all the contacts ..._

203 paused to put his full attention on the game for a few moments. Although the game was supposedly just a front, neither of them could avoid being attached to its outcome. To lose was always humiliating. Also, 203 was constantly analyzing 703's play in the hopes of finding some weakness in his tactical or strategic judgment that would extend beyond the game. He had a strong faith that he was smarter than 703, but so far, he had not been able to consistently vanquish him, either at zaku or in their economic competitions.
**********

[Translator's note: The following episode is rather long, dry, and intellectual, containing little sex, violence, spectacle, or intrigue. Those readers who find that the nature of Evil and its role in human life are not worth the effort of thinking about may wish to skip it and proceed directly to the following episode. This might also be advisable for those who fear to expose themselves to the self-serving arguments of the very God of Evil himself!]

"How do we mortals know which gods or scriptures to trust?

In the end, we have only our own judgment to rely on."

(Nzidur, High Priest of Nand, the god of Truth)

"One of the most fundamental of all ironies is,

that opposites are actually very closely related to each other."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

"Kor," said Isiliar, "I've found the perfect man to set you up with."

"I don't know, Isiliar," said Kor, smiling impishly, "I think you've already outdone yourself. After the god of Death, just about anyone is going to be an anticlimax. Who have you got this time, the god of badness and evil?"

"You guessed it! Separ himself."

Kor laughed appreciatively. Isiliar stood there, smiling, but a little nervous. Kor did a double-take, and then another one. "Are you _serious_?" she asked, staring at the goddess with an expression mixing shock and disbelief.

"Well, yes and no," said Isiliar. "No, I'm not trying to set you up with him, that was just a joke – but yes, I would like you to meet him."

"I don't want to have anything to do with him!"

"Now, Kor, you had a negative attitude towards K'Sell, too, but then you found out that death was not exactly what you thought it was."

"True enough," said Kor, "or at least, death _as she portrayed it_ was not what I thought. But, evil is evil! I mean, death might not be as evil as I thought, but evil is by definition evil, isn't it? I'm not going to find out that evil is really good, am I?"

"Well," said Isiliar, "if there is a god of fish, he doesn't have to be a fish, does he? In the same way, the god of evil doesn't have to be evil."

Kor was at a loss for words. She just stood there, blinking.

"Remember what Kshaloka said?" continued Isiliar. "Mortals _choose_ whether to be evil or not. Separ doesn't control them. He administers a test, which they can pass or fail."

Kor was deeply shocked. "I can't believe you're defending him!" she said. _What is Isiliar up to now?_ she thought. _Is she really an evil god, posing as a good one? Have I been duped all this time?_ She once again remembered the kidnapping of Zar. She had convinced herself that Isiliar, as a goddess, had had some sort of good reason, incomprehensible to a mortal, for permitting that to happen. Now she began to wonder.

_A goddess_ , she thought, _could easily deceive mortals about her goodness or badness. But then,_ she continued, feeling extremely confused and frightened, _if we can't be sure which gods are good and which are bad, where does that leave us?_

"Kor," said Isiliar, "evil is part of your world, like it or not. Wouldn't you be better off understanding it?"

"I suppose you think Separ is going to give me a balanced picture of the nature of evil!" said Kor.

"Well, don't believe a word he says, then," said Isiliar. "Just learn about him by watching him."

"Why do you want me to learn about death and evil?" asked Kor. "Why don't you invite someone nice, like Amakala?"

"Because, Dear Kor, you are already about as close to Amakala as it is possible for a mortal to be," said Isiliar.

"And you want me to get equally close to Separ?"

"Oh, dear, I shouldn't have put it that way," said Isiliar, sighing. "What I meant was, that, because you are such a good person, you already have a deep understanding of what goodness is."

"Well," said Kor, "like many good people, I've dealt a lot with evil. I think I understand evil very well – its heartlessness, its stupidity, its arrogance, its relentlessness, its deceitfulness, its endless rationalizing and making of excuses, its utter lack of any redeeming qualities, and above all, its seductiveness!"

"Well," said Isiliar, "if Kshaloka couldn't seduce you, I doubt that Separ will."

"Very funny!"

"But why _is_ there evil?" asked Isiliar.

"For the soul of me, I can't imagine," said Kor, shaking her head in exasperation, "and that's one reason I have no truck with the idea of a creator god. Anyone who would create a world with evil in it is either evil himself, or totally incompetent!"

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Isiliar. "If you will accept a visit from Separ, I will introduce you to Amakala."

"I thought you said I was already close to Amakala."

"Well, you are, but wouldn't it be interesting to actually meet her?"

"Some persona of hers, you mean," said Kor.

"I'm sure she will be happy to do more than just sit and talk, just as K'Sell was. Hey, I could even have her come as a man!"

Kor sighed. "I wish I knew what you were up to, Isiliar."

Isiliar sighed too. "I can't blame you, Kor. I've been asking a great deal of you lately."

"We never used to fight like this. Except for ..."

"No."

"Aren't you supposed to be happy and loving?"

"I am loving. You just can't see it, sometimes. Not that I blame you. Happy? Well, I try, but the god of fish doesn't have to be a fish."

There was a long silence. Both of them looked very sad, and they wouldn't look at each other, except for a couple of quick, covert glances. _How can she be sad?_ thought Kor. _Isn't she a goddess of happiness? Well, she's right: if the god of fish doesn't have to be a fish, I suppose a goddess of happiness doesn't have to be happy. But still ... How did she fall into such a petty little dog-fight? Mortals do that all the time, we are weak, we are not fully conscious, or in control of ourselves, but a goddess? This is very perplexing!_

Finally, she said, "All right, I'll do it! But only because you can't do anything worse, right?"

"As a matter of fact, you are right. This is the last god I'll try to set you up with." Isiliar looked a little happier, though hardly radiant.

"He is not to use any kind of magic on me, except the minimum required to maintain a persona. And his persona is not to be good-looking. And, I can call the whole thing off at any time. And, _you_ will call it off if at any time I seem to be heading towards evil."

"Absolutely!"

Kor drew a deep breath. "All right," she said, "give me an hour to get ready."

"See you then, Kor ... and, thank you!"

Kor looked at the ground and growled in her throat. Isiliar disappeared.

Kor sat down and composed herself. _Don't agree to anything_ , she admonished herself. _Don't ask for anything. No deals. Listen, but don't trust a word he says. Be honest. Be polite, but not to the point of falsehood or compromise. Think before you speak. Don't agree to any illusions or emotional manipulation. Don't let yourself be rushed. If you find yourself getting wrought up or confused, just take however much time it takes to calm down and straighten yourself out. If you can't, then call it off. Remember that it isn't going to last forever, and that you can stop at any time. Don't get drawn into an argument. Don't try to change him. Don't feel obliged to justify yourself. If he is pushy or obnoxious, warn him once; if he does it again, call it off. If he makes a threat, stand up to it. Don't compromise, not even the tiniest bit. Don't agree to keep secrets. Don't say anything that you wouldn't want anyone to hear. If you get fatigued or confused, call it off. If you feel bad about the situation, call it off, even if it seems unreasonable to feel that way. Be alert all the time. Take all the time you need to think each thing through. Don't commit yourself to anything. Remember that temptation can take many forms. Remember that evil usually disguises itself as good. Remember that corruption is worse than death._

These were all pieces of advice she had given her children, at one time or another, for dealing with people who might be evil.

In her mind, she imagined situations where this or that piece of her advice to herself would be relevant, and she imagined herself taking the advice, even when it might be tempting not to. Then she did some breathing exercises aimed at relaxed alertness.

She heard the sound of wind chimes. "Just a moment," she called. She stood and did a few stretching exercises. She was fearful, in spite of her relaxation exercises; her heart was starting to beat more heavily and rapidly. She took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to relax all her muscles. "All right, come on in," she said.

Isiliar appeared. With her was a gaunt and bent old man. There was something unclean and diseased about him. His skin was gray, and had the texture of a spider's belly. His head was shaved bald. His eyes were dark and cold, his expression grim, with a bit of a sneer in it. He was dressed in grimy rags. He wore an iron crown, stained and corroded here and there; it was decorated with pearls and rubies, but the effect was cold. Kor could smell a trace of rotting flesh.

"You must be Separ," she said, with a slightly hysterical giggle. She did not extend her hand. "I've heard so much about you! Please sit down."

He swept her with a razor-sharp glance, and sat. Isiliar sat next to him. She was smiling, but Kor detected nervousness in her.

Kor also sat down. She placed her hand on her upper chest; her heart was pounding again. Averting her eyes from her guest, she again controlled her breathing, which had become shallow and rapid. In this way she was able to relax a little. She turned back to her guest.

"Well, Dearie," she said, with mocking cheerfulness, "anything in particular you'd like to talk about?"

Separ met her eyes with a cold and piercing stare. "Do you think that you are completely free from evil?" he asked. His voice was a scratchy whisper.

She dropped her eyes, and began to tremble. She tried to suppress the trembling, but it wouldn't go away. "No, I don't," she said, "but I wish I could be." _He goes right for my weak point,_ she thought.

"Suppose I promised to leave you alone forever," continued Separ, speaking slowly and deliberately, without feeling, "so that you would be morally perfect, would you accept?" His face and voice were completely expressionless.

"I won't make any deals with you," she said.

"It wouldn't be a deal," said Separ. "I'd be asking for nothing in return."

"You'd be asking for my _consent_ ," said Kor, "and besides, any proposal that comes from you is suspicious. I might not be able to see anything wrong with it, but it would be like a bottle, filled with what appears to be pure water, but which is marked POISON. The fact that it looks like water to me wouldn't be enough to make me drink it."

"Suppose I said, 'Take your time, think about it as much as you like, ask anyone's advice, then let me know,'" said Separ. "Would you do that much?"

"I'm not making any promises," said Kor, "but I'm inclined to speculate that, yes, I would think about it and ask for other peoples' opinion on it. After all, it's an interesting question, and perhaps even a great opportunity. But at the moment, I find it highly unlikely that I would accept."

"Suppose that Isiliar vouched for the fact that no strings were attached."

"Well, I'd still have to think about it, but I speculate, with no commitment, that I'd probably agree to it."

"Do you believe," asked Separ, his diction still slow and without feeling, "that I am myself intrinsically evil?"

"I'm inclined that way," said Kor, "although Isiliar had an interesting point, that the god of fish doesn't have to be a fish. On the other side, I tend to think that, for example, the god of sadness includes the sum total of all episodes of sadness. Likewise, you include the sum total of all evil acts. That doesn't exactly make you an innocent bystander."

"You are right," said Separ, tonelessly. "I do include all of those acts." There was something hypnotic about his slow, even diction. _I'd better watch out for that,_ thought Kor.

"You have spent a huge amount of your life struggling for good, and therefore against evil," Separ continued. "What would you do with yourself if all the evil in the world disappeared forever?"

"I don't know," said Kor. "Perhaps I am made so that I can only function in a world with evil in it. In that case, I guess I would get out of the way, and leave the perfect world for those who were able to appreciate it."

"Suppose you had the chance to remove all badness and evil from the world, permanently. Not because of any deal with me. Would you do it?"

Kor paused to think about that. As she thought, she noticed that she felt much less nervous. She was beginning to feel good about the way she was handling the situation. Realizing that made her nervous again.

"I can't answer that now," she said. "It's another question that would require a lot of thought. But my guess is, that I would accept. I mean, how bad or evil could it be to get rid of badness and evil?"

"Do you have any questions for me?" asked Separ.

Kor was about to say "no," when suddenly several questions appeared in her mind, scrambling for recognition. She chose one.

"What sorts of things have I done, that were evil?" she asked.

Again she felt his piercing, pitiless stare. "Everything that you do," he said, "is tainted with evil." _Remember_ , thought Kor, _you don't have to believe him, nor do you have to argue with him. Just listen._ "Even your most noble acts," continued Separ, "are tainted with thoughts like, 'How people will admire me for this!' or, 'Maybe the beneficent gods will reward me for this,' or, 'This will help me to feel better about myself,' or, 'This shows how much better a person I am than so-and-so.'"

Kor flinched. She felt that what Separ was saying was profoundly true. She had often noticed this on her own, and felt ashamed of it. _But don't let him make you despair,_ she said to herself, remembering the proverbial saying, "Despair is one of evil's deadliest traps."

"You are addicted to the approval of others," continued Separ. "For example, when Isiliar withdrew from you, you immediately rekindled your relationship with Tulith, hoping that she would forgive you and love you as before."

"But I truly love Tulith!" burst out Kor, forgetting her advice to herself, _don't argue_.

"That is true," said Separ, "but my point stands. Of course, you already know that it was wrong for you to break your oaths to Isiliar and Ydris, and to vilify them."

Kor nodded assent. "What about my being a courtesan?"

"It was tainted in the same way everything is tainted, as I have just described. Other than that, since your commitment to it was genuinely idealistic, it was not evil in your case."

"Kshaloka said I was being a devotee of his."

"You were, unconsciously. But that was in addition to the genuine idealism that you consciously and genuinely had. Besides, it's not evil to be a devotee of Kshaloka, if one doesn't carry it to extremes. It's just part of human nature. You were a bit hypocritical about it, not admitting its full extent. Such hypocrisy is mildly evil, but it's not an essential part of being a courtesan."

"Have I done anything recently, that is evil, beyond the tainting you mention?"

"Yes," said Separ.

"What was it?"

"You are too hard on yourself," said Separ. "You ask too much of yourself. And when you castigate yourself for not achieving the terribly difficult goals that you have set yourself, you seem humble, but you are really arrogant, for you are expecting yourself to do more than everybody else."

That got Kor angry. She felt attacked for what she thought was her strong point, what was most difficult for her, and therefore required the most courage and dedication. " _You_ should lecture _me_ , you – Ah, sorry, never mind," she said, deeply embarrassed at her momentary defensive outburst. Her face felt hot. " _Lizard piss!_ " she muttered, and then felt embarrassed about that, too.

"You are very much like me, in one regard," said Separ, ignoring her outburst. "We both exist only thanks to continual killing and hurting." Kor had to grant this; it was just what she had been thinking about, since her upsetting interaction with the tree. It was still a disturbing thought: _Isn't that just what I dislike about evil, its destructiveness, its violence?_ she thought to herself. _But then I am just a smaller version of him!! Why, even Isiliar ... she makes mortals happy, but if mortals are evil, then isn't she evil too, for making evil beings happy?_

"Tulith, your beloved, is not perfect either," continued Separ. "She lets children die so that she can paint. As you consider whether to eliminate all evil in the world, bear in mind that you would have to eliminate _her_."

_Don't argue_ , thought Kor. _Don't insist on having an answer right now. Just listen._ But she said, "Couldn't she be made better?"

"She could be altered into _someone_ better," said Separ, "but would that someone be _Tulith_?"

_He didn't say "no,"_ thought Kor, _h_ _e just threw the question back at me. But I have to admit, that it is plausible that if Tulith were perfect, she wouldn't be human, and if she weren't human, she wouldn't be Tulith._

"Do you think," said Separ, not waiting for a reply, "that it would be better for the world to have been free of evil right from the beginning, or would it be better for the world to have good people, who face evil and sometimes defeat it?"

"Free of evil right from the beginning," said Kor.

"What _is_ evil?" asked Separ.

Kor hesitated. "I was never any good at Theology," she said, "but I'll give it a push: I'd say, beings are evil when they are more destructive than they have to be."

"So in your ideal world," said Separ, "there would still be destructiveness, just no unnecessary destructiveness."

Kor hesitated. She wanted to say, that in the ideal world there would be no destructiveness at all. But she couldn't see how anyone could exist without some destruction.

"Here," continued Separ, "is a case that may become very real to you in the near future, since it is said that the Balance is going to fail. Let's say that a society deteriorates into lawlessness and civil war. Eventually, warlords emerge, each commanding, at a given time, a certain territory. They fight for dominance. Finally, one of them triumphs over all the others, perhaps because he is the most destructive of the lot. He establishes a new dynasty, which stabilizes itself with a system of laws. Now people finally have peace. Prosperity soon follows, and the higher arts of civilization thrive once again. Now, who committed unnecessary violence?"

"The losers," said Kor. Then she had a second thought: "Even more, though, it was the fault of whoever brought the earlier civilization down. The corrupt, the selfish, the short-sighted."

"But this warlord," said Separ, "was no saint. He and his henchmen are _already_ corrupt, selfish, and short-sighted, in addition to being violent and power-hungry. Let's say the founders of the previous dynasty were also like that. What was there, then, to bring down?"

"I suppose you are right about the founders of dynasties, themselves," said Kor, "but dynasties evolve. In fact, even the founder himself wouldn't tolerate corruption, and similar traits, in his underlings, not after consolidating his power. Besides, he, or at least his successors, will surely realize that what is profitable during a period of civil war is not profitable in a period of unity. So once unity is achieved, society becomes more benign."

"But unity wouldn't have been achieved," said Separ, "unless the founder had acted like a consummate warlord, brilliant and pitiless."

"True enough," replied Kor, "but my point is, that somewhere in the middle, the civilization progresses beyond that. It flourishes, it flowers, it becomes beneficent. And then the decadent elements destroy it. They are more corrupt, selfish, and short-sighted than those who are still loyal to the ideals of the middle period."

"But perhaps it is necessary for them to be so," said Separ.

"Perhaps, perhaps! Perhaps the sun is a potato!" said Kor, shrugging. "The question is, were they _actually_ more corrupt, selfish, and short-sighted than they had to be, or not?"

"Sometimes in life," said Separ, "you see that you have gone wrong, and it takes only a very small change to correct it. But sometimes, the roots of your error go way back, and very deep. Then, you have to give up a great deal, in order to set things straight. Now, perhaps it is the same way with society: sometimes a civilization can reform itself, but only by way of a change so profound that its beginning appears to be a collapse. Perhaps such apparent collapses are required, in order for humanity to progress."

"Perhaps a potato is the number 5," said Kor. Separ did not respond. "All right, Dearie," Kor continued, "what you say might be so. In that case, the decadent elements would actually be doing good. Their destructiveness would be necessary, after all. Not that that is what they actually have in mind, I think! But is there any reason to think that such is indeed the case? Is each dynasty better than the one before? I have never heard that."

"Well," said Separ, "if it is possible to do things better than the way things have been done – that is, going through a cycle of chaos and order – why hasn't anyone ever done so? If not in one dynasty, then in the next, or the next? Why don't dynasties ever last? Doesn't it seem as though each one has within it the seeds of its own destruction?

"And besides," Separ continued, "you appear to be blaming the fall of dynasties on individual decisions; but do you really think that massive historical events occur because of what _individuals_ decide? You know, people who have never experienced being in what is called a 'position of power' think that Emperors and Matriarchs and the like can do whatever they like. They don't realize how few feasible choices such people actually have, when it comes to political and military decisions. The reason their choices are few is simple: powerful people are always in competition with other powerful people, including potential usurpers. The better off a particular individual becomes, the more she will be seen as a threat or a prize. Emperors are envied and hated by their rivals and sycophants. Also, even in monarchies, most people gain and maintain power only thanks to a group of allies and supporters, on whom they are therefore utterly dependent. As a result, they are always walking, blind and drunk, on a greasy tightrope in a hailstorm."

_Merciful god of insanity_ , thought Kor, _he's beginning to sound like_ _Talek_ _!_

"It is especially risky for a ruler to attempt moral reforms," continued Separ. "Consider the case of King Ngargen, the last of the Jizli line in ancient Orgashia. He carefully regulated the market so as to avoid boom-and-bust cycles. He instituted a strongly progressive system of taxation, and he used the economic power of the government to support infrastructure, environmental protection, Science, and Engineering. He felt compassion for the common people, so he set up a system with economic safety nets, free medical care, civil liberties, job training, guaranteed employment, universal higher education, and so on. Well, such things are expensive! They compete for funding with one's military and police budgets. When he raised taxes to pay for them, people grumbled. Their grumbling was not rational, but when people are guaranteed to be well off, they think they can afford the luxury of pettiness and wishful thinking. The civil liberties that Ngargen had instituted allowed all kinds of demagogues to flourish by manipulating the masses, at the expense of the latters' true interests. Taxation became a major issue of these demagogues. They claimed that the benefits of taxation were not worth the price, and that people would be better off in a more competitive environment. That is of course true mostly for those who already have an advantage, but when people become too lazy to think critically, they will believe anything. So Ngargen cut taxes. To maintain both his social programs and his military budget, while pacifying those who complained about taxes, he was forced into deficit spending, and Orgashia was soon conquered from the outside, at which point all of his reforms followed him quickly into the grave. In addition to all the usual motives for conquest, the conquerors had been supplied by Ngargen with yet another: the fear that their own oppressed classes would be inspired by Ngargen's reforms to revolt, demanding privileges similar to those in Ngargen's kingdom. This motivated them to suspend their usual rivalries, long enough to ally against him."

_He_ _is_ _sounding a lot like Talek_ , thought Kor. _All this History!_ _Could it be that Talek is one of his ... no, that's not possible! But ..._

"Finally," Separ continued, "you might consider the possibility that decadence is simply part of the price that must be paid for eras of flourishing. When people live in peace and security for a long time, they tend to lose their edge, their discipline, their realism. When mortals can get away with wishful thinking, they tend to fall into it. This is fine for awhile, but eventually, things fall apart. So perhaps 'High Civilization' can only exist at one point in a cycle, preceded by violence and followed by decadence, just as a flower must be preceded by a bud and followed by rot. But then, perhaps it is worth that price." He fell silent, raising his eyebrows at Kor.

"What you say is interesting, Dearie," replied Kor, "but the fact is, that I'm afraid that I don't know enough about History to decide about such things. I wish I did, but I have devoted my talents elsewhere. I would only be speculating wildly. Why don't you just draw your conclusion, and I will think about it?"

"I prefer to leave the problem to you," said Separ. "You must decide these things for yourself. Perhaps you _should_ study History, before you make judgments about good and evil." Kor flinched. "In the meantime," Separ continued, "let's change the subject. When K'Sell was showing you the Afterlife, didn't you decide that you were really Wond, and hence identical with everything?"

Kor gave a start. She realized that she had, through immersion in her daily activities, insensibly gone back to her habitual modes of thought, thinking of herself as only a finite individual. The thought was upsetting. "Well, yes, I did," she said. She tried to return to the state of feeling herself to be Wond, but she could only attain a state that felt like play-acting.

"If that is so, then you include _m_ _e_ ," said Separ, "and every evil person who ever lived!"

Kor frowned. She felt trapped. But she reminded herself, once again, not to draw any conclusions on the spot. Separ was, no doubt, a brilliant rhetorician, one who could sell shoes to a snake and bath towels to a fish. Carefully, she replied, "That's an interesting point, but ... whatever I may have thought about that then, I would say now that anything that leads to the conclusion that evil is not evil, or that everything is equally evil, or that evil is to be tolerated, just has to be wrong."

"If everything is identical to Wond," said Separ, "it would also follow that I am identical to Amakala!"

"Well, that is absurd," said Kor, "and if what I believed then has that as a consequence, it was just a crazy hallucination, however real it may have felt at the time. But somehow, I don't think that it did contradict common sense as much as it seems to, when you draw conclusions like that from it. I can't say why, though, and I admit that I see no flaws in your reasoning. I guess that's one more thing that I will have to think through slowly, sometime."

"Fair enough," said Separ. "Do you have any other questions?"

"Yes," said Kor, remembering the question that Isiliar had asked earlier. "Why do you exist?"

"Remember the story of Wond?" asked Separ.

"Fairly well," said Kor.

"Well, you recall that Wond decided to create what the story calls 'games.' Or perhaps 'struggles' or 'tests' would be a better word."

Kor nodded affirmatively.

"Well," said Separ, raising an eyebrow, "what is there for good people to struggle with?"

"I see your point," said Kor. "But then, why did Wond have to create _struggles_? Why not _dances_? Or _love-makings_?"

"Good question," said Separ, "unless you think that Wond himself is evil."

"Perhaps he is," said Kor thoughtfully. "Perhaps he is partly good and partly evil, like me and Tulith. I suppose he must be, since you and Amakala are each part of him."

"Perhaps he is _compassionate_ ," suggested Separ. "He allows beings like you and me and Tulith to exist, even though we are imperfect."

In spite of herself, Kor began to feel a little compassion for Separ. She remembered the time that she had felt compassion for the smoke addict who had forced her to give him her coat, while she had been hunting for food at _Rongongyula's Bar and Grill_. She had given him her shift as well, and she had thanked Isiliar for helping her to feel such generosity. She also remembered the time she had felt compassion for the god of fear, even though she thought that fear was a major source of evil. _If I could feel compassion for them,_ she thought, _why not for Separ? Isn't it just a matter of degree? Perhaps a truly good person would feel_ _universal_ _compassion_. At the same time, another part of her said, _Be careful! Evil is seductive! Entertain hypotheses, but don't draw conclusions, until you have had time to think about it!_

She went back to thinking about her earlier question: Why struggles, rather than dances or love-making? She came up blank, and then she also realized that Separ's answer had evaded the issue.

"Well, but what do you think, Dearie?" she asked, sweetly. "Why does it have to be _struggles?_ " She felt a little nervous asking Separ a question to which she herself had no answer; it was like exposing a vulnerable point.

"First of all," said Separ, "let me say that each of the three metaphors has some truth in it, as does the _game_ metaphor. But the appeal of the _struggle_ metaphor is, that it makes it clear that there must really be something at stake, some genuine risk; otherwise, life is meaningless. And also, there must be something at stake, so that there can be _progress_. So that there can be _evolution_. So that beings can improve _themselves_ , rather than being handed perfection for nothing. But of course, there is something at stake in dancing and love-making and game-playing, too! So, by analogy, there must be evil in the world, if it is to be like dancing or love-making or game-playing."

Kor thought of Lessie and her dancing. Then she remembered sitting in the garden of the Temple, looking at a tiny growing plant, and feeling as though the whole universe were like that: growing and developing. _If there has to be evil_ , she thought, _at least it would be nice to know that there is also progress._

"If the participants in History are to be genuinely free," continued Separ, "and if they and their courage, creativity, and other virtues are to be really needed, not just a charade, then progress cannot come about on account of an intervention by some higher power, like an adult hiding weapons and other dangerous things where children can't find them. It has to come about by trial and error, a notoriously slow and expensive process, a process which requires many failures for each success."

"I suppose that's why Wond introduced _chance_ into the world," said Kor, thoughtfully, "for if there were no chance, everything would have to be determined in advance."

"Very plausible," said Separ.

Agreement from Separ naturally made Kor nervous, and one of her inner voices said: _I actually got so involved in the problem, that I forgot the context. That could be dangerous! I must be more careful!_ Another one of her inner voices said, _I actually got interested in a theological problem, and came up with my own solution! Perhaps I can be good at Theology after all!_ Then still another voice thought, _Watch out! You are feeling pride! Remember that Evil is seductive!_ Yet another voice said, _Don't be so hard on yourself! It's perfectly all right to feel pride, if it is truly merited!_

"The presence of chance also means," continued Separ, "that not every bad thing will serve some clear, specific, positive purpose of its own. Some tragedies are just accidents, part of the price of having chance in the world. In the long run, though, the bad effects of chance will presumably be balanced by the good."

Kor felt trapped again, for the idea of the desirability of chance had felt like her own idea, and yet Separ evidently thought that it harmonized well with his point of view. _Watch out for the power of suggestion_ , she told herself, _and don't become his ally just for the sake of intellectual challenge!_

"You seem to be arguing," she replied, "that the universe does not use any unnecessary destructiveness. But then there would be no evil, and you would be asleep, a mere potential." Again, Kor found herself feeling surprised by, and proud of, her ability to deal with the abstract concepts and reasoning involved; and again, she was frightened by that.

"Well," replied Separ, "unnecessary destructiveness was, as I recall, _your_ definition of evil."

"Well, Dearie," said Kor, "you are surely the expert on what evil is! Why don't you tell me what _your_ definition is?"

"As a first approximation," said Separ, "I am obsolescence. I am the past. I am that which is left behind, transcended, gone beyond."

Kor was incredulous. "That makes no sense at all!" she said, scornfully.

"In the Temple Garden," said Separ, "you experienced the universe as _developing_. But development is more than just change, isn't it? It constitutes some sort of _progress_. And in progress, what comes after is better than what comes before. So what comes before is relatively bad or evil."

"I see," said Kor, "and technically, you are right, I suppose, at least as long as there _is_ progress. But it's not very informative. If you say that the universe is heading away from badness and evil, and you define badness and evil as what the universe is heading away from, you have certainly been consistent, but you haven't said very much." Again Kor felt proud of her discernment. _I went right to the heart of that!_ she thought, proudly, and then again she felt ashamed and fearful of feeling proud.

"True enough," said Separ. "Let me try to be more informative. I will say that the universe is such that everything makes as much sense as possible, in the long run. But many things that make sense in the long run may not appear to make sense, in the short run. Now, I say that evil is that which _appears_ , in the short run, to be standing in the way of making sense. I am the _apparently_ irrational, the _apparently_ senseless."

Kor thought about this for a hundredbreath. Then she said: "I can't see anything wrong with that, provided that it is true that everything makes as much sense as possible, in the long run, and that in order for this to be, there have to be events which appear, in the short run, to be standing in the way of making sense. But these are certainly not obvious truths – why should I believe them?"

"But isn't that what you felt, in the Temple Garden?" asked Separ. "Didn't you feel that life would be meaningless if beings did not reach whatever levels of excellence they reach, _by their own efforts_? And that they had, therefore, to begin at the very beginning? And what would this beginning be but brute matter, with no thought or conscience? And if the game is not fixed, aren't many beings bound, in the course of their efforts, to go down wrong paths? Haven't you often done so, with the best will in the world? Have you ever known anyone who hasn't? How could we guarantee otherwise, without helping them so much as to render their own efforts meaningless?"

"I suppose I did feel as you say," said Kor, "but what of it? That was an illusion, a shadow-play constructed by K'Sell, and under its influence I might have fallen to all kinds of false conclusions." To herself, she thought, _Was K'Sell setting me up for Separ? Is there some kind of conspiracy to get me to accept Separ? Or to see if I can stand up to temptation? Was that beautiful experience nothing but a trap?_ _What is Isiliar up to_ **?** _Whose side is she on?_ These thoughts were very disturbing. It helped a little, though, when she thought of something she had often said to the children: "In the end, you don't have to know what other people are up to, or what is really happening. All you need is to do the right thing, as best you can tell, _given the information you have_."

To Kor's surprise, Isiliar spoke up: "You've finally become a theologian, Kor!" Isiliar smiled at her, as if she thought that was a good thing.

"What do you mean?" asked Kor, a little startled.

"I mean," said Isiliar, "that you are no longer satisfied with feelings and images and metaphors. You want clarity, logic, and evidence, and you are willing to make the effort to get them."

Kor snorted. "I've never been happy with metaphors," she said, "but no one will give me anything else! When I think of my recent experience with K'Sell, for example," she continued, "it seems to have been _nothing but_ images and metaphors." Then she remembered, with a bit of chagrin, that K'Sell had started off in a more explanatory mode, but Kor herself had asked her to stop 'lecturing.' She sighed.

"To despise me," said Separ, bringing her attention back to him, "is to despise the womb which nurtured you." He said this with a hint of anguish, the first time he had showed any emotion at all. Kor was jolted. She thought of how, in recent years, she had been engaged in a daily, heartbeat-by-heartbeat struggle with evil, and how this struggle had made her what she was, how it had forced her to abandon every trace of wishful thinking. _At the very least_ , she thought wryly, _Evil has certainly_ _surrounded_ _me as much as any womb_. She also thought of her recently enhanced awareness that things that nurtured her – food and shelter, for example – came to her in part through the destruction of living things. _Does love also come to me through destruction?_ she asked herself. She recalled that every child in her orphanage came to her through the death, or at least loss, of its parents, and that the orphanage itself had come to her through the death of Madame Caramami. She recalled that when Tulith had moved out of the orphanage, Kor had only been able to visit her by taking time out from her responsibilities. Tulith's beautiful paintings could only be made if Tulith refused to help much with the orphanage. Their move to the Temple, which had made their lives so much easier, had been the result of the pillage of the entire neighborhood by the Angels of Rejuvenation, and might not have been successful if the Angels had not been decimated by the black cloud. Other examples began to proliferate in her mind, and she became confused and fearful, for she began to feel a touch of willingness to believe that Separ was actually making a case for himself.

Furthermore, as she pondered his ugly appearance, she remembered that he appeared so because she herself had demanded it. _In how many other ways_ , she thought, _does he appear to me as I insist he must appear? And how can I claim to be fair to him when I insist that he appear in such ways?_ She thought about the human habit of portraying their enemies, and their victims, as evil, in order to justify their own cruelty. _Is that the function of our notion of evil,_ she asked herself, _to give us an excuse to attack others? And_ _am I doing that to Separ?_ Then, too, she thought of how Separ was hated by everyone, almost by definition; _What a lonely job he has_ , she thought, _and what an unpleasant one. If it is true that evil has to exist in order for goodness to exist, surely it would only be the most noble being in the universe who would take on that job._ She remembered her clubbing of Gornithrog. _That was a nasty thing_ , she thought, _but I had to do it!_ Was it the same with Separ, but on a larger scale?

Then another voice within her cried out in anguish: _What are you thinking? In a moment you will become his devotee!_ She felt a wave of fear and shock pass over her, as a person does who is walking at night, deep in thought, and suddenly realizes that he has almost, inadvertently, stepped over the edge of a cliff, sheer and high and certainly deadly. She was about to ask Isiliar to terminate the encounter, when Separ spoke again:

"I am not asking you to lose sight of the difference between good and evil," he said, "nor am I asking you to end or diminish your struggle against evil. On the contrary, I urge you to continue it. It has made you a noble and remarkable woman. I am certainly not asking you to become my devotee, in the way that most people would understand that. In fact, I would refuse the offer. I am just asking you to try to understand me a little better."

Kor hesitated. _Did he read my mind?_ she thought. _Well, he is a god, no doubt he can do that. He's just soothing me, though,_ _he thinks that I'm ready to fall. He assures me that he's not trying to seduce me, he throws in a little praise, and he makes what would be, from anyone else, a modest and reasonable request. A master of manipulation_! _But then_ , _I am learning from this. I am learning how he operates. I will be wiser after I think these matters through. Yes, he had me dizzy there for a moment, but now I've found my feet again, and I am not the least tempted by him_. She decided to continue the conversation, although one of her voices said, _See, he does control you! He got you to continue, when you were about to stop!_

"What about my work as a courtesan at the Temple of Ydris?" she asked. "How did that presuppose badness or evil? I suppose you could say, that it was only necessary because men were estranged from Ydris. But that seems so natural! Men are men! How could it be otherwise?"

"Indeed, it probably couldn't be otherwise, as things are," replied Separ, nodding, "but male estrangement from Ydris is still a bad thing. It often contributes to rape, for example, in various degrees, and various kinds of misogyny. However inevitable such things may be, they are still tragic. It is perhaps natural for men to be more easily estranged from Ydris than it is for women, but it is also natural for them to overcome this. If there were no such alienation, what would have been the point of your work? But I am quite willing to agree, that your work as a courtesan was less a response to badness or evil than your orphanage work. As a courtesan, you never had to kill anyone. Does that make it better? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to say that, everything else being equal, work that redresses a more serious evil is more worthwhile? Isn't that in fact precisely why you think that your orphanage work is more meaningful?"

That seemed right to Kor, and she felt tangled up. Agreeing with Separ about morals or values was frightening. But she was determined not to panic. _Don't draw any conclusions. Decide about it later, when you have time to think._ "That _seems_ right," she said.

"But then," continued Separ, "the less power evil has in the world, the less good there can be."

"Well, that sounds as though it must be nothing more than a clever sophistry," said Kor, "but I will think about it. At the moment, I am too tired to do it justice. My mind has been racing, and now I am exhausted." That was the truth. "Whatever else you may be, Separ, you are certainly a thought-provoking conversationalist."

"Thank you," replied Separ, and nodded to Isiliar. Both gods disappeared. Kor felt glad that she had ended the conversation on account of fatigue, rather than with some hateful denunciation, or fearful flight. She certainly was exhausted, almost to the point of pain.

A few breaths later, Isiliar re-appeared. "Well, Kor," she said, "you've done as I asked. Thank you! I won't be trying to set you up with anyone else."

"Good," said Kor. "Are you going to tell me, now, what you are up to?"

"Soon," said Isiliar, "but not now."

Kor gave a little grunt of irritation. "Very well, then," she said, "I'm going to bed."

"Pleasant dreams," replied Isiliar, and disappeared.

Confused and shaken as she was, it took Kor a long time to get to sleep. But eventually, her thoughts of Isiliar, K'Sell, Separ, Wond, Amakala, and related subjects began to blend in with one another, and turned into a dream. In the dream, she kept searching for one or another of the gods; just as she thought she had found that one, it turned out to be another one. Then she looked for herself, only to find a vast, shifting horde of unstable gods. Then the dream itself shattered and disappeared.
**********

"Of all the parasitic gods,

Wealth is surely the most powerful."

(Saint Yrvotep the Martyr)

Ling contacted Shimura. "I've decided to return," he said. "Find someone who can reverse the exchange with Torothex, and let me know."

"I'm sorry sir," said Shimura. "Torothex is dead."

For a moment, Ling was overcome by vertigo; then he listened in ever-deepening shock as Shimura described the struggle with 777 and its outcome. He was enraged at Shimura for allowing Torothex to be killed, but he contained that emotion, has he had so many others. "Very good, then," he said numbly, at the end. "I'll have to think again. I'll call you when I reach a decision."

His feelings swirled within him, like leaves in autumn wind.

One of these feelings was relief; he had not looked forward to being a crime lord again, however wise and ultimately benign. _No doubt, that shows a certain lack of spiritual advancement on my part_ , he thought, with an inner grimace of bitter amusement. He also felt guilt, an emotion rather new to him, for it was his fault that Torothex had died. _I've killed my own father_ , he thought, for it was Torothex who had taught him everything, who had made a man of him.

Well, what was to be done, then? _I can return to my organization by means of some other body_ , he thought, _even this one._ _That would leave the world without an Agulinar Torothex, but perhaps it can't be helped. Or, I could stay here and impersonate Torothex, to be the best Torothex that I can be. Given his memories, and given that I am not stupid, I might be able to do a decent job of it. I would certainly like that better, now, than being Ling!_

_Yes,_ he thought, _I will take his place, I will continue his life's work! But wait – what about my old organization? If I just abandon it, there will be chaos; they will start killing each other; some out of ambition, most out of fear. Many will die, including innocent bystanders. A vacuum will be created in the world of crime, and amateurs with crude methods will wreak untold damage on the populace. They have not learned, as I have, that one must feed one's chickens before eating them. I need to arrange for a smooth transition to new leadership._

He thought about Winin Ken, Balinakan, and Nwog, the triumvirate he had left in command in his absence. In his original plans, when he was thinking about how to assure himself of the possibility of return, he had decided that leaving a single person in command would only be asking for a quick usurpation, in spite of his elaborate security precautions; but by sharing power among three equals, he had hoped to assure that each of them would get in the way of any attempt by one of the others to seize absolute power. Each one was, of course, given his own secret police system (in addition to the four that Ling had left behind, under Shimura's command), and each could use his system to spy on the others. That would reduce the efficiency of the operation as a whole, but Ling had considered it worth it, in order to extend the time during which it would still be safe for him to return. If he was not coming back, however, it was a recipe for factionalism and internal war. He should choose one, and have the others assassinated.

Of the three, Nwog seemed the most intelligent and the most cold-blooded. He would be the one. Contacting Shimura, Ling instructed him to put Nwog in touch with him as soon as it was possible to arrange an absolutely secure communication without anyone else knowing about it.

While waiting to hear from Nwog, he decided to explore Torothex's memories some more; it was the nearest he could do to bringing him back. After pondering which memory might be best for this, he remembered the one that had frightened him so badly, the one connected with the god, "Amakala". He had felt a vast force of goodness in it, and this had frightened him. _I'm different now,_ he thought. _Let's see whether I can handle that one_.

Letting a little of it into his memory, he experienced fear once again. He calmed himself, breathing deeply. Then he let a little more in. He tried to figure out why he had found it so frightening. After much thought, he decided that it was because he was, surprisingly, _not_ totally incredulous about the existence of such goodness, and never had been; his view that Good and Evil were purely subjective had been a pose, a bit of wishful thinking. If there really was such goodness, then _his_ actions had been _evil_ , and profoundly so; and he couldn't abide that possibility, for the guilt he would feel would be excruciating.

To be sure, he had known for a long time that he was evil in the eyes of people who had never had to deal with the realities that he had had to deal with. But as far as he was concerned, the 'respectable citizens' of the world were simply in denial about the sources and consequences of their own lifestyles. They spent money on things they didn't truly need, when the same money could save lives among the poor; worse yet, their prosperity was based on the oppression of others, others who lived in slums and refugee camps, far away from the peaceful, tree-lined neighborhoods of the affluent.

The 'respectable citizens' cloaked these facts with rationalizations that were, to Ling, quite transparent. They knew very well, for example, that even a small difference in wealth tended to increase itself, for the wealthier could outbid the poorer, and had more surplus for investment. They knew very well that the very wealthy could manipulate public opinion, buy off those with a talent for leadership, and harass or assassinate those who would not be bought. Neither the Law, nor the Military, nor Religion was immune. True, the 'respectable citizens' never explicitly gave orders that anyone should be corrupted, impoverished, or killed; they simply lived off a system whose rules and institutions they took for granted, and whose consequences, largely hidden from their eyes, included the perpetuation of poverty and crime. Ling therefore considered that he, at least, had been an _honest_ criminal; he took responsibility for what he did, giving the orders himself instead of looking the other way while others did his dirty work.

Ling was surprised by the anger he felt, at that moment, towards these 'respectable citizens.' _You, comfortable tapeworms,_ he thought, addressing them in his imagination. _Where were you when I was abandoned on the street? And where were you when I was starved, beaten, and raped as a child? And where were you when I had to kill in order to live? Shaking your heads sadly at the plight of the poor? Sighing about how stupid and lazy we were? Donating bits of your wealth to charities that gave handouts, making us more dependent than ever? Or to religions that promised us happiness in the next world if we resigned ourselves to misery in this one? Or that promulgated an ethics whose main point was the inviolability of the wealth and privileges of those who had them?_ For a moment, he forgot everything that he had learned from Torothex, and felt a raging desire to return to his organization, and to use it to rape and pillage every respectable neighborhood he could find. _The Angels of Rejuvenation go to the wrong neighborhoods_ , he thought, _and they are much too gentle_.

But then, remembering the anguish he had felt as a young child, he also remembered that the anguish existed because he had had a simultaneous sense that, _it's not supposed to be this way!_ Without that contrary sense, he would simply have floated downstream on the way things were, still suffering, still ruthless, but not so _bitter_.

_It's not supposed to be this way!_ How, as a child, could he have expressed it any more precisely?

It's not supposed to be this way! People should be nice to each other! How simple! How obvious! How easy!

Ling wept. _That_ was what Torothex's vision of Amakala had reminded him of! His _own_ profoundly frustrated and buried childhood vision of a world of love and safety, a vision that was systematically frustrated until it came to express itself mainly in rage, horror, fear, loathing, and rebellion at the existing world, a vision that he had gradually suppressed in order not to be living in continual rage and despair. And yet his suppression of this vision of goodness was also a tender protection of it, a putting away of it until perhaps someday he could dare to ...

_Lizard blood and guts_ , he thought. _Did I unconsciously choose to become Torothex because I actually wanted to be_ _like_ _him?_
**********

"A sage can turn himself inside-out

without losing his balance"

(Tsekletur proverb)

After meditating for six hours, Karngrevor entered the cavern in which Oselika had fought with the demon. He could still see a bit of crusted blood on the floor. He approached the statue of Tosaris, and prostrated himself before it.

"Divine and Merciless Tosaris," he said, "for millennia, my family have been primarily warriors in your service. Recent events, however, suggest that we should take a different path. So profound would this change be, that I hesitate to undertake it without direct confirmation from you. I therefore ask for your advice."

There was the sound of a bamboo flute, a single, bending note; Karngrevor rose into a kneeling position, hands clasped, head bowed.

Tosaris appeared before him, taking the form of an elderly woman, robed in white. Her features were similar to his own; in fact, he was reminded of his mother. She stood with radiant dignity. Her gaze was sharp as a razor; Karngrevor had the feeling that nothing escaped it.

"Dear mortal descendant," she said, "you are correct. I want you to give up violence now. As I know you are aware, non-violence has its own forms of excellence. I hope that you will strive to realize excellence in non-violence as fully as you can.

"Please do not suppose that this means that your previous efforts have been meaningless. As you know, war and strife have been a great gift to mortals. Faced with the possibility of their own immediate annihilation, or that of everything they hold dear, mortals find the strength to slough off pettiness and wishful thinking, to face reality, to put forth their best effort, and to co-operate with others. The need to harm their enemy forces them to be nice to their friends. They become realistic, rational, co-operative, and sometimes even loving. Competition in other spheres, such as competition for prestige, has an analogous tendency, but without the strength engendered by war.

"What is more difficult is, to get mortals interested in being realistic, rational, co-operative, and perhaps even loving, without having to threaten them with death or disaster, and without the terrible costs levied by war. It is clearly in their best interests to do so, but this has rarely been enough. To be rational without the guiding hand of war requires even more patience, courage, and faith than disciplined military combat, for it requires each person to act well _without compulsion_.

"Many people would be surprised to learn that soldiers, such as yourself, are in the forefront of those that have developed this ability. Those who would be surprised have not grasped the difference between a true soldier and a thug. For, as a soldier, you know that bearing arms may increase your ability to defend your people, but does not increase your own life expectancy at all; quite the contrary, it makes you a target. More importantly, you have learned to overcome your fear of death and harm, at least to some extent, and to do what must be done regardless of consequences to yourself. You are therefore more able than most to abstain from violence altogether, when the right day dawns. The same is true of each of your officers and soldiers.

"That day is dawning now. I am not going to give you detailed instructions, for I want you to use your own intelligence and creativity."

She came over to him, and laid a hand on his head. He found her touch eerie and strange, for it felt warm and soft, just like the touch of a mortal woman.

"I am a stern god," she said, "but it is not for want of love. I want to remind you that I do love you. I love all mortals, but especially my devotees, and especially you. I have always been pleased with you. I want you to succeed, but I love you too much to make it easy for you."

She bent over, and gave him a light kiss on the top of his head.
**********

"Which side of a wall is the outside?"

(From the popular song, "Freedom"

Sitting in the Library with Ydnas and his artificial chameleon, Savril was badly frightened. He had admitted disloyalty to his master, the Mage! If the Mage discovered this, unimaginable horrors would befall him. At the same time, it was a relief to have decided, to be committed, to know where he stood. And the danger made him feel wonderfully alive. "What do we do now?" he asked.

Ydnas smiled. "I've already worked that out," she said. "Just follow me!"

The curious trio – one natural human (as far as he knew), and two artificial beings, one in the permanent form of a girl and one in the mutable form of a chameleon – left the library and proceeded to a portion of the cavern in which the Mage had installed a vast network of laboratories.

Savril had been told that the Mage's underground domain was huge, but now he experienced this firsthand. In the hallways, door after door gave them a glimpse of arcane equipment, sometimes in furious motion, sometimes still, tended by white-smocked figures who pondered, conferred, manipulated, observed, recorded, analyzed, and theorized. One such hallway followed another, interspersed with stairways, cafeterias, dormitories, recreational facilities, and elevators. It seemed to go on forever. At first, Savril was dizzied by the number and variety of sights, smells, and sounds, but he quickly became used to it; in fact, he quickly realized that everything was essentially the same, repeating itself over and over again, a perception that filled him with unease.

Ydnas subverted all the relevant spy devices and alarms, and the people they met, including all of the numerous security personnel, deferred to Savril's authority as the Mage's main assistant. Morif rode quietly, perched on the girl's shoulder. At times Savril felt an almost unbearable tension; at other times, he had to fight an impulse to burst into hysterical laughter.

At last, they came to the end of the laboratory section; passing through a large and heavily-guarded door, they found themselves in a vast storehouse. This storehouse was apparently devoted to the bodies of artificial spiders, drawn up rank on rank like the divisions of an army. The first such division that they passed consisted of identical bodies about a fingerjoint long; those in the next were a little longer, and so on, until they came to a group that were each over a manlength tall. After that they came to an open space, wherein several technicians were apparently testing out a single spider's leg; it was over five manlengths long, and resembled a crooked, spiny tree-trunk. When one of the technicians waved his wand, the leg would twitch.

Passing through another door, they entered an area in which the bodies of snakes were being tested. A snake, completely inert, would be placed near a stone pillar about the size of a man. The technicians would step back, and one of them would wave a wand. Almost too fast to see, the snake would shoot forward, wrap itself around the pillar, and squeeze; a moment later, with a loud popping sound, the pillar would collapse into a spray of dust and fragments.

_So much magic_ , thought Savril. _All these experiments must be producing a lot of pollution._ And indeed, there was a touch or red haze in the air, and he felt a bit of nausea. Neither of these was unusual, for the Mage used a great deal of magic, and this produced a number of disabilities among the workers. Savril realized that this was something that he had been playing down to himself, in his desire to be completely loyal.

Finally, Savril and his companions reached the end of the cavern. In a natural alcove, Ydnas had already dug a tunnel, which would lead them to the surface. It was masked by an illusion of sheer rock wall, which disappeared to let them through and then re-formed behind them. Morif extruded a lantern to light their way. As they traveled along the tunnel, Ydnas caused it to collapse behind them.

After a long time, they entered a dark, musty, and cobwebbed cellar, apparently the basement of a private home.

"This is the cellar of an abandoned house in a deteriorating neighborhood, about a horizon from the nearest entrance to the cavern," said Ydnas. "I have arranged for a friend of mine to meet us here. Ah, here she comes now."

There was a smell of incense, and a sound of wind chimes. A very old woman appeared, dressed in a red robe. Her face was an intricate network of lines, expressing happiness and love.

"Hello, Ydnas," she said, with a radiant smile. "Good to see you."
**********

"To live in competition is its own punishment"

(from Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, by Ehiligair Ednat)

Even though their true goal was to re-create a money economy, 203 and 703 continued to sit in on the meetings devoted to creating a social system without coercion, bribery, or manipulation.

"I'm s-surprised," 111 said to them, at such a meeting one day, "that you two don't argue against the whole idea of what we are trying to do. If I am not mistaken, you don't favor the creation of such a society, and in fact, you don't even consider it to be p-possible."

203 felt a little trapped in his hypocrisy, and couldn't find the words to reply. 703, urbane and amused as always, said, "Of course it is true that I do not think that such a society is possible. But I want to be liberated from the Angels. So I am hoping that you will come up with a scheme that will satisfy them, even though it can't possibly work."

"In that case," said 111, "I'm s-surprised that you aren't more helpful."

"Well," said 703, making a tiny shrug, "it's not exactly my area of expertise, now is it?"

"You're not worried that it might _succeed_ , are you?" asked 111.

"Well, I suppose I might be, actually," said 703, grimacing just a little. "The Angels claim to have succeeded temporarily, many times in the past, in getting neighborhoods to run along those lines, although they admit that such neighborhoods inevitably 'decay,' as they put it, over a longer period of time." To himself he thought: _The Angels are very good at what they do. That is why our sabotage will have to be very, very subtle._

"So, what _you_ want," said 111, "is something that will look g-good to the Angels, but that will decay _quickly_."

"Exactly," said 703. "And since you know my motivation, I don't expect you to take my advice, so why should I give any?"

"I th-think," said 111, "I think that almost all of us want to be free of the Angels. After that, those who want to make an ongoing system of the sort that the Angels approve of can try to do so, with no one obliged to take p-part. Would you be willing to help us to invent a system that the Angels will find to be satisfactory, but with the understanding that you yourselves are not committed to it, once we are free?"

_What an idiot!_ thought 203 of 703. _He should have discussed that possibility privately, not out here in the open! Now everyone, including the Angels, will be doubly suspicious of any system we come up with._

_Clever little spit lizard!_ thought 703 of 111. _He's just made everyone suspicious of 203 and me, and of whatever proposal we generate, thus making it many times as hard to fool the Angels. We may actually have to co-operate with him now, and just leave the neighborhood when we are freed!_

Aloud, he said: "Well, what sort of problems are you encountering?"

404 broke in: " _Meetings!_ " Everybody laughed. "Meetings go on forever," explained 404. "Since we are supposed to be non-coercive, we let everyone speak as long and often as they like, and we require decisions to be unanimous. But that is exhausting to accomplish."

703 looked thoughtful. 203, who almost automatically felt competitive, especially where 703 was concerned, began thinking about the problem himself. He wanted to be the one to solve it.

703 smiled ruefully. "I have no quick answer, I'm afraid, because that is just what I would have expected."

"Well, give me your analysis, then," said 111. "Why would you have expected this?"

703 hesitated for a moment, deciding whether to tell what he really thought. "Well," he said, "people are _bound_ to have lots of different opinions in these matters."

"Why do you suppose that is?"

"Everyone wants to shine," said 703. "And in order to shine, they have to stand out, to be different. And to _really_ shine, they have to _win_."

"So people make a contest of everything, hoping to win," said 1080.

"Yes," said 703, "and even if there is not much hope of winning, well, they will bet on the unlikely rather than admit defeat."

"But some people are modest," objected 111, "self-effacing."

"Most of them are still competing," said 703, with a knowing smile. "They are just being more subtle about it. They hope to appeal to others by virtue of their apparent modesty; they hope that others will support them, as a counterbalance to more honestly aggressive types. And they are correct, for some will support them, in the hopes of building an alliance of losers against winners.

"Then there are the ones who despair of _ever_ winning," he continued. "Sometimes they turn inward, telling themselves that they are unique, and therefore valuable, by virtue of their private, inner life, even though their inner life is rather tawdry and, more to the point, not that different from anyone else's. Sometimes they try to give up competing, and seek satisfaction elsewhere, but usually they just end up competing in a sneaky way. If they have failed in the competition for wealth, for example, they may declare that 'spiritual' things are more important than wealth. Well, there are actually two kinds of people who say things like that. The first kind wants to convince others, in order to relieve them of their unspiritual wealth, or to have their loyalty as followers. They are not really in deep despair, not at all. The second kind are trying to convince _themselves_ , to save themselves from the humiliation of consciously admitting defeat. They may really get themselves to believe, for example, that poverty is holy, which makes them a success. And sometimes, those who despair just give up altogether, and wither away."

"You mean, suicides?" asked 1080.

"No, no," said 703. "Suicides are still trying to win."

"I'm interested," said 111, "in the ones who give up competing, and seek satisfaction elsewhere."

"Well, they are always rather sad," said 703, "because that's never a person's first choice. But after many defeats, the weak accept the fact that they exist to service others. I rather like that, since it makes them more efficient as servants. They are also rather rare, however."

"I don't think they _are_ rare," said 111. "In fact, _everyone_ is like that, in _most_ aspects of their lives."

"Not _everyone_ , surely," said 703, with a complacent smile.

"Well, consider yourself, for example," said 111. 703 looked a little surprised. "You are very good at economic competition," continued 111, "and a number of other things, but are you a virtuoso glassophone player? Are you a prize-winning orchid breeder? Do you compete with others in those areas?"

"No," said 703. _He's sharp_ , he thought. _It would be plausible if I let him appear to convert me; after a long struggle, of course. That might help to allay the suspicions that have been aroused._

"In f-fact," said 111, "in most things, you are (forgive the expression), a total loser."

"Well, yes and no," replied 703 calmly, refusing to show anger. "You see, there's something special about being rich. I can _hire_ glassophone players. I can _hire_ orchid breeders, or buy the orchids they breed. For that matter, I can ruin their careers, or have them beaten up or assassinated. They can't do the same to me." He enjoyed the shocked looks that his last remarks elicited.

203 thought that 703 had gone too far, and would just alienate everyone with such remarks. He tried to think of some statement by which he could smooth things over. "Of course, that doesn't mean that he would actually _do_ such a thing," he said. "Assassinating, I mean."

"The fact that I _can_ ," said 703, nodding, "means that I don't generally _have_ to."

_All right_ , thought 203, bitterly, _reveal your arrogance. That will weaken you, to my advantage._ But he found the situation confusing: he was allied to 703, and in competition with him, at the same time. He admired and envied 703, wanted his approval, and wanted to imitate him; and yet, from 703's point of view, these were all signs of weakness. But if, on the other hand, he were to despise 703, then why imitate him? _We are allies in the struggle for the freedom to humiliate each other_ , he thought.

It occurred to 203 that if 703 were able to prevail in spite of such remarks, he would have a greater victory than if he were able to prevail through hiding his real attitudes. 203 realized that his own desire to keep things hidden showed fear on his part, and therefore suggested weakness. He felt his face burning as he imagined 703 thinking of him as a second-tier competitor, one who feels obliged to use guile.

_Interesting use of present tense_ , thought 1080 about 703's last remark. _He portrays himself as rich already._ In spite of the taboo on identifying people with their pre-capture selves, 1080 thought to himself, _I'll bet he was one of Pappi's most important underlings. Maybe he believes the rumor that Pappi has disappeared, and thinks that means that he can be the big barracuda himself, when the Angels let us go. And maybe he can. Which means, I'd better be friends with him._ He immediately felt ashamed of that last thought, and sent it scurrying off to a remote corner of his mind, but it wouldn't die. _How about that_? he thought, grateful that none of his associates were telepaths. _If we don't consciously and deliberately create our society, what will the default be? A return to Pappi's system, with or without Pappi himself? That's what all these people know, what they are used to. And if that's going to happen, then maybe I should be thinking about my place in it now, rather than being in this group, which will surely be thought of as enemies by Pappi or his successor._

While these thoughts were going through 1080's mind, 111 thought of playing 703 off against his ally, 203, by virtue of their mutual competitiveness. _But that would be manipulative_ , he thought. _I need to find a better way to defeat them. Or ... if I even_ _think_ _in terms of defeating them, haven't I already lost? For then I'm competing with them. I should be trying to_ _help_ _them. What an intriguing challenge, to think that way!_

"I heard a r-rumor," he said to 703, "that you found money and redistributed it equally among yourself and your friends, to make things more interesting. That suggests that it is really the challenge of the game that makes you want to be rich, not the luxuries that rich people can normally obtain, but which you cannot obtain here and now. Besides, if you are constantly struggling for supremacy, you won't have much time to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labors."

"There's something in what you say," said 703, smiling, "but just _owning_ the luxuries is a sign that I am winning. Famous paintings may be pleasant to look at, but that hardly explains the prices they command. The wonderful thing about having a famous painting on my wall is not that I enjoy looking at it, but that it provokes awe, envy, and feelings of inferiority in others."

"Then," said 111, "why not take up the challenge that the Angels have set us? According to you, this challenge is more difficult than the challenge of making a competitive-market society. Why take on a mediocre challenge when you can – oh, never mind, forget I said that."

"You were about to be manipulative, weren't you?" said 703, with a chuckle. "You were attempting to appeal to my competitiveness, to get me to solve your problem for you. But that is a side of my nature that you, in your servile imitation of your masters the Angels, consider to be ignoble. And to appeal to someone's ignoble side is ethically forbidden, according to them." _Understand the rules your opponent is playing by, at least as well as he does_ , he thought.

"I'm afraid I w-was," said 111, blushing with chagrin. "I forget, sometimes."

"You're right, though," mused 703. "It would be challenging." He looked thoughtful again. _Perhaps this would be a good time to show signs of being 'converted,'_ he thought. _But no, I'd be converting for the wrong reasons, and they wouldn't take it seriously._

"Yes," replied 111, "but as you said, I m-mustn't appeal to you on the basis of your competitiveness. In fact, I urge you _not_ to take sides with us, if that would be your only reason. You should take sides with us only if you come to believe that it's the morally right thing to do."

"Morality is an illusion, a con game, a weapon of the weak," said 703, smiling as he observed 111 for his reaction.

_True,_ thought 203, forgetting his recent doubts about secrecy, _but this is not the place to say so! What's the matter with him? He's giving too much away! Well, this is in my interest – I'll just sit here and let him sabotage himself!_ But then he thought, _If he rubs their noses in it and wins anyway, that's a bigger accomplishment!_ That thought made him want to share 703's arrogance. Showing such disdain for 111, and even for the Angels! It would certainly be pleasant to act like that, if he could get away with it. _But if I do that now, he thought, I will appear to be imitating 703, as if I thought him better than myself._ So he didn't.

"That's what it comes down to, isn't it?" replied 111, to 703's last remark. "You see nothing compelling except your egocentric interests."

"I fail to delude myself," said 703. "Everyone is egocentric, but few are strong enough to be able to be honest about it, as I am."

"You are obviously very smart, and you have a lot of d-drive," said 111, "but have you ever considered the possibility that you are, well, m-missing something, that normal people have?"

"Now you're being _very_ manipulative," said 703, looking quite amused, "trying to _shame_ me into agreeing with you! With a touch of flattery thrown in, at the beginning."

203 became aware of all the others, listening intently to this interchange. _703 is trying to discredit 111 in front of all his followers_ , he thought, _and he's doing well_.

111 looked embarrassed and contrite.

"I'm afraid I w-was," he said, blushing again and looking down, "and I ap-p-pologize. But ... I think that there is a genuine issue there, even though my reasons for raising it may have been tainted. What good would it do you to own the whole world, if you lose a crucial part of your own soul?"

"What, lose the capacity to delude myself?" asked 703, with a chuckle.

"No, your capacity to see the real v-value of life," replied 111.

703 chuckled. " _Real_ value?" he asked sarcastically, raising his eyebrows at 111. "There's no such thing. Value is entirely subjective. If someone wants something, it's valuable to him."

"What if he wants an addictive drug that is killing him?" asked 111.

"But what about _meetings_?" broke in 404, impatient with what he perceived as a sterile, purely theoretical debate between 111 and 703. "They _are_ a problem; and, with all due respect, 111, you can argue all day with 703, here, about values and whatnot, without getting anywhere. He's clearly not interested in helping, and we couldn't trust him if he said he was. I say, let's work on meetings." Nods and spoken affirmations blossomed all around him. 111, looking embarrassed, nodded also. In spite of himself, 703 looked irritated for a moment.

"Actually, I think that 703 _was_ helpful, in a way," said 225. "I think he's right – it is competitiveness that is at the root of our difficulty with meetings. Everyone wants to be the hero who solves the problem and saves the day. Then they get angry when others don't go along with them, and jealous when others are more successful."

"I think _trying to be perfect_ be also part of the problem," said 131. "People be needing to realize that oftentimes, it be better just to _make_ a decision, maybe not the truly best, than it be to exhaust us all, arguing and arguing."

"I think _distrust_ is also a factor," said 1080. "Lots of people wouldn't even bother coming to meetings, and questioning everything, if they weren't afraid that the others would do the wrong thing."

"It's really _..._ arrogant, when you think about it," said 987, in a weak voice, "for someone to ... suppose, that ... if _he_ weren't there, or didn't ... speak up, ... everything would collapse! Well, there might be ... special cases like that; but not ... as a rule."

"But everyone has something to offer," objected 175.

"Not every time," replied 131, irritably. "And then, too, the idea of everyone having something to offer, don't imply that everyone's got to talk. No, no! You might be mentioning your ideas to a friend, before the meeting, and it be the friend mentioning it at the meeting, not you. But yes, yes, I admit it, oftentimes I'm just not having a blessed thing to say! In a group this big, that don't mean I'm stupid, no, no!"

"Hey, if someone doesn't think that they are better than others," said 554, "and if there are, say, 37 people in the group, then they should be talking only about 1/37 of the time."

"No, no," objected 131, shaking her head vigorously. "Some people be more interested in one kind of problem, or knowing more about it, or better at dealing with it."

"Hey, all right," conceded 554. "But then, some people should expect to be talking _less_ than 1/37 of the time!"

"Suppose we didn't require everyone to come to meetings," suggested 250, "but when we announced a decision, there would be a kind of right of appeal: if someone who hadn't been there thought the decision was _really_ wrong, they could ask that the debate be re-opened. They would, of course, be expected to attend the second meeting, in order to explain themselves. If people knew that they had that option, meetings would be a lot smaller, and that would certainly make things easier."

"You sound like you're making _rules_ ," said 374, suspiciously.

"Well, I didn't mean that this procedure would be coercively enforced," replied 250, frowning a little. "It would be understood to be a sensible and generally-known way of proceeding. It might become the traditional default. If anyone had an objection to it, they wouldn't have to participate, or they could ask for a change."

"But if not everyone goes to the meeting," worried 881, "wouldn't that make it easier for some conspiracy to take power?"

"With ... no coercion, bribes, or manipulation," replied 111, "there's no ... power to t-take." There were several breaths of silence while everyone pondered this idea.

"Meetings would just be discussions, then," said 1080. 987 nodded agreement. "That solves the problem of trust, too," 1080 continued. "How can you not trust someone who rejects coercion, bribes, and manipulation? Remember that 'manipulation' includes lying and deliberate misleading."

"But we _don't_ all believe in that," objected 175, glancing at 703 and 203.

"Well," replied 225, grinning at the two would-be entrepreneurs, and indicating them with a nod, "I guess _they_ might feel obliged, yes, to come to every meeting, since they wouldn't trust the rest of us. And in general, they will always be insecure, since they think we're all competing with them. And no one will ever trust _them_. Not a nice way to live, but ..." he shrugged.

"But they will slow the meeting down," objected 987.

"Only if we get caught up in their objections," said 225, "as we were, a while ago, before 404 interrupted. I'm sorry, 111," he added. "I know that you were trying to help, yes I do, and that these abstract conceptual issues mean a lot to you. And they _are_ important, I agree; but that doesn't mean that a conversation with _him_ " – gesturing toward 703 – "will be productive."

111 nodded acceptance, although it was clear that his feelings had been hurt. 703 smiled complacently, apparently undisturbed by the implied slight.

"There's something noble about you, 111," said 275, smiling at him with admiration, and yet sadly. "You are committed to rationality, to sincerely searching for the truth, rather than just defending whatever position you happen to have. And that's a beautiful thing. I love you for it, yes I do! But I think you tend to use yourself as a model, when you try to understand other people; I mean, in trying to understand them, you ask yourself, 'What would I be thinking and doing, in their place? What would work for me? What would I have to have been thinking, in order to behave like that?' But other people are not like you, I'm afraid!" When 275 said that, 111 shriveled up a little bit, looking very sad, but he didn't interrupt. _I think I'm beginning to understand why he was always so withdrawn_ , thought 1080.

"It would be better if they _were_ like you," continued 275, "but they're not. For you, a conversation is a way to make discoveries; nothing makes you happier than realizing you were wrong about something. For some people, though, an intellectual discussion is just a debate, a contest, a challenge to seize control of the process and to beat their opponents down. I'm afraid that treating people like that as if they were like yourself is just encouraging them in their bad habits, yes it is."

There was a long interval of silence. 111 looked embarrassed, but also thoughtful. 703 continued to smile complacently, but 203 looked a little unsettled.

987 broke the silence: "What if they keep using money among themselves?"

"Well, _let_ them," said 275, with a shrug and a chuckle, "as long as they don't force anyone _else_ to do it. They're entitled to their game, they certainly are! We aren't going to forbid anyone to play _zaku_ , are we? No, I think they'll get tired of money games after awhile, actually, but ..." she shrugged again. A ripple of affirmative nods and mutters, and a few chuckles, passed through the group.

"It's like I said about trying to be perfect," added 131. "If we insist on convincing everybody, about everything, everytime, everywhere, everyway, then we give and give power to anyone who wants to frustrate us. Why should we do that?"

"Sometimes," said 225, "the best way to solve a problem is to ignore it." Everyone laughed.

"How about this?" asked 987. "During any meeting, ... if anyone feels that the meeting has gone wrong, ... they should interrupt it ... and say so. If others agree, then we should discuss ... how such a wrong turn could be ... avoided ... in the future."

"That will take time away from what the meeting is supposed to be accomplishing," objected 275. "I'm afraid we'll always be wrangling about process."

"You have to fix a broken tool ... before you can use it," replied 987.

203 was flabbergasted. He had always thought that his success at competition would lead him to be admired, envied, or at least feared or hated, and he wanted that. But now his opponents were just ... _shrugging!_ They didn't see his concerns as worth wrangling over; they had better things to do. Suddenly, 203 saw his whole life project through the eyes of many of the others: an _obsessive game!_ To be as involved in it as he was, they found ... _ridiculous!_ Even ... _pathetic!_ He saw himself as a child, who _gains attention by being difficult._ Some childhood memories came to him, that supported this interpretation. His world turned upside down. He felt dizzy and nauseous. He closed his eyes, and held his head in his hands.

703 looked at him with a smirk. _I knew he'd crumble._
**********

"Lust is a lens that focuses the attention on the one desired;

Love makes the loved one into a lens that magnifies the entire world."

(Kartle the Hermit)

Late in the evening, the Archangels Asharia and Kshotra found themselves alone. They sat on opposite sides of a table. After a few moments of embarrassed and mutually deferential circling, they began to deal with the topic that was on their minds.

"Asharia," said Kshotra, "I know that you are a beautiful woman. Married couples are sullen in your presence, and celibates curse their vows when you pass by. When they think of you, brilliant men stammer and strong men collapse. When I first saw you, your beauty entered my heart like a white-hot sword. I sighed, thinking that your presence would make it hard to concentrate on my work, and I was right. In fact, it made my whole life difficult, for my mind would not let go of your image, even in my dreams. The only way I could keep to my work at all was by thinking, ' _She_ will admire me, if I do well.'"

"And I _do_ admire you, Kshotra," replied Asharia. "I know not nor care what other men or women feel in your presence, but when I first saw you, I knew that you were a man of exceptional integrity and strength. I saw that you had suffered much, but that you had wrung wisdom from it, and a granite will. At first your aloofness disappointed me, but then I perceived that it was your great sensitivity that you were protecting. I felt proud to be your co-worker, and I wanted never to disappoint you."

"Asharia," replied Kshotra, "if you mean to chide me for being so captivated by your physical beauty, I can only plead guilty. What I have described so far is only infatuation. It would have been a pleasant irritation, nothing more. But that was only the beginning. I have since learned that your beauty is the least of your virtues; I hardly even notice it any more. It is your intelligence, your learning, your judgment, and your ethics, that inspire me. Many things in my life have caused me to fear that we mortals are flawed, that we are trapped in our own tragic nature, in ignorance, stupidity, and evil, that we are doomed to suffering in futility. But you have shown me by example that we are more than this. Thanks to you I now have greater hope for the world, including myself."

"I know exactly what you mean," replied Asharia, "for I have experienced the same thing. We came here to a scene of horror, where over a thousand of our comrades had been killed by a mysterious force that may strike again at any time. How can anyone reconcile themselves to a world where such things happen? I might not have, had I not discovered that you, too, were part of that world."

"Asharia," said Kshotra, allowing his eyes to meet with hers just for an instant, "it is such a relief, and such a joy, to hear you say those things! For I feared that you would not reciprocate my feelings."

Asharia smiled. "It was a joy and a relief for me, too, to learn of your feelings, Kshotra," she said. Her eyes brightened with happy tears, as did his.

"When I watched you," Kshotra continued, "and when I heard you speaking, your faith in the beauty of life amplified my own, and that in turn allowed me to hope, to dare, to expand and unfold. You showed me that however much evil, ugliness, and delusion there is in the world, our true destiny lies in goodness, truth, and beauty. This enlivened me in a thousand ways. You released my soul from a cage, and gave it new eyes and new thoughts and new hands. And now I know that I truly love you." For "love," he used the verb form of the Gastripi word "Issa," which is used for what many believe to be the highest form of romantic love, far removed from simple sexual desire. " _Issa_ is to mere sex," said a common proverb, "as poetry is to vomiting."

"What an overwhelming honor it is to be loved by you," replied Asharia. "I would never have thought myself worthy of it. And how happy I am to be able to announce that I reciprocate your _is_ _sa_. For yes, contact with you has made me ever so much more alive to the beauty and meaning that is everywhere."

Their eyes locked, and spontaneously they entered into the marriage ritual known as _Kalor_ : each one looked into the left eye of the other, focusing only on that, for what seemed an endless time. When a couple is ready for this ritual, each of them experiences in it the presence of the other with overwhelming vividness and intimacy; and through the other, existence itself.

When they emerged from their trance, Asharia whispered, "I am inconceivably blessed!"

"And I, too," breathed Kshotra.

After a pause, Asharia said, "Well, it is late."

Kshotra nodded assent, saying, "I will see you tomorrow. It will be a busy day, as always." Then they went to their respective tents, to sleep.
**********

"Forgive me for repeating myself"

(Inscribed on a prayer wheel)

It was near the end of the Zoroid Dynasty. Ydnas, having escaped from the Mage, had been brought by Isiliar to the newly-founded City of the Gods. She was sitting in her room one day, when she heard a knock on her door. She got up and opened it. It was Savril.

"Wonderful to see, Savril," she said.

"Wonderful to see, Ydnas," said Savril, and then added, with childlike eagerness, "Do come see my new project!"

"I'd love to!" said Ydnas. She followed him to his workshop. There, the gods had provided him with all kinds of information and equipment, leaving it up to him what to do with it. As a result, he worked and pondered night and day.

Sitting behind Savril's desk, looking quite mischievous, was a very familiar-looking young man.

"Why, Savril," said Ydnas, "you've copied yourself!"

"Well, not exactly," said Savril, looking both proud and sheepish. "I made a few improvements."

"So he says," said the man behind the desk, with a wry grin, "but I certainly have plenty to do, just to live up to his standards and accomplishments. But he's made me younger, so that I have a chance."

"It's just a matter of time," said Savril, smiling proudly at him, "before you surpass me."

"I hope," replied Ydnas to the copy, "that you will have your own name."

"I don't _want_ a different name," said the man behind the desk. "I'm _Savril_."

"Well, a qualifier then," said Ydnas, "like 'Savril One' and 'Savril Two.' Sometimes people will want to distinguish one body from another."

" _Darestigan_ doesn't use qualifiers," said the Savril who had brought Ydnas in.

"Darestigan is different," replied Ydnas. "He doesn't have continuing bodies, and all his manifestations are telepathically linked." Suddenly she looked sad. "I miss him," she said.

"Me, too!" said both Savrils, in unison.
**********

"Time is not cyclic, and yet the past keeps coming back."

(Parsifrage the Plagiarist)

"Kor, Dearie," said Isiliar, "there's something I'd like to tell you."

"I'm listening," said Kor, scrubbing at a pot. Darestigan had offered to do all the domestic work, but Kor had a strong need to make some contribution herself, and also to _not_ be an example to the children of someone who lets a servant do all the domestic work.

"Have you ever noticed how much we look alike? I mean, you and this persona?"

"Well, yes, I have," said Kor, "and other people have mentioned it, too." She held the pot up to the light to be sure that it was clean.

"Well, it's not just a coincidence, Kor. And why do you suppose this persona looks so old? Gods don't age, after all. Well, not in the same way that mortals do."

"Well," said Kor, "I guess I thought you wanted your persona to look as beautiful as possible, and of course wise." Satisfied, she placed the pot upside-down on a drying rack.

"Well, that's true, but it's not the whole story. Let me explain. Gods create their personas in various ways. Often, they are just magical illusions. But sometimes, a god will use a mortal as a persona. When the god wishes to appear, the mortal is transported to the appropriate place, speaks and acts for the god, and then returns. Such mortals usually live in the City of the Gods. That is the case with me; I mean me, the persona, not me, the goddess. I, this persona, am a mortal. My life has been extended by magical means; I am one hundred and twenty-nine years old."

Kor was flabbergasted. She stared wide-eyed at Isiliar's persona, who continued: "My mortal name is 'Mir.' You look like me because I am your maternal grandmother."

Kor felt dizzy. She leaned against the wall. Her consciousness slowly began to shift, stiffly and painfully, as she gradually accepted that she was looking at a 'real person.' At _her grandmother_.

"My grandmother?" Kor felt dizzy. "Mir?" A huge piece of her mind seemed to detach itself, float free, drift into a storm, spin crazily, and look without success for a safe place to land. "This isn't some kind of joke, is it?" she asked, in a trembling voice.

"No, no," said Mir/Isiliar. Kor stared at her. Mir/Isiliar seemed to change, although her physical appearance remained the same. She gradually became less _Isiliar_ and more _Mir_ , less _goddess_ and more _human_. A whole different relationship began to feel appropriate.

"Grandmother," said Kor again, stepping towards her. "Mir." Kor's eyes devoured Mir's face. _Mother of my mother_. And she saw the face, that she had always taken to be Isiliar's face, take on a sort of cast that she had never seen it take before. It looked ... _ordinary_! It was ... _asymmetrical!_ It had ... _quirks of personality_! It showed ... _weaknesses!_ How had she ever missed that? Those traces of tension, fatigue, and sadness in Mir's eyes – that was not the expression of a goddess, that was the expression of a grandmother, who had finally revealed herself, and who loved... and feared ... and began to shed tears....

" _Grandmother!_ " said Kor, a third time. She joyfully stepped forward to embrace her. " _Mir!_ " They held each other for a long time.

**

"But, Mir," said Kor, "how do you know what to say, when you speak for the goddess? Does she control you?"

"No, no! Isiliar would never make a puppet out of anyone! As her persona, I speak only from the standpoint of responsibly promoting love and happiness. Whenever anyone speaks from such a standpoint, it is the goddess speaking, whether the speaker thinks of it that way or not, and even if the speaker is an atheist. You yourself have often spoken for the goddess in this way. It is not that something is controlling us from the outside, in such cases. It is that we are in the goddess, and she in us."

"That sounds like what K'Sell called ... _immanence_ ," said Kor, tentatively.

"That's right, Kor," replied Mir/Isiliar. "Remember how it was, when K'Sell gave you the experience of death, and you went into the white sun, and through the temple? You realized that you were really Wond. Could you not have spoken for Wond, at that time, without the least artificiality?"

"Well, yes," said Kor, thoughtfully, "in fact, I couldn't have helped doing so, except by remaining silent. Although I might have wanted to qualify what I said as coming from a certain point of view, the 'Kor' point of view."

"Very good," said Mir/Isiliar, "but now, if you can speak for the whole universe, you can certainly speak for one goddess!"

"I suppose so," said Kor. "But what if you make a mistake?"

"Then Isiliar makes a mistake," said Mir, "and if she discovers it, she will admit it, and apologize. It's like the old saying: 'To err is human; to confess, divine.'"

"Isn't it possible," asked Kor, "that one persona at one place will say one thing, and that another persona at another place will say something contradictory to that?"

"That happens frequently," said Mir. "Haven't you noticed that about religions? They tend to fragment over doctrinal differences. It can be very embarrassing, for churches that pretend to infallibility."

"But then, what does _Isiliar_ think?"

"She's of two minds. Haven't you ever been of two minds?"

"Well, yes! Two at least!"

Suddenly, another kind of question occurred to Kor. "But what about my _Mother_?" she asked. "Where is she?"

"Ah," said Mir, sadly, "Nar has gone on to another incarnation. Her life was cut short before she could attain what you have attained. Someday, though, both of you will transcend mortal self-forgetfulness, and you and she will knowingly meet."

"That is wonderful," said Kor. "It is a great blessing to know that." A great joy sang in her heart.

"But now," said Mir, "there is something else for us to discuss. You know that I, or Isiliar, has had something in mind that we have been keeping from you. You've been very patient about that, and we appreciate it. Now the time has come for me to explain. You have learned what you needed to learn, and you have passed all our little tests. It is now possible for you to join me in the City of the Gods, if you so desire, and to serve the goddess, perhaps as a persona."

Kor was staggered. "Me? What? Is there really such a thing as ... the _City of the Gods_? I mean, can a _mortal_ go there?" Again Kor felt the world turn inside out, as the City of the Gods, which Kor had relegated to children's tales, burst through fable into fact.

"Yes, there is," replied, Mir, "although it is different from the ways it is often portrayed. I hope you will come and see it with me soon. But I must ask you to keep everything you know about it a secret. Otherwise, huge numbers of people who really have no business there will try to go."

"I ... I ... I don't know what to say!" said Kor, still dizzy, leaning against the wall.

Isiliar (or was it Mir? No, it was both! And Wond, too!) gave her a reassuring smile. "I don't expect a quick answer, Kor. It's not a decision to take lightly. Take all the time you need to think about it. For now, why don't you just think out loud, and if something comes up that I can help you with, I will."

Kor stepped forward and embraced her goddess/grandmother yet again. They stood clamped together for a long time. Then Kor disengaged and began to pace around the room.

"My first thought," she said, "is, what about the kids?"

"Well," replied Isiliar/Mir, "that is a problem. But you know they will be in good hands. They can live here indefinitely. Darestigan will look after them, and this is about the safest place in Kondrastibar."

"But," said Kor, "I _love_ them. And they love me. I'm their mother, to all intents and purposes. If I pass on, it will be terribly hard on them, especially the little ones. And Tulith, too, will be broken-hearted, and my friends. And I will miss them, terribly, too!"

"That cannot be denied, Kor," said Isiliar, sadly, "but there are three things that can be added. The first is, that death and bereavement are in the lot of all mortals. You are going to die sooner or later; in fact, you've already had one reprieve, which is more than most people get. Second, if you come to me of your own free will, instead of waiting for Death to fetch you, you can prepare your loved ones for it. It will still be hard for them, but it will not be such a shock, and they will be able to say goodbye. Third, it will be possible for you to visit them from time to time, just as I visit you."

Kor's face took on an expression of awe and wonder as she absorbed this. She stopped her pacing and said, "Why that is, ... that is marvelous, Isiliar! Given that we have to leave, what could be a better way than that?"

"And," Isiliar continued, "there is really a fourth point: you will always be able to look out for them. You won't be able to give them the amount of your time that you do now, but there's no reason you can't send a little love and happiness their way, from time to time. That sort of thing will be your job, after all!"

"You're right, you're right," said Kor, "but I will miss being with them all the time. I don't _want_ to leave them, until I absolutely have to! I know, it's terribly selfish of me to hesitate because of that, but it is something very deep in me."

"I know," said Isiliar. "The City of the Gods itself is still no consolation for being separated from the people we love. But every parent has to deal with that, as their kids grow up."

Kor pondered for a moment. "And it's not _fair_ ," she said. "Why doesn't everybody get to die this way? Why only me?"

"You know the answer to that, Kor," said Isiliar. "It's because you are ready for it, the right kind of person for it. You're a little piece of The City of the Gods already. It's like the popular song says: 'You can't go to Heaven, you have to make Heaven around you.' And there's also the old saying, 'He went to Hell, and then he died.'"

Kor smiled sadly. "It's just _hard_ , Isiliar," she said, resuming her pacing. "I know I'm going to die soon anyway; I can feel it in my heart. And I've learned that death is not an ending. But to actually say, 'This is it!' – it's just so _hard!_ "

"Of course it is! Mortals are made to fear death in their very bones! That is terribly difficult to overcome! If you'd rather wait, Kor, you can. You can still be with me afterwards. And you can change your mind, and decide to join me after all, at any time."

"I've done a lot of hard things," mused Kor, "but this is different. Maybe it's just weakness, procrastination, cowardice, but I can't just walk away from my life! Let my death come when it will. Perhaps I will change my mind when I've thought about it more, but that's how I see it right now."

"That's perfectly all right," said Isiliar. "You can join me later, if you change your mind."

Kor looked a little worried. "Are you disappointed in me, Isiliar?"

"No, Kor, not at all. This is completely your choice. And it is perfectly natural for a mortal to want to hold on to life, regardless of their beliefs about death. Even people whose religion tells them that life here is suffering, but the afterlife will be blissful, tend to hold grimly onto life."

"I wonder," said Kor, "would it be possible for me to see the City of the Gods, now? Without having to agree to stay? It might help me to make a better decision."

"We can do that," said Isiliar, "but you mustn't tell anyone about it, or let anyone see you coming or going."

"I won't," said Kor.

"Just hand me your staff, then," said Isiliar, "so that I can tell Sthen how to get you there."
**********

"Masters are slaves, and slaves are masters."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

"Strength, dominance, decadence, weakness;

defeat, repentance, redemption, strength."

( _The_ _Book of Cycles_ )

_The only way I can escape the darkness is to redeem it,_ thought Ling, _I must turn my organization to good use. But how?_ His thought seemed to get stuck after that point, but it was not the first time in his life that there had seemed to be no way out, and he had nevertheless survived, and prevailed; he believed that if he kept directing his mind at the problem, eventually some sort of solution would emerge. As he had done so often in the past, he forced his emotions into a distant corner of his mind, so that he could think analytically about his situation.

How could he change the nature of his operation? Hoping to find a clue, he turned his mind to various changes that _had_ occurred, during his criminal career. He had started out as prey, and then he had become a predator himself. At first, he had been an individual predator; but in his search for greater security, he had begun to build an organization. It had been a difficult adjustment for him, because it required him to rely on others, something which went against the grain. He had made the best of it by being unconditionally in charge, and eventually by instituting a strict inner security system, using secret agents, magicians, truth drugs, intense surveillance, and telepaths to keep his eye on his underlings.

His experience with Tarth Sakul had led him to the idea of multiple secret police systems, with the leaders of each such system aware of the bare existence of others, but without knowing how many there were, and with little knowledge of detail. Each system would have some of their own secret agents planted in some of the other systems, and the leaders of each system would be aware that their own organization was surely infiltrated by others in turn, but they were all forbidden to try to find, or to communicate with, anyone in the other networks, as such. The leader of each system reported directly to Ling himself, and only to him, and only Ling knew how many there were. Such a system was hideously expensive, but Ling saw no alternative.

After the conflict with 777, Ling and Shimura had decided that the abacus system, too, needed to be divided into several largely independent systems, with checks and balances between them. If one system were infected, the others would isolate it and take over its functions, alerting the staff to the necessity of rebirthing it.

Another change had occurred: his original neighborhood had become so thoroughly criminalized that everything belonged to him; there was no longer anything to steal. All he could do was to tithe (via "protection") what few industries were left: food, shelter, clothing, sex, and drugs. But so poor had the few remaining productive workers become, that there was little to tithe. He had realized that his very success had destroyed the productive industries, thus undercutting his own sources of income in the long run.

To some extent, he had dealt with this problem by expanding into other neighborhoods, which still had much to steal; but he had realized that the same thing would happen there, eventually, and he would be left with a far-flung empire without the resources to sustain it.

For awhile, he had considered a system rather like slash-and-burn agriculture, abandoning neighborhoods when they became totally impoverished, and returning to them when they recovered. When he had come to realize that the Angels of Rejuvenation really existed, he had at first considered them to be opponents; but he had, more recently, come to know more about the Angels, and to think of them as unwitting allies rather than enemies: in rejuvenating his old neighborhood, they were, after all, doing just what he would have had to do, or wait for the passage of time to do, in order to make it more productive. He had only to wait until they were finished, and then take it over again. He thought of them as maggots, removing dead flesh from a wound. He could sack a neighborhood, go elsewhere, and then return, when the Angels had made it to flourish again.

But even such assisted recovery was a long and slow process, when the entire population of a neighborhood had been reduced to criminality, and he would lose control of them in the process. This latter would be especially true of a neighborhood reformed by the Angels; while they speeded up economic recovery, he discovered, they also inculcated the populace with values that would make it much harder for him to regain control.

Reflecting on these things, he had recently begun to change his policies. Now, as he gained control of new neighborhoods, he would not simply pillage them; instead, he would institute a limited (and usually hidden) system of tithing, and use most of the income so generated to re-invest in the neighborhood, to increase its productivity. Often, channels for such investment already existed, and he had only to employ them. In such cases, he could in fact come to power in a neighborhood by investing in it great wealth that he had acquired elsewhere; in so doing, he would make himself indispensable to the current neighborhood, as the one who owned its productive capacities and employed its population. They might even regard him as a hero, for his investments often kicked the local economy out of a depression. Often, though, he had to use several people as fronts, since under Theo-Anarchy, large concentrations of any kind of power, including economic power, were considered evil.

Of course, re-investing his profits meant that he had less disposable income, but he didn't miss it; he had long ago become bored with conspicuous consumption and other forms of luxury. Once the basic needs and comforts of life were taken care of, further wealth became redundant. When a jeweler could make a paste necklace that only an expert could distinguish from diamond, what was the point, really, in buying a diamond? Only to prove that he could. Rare and faddish foods might be more expensive, but not more nutritious. Fashion in clothing was obviously just a stupidity tithe. Why struggle to surpass other people, when surpassing them would only lead to a loss of interest in them and their opinions? It was the struggle itself, not the supposed rewards, that had interested him, the challenge of overcoming rivals and other obstacles.

His policy of re-investment had caused him to become, instead of a predator on neighborhoods, a parasite, and then almost a symbiont. Ironically, this had led him to fight crime in those neighborhoods (except for his own people, whom he restrained); it had led him to be an enemy of precisely the kind of person that he himself had once been. Such people were true predators and parasites, and reduced the productivity of the occupied area. One might as well piss in one's own ale. Ling became utterly ruthless with them. If government, and civil order generally, had never existed, Ling would have invented it.

The nature of his underlings had changed, too. He could no longer abide the petty criminal type – selfish, sloppy, destructive, domineering, impulsive, ignorant, shortsighted, sadistic, undisciplined – that had once been the type of his peers. He realized now that he had always despised such people, even while he had been forced to act like one. His underlings now had to be people like Shimura: intelligent, disciplined, trustworthy, and highly educated. That meant that Lings own style of leadership had had to change, as well. It was impossible to make good use of someone like Shimura by snarling threats and orders at him. Such people could not flourish in an authoritarian atmosphere. Besides, micromanaging them would have defeated the point of employing them – to delegate authority, so as to leave Ling himself free to make the most crucial decisions. Then, too, Ling simply lacked the expertise to micromanage Shimura.

Likewise: in taking over neighborhoods or institutions with functioning democratic processes, Ling had found it best to leave the democratic structures in place, as far as possible, while quietly subverting their independence. Why get people upset? Besides, people functioned better under the illusion of Democracy, as long as one didn't overdo it. When he had to be coercive, he would do so behind the scenes, often manipulating representatives through bribery or blackmail. Actually, anything so explicit was rarely necessary: representatives needed campaign funds, and who but Ling could (through his front groups) supply them? For that matter, Ling could influence public opinion itself through subtle but massive publicity campaigns, or by subsidizing schools and churches, either directly or through proxies. In the end, the inhabitants would think, "Most of us must have wanted this, for it was done democratically," and it would be unopposed.

Besides, not all that much control was really necessary; Ling found it tedious and unnecessary to determine every detail. Left to themselves, people would usually come up with ways to flourish. More and more, therefore, he had come to leave them largely to themselves. His goal was to take over a neighborhood without anyone realizing it but a few of his own people, and he had accomplished this many times.

His original neighborhood, which was also Kor's, had suffered grievously from his early, amateurish errors, before he had had such insights; he had corrupted and pillaged it, and in the process rendered it no longer valuable. The Angels of Rejuvenation had done him a favor, he now realized, in cleaning the place up. He had been watching the process carefully through spies, and had learned a great deal about how such things might be done. He would, however, have to find a way to re-introduce the institutions of personal wealth and power, without which domination was impossible. _At some point_ , he thought, _I should either subvert and control the Angels, or create a rival institution of my own, in order to perform the same rapid cleanup of decadent neighborhoods without losing the means of control._

As he finished that thought, he remembered that he had started out trying to come up with a way to put his organization to good use. He realized, with chagrin, that he was apparently no closer to a solution to that problem than he had been; he had fallen into old habits, thinking only about increasing his power, not about turning it to good ends. In his frustration, he almost shouted, _"Leech guts!"_ and pounded the desk, but he held himself back, fearing that such behavior, which would be quite uncharacteristic for Torothex, might be overheard. Exhausted by his thinking and his emotions, he put off further reflection and went to bed, falling asleep immediately.

Just before dawn, Ling had an exceptionally vivid and gripping dream. Sfel, the god of crime, appeared to him in the form of a slime mold. The god uttered a single sentence: _"Crime contains the seeds of its own redemption!"_

Ling woke suddenly, and sat up in a state of confusion. He was not a believer in dreams as a source of truth, and yet the dream, in spite of its brevity, had had a vividness and emotional power that made it very hard to disregard, and seemed to have awakened some intuition in him that had been slumbering for a long time.

Ling thought (thanks to Torothex's knowledge of History) of the P'Twism Dynasty. It had started out as pure imperialism. The P'Twism had developed a superior military capacity, then conquered their neighbors, and stolen from them with unmitigated rapacity. As they impoverished each new territory, they had to conquer another. But eventually, their territory had become so extended, their frontier so long, that administration and defense used up all their resources, and further expansion became impossible, on the basis of their limited productive power. Later P'Twism Emperors realized that it was self-defeating simply to extort from their subjects; instead, they granted the privilege of citizenship widely and instituted policies to encourage production and recycling. They built roads and harbors, standardized weights and measures, introduced the rule of law, and subsidized research. The standard of living within the Empire rose dramatically, aided by the fact that the imperial armies kept the peace. Nothing is worse than war, and so the Empire, once hated and feared, became widely perceived as a benign force.

_Something like that is happening to_ me _,_ thought Ling. _I began as a predator, but I am going to end as a servant! How ironic! And yet ... I only made the choice to be a predator because that was the only option open to me at the time, if I was to survive. Or at least, it was the only option I knew of. If my world and my options had not been so limited, I would never have taken the path of crime!_ It was a revelation that turned his world upside-down, but as he went over and over the matter in his mind, it became more and more evident that it was so.

He wondered whether persons and societies and systems in general were similarly required to adapt, and to progress in the direction of intelligence and – Ling had to force himself to think this thought – _goodness?_ Briefly, he wondered whether slime mold, in particular, would eventually evolve into something human-like. He then wondered whether Sfel was _begging Ling to help him change_. But he turned away from such lines of inquiry, because it seemed to have little to do with his original problem.

_So, then_ , he thought, _perhaps Sfel was trying to tell me that the way to redeem my organization is not to try to destroy it, or to try to_ _force_ _it into ... goodness, but to encourage it to grow as it will, whereupon it will blossom into goodness by itself! How eerie!_

In fact, he suddenly realized, he had never been in charge of his organization; it had always been in charge of him. He was obliged to do whatever it took to nurture it best, for otherwise, he would have fallen behind his competitors, and been destroyed. If he had tried to destroy his organization, it would have destroyed him instead, as his underlings, perceiving him to be crazy or incompetent, turned on him; and even if he had succeeded, he would have found himself alone in a world of powerful and unforgiving enemies. He needed his organization more than it needed him, and power is always inversely proportional to need. He had created something which had immediately taken charge of him, using his intelligence for its own ends. In fact, he had not even created it voluntarily, although he had thought so at the time; he been forced to create it, in order to make himself safe. _All leaders are like that,_ he thought. _They are only servants of a higher power, recruited according to competitive testing, and unable to impose their own agenda. Not that they usually have one! And not that they know what power they serve!_ He wondered whether this was why the last Ingar Emperor had abdicated; had he simply realized the ironic absurdity of his position?

Did it matter at all what Ling did or did not do? _Yes_ , he thought, _It does_. _If I understand where my organization is going, I can, like a good servant, be helpful; if I impose my own arbitrary conceptions on it, I will only slow it down. If I impose too much, I will be killed._ He realized that many of his rivals had perished for just that reason; for example, Tromp, who had not learned to delegate authority as his organization grew, and who had not adapted to the code of honor and courtesy of his new underlings, the Manocan Mafia, who had eventually assassinated him.

At any rate, it seemed impossible to force any reforms on his organization, not because it was static or deteriorating, but because it was already reforming _itself_ , as fast as it could be reformed, following the line of least action at every point. All he could do was to be a part of this process.

_Is the whole universe like that? Does it follow a line of development, which individuals serve, whether they know it or not? Does evil constantly metamorphose into good?_ Ling was intrigued by these questions, but he forced them out of his mind, as too abstract and theological. He couldn't deal with the universe, only with things at hand.

Ling had been vaguely aware of the people known as Kantrikars. He had always thought of them as pathetic fools, even more so than the Zillists. Totally nonviolent, abjuring social power in every form Ling could conceive of, they seemed destined to be slaves, and indeed, it was as slaves that Ling had always encountered them. But now, Ling realized that he was as much a slave as any Kantrikar, for the organization he had 'led' had always been in charge of him. For that matter, even before he had had an organization, his criminal lifestyle had been in charge of him, forcing him to do one dangerous or distasteful thing after another. _Practically everyone in the world is a slave_ , he thought, _although few of them know it._ He wondered whether the Kantrikars knew this, and whether they burst out laughing, when they were alone together.
**********

"Don't rely too much on the miraculous;

You will only make it ordinary."

(Virtch, the Illiterate Wizard of Iglitch)

_Always something new to learn_ , thought Kor, as she lifted into the air behind Mir. They went straight up, until they were surrounded by cloud. Kor could see nothing but mist streaming down at great speed. _Don't worry, Kor_ , thought Sthen, _I won't get lost_. A few breaths later, they emerged above the cloud layer. Then, after a short further climb, they proceeded horizontally.

Like anyone who rises above the clouds for the first time, Kor was awed by the beauty of the scene. It reminded her of a great snow-shrouded wilderness, sometimes prairie, sometimes mountain, with here and there a river of air meandering through.

Wondering about their destination, she looked ahead. They were approaching a large feature, a kind of mound that rose above the other mounds, and had an atypical shape and texture.

_What is that?_ she asked of Sthen, in her mind.

_That is the summit of the mountain Archonect_ , replied Sthen, _which is where one finds the City of the Gods._

Soon they reached the summit, but Kor could not see any city, or any sign of life at all. They approached a great glacier, and then one of many great crevasses within that glacier. _The city is inside the mountain_ , said Sthen. _This is only the entrance_. Indeed, they soon entered the crevasse, and proceeded along its bottom. Above, the ice closed over them, leaving them in a tunnel which quickly became completely dark. _Don't worry_ , said Sthen, _I can find my way_. Kor had come to have great respect for Sthen's abilities, but it was still unnerving to see nothing, while feeling and hearing the air whip past her face. Every wobble and bump, in fact, startled and frightened her. When she felt Sthen make a sharp turn, she screamed. Echoes from both sides slapped back at her instantly, telling her that she was in a narrow passage. _I'm sorry to be going so fast_ , 'said' Sthen, _but we are in a labyrinth, and we want to be sure that no one is following us_. A few breaths later, Sthen said, _Brace yourself_ , _we're about to arrive at the security check, which can be rather frightening; lots of lightning bolts. But don't worry, we will get through._

Sure enough, Kor suddenly found herself menaced by jagged claws of lightning, pummeled by fists of thunder. She couldn't help but be terribly frightened, but it was soon over; light returned, and they began to descend through a broad cylindrical shaft. Soon they found themselves at the bottom. Around the periphery of the floor were several arched openings. Sthen followed Mir through one of these.

Kor now saw that she had entered the space beneath a huge blue dome, the same color as the sky in summer; their gate had been on the periphery, a few hundred manlengths above the floor. Near the top was an imitation of the sun, too bright to look at directly. A city of opalescent glass was spread out before them, on a level, circular plain beneath the dome. It reminded Kor strongly of the aftermath of an ice storm, when everything is cinctured in crystal. It also reminded her of a Tellamir vessel. She kept expecting to feel cold, but in fact it was quite pleasant there.

"The City of the Gods," said Mir.

Kor sighed. "It's amazing," she said. "It's beautiful. It's awe-inspiring. I gather that I am immensely privileged to know about it. But I'm afraid I'm getting too old to be learning so much, so fast. I wish I could get a picture of the world that would _hold still_!"

"I'm sorry," said Mir. "I know this must be difficult for you. But I think it will be good for you in the long run."

"No doubt it will," said Kor. "I'm sorry to be such a curmudgeon."

"At your age," said Mir, "with all you have been through, you have every right to be a curmudgeon. It's practically a duty!"

"Thank you," said Kor. "Well, let us get on with it!"

"We can follow these steps down," said Mir, leading the way. There were many courses of white marble steps, passing by many waterfalls, in a manner slightly reminiscent of the Great Gorge at Tamarskild, but clearly artificial, decorative. When they reached the bottom, Kor saw that the city was a city of canals, but with plenty of bridges and walkways. "All the water flows to the center," said Mir, "where it forms a vortex, and passes through an underground channel to become the source of the River Kron." People were coming and going on foot, in boats, and through the air. Sthen followed Mir as she flew along many canals, between great crystal buildings. Finally, they stopped before a large, cathedral-like edifice. Kor smiled to see, among a number of people going in and out, several white-haired, elderly women in red robes.

"Here is Isiliar's headquarters," said Mir. She dismounted from her staff and walked through an arched entranceway, followed by Kor.

They entered a lobby, with a large statue of Isiliar at the back. It was similar in appearance to the statue at the orphanage, but much larger, and made of softly glowing glass. From it emanated Isiliar's compassion song.

Tears flooded Kor's eyes. How thoroughly her life had taught her to appreciate that song! She wanted to sing it to the world, to beg every mortal to stop and reflect, to begin again, to be sane, to be just, to be good, to be happy, to be rational, to have the courage to escape from the monstrous craziness that makes mortals torture themselves and each other forever, for no good reason. From the depths of her heart, she urged them, she _begged_ them, to choose life, rather than death, love rather than hate, excellence rather than wealth, reason rather than mechanism, insight instead of authority, trust instead of suspicion, hope instead of despair, good instead of evil! To choose creativity, love, solidarity, beauty, exuberance, joy! To realize that it wouldn't be hard to do, that it would be easy and simple, that the path they were on _now_ was the hard path, the path of pain, the path of self-sabotage and self-destruction, the endlessly wandering desert trail of unlimited ambition, competition, spite, blind momentum, and self-deception. That all attempts at justifying it only made a denser thicket of lies, for each lie had to be protected by a hundred other lies, each of which would have to be protected by a hundred more, and so on forever, ...

_I saw what happened to a neighborhood that chose the wrong path_ , she imagined herself saying, to mortals in general. _Don't do this to yourselves!_

Emerging from her reverie, she was aware of Mir smiling lovingly at her, and she knew that Mir understood her feelings precisely, and shared them exactly. The two old women embraced one another, and stood there for a long time, held by the light and music of the great statue. Kor felt that whatever differences, doubts, and confusions she might have, where Isiliar and the City of the Gods were concerned, could never even come close to weakening this fundamental agreement.

"Well," sniffled Kor after awhile, "lead on, grandmother!"

Mir led her to a pair of doors at the side of the lobby, one labeled "up," and the other, "down." "My cubicle is on the seventh floor, and this is the first," explained Mir, "so we want the 'up.'" She made a gesture, and the door opened. Within was a short platform at the edge of a vertical shaft. As Kor contemplated this, an elderly woman in a red robe, holding a staff, flashed past, moving rapidly up the shaft. "Don't worry," said Mir. "Our staff spirits are smart enough to avoid collisions." She flew into the shaft, and immediately accelerated upwards. Kor followed. In a single breath, they were on another platform. A door opened, and Kor found herself in a scene reminiscent of a banking or clerical temple.

The large floor had been partitioned into numerous alcoves. Most of the alcoves were occupied by single individuals, mostly elderly women in red robes, each one seated at a desk with a magic window. "These are various human personas, like myself," explained Mir. "Many of them are keeping track of the lives of people, with whom they have developed a particular relationship. Others are keeping track of institutions, or events. Sometimes, in particularly demanding situations, several personas co-operate on a project. One of my projects is, of course, you!"

Kor thought that she might have used a little more help at various times, but she held her tongue.

"Does Isiliar ever appear other than as a woman?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," replied Mir. "On the sixth floor, we have people who manipulate purely magical personas. They can make Isiliar appear as a dragon, or a sphere of light, or whatever they want! Well, we are restricted by our budget. The _old woman in a red robe_ persona has become traditional, however, and so Isiliar usually appears that way. Ah, here is my cubicle, and next to it, the one which will become yours!"

With a very strange mixture of emotions, Kor examined the alcove that was already designated as her own. It contained a desk with several drawers, a couple of scroll racks, and on the desk, a quiescent magic window.

"I don't know how to use a magic window," said Kor.

"Oh, you have a great deal to learn, Kor, a very great deal. But don't worry, nobody is going to be impatient with you. The magic window will explain itself to you, just as Sthen does. You will be my apprentice for awhile, you will attend services, meetings, retreats, and seminars, and you will get to know other personas. One day, you will feel confident enough to take on a project of your own!"

"But, how does a persona know that she is fulfilling the wishes of Isiliar?" asked Kor.

Mir smiled. "Isiliar has wishes, largely _because of mortals_ ," she said. "Each persona does her best to be happy and loving, or at least to act in the interests of love and happiness. And we are constantly thinking about, and discussing with each other, what that would entail. When we have such discussions, that is Isiliar thinking. When we reach consensus, Isiliar makes up her mind. Or part of her does, at least."

"I see," said Kor. "But who ... _started_ all this?" she asked, waving her hands to take in everything around them, and, by implication, the entire city.

"It started during the later Zoroid Dynasty," replied Mir. "A previous Dynasty, the P'Twism, had made the Ectoplasmic Reticulum, and extended it throughout Kondrastibar. It greatly magnified what could be done with magic, which is one reason the P'Twism were able to conquer everyone else. But the P'Twism used it for entirely secular purposes, to extend and maintain their Empire. When the P'Twism Dynasty fell, a great deal of knowledge was lost. Mages and magicians still knew how to _use_ the Reticulum, although they didn't understand all of its underlying principles, and didn't share the goals of the P'Twism. Much later, during the Zoroid Dynasty, many of them began to use the Reticulum for spiritual purposes. They came into conflict with the government, however, and had to continue their research in secret. A large group of them, working together, founded this city, and it has been developing ever since."

"But you don't have to worry about the government anymore," said Kor. "There _is_ no government. No big one, anyway."

"True," said Mir, "but some day there might be some comparable institution, so we prefer to keep ourselves independent and out of sight. Also, a real danger today comes from the Hidden One."

"That name sounds vaguely familiar," said Kor. "Something from one of the prophecies, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Mir, nodding. "We believe that a single mage, at the end of the Zoroid Dynasty, went his own way, also in secret. He made himself immortal, and he has ever since been growing in power and influence. Since he cloaks himself in secrecy, we know little about him. But we have been struggling with a mysterious adversary for millennia. Many Prophecies state that he has built up a great military force, and will emerge soon, and conquer all of Kondrastibar for himself. We believe that, at present, he is only vaguely aware of our existence, but many prophecies suggest that he will soon discover us, and we fear that he will then destroy us."

"Is he the one," asked Kor, "who made the black cloud that attacked the Angels of Rejuvenation?"

"We believe so," said Mir, "and we also believe that he seeks to control or destroy Ydnas."

"Ah," said Kor, "that would explain why that huge flying insect tried to abduct her."

"Yes indeed," said Mir, "but K'Sell had arranged for the Mute Boy to carry a weapon, which Ydnas could activate in her own defense."

"K'Sell did that?"

"Yes. K'Sell is, after all, an expert in separating souls from their bodies, and dealing with them afterwards."

"I suppose he must be," said Kor. "Does K'Sell control the Tellamir?"

"No. But we have a friendship with them. They are adept at handling human souls, and we have learned much from them."

"Why did only some of the souls go to the Tellamir ship?"

"Essentially for the reasons that Talek suggested. The Tellamir are a very ... how would you put it? ...a very sweet and gentle people, and they would be sickened by the presence of a human soul that was heavily tainted with evil. That is why, on the whole, they keep their distance from us. So they set their beacon to be unattractive to tainted souls."

"But," said Kor, "aren't the Angels of Rejuvenation themselves fairly well tainted? They are violent. They attack, pillage, and enslave people. But Talek said that their souls went mostly into the Tellamir vessel."

"The Angels," said Mir, "are a most remarkable people. Do not judge them by appearances; they cultivate a barbaric look so as to frighten people into surrender. They only attack communities that have degenerated to the point where people are doing far more violence to themselves than the Angels will do to them. The typical beater usually carries a bludgeon, not a sword; they are expert with these bludgeons, and know how to strike so as to incapacitate, but not kill. Really, though, they depend on their great numbers and bizarre appearance to panic the inhabitants into giving up without much of a fight, and on the whole it works quite well. After all, the inhabitants of a degenerate neighborhood are not dedicated warriors; some will be cowardly thugs, and the rest, simply cowardly. Besides, only the elite in such a neighborhood will have anything much to defend. Yes, the Angels would like to do without violence altogether, but at present they don't know how. Still, they have a remarkable spiritual discipline that enables them to do what they do without much damage to their souls."

Kor found this implausible, but she decided not to argue. Instead, she said, "And are those who live in the City of the Gods also friends with the Rotimor?"

"Yes, the Rotimor are not injured by contact with human evil, and so they help us with the more heavily tainted souls. As you have seen, though, stories of the horrors of the Underworld are much exaggerated. Ixuan did appear to Edril Tsenkulor as a horrible monster, and gave him a good scare, but never actually attacked him; and in very little time, Edril was on his way, free to make the wrong choice once again."

"But that was all an illusion!"

"Well, yes, but it was accurate in its portrayal; the Rotimor really are like that."

"How does all this affect reincarnation?"

"Very little, I believe. None of us in the City of the Gods will deliberately impose any soul onto an embryo in the womb, for then, we fear, we might be murdering the soul that _would_ have appeared there spontaneously, or at least, preventing it from existing at that time. Actually, we still do not fully understand what happens, to a soul between bodies, in the absence of any interference from ourselves; and so, to play it safe, we keep our hands away."

"When I was killed by the Black Cloud," said Kor, "I heard someone say, 'Think of yourself as a song.' Are we somehow like songs, and is that why, when the Tellamir approach us, we hear a great chorus?"

"I don't know," said Mir, "but I wouldn't be surprised! At any rate, that strikes me as an inspired guess! You are clearly thinking profoundly about these things!"

"If you don't understand what happens to the souls," said Kor, a little embarrassed by the praise, but also feeling a little patronized by it, "how do you know it's true? I mean, that people do reincarnate? Perhaps the Hidden One can make a record of what is in a person's soul, and preserve it, but how do you know it happens naturally?" _Maybe_ , she thought, _if someone really wants immortality, they should go to the Hidden One._ It frightened her a little to have such a thought.

"Well," said Mir, "as I already admitted, we don't know the details. But the great majority of mages agree that the world is such that _no information is ever lost_. So a kind of record of each thing survives it, eternally. Not in any specific object, like a book, necessarily, but somewhere, perhaps spread out through an immense space. That is what we call the soul. Given that no information is ever lost, it is certainly possible that any object might be reconstituted, and that includes souls."

"Well, let's go back to our earlier topic," said Kor. "After the attack, what happened to the souls that had been turned into blinking lights?"

"In some cases," replied Mir, "they have been freed from the potential wells, and returned – "

"Freed from _what?_ "

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Mir, "that was a technical term of Theology. Think each of the souls as being trapped in a well, bouncing around, but unable to rise far enough to get out. Each of the blinking lights was put into such a well. The light was a way of making the well visible, so that the souls could be easily retrieved."

"I think I see," said Kor. "Ixuan said that the Rotimor were waves bouncing around inside the earth. Is it like that?"

"Yes! It's much the same thing, but while for the Rotimor it is natural, and in fact necessary, to be confined like that, it is neither necessary nor natural for disembodied human souls. The Hidden One traps them so that he can use them for his own purposes, which entail slavery and mutilation. If his minions had not been destroyed by the white light, he would have collected all those souls and used them for his own ends. So, to get back to your question, some of the souls from the black cloud were returned to their original bodies, as you were. But for most of them, there was too much bodily damage for that, and so the Tellamir and the Rotimor released them from the potential wells, and allowed things to take their natural course. Presumably they will incarnate again, eventually."

"But you did intervene, in my case."

"Generally, we don't interfere. But I was working with guidance from the Tellamir, and you, Kor, are a remarkable person, with a role to play in the Prophecies. Unfortunately, the Hidden One does not share our reluctance to interfere. He steals souls from their bodies, and forces them onto other bodies, including artificial bodies. That is how he made those flying monsters, for example: by enslaving human souls and grafting them onto machines. Sometimes he alters them, in the process. He also creates artificial souls, suited to particular tasks. He can also copy souls, and alter the copies. Since no information is ever lost, fortunately, he cannot completely and permanently destroy a soul; but he can distort or enslave it for an indefinite period of time. He is not worried about the morality of his actions, however; in fact, he calls himself the 'Lord of Evil,' just to flaunt his indifference."

"If that is true, then he is evil indeed," said Kor, feeling grim horror.

"He himself is hidden from us, but we see his works in many ways," said Mir, frowning, "and believe me, he _is_ evil. And not only through doing violence to souls and bodies, but in many other respects. He spreads pain and corruption throughout Kondrastibar."

"But then," said Kor, "Theo-Anarchy has not had a fair chance. It might produce a much more humane society than it has, if it were not continually being corrupted by him. Haven't the gods tried to get rid of him?"

"No," said Mir.

"Why not?"

"Because all of the Cleretic Prophecies say that he will be around until the end, and that his presence will be necessary, somehow, to a fortunate outcome."

"People have too much faith in those prophecies," said Kor, angrily, striking the floor with her staff.

"Well," said Mir, a little taken aback by Kor's vehemence, "many of them have turned out to be right, time after time."

"That's just because people _believe_ in them!" said Kor. "It is as Talek once said to me: a neighborhood deteriorates because its inhabitants believe that it will."

"That is often so," said Mir, "but would it be equally unfortunate if they thought that their neighborhood was going to get _better_? That is what most of the Prophecies say. At any rate, the Prophetic Times are coming to an end, and so we will soon be no longer bound by the Prophecies."

"I will be glad to live in such a time," said Kor.

Mir squeezed her shoulder affectionately. "You have such wonderful courage, Kor," she said. "Many people are frightened to death by the thought of an unpredictable world."

"How foolish!" grumbled Kor. "Uncertainty is as good a ground for hope as for fear."

"I think what those people are afraid of," replied Mir, "is _responsibility_!"
**********

"Things come in flocks."

( _Introduction to Physics_ , by Viko Rutes)

A girl of about twelve years stood on the pedestal of an obelisk in the Li-Al'Cheebra neighborhood. She looked a little frightened. Next to her stood an elderly man, dressed in the simple, sand-colored Cloak of a Pilgrim. The obelisk had been raised to the glory of Djali, the local god of Natural Law. Followers of Djali were forbidden all representational art, which was considered to be plagiarism, and incompetent plagiarism at that, and so the obelisk was an intricate abstract play of helices and polyhedra. Executed in various stones and metals, it was very beautiful, as human creations go.

Around the base of the pedestal stood a double ring of men. The men in the outer ring were large, young, armored, and very fierce-looking. They held up naked swords. On their chests and backs they wore the symbol of Djali, the 'Least Action Equation.' The men in the inner ring were, like the elderly man standing next to the girl, older, smaller (or perhaps just more stooped), and very studious-looking. They wore dense gray robes with intricate abstract embroidery, and bore heavy books. Instead of helmets, they wore cloth caps with ribbons hanging from them.

The obelisk was on top of a hill, and in the center of a large plaza, filled with an excited crowd. From the rim of the plaza, crooked streets made a network, like cracks in the glaze of an old bowl, among countless mud houses, whitewashed and brilliant under the noonday sun, working their way down to a hill-circling battlement, and thence to the quilted Plain of Yuclo below.

The elderly man on the pedestal raised his hands, and the crowd became silent and attentive.

"Dear friends and neighbors," he said, "most of you know me; I am a carpenter and a family man. Or so I have been up until now; but all that has changed.

"Recently, for eleven nights running," he continued, "I had remarkable, vivid, coherent dreams, unlike any that I have had before. I believe that they were sent by Djali. I have fasted and prayed and tested myself, to be sure that they are not sent by the Lord of Chaos instead. I have discussed the matter with the Holy Council." He gestured at the inner ring of men, standing below. "They have tested me further, and searched the dreams for signs of truth and signs of heresy. They found nothing heretical, and they found three miraculous predictions in every dream. For this and other reasons, they have concluded that the dreams are genuine." Each man in the inner ring held his book high, to verify this claim.

"The dreams were long and complex, and some aspects of them are deep and mysterious," continued the speaker. "We have recorded them, and the Council continues to discuss their meaning. But one message emerged clearly and centrally in every dream. You know that a girl has been prophesied, who will lead us to a new and higher life, a life of clarity and virtue."

He gestured at the girl beside him. "You all know my niece, Alelia. In these dreams, Djali has informed me that Alelia is the Girl of the Prophecies! Yes, the Girl of the Prophecies is none other than she!" Again, the members of the Holy Council raised their books into the air.

After a moment of astonishment, the crowd rose into frenzied applause. Alelia tried not to cringe. After about twenty breaths, her uncle signaled for silence, and obtained it.

"As you know," he continued, "Scripture says that a man who is spoken to by Djali must live as a hermit in the desert for the next seven years. It is not – " here his voice broke for a moment – "It is not easy for me to – to leave my family, my friends – " again he had to stop. He wiped his eyes. He took a deep breath. "To leave my family, my friends, my neighbors, my work, and everything I have ... I have ever known. But I do not complain, for to be given the word of Djali to carry is the greatest of all blessings. I love you all, and I thank you for all the love and joy that you have given me!"

Again the crowd erupted into applause. As they roared, her uncle embraced Alelia, and kissed her forehead. Those who were close enough saw that both of them were crying. Then her uncle climbed down from the pedestal. The crowd parted for him, still applauding, as he made his tearful but smiling way through their midst. Soon he disappeared over the brim of the hill, heading for the Kali desert, eleven days' journey away.

Alelia was left alone on the pedestal, trembling, both hands covering her face.

**

In spite of her youth, Ununiel Tourabel was widely thought to be one of the greatest Courtesans of Culture of her time. She was definitely an innovator: she had pioneered the practice of speaking to women as well as to men, and also the practice of addressing large audiences.

"You know, Miri," she said to her career manager, "I might be the Girl of the Prophecies."

"Forgive me, Unu," replied Miri, without looking up from the book she was reading. "But you are not exactly a girl!"

"Twenty-three is not so far from being a girl," objected Ununiel, in the sweet, bright, childlike voice that Miri thought of privately as her ' _Little Brook Voice_ '. "Besides, who will notice?" Like the legendary Zorelia T'Kena, Ununiel always wore floor-length robes and a veil in public.

"You are famous, Unu," replied Miri, still reading. "Many people know quite well how old you are."

"In my calling," replied Ununiel, "knowledge is nothing; impression is everything!"

"Well, suppose you _are_ the Girl, then," said Miri, marking her place in the book and setting it down. "What of it?"

Ununiel sat down on a hassock, facing Miri. Above her purple veil, and above her brilliant orange eyes, her eyebrows were wrinkled in worry. She switched to ' _Forlorn Little Girl Voice Two_ :'

"Well, then, ... I have a great responsibility, don't I, Miri?"

Miri put fingers to her temple _._ "I suppose you do."

"I'm supposed to usher in the New Balance," Ununiel continued, switching to a more adult voice, "and I'm in a good position to play a leadership role, am I not? I know how to inspire people! But I don't have much of an idea of what the New Balance is supposed to _be!_ "

"Well, perhaps that means that you are _not_ the Girl?" suggested Miri, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Maybe," said Ununiel thoughtfully, "but what if I am? I mean, you don't think that the Girl has to be _born_ knowing what the New Balance is, do you?"

"No, but you'd better learn quickly! Your childhood is nearly over!"

"But how?"

"Well, perhaps you should discuss it with some of the _others_ who are claiming to be the Girl," suggested Miri, dryly.

"That's not a bad idea, Miri," said Ununiel, "but surely I need an independent source of my own."

"Well, you could ask a god."

"Of course!" said Ununiel, her frown relaxing, her eyes twinkling. "You're right! This is what I keep you around for, Miri!" she added, patting her manager on the knee. Then she looked uncertain again. "But which god should I ask?"

"Well, you could ask your Muse, for starters," suggested Miri. "She can always refer you to a specialist, if necessary."

"Brilliant, Miri!" replied Ununiel, rising to her feet, and getting a box of incense out of a cupboard. "I'm off to the chapel! See you in a little while!" In a whirl of cape, she was out the door.

Miri was thoughtful for a breath or two, looking at the ceiling. A smile grew on her face and broke into a chuckle. Then she shook her head, pantomiming disbelief. Finally, she returned to _Sora and Atara_.

**

After supper, Katekholimane sat with her daughter, Xalagia, in front of the fireplace. The girl was lying on her side on the sofa, eyes closed, with her head in her mother's lap. Katekholimane was stroking her hair.

"You know, Sugar," said Katekholimane, "I had a brilliant idea today!" Katekholimane was a Hope Merchant. Many people considered Hope Merchants to be con artists, but Katekholimane preferred the former title. Her daughter had been absorbing her mother's world-view from the womb, and aspired to be a Hope Merchant herself.

"Hmm?" mumbled Xalagia, who was enjoying the warmth, the rest, and the affection, and didn't want to have to think.

"Yes, my Honeycomb," continued her Mother. "You know, my Little Drop of Nectar, how all your friends believe in the Girl of the Prophecies, and are expecting her to show up at any moment now?"

"Hmmm?" mumbled Xalagia again. A moment later, though, she stiffened and opened her eyes wide, as she realized what her mother had in mind. A breathtaking thought!

"Aha!" said Katekholimane, with a big smile. "Is that not a truly divine idea?"

"Oh, Momi!" said Xalagia, wide-eyed with admiration, raising herself on one arm.

"You'd have thousands of people, kissing your feet, Honeysuckle," continued Katekholimane, with a smiling, wide-eyed look into space that said, 'I am overwhelmed by the goodness of this inspiration!'

Xalagia was now fully awake. Her critical faculties began to engage. Being familiar with the core scriptures of the Hope Merchant Caste (which were always passed on orally, never written down, and, in principle, never shared with anyone outside the Caste), she had a terrific sales resistance. She saw many problems in the idea. "But Momi," she said, "wouldn't it be very hard to do?"

Her mother nodded agreement. "It might. But it's such a great idea," she added, "that I think we can count on lots of help in making it go. When I tell your Uncle Lutos about this, he'll take off like fireworks!"

**

Toskari'ip was the head of a secret consortium of churches, known to initiates as 'The Hidden Hand'. Agulinar Torothex was able to catalyze the creation of a large organization, the Holy Host of Churches, without making many enemies, because of his clear dedication to non-coercion. Toskari'ip could never have done the same, for he was by no means committed to such a principle. Toskari'ip was in fact a believer in Enlightened Despotism, and was therefore opposed to Theo-Anarchy itself. In order to maintain a large organization, therefore, he had to keep it secret. The various churches within the consortium manifested a superficial and misleading variety, and a spurious independence. Only the highest-ranking officers of each participating church knew of the consortium and its goals.

By its very nature, Theo-Anarchy had a great toleration for points of view inimical to itself, so there was little problem with individuals joining particular churches that were authoritarian in nature, as long as they did not become large enough to be capable of imposing their views on others. The individual churches of the Hidden Hand were all small enough to be acceptable. Toskari'ip's idea was to expand his organization secretly, until it reached a size beyond which it could not be overcome.

As the end of the Prophetic Times drew near, Toskari'ip secretly instructed each Church in the Hidden Hand to produce a Girl of the Prophecies. Forty-one girls duly appeared, each with a slightly different message.

Toskari'ip would have preferred to simply assassinate the real Girl, but he had no idea who she was. Every day a new claimant appeared on the scene. There were many others who would have wanted to assassinate the real Girl, or to exploit her in some way; they all had the same problem. The multiplicity of Girls was also a problem for those who wanted the Girl to give a definitive answer to life's questions for them, thus saving them the trouble and uncertainty of thinking for themselves. They discovered that different candidates gave different answers. In order to know who was the genuine Girl, then, they would have to already know what the answers to life's questions were. Most of them heard by rumor of a few local claimants, and chose the one that was most accessible.

**

The Lord of Evil also decided to put up lots of Girls. He might have thought that Ydnas was on his side, since she advocated non-violence and other impractical ideals, but for the fact that she refused to communicate with him in any way. From this he concluded that she was his enemy, but such an incompetent one that he would leave her alone for the time being; in fact, the various Girls that he would create would, for the most part, be modeled on her.

**

The Elect of the Temple of Migralia did not believe in the Prophecies, and did not want the social system to change. They decided to set up several girls claiming to be the Girl of the Prophecies, without it being evident that the Temple was behind them. Many of these girls would, in all apparent seriousness, promulgate doctrines that would be caricatures of the views of the other Girls. Some of these doctrines would be obviously evil or stupid, appealing only to tiny groups of fanatics who would then proceed to make themselves totally obnoxious; others would be superficially quite attractive, but devoid of any genuine radicalism. In this way the Elect hoped to draw off supporters of the other Girls, to give them all a bad name, and to confuse matters in general.

**

Throughout Kondrastibar, tens of thousands of candidates appeared. Many candidates appeared simply out of the human tendencies to imitation and competition; naturally, many of these had views that were (unconsciously) odd combinations or distortions of the views of other Girls. For, as the _Tarxanical Canon_ says, 'Any idea will be caricatured by those whose enthusiasm is not matched by understanding'.

**

Alelia spent a great deal of time with the Holy Council, as they tried to figure out what the Girl should do. They had three authorities to appeal to: The Cleretic Prophecies, Scripture (the _Testament of Djali_ ), and the record of her uncle's dreams. Under the tutelage of the Holy Council, she began to study them all.

Alelia herself was most interested in the dreams. There were a few parts she wasn't allowed to read ("They have to do with grown-up things, Dear"), but the rest she read eagerly, many times.

Of course, the members of the Holy Council were there to help her. But she discovered that, although none of them would say so, there was a great deal of disagreement about what the dreams meant. They all agreed that the dreams agreed with Scripture, but again, Alelia discovered that although they wouldn't say so, the Councilors didn't all agree on what scripture meant, either. Gradually, though, she discovered that the oldest member of the council, Gragdorf, was willing to say, in a funny-conspiratorial tone of voice, and when no one else was around, that yes, there was such disagreement. "After all, Alelia," he said, "Djali is a god, but we are all mortals. We have studied the scriptures more than most, but we are still fallible. So, yes, there will be disagreement about the details."

"But what should I do, then?" she asked. "What should I believe?"

"You should listen carefully to each of us," said Gragdorf, "and then you should make up your own mind. But, Alelia, I wouldn't be too quick to tell people what you have decided, for you may find yourself in an argument that goes on forever, and perhaps even one that makes people angry and hateful. I cannot believe that Djali intended that to happen."

"But what if I get it wrong?" asked Alelia.

"If it is important to Djali that you change your mind," said Gragdorf, "don't you worry, it will change. He might tell you in a dream, for example."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Then, Alelia, he either expects you to figure it out from what you already know, or he doesn't care. You should always remember, Alelia, that Djali doesn't hate mortals; he loves them. This is one of the things that Scripture says over and over. So he is not going to make things hard for you, unless there is a good reason; and if you do your best, he will be satisfied."

After this discussion, Alelia decided that Gragdorf was her favorite person on the council, and also the wisest.

**

"Telf, we have been friends for many years."

"Yes, Usher, we have, but it makes me nervous to hear you start a conversation that way."

Usher smiled nervously. He glanced around the room, taking in all the books, big and little, light and dark, mostly old and worn. Some were shelved, some standing in twisted towers, most with one or more pieces of paper stuck in them, marking places. There were several urns of scrolls, and a safe in which he knew were contained several rare books and magic disks. Not for the first time, he wondered what Telf's world was like. _He spends most of his time sailing on a sea of words and thoughts. I think of words and thoughts as pale reflections of reality, but I think he sees it the other way around._ Indeed, Telf, sitting behind his great desk, pen in hand, papers and parchment scattered before him, seemed to be squinting in order to see him, like a mole come to the surface.

"Sometimes it is hard to be a friend, Telf," said Ushe. "Sometimes a friend has to say what no one else wants to say."

Telf sighed sadly, and looked down at the papers on his desk. "This is about Grilowal, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," said Usher. "It is evident that you love your daughter very much, Telf."

"Of course I do! Is that wrong?"

"Of course not, Telf. And, in the last two years, Death has taken your parents, your only sibling, and, most recently, your wife."

Telf said nothing, but gave a small affirmative nod, still not looking at Usher.

"Your career has been ... disappointing," continued Usher. "Your colleagues have not accepted your ideas."

" _Ticks and vipers_ , Usher," said Telf, grimacing, and putting a fist to either temple. "Have you come to rub hot pepper into every wound I have?"

"I'm sorry, Telf," said Usher. "Please be patient with me!" He paused a moment. "Life has been harsh with you, Telf; for no fault of your own, as far as I can see. Grilowal is ... the greater part of what you have left."

Telf squeezed shut his eyes and pressed his forearms down on the desk, holding his pen tightly. "Please get to the point, Usher!"

"And a great consolation she must be, Telf! She is a lovely girl; gifted, likable, and courageous."

"She has been a great blessing to me, Usher," said Telf, opening his eyes, but still not looking directly at his friend. "I don't know what I would have done without her."

"There is a great deal of her mother in her," said Usher.

"Usher," said Telf, tears beginning to flow, "if this were anyone but you, ..."

"I just want to raise an issue, Telf. I am not judging."

"Raise it, then!"

"You have decided," said Usher, "that Grilowal is the Girl of the Prophecies."

"Yes, I have!"

"You have evidently convinced her that this is so. She loves you deeply, Telf, and believes you implicitly! You are all she has left!"

"It's not just me who thinks so, Usher. She herself knows it!"

"She certainly does believe it, Telf. And she needs very badly to believe it, since it is clearly terribly important to you, her sole remaining parent, that she does."

"Well, of course it is! The Girl is to be our salvation!"

"I gather that you are preparing to announce this to the world at large."

"Yes!" said Telf, his face glowing.

"She will, of course, become something of a celebrity."

"Well ... that is part of being the Girl."

"Of course, some will question her legitimacy."

"Yes, but she will triumph! The prophecies say so!"

"There will be many who would like to see her come to harm. Telf, I don't want to see her hurt! And I don't want you to lose or damage the one precious thing you have left!"

"She will prevail, Usher! I couldn't prevent it, myself! I can't deny the prophecies!"

"Are you sure, Telf, that the evidence is completely compelling?"

"Are you saying I've _made this up_?"

"No, Telf, but I'm raising an issue. Not the issue of deliberate fabrication; I know that would be impossible for you; but, the issue of ... wishful thinking." _There, I have said it! Now it is in the hands of Fate._ He dropped his eyes. He was afraid.

Telf sighed. For a few moments he sat there, elbows on his desk, face contorted by anguish. Then he turned restless. His arms and hands went this way and that, this way and that, and his gaze lit everywhere, except for Usher's uncomfortable face. Then, gradually, he calmed down, although his face remained sad and tired – immensely tired.

"I'm glad you did this, Usher," he said. "You are right, it was the act of a true friend. It must have been difficult, but you did it anyway. I appreciate that." For a moment he made eye contact.

_I've failed_ , thought Usher.

"Of course, I could be wrong," Telf continued, "but that is mortal life, isn't it? We never know anything for sure. We have to leap into the darkness! Now, as for me, I have always felt that I had something special to contribute. And yet, I always seem to fail. And I am getting old and tired. But Grilowal ... she is young, and brighter than I ever was. I now think that my contribution is meant to be more indirect – I am meant to nurture her talents. The contribution will be hers."

"I am certain that she has a great deal to offer the world," replied Usher. "That does not mean that she is the Girl of the Prophecies."

"No, but – what can I say, Usher? I have studied the prophecies, all I could get hold of, and I am convinced. Can I prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt? Of course not! But if we never acted without certainty, we'd be paralyzed."

"True enough," said Usher, weeping internally with disappointment. "Well, let's consider the matter closed, then. I just wanted to raise the issue – the decision is yours."

**

Ununiel Tourabel had for several years maintained one of the most successful salons in Kondrastibar. Like many Courtesans of Culture before her, she knew that a dash of competition, and a chance for public display, often went a long way to encourage creativity.

She had not yet announced that she was the Girl of the Prophecies; she was hoping to get some ideas about it first, from this very conversation.

She had invited twelve of her most brilliant protégés to dine. They commenced the meal with small talk, as always, waiting for her to set the theme. She did not delay.

"Friends," she said, in what Miri privately thought of as her _authoritative mother_ voice, "it is said that the end times of the prophecies are at hand. The Girl is supposed to save us from disaster, and lead us to a better life. Suppose that she relied on your advice. What would you tell her?"

The first to speak was Siloon, a famous journalist. Widely traveled, he had a tremendous talent for seeing more deeply into social and political events than most people, and he was a very effective writer. He apparently had many secret sources of information, and a great talent for inference; he was feared by any public figure, in his part of Kondrastibar, who had secrets to keep.

"She must deal with the Hidden One," he said, "and that will be difficult, for the prophecies themselves predict that he will conquer Kondrastibar. At least, all the prophecies that I know of, do."

"I'll bet," said Ununiel, smiling at him with her kohl-rimmed eyes (the only part of her that was not veiled), "that you know about as much about the Hidden One as anybody."

"Actually," said Siloon, "Karngrevor and his General Staff probably know far more. They have taken a great deal of interest in him, and, in general, I imagine that Karngrevor has access to more versions of the prophecies than anyone, except perhaps a few scholars at the Great University at Ilusindane. But neither Karngrevor nor the scholars seem eager to tell all that they know."

"Why would that be?"

"Perhaps because they don't want _him_ to know how much they know."

"So they consider him to be an enemy?"

"So it seems."

"And you?"

"I would consider that to be futile. He's going to win. He is very powerful already. How can anyone in his right mind resist him?" Siloon was not certain of that, but he had found himself in a difficult position, recently. Like many, he believed in the Hidden One, and thought that he was profoundly evil. He had also acquired reason to believe that the Hidden One could eavesdrop on any conversation, with the possible exception of those that were strongly cloaked by magical means. He also believed that the Hidden One had a corps of very effective assassins, perhaps more than the various other orders of Assassins all together. It therefore behooved one to keep quiet about certain things, unless there was some very, very good reason to speak. Someday, perhaps, he would feel impelled to speak out, in spite of the risk; but that day had not yet come. He therefore spoke with extreme indirection, hoping that at least some people would infer what he was failing to say.

Ununiel did not fully grasp this, but she felt intuitively that Siloon did not wish to be pressed on the point. She turned to Kabr Gsash, Patriarch of a local Synagogue of Police, and a major authority on police affairs. "What do you think, Patriarch?"

Gsash, too, felt inhibited on the subject of the Hidden One, for the same reasons as Siloon; so he changed the subject. "What puzzles me," he said, "is how the Girl, or anyone, can possibly _guide_ Kondrastibar, in _any_ way. Here we have a system which is anarchic where it is healthy, and chaotic where it is ill. It has always evolved neighborhood by neighborhood, temple by temple. There is no centralized system for city-wide communication, much less control. How can such an entity be guided?"

Krelinkie Abzebv, a high officer in a nearby Holy Order of Engineering, spoke up: "In principle, the Ectoplasmic Reticulum could be used for such purposes. Past dynasties have done so, and it has never been dismantled; we just use it differently. With a little research and experimentation, someone could discover how to use it in a centralized fashion, again. Not that I recommend doing so, except perhaps once in a great while."

Ununiel was horrified, in a thrilling sort of way, by the thought of modifying the Ectoplasmic Reticulum in such a manner that her own image could be made to appear all over Kondrastibar. She realized that she could probably make better use of such an opportunity than anyone, since she had become an expert in speaking persuasively to large numbers of people. She made a mental note to investigate the matter further.

"Oh, that would just be more _magic_ ," said Tsariga Vlen, dismissively. She was a well-known political ethicist, and the oldest person present. "Magic does nothing, in the end, except pollute. Yes, it allows those who can afford it to have more power than those who do not; unfortunately, it does this regardless of the wisdom or goodness of the user. As for the decentralization of the net, there were good reasons for that, as Krelinkie has suggested."

"I'm inclined to agree," replied Gsash, "and certainly, decentralization is a crucial feature of Theo-Anarchy. On the other hand, the Girl is supposed to show us a new way; perhaps there is a form of centralization that we haven't thought of, that is more benign."

"I find that to be very unlikely," said N'Tresh, a noted mathematician. "There are very general theorems showing that in systems of significant complexity, certain kinds of decentralization are better in any number of ways. More efficient, for example, more able to recover from damage, and more flexible."

"But then," said Gsash, "how is the Girl to act on Kondrastibar as a whole?"

"Well," said N'Tresh, "there are also theorems showing that even a decentralized system can be unstable, and undergo rapid change. An avalanche, for example, set off by one tiny sound."

"So the Girl would be just a kind of trigger, then."

"Yes," said N'Tresh. "There are cases, in which things could go several ways, and a tiny event decides which. Imagine a tiny snowball, precariously balanced on top of a hill; a miniscule push not only causes it to roll down, but also determines in which direction it will go. And as it rolls, it collects or destabilizes more snow, and eventually triggers an avalanche. It could make a great deal of difference to villages on the mountainside, which way it had first been pushed. So the Girl might have some choices to make."

"I suspect," replied Tsariga Vlen, "that every large event is ultimately like that; I mean, that it can be traced back to a very small event. An Emperor mobilizes a huge force, and conquers an entire country; but how did that force come to be his, and why did the Emperor choose to use it in that way? If you trace things back, you come eventually to a point at which you have to say, 'It could easily have gone the other way.' In fact, the Emperor _deciding to do it_ is itself a rather small event, quite invisible to anyone but himself. Centralized systems amplify such events tremendously, and that is why they are so unstable."

"I'm inclined to agree, in principle," said N'Tresh, "but we lack the insight, and the precision of control, to take advantage of that fact."

"Maybe the Girl will be a Tlilist," said Siloon, half-seriously. Tlilism was a political theology that had achieved a brief notoriety during the late Ingar Dynasty. Tlilists claimed that it was possible to control vast events with modest actions; in fact, they claimed that this was to _only_ way to control them, for by the time events had reached the scale on which political actions usually take place, they had ceased to be controllable. "If one man with a shovel wishes to divert the river Kron," one theorist had said, "he must do it near the source, not in the delta." Another one had said, "With one copper coin I can drastically change the world." But, except for a few riddling aphorisms, the Tlilists had refused to share the special expertise they claimed to have, and eventually were regarded as wishful thinkers or charlatans.

"Perhaps the Girl will be a Tlilist," said Tsariga Vlen, "but she is not merely supposed to change things radically, she is supposed to make things _better_. Mere power to control events never guarantees any genuine progress. In the hands of the evil, the stupid, the naïve, the deluded, the unimaginative, and the insane, great power leads only to great disaster. Only deeper ethical insight, and the communication thereof, can actually make things better for human beings."

"You sound like a bit of a Tlilist yourself," said Siloon, with a smile. "You seem to be implying that an ethicist, by churning out a few theorems, and publishing them, could change the world drastically."

Smiling complacently back at him, Tsariga Vlen replied, "And since I'm an ethicist myself, you'd better be nice to me!" Everyone laughed.

Ununiel was struck by something that Tsariga Vlen had said, and she went over it in her mind: _Only deeper ethical insight, and the communication thereof, can actually make things better for human beings._ It felt like an important truth. She made a mental note of it.

**

"I don't _know_ , Daddy!" Grilowal said, tearfully.

**

Xalagia's uncle Lutos was also a Hope Merchant, like her mother, Katekholimane. As expected, he was wonderfully enthusiastic about the idea that Xalagia should claim to be the Girl of the Prophecies. Consulting the scriptures of his caste, which he had completely memorized along with several of the more important commentaries, he began to make a number of suggestions.

"The basic rule for such things," he said, "is to be vague and optimistic. The optimism makes it attractive. The vagueness gives you an escape hatch."

He was also familiar with several Cleretic Prophecies. "We should, of course, emphasize the predictions of the more optimistic ones," he said, "though of course, none of them have much to say about what the New Balance is actually like. But we know very well, what people dream of. It is as our Scriptures say: they want to live in peace and comfort, without being bored. They want to feel respected by all, and loved by many, whom they love in return. They also want, ah, romantic experiences. Also, they want to live under enough authority so that they will not feel disoriented, but not so much that they will feel stifled. They want time to play and be entertained. They want to feel competent and useful, but not overwhelmed by responsibilities. They want their lives to be lit by transcendent meaning, and they want never to die. Don't worry, Xal, I will write this all down at some point.

"So, I think that Xal should tell people that they have a duty to do their best to see to it that everyone has all of these things."

"But, Lutos," objected Katekholimane, "isn't that a little _too_ vague? It doesn't say how many husbands a woman can have, for example."

"That's just it," said Lutos, with a smile. "Leave it to them to figure out the details. If _you_ come up with a specific recipe, and it doesn't work, then, _foof!_ There goes your quasi-divine status! But if _they_ mess up, that makes _you_ look _good_ , right? Just smile complacently and say, 'Very well, think it over and try again. How can _you_ solve this problem?' The implication being, that you are testing them, or that if you solve their problems for them, they will get soft. And Xal, let your mother have as many husbands as she likes!"

"But Uncle," said Xalagia, "how can I give them eternal life?"

"Well, it will have to be an _after_ life, of course," said Lutos, with a smile, "but given that, there's nothing to it! Just arrange for a preliminary ritual, have them fast, pray, and go without sleep for a day or so, isolated from their usual routine, and then you appear, wearing your official and impressive costume. Ideally there should be inspiring music playing, and of course, incense is always good. Have them come from a dark place into a light place. Then have them kneel down, and place your hands on their head, smile knowingly, close your eyes, and mutter something incomprehensible. Then tell them they're immortal. Not a single dead person will come back to complain, I guarantee you!" They all laughed.

**

The number of those who claimed to be the Girl of the Prophecies continued to grow. Their plurality was something of an embarrassment for them all, since the prophecies spoke clearly of a _single_ Girl. Among those who claimed to be the Girl, however, most were, like Ydnas, quite tolerant of the others. Some, also including Ydnas, even professed uncertainty about whether they themselves were indeed the true Girl, and showed great respect for all (or most of) the others.

Certain Girls were hostile, however, denouncing some or all the others, and each one marshalling arguments (usually circular) to the effect that she herself was the uniquely authentic Girl. Those who were secretly supported by the Elect of the Temple of Migralia were especially vociferous in that regard. In contrast, the forty-one Girls of the Hidden Hand each stated (in different words, at different times) that the issue of authenticity would be decided later. Toskari'ip had designed them to have slightly different doctrines; he planned to wait and see which of them was the most successful, and then to have the other forty declare themselves to be converted to her views.

The followers of those who were least tolerant immediately began to attack one another, verbally and sometimes physically, and as a result had little energy left for other projects. Most of their groups of followers remained small, for this very reason. Those who were more tolerant, on the other hand, were able to co-operate and help one another, and from this they all profited.

Seeing this, the Elect of the Temple of Migralia produced an additional set of Girls, superficially co-operative, so that they could join, spy on, manipulate, and subtly sabotage such alliances.

But most of the Girls were more sincere than not, as were their supporters.

**

Grilowal became one of the more unusual and colorful candidates for the Girl of the Prophecies. For one thing, she had barely become well-known when she proceeded to vociferously deny being the Girl, a position she had maintained ever since.

Her claim _not_ to be the Girl seemed, paradoxically, to make her extremely attractive to a certain kind of follower. When such people asked her to enlighten them, however, her most common response was to ignore them completely. At other times, she would glare, curse, or even spit at them. When she was in a more mellow mood, she would say, "How should I know?" or utter generalities like, "Be nice," and "Learn to share."

She was very slow to build up a following, but there were a certain number of people to whom she had a strong and unique appeal. One of her followers wrote, "Grilowal never allows us to abdicate our freedom or deny our responsibility by setting some external authority above ourselves. Refusing to be a surrogate parent, she always demands of us that we find our own answers." One follower apparently had an epiphany when she hit him with a stick; this inculcated in many others a desire to get within range. Eventually, her followers numbered in the thousands.

**

"Arvex! You're looking good!"

Indeed, Arvex was radiating happiness and energy. This was quite a change; for some time, he had been tired, pessimistic, and cranky, and suffering from various minor illnesses. This was not only hard on him, but on his family and friends.

"Thanks, Jemeny! I feel good, too! And you're looking good, yourself! What's been going on with you?"

"Oh, just the usual running in circles! Keeps me out of trouble, you know."

"Ever the modest one, Jemeny! I hear on the grapevine that you designed and initiated a very important contract!"

"Well, yes, we're going to completely redo the plumbing for the Temple of Divine Love! Should get us maybe twenty-one, twenty-two Silimanders!"

"Why, that's wonderful, Jemeny! Good for you!"

"Well, thank you, Arvex! But tell me, ah, well, I mean, lately you've been a little ... on the tired side. Only now, you seem to have cut yourself free of it."

"Oh, yes, I am better. Thanks to Xalagia, the Girl of the Prophecies."

" _She_ helped you?" Jemeny looked startled.

"Well, first I had a few consultations with one of her acolytes. Then they gave me a cell at their Church – I guess they rehabbed the abandoned Church of the Holy Kenosis, on Pomegranate Street – where I stayed for a whole day and night, with no sleep, and no food except for a little fruit juice, praying and meditating under the acolyte's direction. The acolyte was rather stern, and I began to feel discouraged, but I persevered. The cell was very small, and dark, and kind of damp and cold, and it had no furniture, not even a bed or a chair, but I distracted myself by focusing on my prayers and meditation. I stayed up all night, and then, at dawn, they brought me a big glass of tea, very sweet, and told me to drink it quickly, which I did, and then they led me to the main part. 'Don't worry if the experience is very intense or very confusing,' said the acolyte, 'You will be fine.'

"As I came in to the audience chamber, I found it to be well-lit, brilliantly decorated, and warm. Then, this beautiful music started up; it brought tears to my eyes. And there was a crowd of people in there, and as I came in, they all smiled at me and" – here Arvex's voice caught for a moment – "they _applauded_. I climbed the steps to the elevated part, and there was the Girl, and several others from the church, and the acolyte I had consulted with. Everyone looked happy and confident. There was a tremendous sense of expectation in the air. And there was a little ritual, and then I knelt before the Girl, and she laid her hands on my head.

"Well, Jemeny, you may not believe this, but as soon as she touched my head, I felt this, this _energy_ , rushing into me. It was like a fire, but it didn't hurt me, it only _cleansed_ me, cleansed me of the demon-tapeworm that had been feeding off me all that time. For several breaths I was laughing and crying and screaming, all at once, and then, I was cleansed! And I've been better ever since!"

**

People in the Li-Al'Cheebra neighborhood were impatient to hear from Alelia; she needed to make a public statement. Various people on the Holy Council had suggestions as to what she might say, and several of them were quite pushy about it, but Gragdorf, whom Alelia trusted the most, encouraged her to decide for herself. She decided to read aloud a passage from her uncle's account of one of his dreams. Since there was no agreement among Council members as to what the dream meant, she simply read it, without interpretation, as follows:

"I saw humanity embedded in a great machine. The machine woke them in the morning, washed, dressed, and fed them; then it placed them in carts and took them to work. At work, the machine told them what needed doing, and they pushed buttons which instructed the machine to do it. When it was time for lunch, a bell rang, and they were transported to a cafeteria, where their food and drink were produced and delivered to them by the machine, in response to preferences which they indicated by choosing from a menu created by the machine. After eating, they were returned to their work for a few hours, and then taken home. Once home, they watched plays - illusions created for them by the machine.

"Occasionally, one person would ask to speak to another; the machine would then connect them, so that each one could see a picture and hear the voice of the other. The machine often gave advice as to what to say, and what gestures and facial expressions to employ, in order to have a successful interaction. Sometimes, two or more people would ask for more closeness than picture and voice could provide. In such cases, the machine would produce, in each person's house, mechanical dolls resembling each of the others. These dolls were very realistic. Whatever each person did or said, the dolls resembling that person would do, so it was just as if the people themselves were together, even though they might be a thousand horizons apart. Here, too, the machine gave a great deal of advice on how to proceed."

Here a part of the dream had been withheld from her, as being 'too grown-up.' She mentioned this fact and continued.

"At dinnertime," she continued, "they were again fed by the machine. The evening was spent in the same manner as the afternoon, and then the machine put them into comfortable beds and gave them a sleeping potion. In the morning they were awakened by bells and buzzers, and proceeded as before. If any of them became unhappy, the machine gave them counseling and drugs to make them happy.

"One day, a girl discovered a room called the "Master Control Room." No one had entered this room for thousands of years. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. Through the dust, the girl could make out displays, labeled with words like "Religion," "Economics," "Politics," "Culture," and many others that I do not recall.

"The girl realized that, from the Master Control Room, one could command the machine by voice. The girl said, 'Leave us to ourselves!' The machine said, 'Executing command!' At that moment I woke up, feeling great joy."
**********

"Parting brings us closer"

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Karngrevor stood on the deck of the _Tarezarg_ , speaking into a seashell that carried his words to his entire army. Beside him stood Zagara, Oselika, Teladorion, and members of his general staff. Everyone was in a state of shock.

"Beloved Soldiers," he said, "as you have been told, this is a message of the utmost importance and urgency. I am afraid that it is also one that many of you will find extremely disturbing.

"As you know, the Prophetic Times are coming to an end. According to the Prophecies, we are about to make a transition to a New Balance. The question arises, what the role of House Karngrevor is to be in this great transition. I have naturally thought a great deal about this, and consulted many experts in History and Prophecy. I have also consulted several of those who claim to be the Girl of the Prophecies, and many other people whose judgment I trust. There were many indications that, surprising as it may seem, my contribution is not to be a military one. Also, the Girl seeks to eliminate violence, and does not believe that this can be done by violent means. A scroll presenting various arguments for and against this claim can be found on the Reticulum, at the address: "People> Karngrevor> mission> goals> strategy> tactics> Girl> non-violence> recent> latest." I hope you will consult this scroll and think the matter over carefully before making any irreversible commitments.

"Naturally, I found the idea that I should give up violence to be puzzling and disturbing. Not that I love violence itself, quite the contrary; but I have always thought that only violence can contain violence, and I and my ancestors for countless generations have devoted ourselves to what we thought was _constructive_ violence, acting in the belief that we were doing good for the world at large by doing so. And, as far as I can see, we _have_ done good, on the whole.

"And yet, there were the Prophecies. I asked the Scholars at the Great University at Ilusindane to make one more great effort to separate the true from the false. Could it not be that the Prophecies had been corrupted by the Hidden One, or by other evil forces? They replied that they had already been redoubling their efforts in this regard, that their estimation of the worth of various prophecies had not changed much as a result, but also that like all mortal opinions, theirs was subject to error.

"Failing to resolve the matter in my own mind, I consulted Tosaris."

Karngrevor then gave an account of his meeting with Tosaris, including a precise transcription of what she had said.

"As you can see," he continued, "I still had a lot of thinking to do. But recent events have suggested to me that the times are impatient, and so I limited myself to one week of thought, meditation, and discussion with others whose judgment I respect, including my General Staff and Agulinar Torothex. As you know, I also instituted a plebiscite among you, my dear and respected soldiers. I was unable to read each of your responses individually, but I had trustworthy analysts summarize your witness. The following is what I have come up with."

As he uttered these last sentences, his voice became shaky. He could be heard to pause and take a deep breath. Then he continued:

"I have decided to do as Tosaris instructed me, not only because she has commanded it, but also because of some of the other influences I mentioned, and because many of the arguments I encountered seemed to have merit. But as I said, she left the details to me. And that raises the question of what might be done, if anything, by me and my army. Again, I consulted many others before making my decision.

"I asked myself what we would be good at. Aside from combat, our strong points are organization, discipline, and advanced magic. In the days to come, there will be a great deal of chaos in Kondrastibar. We have, in the past, often participated in relief efforts; my ancestors and I have always wanted _not_ to be the kind of army that charges through an area and then leaves it to others to pick up the pieces. Instead, we always followed our military victories with relief efforts aimed at setting people back on their feet. I have always been as proud of your competence in these matters as I am in your competence at fighting. I have decided that we will continue to provide relief, offering transport of food and other necessities, medical care, shelter construction, communication, and various forms of non-military technical assistance. But this time, it will be our entire mission.

"At all times, we will abstain from deliberate harm of any kind. This includes even defensive violence. Even if I am mistaken to refrain from battle, let no one suppose that I have chosen a path requiring less courage! For to carry on such activities in the midst of civil war, without defense, surely requires as much courage as fighting, and perhaps more.

"Nevertheless, some of you may find yourselves unable to accept this renunciation of violence; to them I say the following:

"First: my respect for you is in no way diminished by our disagreement. Tosaris stated clearly that she was not condemning anything we did in the past. You have fought bravely, and with dedication, discipline, and skill, and there is no indication that you were in any way at fault in doing so. No one has ever seen all of Kondrastibar, but I have received many reports, and I have never heard of a better army than ours. It is not only that we won battles; even more important is the fact that we fought, not out of mercenary or imperial greed, and not out of blind obedience, but out of an idealism as pure as mortals can make it. I therefore do not consider that the present call to non-violence is a criticism of our actions in the past. It does not render meaningless the sacrifices of our comrades who died or suffered in action. It is simply that times have changed, and our duties have changed with them.

"Second: You bound yourselves in fealty to me as warriors, but that is no longer what I am asking of you. Besides, I have never wished to command you against your own better judgment, and I am not about to start now. Therefore, I will free you all from your oaths of fealty, without any prejudice, as soon as the rededication project, which I am about to describe, is completed. This project consists in the following: If any of you consider your oath to be binding in spite of my change in direction, or if you wish to make a new oath, to follow me in this new direction, please notify your immediate superior well before the midnight of Archer's Day, Karngrevor Keep Time. After midnight, officers should, with all deliberate speed, report on what troops, regions, resources, and lines of communication remain available to them. I will announce the facts when I receive the full report; those who have decided to leave are then honorably absolved of their oath.

"To those who leave, I wish to say the following: thank you for your brilliant and courageous service in the past. You are to be admired for being true to whatever beliefs have caused you to depart. I am sorry if my decision has disillusioned you or left you adrift. I believe that you are capable of building a new and meaningful life for yourselves, and I hope you will. You have my best wishes for the future.

"I ask both those who leave and those who remain to respect one another. I will respect both groups equally. Let us work, each in our own way, to make the New Balance a good one.

"That is the end of this announcement. It will be automatically repeated several times. Verification of authenticity may be obtained in the usual way. I, Duke Karngrevor, wish you all the very best."

Vidigeon immediately reported on this message to the Lord of Evil.

"Wonderful!" replied the Lord. "Our strongest opponent has resigned from the game! Whether she intends to or not, Ydnas is doing an excellent job of incapacitating the opposition!"
**********

"Those who know the future cannot change it."

(Firickle folk saying)

In the year 2009 of the First Cleretic Dynasty, there was a secret meeting of a few members of the Club of Irony. This meeting was held at a café table in a crowded commissary in the 1,717th Army base at Ardinapaloor. The meeting was called and led by a colonel named "Talek." Two first lieutenants, three majors, and five trainees were present. They formed an unofficial group that had been meeting for some time; this group existed because they all shared a great interest in, and talent for, Theoretical History.

"In our age," said Colonel Talek, "there have been great accomplishments in our field, and it continues to develop. As you know, I have done some work in this area myself. Theoretical History is highly respected by many, and by the leaders of our intellectual forces, in particular. It is respected by a great majority of the High Command, who see it as having substantial strategic and tactical significance. Nevertheless, the goals of Theoretical History are generally regarded as passive, contemplative, truth-seeking goals: observation, recording, classification, reduction to laws, explanation, and, in a very limited way, prediction. How ironic it would be, if Theoretical History were actually to _command_ historical change, not just analyze it."

After thinking about this for a moment, the others gave restrained signs of appreciation and curiosity.

"You have all heard the expression, 'self-fulfilling prediction,' continued Talek. "This suggests to me a way in which such a great irony could be realized." Enthusiasm blew through her audience like a spring breeze, and many of them made the raised-middle-finger salute of enthusiasm.

"Well, that's about as far as I've gone with the idea," said Talek, spreading her black-gloved hands face-down on the table. "I don't want to jeopardize its chances of success by working too hard on it. For the same reason, I declare that this meeting shall be adjourned within the next twentieth."

"Yes _Ma'am!_ " said all the others, in unison.

A first lieutenant joined his hands before him, and was recognized by the Colonel. "What is our objective?" he asked.

Before Talek replied, a trainee spoke up: "Permission to speak freely, Ma'am," he requested.

"Granted," said Talek.

"I respectfully suggest that you consider the possibility that we might be guided by the principles of the Messenger Way," proposed the trainee.

After a few moments of silence, during which an enthusiastic consensus for this idea could be felt, the Colonel said, "I so order it!"

"Yes _Ma'am!_ " said all the others, in unison.

A passing Security Officer heard the forbidden expression, "Messenger Way," and turned with a frown, her hand going to the pain-gun on her hip. As she approached the group, however, she thought to herself, 'I must have mis-heard. No one would use that expression out in the open.' She turned again and resumed her patrol, quickly forgetting the incident.
**********

"Peck-peck-pecking at the eggshell that protects you"

(from the popular song, "More than You Know")

"Congratulations!" said Boss Wolverine Jaw. "This is a joyful day for all of us! You are free!"

A huge cheer went up. Those who were sitting leapt to their feet. People hugged each other ecstatically.

Around them was the beautiful university campus that the prisoners had built: functional yet elegant buildings among fields, ponds, gardens, young trees, and flowers. The workers themselves were wearing brilliantly-colored clothes that they had made for the occasion.

The area for the particular work group to which 1080 belonged was partitioned off from the rest by a small, rickety fence and a small patrol of beaters. As Boss Wolverine Jaw spoke, the patrol began dismantling the fence. As portions of it were removed, streams of ex-prisoners who had belonged to other work groups poured in, hugging and congratulating. A small group of Angels also entered. They were unarmed, and wore simple clothes: confessors, including Brother Piranha. There was a moment of uncertainty; then 225 rushed to Brother Piranha and embraced him. In a moment, other workers were rushing to meet their confessors, who were soon part of the general celebration.

The beaters finished dismantling the fence. They then proceeded to remove their weapons, helmets, and armor, dropping them onto the ground. No one rushed to hug them, but after a few breaths, one worker did approach them and strike up a conversation. And soon after that, another. Eventually, there were hugs.

Boss Wolverine Jaw also removed her weapons, helmet, and armor. She was then wearing only a simple white shift. Taking up a wet cloth, she wiped off her tattoos and scarification; workers gasped and laughed to see that they were artificial. A few workers clustered around her. "My real name is 'Tleleen,'" she explained.

From the building where the workers now lived, a stream of workers emerged, bearing food and drink, which they distributed to everyone. Several people began to sing. 987, fully recovered, fell into a clinch with 1080. "I used to be called 'Scratch,'" he said, no longer afraid to discuss the past. "I was into pimping and protection."

"I used to be called 'Tadger,'" she said. "I was a daughter of Pappi's."

A cloth dampened with a special solvent was handed out, and the workers took turns erasing the numbers from their foreheads. "I would like to be called 'Bibo,'" said 1080, when his forehead was clear. "It's what my mother used to call me."

"Bibo, Bibo," repeated the others.

"I haven't decided on my name yet," said 987, looking uncomfortable. "I used to be called 'Tadger,' but I don't really like the name. You can call me that for now, though."

"Tadger, Tadger," repeated the others.

That night, as they were going to bed, Bibo asked, "How did you get the name 'Tadger'?"

"My mother gave it to me when I was born," she said.

"Do you know anything about it? Where it comes from?"

"My mother once told me it meant 'beloved' in her original language," she said, with a cynical snort.

Bibo was thoughtful for a few breaths. Then he said: "You know, I have a feeling that your childhood was miserable. Pappi and all his associates would have been incapable of compassion, or even of courtesy, to say nothing of friendship or love. With a child, they would not even have bothered to pretend, since you had nothing to offer them. Until puberty, when you became the object of lust. Or perhaps even before then." She looked away, trembling a little.

He came over to her, and slowly, tentatively, making sure she was comfortable with it, he put his arms around her. She relaxed a little. "Perhaps," he continued, "in the harem, you sometimes met people who could take a genuine interest in you."

"Sometimes," she said, "some of the new ones. But after a year or so, they were all the same. Zombies."

"Ah," said Bibo, stroking her hair. "That would include your mother, I suppose."

"Yes."

He sighed. "I can understand," he said, "that in a place like that, almost anyone would give in to despair, eventually. I can't blame them, really. But childbirth is a very special experience. I would like to think that when she first saw you, your mother broke through for a moment, and experienced one short burst of true love. How wonderful that must have been for her! And so she called you 'Tadger.'"

987 was silent for a few breaths. Then she began to weep. After a long time, she said, "All right. I will accept the name."
**********

"He who does not risk his life is dead."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

At the end of the Zoroid Dynasty, in the newly-founded City of the Gods, Ydnas was discussing her options with a number of friends. "It's silly for me to be cooped up here for centuries," said Ydnas, "when I could be doing good things in Kondrastibar."

"You have certainly done many good things _here_ ," replied Kaliv Kleio, a prophet of K'Tor. He was a small man with large, brilliant eyes and a high forehead. As was traditional with male prophets of K'Tor, he had a tonsure, spectacles, and a neatly trimmed beard, and wore a white, multi-pocketed smock. Like many prophets of K'Tor in the City of the Gods, Kleio held that the best way to communicate with K'Tor was to conduct experiments in a laboratory. Ydnas had been of immense help in the design, setup, and interpretation of numerous such experiments, many of which had been strikingly successful. If pressed, however, Kaliv would have had to admit that he and his colleagues were all reeling from the impact of so much new information, and needed time to reflect upon it.

"I will certainly return from time to time, brilliant Kaliv," said Ydnas, with a smile, "and I look forward to the privilege of working further with you. But I do not wish to devote my life entirely to research. I have other talents, and the world has other needs." Kaliv nodded sadly.

Next to speak was Yojalin Kara, a prophetess of Amakala. "Darling Ydnas," she said, leaning toward Ydnas with a loving but concerned expression, "I really do sympathize with your desire to broaden your horizons. This is indeed a small and rather staid world that we have here. But I am concerned about your father. If you are active in Kondrastibar, for a significant period of time, he is very likely to become aware of you. Then, he will try to capture you. If he succeeds, he will learn of our existence, and a great deal about us. That would not be good!"

"The prophecies say that I will prevail in the end," replied Ydnas, "and none of them mention the City of the Gods at all. Most people consider it to be a legend. I think you are safe."

Yojalin sighed. "The prophecies are many and varied," she said, "and many of them are fakes. Besides, I have always felt that it is not good to rely on them any more than necessary. The Cleretic seers clearly had awesome visionary powers, but all mortals are capable of error. It therefore behooves us to take responsibility for ourselves and our world, in spite of them. We ought to do that, even if the prophecies _are_ infallible, for otherwise our own lives become meaningless."

"I agree with all that," said Ydnas, her braids flailing wildly as she vigorously nodded her assent, "but I do have a certain ability to take care of myself, and of course you will have many ways to protect me, even if I am in Kondrastibar."

"Our powers are limited," replied Yojalin.

"Let me propose a compromise," said Ydnas, waving her hands reassuringly in the air. "Before I leave on a visit to Kondrastibar, Morif will remove from my memory all the information that we would not want others – and my father, in particular – to acquire, including my knowledge of my true identity, and of the existence of the City of the Gods. He will store that away, and create an alternate identity for me, which will have nothing to do with you or my father."

"You want to _unknowingly_ _reincarnate_ ," said K'Trang Sineliar, excitedly. He was in training to be an angel of K'Sell, and had recently been much engaged in theory and research on reincarnation.

"Very much like that," said Ydnas, nodding. "I will appear as a normal girl with no sign whatever that she is the Girl of the Prophecies, or the daughter of the Hidden One, or that there is any such place as the City of the Gods. She will, however, have a character that will keep her safe from temptation, and besides, you will be able to influence and protect her in various ways, through the Ectoplasmic Reticulum."

"Then, when you return," said Sineliar, enthusiastically following the thread of the idea, "Morif can download your full identity, and you can ponder the significance of your experiences against the background of your total knowledge!"

"But her father can still recognize her _body_ ," objected Yojalin. "We can disguise her in various ways, but he may well see through them. His powers are awesome, and growing all the time. If he then captures her, he will re-program her, and her present personality will be lost."

"Morif will still have my original identity."

"We may not be able to get your body back."

"I will still be the Girl of the Prophecies, though," said Ydnas. "My father will see to that!"

"He will surely see that _someone_ is," objected Yojalin, "but it may not be _you._ It may be someone else in your body. I'm concerned about you personally, you know, Ydnas, not just the politics!"

Ydnas leapt onto the table, knelt in front of Yojalin, and gave her a hug. "I know, wonderful Yojalin," she said, "and I love you, too! But you, not he, will have the copy of my soul. Yes, my body in Kondrastibar may come to a terrible end, but I have the right to take that risk, don't I?"

"Well, yes," said Yojalin, very reluctantly. "You do."
**********

"How extraordinary

To be ordinary."

(From the cabaret song, "Every Day")

Exhausted physically and mentally, Srea Kula fell asleep early in the evening. In the morning, just before waking, he had a dream. He was in a thicket in a park, a secret hiding place that he had discovered as a child. The theologian, Lator, was there with him, but somehow that didn't feel like a violation of his privacy. In fact, it seemed as though he had gone there in the hope of being able to talk to Lator.

"Here," said Lator, handing him a mug, "have some juice."

"Why thank you," said Srea Kula. He sipped the juice, and it was just as he had expected: wholesome, though not very sweet.

"I believe you have some problems," said Lator. Although in waking life Srea Kula had been suspicious of Lator, in the dream he felt certain that he could trust him, and that Lator was exactly the person who could help him with his difficulties.

"Why are we made so imperfect?" asked Srea Kula, "and why are we made to _know_ that we are imperfect, and not be able to fix it?"

"Ah, yes, that one," said Lator, nodding. He picked up a stick and drew on the ground. He drew a little figure with a few schematic lines, as children do.

"This is a picture of someone who exists in my imagination," he said. "Let's call him _Kuli_." Srea Kula nodded agreement.

"Now," continued Lator, "suppose you have been given the power to bring Kuli to life, to make him real, if you want to. But before you decide, let me tell you a few things about what he would be like, yes? In the course of his life, should you create him, Kuli will have only a few moments of pure happiness. Most of the time, his mood will be a mixture of various kinds of happiness and various kinds of unhappiness. On the average, he will be somewhere in the middle, neither happy nor unhappy, or perhaps just a bit on the unhappy side. A great deal of the time, he will be too busy to notice his mood. Sometimes he will notice that he feels rather bad, but for the sake of the others in his life, he will keep trying to function in a helpful way, for he feels that he has a responsibility to do so.

"If you bring him to life, he will be a fairly good man, as mortals go, but like all mortals, he will definitely be imperfect. He will know his imperfection and be frustrated by it, for he will be very idealistic in his goals. In spite of his imperfections, though, he will help numerous people in numerous ways, yes? At times, yes, he will be a bit of a problem for people close to him, because of his weaknesses. The people who know him do not deeply resent his weaknesses, however, partly because they are aware that they have weaknesses of their own, and partly because of all the good that he does.

"At some point in his middle years he will be afflicted by severe doubts about the value of his life, yes? He will withdraw to think about this. I can't tell you what he will decide, but I'm sure his decision will be deeply serious and absolutely honest, or at least, as close to that as a mortal can approach.

"That is all I have to say. If you want to create him, all you have to do is say 'yes.' If you don't, just reach down and rub out the picture that I have drawn."

Srea Kula looked thoughtfully at the little figure. "Some people," he said, "have deep religious experiences that untie the knots that bind them, and reconcile them to their lives, completely. Will Kuli ever have an experience of that sort?"

"No," said Lator, sadly, "that is not in his destiny. Ah, I'm afraid that life for him will always be a bit of a struggle, a mixture of happiness and pain, success and failure, pride and regret. Sad, perhaps, but true. He will never be a hero, a saint, a mystic, a prophet, a genius, or anything so remarkable. He will always be a good but imperfect man. At some point, he will accept this."

"Will he ever experience love?" asked Srea Kula.

"Yes, he will," said Lator, nodding. "He will love many people, though never as many as he will think he should. He will love his family, his friends, and, when he becomes a priest, many of his congregation. At times he will feel love for all humanity, but, like everything else about him, this will be mixed, yes? Often he will feel anger and loathing, and often he will hurt the very people he loves the most. But still, he will love, and be loved in return."

Srea Kula studied the drawing that Lator had made. Its artistic crudity mirrored the imperfection of the person portrayed. It also suggested a certain lovable gawkiness, and a helplessness that brought out his paternal, protective feelings. _How_ , he thought, _could I refuse to bring this person into being?_

"Yes," he said.
**********

"If the gods had not existed,

we would have been compelled to invent them."

(Dei Horas)

"What's the matter, Dearie?" asked Mir.

Kor had sat down in a slumped, discouraged posture. The lines of love and wisdom that normally graced her features were distorted by fatigue and sadness. "I'm sorry," she replied. "I'm exhausted from all this novelty – it's just too much to take in."

"But there's something else, isn't there?"

Kor smiled at her grandmother's perceptiveness. "Yes," she said, "it's – well – it's just that – well, this isn't what I thought that Isiliar and the other gods were _like_." She gestured at the bustle of their surroundings, and, by implication, at the entire City of the Gods. "I mean, it's like – well, I'm sorry, Grandmother, but it's like a _fraud_!"

Mir looked sad. She nodded. "You are learning that many of the miracles that you had attributed to gods are actually done by mortals, operating from behind the scenes."

"Yes...and this idea of _immanence_ is supposed to mean that it really _is_ the gods, anyway, but..."

"Well, yes, exactly," said Mir, "and in fact, I think you could even say that we are helping the gods to develop. At other times in History, only exceptional people gave speech to the gods."

"You mean, dreamers and hallucinators," said Kor, acidly.

"Well, yes," said Mir, "but I was going to mention prophets and the like."

"But only the hallucinators were _honest_ ," said Kor, even more acidly.

"Well, Dearie," said Mir, "there are many kinds of hallucinators. I think of a prophet – I mean, one who existed before this city did – as a hallucinator who was also a brilliant theologian."

"And also a brilliant liar?"

"Sometimes. Remember how K'Sell sent you on a journey through the afterworld? That was an illusion, as you knew at the time. But it was still a meaningful experience, wasn't it?"

"Well, yes, it most certainly was," admitted Kor. "But there are other things I haven't learned until recently. It appears that you manipulate people with your magic; you delude them."

"I can't deny it, Kor," said Mir, sadly. "but is that always wrong? Think of your first encounter with Meki, Donnilid, and Bogs. They were about to do something very nasty to you. I did something to their minds, without their knowledge or consent. I made them less hateful. I made your _friendship_ possible. I didn't ask their permission. They had no idea I was doing it. Should I have limited myself to rational, theological discussion?"

"No, of course not! But there are lots of people who are not at all dangerous, who are deceived by you about the nature of the gods."

"True," said Mir. "but we don't want the Hidden One to learn any more of us than he already knows, and that means that we have to hide from just about everyone, for he has eyes and ears everywhere. In general, I can only say, that we're always discussing problems of this kind, considering and reconsidering them. When, if ever, is it right to intervene like that? When, if ever, is it right to deceive? To be violent? When you join us, you will be able to participate in these discussions. Perhaps you will convince us to be more open. The Girl of the Prophecies is presumably going to change our minds about a number of things, as well."

"But," said Kor, thinking out loud, "there's something else that bothers me. Gods are supposed to be _mysterious_!"

"When you know too much about them," said Mir, sympathetically, "they become _ordinary_."

"Yes, exactly!" said Kor. "I think that is why I have always resisted Theology. Even a transcendent goddess would become ordinary, if you knew too much about her! Why, it's the same way with the Tellamir – they used to be these mysterious beings, whose ships you would sometimes see, and whose songs you would sometimes hear, and be entranced by – and now, you've turned them into _ushers_!"

"Well, you must admit, that they are very impressive ushers, Kor," replied Mir. "Remember when they took up the souls from the Black Cloud?"

"I suppose so," said Kor. "But then, the Black Cloud itself was impressive, too – and the Great Gorge at Tamarskild. And they say that the old Imperial Palace is twenty horizons across, and half a horizon high at its tallest point. Very impressive, but not _divine!_ "

"Well, actually, that's not all the Tellamir do," replied Mir, "and there is still a great deal of mystery about them, as far as I know. But what is so wonderful about mystery, Kor? What could be so wonderful about our being _ignorant_ about something? Would the Great Gorge have been divine if you had known less about it? Was it a disappointment to actually _see_ it?"

"No, no," said Kor, a little irritated with what she felt was a caricature of her thoughts. "It's not _our_ _ignorance_ that makes something divine. But ... you know, Lessie once said something that struck me very forcefully: 'More than this, there must be something!' I agree with that, or at least, I desperately _want_ it to be true."

Kor became more and more agitated as she continued: "I mean, look at this world – all this stupidity, suffering, insanity, pettiness, death, ignorance, greed, oppression ... yes, I just _have_ to believe it: _More than this, there must be something!_ " she concluded, in a loud, anguished voice.

"Mystery gives you hope, then?" asked Mir.

Kor nodded affirmatively, calming down a bit. "I have to believe that the world is not entirely as it appears to be," she said. "There must be some meaning in it, some reason for all this, all this insanity and horror; something that makes sense out of it. Otherwise, I would die of anguish and despair."

"Well, Kor," said Mir, sitting beside her, "I think I understand, and I agree. There _is_ something more."

"But what is it?" said Kor. "What could it possibly be?"

"Well, think about yourself and your orphanage, Kor! Where is the stupidity, suffering, insanity, pettiness, death, ignorance, greed, or oppression in that? Not _totally_ absent, I suppose, but _almost_ so; not _dominant_ , certainly! No, Kor, you yourself have been manifesting the _something else_ for many years! And so, we in the City want to give you the ability to do more!"

"Well, I suppose you're right," said Kor. "There is _something else_ , and I guess what bothers me is not that there might not be, but only that it is so weak."

"I would say slow rather than weak, Kor! In my view, progress is absolutely inevitable."

"How can you know that?"

"Why, you yourself saw it, Kor! When K'Sell showed you the Afterlife, and you were in the Temple garden, and you saw the seedling, and realized that the Universe was developing ..."

Kor thought about that; and it reminded her of something else:

Shaliria, the Goddess of Love, is like a vast river, so vast that she has no banks, no bed, and no surface. There is no limit to her anywhere. She has no plans. She gives herself completely in every place, even in the desert, even in the blackness between the stars, even where there is pain, even in the hardened heart.

She is full of currents and eddies. These currents and eddies are the things of this world, including you and I. She gently moves them this way and that. And yet she is also utterly still, for she is the same pure love, with nothing added and nothing lacking, at every point and every moment.

And that, in turn, reminded her of something else:

The universe is one great self-consistent whole, and the myriad phenomena are all balanced expressions of an underlying Oneness, expressing itself through love. It grows and develops through time.

Then she returned to her memories of being in the temple garden, and suddenly Kor felt bathed in beauty. How simple and natural everything had felt then! How effortless, how perfect!

It took an effort to bring herself back to the conversation: "Yes, Mir, I remember, and it was a beautiful moment." She felt tears tickling the edges of her eyes. "But was there any _truth_ in it? I am always being told, 'This is true, only it is not quite true, it is only an image, a metaphor.' But what is the true part, and what is the merely metaphorical? Really, there was no Temple, and no seedling – as you said, it was all just a hallucination! Didn't K'Sell say as much? In the end, I don't know whether I have learned anything at all!"

"Yes, Dearie," said Mir, "the Temple and the seedling were only hallucinations, part of a show K'Sell was putting on for you. They were symbols, like characters in a novel, and you understood that. Surely the memory of looking at a seedling, and nothing more, would not bring tears to your eyes! But an _idea_ was vividly communicated to you; and that is the important thing, not the pictures that were used to do it."

"But when I look around me, back home," said Kor, "I don't see universal peace and rightness and evolution, I see pointless stupidity and suffering, and I must deal with it!"

"But that's exactly what it takes to make a perfect world, Kor; remember the story of Wond? In order to give meaning to life, he created _struggles_."

"But," objected Kor, "that story makes a great deal of life out to be nothing more than a kind of charade, or illusion. Shadow-boxing. More fraud."

"Well ... what exactly would the illusion consist in?"

"Well, people think they are separate, but really they are just Wond. It's as though I made my hands talk to each other." She held up her hands and made them pantomime a couple of people, as children do. "Blu blu bleh bleh bla bla blibble bibble," she said.

"Well," replied Mir, "suppose someone said, 'People think they are separate, but really, they are all just dynamic matter and energy, active substance. Energized matter takes the form of trees, people, and so on. Really, there are no trees or people, there is just one material thing in the universe, this huge mass of active substance.' Would they be wrong?"

Kor thought for a moment. "Yes, of course they would; that would be like saying that my elbow doesn't exist, only my arm! But ... being made of matter doesn't bother me, because _I_ control _it_. But being made of a conscious being makes me feel like a puppet." To illustrate, she moved her arms and head in a jerky, repetitive way. "My elbow doesn't decide for itself what to do!"

"Well," replied Mir, "that's where the puppet metaphor fails. Hand-puppets don't have minds of their own. But when Wond divides into people, he divides into beings which _do_ have minds of their own. It's sort of like multiple personality. Or, you mentioned once, that you sometimes experience your mind as a collection of voices, conversing with each other. Think of yourself and me as voices in Wond's mind! Right now, we are expressing an ambivalence that he feels. In fact, as far as I know, Wond's mind is little more than the sum of all our minds, together with their interactions. When you decide to raise your hand, that is Wond deciding to raise the hand. So in a way, you control Wond as much as he controls you."

"Why, that's an inspiring idea," said Kor, looking startled. "By being a better person, I can make Wond a better god!"

"Well, there you are, Dearie!" said Mir. "It's not so meaningless after all, then, is it?"
**********

"No one can leave home."

(Saint Eggstar the Wanderer)

In the evening, there had been a party in the harem; a party in response to the surreptitious arrival of a large crowd of young aristocratic males. Now it was almost dawn, and everyone slept, except for Kalula and the ubiquitous guards. She had not participated in the revelry, though she had observed it from a distance, looking for someone. Now she was searching through the aftermath, quietly letting herself into rooms and looking at the bodies, mostly naked, sprawled on mats and mattresses, amid the remains of food, drink, drugs, and crockery. The staled smell of sex was everywhere. Her face was a study in pain and longing.

Suddenly she stopped, putting a trembling hand to her mouth. Her eyes were fixed upon the sleeping form of a young man, lying between two naked concubines. He was of medium height and slender; his skin was purple, his hair black. She went down on her hands and knees and peered at his face.

It was a face in transition. On the one hand, it was the face of a youth of eighteen, sensitive and intelligent, gentle and friendly. On this face – and elsewhere on his body – had been superimposed several scars, some apparently from cuts, and others from burns. Dark crescents of stress lay beneath his eyes. Although this face was relaxed in sleep, one could see that it frequently expressed fear, dismay, and suspicion. These features, and others more subtle, were part of the new face that was emerging – a face that showed traces of rage, disgust, and despair, all devolving into apathy; a face that would eventually turn vulgar and brutal.

Tears ran steadily down Kalula's cheeks, and she knelt down, sobbing in silence, holding her head in her hands. Then she stood again. Looking around, she found a towel, and used it to cover the youth's pelvis. Then she lay on her side, next to him, gazing at his face, and began to gently stroke his hair, singing a lullaby in her native language.

A light smile appeared on his lips; it was part of the old face, a very deep part of it. His eyelids began to flicker. Then they opened. His face showed gradually increasing wakefulness, then a bit of disorientation. Suddenly he looked afraid, and sat up in fear, casting his eyes about the room.

"It's all right, Kelil," whispered Kalula, softly, raising herself on one arm. "You came here for a party, and I found you."

He calmed down a bit and turned to face her. "Mother!" he said, looking quite embarrassed.

"Kelil," she said fondly, "my son." Her tears, which had stopped for awhile, began to flow again. He glanced down, and saw with relief the towel covering him.

"Mother," he said again, quiet and uncertain.

"It's all right, my son," she whispered. "I know that soldiers can't have a normal family life."

He blushed and looked at the ground.

"Please, Kelil," she said, in barely more than a whisper, "I'm sorry I startled you. Please come. With me. To my room."

"Ah, I'll be right there," he said, nodding toward the door.

"I'll wait in the hall," said Kalula, with a nod. She rose and went out.

Kelil located the various parts of his uniform and donned them, wincing with hangover whenever he moved. Then he staggered out the door. Kalula moved as if to hug him, but he looked uncomfortable, so she withdrew. They began to walk down the corridor.

"I was going to visit you after the party, Momo," said Kelil, lamely, "but ... I fell asleep."

"It's all right, Kel," replied Kalula softly, smiling and touching him on the shoulder. "Tell me about your life."

"Well, I have been with the 1,025th Battalion," he said. "We have been ... liberating ... a country. It's called Steresinthia. I ride lance on a spit lizard." He hesitated.

"I know," said Kalula, "that soldiers often don't like to talk about combat. And what happens after. And other things. It's up to you. Your lizard has a name?"

"Yes," said Kelil, with a fond smile, "she is called, 'N'Koltir.'"

"And you have friends?" She opened the door to her apartment.

He stiffened. From his bearing, it was evident that this question had triggered anger in him. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "What?"

He made a frustrated gesture. "You shouldn't have done it, Mother!"

"What?"

He gestured that she should enter her apartment; she did, and he followed her inside, closing the door.

"You shouldn't have had ... another school," he said, "should've had just ... the P'Twism school. Shouldn't have told me about ... how you lived before. Shouldn't have brought me up so much ... the way _you_ were brought up. Then I would have ... fit in better."

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to go on.

"I was too _different_ , Mother," he said. "They despised me! They teased me! They beat me! They tortured me!"

"Ah..." said Kalula, holding her head in her hands.

"Look Mother!" He lifted his shirt. Looking through her fingers, she saw a blotchy scar that covered most of his chest. "It wasn't the enemy that did this to me, Mother! It was the other men in my company! And my commanders, they would send me on the most dangerous missions!"

"I am sorry, Kelil," she said, looking at the floor. She sighed. "But then," she added, "you must be a strong and brave man, to have survived all that!" She raised her head and looked at him proudly.

His anger receded. He looked at the floor, trying to suppress a sheepish smile. "Well ..." he said, uncomfortably. Then his face went stormy again. "Momo," he said in anguish, "how can you accept me? How can you accept my being in their army?"

Kalula looked at her son, a soldier in the same army that had enslaved her people, and those of all her friends. "Kelil," she said, touching his shoulder gently, "I know. You are trapped. Just like me. Like all here. You must live. The best you can."

They were both silent for twenty breaths.

"Kelil," she continued, "I know that you will never again be the unborn that I felt. Such joy and wonder! Moving in my womb. Or the beautiful baby. Midwife held you up for me to see. Ah, how handsome! Or the marvelous boy. Exploring the world. Oh, how you grew! Before my eyes! I dared not blink! But now, you are a grown man. In a different world. Not my world! I can't teach you any more. Or give you advice. But I would like to tell you my dream."

"Your dream?" He looked puzzled.

She sat on her mattress, patting it to invite him to sit next to her. He did. "My wish. My fantasy. Maybe impossible. I am dreaming this: that you will take all your heritage, and all your child memories, and all those things that we taught you at the other school, everything that is not P'Twism, and lock them up in a strong box, and bury them, deep and dark in your heart. Ah, Kelil! When you are with the P'Twism, you must be a P'Twism! Tell them you have renounced everything that is not P'Twism. Don't be proud. Don't be defiant. But all those things will still be there. In your heart. When you are alone, you will take them out. Cherish those things. And maybe someday, a time will come. A time, when you don't have to be ashamed of them any more."

Now it was time for Kelil to cry. He hugged her, and she him. "I will do that, Momo," he said, between sobs, "and when ... and when I see that... my death is coming for me, ... I will say, as loud as I am able, ... ' _I am Kelil, the son of Kalula!_ '"
**********

"Why would I want to be myself, if I could be someone better?"

(Saint Iljin the Impostor)

Ling sat in Torothex's chair, in Torothex's office, in Torothex's body, wearing Torothex's clothes, and surrounded by Torothex's memories. Torothex was dead, destroyed by 777's simulacrum.

Ling no longer desired to get his old life back, or to reaffirm his control of his organization. He had arranged for the transfer of his criminal powers to Nyog. It had been a horribly difficult step to take, giving up forever everything he had labored for, everything that he had worked, suffered, killed, tortured, robbed, cheated, deceived, betrayed, and risked death for, year after year after year; but he had finally done it.

His internal protective spells had prevented him from being overwhelmed by Torothex's memories, but gradually, in a process that had been completely voluntary at every step, he had come to accept Torothex's values over those that had once been his own. And yet, he felt that he had too many bad habits to ever be Torothex's equal. The incident with the assassin had shown that. The idea that he was surviving at Torothex's expense he found immensely sad.

'How ironic,' he thought, 'I can fulfill myself, I can _save_ myself, only by becoming someone else.'

He had covered the desk, and filled the room, with memorabilia of Torothex's life. He posted a "No Visitors" sign on the outside of his door, closed and locked it, and sat down at the desk. Then he turned off the protective spell that Kragendark had given him (he never accepted anything that he couldn't turn off). His own identity did not collapse. It was, after all, one with a very strong habit of survival.

He began to mutter to himself: "I am Agulinar Torothex. I am Agulinar Torothex. It is my body, after all. The Ling identity is just an interloper, foisted upon me by an evil magician. It is not a real person. Ling is dead. 777 destroyed him. Kragendark has forced my mind into a mold taken from a dead man. I will break this mold. Ling's memories are not mine, they have been added to mine from without. They are another source of knowledge for me, but that is all." Ling – or whoever it was – concentrated on Torothex's own memories, especially the most vivid ones, trying to lose himself in one.

Sometimes we are obsessed by troublesome, unwelcome thoughts: a lost love, a terrible fear, a recent humiliation. We keep trying to put them away from us, only to have them return. Gradually, however, they lose their force, and our attention goes elsewhere more and more. We win; but we are never aware of the exact moment of victory, for if there is such a moment, it consists precisely in that we are thinking of something else entirely.

Some time afterwards, something may remind us that once, we had been troubled by such thoughts. We run them over our mental palate and find that now, they are bland and harmless. In the same way, Torothex eventually noted that the copy of Ling, who had once possessed him completely, was now only a memory.
**********

"Marriage is often the end of dreams, and the beginning of reality."

( _The Book of Family_ )

Closeted in a locked room, high in one of Darestigan's spires, Ydnas and Brother Koof contemplated the P'Twism Dynasty ruby sculptures.

"They certainly are beautiful," said Koof, wistfully. Removed from their box and decompressed, the statues were six in number, each one made of translucent blood-red stone. All had intricate abstract shapes. They varied in height from five to eleven forearms.

"Beautiful, yes!" said Ydnas. "But that is incidental. These were the tools used by the P'Twism to construct, design, train, diagnose, repair, and transform the Ectoplasmic Reticulum."

"I suppose they could also be used to destroy it," said Koof, who immediately wondered _why_ he had said that.

"True," replied Ydnas, thoughtfully, "though it wouldn't be easy. The net protects itself and heals itself, and it is highly decentralized and redundant."

"That's good," said Koof, a bit lamely.

"Several prophecies say that these tools will end up in the hands of the Girl," continued Ydnas. "And, whether I am truly the Girl or not, I intend to make use of them."

"Yes, that's what Talek said," replied Koof, with a sigh. His hope of using them to get whole neighborhoods out of hock was evaporating. There were several breaths of silence.

"What do you intend to do with them?" asked Koof.

"I think," said Ydnas, "that I will make it a little harder to use the net for magical purposes. Nothing personal! Instead, I want to stress its educational abilities – to make a lot of information available to everyone, for free. I'm hoping to make available all the contents of the main library at the Great University at Ilusindane to anyone, free of charge. Githnis Ytrinduopf says the University will be happy to co-operate. Paintings, sculptures, plays, and musical performances can also be made to appear. Also, the net can be used as an abacus. In particular, I am going to make it easy for anyone to use the net to do budget research and development, environmental and social impact predictions, and the like, so as to help people see the consequences of actions they may be considering. I also hope that this could make it possible to have a budget for all of Kondrastibar."

Koof looked quite disturbed. "Are you opposed to decentralization, local control, and self-sufficiency?" he asked.

"Oh, no, not at all," replied Ydnas, "and even the Reticulum doesn't have the power to micromanage all of Kondrastibar. I had more in mind increasing our ability to _avoid_ centralization, and oppression, intended or unintended, by noticing when and how the activities of one neighborhood were profoundly affecting another. Also, if one neighborhood is having a crisis, a flood, for example, the web would make it easier for the others to co-ordinate aid.

"Ideally, each person and group could enter their needs and resources, their hopes and fears, and the reticulum would match them up, do simulations and projections, evaluate possibilities, suggest options, and so on, trying to help as many people as possible within ethical limits. And people could use it for communication, to discuss these things, even if they lived far away from each other. I am hoping that this will make it easier to direct resources and production, so as to do the most good, and to avoid unwanted side effects.

"That might significantly reduce the amount of irony in our lives, but I have discussed this with Talek, and he says that his Church will support our efforts. 'If there were a goddess of irony,' he said, 'I'm sure that she would see that an increase in the mere quantity of her power or influence would be pointless. What would be valuable would be to be able to direct her power toward doing good. What a superb irony it would be, if irony were eventually to destroy itself!' He says we're about to see some striking examples of that."

Koof nodded, sighed one last time, relaxed his posture, smiled the slightly grim smile of one who has accepted a disappointment, and stood up. "Well, good luck," he said. "I have to admit, your idea is better than mine. I didn't really have an idea about how to use them, I was just going to sell them for cash. Who knows what the purchaser would have done with them?" He shook his head. "I'm going back to the guest house, now."

"Thank you, Brother Koof," said Ydnas, smiling at him. "Have a good night!"

"You, too," said Koof, as he left. He made his way to Anandra's door, where he knocked gently.

Anandra answered the door quickly. "Oh, hello," she whispered, putting a finger to her lips. "Do come in!" Over her shoulder, Koof saw Kanior hovering in the air in his crib, sleeping; A'Obija had been correct in saying that he might develop paranormal powers. Anandra had fastened a sheet of cheesecloth over the top of the crib to keep him from drifting away altogether. She and Koof sat down together on the sofa.

"I've decided," whispered Koof. He couldn't resist teasing her a little bit by pausing, but the pause was very short. "I'm giving up burglary," he continued. "I want to be a family man!"

A broad smile worked its way over Anandra's face. Then she grabbed him, and began to rain kisses upon him.
**********

"Which is better: to find your self, or to lose it?"

(Anonymous)

Savril the Elder lay dying. Savril the Younger sat by him, gently stroking his head.

"I don't know ... whether I'm dying ... or not," said Savril the Elder.

"I know that part of _me_ is dying," said Savril the Younger.

"It doesn't ... really ... make any ... difference," said Savril the Elder. "I mean, whether ... I ... am dying ... or just ... part of me ... is."

"Everything changes,"

"Yes." There was a long pause. "Are you going ... to make ... another one ... of ... us?"

"Of course!"

Another pause. "I'm sorry to ... have ... burdened you ... with my ... flaws and ... limitations."

"Don't be silly," said Savril the Younger, looking at him with profound love and respect,

"There's no one I'd rather be."
**********

"Politics that is always official or theoretical

will never make contact with real life."

(Saint Sklort, Minister of Revolution under Tortil XIII)

It seemed like just another day. Soredab was going to market. It was drizzling, but she was dressed for it: her broad, conical hat, which she had made of overlapping leaves of the waxy _argulith_ plant, kept her head dry, and her light coat of raw wool, full of lanolin, did the same for the rest of her. Like most people, she was neither completely happy nor completely unhappy; the weather was dull and gray, but it was also the sparkling silver mist of fairy tales.

Another woman drew abreast of her; it was her neighbor, Melicin. "Good morning, Soredab!" said Melicin; her voice was a little more cheerful than usual. It made Soredab, too, feel more cheerful.

"Good morning, Melicin! May I join you?"

"Of course!"

They joined courses.

"So, how have you been, Melicin?"

"Oh, about the same, about the same."

As Soredab was about to reply, their attention was diverted by a strange sight: a young woman in a brilliantly colored dress was dancing down the street. Hatless, she spun, with bare arms bending like swans' necks, her smiling face beaming at the sky. Her long hair was soaked and plastered to her head and shoulders. Drops of water beaded her skin. From time to time, she would stop and close her eyes, apparently enjoying the feeling of the rain. Then she would give a little sigh of happiness. Approaching the two friends, she gave them a big smile and a friendly wave.

"It's a great day!" she called, and continued on her way.

"I think that's Odra Linikin," said Soredab. "I heard she's become a follower of the Girl of the Prophecies."

"Are they all crazy?" asked Melicin, looking over her shoulder and laughing.

"Why, Melicin," asked Soredab, in a tone of light surprise, "haven't you ever felt like dancing down the street in the rain?"

Melicin blushed. "Why, I suppose I have," she admitted, a little sheepishly, "but I was always too self-conscious!"

"Here," said Soredab, extending her hands. After a brief moment of puzzlement, Melicin's face lit up with a smile, slightly tinged by nervousness and surprise. She took her friend's hands in her own, and they danced a few circles around each other. For a moment it felt very uncomfortable, but they improvised a dance, and it became great fun. They continued until they were out of breath; then, laughing and panting at the same time, they detached one pair of hands and continued on their way.

When they had recovered their breath, Melicin asked, "Remember when we were in Little School, and we used to skip along together?"

"Yes, that was so much fun, let's do it!" They skipped along together for awhile, still holding hands.

"I'm out of breath," said Melicin, laughing and stopping.

"Me, too!" said Soredab. "It's harder when you're a grownup!"

"And wearing a backpack!" added Melicin, also laughing.

The light rain whispered around them.

"You know, Soredab," said Melicin, when she had caught her breath, "I know it's funny for me to say this out of nowhere like this, but I have always admired your children. What beautiful children they are! And I have always admired the way you raise them. What a good mother you are!"

"Why thank you, Melicin," said Soredab, very pleased. Melicin's voice had the ring of sincerity. Soredab felt a little less weight on her shoulders. "Your children are also beautiful, Melicin, and you too are a good mother!" _It is true,_ she thought to herself, _but how rarely we utter such truths! What mean-spirited god has possessed us, that we prefer to utter the sad truths instead of the happy ones?_

They resumed their walk, swinging their linked hands between them.

"Children are such miracles," said Melicin. "How can we not love them? Even though they are an ache in the head sometimes."

"So true," replied Soredab, nodding. "You know, seeing Linikin just now reminded me of a saying, supposedly from the Girl of the Prophecies. It goes, 'If you can only see them as they are, the things of everyday life are just as beautiful as jewels and gold.'"

"I feel that way sometimes," replied Melicin, nodding. She had heard that saying too.

They arrived at the marketplace. "Do you ever go to Yuligo's stall?" asked Melicin, not wishing to part from her friend.

"Yes," said Soredab, "let's go there first!"

Yuligo was an elderly man who sold root vegetables. He was struggling with one of the poles of his rain awning. The two women helped him to right it.

"Thank you, Ladies," he said, bowing slightly from the waist. "What can I get you?"

"The usual!" They both said it at once, and laughed as they handed over copper coins.

"Fresh out of the earth, this very morning," he said, as he always did, and quickly transferred produce into their backpacks.

"Oh, how good this looks," said Melicin. Yuligo looked pleased. They exchanged thanks and goodbyes, and the two women went their way.

_How happy they seem_ , thought Yuligo. He himself had a gnawing ache inside. So many things to worry about! The loss of the Balance, for one. The prophecies said it was about to happen. What would become of him and his family, if society fell apart? He had thought of digging, under the floor of his house, a secret cave in which his family could hide from rioters and looters. In his imagination, it extended well beyond the house, and had two air tunnels leading to opposite corners of the back yard, in case the house should be set on fire. But when would he have time for such a project, and how could he do it secretly?

Then, too, his wife was chronically ill. That was bad enough, but she had had to give up her job, and their budget had already been strained. Then, too, his older son, Karinil, had become silent and hostile lately. Yuligo feared that he had fallen in with bad company, but he dared not say anything. He loved Karinil so much that it hurt, but Karinil wouldn't give him the time of day.

"Yuligo?"

Yuligo jumped, and brought himself back to the market. It was Tarinith, a friend and customer. "I'm sorry," said Yuligo. "Off in a dream world."

"No difficulty," said Tarinith, handing over coins. "The usual, please. Something bothering you, Yuli?"

"Oh, you know," said Yuligo, with a wry smile, as he packed Tarinith's produce. "It's always a struggle."

"What do you need?" asked Tarinith.

"Eh?" said Yuligo, blinking.

"I'm sorry," said Tarinith, laughing at himself. "I mean, what are the problems you are struggling with? What would it take to fix them?"

Yuligo was taken aback. _What business is it of his?_ he thought. The fact was, Yuligo was ashamed of being in difficulty. He had always believed in self-reliance, and now he feared that he was failing at it. "Oh, nothing," he said, "just griping. One of the few pleasures left, at my age."

"I know what you mean," said Tarinith, smiling. He gestured at the busy market. "People are polite and cheerful on the outside, but I'll bet that lots of them are broken glass and caustic ash on the inside."

_Broken glass and caustic ash,_ thought Yuligo, _yes, that about describes it._ He felt sad and tired. He felt tears lurking around the edges of his eyes. He blinked them away.

"Yuligo?"

It was Tarinith, bringing him back again. He felt a little irritated at being caught a second time in reverie.

"Yuligo, for those who suffer, it is said that the path is still there, even in the dark."

That old saying! It had been a long time since he had first heard it. He had recently heard it attributed to the Girl of the Prophecies. _They believe what they want about her_ , he thought.

"Yuli, how about you pull down your curtain for a bit, and we will talk?"

"No, no," said Yuligo, almost in a panic. "I've got to sell! I need the money!"

"All right, my Yuli," said Tarinith. "But remember, I'm your friend!"

"Thanks, Tarinith; I'll be seeing you!" He said it deadpan, like a formality, but he felt a twinge of hope that Tarinith would take him up on it.

"You bet," said Tarinith. "Maybe this evening." Yuligo turned to another customer. Tarinith shrugged into his backpack and went his way. In fact, he knew something of Yuligo's troubles. _It's not right_ , he thought, _Yuligo is a good man; he means well, and he works hard. His life should not be so difficult_. _How could we fix that?_

A small group of brilliantly-dressed people came dancing through the market, tapping on tambourines and bells, and singing:

The Girl, the Girl, the Girl is here,

The Glorious Day is near!

The Girl, the Girl, the Girl is here,

The Glorious Day is near!

Different people reacted differently to them: some ignored them, some frowned, some laughed, some looked curious, some looked ambivalent, and some looked pleased. Of those who looked pleased, many waved to the singers, or sang along with them. Tarinith was among the ambivalent; he wanted desperately to believe in something, but life had disappointed him too many times to make it easy. As he stood and listened to their song fade away, he felt a restless mixture of sadness, shame, and a deep sense of loss as he remembered the disappointed idealism of his younger days. _Where did we go wrong?_ he wondered. _And is there a better way?_

Tarinith spotted his friend, Barindin, selling spices, incense, and perfumes. He knew that Barindin was secretly a member of the Dorbish Congregation, and he wondered if she could help Yuligo. But Yuligo would never accept a handout, and besides, not all his problems were money problems. Barindin had no customers at the moment, and Tarinith approached her.

"Barindin," he said, "I'm worried about Yuligo."

"Me, too," said Barindin. They quickly exchanged what they knew of Yuligo's difficulties.

"We need to get Yuli a better job," said Tarinith.

"Yes, but already, there aren't enough jobs to go around," said Barindin.

"How can that be?" asked Tarinith, puzzled. "There are people who need things and can't get them, and people who are willing to work, but can't find it. Why not put the unemployed people to work, making things that those people need?"

"That would be the logical thing to do," said Barindin, "but society is not logical. The people who need things don't have the money to buy them."

"Then the unemployed should make them, and give them away for free," said Tarinith. "They have the time. It certainly doesn't help anything to have them hanging around on street corners, ashamed and bored, and at great risk of getting involved in shady stuff."

"If they made something for free," said Barindin, smiling bitterly, "they'd be accused of competing with existing Commercial Orders. Undercutting their prices, and causing them to fail."

"Well, which is more important?" asked Tarinith.

"Excuse me," said Barindin, "I have a customer."

Tarinith waited until she was free, and then said, "They wouldn't be competing with existing commercial Orders, if they only gave to people who couldn't afford to buy."

"Handouts are not good for people," replied Barindin, "and a lot of them would be too proud to accept them, anyway."

"Well, then, hire _all_ the indigent, at a decent wage!" said Tarinith. "Then they'd be able to buy. Think of it this way: Society would say, 'you can work – you _must_ work, if you are able. We will help you to figure out what needs to be done, and train you if necessary. In return for your work, we will guarantee you an income that meets your basic needs.' If some Commercial Order can't make a go of it without paying their employees in dirt, maybe what they sell is just not that useful to people!"

"What if someone poor don't want to work?" asked Barindin.

"Then _draft_ them," said Tarinith. "Everyone has the right to work for a living, but no one has the right to be a parasite!"

Barindin smiled. "I like that idea, Tari," she said. "Maybe I can get hold of some start-up capital for you."

"For _me_?"

"Who else?"

"For what? I'm not poor."

"For you to use to establish an Order whose vocation is, to find vocations for the unemployed."

"I'm not society! I'm only one person!"

"Everything starts with just one person, Tari. It's a good idea! Convince others, and they will join you!"

"I've never organized anything like that!"

"Congratulations, Tari," replied Barindin, "you're about to learn something new! Besides, I'll help you. See, your membership just doubled! We'll both spread the idea around, and someone will appear to help you out."

"The Parish Council ..."

"May or may not end up agreeing with you, but they will certainly take a long, long time to come to a decision. I'd say, don't hide anything from the Council, but don't hand anything over to them, either! Found an Order of your own. If the council likes the idea, they will help you. If not, you won't have lost time waiting for their decision."

"Do you really think...?"

"Yes, Tarinith, I do!"

Tarinith paused, screwing up his face in concentration. He heard, in the distance the dancers, still singing about the Glorious Day. How happy they seemed, how optimistic! He realized that they had helped Barindin to melt a sliver of ice inside him. _What does it matter whether I succeed or fail,_ he thought. _The important thing is, that I tried to help people! When I am very old, I will know that._ Then he laughed and said, "I think I will! Thank you for your encouragement!"

"It was a pleasure, Tari!"

"Hey – maybe Yuligo will help me!"

"Wonderful idea! That would be perfect!"

After Tarinith left, Barindin felt a warm glow, even when the rain got heavier. Some Zillist wanderers passed through, ignoring the rain, their expressions serene, chanting softly:

He who clutches his life will lose it,

He who releases his life will save it, ...

As they passed him, Yuligo thought, _Maybe this idea of digging a cellar to hide in is clutching too hard at life._

Barindin had several customers after Tarinith, and then she saw her childhood friend Gwalinor approach, accompanied by a policeman. Barindin had felt a little strange around Gwalinor recently, because Gwalinor had inhaled the dust of Noganecir, and had become in many ways a very different person. Barindin was determined, however, to remain loyal to her old friend, and to continue the friendship, if at all possible.

"Gwalinor," she said, cheerfully, "how have you been?"

"Wonderful," said Gwalinor, with a radiant smile. But in fact, she looked a little malnourished, and her clothing was not really adequate to the weather. _Addicts don't take proper care of themselves_ , thought Barindin to herself. In fact, Gwalinor seemed to have lost interest in everything, except for Noganecir itself, and the Coming of the Lord that all the Children of Noganecir expected to happen, any day now.

"Barindin," said Gwalinor, "let me introduce Brother Jornincaa, of the Holy Order of Police." Barindin and the policeman exchanged pleasantries.

"Barindin," said Gwalinor, "have you ever considered selling Noganecir?"

Barindin gave a start. "No, I haven't," she said. "It's illegal, for one thing." _Of all the times to ask me,_ she thought, carefully _not_ glancing at Jornincaa. Not that she had any inclination to trade in Noganecir; she considered it a bad thing, although she didn't want to say that in front of Gwalinor.

Gwalinor gave her a smirking look that said, 'I'm sure that you, a member of the Dorbish Congregation, would never even _think_ of breaking the law!' Barindin found herself struggling to keep a straight face, since the Dorbish Congregation practiced counterfeiting to redress the balance between rich and poor.

Jornincaa cleared his throat. "As a matter of fact," he said, "the Parish Council and the local Holy Order of Police have decided that, since there is currently no cure, and since addicts die without the drug, it should be considered to be 'legal-with-restrictions,' as defined in Article 17,652, clause 17, of the Concordance of Ksilimu, 1427 ID. Otherwise, addicts are forced to enrich criminals, and very likely forced to turn to crime themselves. Under the new default, Noganecir could be sold by licensed merchants, but all sales would be logged, and made only to officially confirmed addicts, in single doses which would be inhaled on the spot, under observation by the merchant and one policeman. Only addicts, medical personnel, and certain police would have the hex to open a vial, and this hex would be non-transferable. Records and inventory would be audited frequently. Quality-control checks would be made frequently and randomly, to guard against adulteration. Merchants would receive a level-one telepathic scan every month, to verify that they were following the rules. Illegal possession, or introducing a non-addict to the drug, would be sufficient cause for a very long and stringent rehabilitation process."

Barindin thought for a moment. "I... I rather like that idea, actually. But... do you know Yuligo?" she asked. "He needs the money a lot more than I do."

Jornincaa thought for a moment. "I believe he does," he said, "but I don't think he'd be appropriate for something like this."

"No, I suppose not," said Barindin, sadly. She gave more thought to participating herself.

"Well, I'll consider it," she said, after a few moments, "but I would want an official document from the local Holy Order of Police, confirming that they consider it legal-with-restrictions, including a strict demonstration that the system I'd be using satisfies the requirements of Article and clause whatever-they-were."

"We will be pleased to supply it," said Jornincaa, with a smile, "and we will be happy to train you in its application." After exchanging a few more pleasantries, he went on his way. He knew that Barindin belonged to the Dorbish Congregation, and he enjoyed the irony of employing such a person; but in fact, she would be just the person to help keep the material safe from _unprincipled_ criminals.

He headed for Tsoringo's Tavern, becoming more alert as he approached, for there was often trouble there. _The god of liquor is a false friend_ , he thought. First he went to the back, looking around and poking in the garbage cans. Then he went around front, and, after covering his eyes for a few breaths, to get them dark-adjusted before he went in, he entered by the front door, pausing to look to both sides before stepping completely through. It was dark, quiet, and fairly empty. The usual hard-core drunks were sitting at the bar, already beyond conversation. 'Now _there's_ a drug that ought to be controlled,' thought Jornincaa, as he noticed his childhood friend Raniliss among them, his face flaccid with stupor. How vital Raniliss once had been!

Only one table was occupied, by two men that Jornincaa didn't recognize, in a far corner. Jornincaa stepped up to the bar and greeted Tsoringo. "How's business, Tsori?"

"Day follows day," said Tsoringo, with a shrug. "Season follows season."

"So it is," said Jornincaa, nodding. "Who are the fellows at the back table?"

"Don't know them," said Tsoringo. "Out-of-towners, I think."

"Thanks," said Jornincaa, and headed that way. The two men were examining some sheets of paper, which appeared to be crude maps.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said, as he approached, slowly and in a relaxed manner. They looked startled, and then muttered a return greeting, gathering their papers a little closer to them.

"I'm Deacon Jornincaa, from the local Holy Order of Police," he said.

"Please to meet you, Jor – ah, ..." replied the larger of two men. He had skin with the appearance of granite, and wiry, ash-gray hair. The other had dark blue skin, hair almost white, and delicate features.

"Jornincaa."

"Jornincaa. Yes. I'm Olindor, and this is Ilksikina. We're from Edgetown. Warm a chair?"

"Thanks," said Jornincaa, pulling a chair out well beyond the edge of the table, and sitting on the edge of it. "What brings you to our neighborhood?"

"We're looking for a friend who might have moved here," said Olindor. "His name is Alassa Chan Tin, from the Tubeworm Clan, out Tirinvi way. You know anyone by that name?"

Jornincaa thought for a moment. "Can't say as I do," he said, "but you might talk to Calinda, at the Chapel of Nutrition Parish House – she's known everyone around here, for years. And if she doesn't know, she can send you to Sinissa Chray Shein, an Elder of the local tubeworms."

"Thanks!" asked Olindor. "Would you tell me how to get there from here?"

Jornincaa gave directions. "I had a third cousin in Tirinvi," he added, "fellow by name of Tengar Tora. Was in the Sanitation Crusade. I don't suppose you know him."

"Afraid not," said Olindor, glancing quickly at his companion, who shook his head in the negative. "Sorry."

"No harm," said Jornincaa, shrugging, "just wondered. Well, you gentlemen have a good day, now." He stood.

"Thank you, and same to you," said Olindor. Ilksikina gave a nervous little smile and a nod.

After Jornincaa left, Ilksikina turned to Olindor with a distraught expression and whispered, "He's onto us!"

"No, he's just generally suspicious," said Olindor. "Being suspicious is his job – it doesn't mean he really suspects anything. He probably checks out every stranger he sees, lets them know they've been noticed. He learned nothing. And for sweet love's sake, Ili, relax, and get that guilty look off your face!"

"I can't relax," said Ilksikina, willing his face into a tense but otherwise nondescript expression. "I – I'm not cut out for this."

"Well, if you're going to fade, do it now!" said Olindor, looking concerned. "I can't have you fading in the middle!"

Ilksikina took a deep breath. "Olindor," he said, "isn't there another path for you?"

Olindor looked startled. "I've found my way," he said, with a touch of sadness. "You know me, Ili; I could never handle a regular job."

"How about being a private detective?"

Olindor smiled. "Yeah, I'd be good at that," he said, "but you know what would happen, Ili: sooner or later, I'd get fed up with some moron, and say something offensive, or I'd see something that seemed as though it needed doing and do it, without thinking, or something like that. Just the way I am, just the way I've always been." He sighed. After a moment's pause, he said, wistfully, "You would think that society would be made for people as they _are_ , not as someone figures they _ought_ to be." He looked angry for a moment, then shrugged it off.

"But you can tangle up crime, too," replied Ilksikina, "and the consequences will be much worse!"

"No, I won't," said Olindor. "That's just it, it's the fear of getting caught – it makes me very careful. I feel like I'm an animal in the jungle, always alert. Probably was, not too many lives ago. It's when I get bored that I get careless."

Frowning in frustration, Ilksikina beat on the table with his hand. "There's _got_ to be a better way!" he said.

Olindor looked at him fondly, but sadly. "If there was, Ili, don't you think I might have thought of it by now?"

Ilksikina knotted up his face and put his hands on his brow. "I'm trying to remember something," he said. "I remember thinking, 'That might be just the thing for Olindor!' Ah! Just a moment, I'll be right back!" He walked up to the bar and politely got Tsoringo's attention. "I heard something about a church," he said, "a church where the people, um, do things to help the poor. I can't quite remember the name of it. Do you know what I mean?"

Tsoringo gave him a curious glance. "Maybe you mean the, ah, the _Dorbish Congregation_?" he asked.

"Yes, that's it!" said Ilksikina, nodding happily. "Do you know where I can find one?"

"No idea," said Tsoringo, looking down. "You in town for long?"

"I might be," said Ilksikina. "Why?"

"Well," said Tsoringo, coming closer and lowering his voice, "they say that if you want to find the Dorbish, you have to let _them_ find _you_."

"Ah," said Ilksikina, with a grateful smile, "I guess I'll be around here until late this evening. Thanks!" He returned to his table.

Tsoringo polished glasses for awhile, and then went into the back, where he found his nephew, Felington. "Feli," he said, "I got a job for you – but it's top secret, understand? It involves Barindin."

Felington's eyes lit up. Like all the boys, he loved everything to do with Barindin, especially the secrecy. "I'll be careful, Uncle Tso," he said, eagerly. "Just tell me what to do."

"Just tell her to drift over to me on the green, right after Market," said Tsoringo. "The less people see you with her, or her with me, the better."

"I gotcha, Uncle Tso," said Felington, dancing with excitement. "I'll wait till the right moment, then sneak into her stall from the back."

"Good boy," said Tsoringo, affectionately ruffling his nephew's hair. From outside came the sound of singing.
**********

"A king is the servant of his people."

(Vlog the Merciless)

Hunselig stood in the main hall of his house. He supported himself on a walker, for his wound still throbbed. He addressed his assembled slaves.

"I am now officially freeing you," he said. "I have come to see that slavery is wrong. In fact, I have deeded to you all my possessions; this house is now yours. I also respectfully request that you allow me to serve you, for the rest of my days. This is not sufficient restitution for what I have done to you, but it is all I have to offer. Contrary to what I believed, I was never a rich man; I mistook an icon of Amakala for the goddess herself. I await your reply, if you have one."

An old man stood up and spoke. "We accept your offer," he said, "but you should understand that little has changed. You were never in charge here.

"In a family with small children, the parents look like servants and the children like masters. The children play fantasy games, while the parents deal with reality. The parents serve the children's every need; the children do little for the parents, beyond serving as objects of love and hope. All this is as it should be. But it is the parents who are really in charge, for they have understanding and responsibility. In the same way, it has always been we who washed you and dressed you and fed you, and who kept the house warm and in good running order, while you played at collecting trinkets with your friends."

Hunselig, who had expected gratitude and admiration, was stung by this response, but he pulled himself together and replied, "I understand, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

The old servant smiled. "This is a proud and happy day for us," he said, "for today you have taken a great step towards becoming a man." Suddenly, smiles blossomed on every face, and all the ex-slaves raised their hands in the air, wiggling their fingers in silent applause. Hunselig smiled and blushed, and felt tears running down his face.
**********

"Grace works slowly and in unexpected ways, but it works!"

(Iljie Kruvnen, _Experience Grace in 40 days or Less!_ )

Milliseek Seamstress entered the local grocery. It was a nice place to be; fragrant with food smells and conversations between friends. She filled her basket with produce, pausing from time to time to socialize, and then went to find Grallkin Grocer. "Hello, Grallkin," she said, smiling. He started to smile, and then looked at her in perplexity; there was something strange about her; she seemed uncharacteristically nervous. Everything was a bit strange these days; it made him feel tired and grumpy.

"Grallkin," said Milliseek, setting the basket down on his desk, "I've filled my backpack with produce from your shelves. I want to say that I really appreciate the care you take, getting good produce, keeping it clean, and setting it out properly."

"But – ?" asked Grallkin, raising his bushy eyebrows.

"But," continued Milliseek, blushing just a bit, "I've come to believe that buying and selling things is wrong. For the most part, at least. So I would like to just walk out of here without paying you for them. But if that will cause you pain, I won't."

"Well," he said, "I don't suppose as I'd mind, this once, if it's really important to you; but you sound as though it's a matter of principle you've come to."

"Well, it is," she replied. "I think we rely too much on money. Things should be distributed according to need. My family needs this food – you can see, I haven't taken anything fancy."

"Milliseek," he replied, looking her in the eye, "if people don't pay me for my goods, how am I supposed to buy more? And how am I supposed to support my family?"

"Well, the food magicians ought to give you stuff for free, too! And everything your family really needs, that should be free, too!"

" 'Ought' and 'should' won't stock my shelves, Milliseek!"

Milliseek looked embarrassed and thoughtful for a breath or two. Finally, she said, "Well, I'm sorry, Grallkin, I guess I didn't think it through. It's true, I can't in good conscience participate in a system I don't believe in. On the other hand, it would be wrong for me to injure _you_. You are not the system, you are Grallkin, the person I have known since I was a little girl, and always liked. As the Girl says, 'Our quarrel is not with flesh and blood, but with institutions.' So I will put these back, and I apologize for even _thinking_ of taking them without paying." She turned to go back the way she had come.

"But wait, Milliseek," said Grallkin, worriedly, "if you put those back, what is your family going to do for food?"

"I don't know," she said. "I'll think of something." _People are going crazy_ , thought Grallkin. _It's the Prophecies and their Girls_.

"Well, in the meantime, take those as a gift." _Think of your children, woman!_

She hesitated. "Are you sure, Grallkin?"

He let out an exasperated sigh, but he said, "Yes, I'm sure!" _One gift won't break me_ , he thought.

"Thank you, Grallkin," she said, smiling at him, and transferring the produce into her backpack.

**

Nidiami was the Supreme Savior of the Elubrican neighborhood. "Agitation and Civil Disobedience are strictly forbidden in this neighborhood," he declared, his dark brows beetling over his steady, ice-blue eyes, "especially when motivated by these Girl-of-the-Prophecies doctrines. Adherence to her views – whether attributed to her or not – will be added to the list of major thought-crimes. First offenders are to be beaten, second offenders are to be tortured at length, third offenders are to be killed. Suspects will be interrogated with telepaths, truth-drugs, torture, false friends – whatever it takes. Formal arrest and trial will not be necessary. The only exception is, when people from other neighborhoods are present. In that case, proceed with discretion and, if necessary, come back later."

His black-robed Patriarch of Police, already kneeling, prostrated himself, thereby promising obedience. The thought-crime laws were enforced with the aid of frequent interrogations of residents, often at random.

"We may, of course, come under pressure from outside," continued Nidiami. "We will deal with that in the usual way." Meaning lies, bribes, blackmail, threats, and assassinations. He glanced at his white-robed Matriarch of Image, kneeling, who then also prostrated herself. "There will be advantages," Nidiami continued, with a smile. "The rich will seek asylum here, and we will charge them dearly for it."

**

Grallkin Grocer's home was upstairs from the store. That evening, as he was eating supper with his wife, Khelist Fletcher, he said:

"It's been a strange day. For one thing, several people wanted to take food without paying."

"Did you let them?" asked Khelist.

"I made it a gift to the first two. But when a third showed up, within an hour of the first, I said no, from then on. There must have been about twenty, all told."

"Ah, that reminds me," she said. "Zib Carpenter came by and fixed the shed door."

"Oh, good," said Grallkin.

"But she wouldn't let me pay her," she said.

"Why not?"

"Said she was tired of doing things for money. Said she did it because it needed doing. Said it made her feel better to decide for herself what was the best use of her time, instead of letting money decide."

_People are going crazy!_ "What are her children supposed to live on?" he asked. He felt tired.

"She didn't say."

Grallkin sighed. "I'll find a way to give her the same amount in groceries," he said, "or maybe I can give it to her consort. But I hope people will come to their senses soon."

**

Tercitale quickly looked away, but it was too late. He had seen the graffito on the sidewalk: " **Torimonth 1: all together!** " He turned his mind elsewhere, a skill learned well by everyone in Elubrican, the neighborhood dominated by Nidiami. Such graffiti were everywhere, recently, written by outsiders, no doubt. Tercitale resented that; they were going to get people in trouble. Once again, he turned his mind away, this time successfully.

Mentrikar, the Patriarch of Police, was allowed to think about such things. He saw the graffiti as incitement to revolution, and he gave standing orders to paint them over immediately, to forbid anyone (except police and relevant officials) to read or discuss them, and to arrest and interrogate anyone caught making one.

As he explained to Nidiami, he was not terribly worried. Most inhabitants of Elubrican didn't even know what a revolution _was_. Besides, most of them could not read.

**

Grallkin called on Serex, the Abbot of _Miracle Foods_ , the source of most of Grallkin's produce. "Serex, I've got a problem."

"What's that?"

"There are a lot of Followers of the Girl in my neighborhood. They won't pay me. They think they should get the food for free."

"There's no such thing as free," replied Serex. "Everything takes resources."

"I agree," said Grallkin, "but it's no use arguing with them. I've tried."

"Let their stomachs do the arguing," said Serex.

"Some of these people have babies and children, Serex."

Serex looked frustrated and sad. "It's a terrible thing, Grallkin," he said. "People are full of crazy ideas, what with the Prophetic Times ending, and all these girls – all manipulated by adults, surely – claiming to be the Girl of the Prophecies. But if the system breaks down, then lots of people will go hungry, whether they believe in this stuff or not. If we have to go out of business, you and I, where will they get food from? You will not be helping anyone in the long run, Grallkin, by being easy on these people. If they are crazy enough to starve their own kids, why then, the kids should be put in foster care, until their parents get their heads working right."

"These are not just deadbeats, Serex," protested Grallkin. "These are people I respect. I don't want them to lose their children!"

"If they choose not to pay, they're deadbeats, Grallkin! Maybe they weren't always deadbeats, but they are now. These are crazy times, but that is only all the more reason for you and me to act as sanely as we possibly can. And sometimes, true compassion means being tough. I know you'd like to protect them from the consequences of their actions, but you can only do so much! You're going to have to draw the line eventually; it might as well be drawn at the beginning, while the problem is still small!"

"Yes, ..." said Grallkin, "but ..." Serex was just talking common sense; the common sense that Grallkin had proudly relied upon all his life. He felt that to abandon it would be to let himself be sucked into the whirlpool of madness that was taking all his friends, one by one ...

**

"Hello, Norgis!"

"Why, hello, Alisim! How are you?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, Norgis; that's why I'm here. I have heard that you are among those who oppose the use of money."

"Well, yes, I am, Alisim!"

"What about the two hundred and thirteen Kalinas you owe me?"

"Ah! I hadn't thought about that, Alisim!"

"How convenient for you!"

"Oh, Alisim, that was not my motive!"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Hmm ... I will get you the two hundred and thirteen Kalinas!"

"If you wait just a little bit longer, Norgis, that will be easy, for the money will have lost all its value."

"Well, let me do some extra work for you, then."

"What I want you to do, is to stop advocating against money!"

"I'm sorry, Alisim, I can't do that. It's a religious matter."

"I have debts of my own, Norgis! There is a mortgage on my house, and on my factory!"

"We will find you a place to live, Alisim. As for the factory, let them take it if they want! One less responsibility for you!"

"Have you gone crazy, Norgis?"

"I don't think so, Alisim. Perhaps I have, though. Time will tell, I suppose. But you know, I don't think your creditors will want to keep your house very long, when they discover that they can't sell or rent it. Or the factory, when they discover that they can't sell the products!"

"Oh, so when it is no longer of any value, they will give it back to me! That is a great comfort, Norgis."

"So if your factory didn't make any money, it would have no value for you?"

"Of course not!"

"Don't you think it fulfills a genuine need in our community?"

"I suppose so, but what's important to me is, that it happens to be my sole source of income."

"You don't enjoy managing the factory? It is not fulfilling?"

"No, Norgis, it is my _work!_ "

"Then you are in the wrong job, Alisim! Give it up, and find work that you love!"

"Norgis," said Alisim, "you are crazier than a snake with its brain in backwards!"

**

" **Torimonth 1: all together**." Derenize saw the graffito, and turned his mind away. He was illiterate, and could not read it, but it had been explained to him that it was wrong to pay attention to such things or to discuss them, except to turn in someone he saw making one. Before he could turn his mind completely, though, he had two thoughts: first, the thought that it must have been made by someone hostile to the rule of Nidiami; and secondly, the thought that there was an irony in the situation: if the police had not explained to him that such things were forbidden, he would never have taken any notice of it.

**

Milliseek Seamstress entered the grocery, spotted Grallkin, and began to walk toward him. He turned away.

"Grallkin?" she said. He quailed a little; he didn't want to deal with her. But he turned to face her.

"Yes, Milliseek?" She looked as though she had lost a little weight. He wondered about her children. _Her fool of a husband must have gone crazy, too!_

"I heard that you went to talk to someone at _Food Miracles_ the other day."

"Yes. I told him about your concerns."

"And?"

"He was not receptive."

Milliseek nodded sadly. "Thanks for trying," she said.

"Well," said Grallkin, "I can't say as I blame him. It takes labor and materials to grow vegetables, Milliseek."

"I understand," she said, and left him.

That evening, Grallkin's wife said, "Zaril Baker came by with the week's bread. But he wouldn't take anything for it."

"From now on," said Grallkin, "I say we don't accept anything from anyone, if they don't let us pay for it. And we don't give a job to anyone, unless they promise to accept payment for it. A reasonable payment."

His wife looked sad. A chill went down his spine. _Sadistic snake sex_ , he thought, _don't tell me_ _she's_ _picking up these crazy notions, too!_

Divining his thoughts, as she often did, she said, "I just feel sorry for them, is all."

"I'm proud of you for that," he said, smiling affectionately, and reaching out and taking her hand.

**

"Grrna," said the Patriarch of Police in the Indibilish neighborhood, speaking to one of his disciples, "I'm afraid I have an unpleasant job I need some help with. You know Caribil and Scorendip, on Acorn Avenue?"

"Yes, Patriarch," said Grrna.

"Under the influence of the local Girl, they are refusing to pay for food, but they don't have another source. They and their children are beginning to show signs of malnutrition. I have warned them, but they will not bend. I'm afraid that we will have to take their children and put them in foster care."

"It'll be hard to bring myself to do that," said Grrna, sadly.

"I understand your reluctance, Grrna," said the Patriarch, "but the fact is, that malnutrition in childhood can lead to lifelong deficits, including permanent brain damage. Caribil and Scorendip can have their children back as soon as they are willing to treat them right. We must have faith in ourselves, and hope that some day, they will understand."

"Taking children from their parents is a hard thing," said Grrna, "and Caribil and Scorendip are old friends whom I respect, in spite of their recent eccentricities. Let us find food to take to them. I can purchase a certain amount, myself."

"You are a good-hearted man, Grrna," said the Patriarch, smiling sadly, "but in the end, you and I cannot support them all. And that is not our role, anyway."

"You are also a good-hearted man, Patriarch. Like you, I want to see the children fed. Like me, you want to spare the children the anguish of being separated from their parents. Let's work together. Besides, Caribil and Scorendip are not the only ones going crazy. How many sane foster parents will we be able to find?"

The Patriarch winced. "I think that more will volunteer now," he said, "knowing there is a special crisis, but yes, there might be a shortage ... what are we going to _do_ , Grrna?"

"Let's buy some food for Caribil and Scorendip," said Grrna, "and then go down and talk to the followers of the Girl."

The Patriarch noted that his disciple had taken the lead in this conversation. _Well, that's the goal, isn't it?_ he thought, _for him to learn to deal with things on his own?_

**

The policeman Elaticret saw a new graffito. It read, " **Nidiami is a divine being.** " He was perplexed; he was supposed to paint over all graffiti immediately, but he hesitated to paint over one that had Nidiami's name in it, much less one that praised him. Could this be part of a counter-campaign? He hastened to consult his local Shepherd, only to find the Shepherd equally unwilling to take responsibility for such a decision. In this fashion, the question made its way up the chain of command, from many places in the Elubrican neighborhood, all the way to the Patriarch of Police; the answer returned was, "Leave them alone; in fact, protect them. Our line will be that even Nidiami's enemies come to praise him in the end."

**

"Grallkin," said his wife, "someone fixed the gate."

"Someone?" he asked.

"I don't know who," she said. "They must have come while I was out."

He sighed. _I will do something for some follower of the Girl,_ he thought.

**

Serex, the Abbot of _Miracle Foods,_ stood reverently before the altar of Ixo Tilar, goddess of Agriculture. Monks and apprentices stood behind him. Sprinkling himself with Rainwater, he said, "Most Holy and Revered Goddess, I am here to confess. I have lost my way." He paused to contemplate the statue of the Goddess. As usual, she was shown holding a full basket of fruits and vegetables. A generous smile lit up her simple features. She held the basket out from her body, as if handing it to someone.

_She gives_ , he thought, _she does not sell._

"More and more of my vicars," he went on, "are finding that their flocks refuse to pay. And some of my vicars have come to be in sympathy with this idea."

Suddenly he realized, with a touch of despair, that he already knew the answer. _A cucumber vine does not grow on money, nor does money grow on vines_. But he continued to speak, for the sake of form, or for the sake of those within hearing, perhaps. Or perhaps in the hope that the answer would change.

"My first response," he continued, "was to insist on payment. But now it appears that many vicars will then go bankrupt, for many in their flocks refuse to pay. In this case, who will distribute food to the hungry, even to those who are willing to pay? And, are we to stand by while people starve?

"Great Goddess," he continued, "it was never our main purpose to make money. Wealth was never your attribute. According to scripture, your nature is one of pure generosity. What plant has ever asked for money for its fruit? What have the sun and the rain asked from the plant? As for your devotees, our function has always been, to be the instrument of that generosity. We used money because everyone else did, and because it seemed to give us a magical way of reckoning everything, without having to know everything." _Without knowing much at all_ , he thought.

"But now, the god of money appears to be losing his power. Should we resist this change, or should we seek a new form of guidance? Is there such a new form waiting to be found? It is beyond us to answer this question by ourselves, and so we seek your aid."

The statue neither moved nor spoke. The Goddess simply stood there, eternally smiling, eternally offering her bounty. _For nothing._

**

In the Elubrican neighborhood, yet another graffito appeared.

This one said, " **No violence against police!** " Mentrikar hesitated, but finally, he ordered it to be wiped out.

**

In the Indibilish neighborhood, the Patriarch of Police, and one of his disciples, Grrna, were arguing with Glock, one of the followers of the Girl, about the refusal to purchase food.

"I don't understand," said Grrna. "You people seem terribly idealistic, and yet your policies are resulting in the malnourishment of children, and you know this very well."

"Our society can easily produce enough food for these children, and deliver it to them," replied Glock, "and we advocate doing so. We have never blocked the path of anyone carrying food to a child. Quite the contrary, my friend Gronom attempted, the other day, to take food to a child, but he was arrested, by one of your people, and the food was returned to the store."

"I know the incident you are referring to," said the Patriarch of Police. "He was arrested because he took the food without paying."

"So," replied Glock, "you have certain rules restricting the delivery of food to children; you enforce those rules by the threat of violence and imprisonment. We have no such rules, we are committed to non-violence, and we attempt to deliver food to hungry children, only to be stopped by you. Why then are _you_ accusing _us_ of starving them?"

"Because your actions will, indirectly, result in the denial of food to children," said the Patriarch. "When food is removed from the store without payment, the Grocer is unable to buy more."

"So," replied Glock, "you also have certain rules restricting how food goes from the producer to the grocer, and you threaten to arrest anyone who breaks them. These rules are now functioning to prevent grocers, from receiving food. Why is that _our_ fault? We have never stood in the way of anyone taking food from a producer to a grocer. Members of your order, however, arrested a member of the Church of Rationality, three days ago, for trying to do exactly that."

"That was another case of theft," said Grrna.

"That is to say," said Glock, "that he was breaking your rules."

Grrna was silent, looking frustrated. The Patriarch said, "You have to look at the wider context, Glock. You see the rules as restrictive, but, paradoxical as it may seem, it is precisely these restrictions that make our economic system possible. And that system, in turn, makes possible a very decent life for a great number of people."

"So by starving a few children, we make it possible to feed others?"

"Well ... the system has flaws, yes."

Glock shook his head. "A god that requires human sacrifice is not a beneficent god, Patriarch."

"The system does force us to stand by and watch unpleasant things happen, sometimes," the Patriarch replied, "but it works, because it requires exchange. If someone could satisfy all their needs just by walking into stores and taking whatever they wanted, who would ever work? So we require them to work in order to get their food."

"Are you saying, Respected Patriarch, that if children were starving, you wouldn't do anything to help them, unless you were sufficiently paid to do so?"

The Patriarch's face reddened a little. "Well ... the Church supports me, and if She didn't, I wouldn't be able to help anyone. And if I didn't do my job, She would cease to support me. It's the same with Grrna here. Look, the human condition is just tragic, in certain ways. We're just doing the best with it that we can. Everyone's selfishness is balanced out by everyone else's. It's rather elegant, in a way: ugliness transforming itself into beauty."

"Forgive me, Patriarch, but you didn't really answer my question."

"Well," said the Patriarch, a little irritated at the way Glock was focusing on him as an individual, "certainly, I would do something if I could, without great pain and sacrifice. But I am not going to let you shame me into pretending that I am better than I am. I put the majority of my life's energy into my own comfort and safety, and into the comfort and safety of my close relatives. Besides, I am ... not the only kind of person who exists. There are those who have the wealth to save thousands of children, and do not. There are those whose source of income comes directly from harming others. Most humans are very far from being saints, Glock!"

Glock, noticing the Patriarch's irritation, knelt and bowed his head in apology. "I am sorry, Patriarch, for making a personal issue of it. I hope you can forgive me."

The Patriarch was even more taken aback by this action, but he shook his mind free of the distractions, like a dog shaking water off itself. "Well," he said, "technically, I suppose, you should be able to ask any relevant question, and you should be able to use anyone as an example. From the practical point of view, however, a person with whom you are discussing something will find it easier to remain clear and logical if they are not made to feel defensive."

"I understand," said Glock, nodding, "and I will not pursue that line of questioning any further."

He returned to his seat, and continued:

"Now, you suggest that – I mean, it is claimed that, in order to get everyone to do their fair share of the world's work, we should make up rules that say: you can only get food for money, and you can only get money for work. And the fact that this gets lazy people to work justifies the unfortunate side-effects that such rules have."

"Yes, something like that."

"But why must we be so indirect? If our goal is that everyone should do their share of the world's work, why not just make a rule that _everyone has to do their share of the world's work_?"

The Patriarch hesitated for a moment. "Well," he said, "who is to determine what is a person's share?"

Glock nodded. "A most reasonable and important question." _He's patronizing me_ , thought the Patriarch. "I can think of two possibilities," continued Glock. "One is, that the decision as to what is to be expected of a person belongs to that person himself, except that it may be overridden by his community, by his friends and family, by the people who know him well, if they think he has gone wrong. The other is that the decision is to be turned over to a mechanical, arithmetical rule, which knows nothing of individuals and their abilities and situations. Which do you think would be better?"

The Patriarch frowned, but said nothing.

"You are correct," continued Glock, "that many people appear to be without much compassion. But is our system of money and property a brilliantly ironic _adaptation_ to this situation, as you suggest, or is it a _cause_ of it? You speak of people who have vast wealth and employ it selfishly; but no one could have such wealth, if it were not for our system of money and property. No one could pick enough berries, or chop down enough trees, to establish vast personal wealth, especially if there were no social prohibition against others simply taking what they need from the resulting heap. A handful of metal disks confers terrific power on its possessor, only because _we arrange it so_. Muggers assault people because they can then extract such coins from their wallets. Burglars steal famous paintings because they can exchange them for a great deal of money. But only a starving man would steal a fish or a loaf of bread, and frankly, I wouldn't normally see that kind of theft as a terrible problem.

"From childhood, Patriarch, we are taught that if you want something large to be done, however noble it may be, you will almost always require money, or coercive power, or both, in order to do it. And when we look at the world, these claims seem to be borne out. Is it surprising that people become infatuated with wealth and power? We are taught just what you told me a few breaths ago, Patriarch, that the system we have is, for all its flaws, nevertheless the ideal system, _just because_ it is based on selfishness. Then if there is suffering under an ideal system, this much suffering must be inevitable; it must be, as you suggested, part of the human condition, the result of an unchangeable, tragic flaw in human nature. Is it surprising, then, that people despair, and that their idealism withers away, or confines itself to minor reforms? Consider again the two people we mentioned before: Gronom and the fellow from the Church of Rationality. They were both actively trying to supply people with resources, knowingly risking punishment in order to do so, and both of them were in fact prevented from doing so, and punished for the attempt. Is it surprising that most people resign themselves to being selfish, when they are forbidden to give to anyone anything that they have not previously had to earn themselves? And that is exactly the way the system is _supposed_ to work, is it not? Before you blame human nature for people's lack of compassionate action, you should consider whether it might be not human nature, but _our system,_ that is responsible for this.

"It is all built on lies, Patriarch! It is a lie that a little disk of metal, which no one is allowed to work into anything useful or ornamental, is more valuable to humanity than a fresh tomato. It is a lie that we can just _declare_ something to be valuable, or that a person can improve his state of being, without improving his health, his competence, or his character, by getting someone else to write down a string of numbers in a certain place. It is a lie that by writing someone's name on something valuable, we make it all right for that person to waste it, should he be crazy enough to do so. These are all lies, and lies corrupt."

Grrna and the Patriarch looked at each other in shock and confusion. Being old friends, they could communicate a great deal with a glance. _This man is crazy_ , said the Patriarch's glance. _Brilliant, articulate, but utterly deluded. A fanatic._

_Well, we tried_ , replied Grrna's grimace.

**

In the Torlash neighborhood, the followers of the Girl came together for a meeting. The meeting had hardly begun, however, when policemonks burst into the room, followed by a Curate. "On the floor! On your bellies!" shouted the Curate.

Everyone complied. The policemonks spread themselves throughout the room.

The Curate paced back and forth for awhile, striking his steel-tipped quarterstaff loudly against the floor at random intervals.

"Who's the leader here?" he demanded.

"We have no leader," said someone.

"Stinking liar!" said the Curate, savagely. "Very well, I'm appointing _you_ the leader," he said, prodding an adolescent girl in the side with his boot. "You, get up! _Just this one!_ "

She got up. " _Kneel!_ " She knelt. Like the others, she wore only a simple shirt and trousers of unbleached linen. Her hair was cut short. She looked terrified.

"What's your name, Child?"

"Dijeena, Holy Curate."

"Who is the leader here?"

She began to tremble. "We don't have one, Curate! I swear it, on the name of Azarili!"

He backhanded her to the cheek. "Well?" he demanded. Tears flowed, but she remained silent, her cheek glaring red.

"Whoever your leader is, is a coward!" snarled the Curate, addressing the entire room. "Leaving this girl to take the punishment in his place!"

"There is no leader," said an older man, "but I will take her place, if you wish." A flurry of similar offers fluttered through the room.

" _Be quiet!_ " roared the Curate. They were.

"You're all worshippers of the Girl of the Prophecies, aren't you?" demanded the Curate.

"We d-don't worship her, Holy Curate, we j-just agree with what she says," said Dijeena.

"Do you know how many there are, that claim to be the Girl?" demanded the Curate. "I have heard of twelve! In all of Kondrastibar, then, there must be thousands! At most one of them can be the true one – if there _is_ a true one. There may not be - you know that many of the prophecies have failed, one way or another!"

"It is not who says it, that makes it believable, Holy Curate," replied Dijeena. "We have thought about it, and discussed it, and it rests comfortably in our hearts!"

"From what I have heard, it is a recipe for chaos!" roared the Curate.

"We think it is putting _humans_ in charge," said Dijeena.

"In defiance of the gods?"

"In defiance of the _parasitic_ gods," replied the girl.

"Back on your belly, girl!" roared the Curate. Turning, he nudged a strong-looking young man with his foot. "You! Kneel!" Trembling, the man rose into a kneeling position. _Maybe I can needle him into attacking me_ , thought the Curate.

**

Vortrand opened the door, to find several of his friends standing on the porch. His heart sank.

Frollock, one of his friends, said, "Hello, Vortrand, may we come in?"

"Sure," said Vortrand, his tone a little dispirited. "May Comfort be with you in the living room, please."

Tellinck, one of the group of arrivals, was carrying a box. "We brought some _Basswood Mead_ ," he explained, with a mock-evil grin.

"Ah," said Vortrand, with raised eyebrows, a nod of appreciation, and a smile. Internally, he was nervous. Basswood was known to be his favorite. _They are loosening me up for something._ He handed out mugs, and his friends sat down and poured for themselves.

"Worry is possessing us about you, Vortrand," said Frollock, when they were all settled. "You don't seem to be _doing_ much of anything, yes?"

"No, I guess not," said Vortrand. He shrugged, but there was a hint of a cringe in it.

"Well, is Happiness with you?" asked Frollock.

Instead of answering this question, Vortrand said, "Does Anger drive you here because I haven't been working?"

"Partly that," said Frollock. "Can we still be friends?"

**

Incense tinted the air. The chorus sang the final bars of the cantata, rising to a rich climax and falling silent. Ilstinia Karishilia, the High Priestess of the Bank of Streling, ascended the pulpit. Her stern, narrow face, which had unofficially been likened to an old, chipped hatchet blade, was surrounded by the glowing, golden nimbus that showed her rank. The network of lines on her features spoke of age, wisdom, and discipline. After leading a short prayer, she began to address the assembly. Sre Lugu listened closely.

"We are in a state of crisis," she began. "I mean not only this branch, but the entire Bank of Streling, and other banks, and indeed all financial institutions in Kondrastibar, from as far as I have been able to get word.

"Many people are refusing to honor money, and it is losing its value. We are on the verge of a profound depression."

"They are saboteurs!" someone yelled, angrily, from the back. Others joined in. "They are thieves! They are parasites! They are agents of the Hidden One!"

"Just so!" shouted someone else. "They must be imprisoned, or somehow prevented from spreading their lies!" Several people began to chant: "Sa-a-ave money! Sa-a-ave money! Sa-a-ave money! Sa-a-ave money!"

Ilstinia straightened up, glaring at the audience. " _Quiet!_ Am I the High Priestess of this bank, or not?" she demanded, in a voice that cracked like a whip. She reached behind her head, as if to unplug her golden nimbus.

"Yes, of course, you are, yes, you are, certainly, your Holiness, yes," answered the great majority of all voices. _We are not all hysterical yet_ , thought Sre Lugu. He himself was quite calm, even amused. Silence returned.

"You will be quiet, then," the High Priestess said sternly, returning her hands to her sides, "until you have heard what I have to say! If there is disagreement, we will then rationally assay various proposals, placing the advantages in one column, and the disadvantages in the other. I will, however, take questions of clarification from those who raise their hands."

The audience was quiet. No one had a question. "The current state of affairs should remind us, that money has no intrinsic value," she continued. "It is mortals who give it value, and we can refuse to do so. It is only a means to an end. The true value of what is done in a bank does not lie in money." A gasp of confusion and disbelief passed through the crowd. She cleared her throat, eyes flashing, and silence ruled once more. "Our work currently takes the form of monetary transactions," she continued, "but it could take another form." Another murmur was quickly choked off by her glare.

"Take Srea Talu, here, for example," she said, gesturing at one of the loan officers. "What does he do? By granting a loan, he gives someone the power to do what otherwise, he could not. And how does Srea Talu decide whether to grant the loan? He considers legality, morality, and prudence. What does prudence mean here? It means that the person who gets the loan must have a good chance of being able to pay it back. So Srea Talu must be very good at predicting which enterprises will succeed, and which will fail. And of course he is, for he has studied such matters closely for a long time, and he has a talent for them. Now, even in a society without money, judgment in such matters will be necessary; otherwise, resources and opportunities will be wasted. What Srea Talu and his co-workers will have to do, is, to find other ways to apply his skill."

"Or," she continued, "let us take Srea Gila, here, an investment counselor. He suggests to people how to invest their capital. What makes him worthy of this job? The fact that he has the knowledge and skill to discern which, among existing projects, if given more resources, will produce still more resources."

"And what about Sre Lasa, who invests money from savings accounts? He does essentially the same thing: He conducts research, and he invests in projects that he thinks are likely to succeed. That is the main function of a bank: to figure out which projects will succeed and which will fail; or, more precisely, which will be most worthy of the resources put into them. Now, there are many specialized skills relating to that, such as research and accounting, and many of us focus on such things. But they are not the central theme."

Someone in the audience raised his hands, thumbs interlinked. "Yes, Srea Tela," said Ilstinia.

He stood, a short, bald, and rotund man. "Forgive me, Holy Priestess, but it seems to me that anyone could have these skills. What makes us a bank is, that we _actually do invest_ in significant projects, or recommend to others that they do so. But without money, how can anyone invest in anything?"

"In one way you are right, Srea Tela; we do invest, but we will continue to do so, even without money." Perplexity buzzed around the room again, but went to silence quickly when Ilstinia frowned.

"You have a garden, do you not, Srea Tela?" she asked.

"Yes, I do," replied Srea Tela.

"And you put a certain amount of work into it, don't you, tilling, fertilizing, planting, weeding, and the like?"

"I do."

"Do you ever put coins, or bills, or ledger sheets, or little bits of Ytterbium into the soil of your garden, Srea?" A bit of laughter rippled around the room, until Ilstinia's eyebrow choked it off.

"No, Holy Priestess!"

"But you did _invest_ something in it, Srea. You invested time, energy, skill, and materials into it. And all that money does, in the end, is to serve as a kind of automatic abacus for correlating different people's time, energy, skill, materials, and a few other things, like risk. All of which contribute to _cost_ and _value,_ two very different things. Now, what an investment banker does is, to say to someone, that a project is or is not worth the resources that would have to be put into it. Money is a tool that helps us to measure these resources, but ultimately, it is not one of them, or at least, not an important one. It is a symbol, a counter, an abacus bead, a proxy, an image, a ghost."

"I see, Holy Priestess; thank you!" Srea Tela, prostrating himself briefly, and taking his seat.

"Think of us as advising society as a whole," Ilstinia continued. "Society has certain goals. Society wishes to invest resources, in order to reach those goals. We study, we ponder, we advise, based on our expertise. 'If you do _this_ ,' we say, ' _this_ will probably happen.' This is what we will still do, in the New Balance: study, ponder, and advise. But we will be able to do it much more intelligently, when we think about the consequences ourselves, than when we let the money do our thinking for us."

**

In the Indibilish neighborhood, the Patriarch of Police was speaking to his disciple Grrna about parents who would not buy food for their children.

"Well, we tried talking to them, Grrna," said the Patriarch, "and it didn't work. Now we're going to have to put Caribil and Scorendip's kids into a foster home."

"I'll take care of it," said Grrna, with a sigh. "Let's see, where's my list of possible families ... here we are ... Fremindeeb and her husbands said that they would be willing."

"Wait a moment," said the Patriarch, frowning. "I'm pretty sure that Fremindeeb is a follower of the Girl."

"She wasn't when I interviewed her, last Forint's day," said Grrna.

"No, she was converted a few days ago. So, she may not be getting food either. In that case, putting the kids with her would be rather pointless."

"All right, let's see who else I've got – how about the Carmilin sisters?"

"Ah, yes, I know them. Fine people. Very stable. They'd be good, I think."

"All right. I'll double-check with them, and if they are still willing, so it shall be."

**

In the Torlash neighborhood, at the interrupted meeting of the Followers of the Girl, the Curate of Police scowled at the trembling old man who knelt before him.

"Your name?"

"Zakiril, Holy Curate."

"Whom do you worship?"

"I worship Amakala, Holy Curate, and Zarlik-yil, the tutelary god of my clan, the Sheep Clan."

"Do you worship the Girl of the Prophecies?"

"No, Holy Curate. It is as Dijeena said."

"So you subscribe to the Girl's ideas?"

"For the most part, Holy Curate."

"Do you refuse to use money?"

"Not absolutely, Holy Curate."

"But for the most part?"

"Yes, Holy Curate."

"And do you also deny – for the most part – Property?"

"Yes, Holy Curate."

"And do you also deny – for the most part – the use of rewards?

"Yes, Holy Curate."

"And do you also deny – for the most part – Authority?"

"Only coercive authority, Holy Curate. I accept authority based on knowledge, skill, character, dedication, opportunity, or talent."

"And do you also deny – for the most part – the use or threat of violence?"

"Yes, Holy Curate."

"Well, then, listen to me, all of you!" said the Curate, raising his voice and looking around. "Know that there is a new law in this neighborhood, and in many others: anyone who denies, or encourages others to deny, entirely or for the most part, either Money, or Property, or duly constituted Authority, or the proper use of coercion and reward by agents of duly constituted Authority, is committing a crime."

"Then," said the old man, "we are all under arrest."

"No," said the Curate, looking beneficent, "I am letting you off with a warning this time. But if I hear anything more, I will indeed have no choice but to arrest you!"

"Forgive me, Holy Curate," said the old man, "but if we are breaking the law, is it not your duty to arrest us now?"

" _Don't you tell me my job, you tick vomit!_ " shouted the Curate, slapping him across the face. The old man fell over backwards.

"Holy Curate!" said one of the policemonks, in a tone of shock.

The Curate spun around to face him, glowering. " _What?_ "

"Ah – nothing, Holy Curate," said the monk, looking contrite. "I'm sorry to've interrupt' you."

The Curate scanned the faces of all the monks. Several of them failed to meet his eyes. He thought for a couple of moments.

"All right," he said, gruffly. "We're through here! Let's go!"

They exited the apartment, ran down the stairs, and left the building. They had almost reached the end of the block, when one of their rearguard called out, "Behind us!" Turning, the others saw that the believers in the Girl had also emerged from the building, and were following them.

"Halt! Defensive rear line!" commanded the Curate, and the policemonks quickly fell into formation.

The believers also halted. "We are not going to attack you," one of them called out. "We don't believe in violence. We're going to turn ourselves in!"

"I told you," said the Curate, angrily, "that was only a warning!"

"We understand," said another one of the believers, "but we didn't stop. We continued advocating all those things!"

The Curate's jaw dropped for a moment; then, suddenly, he clamped it shut, and then relaxed it enough to say, "To each other? That doesn't count!"

"All right," said yet a third believer, "we'll go advocate them in some public place, and if nobody arrests us, we'll turn ourselves in then."

_Hypocritical leech vomit_ , thought the Curate. _You know very well that there's not enough space in the whole Cathedral of Rehabilitation, for all the followers of the Girl! Even if we chuck out the child molesters and thieves!_

**

"Zoff?" said Calcadro, softly.

"Yes, Noble Lady," replied Zoff, weakly, opening his eyes. He tried to stand, but his nurses restrained him. He was a mass of bandages.

"Please lie comfortably, noble warrior," said Calcadro, gently. He relaxed.

"I have heard of your great valor," said Calcadro, "and of how you called your clan and their allies to aid us."

"Never have I been in such a battle, Noble Lady!" replied Zoff. "And I had feared, that I never would be. Such fighting as I did, I did from sheer joy." His smile was weak, but radiant nonetheless.

"You are a remarkable man, Zoff" said Calcadro, smiling affectionately at him.

"You see in me ... only a reflection of your own light, Noble Lady."

_What am I going to do with this man?_ thought Calcadro.

"Tell me something, Zoff," she said, wincing internally from the fear of what effect her words might have on him. "Could there be a warrior who is noble, but does not fight?"

Zoff looked dismayed. "Do you mean – are my injuries – will I not – ??"

"No, no," said Calcadro, "they tell me you will be abed for a long time, but that you will then be fine."

He looked puzzled. "Then ... ?"

"You fought gloriously, Zoff, and your deeds are being written in the histories. But I would ask: is there any way that a knight can give up the sword, without dishonor?"

Zoff looked confused and worried. "But why would he – ?"

Calcadro had faced many a dangerous enemy in battle, but now she was truly afraid. She did not want to get right to the heart of the matter; like an expert swordswoman, she wanted to prepare for that moment, step by step. But it was to spare the one who faced her that she delayed, not to defeat him.

"Tell me something, Zoff," she said. "Does your religion, or your poetry, ever speak of a place or a time when every sword is put away, because everyone lives in justice and in peace? Perhaps in the Afterworld?"

"No sooner in the Afterworld than on Earth, Noble Lady. But it is sung indeed that there will come a time, called 'Alisinthia-a-el,' when the god of war will turn his interests elsewhere, and mortals will live in peace at last."

"And will true warriors dread the coming of Alisinthia-a-el, Zoff? Will they feel useless and dishonored, when the world has no more need of them?"

"No, Noble Lady, for then the debt will be paid."

"Please tell me about this debt, Zoff."

"It is sung, Noble Lady, that the god Sligon sent to the Earth his son, who was to be a god of peace. But mortals killed the son, out of fear and stupidity. Crazy with grief, Sligon cried, 'I shall become a god of war, and rule over you with a gauntlet of steel, until a thousand sons of every mortal alive today have died in my service!' And so it has been. But someday, it is sung, enough sons will have died, and the god's anger will be appeased, and then glorious Alisinthia-a-el will arise. So we warriors think of ourselves as making a sacrifice of ourselves, for the sake of humanity as a whole. So it was with my father before me, and his father before him, and so on, going back to long before the Age of Records."

"Well, then," said Calcadro, feeling greatly relieved, "let me tell you what has happened, Zoff. Ydris has instructed us to put the sword aside, and it is said that the Girl of the Prophecies requires the same. That is why I am wearing neither armor nor weapons." She began to tremble, and she blinked away tears.

"I had wondered at that, Noble Lady," Zoff replied. "It must be passing hard for you, for you have dedicated your whole life to the sword, and you have killed, and seen your comrades die. My heart is heavy for you!" He looked at her with deep commiseration.

_Oh! How I love this man!_ Calcadro suddenly realized.

"It _is_ hard!" she said, kneeling beside his bed. "Never, when I went into battle, or counted up the dead, did I doubt the wisdom or goodness of Ydris herself, or of my own vocation; but now, my heart is shaky."

"Your people have no myth like that of Alisinthia-a-el?" asked Zoff.

"No," said Calcadro, "but even if we did, I would have doubts." Immediately, she wanted to bite her tongue, but it was too late. _I must go forward now_ , she thought. "Who would protect the weak against evil," she asked, "if there were no warriors?"

"If this is truly to be Alisinthia-a-el," said Zoff, nodding weakly, "another way must be found. Perhaps the god of war will send us _another_ child, who will teach us to make peace without violence."

**

"Hello, Caribil," said Grrna. "I brought you some food. And we need to talk." He shrugged out of his backpack and extended it to her. _She looks a little emaciated_ , he thought.

"Why, that's wonderful, Grrna," said Caribil. "Do come in!"

Caribil led him into the kitchen; he sat and made small talk while she unpacked the groceries. _Caribil_ , he thought, _I remember playing with you when we were, what, four years old?_

"Would you like one of these apples?" she asked.

"No!" he said, a little tartly; then he apologized, adding, "They're for _you_ , Caribil, and your family. But Caribil, I can't be supporting you forever. If you can't feed your children adequately, we're going to have to take them away and put them in foster care, until you can." He braced himself for her reaction. Rage? Grief?

To his surprise, she remained calm. She came and sat down across the table from him. "I think that might be a wonderful idea, Grrna," she said. "Do you have someone lined up?"

"Well," he said, "the Carmilin Sisters have volunteered."

"Oh, I know them," said Caribil, smiling. "They would be nice."

Grrna frowned. "Aren't you _disturbed_ about having your kids taken away?"

She looked a little nervous. "Well," she said, "I don't think of it as _taken away_ , really. I mean, the point is that they be fed, right? We won't be forbidden to visit them, will we? That would be hard on the kids, for no good reason, wouldn't it?"

"Well ... yes," said Grrna, "I mean, no. I mean, sure, why shouldn't you be able to visit? Of course you can!"

"Well, good, then," she said with a smile, laying her hand on his for a moment. "I need to talk to them about it, of course, but I think I can have them ready to go well before these groceries you brought run out."

**

"Of course, we noticed that you weren't working, Vortrand," said Frollock, "and of course, we were a little disturbed about that. Without you, we get less furniture made, yes? But when we discussed the matter, we decided that our loyalty to you, as our friend, outweighed that."

Vortrand looked surprised, then gratified, then a little suspicious, then embarrassed.

"We decided that if you weren't working, Reason must somehow be involved. We don't need to know the details," added Frollock, with a shrug.

"Well, I ... Gratitude has me," said Vortrand, reverently.

Telsin, another one of Vortrand's friends, cut in: "You're wondering what we're up to, aren't you, Vorty?"

"Well, ... yes."

"I don't blame you. Here we are, showing up without an invitation."

"Well, yes ... not that I mind."

"Well, good! Friendship links us, and we miss you, you know!"

Vortrand looked embarrassed.

"I mirror Frollock," continued Telsin. "Sure, Frustration has me about your not being there – I miss you, I admit it, I'm hoping you'll come back! It's different now, you know!"

"What do you mean?" asked Vortrand, frowning.

"Well, Politeness has possessed Arkiss, for one thing."

Vortrand choked on his mead, spraying froth on his lap and on the rug. All the guests laughed, heartily and sympathetically. When Vortrand recovered, he said, "Politeness has _Arkiss_? And your lizards are nursing their young!"

There was general laughter at this.

"I know it must be hard to imagine," said Telsin, grinning, "but Politeness really does have Arkiss. Because Ownership blesses him no more."

"Why not?"

"Because Ownership is _gone_ _from Vetchtown_ ," said Telsin. "The Girls have seen to that! We went to Arkiss and said, 'Arkiss, we don't mind your staying here, if you can adapt to the new state of things, but you must let Politeness into your heart. Otherwise, we'll just ignore you.' And every time he was rude, that's what we did, yes? He just couldn't get anything he wanted, that way. And if he told anyone to leave, that one just said, 'I like it here, Arkiss!' in a loud voice, and several others would come over to make sure that Arkiss wasn't going to try anything nasty. And one day, Arkiss got very mad at Ksarkit, and called a judge to throw Ksarkit out, out for good; he knew that _we_ wouldn't do it. Well, a judge showed up, and there was Ksarkit, working away. 'This is my place,' said Arkiss, 'and I've told him I don't want him here. But he won't go. Trespassing has him. You should make him go.'

"So the judge talked to a few witnesses, and they all said the same thing: that Arkiss was frequently rude to Ksarkit, and Ksarkit would object to it. He wouldn't be rude back, he would just say, 'I'm afraid Rudeness has you, Arkiss,' and sometimes he would refuse to do something, until Arkiss asked him politely. Which Arkiss would never do, of course, so he would end up doing it himself. And Arkiss was habitually rude with other workers, too. But Ksarkit and all those other workers did their jobs, except when Arkiss was rude. So then the judge turned to Arkiss, and said, 'I see a man doing useful work. If I do as you say, then his work won't get done. The rest of us will have to find him another job, and in the meantime, his family may suffer, and we may have to support them. And you will have to get a replacement, which will be a drain on your resources. All because he won't tolerate rudeness? Surely you know that it's a _moral_ _duty_ to object to rudeness; how can I fault him for it? So, here's what it comes down to, as I see it: you are asking others to take on significant burdens, just so that you can have the privilege of being rude. I'd have to be crazy to go along with that!'

"'But it's _my place_ ,' insisted Arkiss. 'It's _my place_ , and I say he leaves!'

"Well, the judge looks him in the eye and says, 'Yes, Mr. Arkiss, the rules of property say that he has to leave, if you demand it. But that only shows that in cases like this, the rules of property are stupid and immoral. Anyone with more than a minnow's brain can see what should happen here: you should apologize to Mr. Ksarkit, and start being polite to everyone, which is your moral duty in the first place. If not, I will have to consider recommending rehab for you.'"

"Holy flying leech sex!" said Vortrand, in astonishment.

"Well, Arkiss rears himself up and says, 'There's no _law_ says I have to be polite, is there?' The judge just stands there and says, 'No, Mr. Arkiss, there is no such law. But as you well know, we only venerate the laws insofar as they make sense to us. By the same token, it is not necessary to be able to point to a law, in order to deal with behavior which is obviously foolish.'"

"Holy flying _incestuous_ leech sex!" said Vortrand.

"Well," continued Telsin with a smile, "old lizard Arkiss just stands there for a long time, his eyes as big as hen's eggs and his jaw hanging down like a swing. I suppose it was only a few breaths, but it felt like a quarterday. Finally, the judge raises her eyebrows at him, as if to say, 'I've got other things to do, Mr. Arkiss, what's it going to be?' Well, Arkiss turns to Ksarkit, very stiffly, as if he had arthritis, and says, in a mumbly voice that barely makes it out of his mouth, 'I apologize, Mr. Ksarkit,' and he bows a little, just enough to see. It was as if there were two of him, one just barely strong enough to force the other along.

"'I cannot accept your apology,' says Ksarkit, 'because I know that it was forced on you.' Then, looking at the judge, he says, 'I appreciate what you were trying to do, blessed judge, but I can't really approve of it all the way, because you threatened him with rehab.'"

Vortrand gasped. "Well, split my tongue and call me 'snake,'" he muttered, looking dazed.

"Pretty amazing, yes?" said Telsin. "Well, old lizard Arkiss was just shock-frozen again; he looked at Ksarkit as if he was a gelding giving birth.

"Then the judge says, 'I think I spoke poorly. When I said I'd recommend rehab, that's what I meant: that I would _recommend_ it. I won't force anyone into rehab, unless they are violent.'

"Well, Arkiss turns and stares at _her_ again. He's sweating, he's blinking like a frog, and he looks dizzy. He starts to wobble, and he falls over in a faint. Which I can understand, yes? Because suddenly, the god that's been directing him all these years has changed or disappeared, left him blind and naked in a hailstorm. I've felt that way myself, a few times, lately. Things we all took for granted, just – not there, anymore! Well, we all clustered around Arkiss to take care of him, and somebody calls a medicine woman, just in case he's had a stroke or something. Turns out he's all right, from a medical point of view. We're all saying, one way or another, that he'll be all right, that we're going to take care of him. And he starts to cry."

Vortrand frowned and snorted. "Lying _really_ has you now, Telsin," he said angrily. "Arkiss, cry? After battle-axes weep!"

There was a short flurry of laughter, but then, to Vortrand's amazement, all the other guests came to Telsin's support.

"So ... the lizard actually has a heart!" mused Vortrand, shaking his head. After a moment he added "If _he_ can change, so can I!"

**

"Look, Bru," said Fellbotrin, "here's the point of money. Suppose you have some spare tofu, and you want an axe. Suppose that I have an axe, but I don't want tofu, I want a pair of pants. Suppose there's a guy over in Fisherville who has an extra pair of pants, but he wants tofu. If we can all find each other simultaneously and communicate, we could make a triple deal. But with money, you could just sell him the tofu, and buy the axe from me with the money, and then I take the money and buy the pair of pants from him. Much simpler!"

"Is it really so much simpler?" countered Bruzak. " _At least one_ of the three still has to _find out_ about the other two. Instead of communicating _once_ as a triple, we communicate _three times_ in pairs. In addition to that, there has to be money, so there has to be a mint, a guaranteed monopoly, and so there has to be constant defense against counterfeiting. Part of the defense against counterfeiting will be that money is difficult to make; enough money to buy an axe must be at least as hard to make as the axe itself, or else there must be punishment. To make punishment work, you must have police, detectives, judges and juries, jails, and so forth. So, there's that much more work to be done. Then, there has to be something to give people confidence in the money. For example, some Order might guarantee to exchange it for Ytterbium. So there are still more exchanges, at least potentially. Do you still think it is simpler? Also, money makes theft and robbery easier, and embezzlement possible, so society has to invest still more in resources in security, police, courts, and rehabilitation. Also, money makes it possible for some people to become fantastically wealthy. I mean, who would bother to amass a hundred million pairs of pants, just to own them? Or ten thousand manweights of tofu? But when it is just numbers, or little pieces of metal, then it becomes an ideal basis for competitive prestige-seeking. People put their energies into that, instead of into real productiveness. Also, money is subject to inflation and deflation, and a number of other problems."

"By the sunrise! I'm impressed!" said Fellbotrin. "I had no idea you were so deeply into this, Bru!"

"Well, much of that was beside the point, actually," admitted Bruzak sheepishly. "You were comparing money with barter, but we are not advocating a return to barter. We are not advocating any kind of exchange system. Our ideal is, that resources be distributed on ethical grounds. That is: they should, on the whole, go where they will do the most good."

"But what about property rights?"

"Snake feet!" said Bruzak, meaning that he recognized no such rights.

"Now you're really going crazy, Bru!"

Bruzak dropped his eyes and blushed at this reproof, but he stuck to his post. "Prove it!" he demanded.

Fellbotrin leaned forward. "You see," he said, "property and exchange give you security, Bru! Assuming you have something to begin with, it can't be taken away from you without your consent! You don't have to accept any deals that reduce your total wealth. You can, however, accept deals that increase it! If you keep your head, you can only go up! So whenever there is a rational exchange, both people benefit!"

**

"You look perplexed, Grrna," said the Patriarch of Police.

"Grrna nodded. "I went to see Caribil," he said. "I took her some food so that she and Scorendip would have one more chance to see straight, before we took the kids. But she wasn't that upset; she asked that they could visit the kids, and that the separation would only be temporary, and I couldn't think of any good reason to deny that. But it bothered me, so as I was walking home, I thought, 'Why is that bothering me?' And I realized that all along, I'd been of two minds about what we'd be doing." He looked embarrassed. "Seems obvious, now!" he said.

The Patriarch didn't answer; he raised his eyebrows in a request for Grrna to continue.

"Well," said Grrna, "on the one hand, I was working very hard to make it easier on them – talking to Glock first, bringing her food – and I was thinking of the welfare of the children. But on the other hand, I was sort of thinking that, well, it would be nice to shoot a scare into her, to get her to give up these delusions, to act sensible. And also, I was angry with her for causing all this ruckus, and I _wanted_ her to suffer. I mean, that _part_ of me wanted that. So that part of me was actually _disappointed_ when it turned out to be so easy on her!" He blushed and frowned at the same time.

"Those are very natural reactions," said the Patriarch, "but it's good that you are aware of them, and not taking them for granted."

"It's ironic," said Grrna, with a touch of bitterness and frustration in his voice. "We've actually ended up _helping_ Caribil and the Girl. We've solved Caribil and Scorendip's food problem for them, or at least for their kids. We're getting them food for free! Which is what they wanted! And I suppose it will be the same with all the others."

The Patriarch was silent again, but he remained highly attentive. Evidently he thought Grrna had more thinking to unfold.

"You know," said Grrna, "we're not so different. I mean you and I, on the one side, and the Girl's people, on the other. You and I could have found some old law, and enforced it rigidly, but instead, we tried to make the solution work for everyone. A lot of police wouldn't do that."

"We are fortunate to live in a small and friendly community," said Glock. "A lot of Police Orders don't have that luxury. They are underpaid, understaffed, and lack community support. In their desperation, they focus on sheer force. But I'm sorry, Grrna – that was a digression."

"Actually," said Grrna, "I don't think it was." After a short pause, he continued: "So we ended up co-operating with the Girl-people, even though we thought of ourselves as opposed to them. But _are_ we opposed to them, really?"

The Patriarch looked startled, but he still said nothing.

"I mean," continued Grrna, "I gave Caribil that food, without asking anything in exchange. And before, we _both_ gave them food, out of our own larders. There's nothing in the laws, that I know of, that says we have to do that! In fact, we were trying to _avoid_ having to enforce a law. And every time we gave them food for free, we were sneaking away from the principle we were supposed to be upholding. It's _true_ what Glock suggested, that we don't have to be rewarded, to try to help starving children; in fact we were willing to compromise our principles, or what we _thought_ were our principles, at least a little, in order to see them fed. And if other police don't do that, it may be just as you say, that they are overworked, and in despair."

The Patriarch still said nothing, but he made a puzzled frown. Grrna was silent, letting him think.

**

Serex descended into the great crack in the earth, where the mana refinery lay. He went down many stairs, surrounded by tubes and pumps and pipes, and lit by moonstones. It was very warm, and there was a sulfurous smell in the air. Coming to the administrative floor, he went down a crooked hallway to the Abbott's alcove.

Fortunately, the Abbott was in, and was soon free to speak with him. "Welcome, my son," said the Abbott. "I think I know why you are here."

Serex gave a little nod. "We cannot pay, Father," he said. "We are bankrupt, for our grocers cannot pay us. And they cannot pay, because their flock, in many cases, _will_ not pay. But our grocers cannot bear to withhold food, especially from children, the old, and the infirm. And neither can we."

"It is a difficult decision, my son," replied the Abbott, looking sad, "and I, too, face it. If it were only a few people, I might counsel toughness. But it has become a mass movement. We cannot stop it. People must have their daily bread! We must therefore pray to be forgiven our debts, as we forgive our debtors!

"Fortunately," he continued, "many of our suppliers _have_ forgiven us, or at least extended us credit. After all, if mana producers go out of business, so will they! Well, to be fair, I think some of them have acted out of idealism, as well. Followers of the Girl are everywhere. Another hopeful sign is, that it has begun to work both ways: many of my flock here are followers of the Girl, and they have agreed to work without pay. We are even beginning to develop an alternative system."

"What is that?"

"Well, a grocer has each family of his flock write down, or have someone write down for them, an estimate of their weekly needs. The grocer examines each to make sure that it is reasonable; if he thinks not, he discusses the matter until some agreement is reached. He then collects them all and finds the total, adds a bit for safety, and sends that to the producer. The producer totals up the estimates from the various grocers, and that tells how much to produce. Then the producer figures what the needs of production will be, and sends the appropriate estimate to each supplier. In particular, he sends us an estimate of how much mana he needs. And so on."

"So, if we do that, you will give us the mana we require?" asked Serex.

"I can't promise anything, Son," said the Bishop, sadly, "but we'll certainly try!"

**

"I know it's sort of silly, Alisim," said Norgis, as he laid a pile of coins on the table, "but here are your two hundred and thirteen kalinas, with a few more thrown in for gratitude.'

Alisim's eyebrows went up. "Thank you, Norgis," she said. "I appreciate it, actually. I like people who pay their debts, even if it is in radically depressed currency. It's a matter of principle."

"I could pay you more, to make up for the deflation."

"No, it's all symbolic anyhow."

Norgis looked down at his feet and shuffled them. "I wish you'd let me help you in some _other_ way, Alisim."

"Why is that, Norgis? Don't tell me you actually feel _guilty_! Don't tell me that a Girlhead like you actually believes in _debt!_ "

"Well, I don't, of course," replied Norgis, "but _you_ do. That's why I wanted you to have the money! I feel sorry for you."

Alisim felt like beating her head on the table, but she refrained.

"I want to help you because you're _unhappy_ , Alisim!"

"That's true," said Alisim. "I _am_ unhappy. And do you know why?"

"I suppose, you think it's because of us 'Girlheads,'" said Norgis, ruefully. "Is that why you won't let us find you a place to live?"

"I've been staying at the factory," said Alisim. "It's much bigger than my old house, and it's _very quiet_ there."

"Would there be room for me? Maybe, at the opposite end from you, so I won't be bothering you?"

Alisim stared at him in disbelief. "You have a remarkable sense of humor, Norgis," she said, "and you also have a very nice little house. Why in the world would you want to stay at the factory?"

"Well," said Norgis, blushing, "when your factory shut down, a lot of families lost their income, and couldn't pay their rents. Some of them were evicted. So I gave my house to a couple of them. Why are you beating your head on the table, Alisim?"

**

"You know, Zoff," said Calcadro, kneeling by his bedside, "I began by being concerned about how _you_ would take Ydris' repudiation of violence; I thought, 'The man has dedicated his life to being a warrior, and, more recently, to the Temple of Ydris; now, he is recovering from serious wounds; he is in no condition to learn that warriors are no longer required.' But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was speaking for myself; it would be horribly difficult for _me_. I trained rigorously for years to be a warrior, turning aside from other vocations; I have risked death, taken serious wounds, and suffered exhaustion on numerous occasions; I have endured the injuries and deaths of numerous beloved friends; and worst of all, I have _killed_ , something I could only do because Divine Ydris herself vouched for the justice of it. Now I am told that we have gone beyond all that, that there is a better way, and I am left with blood on my hands that can never be washed off."

Zoff took her hand; his grip was feeble, and yet, Calcadro felt a great strength in him. "Dear and noble lady," he said, "just as you have been battered, but not broken, by grief for the deaths of your friends, so you will be battered, but not broken, by grief for your own past self, Calcadro the warrior. You will also be battered, but not broken, by your realization that even a Goddess can learn and grow. But never, never, will I feel anything but the greatest admiration for Calcadro the warrior. Dark are the paths that we mortals must tread; always hidden from us is the goal. All we can do is to follow the light that we see in the moment, through whatever confusion and suffering it may lead us, proceeding always with courage, and holding back none of our strength. That is what you have always done, and will always do, and I will not hear of any shame in it!"

**

"Good evening, Mezmilade," said Effileen, in a calm, sweet, and friendly voice. "We'd like to talk to you about your food order. We are not going to try to force you to do anything you don't want to do; we just want to understand you."

"You'd like to browbeat me, you mean!" replied Mezmilade angrily, peering around her fractionally-opened door. She was an elderly woman of stern and slightly bedraggled appearance. "I know what people really mean when they say, 'I'd be interested to hear your opinion about this.' It means they're hoping to convert you to their own view!" Casting her eyes over the group, she caught sight of Grallkin. "Aha! I should have known _he'd_ be here!" she said, triumphantly, pointing him out. "What lies, now, has he been telling you about me?"

"Well, if he is lying, we want to find that out, Mezmilade!" said Effileen, soothingly. "That's why we came to hear your side of the story!"

"You want to hear my side? I'll tell you my side!" said Mezmilade, opening the door a bit more. "He comes to me and says, 'What do you need? I'll get it for you! And all for free, too!' Well, I'm old enough to know that nothing comes for free in this world! And sure enough, he gave me less than I asked for, and now he won't even let me _buy_ the rest!"

"Well," said Milthane, another woman in the group, "he says that you asked for a lot more than you needed. Is that a lie, Mezmilade?"

"It most certainly is," said Mezmilade. "I told him right out why I needed that much."

"Please explain it to us, Mezmilade," said Milthane.

"I have to stock up," said Mezmilade, "and you would, too, if you had a grain of sense. With all these crazy ideas going around, there's going to be a crash! I can see a chariot before I'm under the wheel! With nobody paying, the stores will have to close, and where will you get food then, I wonder? Eh? So I want to have a pile of middleweight sacks of rice and beans hidden away."

"You're thinking of the crash of '08, aren't you, Mezmilade?" asked Effileen.

"I certainly am," said Mezmilade. "I'll never forget that as long as I live! You young folks don't know how bad it can be! I don't even want to _think_ about what people had to do to stay alive, in those days! And I made up my mind, back then, 'Never go into debt, and always have something put away!' But you Girl-worshippers outsmarted me!"

"What do you mean, Mezmilade?" asked Milthane.

"Now, don't you play innocent with me, young lady! And you can stop wearing my name out, too! We all know what it is! Yes, I had money put away where you'll never find it, but you stole it anyway, by making it useless! Now you want to starve me to death!"

"But Mezmi – Ah, sorry! You say you want to save up because there's going to be a crash. But, how can there be a crash, if there's no money?"

Mezmilade stared at Milthane in utter disbelief. After a few moments, she said, "Are you even crazier than I thought, Young Lady? You're not making any sense at all! That's what a crash _is_ – no money!"

"What happened in '08, Mez – Ah, sorry!" said Effileen.

"Yes, what happened in '08?" burst in Adrol Janitor, a gray-haired man who worked at a local Temple. "Why was everyone suddenly poorer? Was there a sudden shortage of natural resources? No! Was there a sudden shortage of able-bodied people? No! Did people suddenly lose their education and skills? No!"

"It was too much borrowing, foolish child!" replied Mezmilade. "That's why I say, 'Never get into debt!'"

"That is very wise of you," continued Adrol, "but isn't there something to be learned from that? Natural resources, labor power, expertise, all still there, and yet – massive poverty! Doesn't that show that there is something profoundly crazy about the way things are done?"

"Of course it's crazy," retorted Mezmilade, "and that's why I want to have something put away!"

"If it's crazy, we should change it," said Effileen.

"You talk like a raving mage, youngster!" replied Mezmilade with great heat, practically spitting at Effileen. "You confuse yourself with big words. It's all theory, nothing more! Castles of cloud! Oh, it's all very beautiful and idealistic, but I'm not going to stake my life on it!"

Suddenly, an expression of insight came over Grallkin Grocer's face. "I was wrong, friends!" he declared, in a loud voice.

Everyone turned to look at him. "I was stuck considering just one aspect of the situation," he explained. "I believed that she didn't need to hoard – no, not only that! I believed that she _shouldn't_ hoard, because she might be taking it out of the mouths of others! But I saw it that way because I, personally, had committed myself to gambling on its being better for us all to go along with the struggle for the New Balance, rather than trying to save the old ways. But Mezmilade has neither belief in, nor commitment to, the New Balance. From her point of view, no New Balance is possible, the danger of a crash is very real and very great, and she has no reason, not even an altruistic one, to risk being unprepared. In her place, I, too, would be desperately trying to hoard food.

"But it is wrong for me to ask someone else to share risks that I take because of my own beliefs, and my own way of dealing with uncertainty."

He approached the door, and went down on one knee. "Mezmilade," he said, "I apologize to you with my all my soul. I was thoughtless and arrogant." He hung his head. Mezmilade looked down at him in mute astonishment. "I now believe," Grallkin continued, "that it is right that you should have a large supply of storable food, and if no one objects, I will go this very evening to get one for you. I hope you can forgive me, though I have no right to expect it."

There was a long moment of silence. Mezmilade looked at Grallkin with an indefinable expression. Then she burst into rapid speech again. "Now, you just wait a few quick breaths, young man," she said, sternly. "So, I'm taking it out of other people's mouths, am I?"

"Well," replied Grallkin, hesitantly, "that's what I thought before ... if it's true ... that there will be a shortage ... and you have food stored away ... then ... but now, I ... I mean, ..."

Mezmilade opened the door almost to a right angle, and looked over the entire group. "I don't believe I ever told any of you people about my Uncle Ark," she said. "Now, I was just a little girl in '08, and all I knew was, that we were cold, and hungry, and afraid. We were out to sea on a raft of snowballs, I can tell you! Now, Uncle Ark, he lived a day's walk away; he had no wife or children of his own. But one day, Uncle Ark showed up with a clutch of money. He'd had some good luck, he said. He gave my mother the money, and it saved our lives. But we never saw Uncle Ark again. You know why? Why, we found out later that he got that money by skipping his rent and leaving himself no food money for the month. He must've gone to live under a bridge and beg, and he probably died of it. But he's not gone, he's right here in my heart, and always will be, and now I've finally found a way to square things with him, and I'll be _tick pus_ before I ever take food out of anyone else's mouth, you hear me?"

Grallkin looked very confused. "But then," he said, "what do you – ?"

"What!" she exclaimed. "Do you young folks think that you're the only ones who can change your mind and see things differently? If you've got any storable food extra, Grallkin Grocer, you can store it in my cellar if you want, against a crash. But not for my sake! It'll be for the families with babies, first, if I have half a word to say about it! And now, you folks are going home, because I am going to bed, where I belong at this crazy hour! Good night to you!" And she closed the door in their faces.

**

"So, will you be coming back to work?" asked Frollock.

"Ah, well, I don't know, ..." said Vortrand. "It will be a lot more pleasant around there if politeness actually has Arkiss."

"He's trying, Vortrand," said Telsin, eagerly. "He really is! You've been missing miracles by not coming! Change has taken lots of things there. If there's something we want different, we don't have to go through a lot of negotiations, and maybe call a Retreat; we just make sure that some kind of consensus has us, or we vote, and then we do it!"

"Just imagine!" said another friend. "The people who actually _do_ a job, deciding what is the best way!" There was general laughter.

"Does a dream have me?" asked Vortrand. "Belief can't take me on this!"

"Well, come in tomorrow, and let your own eyes tell you!" said Frollock. "I tell you what, just come in, be with us, yes? If you feel like working, work, just as long as Happiness loves you for it. If you don't feel like working, just be company for us. You know, with Arkiss tamed, we talk and laugh a lot while we work, now!"

"I will!" replied Vortrand. He wondered whether, once he got there, he _might_ actually feel like working, at least for awhile.

All the guests stood and cheered, raising their glasses.

"If you like, I'll drop by on my way over, tomorrow morning," said Trelling, who lived just down the street. "We can walk together."

**

"Alisim? Is that you?"

"Ar ... Yes, Norgis, it is." She held her lantern at arm's length, to illuminate herself. "Am I disturbing you?"

"Disturbing? No, no, I was just curious. I heard a noise, ..." To her, he was just a black silhouette, a hole in the dim lamplight from the room behind him.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I was just ..."

"No, no," said Norgis, hastily, waving his hands, as though chasing off the ghost of a problem. "Nothing to be sorry about! I was just curious." He started to retreat into his room and close the door, but hesitated.

"I was just walking about, looking at the factory," said Alisim.

"Oh ..." replied Norgis, "well, ... is everything in good order?"

"Oh, yes ... all the equipment... is ... still here ..."

Norgis sighed. Then he rattled the door, as though it were an irritant to him. Then he sighed again. "I'm sorry, Alisim," he said, "about ... everything ..."

Alisim also sighed, and approached him. "It's all right, Norgis," she said, "you just did ... what you believed in. What else could you do? What else could I have legitimately asked of you to do? It's just sad, that's all."

Now that her lamp was close enough to illumine him, she could see tears on his cheeks. "Oh, Norgis!"

"It's all right," he said, with a bit of a sniffle. "As you say: It's just a sad situation, that's all."

There was a long silence. Then he said, "Alisim, when you were looking at everything ... at all the tools, and the supplies, and in your office your office ... did you _miss_ it? I mean, did you miss working here?"

"Yes, I did miss it," she replied, with a note of surprise in her voice. "I _do_ miss it. All the activity, the people ... and the way that all the different parts _fitted together_ , in spite of their great complexity! And how it all fitted in with other aspects of the economy! And I ... _helped_ it to fit together. I was _part_ of the fitting. It was a source of great pride and satisfaction to me. You know, Norgis, sometimes you just don't appreciate something, until you lose it!"

Another long silence. They looked at the floor. They felt and contemplated the extensive darkness around them. Then Alisim said, "Norgis, I ... I'm tired of living in the office, all by myself. I get ... terribly lonely. I'd like to ... invite you to share it with me." She hoped that the lamplight would disguise the blush she felt on her cheeks. "That is ... if you want to."

After a somewhat shorter silence, Norgis replied, a bit puzzled, "You – you're not angry with me?"

"Maybe a little," she replied. "Not that much, though."

"Are you sure?" He came closer, to peer at her face.

"I'm sure."

"Well, ... then, I – I think I'd like that, Alisim." It was his turn to blush. "I mean – I'm lonely too, as a matter of fact. But actually – would you mind taking a look at my room, here?" He stepped back so that she could come through the door. She did so, and raised her lantern.

"Why, this is very nice, Norgis!" she said. He had furnished the room, so that she could actually discern a sleeping area, a kitchen area, a dining area, a conversation area, a study area, and an altar. He had chosen a room with several windows. There were rugs on the floors, and pictures on the walls. There was a hint of sandalwood in the air. "Well!" said Alisim. "This is actually ... much nicer than ... my office!"

"Well," replied Norgis, "maybe you'd rather ..."

"Well, I think I would," she said, "if that's all right with you, of course." Only after she said this did it occur to Alisim that the building was all 'hers.'

"Oh, it's fine," said Norgis, quickly.

"Well ... may I put my lantern down?"

"Oh, yes, of course!"

She put it on a table. "Thanks. Ah, Norgis, ... may I ask you a ... personal question?"

"Um, well, sure," said Norgis.

"Well, ah, forgive me for asking, but are you, well, are you, ah, lying with anyone, these days?"

"Um, no," said Norgis nervously, blushing, "actually, I'm not."

"Me neither, actually. Are you ... sweet with anyone?'

"Oh, no. No, not at all!"

"Me neither. I'm sorry to pry, but I was afraid it might be ... if we were living together, I mean ... awkward."

"Well, yes," he said, with a laugh that sounded a bit forced. "I guess it ... would have been. But, it seems that ... there's no problem. I mean, not _that_ problem, anyway."

"No," she agreed, sitting on the edge of his bed, "I guess not!"

**

"I'm giving up thieving," said Ilizarin, shaking his balding head in disbelief. "It just doesn't work any more!"

"Why not?" asked his companion, Cadimi'im, looking puzzled. The two were sitting together in the back of a tavern, drinking spiced grape juice.

"Suppose I stole a huge diamond," explained Ilizarin. "What could I do with it? I can't _sell_ it; no one uses _money_ anymore! Besides, people don't even _want_ diamonds anymore; it used to be, that owning a diamond gave you prestige; now, people just think you're an idiot to make any fuss over a _sparkling_ _pebble_."

"Well, maybe you could steal something else."

"What? A thousand fish?"

**

In the Torlash neighborhood, the Curate of Police reported to the Bishop. "I'm sorry, Your Implacability," she said, "but we were unable to locate any ringleaders among followers of the Girl. None of them will admit to any hierarchy among themselves; they claim neither to give nor to receive orders. That is, of course, consistent with their official beliefs. We did, however, apprehend a number of people who have been very visible as agitators."

"Good enough!" replied the Bishop. "You've handed them to Judgment?"

"Yes, Your Implacability."

"Excellent indeed," said the Bishop. "Now as to finding the leadership, I guess we'll have to infiltrate them. I'll have the Bursar give you a budget heading for that. Find people who are opposed to them, but who are willing to appear to be converted."

"Yes, Your Implacability."

"It's a difficult and delicate process," said the Bishop. "You must insulate the Church with several layers of go-betweens. But once you have infiltrators in place, you can do all sorts of things with them. Of course, all this is a Mystery, you understand."

"Absolutely, Your Implacability."

"Bless you!" said the Bishop, with a smile. "Continue with your investigations. Keep the faith!"

"Keep bringing us Light, Your Implacability," replied the Curate, bowing, and he left.

**

As Alisim awoke, the first thing to strike her consciousness was the delicious afterglow, permeating her whole body, from their lovemaking the previous night. She chuckled; she felt a little mischievous, as though she were getting away with something. In her imagination, she thumbed her nose at the world, saying, "Eat your toes, world! I'm feeling wonderfully good, without even having to do anything!" She gave a slow, catlike stretch, luxuriating in her sheer existence.

In the background of her consciousness were muffled, familiar voices. Gradually, as she rose into greater wakefulness, they came into the foreground. They sounded cheerful; voices of people greeting one another and conversing happily. It was nice to hear such voices. She also heard Norgis' breathing, edged with snore; turning over, she saw him sleeping next to her. She felt an intense and feline fondness for him; he was her co-conspirator in getting something for nothing.

Suddenly, she began to laugh, inhibiting the sound so as not to wake him. No! She'd been bedmates with _Norgis_! Homely, incompetent Norgis, with his scraggly beard and his crazy ideas! Predictably, his lovemaking had been clumsy and inexpert; she had had to give him a lot of guidance. Nevertheless, she had had three unbelievable orgasms, each one longer and more seismic than the last. An exquisite shudder passed through her at the memory.

She couldn't resist; she reached out and gently caressed his lips with the last knuckle of her index finger. His snoring halted, and his sleep melted away; his eyes opened, groggy with half-seeing. She could feel his mind slowly orienting itself, taking in the ceiling, the room, herself – and there he gave a start, and then a tentative, infinitely tender, slightly wistful, but very happy smile appeared. She smiled back, and then began to salt his face with tiny kisses. His arms materialized behind her, and in the next moment, they were rolling this way and that, chuckling and giggling. She felt herself start to catch fire again, but suddenly they both became aware of the voices.

"Who is – " her voice, only half awake, failed for a moment, until she cleared her throat. "Who is that, Norgis? It sounds like – " But that was impossible!

"Oh!" said Norgis, as if suddenly remembering something. "It's a surprise!" he said. With a broad grin and a hint of sheepishness, he released her. "Go see!"

She climbed out of bed and gathered her clothes, which had been flung wildly this way and that. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Norgis, wide-eyed, entranced at her fluid curves. Again she felt a wave of pleasant warmth. Quickly dressing, and giving her hair a quick brush, she raised the edge of a window shade and peered outside.

"Why Norgis, it's the workers! But why?"

"They've come to work, of course! Go let them in!"

"But Norgis, I can't pay – "

"You don't need to _pay_ , silly," replied Norgis, shaking his head in mock frustration. "Just let them in, and they will take care of the rest!"

Could it be? She made her way to the main door, unlocked its several locks, and drew it open. Chill air and warm sun. Heads turned and conversation died.

" _Good Morning, Alisim_ ," they said, almost in concert. They were laughing, but in a friendly way. Her nervous eyes devoured their smiles. She was disoriented, at a loss for words.

"May we start work?" asked Fortrex, the floor manager.

"Well, I – well, I guess – I mean, you may, but I can't pay you, you know," replied Alisim, hesitantly.

They all laughed again, louder this time. "Not required," said Fortrex. "We're not whores anymore!" More laughter. The workers began to file in, each one greeting Alisim, and smiling at her, as he or she passed. Fortrex began to help the workers get organized, making suggestions about problems as they came up. "Fire and foam" she heard one worker say to another, "but it's good to be working again!"

**

Ge-Yeetz closed his eyes, savoring the exquisite taste of the Shandirian wine. He wanted to be solely focusing on enjoying his dinner, not having this conversation. But it was necessary.

"We have to find markets!" Mahdis was saying for the tenth time. "There must be other places in Kondrastibar, or outside, if it comes to that; places that will accept money or barter."

"There are, there are," said Tendrozhity, who had just sat down. "I've got a list of twenty! All we have to do is to organize caravans!"

" _Organize_ them?" asked Ge-Yeetz, subtly raising an eyebrow. "You are going to have to run the caravans yourself. People won't work for money any more."

"The locals will," replied Tendrozhity. "People in the Elubrican neighborhood have been protected from the ravings of the Girl. And they are always eager to work; Nidiami sees to that, with all his tithes! And he can always threaten them, if it comes to that!"

"I wonder whether Nidiami will allow any of his flock to leave the neighborhood," replied Ge-Yeetz. "He may be afraid that they will not return."

"He can keep their families as hostages," said Tendrozhity. "People here are very attached to family."

"Ah!" said Ge-Yeetz, raising both eyebrows. It was his way of saying, "Good point! I hadn't thought of that!" He rolled himself a cigarette, from fresh _Shayeed_ and _Paiz_ , with just a touch of _Vlekem_ , taking pinches of the mildly psychoactive herbs from the intricately gilded platinum bowls near the center of the jade table.

"Good! Now, what have we got to trade?" asked Mahdis. "I've got precious metals, jewelry, antiques, and art works."

"I'm afraid that is exactly what the others will have," said Ge-Yeetz, languidly. "Like us, they will be cut off from raw materials and production. Those all require significant labor _._ " He delicately inhaled, as an elderly Kantrikar slave woman carefully held a taper to the end of his cigarette.

Tendrozhity blinked, as though the woman were an answer to a question. " _Slaves_!" he said, excitedly.

"Ah!" said Ge-Yeetz.

"But all I have here is my personal retinue," said Mahdis, frowning.

"I'm sure that Nidiami will be willing to supply us with more," said Ge-Yeetz, blowing a smoke-ring at the ceiling.

"Why?" asked Tendrozhity. "What do we have to offer him?"

As Ge-Yeetz had hoped, the _Shayeed_ was making him more extraverted, and the _Paiz_ was clearing his mind, while the _Vlekem_ gave him a bit of sparkle. He sat up a little straighter. "He can see the tide rising," he said, gesturing with his cigarette, "and he's up to his neck in sand, just as we are. If the Girlies win, his whole power-structure will collapse."

"I thought he just invited us here so that he could _tithe_ us," said Tendrozhity, bitterly.

"He might have been a little slow," replied Ge-Yeetz, "to realize that we have little or nothing of real value. But once he'd filled up a couple of warehouses with precious metals, jewelry, antiques, and art works, not to mention little pieces of paper with numbers on them, I think he got the point."

Mahdis looked horrified. "But," he said, "if we have no value to him, he will ..."

"All too true," said Ge-Yeetz. "But there is hope! We still have contacts, and we know how to put an enterprise together. All we lack are workers."

"And start-up capital," said Tendrozhity.

"And a market," said Mahdis.

"Nidiami _tithes_ people," said Ge-Yeetz, leaning forward and tapping a finger on the table for emphasis, "and he tithes them in _money_. If they want the necessities of life, they have to buy them with _money_! They have to use money for _everything_ , or be tortured or killed. There's your market!"

"But ... that's only here in Elubrican," objected Mahdis.

"Most of the Girlies are committed to non-violence," replied Ge-Yeetz, smiling.

"I know," said Tendrozhity, irritably. "That's part of the problem."

Ge-Yeetz decided that they needed a really broad hint. "Haven't you gentlemen ever heard of _Imperialism_?" he asked.

**

"I'm giving up the mugging, Fish," said Bogs (in his new neighborhood, he and his peers called each other "Fish" instead of "Dog.").

"Why?" asked his friend, Borki.

"Nothing in it," said Bogs, raising his arms in a gesture of futility. "Nobody carries _money_ anymore. And if they did, what would I do with it?"

"I know what you mean, Fish," said Borki. "I'm getting nothing from the scams, myself. No one makes _deals_ anymore!"

There was a stretch of silence; then Borki said, "But what are we going to _do_ , Fish?"

"Well, nothing, I guess," said Bogs.

"But how will we live?"

"It doesn't seem to be a problem," said Bogs. "If you need food, you walk into a store and take it. If you need a place to stay, just go down to the Girler's Temple and tell them, and they'll find you one. They'll build it, if they have to."

"But, won't it be bothering them, if they are working and we're not?"

Bogs put on a reflective look. "Nothing much seems to bother those Girlers," he said, "but what if it does? They're not going to use any violence against us."

"Ahhh ..." said Borki, a grin creeping across his face, "I see what you mean, Fish."

"It's really all to the good for both sides," said Bogs. "I mean, it always cost the honest folk many times the more to guard against us, and figure us out, and track us down, and arrest us, and give us a trial, and keep us in jail, and rehab us, than it would have just to support us straight out."

"I guess it must have," said Borki. "I never thought about that."

"Neither did they, it seems," said Bogs.

**

A crash and a cry of dismay. Alisim turned to look. It was Norgis, of course. He had managed to knock over one of the large, decorated blue porcelain vases; twenty days of highly skilled labor, smashed! She felt a sigh constricting her chest, but she suppressed it. Then she felt a laugh tickling her, but she suppressed that, too, except for a small shred of smile that escaped her.

Two or three other workers were clustered around Norgis. "Are you all right?" asked a woman, touching him on the arm.

"Well, physically, yes," said Norgis, looking in horror at the pile of shards, "but ... Oh, I feel so stupid and clumsy! And that beautiful vase!" His eyes were tearing up. "You must all be furious with me!"

"Norgis, how could you say such a thing?" replied the woman, hugging him. "We're not the least bit angry!" Norgis sighed and hugged her back, smiling. Alisim felt a twinge of jealousy.

A man standing next to Norgis nodded in agreement, putting his hand on Norgis' shoulder. "Everything is perfect," he said. "We may not understand the details of why that vase had to be broken, Norgis, but we know that it was the best thing that could possibly have happened. Otherwise, the Universe wouldn't have done it."

Alisim was stunned by the outrageousness of this idea, and still more by the casualness of the man's diction, as though he were just reminding Norgis of some common-sense truth. She was still more stunned to see all the nearby workers either nodding in agreement or taking no notice of it at all. _Do all the Girlheads believe that_? she wondered.

Norgis carefully gathered up all the shards. He saved them, and in the evenings he worked on them, putting them together with a bright orange glue. It took him half a year. When he was done, the blue vase had acquired an intricate pattern of bright orange lines, exploding from a central point. The pattern combined randomness and order in a way that intrigued both the eye and the mind. The contrast between the original design on the vase, which was smooth and flowing, and the breakage pattern, jagged and tense, was exquisitely beautiful. At Alisim's suggestion, the workers put it in a display case in the factory lobby, with a little placard explaining how it had come to be. People traveled from great distances to see it.

**

"I miss the _girls_ , though," said Borki. "I mean, when people used money, there was ten or twenty girls working this tavern, at one time or another. Every one different, but every one sweeter than honey."

"Yee," said Bogs, "I guess we have to _court_ 'em now!"

"I don't know how to do that, Bogs. How d'ye do that?"

"Be _nice_ to 'em, I guess!"

**

In the Torlash neighborhood, a long line of followers of the Girl appeared outside the rehab facilities. Sticking his head out the door, a clerk said, "Keep the Faith, friends! What can I do for you?"

"Good day to you, Holy Clerk," said a woman at the head of the line. "My name is Doriny Elkis. My friends and I are followers of the Girl. We have come to turn ourselves in for advocating various illegal things."

The clerk's eyes moved to the end of the line and back. "I'm sorry," he said. "You can't just turn yourself in. You have to be arrested. It's a new law."

"Ah," said Elkis, chuckling, "thanks!" She passed the news down the line, and the line contracted to a cluster. They began to discuss what to do next. The clerk sighed and retreated into the building.

**

"Din see you at the Tavern, yesterday," said Borki. "Hope you weren't sick!"

"Only in a manner of speaking," said Bogs. He looked embarrassed.

"Hey, what?"

"Oh ... well, I was just doing a bit of work, actually."

" _Work_?!" asked Borki, incredulous. "Now that you finally don't have to do _anything at all_ , you _work_?" He glared at Bogs as one glares at a betrayer.

"Well, maybe it was the _having to_ that made it so hard," said Bogs, shrugging. "Anyway, I got bored, sitting tavern all day. I thought I'd be walking in the beautiful afternoon, so I went down to the river park. There was a bunch of people there, working and singing and talking and laughing, and planting trees. It looked like fun. You know, they were taking it easy, joking around, no hurry, no one bossing or whining. They had food and drink. Every time they got a tree in, they'd be cheering. It felt silly, but ... I asked if I could be joining in. They said yes, but they wouldn't work until they all introduced themselves. Suddenly I've got a whole school of new friends, Bork!"

"I don't suppose they get much planting done, making a party out of it like that."

Bogs looked thoughtful. "Well, actually, Bork," he replied, "it's a curious thing. When you're having fun like that, you don't get tired! We worked until dark, and were sad to stop. And every now and then, without anyone saying anything, we'd sort of make a game of seeing how fast we could do it. Without being sloppy, I mean. And sometimes, we did so well, it was a thing of beauty. After a time like that, we'd go crazy, slapping and hugging each other. So in fact, we got a lot done. And afterwards, we went off to a place where a lot of them live, and had a big supper party."

Borki looked puzzled, like a man about to realize that he's been cheated.

**

"My name is Jrent Litt," said the teenage boy, "and I want to join up."

"Me too," said his female companion. "My name is Tharma Tu'arst."

"May I ask what led you to this decision?"

"I heard about how you went to the rehab facility," said Litt. "That was _spurting_." In the local teenage slang, "spurting" meant, "wonderful."

"Snake sex!" said Tu'arst, nodding. In the local teenage slang, "snake sex!" was another way of expressing strong approval.

"Why do you think it was, ah, spurting?"

"Are you asleep?" asked Litt, looking incredulous. "They have always kept us under the rug with their threats of rehab, and now you sweet lizards have called their bluff!"

"Leech guts!" exclaimed Tu'arst. "They call it rehab, but everyone knows it's just revenge."

"They may not always bluff."

"Oh, give me some nipple, lady!" replied Litt. "How long are they going to keep two hundred people in there?"

"Maybe they won't. Maybe they will just beat us up."

"Beat you up?" Litt laughed. "How many fishskins do you think they have? You've got them _nakedly_ outnumbered!" In the local teenage slang, "fishskin" meant "condom," and also, "policemonk." "Naked" and "Nakedly" were used to indicate an extreme state of something.

"Well, you see, we are committed to non-violence. So I suppose, it might only take only one, ah, policemonk, to beat us all up."

"Now, that is just _addled_ ," said Tu'arst, disapprovingly. "Maybe at the beginning you had to be that way, but not any more!"

"Snake sex!" said Litt, thrusting his face towards Tu'art's. They rubbed noses, grinning at each other.

"Non-violence is not just a tactic with us. We are trying to create a non-violent society."

"So? You can't sire kids without having a little fun!" replied Litt. The two teenagers laughed heartily, and then rubbed noses again.

"Well, even tactically ... we want to show that non-violence is effective, that a non-violent society won't just break down. If we can make the transition, with non-violence winning over violence, then that is evidence that a non-violent society will be viable. If we can't accomplish what is most important to us without violence, perhaps a non-violent society is just not feasible."

"It's not!" said Litt, laughing. "I can tell you that already!"

"Well, I can wrap my tongue around what they've done so far," said Tu'arst, meaning that she liked it.

"Then, too, we are fearful that if we get used to using violent methods during the transition, we might find it hard to break the habit later on."

"I know what you mean about habits," replied Litt, snickering. "Once I started wetting up Rosebud, here, she got totally addicted to it!" Tu'arst blushed and giggled.

"And even if _we_ were confident of our ability to switch over, why should other people trust us? They _see_ us being violent, and they _have our word_ that we will not always be so."

"Well, maybe you _can't_ always be so," said Tu'arst. "I mean, there's always going to be troublemakers, right? Like Loosepants, here!" She smirked and indicated Litt with her thumb. He made a mock frown at her, which collapsed into a snicker.

"Well, if we can handle the, ah, policemonks, non-violently, we can handle a few troublemakers. And there's another reason for non-violence: we want the people we are dealing with to know that negotiation is always possible. Also: if people co-operate with you when you threaten them, how do you know whether they really agree with you? Maybe they're just waiting for you to give up violence, and then they get their revenge."

"That's just what _I'd_ do," said Tu'arst, nodding.

"That's all very wet in theory," grumbled Litt, showing a bit of impatience, "but what are you going to do when the fishskins really start beating on you? 'Cause when nothing else works, that's just what they will do!"

**

_I'm here because I need to understand the workers_ , said Alisim to herself, struggling against a strong temptation to retreat. Taking a deep breath, and linking her arm with Norgis,' she approached the Church of the Girl, a small and rather plain building that the workers had built on an unused corner of the factory grounds.

Workers were also converging on it, for it was almost time for the evening service. They showed a bit of surprise to see her there, but they smiled warmly and welcomed her. She blushed with self-consciousness, but continued in.

The interior was given over to a single large room, with a few light tables near the walls, and chairs distributed in crooked rows over the floor. In one corner were several large drums, and other musical instruments. All the chairs faced the same way, towards a small altar, with a number of statues on it, including a statue of the local 'Girl of the Prophecies.' She looked quite familiar, but Alisim couldn't quite place her. _Could she actually be someone I've met?_ she wondered. It was a startling thought.

"It's customary to mingle a bit before the service officially starts," said Norgis, quietly. Alisim nodded. Someone handed her a cup of iced fruit juice. She sipped it absently between short episodes of small talk.

A bell rang. "Ah, time for the service," said Norgis. "We can sit anywhere."

"Near the back, please," requested Alisim.

**

In the Torlash neighborhood, the Followers of the Girl lined up at the front door of the Police Abbey. Ten armed policemonks guarded the door.

"I suppose you're here to be arrested," said the Rector of the guards.

"That's right," said the nearest person, with a smile. "I'm sorry if this is inconvenient for you, but we have all advocated forbidden beliefs."

_You're sorry, and I'm a spit lizard_ , thought the Rector. Aloud, he said, "Please wait, someone will be right with you."

A few breaths later, two lines of policemonks came out of side streets, one on either side of the crowd. The heads of the lines turned to meet each other, completely enclosing the Followers. There was a short pause, and then the policemonks charged, swinging clubs and whips.

Screams. Followers fell like grass under the scythe. They bled, they bruised, and, when struck in the belly or the solar plexus, they vomited. They offered no resistance. Some of them lay down, and were kicked. Moans. Occasionally, the cracking of a bone could be heard.

The Rector of the guards felt a little ill, but he didn't show it. _Sometimes you have to get a little tough_ , he thought, _to teach people to act civilized._

**

"Bogs! Hardly ever do I see you!"

"Well, I kind of miss you, Bork, but I don't like the tavern life much anymore."

"You off partying with your friends all the time?"

"Well, that's part of it, Bork." Again, Bogs looked embarrassed.

"Hey, what is it?" demanded Borki. "What, what, what?"

Bogs blushed. "Well, I met a lady at the work, and, well, she took me home."

"All right, _Fish!_ " said Borki, slapping Bogs in the shoulder with the slightly labored enthusiasm of the envious.

Bogs shook his head. There was a faraway look in his eyes. "And I have to tell you, Fish," he said, "it's a whole better thing when a lady's not half drunk, or just doing it for the money! Just ..." He shook his head, and his arms made vague gestures of futility. "Just ... a whole different thing, Bork!"

**

Nidiami's foot-soldiers, under the watchful eye of their officer corps, quickly occupied the Vinate neighborhood, next to the Elubrican neighborhood. There was no resistance.

On the following day, their commander, Archprelate Snair, was in conference with Blutorx, his Chief of Mystery Police (Second Division).

"There was no significant resistance reported," said Snair. "If this continues, we will have to do something about it."

"What sort of thing, Sir?"

"Some nasty way for a few of our people to die. Of course, it has to look as though the locals did it."

"I am inspired, Sir!" replied Blutorx, with a bow.

"Give it some thought," said Snair. "Work out a few scenarios."

"I will, Sir!"

Dismissing him, Snair went out to address the populace. It had been publicized in advance that he would be making an important public statement in the main plaza. A platform had been built for him. He approached it, surrounded by his bodyguard and a few staff officers.

There was no one else in the plaza.

"Halt!" said Snair. "What's going on here? Didn't I say to publicize this?"

"You did, Sir," replied his Second-in-Command, looking startled and sheepish, "and we did publicize it. But ... well, nobody came."

Snair bit off a curse and thought for a moment.

"Well, I'm not going to make a fool of myself by going up there and talking to no one," he said. He looked around the Plaza. "See that house over there? The one with the turquoise gables?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Tear it down!"

"Yes, Sir!"

**

"Now, what happened, exactly?" asked the Bishop.

"Well, Your Implacability," said the Curate of Torlash, "we did as you revealed; we beat up a few of the Followers of the Girl, who kept trying to get themselves arrested."

"And then?"

"Well, Your Implacability, word got out about it, and there was a lot of talk. The followers said they'd be back next day, and they were, in the same place, some with bandages or crutches, even a couple being carried on stretchers. And there were a number of other people with them, who were not Followers, but who wanted to express their sympathy. And there were also, I'm happy to say, a number of people who wanted to express the opposite point of view, who are opposed to the Followers, and were happy to hear that they had been beaten. And I daresay there were many there who just wanted to hear some screams. Altogether, it was a big crowd."

"And then what?"

"Well, we beat the Followers up again. I instructed my monks to be easy on those who were already injured."

"And?"

"Well, a number of things. There are even more Followers and Sympathizers back today, and fewer opponents. Several known opponents we interviewed said that they were still opposed to the doctrines of the Girl, but they couldn't be present because they couldn't condone the beatings."

The Bishop sighed. "We've been outmaneuvered," he said. "No more beatings. But, go on!"

"Yes, Your Implacability. Well, today, about a third of my force didn't show up. Some of them sent messages saying that they were ill, some said nothing, but I think that they are feeling squeamish about beating people."

"We haven't trained them enough for this sort of thing," said the Bishop, sadly. "Continue!"

"Yes, Your Implacability. Then, this circular was distributed by persons unknown. We estimate that about half a thousand copies were given out." He handed the paper to the Bishop, who read:

On Sun's Day and Moon's Day this week, on the ironically-named Plaza of Justice, the Beast has revealed its true face. Non-resisting neighbors, friends, and relatives of yours were brutally beaten by policemonks. Male and female, young and old, were repeatedly bludgeoned. One young girl is reported to be in critical condition. Why? Because the victims were asking the policemonks to do their duty under the law! A law, we might add, which was rammed through the City Council in record time, just a few days ago – a law intended to protect the populace against ... the Followers of the Girl!

However foolish the Followers of the Girl may be, no one has disputed that they are overwhelmingly committed to non-violence. They have engaged in numerous projects of a humanitarian nature. What does it tell us about our so-called leaders, that they treat such people as a threat? Why are large numbers of policemonks assigned to this task? Are there no other problems in our neighborhood? Our City Council would appear to think so.

We, the Lions of Justice, have formed our Secret Society to combat, not the misguided idealists who follow the Girl, but the real menace: the City Council, and the privileged few who manipulate it from behind the scenes. We are not so naïve as to suppose that non-violent methods will work against these monsters, who beat children, old people, and the injured. We will treat them as they deserve. We call upon you, fellow parishioners, to form your own societies with the same intent.

"And that's the whole story so far?" asked the Bishop.

"Yes, Your Implacability," replied the Curate.

"Well, this is a ray of hope," said the Bishop, holding up the circular. "If we're lucky, these 'Lions of Justice' people, or someone like them, will do something tasteless or violent; that will make us look much better, especially since we won't be beating anyone in public for awhile. But I'm afraid you're going to have to resign, Curate."

"Me?" sputtered the Curate. "But I – but, Your Implacability – I ..."

"Yes, yes, I know," said the Bishop, compassionately. "You were just following my orders. But we need you to be a scapegoat, Curate, so that the Church can take back the moral high ground. We'll find a place for you far from here, and in about six shortmonths, when all this has calmed down, and you are no longer in the public eye, you will receive a highly remunerative sinecure somewhere. I will personally explain the situation to your immediate family, so that they will not share the popular impression of you. You aren't going to go back on your oath, are you? The one that says you will sacrifice your own selfish good to that of the Church?"

"Ah ... No, Your Implacability. I understand," replied the Curate, though tears trembled at the corners of his eyes. "I will honor my oath." He knelt, head bowed, hands behind his back.

"Bless you," said the Bishop, with a smile, tapping him lightly on the head with his trident. "I know this must be quite a jolt for you, and that saddens me. But these are terrible times, and terrible times require ... deeds of sacrifice. I suppose that we'll have to discipline a few of the policemonks, too, for excessive bru – I mean, for brutality."

**

"Borki!" cried Bogs. "You look different!"

Borki grinned. He had always been a tall man, but since Bogs had last seen him, his muscle mass had doubled. His legs were like pillars. His upper arms were too big to put two hands around. Also, there was a quiet serenity about him that was new. "I been stevedoring," he explained, "at Kalikraiak, over on Lake Lanikin. All day, four days out of five, hauling cargo on and off boats. I can't imagine what put me in the mind to try it, some little god, I suppose."

Bogs was astonished. "That must be rough," he said. "I've heard that it's hard, hard work."

"It was at first," said Borki, eyes widening at the memory. "It was a prison of pain, to tell the truth. Every twenty breaths, I made up my mind to leave. Then I'd look at the other guys, and think, 'By the balls of my ancestors, I'm not going to give up before they do!' Couple of times I fainted, and they just lay me in a corner somewhere, and didn't say a word when I came to. Soon as I could stand, I went back to the work. First time I did that, I got these little smiles and nods from them, and I was hooked! Toward the end of the day, the guy who seemed to be the natural leader gave me this tiny little nod, like, 'Good man!' I was in Heaven, Fish! I started working twice as hard!

"Well, the next day, I was stiff as a hermit in a harem. All over, I mean. They laughed when I came staggering onto the dock. It was a nice laugh, though. Then they laid me down and kneaded the stiffness out of me. It hurt, but it helped, and anyway, they wouldn't let me up until they were done.

"Well, after four or five days, the work didn't hurt so much, and I stopped fainting. After a couple of weeks, I was loving every moment. I _love_ pushing myself to my limits, Bogs! I love the way we work with only a little talking, because everyone can just _see_ what has to be done. I love the way I wake up in the morning, instantly, just like that, ready to go. And I'm never tired or depressed anymore, Fish! At the end of the day I just have this feeling, 'Oh, time to sleep now,' and I lie down, and it's morning! No more worrying wide-awakes, Bogs! On my days off I work in the garden, or on the house."

"The house? What house?"

"Oh ... Well, I'm living in a house with a bunch of other stevedores, and some ladies ..."

"Aha!" said Bogs, with a grin.

Borki looked a little sheepish, but mostly, he looked pleased. In a hushed voice he said, "You were right, Fish, about it being different when you're not paying for it. I'm carrying on with this lady, why, she can make me forget who or what I am, and all night long! Three times, now, we've broke the bed! I feel like a volcano! But it's not just the rubbing and exploding, Fish! She's so – I mean, I feel so – I just – Oh, I just can't find the words, you know?"

"Maybe," said Bogs, frowning, "it's what they call 'Love.'"

There was a moment of silence. Then Bogs shook his head sadly, saying, "I wish Meki and Donnilid had made it to this."

**

Snair addressed a meeting of about a hundred of the locals, who had been designated as representatives of the population at large. "This is how it works," he said. "In order to get your economy back onto money, we have minted an initial supply of Nidiamis for you. We turn them over to your employers as a gift. You will need them to pay certain tithes which we are going to institute. Every able-bodied person will be tithed, and so every able-bodied person must work, in order to earn the money. Those who don't pay tithes will be beaten on the first offense; then it gets worse. Any questions?"

An elderly woman raised her hand; Snair pointed to her, and she rose and spoke:

"Revered Archprelate," she said, "forgive me, but I'm afraid I'm missing something here. It appears that the net effect of all this is, that you will acquire a certain amount of the fruits of our labor, without giving us anything in return. But if this is what you want, why not just take it? We will not fight you for it. Why go through all this business with money?"

**

At the church, Alisim watched as the local Girl of the Prophecies, holding some papers, climbed onto a stool behind a small podium that had been placed before the altar. Like most of the other kids in the neighborhood, the Girl was dressed in simple linen shirt and trousers, with pre-emptive patches at knees and elbows. Everyone fell silent, listening expectantly.

"Hi!" she said. "I'm Telimi Pring, your Girl of the Prophecies for tonight." _Oh yes_ , thought Alisim, _I_ _have_ _met her before. She is the daughter of Telimi Storr, one of the glazers!_

There was scattered applause, and several people called out, "Hi, Telimi!" Alisim also called and waved, a bit belatedly.

"I would like to thank Zorkimo Alt for helping me to prepare," continued Telimi. _Yes,_ thought Alisim, _this 'Girl' thing is something of a charade, isn't it? Adults tell her what to say._

"I have some good news," Telimi continued, brightly. Consulting her paper, she announced, "The _Amazing Grace Mana Factory_ has agreed to give available mana out free to whatever enterprises seem most worthwhile!" There was a burst of applause. She continued: "That resulted in several stores in the area going free." There was more applause, laced with scattered whoops. The applause made a crescendo as she listed the stores, reading them carefully from her piece of paper: "Here they are: _Godly Groceries_ in Milltown, _Divine Appliances_ in Sumac City, _Holy Hardware_ in Pekker's Point, _Clothed in Innocence_ in Waterbug Creek, and _Fated Furniture_ in Swampton." She paused as the applause rose to a roar; people stood up; some jumped up and down in place, others hugged their neighbors. Norgis participated fully in the enthusiasm, but Alisim remained seated, clapping primly, smiling rigidly, and feeling very self-conscious.

When the celebrating died down a bit, Telimi continued:

"Now, I have a piece of mixed news." Everyone was quiet. "Two luxury businesses have failed, _Angelic Chariots_ in Squiltch's Bog, and _Heavenly Estates_ in Highville. We are trying to find alternative employment for those out of work as a result of this. Already, Brother Sor Altief has accepted one of them as an apprentice!"

Here again she was interrupted by applause.

"Many of the newly unemployed," she resumed, "together with the ex-owners, blame us for their economic difficulties." _Why should they not?_ thought Alisim, suppressing another cynical grimace. _What is it besides your agitation that caused those businesses to fail?_ "We are maintaining active communication with most of them, and we are supporting them economically while trying to line up new work.

"In Brickton, there have been some cases of hoarding, and of attempting to sell items which were originally given out for free," continued the Girl. Alisim expected to hear boos and jeers, but there were none, only silence. "Other people followed these vendors and explained the situation to potential customers, most of whom were either morally repelled, or saw no point in paying money for what they could get for free elsewhere. Finally, they convinced the vendors that the money they were receiving for the goods would soon be worthless, and that they were therefore taking a loss on every sale. The vendors gave up trying to sell them, and they were returned to the communal storehouse!

"And that's my news for today!"

Telimi looked up and smiled. There was more applause. _Do we get a sermon, now?_ wondered Alisim.

"Now I want to read you some scripture," said Telimi. _I knew it_ , thought Alisim, covering her smile with her hand.

"This is a scripture," continued Telimi, "from the Temple of the Goddess Anaïd. I am not a member of this temple, and I am not presenting it as the absolute truth, but as something to think about." She began to read:

The goddess Anaïd created the race of Murgs, and gave them a beautiful world. This world was perfectly suited to their needs. But the Murgs were not grateful; they complained and demanded more.

Anaïd became angry. She said to the Murgs: "Because of your ingratitude, I hereby curse you with endless desires that you can never satisfy. You may satisfy one, but another will arise in its place. Furthermore, you will be in competition for the objects of your desires, and so you will become enemies to one another, always scheming and fighting over things. You will turn to evil, and your lives will be sordid and miserable. Some of the Wise among you will see the problem and counsel moderation, but most of you will be too weak and foolish to take their advice." And it was so.

When Anaïd calms down, she will realize that it is, after all, her own fault if the Murgs are imperfect, for she created them thus. But a goddess is immortal, and her rage takes a long time to abate, perhaps a thousand years.

We are the Murgs. Let us confess our faults to Anaïd,do our best to change, and pray to her for forgiveness and redemption. Perhaps this will shorten the epoch of her rage.

"In the spirit of this scripture," said Telimi, "I venture to address the following prayer to Anaid:

"Divine Anaïd, wise and gracious: We were wrong. You were right to be angry with us. We apologize. It is foolish to complain about one's world, and it is impossible to be happy without limiting one's desires. We are going to try to be more reasonable. Please notice that many of us have already moderated our life-styles. Please help us, for we probably can't do it without you."

There was a reverent silence for about twenty breaths, and then Telimi said, "And now, our performers for tonight will be, ... _the Nymph and the Dryads!_ " Enthusiastic applause erupted from the audience, as Telimi stepped down.

Telimi joined her mother, who gave her a big, proud hug. Several people came up and removed the podium and the stool, and the audience moved their chairs and tables over to the side. "They're going to dance," whispered Norgis, "but you don't have to." Alisim moved her chair to the wall and seated herself. When the central area was clear, a group of musicians appeared: a drummer with an intricate rack of drums, a brasspipe player, a woman with a very large blade piano, and a singer. Alisim steeled herself; given that instrumentation, she knew she could expect something raucous and raw. The instrumentalists readied themselves, and the singer stood in front of them. There was an expectant silence. The drummer began to beat softly on his deepest drum.

The singer (presumably 'the Nymph') was exotically dressed in multiple veils and bangles, and it took a few moments for Alisim to realize that she was Koorgantir, one of the potters from the factory. At first, Koorgantir just stood there by herself, eyes closed, hands clasped, in a prayerful or contemplative posture. Then she began to rock a little bit from side to side, as if tuning herself to the drum.

Suddenly, her eyes sprang open; she raised her arms, and she cried, " _Enough!_ " Immediately, the thrumming sound of low notes on the blade piano added itself to the drum.

" _Enough misery!_ " shouted the Nymph. " _Enough stupidity!_ _Enough rigidity! It is time for us to be free!_ " A number of shouts of agreement broke out from among the audience. A shiver went down Alisim's spine. Her idea of pleasant music performance would be something like an intricate viol quintet, with no participation from the listeners.

" _Enough fear!_ " cried Koorgantir.

" _Enough fear!_ **"** responded the audience. From the corner of her eye, Alisim saw, with a twinge of dismay, that Norgis participated enthusiastically in this response. This made her very nervous. Perhaps she didn't really want to know this aspect of him.

"Enough competition!" Koorgantir continued. "Enough hierarchy, enough mechanical rules!" More shouts of agreement.

Raising her eyes to heaven, and her hands in a gesture of frustration, Koorgantir let out an inarticulate cry of frustration and longing:

" _Aieeeaiaieeeaiaiaieee!"_

The audience shouted it back: _"Aieeeaiaieeeaiaiaieee!"_ Alisim felt goose bumps all over her. The brasspipe player began to play syncopated repetitions of a single low note.

" _Aieeeaiaieeeaiaiaieee!_ " screamed Koorgantir. She leapt and spun. Her bangles rattled, her veils whipped.

" _Aieeeaiaieeeaiaiaieee!"_ the audience responded.

_Amazing,_ thought Alisim. _Koorgantir is so quiet and deferential at work!_

**

"I want to join you," said Jrent Litt.

"You will have to accept non-violence."

"I do!"

"What made you change your mind?"

"Well, I went home," said Litt, "and there was my family, wrangling as usual, and I thought thus, 'Look, they're always punishing each other, and instead of solving any problem, that _is_ the problem.' And I thought thus, 'Look, if they all stopped, then it would be nakedly over!' And then I thought thus, 'Look, if even _one_ of us just stopped, that would make things better, at least a little.' and then I thought thus, 'Look, it might as well be _me_ that stops.' So, every time someone gave me a twist, I was trying, 'I'm sorry that I caused you pain,' or, 'I'll try not to do that any more,' or something. Not sarcastic, just erect and plain. And at first they tried, 'You are being sarcastic,' but I tried, 'No, no, nakedly not!' Only sometimes they did get me twisted, but gradually I learned not to be, or at least not to act like it.

"Now my dad, he has this act, where he asks a question that you don't know the answer to, and if you say you don't know, he tries, 'Guess, then!' and he keeps after you until you guess, and of course you guess wrong, and he laughs at you. So when he did that to me, I would just try, 'You got me, there!' very cheerful, and sometimes I'd try, 'You for sure do know a lot!'"

"Well, for a while everyone was just nakedly amazed, because usually I get twisted, but now I was just floating downstream; then they were twisting at me, but after awhile they started trying 'Stop, what is this? What is he doing?' and I tried, 'Look, I was talking to the Girl people, and they say it's better to give good for bad, or something like that, so I thought I'd slide myself in and see what happened!'

"So my dad tries, 'What's the matter, can't you take it?' and I try, 'But I _am_ taking it, ask me another one!' And he tries, 'But you don't _know_ anything!' And I try, 'Well, I don't know as much as you do, although I hope to, some day,' and my mom looks at my dad and tries, 'You know, I think he's into something wet!' Well, she wouldn't have put it just that way, but that was the idea. And then my dad gets _nakedly_ twisted at _her_ , and then I start feeling nakedly guilty for getting her in trouble. But then I think this: 'Why is it my fault?' and so I try, 'I thank you both for bringing me into existence.' Well, they were both nakedly lost! There was actual silence over that table!

"Well, so I'm going on much too long, here, what I'm trying to say is, that over the long run it's made things better in my family, not to punish, not to fight back. Not that I always don't, sometimes I get twisted, and there we go, falling into the fire. But I'm better than I used to be. So I think maybe you've got something worth stroking here, and I'd like to learn some of your moves!"

**

"We had a desertion, Sir," said Blutorx, as he was running through the day's report.

Archprelate Snair gave a sigh of exasperation. "Well, send a message back, then," he said, "so that they will be able to wipe out his immediate family."

"Yes, Sir!" said Blutorx. "More significantly, the telepaths report some instances of Epi-Girlism."

"Epi-Girlism?"

"Yes, Sir. That means, a spontaneous appearance of ideas similar to those taught by the Girl, but expressed as if it were part of the True Religion. A heresy based on things the Girls say. Presumably, what happens is something like this: while patrolling the neighborhood, soldiers are exposed to the ideas of the local Girl. Not directly, since they are forbidden to read tracts – those who are literate – or to talk informally with locals. But the _spirit_ of the religion is in the air, in the way people talk to each other, in the expressions on their faces, in the way they dress, decorate things, and so on. Unconsciously, the soldiers begin to imitate this, and to express it in their own terms."

"Are you saying that people can be _unconsciously_ heretical?"

"Yes, Sir. The, ah, ..." Here the Chief of Mystery Police, Second Division, paused, looked down, and cleared his throat – no one ever spoke any name or description of the Deceiver out loud, if he could possibly help it – and then continued: "Ah, _someone_ is, as you know, fiendishly clever. When one cannot operate overtly, one operates covertly."

"But it's not a sin, is it, if it's unconscious?"

"Well, no, Sir, but I asked someone on the Inquisitorial staff, and he said that we have a duty to _point out_ to someone when they are falling into unconscious heresy, whereupon it is, of course, no longer unconscious. And we also have a duty to tell them when they are _close_ to falling into heresy, consciously or unconsciously. In fact, that's even better, since the heresy might be prevented altogether that way. In other words, we should have more religious education for the troops here, where they are so frequently exposed to error. He suggested that we requisition a few extra proctors for this purpose."

"All right, make it so. What's going to happen to those soldiers?"

"I gave the material to my contact at Inquisition, and he said that no penance is required for unconscious heresy, just a warning."

"All right, what's next?"

"The house on the plaza was razed, as you ordered. We made it a point to inform a number of people that when we announce a meeting, we expect them to attend, and that it would be worse next time, if they didn't."

"How did they respond?"

"Very cheerfully, Sir. They apologized for hurting our feelings, and they promised to be there next time."

**

"I'm sorry to bother you," said the woman, handing Zorg a leaflet, "but would you read this, please? It concerns you." Zorg was a policemonk; observing that the woman wore the headband of a Follower of the Girl, he felt complex emotions, including both shame and rage. The law was sacred to Zorg, and these people had deliberately flouted it, all in pursuit of some crazy Utopian goal. Worse yet, they had forced the _authorities_ to flout the law. And the authorities had ordered Zorg to do something that he never thought he'd have to do, and was deeply ashamed of. After a few moments, however, he took the leaflet and read it.

Because of the recent violence, we, the followers of the Girl of the Prophecies in the Torlash neighborhood, have concluded that it is necessary to make the following statements:

1. It is true that various followers of the Girl have broken the local law on various recent occasions. The beatings occurred when a number of us attempted to facilitate our arrests for some of these offenses.

2. We agree with the general principle of Theo-Anarchy, that the law is just a default. By having such defaults, we save ourselves the trouble of re-inventing fire in every situation that arises. Certain laws distill the wisdom born of thousands of years of experience. Still, it is possible that in some situations, a law will counsel action which is less than the best. In such cases, the law should not be applied. We believe that most laws permitting coercion, direct or indirect, should not be applied. Coercion should be used only in extreme situations, when someone is under attack and there are no effective alternatives.

3. It is our principle, to which we believe that we have remained faithful, to break the law only when there appears to be an overriding ethical justification for doing so. Anyone who breaks the law for other reasons is not truly one of us, no matter what they may claim or believe.

4. Recently, as a result of the beatings, many people have expressed rage or hatred toward the policemonks, the members of the Town Council of Elders, and others. It is our principle that rage and hatred are not constructive. Nor do we believe in retribution. It is not and never will be our policy to punish policemonks, members of the Town Council, or anyone else. Our belief is that every person is always doing the best they can, as they see it. It is also our belief, that punishment only multiplies damage. It is also our belief that we ourselves are capable of error. We therefore try to love and respect everyone, even when they oppose us. If we find ourselves unable to love others, we withdraw from them as much as possible until we are able to do so. We believe that communication, leading to insight, will eventually break down the barriers between individuals and groups.

5. We also reaffirm our commitment to harmlessness. Since our beliefs could easily turn out to be wrong, we have no right to force them on anyone else.

Zorg read the fourth point several times, dwelling especially on the sentence, "Our belief is that every person is always doing the best they can, as they see it." It was comforting to him, for he had indeed been disturbed by the part he had taken in the beatings. He had never expected to have to do anything like that. Ever since then, he had felt guilt and shame, and feared revenge. He had tried marshalling other emotions – particularly righteous indignation – against these, but he had not been completely successful. His feelings had been exacerbated by the leaflet from the 'Lions of Justice,' which Zorg had read as soon as it became available.

_To be sure,_ he thought, _one can't completely trust the Followers of the Girl. They might claim to be harmless and non-vengeful, but then, that's just the position of the weak. Later, if they become strong enough to accomplish something with violence, they will probably do so. The Lions of Justice might even be a front group for them._

**

Foot soldier Zeldie was in Nidiami's occupying force in the Vinate neighborhood. She was also in something of a double-bind. While on patrol, she was supposed to be watching the populace. But she had also been warned that watching them might corrupt her.

That was easy to understand. They seemed so happy! They smiled, they laughed, they joked! And they smiled at her, too, and waved. If she hadn't been told, she would never have known that they were the enemy.

Worse yet, the men among them apparently thought nothing of showing their breasts, even their nipples! Also their navels! Occasionally she would even see one wearing _nothing at all_ above the waist! She couldn't help but avert her eyes, even though she was on patrol. The local women, who covered their own breasts – for the most part – did not seem to be shocked at this behavior, nor did they seem to be overcome with lust. Occasionally, such a man might receive an appreciative glance; but that was all.

The amount of _touching_ between the sexes was also shocking. But again, it didn't seem to lead to anything. 'How perverse these people are!' she thought.

But worse than that was, that she was actually getting _used_ to it. And still worse was the fact that, as she got accustomed to it, she occasionally found it _arousing_. But worst of all, was the fact that she sometimes found it _not_ arousing. It was actually beginning to feel _ordinary_ to her!

She had confessed this to her Proctor, and had been reassured: "Remember Zeldie, that arousal in itself is not a bad thing, if you have not _sought_ it. If your eye just _happens_ to light on one of those half-naked men, and you feel a bit of arousal, that is not a sin. It would only be a sin if you deliberately looked at him _in order_ to be aroused." Zeldie had been relieved by this, and her Proctor had added, "Remember, Zeldie, you are a soldier, and soldiers have to endure hardships that civilians do not. But keep up your courage and your resolve, and you will be fine!"

**

Now came the moment that Alisim had been dreading the most: the brasspipe solo. Using a cup mouthpiece of steel, joined to a curving body of brass, the instrument had been designed to produce (mostly) multiphonics rather than single notes. That is, most fingerings caused the column of air inside the instrument to vibrate simultaneously in several different lengthwise sections, each producing a different note. The notes comprising these multiphonics did not often fall into any particular key or scale, and so each multiphonic was apt to be atonal and dissonant. _I'm doing this for Norgis_ , Alisim thought, resigning herself.

The brasspiper began quietly, easing into his chords subtly and making a crescendo on each one, adding a strong vibrato, and then fading away again before getting terribly loud. In fact, it would have been boring by itself, and only worked because it was heard against a background of fluttering drums and pulsing blade-piano. _This is not so terrible_ , thought Alisim, _but of course, it's only because he's building up to something._ Still, it was a relief; she had been expecting the sort of thing she had heard kids do in their neighborhood bands: blow as hard as possible, and run their fingers randomly over the keys, producing a sound like a herd of pigs being attacked by a cloud of demonic wasps.

The brasspipe line became gradually more intricate, while the piano and drums gradually simplified into an insistent five-against-three rhythm. Many of the audience were dancing now; evidently free-form improvisation was the norm. Every now and then, Koorgantir would shout something. Alisim actually felt herself drawn in a little; she stood, and began to rock back and forth a bit. Norgis stood in front of her and complemented her motions. All evening, she had felt a little nervous about his presence, but now, she felt connected to him in a good way. She began to relax. It was fun.

Then she turned, and her eyes fell on Koorgantir, who was removing one of her veils as she danced. Several other veils lay on the floor, along with scattered bangles. A good deal of ivory skin showed, and one yellow nipple bounced vividly up and down.

**

"All right," said the new Curate of Torlash, "we are going on a secret mission. Listen carefully!"

There was a time when Zorg would have been thrilled by the very idea of a secret mission. Those times were gone.

"Why secret?" he asked.

The Curate frowned at him. Policemonks were not supposed to interrupt mission statements. Switching to an expression of benign patience, he replied: "To counter the secrecy of the so-called 'Lions of Justice.' Listen to the plan, and you will understand." The Curate paused for a moment before continuing, however; there was something about the mood of the monks that felt wrong. In particular, very few of them looked shocked by Zorg's interruption. Also, they were looking at him more ... _intently_ than usual. _Well_ , he thought, _nowhere to go but ahead_.

"You've all read their propaganda," he said. "You see how it purveys hatred. They are surely up to no good. For the sake of the public soul, we must reveal them for what they are, before they can grow in strength. So we are going to do the sort of thing that they are be likely to do, when they develop the confidence; and we are going to cause the public to believe that they really did do it. In this way, we will prevent them from hiding the sickness in their hearts behind a mask of inaction."

"We going to _dupe_ the public," said Zorg. There was a nervous stir among the monks, but the Curate could not catch the drift of it.

"Brother Zorg," he said, "that is the second time you've interrupted me."

"Tha's correct, your Holiness," said Zorg. "I was possessed." He didn't say _by what_. The Curate suspected impertinence, but he could hear none in Zorg's tone. Various monks must have felt the same, because there were and a few gasps – and also, disturbingly, a few quiet chuckles.

The Curate sighed. "Do we have a morale problem, here?" he asked. No one answered.

"Well?"

A monk in the back raised his hand. "Yes, Gris?"

"Permission to testify freely, your Holiness," said Gris.

"Granted," replied the Curate, smiling paternally.

"Begging your pardon, your Holiness," said Gris, nervously, "but why no jus' say, 'Look, read what they've writ, clearly they's spread'n' hatred'?"

There was a stir and a mumble among the monks. Now, for the first time, the Curate could intuit it clearly: _Gris was speaking for a significant number of them_.

"Thank you, Gris," he said. "You have made it clear that the correctness of this plan is not obvious to you. I am therefore canceling the mission until greater clarity can be obtained. I will never require any of you to act except in complete harmony with your own consciences." _I wish I hadn't expressed that quite so strongly_ , he thought.

A number of the monks exchanged relieved expressions with one another. The Curate noted who they were.

**

"Do you own this house?" asked the tithe assessor.

"No, Respected Invader," said Krivlith. "I just live here, with my family."

"Don't call me 'Invader'!" said the assessor, sharply.

"I won't, and I apologize for hurting your feelings, Respected ... Person," said Krivlith, kneeling, with his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. The apology only angered the assessor more, for, like many men from the Elubrican neighborhood, his ideal of manhood included being in total control of his emotions at all times, and therefore immune to insult; to suggest that his feelings had been hurt was to suggest that he was not fully a man.

"You didn't hurt my – never mind that," said the assessor. "Who is the owner?"

"It is not owned, Respected Person," replied Krivlith.

"Oh, of course. Well, I'm hereby counting you as the owner. Every longmoon, starting one longmoon from now, you must pay me ten Nidiamis, as a tithe."

"What is a Nidiami, Respected Person?"

"It's a unit of money," said the assessor, "and don't tell me you don't remember what money is."

"I remember, Respected Person," said Kivlith, "but, how can I obtain Nidiamis?"

"By working," said the assessor.

"But I work already," said Krivlith, "at the soy products factory on Freedom Street; but they never give me Nidiamis."

"I will see to it that they do. Where on Freedom Street is this factory?

"Near Ecstasy Boulevard, Respected Person."

"Call me 'Lieutenant,'" said the assessor, writing down the address.

"Yes, Lieutenant!"

"We will see to it that they give you Nidiamis."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," said Krivlith, inclining his head.

"I'll be back in a longmoon," said the assessor, "and if you don't have your tithe, you will be evicted and beaten."

"I understand, Lieutenant. May your life be filled with joy!"

**

The lieutenant went to the factory. "Who's in charge here?" he asked.

"No one, Respected Invader," replied a worker.

"Don't call me that! Call me 'Lieutenant'! All right, since you claim to have no leaders, I'm holding _you_ responsible for telling the others," replied the Lieutenant. "Tell them that from now on, all workers must be paid in Nidiamis."

"Very well, Lieutenant," replied the worker. "Where do we get the Nidiamis to pay them?"

"At the beginning, we will give you some. After that, by selling your products to the retailers."

"We will do so, Respected Lieutenant," said the worker.

**

Later, the Lieutenant spoke to a retailer. "From now on, you must buy products from the tofu factory with Nidiamis, and your customers must pay you with Nidiamis," said the Lieutenant. "Also, you must pay a tithe in Nidiamis."

"We will do so, Respected Invader," said the retailer, "but, if I may ask, where will we get the Nidiamis?"

"Call me 'Lieutenant,'" said the Lieutenant. "At the beginning, we will give you some; but after that, you will get them from your customers, and they will get them from their workplaces."

"And their workplaces will get them from ...?"

"Don't worry," said the Lieutenant. "We will give everyone some money, in order to start the process going."

"That would be fine," said the retailer, "but ..."

"But what?"

"I'm sorry, respected Lieutenant," said the retailer. "It's none of my business. It's not something that I need to understand."

"Tell me what you were thinking of asking," said the Lieutenant, in a voice of command.

"Well," said the retailer, "it seems strange to me ... you are saying that you will give us Nidiamis, that we will pass them from hand to hand, and that you will then take some of them back. Why don't you just keep those?"

**

"All right, I guess I've learned about as much as I can," said Rutical, the tooth savior, straightening up, and taking off his special spectacles. "Let me tell you how I see it:

"You've got a few cavities, and they should be filled, and I'd be happy to do it. Now, you also mentioned that your teeth are a little crooked, which they are, and you wondered if I could fix that. Well, yes, I can, but there's a problem. It takes a lot of resources to do that, and straightening them out would be what we call a _cosmetic_ change, meaning, it would make them _look_ better, and make your biting and chewing a little more efficient, but their crookedness isn't really a health problem. So far so clear?" Uwertch, the patient, nodded in the affirmative.

"Well," continued Rutical, "there's a question of time and a question of resources. As for time, I'm pretty busy keeping up with all the non-cosmetic stuff in my area. Under the Old Balance, the Tooth Savior's Guild limited the number of students that could be graduated. That kept the price of dentistry up, you see: demand and supply. We're trying to fix that, now, by teaching more students, but it will be awhile before we get it where we want it.

"As for resources, whether we use magic or not, it takes a lot of resources to straighten out a set of teeth, maybe a tenth of a Grod." Although no one in Rutical's neighborhood used money anymore, they sometimes found it convenient to use the old monetary terminology as a rough measure of value.

"So what it comes down to is, that I'm not sure it's worth the expense. As I said, it's not a health problem. You can bite and chew fine. If I do the cosmetic job for you, I might have no time for someone who needs fillings. So this is what I suggest: I'll think about it, and talk about it with a few people, and you do the same, and we'll see what we can come up with, in a week or so. Sound good?"

Uwertch looked sad, but he nodded in the affirmative.

**

Zeldie had hardly begun her patrol when she saw something scrawled on the sidewalk in her own language. She could read enough to make it out:

"Torimonth 1: all together!"

She activated her seashell and reported it. "Erase any such graffiti," replied the dispatcher, "and think about them as little as possible."

"I am inspired," she replied, and obeyed.

Continuing on her patrol, she realized that sexual customs had not been the only thing bothering her. There was something else about these people that felt profoundly disturbing. They were cheerful, friendly, and not afraid of each other. Either they were not routinely interrogated by telepathic police, or their consciences were perfectly clear. She did see telepaths occasionally, but their presence never seemed to worry anyone; in fact, they apparently had the same easygoing relationships with telepaths as they had with one another. Often, she saw telepaths walking along the street without any guide, which meant that they must be making use of other people's vision; evidently the others did not mind at all.

Everyone _smiled_. Suddenly, Zeldie realized that the face of everyone in the Elubrican neighborhood, including her own, had always been marked by fear, stress, and strain. It was so universal that she had never noticed it before she came to the Vinate neighborhood, where people were so different. And when she thought about that, her stress and strain increased, for the temptation to heretical thought was almost irresistible. She dealt with it by hating the occupants of the neighborhood for subjecting her to this temptation, for trying to deceive her by appearing to be blessed when in fact they were damned. No shame at all! It was all she could do, sometimes, when locals passed her, dressed in bright clothes, friendly and relaxed, smiling and laughing, to restrain herself from firing on them.

**

On Linter's day, around noon, Tolkep intentionally bumped into Elda. "Watch your meat rack, you ..." snarled Elda, turning on her, and then recognized her. "Tolkep!" she said. "I thought you weren't going to – " Then, remembering the need for secrecy, she lowered her voice. "I'm sorry," she said. "You startled me!" She looked much better: well-fed and well-clothed. The baby on her hip was no longer emaciated.

"It's all right," said Tolkep, after a quick glance around. "How have you been doing? You look good!"

"I am good!" replied Elda, with a smile. "Partly thanks to you. My heart glows to see you. But Tolkep," she added, looking a little sad, "I'm sorry, but your project is not going to kindle."

"Not your fault, I'm sure," said Tolkep, "but why not? What happened?"

"It's the Girlers," said Elda. "They are getting people to do without money altogether! Kargs, Zeligirias – it's dark against night, to them."

"Girlers ... you mean, followers of the Girl of the Prophecies?"

"Just right," said Elda, nodding,

Tolkep didn't know what to think. She had heard of groups that followed the Girl of the Prophecies – that is, some local claimant to the title – springing up everywhere, but she hadn't yet found it to be a problem for the Orthex Crusade. "If it _is_ a problem," she muttered to herself.

"Say again?"

"Oh! Sorry, Elda," said Tolkep, a little embarrassed. "I was talking to myself. I'm a little confused by the situation. Well, I'm sure you did your best, so you get your pay, anyway!"

"Oh, forget it, Tolkep," said Elda. "It's no use to me anyway, even in Kargs."

"Well, I want to pay you somehow," said Tolkep. "What if I bring a bunch of food and clothing over, next time?"

"That would be nice, Tolkep. There are still lots of people around here who can use it."

"Good! I'll do that! But tell me, Elda, how are exchanges balanced here now?"

"Well, they aren't, really. I mean, the idea is that we talk about where things would do the most good, and decide, and that's where they go. How could _exchange_ ever fix the difference between the rich and the poor? Exchange favors the rich, 'cause they can always outbid the poor."

Tolkep felt a little dizzy. Her religious vocation was intrinsically bound up with the idea of canceling out disparities in personal wealth. But if there _was_ no personal wealth, there could be no disparities. Without that, she would have to ... start all over again? She felt dizzy. To what does one appeal, if one's religion is no longer applicable?

Could this be a trick? To get poor people to renounce personal wealth, while the wealthy found some loophole? Or, could the wealthy have instituted some kind of secret accounting system, while appearing to have renounced property? Similar things had happened in the past. Tolkep knew that sharing resources could work, at least in small groups; families, for example, or that church that she had sent Karnak to ... . But could it really be brought to a whole neighborhood? And how many of the supposed Girls were trying to do this?

"Tolkep?"

"Ah, sorry, just thinking."

"Tolkep, let me take you to one of their houses – you can talk to them, see what kind of creature they are!"

"Ah, yes! That's a good idea. When will you be free?"

"Oh, I'm free right now, Tolkep, and I'd love to. But let me be clear to you, Tolkep, I've

become one of them myself!"

**

"Alisim!" shouted Norgis, running after her. "Wait! Stop! Let me explain!"

After awhile, Alisim did stop. She was out of breath. And besides, if he followed her home, what would she do then?

"You don't ... understand!" said Norgis, coming up to her, and also gasping for breath. "It ... isn't ... what it ... looked like!"

"I ... know I'm ... not as _worldly_ ... as you are, ... Norgis," she replied, coldly, "but I know a ... _strip-tease_ ... when I see one!"

"No, no, ..." said Norgis. "It was just ... the ... _opposite_ of a ... strip-tease!"

"No, " said Alisim, with exaggerated patience, "she wasn't putting her clothes _on_ , Norgis. She was taking them _off_."

**

"Well, Sir, we finally caught one of the graffito artists!" said Blutorx.

"At last! Give him to a telepath! Find all his co-plotters and arrest them! Find his immediate family and execute them!"

"Unfortunately, we can't do that, Sir. It was a simulacrum, and it has already dissolved."

"Well, somebody out there _made_ the simulacrum, and that will be revealed by telepathic interrogation. Do as many interrogations as you can, and make them as random as possible, until you have a trail."

"It may have come from outside the neighborhood, Sir."

"I suppose that's possible. Continue to wall the neighborhood in, and to let people pass in or out only if they submit to telepathic interrogation."

"Yes, Sir, but we have a problem there: the Proctor-General for telepaths says that the telepaths are becoming very uncomfortable. You see, ..." He hesitated.

Snair frowned. "Yes? What? Don't waste my time!"

"Well, Sir," said Blutorx, "you understand, I'm just telling you what the Proctor-General told me. It seems that when the telepaths look into the souls of the locals, their souls appear to be happy, strong, and well-disposed to others. It also appears to them that, contrary to our claims, their playful but intelligent behavior is freely chosen, not the result of hidden coercion."

_I wish he hadn't told me that,_ thought Snair, and then felt shock that he would have such a thought. _But I can't ponder that now – I need to be listening to Blutorx!_

"Of course," continued Blutorx, "the telepaths realize that this must be an illusion, but it is very well done, and so the telepaths become very perplexed."

"So it's like the Epi-Girlism problem."

"Yes, Sir, but more intense, because the telepaths are used to thinking that they can't be fooled."

"So, maybe it means that we should use the telepaths less, then, even though that means less interrogation?"

"That would be one option, Sir. After all, if they can be fooled on those other things, perhaps they can be fooled about whether the subject has made a graffito, too. The advantage of using telepaths has evaporated."

Snair sighed. "If that's so, we may as well send them all home," he mused, "but I guess I'd better consult with my superiors before I do anything that radical!"

**

"Well, ... yes, she _was_ taking them off," said Norgis, still breathless from running after Alisim, "but, ... what ... I mean, ... it was, ... the opposite of a ... strip-tease in .... in _spirit_."

"Norgis," replied Alisim, sadly and tiredly, "I don't know ... why I ... ever thought there would be a limit ... to your craziness." She started to walk away, holding her head in her hands.

"Let me explain," begged Norgis, following her. "Half a year ... ago, a woman couldn't ... walk at night in this ... neighborhood, without taking a great risk of ... being ... raped. Now ... she _can_."

"Because all the ... lechers ... are _in_ _your church_ , ... drooling over ... Koorgantir?"

"No, because ... of moral ... regeneration!"

Alisim found herself laughing and crying at the same time. She leaned against the wall, beating it with a fist. "Dancing naked ... in the church," she said. "Now, that's real ... moral ... regeneration!"

"She did it to show her _trust_ ," insisted Norgis. "We ... the followers of the Girl ... believe that a woman ought to ... be able to run about naked if ... she wants, ... without being raped , ... or even ... harassed. No one should ... even feel obliged to ... mention it. And ... Koorgantir believes ... in us, ... in the men there, ... she believes ... they will treat her ... with respect ... and she is demonstrating ... her faith in them ... by making herself ... completely vulnerable."

"Are you telling me," said Alisim, "that none of the ... heteromales ... in there are feeling ... the least bit of ... arousal at ... looking at her?"

"Of course they are," said Norgis. "Not that she's ... the most beautiful ... woman ... in the world – she's only ... twenty-five, ... you know – but ... the point is, they ... appreciate her ... femininity ... but without any jokes, or ... catcalls, or ... vulgarity, or any of ... the thoughts ... or attitudes ... that lie behind ... such things. They just _appreciate_ ... her. And I imagine that she enjoys being ... appreciated, ... because she knows ... that it is just ... appreciation."

Alisim stopped beating on the wall. She thought of how, as a child, she had run around naked, innocently, until, well before puberty, she had been told to always be dressed, if there was any chance of being seen by anyone, and especially by a man. Her body became a liability, something that had to be always hidden, except from her husband when she married. After puberty, she and her friends had pushed the boundaries, rebelling in one way or another, dressing in ways that shocked their parents, allowing their boyfriends liberties that theoretically they were not supposed to have, yet always afraid of men in general. And not without reason, as several of her friends had tragically discovered.

"And they appreciate ... her trust ... even more ... than her sexiness," continued Norgis. "You know ... women ... always hiding their ... bodies ... from us ... makes men feel like ... criminals ... for being interested. ... Women act as if ... we were ... dangerous animals ... who would go ... insane ... if they took off ... their clothes in ... our presence. Do you ... know how ... that feels?"

"But Norgis," said Alisim, "men ... _are_ dangerous, sometimes!" Although, she realized, Norgis himself was terribly timid and shy around women; he was virtually _afraid_ of them!

"Yes, but ... not every man is plotting ... rape ... all the time, you know. But you are right, some men are like that, and ... so some of us ... from the Followers ... got together, and talked about it ... and made an oath. We swore never to ... bully, bribe, or trick a woman into sex, ... we swore never to make remarks that would ... make her feel insulted ... or embarrassed about ... being a woman ... or to make such remarks amongst ... ourselves ... and then we went to other men, and convinced them, ..."

"You never mentioned any of this to me, Norgis," said Alisim, sternly.

"I'm sorry," Norgis replied, "I should have told you. But it ... never came up, and ... besides, ... it was ... _humiliating,_ to feel obliged to ... swear ... such an oath."

Alisim stopped to ponder all this. Thinking back to her last few moments in the church, she could not remember any wolf-whistles, leers, laughter, or catcalls. Could it actually be ... ?

"If you don't believe me," said Norgis, "go back, and see what's ... happening now."

**

"Ah, Lieutenant," said Krivlith, "here is the tithe you asked for." He handed over an envelope stuffed with bills.

"Already?" said the Lieutenant, puzzled.

"Yes, Lieutenant," replied Krivlith. "As soon as we received it, we gave ourselves our tithe money."

"No, no," said the Lieutenant, "you're supposed to _work_ for it!"

"Well, I _am_ going to work there," said Krivlith. "That's what I decided I was suited to do, even before you came to, ah, help us out. It had nothing to do with money. So we just thought we'd get your money to you right away. If that was a mistake, just give it back to us, and we will be happy to hold onto it until the end of the month."

**

The local Girl of the Prophecies, Sliva, was slight and white-haired, with lavender skin and indigo eyes. She wore a colorful sari and a head scarf. "Pleased to meet you, Tolkep," she said with a smile, touching knuckles with her. "If you have grown-up questions, though, you should talk to Orka here." She indicated a large, elderly woman, sitting next to her on the divan. Orka had beautifully wrinkled green skin; it was slightly translucent, like jade. She wore a blouse and trousers of plain linen. Her intricately carved wooden necklace identified her as a priestess of Arbitu, the local goddess of Love. Tolkep smiled and touched knuckles with her, too. She had always had a good feeling about the cult of Arbitu. Until now, anyway.

"I believe I do," said Tolkep, sitting in a convenient chair. "Are you both familiar with the Orthex Crusade?"

"Not as much as I should be," replied Orka, showing embarrassment, "but I understand that you seek to equalize wealth. I have always admired that. In a way, we are doing the same."

_How nice of you to help us out_ , thought Tolkep. Aloud, she said, "And we, in turn, are certainly not opposed to love."

"Good!" said Orka. "But let's not turn our backs on the Wolverine! Presumably, we have our differences. Let's deal with them! I think that the basic difference might well be, that you work within the existing Balance, while we want to create a new one. More specifically, you accept the institutions of money and private property, but strive to ameliorate the system by, for example, undermining class differences. We, on the other hand, want to change the system."

"That sounds like a fair description," said Tolkep.

"I wouldn't blame you for being upset," continued Orka. "It may seem that we are trying to kill your gods."

"Well, yes," said Tolkep. She was a little irritated by Orka's presuming to speak for her; a part of her wished that Orka had gotten it wrong.

"We believe that immanent gods can change, without being destroyed," replied Orka. "In fact, mortals have the power to change them; that's theurgy, a corollary of immanence! So it is not necessary to kill any."

_Well, you were the one who spoke of killing_ , thought Tolkep. She was getting a little upset. "How would you like it if someone came to you and said that _they_ were going to change _your_ god?" she asked.

"Actually," said Orka, "I've thought for some time that Arbitu should be more assertive than she is."

_You, on the other hand, carry your assertiveness too far,_ thought Tolkep to herself, _I find you to be pushy and arrogant. But I suppose that is irrelevant to the doctrinal questions._ She made a silent sigh of resignation, searching within herself for some basis, other than resentment, on which to carry on the conversation.

"Please be aware, though," continued Orka, "that followers of the Girl believe in non-violence, non-coercion, and direct truthfulness. We are not going to attack, coerce, or deliberately mislead either you or your god."

_Well, you certainly have been direct_ , thought Tolkep, a little acidly.

"We are not going to try to force you to change anything," added Orka.

_Except for whisking the rug, the floor, and the ground out from underneath us,_ thought Tolkep. She knew that her thoughts were being distorted by resentment, but she couldn't quite break free of it.

Sliva, the Girl, spoke up for the first time. "Orka," she said, "I think you are hurting her feelings."

Orka was taken aback. She looked first at Sliva, and then at Tolkep.

"Well, ah, yes," said Tolkep, a little sheepishly, "I am feeling a little uncomfortable, though I'm sure you didn't intend it. It's like this: in principle, we are discussing these matters rationally, uncorrupted by wishful thinking. But in fact, you are denigrating my god, my religion, my very life's work! How can I remain emotionally neutral?" Her voice broke a bit, and a tear escaped the corner of her eye.

After hesitating a moment, Orka nodded and said, "I am sorry. I have indeed been completely insensitive." She turned back to the girl; "Thank you, Sliva," she said. "You were right, and I needed to hear it." Turning again to Tolkep, she knelt down and hung her head. "I am sorry," she said.

"And I thank you, too, Sliva," said Tolkep. Orka remained in her kneeling position. Tolkep perversely enjoyed making Orca wait, and at the same time hated herself for feeling such pleasure. Finally gesturing to Orka to rise, she said, "I have not been responding well. I think we need to take a break, and then discuss this more slowly and gently."

**

"Very well," said the Bishop of Torlash. "What do _you_ suggest?"

"I suggest," said the new Curate, "that we decentralize our Church."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I mean, that it would be much more in harmony with the general spirit of Theo-Anarchy, not to mention the rapidly growing Girl-of-the-Prophecies movement, if we gave up this hierarchical authority structure. That is, we should do away with the practice of _giving orders_."

The Bishop was speechless for several breaths. Then he said, "When you took this job, in fact when you joined this Church, you committed yourself to obeying orders."

"I resign," said the Curate, "and so will everyone else, if you don't start recognizing the realities of the situation."

The Bishop was speechless again, eyes widened with shock. Finally he gargled, "Your ... oath means ... _nothing_ ... to you?"

"My oath means – I mean, _meant_ – a great deal to me. But our own – I mean, _your_ own – theologians agree, that an oath should be broken if there is a consideration of overriding moral importance. If the Church does not survive, my oath would be meaningless, would it not? So I consider the survival of the Church to be an overriding consideration."

"Do you think that I and my superiors do not understand how to keep the Church alive? Our methods have done so for several millennia, if I am not mistaken."

"Those methods have included adaptive change."

The Bishop's demeanor changed from one of anger to one of sad desperation. "What will _surely_ destroy the Church," he said, holding his head in his hands, "is if no one is willing to sacrifice anything for it."

"I just sacrificed my _membership_ for it. Was that nothing of value?"

The Bishop turned angry again. "Well, why don't you _leave_ , then? _Get out!_ "

"Because I still love the Church, and because I still have hopes of changing your mind."

" _Templars!_ " shouted the Bishop. Two men in armor came rushing into the room, drawing swords. The Curate stood at ease, his empty hands clearly visible.

"Throw him out!" said the Bishop, angrily, gesturing at the Curate.

The Templars looked puzzled. "He doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong," said one.

The Bishop began to weep.

**

The Lieutenant entered a clothing store. "Have you been charging everyone for the goods?" he asked.

"Yes, Lieutenant," replied the shopkeeper, with a smile.

The Lieutenant looked around. "I don't see any prices displayed," he said.

"Oh, I just charge them eighty-one Nidiamis for whatever they take, Lieutenant" said the shopkeeper. "We calculated that this is about what it will take for the producers to get their Nidiamis back. Toward the end of the month, we will be able to adjust it with more precision."

"That's not the way it's supposed to work," said the Lieutenant. "You are supposed to determine prices by balancing demand and supply. You know what I mean, the way it was before the Followers of the Girl got rid of money."

"Well, even then I didn't go by pure demand and supply," said the shopkeeper. "I was always a religious man, and so I used to donate..."

" _Never mind that_ ," said the Lieutenant, angrily. "From now on, it will be demand and supply. Understood?"

The shopkeeper fell to his knees. "I understand and obey, Respected Lieutenant," he said, "and I apologize for hurting your feelings."

"You didn't hurt my feelings, leech-face!"

**

The Presbyters of the Kelosian Church, cloaked and hooded in black, entered their poorly-lit meeting room through windows, heating ducts, and various secret passages. The Secretary placed a locked strongbox on her desk. It contained copies of the minutes of the previous meeting. Each presbyter found a way to extract a copy from the box.

"Very good," said the Secretary. "Now, who has the manipulator's token today?"

"I do," said one of the Presbyters, proudly, reaching into a pocket of his robe. "Right here! Hey ... what happened to it?"

"I quietly relieved you of it," said another, smiling complacently, and holding up a token.

"That's what you think," said a third, holding up another token. "If you look closely, you will see that what you are holding is a dummy, which I substituted for the real one earlier today!"

The secretary examined the two tokens carefully, and ruled in favor of the third Presbyter. "Congratulations, Farux," he said. "You are the manipulator this week."

"What makes you think I'm Farux?" asked the winner, removing his hood. "It is possible to imitate his posture and vocal inflections, you know!"

"Ah, Slank," said the Secretary, correcting his error. "Double congratulations!"

"My pleasure," said Slank (if indeed it was he), and proceeded to direct the meeting. After the routine business was out of the way, he said, "Now we must address a question whose answer will be very hard to find. Let us pray." All bowed their heads.

"Most crafty Kelos," Slank intoned, "we cannot see you, but we know you are eavesdropping. We would be worshipping at your altar, but someone has taken it. Indeed, this whole building belongs to someone else. Today we face the most momentous decision we have ever had to make. We have tried to wriggle out of it, but without success. We hope that you will pick the locks that we have been unable to open.

"It appears that the Girl of the Prophecies, or at least, many of her imitators, are trying to lead us to a New Balance in which there will be neither money nor property, and in which society is governed by extremely egalitarian attitudes. But if there are no rich, how can we steal from them? Our whole reason for being is being embezzled away! Should we oppose this movement? How can we best serve you in this situation?"

The figure of Kelos appeared. Dressed entirely in black, he was not clearly visible in the dim light. In one hand he held a huge ring of lock picks; on his back, supported by a tumpline to his forehead, was an ornate treasure chest.

"Brilliantly done, Farux!" exclaimed Slank (if indeed it was he).

"What??" replied Farux, with an exaggerated tone of injured innocence. "What makes you think this is _my_ doing?"

"I'd recognize your _modus operandi_ anywhere," replied Slank. "I'll never forget the time you made such a convincing pseudo-persona of Honggur, that one of his Holy Malls actually donated twenty-three thousand Kostiligars to one of our front organizations! That was brilliant! But, what's the matter, can't you take a compliment?"

"Actually, this persona is _my_ doing," said another Presbyter. "Farux has been a little careless in guarding his proprietary spells."

"A brilliant attempt at stealing credit, Velo," said Farux, "but –"

"That's not Velo," said another Presbyter, S'Chan. "That's a simulacrum of him that I made this morning."

"That's what _you_ think," replied Velo, haughtily. "I substituted myself for the simulacrum while you weren't looking. It is _you_ who are the simulacrum!"

"I _am not_!" said S'Chan, in a tone of outrage.

" _Please_ , guildmates!" interjected the secretary. "We have a caper to pull off, here."

"Harrumph!" grumbled Velo. "Will he never tire of stealing the limelight?"

"If I may smuggle a word in edgewise," said the persona of Kelos, acidly.

"Be my uninvited guest," said Slank.

"You must remember," continued Kelos, "that in spite of what some chauvinistic mortals seem to believe, gods are no less able to learn and grow than you are. Furthermore, we actually strive toward this end, from time to time. Now, recently, I have picked the brain of a girl that I believe is the true Girl of the Prophecies, and she had a suggestion that I intend to take. It's actually a bit of a step up for me; I will become a god of _Optimal Distribution_."

"Meaning what?" asked the secretary, taking down his every word in invisible ink.

"Whether or not there is money, property, or equality," Kelos explained, "it is simply part of the human condition, that resources must be distributed, one way or another, randomly or systematically, justly or unjustly, intelligently or stupidly, intentionally or by default. The problem is to distribute them in as good a way as possible. Distributing in as good a way as possible is what is meant by my new alias, 'Optimal Distribution.' The Girl intends that this will be the explicit intent of the social system of distribution, under the New Balance. I have always struggled, in my own way, to improve the existing system of distribution, and so I was a natural for such a job."

"That _is_ a promotion!" blurted out Slank (if indeed it was he), in amazement. "A _big_ one!"

"Well, yes, I suppose it is," said Kelos, looking down modestly, but smiling.

"You're not just an epicycle anymore," said Farux, in awe.

"Oh, is _that_ the way you thought of me?" growled Kelos, beetling his brows in menace.

"I ... well ... I only meant, ..." sputtered Farux, tangled in embarrassment, "I ... well, I apologize."

"In order to do this, I'll be, er, _merging_ with some other gods," said Kelos, blushing.

Some presbyters cheered, while others were embarrassed, considering that a god's reproductive life is his own business.

"But what about our _skills_?" whined Velo. "You know, casing the joint, sneaking in, picking locks, neutralizing alarms, locating hiding places, sneaking out, fencing, money laundering, ..."

"In the long run," replied Kelos, "most of you will have to learn some new skills, I'm afraid. But the Girl thinks that in the period of transition, your existing skills can be turned to very good use. She thinks that various wealthy people and institutions will try to hide or disguise their riches and their transactions in various ways, and it will be your job to expose them. During this period, however, you will also be encouraged to intensively study and develop the Ethics of Distribution, as they apply to situations in the New Balance. You may wish to always be alert for those who are, intentionally or not, using resources inappropriately, and find ways to redress this. Or, you may wish to focus on more positive aspects of optimal distribution: determining people's needs, determining society's resources, or figuring out how to direct the resources to most efficiently fill those needs. Society as a whole will be completely supportive of your efforts. This will be your eventual vocation, if you wish to remain my devotees. If you do not, you will have to sneak into another religion, I'm afraid. I will not harbor any ill-will towards those who do, for you were certainly not informed, when you became my devotees, that it would come to this."

Farux (if it was indeed he) sighed, and wiped at the corner of his eye. "You've stolen my heart," he said. The others nodded agreement.

**

By the time Norgis and Alisim returned to the church, Koorgantir had replaced her veils and bangles, and was singing. She seemed quite normal. There were no signs of debauchery, and there was nothing sexually suggestive about her actions. "I take it back, Norgis," she said. "There _are_ limits to your craziness!" She sighed. "I only wish I knew where they were!"

Her mind was whirling whitewater. Could the Followers really have changed men's attitudes so radically? Did Norgis really initiate, or contribute to initiating, this 'moral regeneration'? What else did it include? Were there still other sides of him that she did not yet know about? She realized with chagrin that she had been able to get along with Norgis because she had regarded him as too hapless to be in any way a competitor. It was hard to accept the idea that her lover might be competent at something.

**

This time, a crowd did appear for Snair's announcements. There was a festival atmosphere to the gathering, but everyone quieted down and paid close attention as soon as Snair's adjutant stepped forward to introduce him.

Addressing the crowd, Snair said, "We are making up a caravan. People who work on the caravan will be away from home for a long time, but they will make ten times as much per day as the average person here."

There was no special response to this, just a continuation of smiling, focused attention.

"We are also increasing the tithe. This means that some of you will _have_ to work for a caravan, in order for everyone to make ends meet."

Still no special response, just smiling, focused attention. In spite of himself, Snair began to feel a little foolish. In the rest of his speech, he laid out various details. At every point, he received smiling, focused attention.

As he stepped down, the crowd burst out in an overwhelming fireworks of cheering and applause.

**

"We will now hear from Elda, a woman who lives on Pilgrim Avenue, and who is an admirer of Sliva, our local Girl of the Prophecies," said Grivvid, the rector of the Town Synod. Elda had insisted that he say "admirer," rather than "follower." He gestured toward her, smiling at the audience.

"Thank you, Grivvid," said Elda, standing. "I want to take off by thanking you, and all members of this synod, for all your heavy work, taking care of our neighborhood."

_Flattery_ , thought Grivvid, _and making herself look generous._ His smile developed a hint of wryness; just enough to be visible, but not enough so that he could be clearly shown to be undercutting the speaker.

"It's sweet and easy," continued Elda, "for people who have drifted away from some task, to find fault with the people who bore the burden."

_Would that include you and your colleagues, by any chance?_ asked Grivvid silently. _I wonder how long it will take you to get from this unadulterated praise to the "But."_

"Those who stay, however, know that really doing something is always more stiff and tangled than thinking and dreaming about it."

_True enough_ , thought Grivvid, raising one eyebrow just a bit, _and which approach is yours, my dear Elda? I don't recall your working with us in the past._

"So I'm not here," said Elda, "to tell the synod what to do, or that they've done wrong."

Grivvid's eyebrows shot up into a skeptical position; then he looked mildly amused. _But surely you are_ , _my dear Elda_ , he thought, _although now you are going to have to be a little subtle about it._

"I just want to talk about something that happened here, mostly that I saw with my own eyes."

_And you will leave the generalizations to us_ , thought Grivvid, smiling wryly again.

"Only a few months past," said Elda, "I was poor, starving practically. And so were my children. All my friends, neighbors, and relatives were in the same situation."

A complex wave of emotions, mostly sad, broke in Grivvid's heart. _The poor, the poor ... we never seem to be able to rid ourselves of ..._

"Some of them went into crime, which made things harder for the rest of us. Others, including me, accepted the dole from the Town Synod."

_For which you are now repaying us_ , thought Grivvid.

"The dole was very small," said Elda.

_Now begin to whine_ , thought Grivvid.

"But I can understand that," Elda continued. Grivvid's eyebrows shot up again. "After all," Elda continued, "the Synod can't raise much money when everyone is poor. And besides, a dole isn't good for people. It's humiliating, and it leaves you drifting, and you become accustomed to being dependent, and forget how to work. And what becomes of your self-respect?"

Grivvid was intrigued. _Subtle indeed ... or just incompetent?_

"Then we met this Lady from the Orthex Crusade," said Elda, carefully not looking at Tolkep, who was seated in the audience.

_Are the Girl-admirers just a front for the Orthex Crusade?_ wondered Grivvid. In his younger years, he had had a certain sympathy for the Crusade; he had even given them a few anonymous tips. But he eventually gave that up, for he realized that being caught, even once, would put an end to his effectiveness in the Synod.

"In the end," said Elda, "we didn't take her suggestions. But she got us thinking."

_That is, she manipulated you subtly rather than overtly_ , thought Grivvid, smirking just a bit.

"One thing she said," continued Elda, "was that a lot of the work that gets done in this neighborhood is the fruit of investments from the outside. This looks sweet, when a new investment creates new jobs, but toward the end of the race it leeches us dry, for profits go to the owners, who don't live here and don't spend here. And profits must eventually be bigger than investment, else they shut down."

Another wave of sadness broke within Grivvid. How often he had supported such investments! And granted exemptions from tithes, and even loans without interest, to encourage them! To get _something_ in the present, hoping that later, someday, somehow, they would be able to break out of the vicious cycle. But that 'somehow' had yet to appear. _Selling the_ _source_ _of your wealth,_ he thought, _is always a mistake_. Again he thought of his youth, when, in his yearning to restore the purity of Theo-Anarchy, he had been tempted by various radical preachers. He remembered one whose slogan had been, " _Yank the leeches off!_ " A movement quickly crushed.

"... that ultimately," Elda was saying, "it's the _rules of money_ that make things happen the way they do. It's like the rules of Zaku; sooner or later, someone is going to win, and the other is going to lose."

Grivvid got a grip on himself, and restored his concentration. _How did I let her get to me?_ he asked himself.

**

"We have a morale problem," said Blutorx. "I respectfully suggest that we consider rotating the troops."

"You mean, send these back to Elubrican, and get new ones?" asked Snair.

"Yes, Sir."

"But we'd have to _train_ the new ones, from scratch!" It was hard to keep his voice level; the frustration that had been building up in him for days was threatening to turn into rage or hysteria.

"I know," said Blutorx, bowing deferentially, "but in the last 11 days, 34 soldiers, 14 telepaths, and 7 officers have all had nervous breakdowns, and I fear that the others are very close to it."

Everything Blutorx was saying seemed to be respectful and straightforward, yet Snair found it to be intensely irritating. He had to force himself not to interrupt.

"Is this related to the Epi-Girlism?" he asked, modulating his voice carefully to sound at ease and confident.

"Well, yes, it is. They continue to feel a strong influence from the locals, often unconsciously. But they have been forbidden the compromise of Epi-Girlism, and so they simply have to fight it. It is a continual source of stress. Because of the required telepathic interviews, our people do not have the luxury of thinking heretical thoughts but not overtly acting on them. So, our troops are constantly suppressing thoughts, and fearful that they may fail."

"I see," said Snair, who had been suppressing a lot of thoughts himself, recently. "But I'm hesitant to solve this problem by rotation. Rotation would bring healthy people out here, but it would also bring infected people back home. Not a good idea. Fortunately, there is another way out."

"What is that?"

"Require the locals to act the way people at home do. In fact, require them to convert."

"That will meet with a lot of resistance."

"I daresay. But that's why we have a military, and that's what agony spells are for!"

Blutorx looked thoughtful for a moment. "With all due respect, Honored Archprelate," he said, "using force, you can influence a person's actions, but their belief? They may wish very much that they believed in our religion, but belief is not altogether a voluntary matter."

"Well, as long as they _act_ converted, that will do for everyone except the telepaths. And if people _act_ converted long enough, one day they will probably wake up and find that they _are_ converted."

"Yes, that often happens," said Blutorx, nervously. "I have just one other concern, and that is, that the more cruelty we express toward the natives, the harder it will be for our people to continue thinking of ourselves as good people, and the natives as bad."

"Surely they understand that cruelty as an instrument of justice is a case of mercy," replied Snair.

"In principle, yes," said Blutorx, nervously, "but there is a human weakness – a tendency to think that cruelty is always a symptom of evil."

"Granted," said Snair. "Manufacture a few more atrocities on the native's part, then, to balance it off."

"Many of our troops find it difficult to accept that the natives really have committed atrocities, since they seem so gentle and friendly at other times," said Blutorx, nervously.

"Well, make _lots_ of them," said Snair, feeling a little edgy. _Does he have to argue with everything I say?_ "And," he continued, "have some of our people disguise themselves as natives, look surly, glare at the troops, write hostile graffiti, do lots of things to challenge this idea that the natives are so _lovable_."

Blutorx hesitated, looked embarrassed and apologetic, even fearful, and then forced himself to go on, "I'm sorry, Sir, but ... well, I fear that ... those used in the manufacture of atrocities and other incidents will face ... great psychological stress. Having to deceive, insult, injure, and even kill their own comrades..."

Snair let irritation show on his face. "That's what sociopaths are for!" he said. "Order more if you need them."

"Yes, Sir! But those who command the sociopaths, ..." Blutorx began; but then, as Snair's face began to redden, he changed course. "I will of course obey orders," he added hastily, prostrating himself, "but I recommend strongly that you ask for approval from the Divine Command before you proceed, explaining to them the risks involved. That way, if the worst happens, you are covered."

"Excellent suggestion," said Snair, "and I would like to append a short description of all _your_ views on the subject, including all the points you have just made. Put everything else on hold and have that ready by sixth bell."

"I am ... inspired, Sir," said Blutorx.

"Any other issues?

"No that is all for now," said Blutorx.

"Dismissed!"

Blutorx bowed deeply and exited.

_He disagrees with me_ , thought Snair. _Does that mean that he is going to try to subvert me? If others can sin unconsciously, so can Blutorx. I'll have to look closely at his telepath's report this week. And at my own..._

**

"That woman was a very effective speaker," said Treffilinch, an investor from outside the neighborhood, referring to Elda's remarks. He was looking closely at Grivvid. Treffilinch was wearing a perfectly-tailored suit made from the skins of zila lizards; zila lizards were very rare, and each one was about the size of a baby's thumb.

"Better than most agitators," replied Grivvid, shrugging, "but the same in the end, the voice of self-pity, unable to do anything but complain, hoping, I suppose, to bully us into another handout. The apparent radicalism of her statements was surely just a mask."

"Yes, no doubt," said Treffilinch, "and in a way, that's quite fortunate."

_Here it comes_ , thought Grivvid, getting a firm grip on his facial expression.

"For," continued Treffilinch, "if agitators were to succeed in creating civil unrest here, we would be forced to shut down our operations, creating more unemployment. I'm sure no one wants that." He smiled, then took a bite of his caviar-stuffed pastry.

"No one rational," replied Grivvid, smiling and nodding, while secretly imagining himself peeling strips of skin from Treffilinch's body, very slowly and with great relish.

**

Nidiami was troubled. It was not danger that was troubling him; he'd been living with danger all his life, and besides, life was becoming a good deal less dangerous lately, as more and more of his enemies sank into Girlishness, and hence non-violence. What was troubling to him was something more subtle, something he couldn't quite grasp. But he needed to grasp it, for it had to do with the whole direction of his life. He had a pervasive feeling of going in the wrong direction.

He had always solved problems by giving orders. But he also had developed a principle of never showing weakness. To admit that he was adrift in darkness would be very difficult for him. Besides, who would he ask? He could have, as spiritual advisor, the Ultimate Imperial Wizard of Elubrica; but no one knew better than Nidiami that the Angelic Order of Elubrica was just a spiritual prison, whose sole purpose was to keep Nidiami's people in chains, and that Vangele, the Ultimate Imperial Wizard, was a sycophant who had gotten where he was largely because he was incapable of independent thinking.

Or perhaps he could accept the services of a psychotherapist; perhaps he should consult Doctor Professor Super-Emeritus Curlmunt Frung, winner of seven Brilliancy Prizes in Prosocial Behavior Adjustment Methodology, colloquially known as "brainstamping." Nidiami would sooner have slept with a hungry anaconda.

In the past, he had dealt with episodes of depression through orgies of sex and violence; but that didn't seem to be working any more.

It had something to do with the _point_ of it all. He felt as though he had taken a bite of what he had thought would be delicious food, only to find himself with nettles and ashes in his mouth.

Could it have something to do with ... the fact that the neighborhoods where the Girlers had triumphed were not all falling apart? That they had found ways to live according to principles that Nidiami himself would have judged to be absurdly optimistic? Nidiami had become convinced, early in life, that everything came down to power, and that power came down to force, bribery, and propaganda. It was a grim view of life, but he chose the grim truth over what he thought was illusion.

Had he lived a grim life for nothing?

Well, he had nowhere to turn, no real friends, nothing to believe in. He would just have to keep going, and hope for the best.

**

Again the Lieutenant returned to the clothing store. Still there were no marked prices. He confronted the shopkeeper.

"Yes, Respected Lieutenant," said the shopkeeper. "You instructed me to proceed according to demand and supply. I thought that the best way to do that was to bargain with each customer individually in every case, rather than having a fixed price."

"Well, I suppose that is all right," said the Lieutenant. Economic Theology was not his strong point. This was true of many of the soldiers and officers, and Snair had had to create a special training program for them. At any rate, the Lieutenant was suspicious on general principles; he knew that the locals did not want to return to a money economy, and believed that they would subvert the attempt in every possible way. He decided to inquire further.

"What about one of these shirts?" he asked. "What sort of prices have you been getting for them?"

"Ah, just this morning, I sold one for eighty-one Nidiamis," said the shopkeeper.

That number sounded familiar; the Lieutenant's suspicions doubled. At that moment, someone entered. "Go ahead and deal with your customer," he said, and then he listened.

"Morileg! Good to see you!" said the shopkeeper, rushing forward and embracing the customer. For a long time, they chatted about the weather, mutual friends, and the usual sorts of things that friends discuss. They appeared to enjoy each other's company immensely. The Lieutenant became restive. _Are they stalling?_ he wondered.

At last the shopkeeper said, "Well, what can I do for you, Mori?"

"Oh," said Morileg, "I'd like a coat like the one that Elingeer got from you last week, only more my size, of course, and sky-blue."

"I can do that," said the shopkeeper with a smile. "I believe I have your measurements on file; can you come back in two days for the final fitting?"

"I'd be pleased," said Morileg. "What is the price?"

"Five hundred Nidiamis," replied the shopkeeper.

"Forgive me," said Morileg, "but eighty-one Nidiamis is the only price I'm prepared to pay."

"Four hundred?"

"Eighty-one."

"Eighty-two?"

"I'm sorry, it's eighty-one or nothing."

"Do you give me your word of honor, Morileg, that you won't pay a single Nidiami more than that?"

"You have it."

"Well, then, eighty-one it is," said the shopkeeper, cheerfully. Morileg handed over the money and received a claim check for the coat. The two friends chatted for awhile longer, and then Morileg left.

The lieutenant was furious. "Do you think I have fish feet for brains?" he demanded. "I know a charade when I see one! You're still selling everything for eighty-one Nidiamis, aren't you?"

The shopkeeper looked very sad. "That's how it has turned out, Respected Lieutenant," he said. "Everyone is absolutely determined to pay no more and no less. What can I do? The law of demand and supply says that I should charge the highest possible price, and that is what I am doing!"

It's _collusion_ ," said the Lieutenant. "They have all made an agreement."

"Oh, yes, Sir, you are absolutely right," said the shopkeeper, "and, if I may say so, ..."

"Yes?"

"Well, Sir, I think that it's not a question of the law of demand and supply at all. That law is being followed perfectly. It is other requirements of your theory that are not being obeyed. One is the requirement that everyone be in competition with each other. The other is the requirement that resources be scarce. You see, here in this neighborhood, we all love each other. We are like a big family. In a family, does the mother compete with her child? Well, perhaps now and then, but not as a rule! And as for scarcity, people in this neighborhood don't want very much. Morileg will be happy to have that coat, but she can live without it. If necessary, someone else will give her theirs. It is easy to supply necessities, and no one wants luxuries. What makes people happy, here, is _other people_. We have a saying, 'Heaven is other people.' As long as people are like that, the use of money will always be, as you say, a charade. After all, the purpose of money is just to make it easier for some people to amass huge – "

"Stop! Be quiet!" said the Lieutenant, who had just remembered that he was forbidden to discuss doctrine with locals, except to give them instruction. He wondered how severe the penance would be. _What a good rule it is_ , he thought, for he could feel doubt eating into his beliefs like acid, as a result of what he had heard. He repeated Scripture to himself: _The ways of a certain being are indescribably cunning and seductive_. _The ways of a certain being are indescribably cunning and seductive_. _The ways of a certain being are indescribably cunning and seductive_. _The ways of a certain being are indescribably cunning and seductive_. So true!

**

"I'm sorry," said Treffilinch, "but if you can't guarantee basic property rights, we're going to have to close down our operations here."

Grivvid nodded affirmatively, and his nod was repeated by the other Synod members. "I'm afraid that would be the wisest course," he said.

Treffilinch looked startled, then outraged. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and then he said, "It's not just my business you'll be losing! You will be known as a faithless, apostate neighborhood!"

"Alas, too true!" said Grivvid. A certain tension in his lips suggested that his sad expression was masking a strong urge to smile.

"I will inform the Angels of Rejuvenation that you are no longer able to maintain civil order!" said Treffilinch. "I will report you to the Cathedral of Commerce." _And no doubt you will hire Assassins_ , thought Grivvid, _although of course you won't mention that here._

"I urge you to take advantage of any legitimate recourse you can find," replied Grivvid, nodding gravely.

**

Ge-Yeetz gave up. The Vinate occupation hadn't worked. There was no way to remain rich, or useful to Nidiami. It was only a matter of time before Nidiami himself figured this out. Ge-Yeetz did not want to wait for this to happen.

Ge-Yeetz placed pictures of his parents and his ex-wife onto the table, and stared at them for awhile. "I'm sorry," he said to them. Then, a little reluctantly, he placed several pictures of himself, as a child, next to them. _The others I have failed_ , he thought, addressing his childhood self. _You, I have betrayed._ Guilt and sadness filled him, but he did not reach for any of his usual euphoriant drugs. Instead, he intoned a spell, a long sequence of meaningless syllables. In response, a strongbox appeared on the table. It was diamond, reinforced with carbon nanotubes and structural integrity spells. Using hexes, keys, combinations, and puzzle-solving, Ge-Yeetz opened the box and removed from it a small, crescent-shaped oil lamp.

Ge-Yeetz stroked the lamp, and from its wick appeared a plume of smoke. The smoke tumbled lazily onto the floor, grew, condensed, and solidified into a golem. About three forearms tall, and built rather like a spider, the golem had nine furry legs and nine faceted eyes, distributed around its black, spiny, oblate-spherical body, which hung about one forearm off the ground. The creature expanded and contracted slightly as it breathed. It also had nine jointed arms, rather like its legs, but smaller, and angled upwards at the base; at the end of each arm, it had a small, spindly hand, three-fingered with two opposing thumbs, holding a jewel. Ge-Yeetz knew that some of these jewels were weapons; they could spew fire, poison, or missiles. Others were designed to detect and nullify magical means of hiding things.

_Nothing but the best_ , thought Ge-Yeetz, sadly.

"Identification, please," said the golem, in a cold, whispery voice. Ge-Yeetz held out his hand, and the beast came over to examine his fingerprints; it also took a tiny, painless bite from the base of his thumb, to use as a specimen for flesh and blood analysis. Ge-Yeetz then squatted down and leaned forward, so that the beast could examine his eyes.

Satisfied with the examination, the golem asked, "You are doing this of your own free will?"

"Yes," replied Ge-Yeetz. "I have taken time, I have thought carefully, and I have decided, all on my own." A moment later, he endured the sharp, cold touch of a deep telepathic probe.

"You appear to be sane, free of psychotropic drugs and disease, and sincere," said the golem, "and I see that your life has indeed taken a very bad turn. But I am ensorcelled to seek for objective evidence of error, coercion, or manipulation." It proceeded to subject Ge-Yeetz to an extended interrogation, aimed at discovering ambivalence. All through it, Ge-Yeetz felt the probe.

Failing to find any problems within Ge-Yeetz' mind, the golem withdrew the probe, then began to search the apartment.

_Greed_ , thought Ge-Yeetz to himself, while the golem searched, _is a group game; it requires other players. Others to produce, to consume, to flatter, to envy, and to be envied. Who otherwise would strive so hard after bits of paper with little squiggles of ink, or even little disks or wires of shiny metal? And now the other children have grown up, leaving me behind with the game. I would like to go with them, but I cannot, for I have reduced myself to a mere player of the game. Without it, I cannot exist._

The golem returned. "No sign of coercion," it said. "Shall I proceed?"

"Yes, please," said Ge-Yeetz, extending his hand.

"This is your last chance to abort the suicide process. If you sincerely say 'proceed,' I will inject you with a lethal venom," said the Golem. Again, Ge-Yeetz felt the probe in his mind.

"Proceed," said Ge-Yeetz.

The golem came forward, and gave him another tiny bite.

In a few moments, Ge-Yeetz was floating on waves of bliss. No more guilt, no more disappointment; he joyfully accepted the world, and himself, and his impending death, completely. Then, he felt as though he were flying through a tunnel at inconceivable speed. After an indeterminate time of this – during which he still felt completely happy, completely at peace – he seemed to arrive somewhere. Suddenly, his mood changed; he was no longer blissful, but he was not suffering, either; he was simply neutral, serene and alert. In this spirit, he scanned his life, and evaluated it. The conclusion came as no surprise. On the positive side, he saw a remarkable amount of intelligence, creativity, and striving for excellence. On the negative, a fall into addiction. Addiction to a game.

When the analysis was done, he became aware that someone familiar was there with him. It took him a moment to recognize who it was: it was himself, at age about 10. Now he did feel some emotion: deep sadness and regret. "I'm sorry," he said to his child self. "I fell into greed."

His child self nodded affirmatively, but he smiled. "True," he replied, "but at the end, you saw through it. Tendrozhity and the others did not; they will have to go through it again and again, until they finally see what is staring them in the face." It was strange to hear a child speaking in such a fashion.

"But it's too late," said the adult Ge-Yeetz, suddenly suffocating in despair. "I've done all those things."

"How else am I to learn and grow up?" asked the child self. "It was just an experiment," he continued. "You did it perfectly, and I am grateful! Now come with me – I'll show you the playground, where you must live in the present, for your memory and imagination will be, temporarily, almost completely suspended." He held out his hand.

Ge-Yeetz took his hand, and together, they stepped into a world of light and laughter.

**

Torimonth 1 was approaching, and Snair kept thinking of the graffito of which he had heard so many reports: **Torimonth 1: all together!** Were others also thinking of it? Was it a diabolical device to incite a co-coordinated uprising on the first of Torimonth? Would the power of suggestion, and the tendency of prophecies to self-fulfill, cause everyone's sanity to fracture on that day? What about Snair himself? He assigned extra security for that day, and ordered that the previous day be, as far as possible, a day of rest, recreation, and quiet religious services. He took telepathic confession daily, and expanded his prayer and scriptural study schedules. But the phrase kept recurring in his mind, along with frightening images of an uprising that included a mass mutiny of Snair's own forces. It made it hard for him to focus on anything else.

**

It was two days before the onset of Torimonth. "You have been recalled," said the Nuncio. Snair had been expecting it, even hoping for it, but it was still a bitter draught to swallow.

"I have been instructed to comfort you," continued the Nuncio, "by assuring you that the Church understands the difficulties of working in this place. A ... certain being ... has won a temporary victory here, and his evil permeates the air, corroding the souls of men. Just as the soldiers must be rotated, so must the officer corps. You will not be given a reprimand; in fact, you will be given an icon. You have fought subversion with great courage, dedication, and ingenuity. Nevertheless, your telepathic examinations show that you are under a terrible strain, and that you are very close to ... breakdown. You will be taken to a monastery for a retreat, to re-gather your strength."

"I am inspired," said Snair, bowing deeply. He still felt the chagrin of failure, but he also felt relief. He wondered whether that was a sin.

**

Treffilinch was still smarting with resentment and humiliation when he returned to his home neighborhood, driving his chariot a bit recklessly on the way. As he entered the familiar, peaceful streets, however, he began to calm down a bit. _It's in the nature of things,_ he thought with a sigh, slowing his foaming horses to a walk. _Every now and then, agitators will inflame the poor, and many of those who wish them well, with absurd Utopian hopes. They always fail in the end, for they are not based on a realistic understanding of human nature and politics. It's a cycle that begins, ironically, when society becomes too comfortable. People develop a sense of entitlement. They expect to be catered to. They don't want to have to work or take risks for what they have. They make crazy social reforms. Then they learn the hard way that life is not like that._ He shook his head sorrowfully. _If only they could just see that in the first place!_

How beautiful his neighborhood was! Every house had a spacious lawn, punctuated with flowers and trees. It was early evening; the air was cool and fragrant. Everything was clean, quiet, and orderly. He knew that the interior of every house was comfortably furnished and tastefully decorated. _This is what it is like when people behave in a civilized and mutually respectful manner,_ he thought. _If only everyone would live like this! There's more to be learned from neighborhoods like this than from a hundred books of political and economic theology._

Just as he thought this, he heard singing. A crowd of people appeared, coming around a turn in the road ahead. _Is there some festival I have forgotten about?_ he thought, puzzled. He pulled his chariot over to the side of the street and stopped, trying to identify them.

The crowd did have a festive air, though not without an undertone of seriousness. _Some religious festival, perhaps?_ Some were singing, and others were talking to one another. As they approached, he recognized no one. They filled the entire street, and there was no visible end to them. He saw that little groups of them were going up to the doors of all the houses. Suddenly, he was afraid; he snapped the reins and guided his chariot into a complete reversal, and sped away at a canter. After passing about ten houses, though, he encountered a similar crowd going the other way. Again he reined in, heart pounding. _You're being silly_ , he said to himself. _It's just some kind of parade. This is not a dangerous neighborhood. Relax!_

"Excuse me, Sir," called out one of the crowd, in a courteous and friendly tone, "would you pull over to the side, please, and let us pass? We are sorry to inconvenience you."

"What is this? Who are you?" he replied, in a voice that was meant to sound authoritative, but that betrayed him with a quaver. The crowd reached him; the center of it stopped, while people at the sides filtered past. He was surrounded.

At this distance, their demeanor appeared to be calm and friendly. Those close to him smiled, and held up their hands to show that they had no weapons. Some of had their arms around one another. They were all dressed simply and modestly. There were children of various ages among them, and old people, and babies being carried. Treffilinch relaxed, but he was still profoundly puzzled.

A woman in front came up to his horses, and began making friends with them, stroking their foreheads and cooing at them. Another woman approached him, not too close, smiling, open hands raised. "Hello, Sir," she said. "We do not intend to hurt you. I am Sister Lotus Blossom, and we belong to the Angels of Rejuvenation." _What????_ "We have come to heal this neighborhood. There is no need for you to be afraid, however, for we have forsworn violent methods. We will not insult or imprison you. Do you have any questions?"

Fear, shock, disbelief, and outrage wrestled for his soul. "But you – " he sputtered, "you don't – you can't – you aren't – this isn't – "

"Perhaps you can't accept that what I have said is true," she said, nodding, and giving him a sympathetic smile. "That would be quite understandable, since our costumes and our methods have radically changed, under the influence of the Girls of the Prophecies. But that is who we are, nevertheless. Feel free to remain in the chariot, if you wish." She turned to go around him.

"But – but – this neighborhood! ... It's not degenerate! _Look_ at it!"

She turned back, smiling sadly up at him. "It looks like a very pleasant place to live, Sir," she said. "You and your neighbors deserve to be praised on the way that you treat one another. You aren't particularly warm or helpful to each other, to be sure, but at least, you don't rob or kill each other! Our investigations have shown, however, that the prosperity of this neighborhood is linked to the misery of others. The dependence is often very indirect, and the suffering areas very distant, but nevertheless, it is so. What we are suggesting is that you find a way to treat _all_ people as well as you treat your neighbors – or better!"

At that moment, Treffilinch saw a sign that some of the Angels were carrying. It said: "Money only has value to the extent that people act as though it does."

**

In hundreds of neighborhoods throughout Kondrastibar, spontaneous celebrations erupted. There were details to be worked out, but they had essentially completed the task of transition to the New Balance as they saw it. Their joy could not be contained.

The next day, similar celebrations broke out in other neighborhoods. The next day, still more. The people concerned, and their local Girls, had different views about what the New Balance was supposed to be, but most of them agreed that such diversity was a crucial was part of it.
**********

"More than this, there must be something!"

(Lessie)

The Lord of Evil decided that the time was right to take Kondrastibar by force. He gave the military command to Vidigeon, as a final test of Vidigeon's powers.

Among those who resisted him, the Church of Balan-Ching was the strongest single opponent. In their numerous recent clashes with the Trobish, the Balan-Ching had purposefully shown only a fraction of their true strength, hoping to surprise the Hidden One, when he emerged; but Vidigeon was not deceived, for he had long since infiltrated them with his tiny sensors, and most of what he could not see, he inferred. Nor was he to be outmaneuvered by their elaborate decentralized strategy of placing small units, disguised as civilians, at various places just outside their territory, and, more sparsely, at various points throughout a larger section of Kondrastibar. The intent of this strategy had been to get forces behind enemy lines, and to wage guerrilla war. But Vidigeon knew the exact location of every one, at every moment. He also learned the location of every mine and every weapons cache, in spite of magical cloaking, and was able to destroy them without losses to the Lord's forces. Under his direction, large units of force then overwhelmed the small Balan-Ching groups one by one, even when they retreated. When some of them coalesced, hoping to make a unified stand, Vidigeon coalesced his own forces and defeated them anyhow. He then moved to encircle the Central Citadel of the Balan-Ching.

**

Kolistra dreamed of gods dancing. The dream was long, vivid, and happy. When she woke, it was completely dark. It took her a moment to remember where she was. She felt the bed mat; it was fur, over bundles of straw. At a corner near her head, she felt the totem statue. It was ... a moose, in a pose and style she knew well. She was in Trelkir's snow house! But why was she ... Oh! Yes! The celebration! It had gone on all night, in spite of the wind and snow. She could still feel the drums in her pulse. They had been celebrating the neighborhood's complete turn to the Way of the Girl. Kolistra had never seen so many people so happy. Exhausted but still joyful, she and her friends had staggered through the dawn-colored snowdrifts to accept Trelkir's invitation of a place to sleep.

She sat up. It had been a long and vivid dream, and she felt completely refreshed. Crawling to the hearth, she lit a small oil lamp. Holding it high, she saw, each sleeping on their own mat, Trelkir, Sthirniki, Arbilit, and Morigan. Where was Sarilear?

Oh! She suddenly realized that Morigan was under a blanket, and that his snowsuit lay beside his mat. So ... going a little closer, Kolistra saw that he and Sarilear lay braided together in their sleep, and that Sarilear's snowsuit, too, had been cast aside. Realizing what this meant, Kolistra felt many emotions, including wonder, amusement, embarrassment, and a touch of arousal. She backed off, returning the lamp to the hearth to give them more privacy.

So, Morigan and Sarilear had become lovers! Kolistra hoped that it had not been just driftover from the excitement of the celebration; for then, she feared, the relationship would probably melt, and at least one of them would be miserable. It would be particularly dreadful if Sarilear had become pregnant. But then, the two had been close friends for a long time ... perhaps it had been a natural step to take, perhaps it would endure.

Kolistra, who had slept in her snowsuit, crawled through the passages to the privy. This passage had two windows, so she was able to observe that it was a clear and windless day. She could see a huge portion of Kondrastibar, stretched out far below her. But then she saw something strange and a little frightening: two large figures were passing along the road below the house: they were both huge, perhaps eight forearms high! They were smooth, jet black, and shiny; if they had not been moving, she would have taken them for obsidian statues. Their heads were hairless and almost featureless. The way they lumbered along showed that they were extremely heavy; closing her eyes and concentrating, Kolistra could feel their footfalls coming to her through the ground. She was only partly relieved when they disappeared around a bend.

Returning to the main house, Kolistra set about preparing breakfast. As she worked, the others trickled in. They, too, had wakened in euphoria, and her story about the two strange walkers did not do much to melt it. All except one of them were followers of the Girl, but the nature of their faith differed from one to another.

Trelkir's faith was the strongest and purest; she simply believed, trusting her intuition. She was always smiling and patient.

Kolistra's faith was based on hope, on the idealism of the young. Life was a heroic struggle, in which goodness would no doubt be sorely tried from time to time, but was bound to win, and sooner rather than later.

Morigan's faith was more rational; he studied the issues, sought out those who disagreed with him for respectful discussions, and could give arguments and explanations for each point of his beliefs; it was the intellectual beauty of his theories that motivated him. He belonged to no group that had a credo, for he was continually changing his mind.

In sharp contrast to his, Sarilear's faith was based on anger; she had been outraged by what she perceived as the injustices and stupidities of the old way.

Arbilit, although neither he nor his friends would have put it just this way, was what was known as a 'quicksilver person;' a person who reflected those around him, and who could therefore easily change, and flow along the path of least resistance. Only when the followers of the Girl became the majority in his neighborhood did he, too, became a follower of the Girl. In this he was not a hypocrite or a deceiver, or even an opportunist; he was just a person who sincerely believed what most around him did. This is not an unreasonable method of arriving at truth, and we all employ it for most of our beliefs; it is just that Arbilit carried it to something of an extreme.

Sthirniki, however, was the very opposite of sincere. She _had_ been a follower of the Girl, but one day, the local Children of Noganecir had tricked her into inhaling their Holy Dust, and her loyalties had changed completely. She now believed that all hope for humanity lay with the Lord, who was about to make himself known. She knew that the obsidian monsters that Sthirniki had seen were, in fact, soldiers of the Lord. Surreptitiously, she touched a little bump behind her ear, and muttered something under her breath; this was carried by a long-distance signal, imperceptible to human senses, alerting other Servants of the Lord to the fact that there were potential converts with her, and that, when convenient, dust should be brought to them.

During breakfast, Morigan and Sarilear received a predictable amount of congratulatory teasing from their friends. Then the conversation turned back to the victory of the Way of the Girl. For awhile they reminisced about various events in the struggle. Then the discussion turned toward what might happen that very day, and how they might participate. Reminding her friends of the two strange figures she had seen, Kolistra expressed anxiety; "I hope this doesn't mean," she said, "that someone has come to intervene, to coerce us."

Trelkir's smile only deepened at this thought. "Struggle is victory," she said. Such pronouncements of hers had a way of irritating Morigan; his mind was always wondering about this, imagining that, and he had a deep dislike of certainty, which he tended to equate with dogmatism or stupidity. But out of a combination of courtesy and solidarity, he did not object overtly. Besides, he had found that it was impossible to get Trelkir into the kind of discussion that was meaningful to him. Instead, he contented himself with expressing optimism in his own way: "If the Girl is right, as I currently believe she is, then we should be able to deal with invaders. In fact, I would almost – I said _almost_ – look forward to such an interaction, as a way to test and refine our views."

" _I_ think it would be _terrible_ ," said Sarilear. "What right does anyone have to try to impose their beliefs on us?"

_Well_ , thought Morigan to himself, _it might be argued that there are cases in which it is ethically permissible, and even obligatory, to try to impose your beliefs on others. Depending on just what you mean by "Impose." It is morally permitted for parents to try to impose certain of their beliefs on their children, for example, and in fact it is often their_ _duty_ _to do so – in matters relating to safety, for example._

"You only saw two of them, right?" asked Arbilit.

"Yes," replied Kolistra, "but this is not a very important road."

"A way to find out what's really happening," suggested Morigan, "is to go into the village. We will either be able to see for ourselves what is going on, or find someone who knows."

Everyone expressed approval of this suggestion, although in Sthirniki's case, it was a lie; she thought that it would be better if everyone stayed home, so that the servants of the Lord could deal with them in small groups. But of course she said nothing.

Finishing their breakfast and cleaning up quickly, the six friends headed for center of the neighborhood. The way was steep, and, rather than follow the intricate switchbacks of the road, they often abseiled directly down the mountainside, using ropes that were permanently set in place for that purpose.

Not long after they had left, they came to a newly-placed sign:

THE LORD IS COMING

HIS SOLDIERS HAVE ARRIVED

ALL POWER TO THE LORD!

"The _Lord_?" said Sarilear, wrinkling up her face as though she had smelled something bad. "How can you have a _Lord_ in Theo-Anarchy?" Like many, their local Girl had interpreted the changes heralded in the prophecies as introducing a higher stage of Theo-Anarchy, rather than abolishing it.

"I'm afraid," said Morigan, "that this is very good evidence that what Kolistra fears is true – someone intends to steer us away from the path we have chosen. I would guess that it is the Children of Noganecir, for they often speak of a 'Lord' who will arrive soon to deliver humanity from sin."

" _Leech-pus!_ " exclaimed Sarilear, stamping and gesticulating with frustration and fury. "After all we've been through, just when we seem to have succeeded, some _idiots_ come along to ruin it!"

_You'll soon change your mind_ , thought Sthirniki, complacently.

"There is no end to the complexity we can handle," said Trelkir, smiling, "and what seems to be an obstacle today will be seen as a necessary help, when we understand it better."

"Look!" said Arbilit. "Someone's coming!" Sure enough, there was a group of local people, perhaps ten, coming toward them, waving in greeting.

"Are those _flutes_ they are carrying?" asked Morigan, looking puzzled.

No, thought Sthirniki, who had recognized several Children of Noganecir, They are blowpipes. When they get close enough, they will blow dust into your faces, and you will be freed from your illusions.

**

The Central Citadel of the Balan-Ching was built upon, and within, a small, hollow, conical mountain, rising from the center of a large, deep lake. There were about fifty other islands, of various sizes, in the lake. Several of them were large enough to host small cities and fortresses of their own. These islands were connected to each other, and to the shore, by the architectural marvel known as the "Ten Thousand Bridges of the Balan-Ching" (10,013, actually). All the bridges were covered, and could in fact be completely sealed. Some were barely wide enough for single-file, others were large enough for six elephants abreast. Each such bridge was a marvel in itself, intricate and brilliant, useful and beautiful; for several millennia, it had been considered a great honor to be asked to design such a bridge, and most of the greatest architects and architectural collectives of that region of Kondrastibar had done so.

The shoreward ends of these bridges were drawbridges, and as the forces of the Lord of Evil approached, the Balan-Ching caused them to rise, whereupon they functioned as parapets.

The Balan-Ching cloaked the entire lake, all the bridges and islands, and of course the central mountain, with powerful magical shields, so that even Vidigeon was unable to see very much of his objective or its defenses. He knew that this would make the siege more difficult, but his forces were vast, and he had no doubt that the victory would be his.

From their vantage point atop the Citadel, the Balan-Ching High Command saw the forces of the Lord of Evil creep into position from every direction, flowing from between neighboring hills like a multicolored glacier. Looking through crystal balls, they saw a great variety of troops: men, both foot soldiers and cavalry; obsidian monsters such as had appeared in Kolistra's neighborhood; glass snakes of various sizes, that could become virtually invisible, by matching their transparency to that of air; mechanical spiders of various sizes, the smallest barely visible, the largest eight feet tall; great divisions of army ants, each ant being a finger long, with diamond mandibles and a poisonous sting; clouds of wasps of comparable size; amorphous creatures of stifling mist; giant amoebas that could squeeze through the smallest cracks; toxic mosquitoes; fiery lions; vipers of ice; and many others. They also saw the red haze of pollution, which the army created by its very existence.

In a few hours, Vidigeon's troops and fortifications occupied the entire shore, all around the lake. The Balan-Ching High Command might have felt despair, but instead, they felt joy, for their religion told them that valorous death in battle would result in instant transport to Heaven and its bliss.

The attack began from the air; Vidigeon's troops launched mechanical flying things. They included metal insects like those used in the siege of the Temple of Ydris, and bees and bats similar to those used by Tarth Sakul in his siege of the Triz Hotel, but vastly greater in number and variety. Some were as small as mayflies; others measured twenty manlengths. Great streams of them flowed from the shores of Citadel Lake, wrapping themselves around the bridges and the central cone like tentacles. As they became active, Vidigeon's forces created even more pollution, generating a reddish cloud that drifted over a great deal of nearby Kondrastibar, making people physically and mentally ill in various ways. For that matter, all living things were sickened by it, and even inanimate objects were corroded by it.

The Balan-Ching closed all windows, doors, and arrow-slits; they had already caulked every chink. On every external surface (all of which were stone or metal), they had spread angelfire, in a version which contained a great deal of magnesium powder. They now proceeded to set themselves on fire. Every bridge, building, and fortress, as well as the entire central cone, burst into blinding whiteness, too bright for the human eye to stand.

The flying things close to such surfaces were immediately destroyed by the heat; the others were caught by massive convection currents, hurled upwards, and torn to shreds by turbulence. A great plume of smoke, steam, and debris rose from the lake, mushrooming out at a height of about 8,000 manlengths. The enemy forces on the shore were subjected first to a great searing shockwave off the lake, followed by a gale toward the center, which pulled many of them into the water. Those made of flesh were then devoured by barracudas, crocodiles, sharks, and giant squid while those made of heavier materials sank into the muck at the bottom. Then burning-hot debris from the mushroom cloud, consisting largely of the remains of their unfortunate comrades, fell on their camp. This was not disheartening, however, for the Lord of Evil had created or modified them all so as to be incapable of poor morale.

As soon as the vertical convection plume had established itself, the Balan-Ching unshot the bolts of hundreds of outward-turning shutters on the bottoms of the bridges, which snapped open. The convection immediately pulled air rapidly through the openings, creating a great draught that pulled air from a great abyss inside the central cone through buildings, fortresses, and bridges. Escaping through the open shutters, this draught intercalated itself between the steaming air outside and the various structures, preventing the inhabitants from being fried alive. The air inside the abyss was replenished, in turn, by air from vents around the base of the Central Citadel, close to the waterline. A great deal of spindrift was thereby caught up in the wind, so that the Balan-Ching in its path experienced something like a gale at sea, and a great fog spewed out from the opened shutters and rose into the plume, rendering it more opaque.

After several hundredbreaths, the plume had quieted to the strength of a spring breeze, and was relatively clear of debris. Then the Balan-Ching launched their own air attack. Hundreds of un-manned gliders, parachutes, and kites, steered by spells, took off from the Central Citadel, caught the remaining updraft, rose well beyond the range of most weapons, and then moved horizontally out of the plume. As they came over the forces of the Lord of Evil, they set themselves on fire and dived. Many of them bore a form of angelfire that was gooey or gelatinous, and contained phosphorous or sodium. Splattered forcefully and far by impact, this material would stick to a victim and continue to burn, often smoldering its way into the body.

Soon the entire lakeshore was on fire, producing a vast tornado-like wind that contracted inward as it spun, and then divided into several distinct smaller tornadoes, each of which did a great deal of damage. Anytime such a tornado moved over the lake, however, it would be lifted by the convective force remaining from the first plume, and so no damage was done to the bridges or any other structures of the Balan-Ching. Vidigeon ordered a retreat, but for most of his frontline forces, it was too late.

Not wishing to give the Balan-Ching time to set out the makings of a second plume, Vidigeon, as soon as it became feasible, ordered his remaining troops to lay down thick layers of dirt and rocks, creating causeways through the fires, back toward the lake. Many of them fainted or perished from heat or asphyxiation during this ordeal, but they were replaced, and their bodies contributed to the construction. Once Vidigeon's forces reached the shore, they pumped water back onto the flames, creating a great column of smoky steam that was visible from fifty horizons away. Then they began to build bridges, in order to link the shore with the bridges of the Balan-Ching. Vidigeon also sent out a second wave of airborne attackers; it was not as large as the first, but it forced the Balan-Ching to close up their structures, which made it difficult for them to counterattack. The flying attackers began to chip away relentlessly at the bridges and fortresses. Soon, Vidigeon's forces had constructed scaffolding which allowed them to reach the raised ends of the bridges; using magical explosives, they were then able to penetrate to the inside. Divisions of obsidian monsters and other attackers mounted the scaffold and bore down on the defenders. Arrows and swords were harmless to them.

**

Sthirniki smiled inwardly as the small group of people approached her friends; she knew that the new arrivals were Children of Noganecir, bearing blowpipes, through which they would blow the dust of Noganecir into her friends' noses; soon they would all worship the Lord together.

But suddenly, from a side street, there appeared a second group of people, wearing transparent helmets that completely covered their heads. These people began to throw bolas at the others, and as they approached them more closely, they began to try to throw nets over them.

"Those people are being attacked," said Trelkir. "We must try to defend them!" She meant _non-violent_ defense, of course. She began to walk rapidly toward the two groups.

**

The Balan-Ching defenders on the bridges fell back before the relentless onslaught of the obsidian monsters and other soldiers, experimenting with various weapons as they went. Their most important defense was a magical screen, a semi-permeable membrane that allowed matter to pass only in one direction, from themselves to their enemies. Generators for such screens had been installed in all the bridges, at intervals of about twenty forearms. Unfortunately, such screens could, with sufficient application of magic and brute force, be broken. When one such screen seemed about to fail, the defenders would fall back and activate the next one.

The Balan-Ching had a huge but limited supply of mana. Therefore, they used non-magical weapons as much as possible. The only non-magical device that was at all effective against the obsidian monsters was a bola made from thick steel chain, with metal hooks and coils attached at various points. When these chains were thrown properly, the giants would become entangled in them, and pause or fall. This did not injure them, however, and eventually they would untangle themselves, sometimes pulling the chains apart by brute force. This did give the defenders time, however, to fire hexed bolts at them. The most effective hex (per amount of mana) was one which caused the giant to become white-hot at its surface for a moment; this would not kill the giant, but it would cause its surface to melt briefly, and hence to stick permanently to the floor, to itself, or to one of its comrades. The larger attackers could then only proceed by sawing through their trapped comrades; this usually rendered the latter non-functional.

According to Vidigeon's records, the Balan-Ching mages did a brilliant job of adapting on the spot to the various types of attackers, most of which they had never encountered before. They discovered that the glass snakes could be destroyed by shining brilliant red light on them. The light would enter the snake but not leave. It would build up until the snake exploded. The snakes could also be blinded by hexed bolts fired at their eyes, at which point they would begin to thrash uncontrollably, doing more harm to friend than to foe.

The large spiders could be disabled by damaging their eyes and antennae, at which point their motions became random. The smaller spiders, and many of the other small forms of attacker, including the ants and wasps, were susceptible to control from the outside, via the ectoplasmic reticulum; the defenders were able to learn the language in which their commands were given, and turn the attackers against their own comrades. Vidigeon would repeatedly alter the grammar and vocabulary of the language, only to have the Balan-Ching decipher and imitate the new one in about the same time it took to invent it.

The creatures of mist could be dispersed with fireworks, the kind that breaks into very small pieces, each of which flies for a moment and then explodes. Apparently the damage inflicted was not due directly to the heat generated, but to the resulting turbulent convection currents, which tore the creature apart faster than it could repair itself. The resulting disorganized gas was then dispersed by keeping a permanent outward draught going in the bridges; this draught also kept the defenders' part of the bridges free of the smaller flying things.

The giant amoebas could be dealt with by shooting them with arrows whose heads were made of sodium, lightly smeared with oil, or by dousing them with nearly pure alcohol. A dousing with salt water would slow them down. The fiery lions were destroyed by directing a powerful stream of fresh air at them; they then burned so hot that they destroyed themselves. Singing or playing certain high-pitched notes would cause the vipers of ice to shatter, and throwing salt on them often caused them to melt.

Or at least, so it was at the beginning of the battle; Vidigeon constantly varied the design of his soldiers, to make them invulnerable to the type of defense used by the Balan-Ching, and the Balan-Ching then altered their methods, to deal with the new attackers; and this cycle continued throughout the struggle.

As they fought, night fell, but the battle continued.

After being forced back a long way on the bridges, the Balan-Ching retreated suddenly, and activated spells that caused sections of those structures to fall into the lake. These included the sections nearest to the shore, so that the scaffolds that Vidigeon's forces had erected no longer gave them access to the sections occupied by their enemy. Also included were the sections constituting the attackers' front lines, so that a number of their forces fell into the lake, and a greater number were trapped in the intermediate sections, unable to go either forward or back. The same spells created screens at the ends of the inner part of each broken bridge, so that the airborne attackers could not enter there. The isolated sections then destroyed themselves and whomever was in them.

Vidigeon's forces then began to build pontoon bridges across the lake, some to connect with the remaining sections of bridge, some heading for the various islands, and some for the Central Citadel. Complex as his task was, however, it did not take up all of Vidigeon's vast intellect, and so he simultaneously continued his theorizing about the gods, the nature of good and evil, and the unity of all things.

**

Trelkir began to walk rapidly toward the struggle between two groups, one of which was (unknown to her) a local contingent of the Children of Noganecir, intent on giving the Holy Dust to all, and the other a group of people trying to stop them from doing so. She saw the latter group as attacking the former, and felt obliged – or rather, blessed – to intervene. Her friends, with varying degrees of hesitation, followed. They had all put on blue sashes over their snowsuits, which indicated, in that neighborhood, that they were followers of the Girl, and therefore non-violent. As they approached, they saw that the attackers were strangers, apparently from the nearby Gritutilitz neighborhood, where people dressed in a somewhat different style.

"Be careful," warned one of the strangers in the subtly different Gritutilitz accent. "They are Children of Noganecir, and they have dust! They will try to blow it into your face, so that you will breathe it, and be enslaved!"

"Here," said another stranger, a woman, handing Trelkir something round and transparent, "put this on over your hood, and it will protect you."

"Thank you very much," said Trelkir, accepting the gift, fumbling with it while she figured out how it was supposed to go, and putting it on. The woman handed out hood-coverings to the other five, as well. Then Trelkir walked forward and began gently to help one of the Children of Noganecir to free herself from the bola and net which encumbered her. Trelkir's friends followed, except for Sthirniki, who pretended to trip and fall, and who sent out a surreptitious signal for reinforcements.

Everyone but Sthirniki was too focused on the immediate situation to realize that a great flock of condor-like beings now filled the sky. Some continued upward until they were out of sight, others broke off and began patrolling at a lower level.

"Ahey!" said one of the strangers. "What are you doing?"

"Like you," said Trelkir, "I am opposed to what they are trying to do, but I don't believe in violent resistance." As Trelkir helped the woman, she spoke to her: "It is wrong to addict people to the dust without their consent."

"I am inspired by your compassion," said the woman. "You are behaving well, even without dust. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I must accept the evidence of my eyes. I will not force dust on your or your friends." The Children of Noganecir never lied to one another, but they had no compunction whatever about lying to outsiders.

One of the strangers from Gritutilitz lifted a net, with the clear intent of throwing it over one of the Children of Noganecir. Morigan placed himself between the stranger and his target. "Why are you doing this?" asked the stranger. "Can't you see that they need to be restrained? Otherwise, they will force dust on everyone!"

"You would be restraining them against their will," explained Morigan.

"What else can we do?" demanded the stranger. "Can't you see how gentle our methods are? We are doing everything possible to avoid injuring them. The Girl in our neighborhood says that such methods are permissible." He suddenly dodged sidewise, hoping to throw the net past Morigan, but Morigan was too quick. With a sigh of frustration, the stranger dropped his net, pulled a bola from his belt, set it to spinning, and hurled it. In a moment, the bola wrapped itself around Morigan's legs. The stranger then recovered his net, and cast it over Morigan. Attempting to evade it, Morigan fell into the snow, and the net covered him. The stranger pulled some drawstrings, tightening the net around Morigan's upper torso. "I'm sorry," he said, "but this is what it seems right to me to do."

"I understand," said Morigan, struggling with the net, "and I respect your loyalty to your own perceptions."

At that moment, someone yelled. It was Arbilit, pointing yet again. Following the line of his gesture, the others saw one of the obsidian monsters approaching. Although it was evidently very heavy, it moved with a grace and efficiency that Arbilit couldn't help but admire. It strode effortlessly through snowdrifts, throwing explosions of snow to either side. Without stopping, it raised its right hand, and pointed in the general direction of the struggle. A bolt of red lightning leapt from its fingertip to the ground; there was a burst of orange flame, and a thunderclap, and several people flew into the air. Those who could ran away, but Trelkir and Morigan lay injured in the snow.

**

In the midst of darkness, Vidigeon's forces continued building their pontoon bridges. The Balan-Ching then released, through great arrays of pipes under the water, a tremendous quantity of flammable oil, mixed with saltpeter; this quickly floated to the surface. At hundreds of places in the lake, they had anchored buoyant casks, filled with various versions of angelfire, all of which would burn under water. Many of them contained sodium dust. Most of these casks were held just under the surface, except for small masts which served as fuses. As soon as the oil began to spread, Vidigeon understood the plan, and called a retreat, but it was too late. In a few breath's time, the oil had spread out over the whole lake, and the Balan-Ching set fire to it. The fire spread down the fuse-masts, causing the casks below the water to explode. On contact with water, the sodium burst into flame.

The water itself blazed as it rose in hundreds of coruscating fountains throughout the lake; then it cloaked itself in incandescent steam, which merged and rose as a single roiling, glowing column, wide as the lake itself, into the black night sky, searing the shore with brilliance. Moments later, towering tsunamis of liquid flame raced up the beach, one after another, and crashed into the attackers' camps, drowning them in boiling fire. The pontoon bridges were all destroyed, along with the troops trapped in them. At the same time, Vidigeon's airborne forces in the vicinity of the lake were once again destroyed by heat and turbulence. Burning rain fell for over a horizon in all directions, torching everything flammable.

Once again, Vidigeon called up reinforcements. The Lord of Evil had plenty of them; after all, he had had several millennia to prepare for this day. The souls of millions of men, women, and children had been stolen, altered to insure loyalty, and incorporated in artificial bodies, as had countless artificial souls. As dawn broke, the Balan-Ching General Staff could see that pontoon bridges were once again under construction. The lake was almost a manlength shallower than before, and it was muddy and filled with corpses and other detritus. Soon it began to stink horribly, as did the shore.

That morning, Vidigeon's forces reached Elitria, one of the larger islands, an ancient city and culture in its own right. The inhabitants, besieged in their own stone citadel, fought with every last spark of strength, even though they knew their cause was lost. The great variety of Vidigeon's forces made defense impossible: a huge man with a huge sword, armored in steel, would be laid low by a poisonous mayfly; mechanical spiders could run up vertical walls without scaling ladders; blades and arrows would pass through vaporous monsters without harming them.

Elitrian children were given bows and brought to the front to fire at the enemy, for the Balan-Ching believed that anyone who fought would, at death, go directly to Heaven, and the parents wanted to be re-united with their children there. Soldiers on the parapets would step aside so that such youngsters could get off a shot. As for infants and toddlers too young to shoot, their mothers would tie a bomb to their backs, light the fuse, kiss them on the cheek, and hurl them at the enemy.

In a few hours, the Elitrian citadel wall was breached. Vidigeon's forces poured in, and the last of the parents quickly joined their children. In the same way, one by one, the bridges and islands fell, and the pontoon-supported extensions crept relentlessly across the lake, in spite of various defensive counterattacks.

**

Morigan watched helplessly as the obsidian monster bore down relentlessly on the scene of contention; but before it fired a second time, it was struck by several large hexed crossbow bolts. It began to vibrate wildly; then it fell over and shattered. Mist rose from the fragments, and they gradually shrank to nothing. Sthirniki, startled, secretly called again for reinforcements.

Before the reinforcements could arrive, a number of figures in reflective clothing appeared, holding crossbows and other equipment, and ran up to Trelkir. "Don't worry," said one of them. "We are not hostile. We are going to give you medical treatment."

"Thank you ... but ... who are you?" asked Trelkir, faintly. She had been wounded in the blast.

"We used to be soldiers of Karngrevor," replied one of them, as two others began treating Trelkir's wounds, "but we have defected. We cannot agree with his refusal to fight."

"You are mistaken," said Trelkir.

None of them argued. Two more came up with a litter. "We have to get you away from here," said the one who had spoken before, "before more enemy forces arrive." Trelkir wanted to object, but she felt too faint. The soldiers gently transferred her to the litter and began carrying her away. Her four friends followed.

In the sky, sixteen 'condors' left the rest and began to descend towards the group.

**

As one might suspect from its conical shape, the Central Citadel of the Balan-Ching was the shell of a quiescent volcano. Using their uniquely developed magical powers, the Balan-Ching had tapped the energy of the underlying molten rock to create a vast source of mana. Channeling this mana, the wizards of the Balan-Ching sent streams of fire and chaos down from the peak of the Citadel onto Vidigeon's engineers and their works, blasting them into the rotting lake.

But Vidigeon sent a third wave of aerial attackers against them, so numerous that they could not be destroyed with sufficient speed, and the Balan-Ching had to close all ports, lest these attackers should enter. Every now and then, however, the protective shield around a port would expand, and the port would open, just long enough for a wizard to leap onto a rampart, quickly setting up shields of his own. He would then wreak destruction on the enemy until his mana was nearly exhausted; then the port would open again, and he would leap back inside. In this way the enemy was beaten back again and again.

From time to time, however, such a wizard would be destroyed by enemy fire. Eventually, the Balan-Ching ran out of wizards. Then, the pontoon bridges reached the Citadel, and Vidigeon's engineers began to bore through the rock. Individual families of Balan-Ching huddled in their homes, praying and readying weapons for a hopeless last stand.

**

As they accompanied Trelkir, carried in a litter, the deserters from Karngrevor's army became aware of the 'condors' descending upon them from the sky. Seeking shelter, they knocked on the door of the nearest house, but the inhabitants would not open the door.

Two soldiers produced instruments like soprano glassophones, but even smaller. They produced incredibly high, shrill tones. The players' faces turned red as they labored to produce ever higher notes, soon passing beyond the range of human hearing. The 'condors' descended upon them, and began to fire gray bolts; but suddenly, their heads exploded, and they careened to the ground and crashed.

"All right, let's get out of here!" said the leader of the soldiers. "Trot!" The five friends followed. Arbilit unknowingly kept himself safe by remaining close to Sthirniki, whose confidence made him feel more secure.

**

Finally, the renegade soldiers were able to find a place that would open its doors to them: _Madame Tling's School for Courtesans_. The elderly Madame Tling instructed six of the male students to carry Trelkir to the cellar; her four friends followed. _I really ought to be out there calling for non-violence,_ thought Kolistra, _but I need to assure myself that Trelkir is being taken care of_. Sarilear and Arbilit had similar thoughts.

Madame Tling rummaged in some old cartons and came up with a coat of mail. "I was an Amazon, briefly, in my youth," she explained to the others. She was unable to put it on, for she had grown greatly in girth since her younger days. She draped it over her shoulders.

Sthirniki once again covertly signaled to the Lord's forces; a moment later, blood spurted from the center of her chest as a crossbow bolt passed through her. She died at once. Her friends were aghast, frozen for moments in shock. "What – why?" Morigan finally managed to sputter.

"She's a spy," replied a soldier, lowering his bow. "She signaled the enemy. She thought her signal was imperceptible, but we have ways of intercepting these things." He indicated a tiny seashell mounted on his left ear.

"She did get her call out, though," said the leader, "so we've got to leave. You can come with us, you can stay here with your injured friend, or you can go off on your own. Each choice has its risks." His followers formed up.

"But – but – _Sthirniki?_ " wailed Sarilear. "She _couldn't_ have been a spy! She's our _friend_!"

The leader gave a sour chuckle and led his soldiers out.

**

In the deepest, most inaccessible, and most secret part of the Citadel of the Balan-Ching, well below the level of the lake, there were three isolated rooms, at widely separated points of an intricate, three-dimensional maze of tunnels through the basalt. Only the Patriarch and his immediate family knew of these rooms, or how to get to them. The heavy steel doors of each of these rooms were locked from the inside. The Patriarch of the Church of Balan-Ching, his wife, and his eldest son each occupied one of these rooms, sitting in total darkness. In each room, there was a lever. For millennia, each of these levers had been locked into place with a number of very strong and ingenious locks. Now, they were all free to move. Various other safety mechanisms had also been turned off.

The Patriarch sat in his room, praying devoutly, tears running down his cheeks. He knew that purely temporal things were not important, but some un-cooperative part of him was profoundly upset that, after millennia of existence, the Church of Balan-Ching was coming to an end; also that it was coming to an end on _his watch_. He heard a pounding on the door. Then the door began to glow red. With a sigh, he groped for the lever, found it, hesitated, and gave it a pull. It moved. There was a sound like the tolling of a huge bell.

The Patriarch's son sat in his room, praying devoutly, tears running down his cheeks. He told himself that purely temporal things were not important, but some un-cooperative part of him was profoundly upset that he would never get to be Patriarch. He heard a pounding on the door. Then the door began to glow red. With a sigh, he groped for the lever, found it, hesitated, and gave it a pull. It moved. There was a sound like the tolling of a huge bell.

The wife of the Patriarch sat in her room, praying half-heartedly, tears running down her cheeks. _Idiots_ , she thought, seething with rage and frustration. _Idiots! Why couldn't they have left well enough alone? Why did they have to take on the Hidden One? Men! Always trying to be big epic heroes, always so eager to die! I want to_ _live_ _! What is so bad about that?_ She heard a pounding on the door. Then the door began to glow red. With a sigh, she groped for the lever, found it, hesitated, uttered the most obscene and hateful curse imaginable, and gave it a pull. It moved. There was a sound like the tolling of a huge bell.

At the bottom of the abyss within the cone of the mountain of the Central Citadel of the Church of Balan-Ching, there was a fissure, wide and deep and dark. When all three levers had been pulled, a rushing stream of lake water came foaming out of a sluice and fell into the fissure. It fell for a long time, splashing and rolling from ledge to ledge. Finally, it struck a lake of molten rock. Hundreds of gallons of water were vaporized in the space of twenty breaths, resulting in a vast explosion, and a shock wave which tore back up the chasm, forcing it to expand. Cracks shot outward through the basalt in all directions. At the same time, the layer of relatively cool magma at the top of the lake began to sink, bringing hotter magma to the surface.

As the basalt cracked, a large segment of the Citadel cone collapsed, spewing steam and dust to the horizon, and the water of the lake streamed into the abyss, and into the fissure. Fighting its way down against the rising steam, it finally reached the glowing pool.

There followed another explosion, which made the previous one seem mild. The basalt dome, which had sealed the volcano for ages, cracked and collapsed, like a hummingbird's egg under a horse's hoof, but _upwards_. The volcano came to life, shattering its old, broken cone into fragments. The entire lake was immediately vaporized. Rock and lava were repeatedly vomited into the air. Vidigeon's forces, anywhere near the lake, were instantly destroyed. Those within a horizon of the lake attempted to flee, but were struck down by flaming rocks, seared by superheated steam, asphyxiated by poisonous gases, and finally buried under lava and ash. Also killed were tens of thousands of residents of Kondrastibar, unfortunate enough to be in the area at the time. For several longmonths thereafter, the inhabitants of a large part of the city lived in unbroken night and gloom, until the layer of dust settled out of the air.

Thus ended the battle.

**

Vidigeon did not bother to send any troops to the Temple of Ydris, for he knew that it was gone. Its inhabitants had learned from their architects that the building had been structurally damaged so badly that, over time, it would continue to deteriorate and collapse. After salvaging what they could of its contents, they declared a day of intense mourning, after which they razed the remainder themselves. Then they scattered widely.

Vidigeon did not bother to pursue them, for he knew that they had all embraced non-violence.

**

Sobbing, Sarilear draped herself over the still-warm body of her friend, whom she had known and loved since childhood, with whom she had played happily so many times, and with whom she had always shared the most intimate secrets of her heart. "Sthirniki!" she cried. "No! It can't be! Come back! I don't care if you're a spy! Oh, Sthirniki! What _happened_ to you?"

She was still sobbing when there was a crash from above, as the front door was broken down. Moments later, two obsidian monsters lumbered down the cellar stairs, followed by a large man dressed in a predominantly black uniform. Ignoring the others, he strode up to Trelkir. Taking a crossbow from his back and a bolt from a quiver, he armed and cranked the bow, flipped off the safety, and tried to hand it to Trelkir. She would not accept it, so he laid it on her blood-soaked belly.

"Shoot me," he said, "and you and your friends will live. Otherwise, they will all die."

"I'm ... sorry, ..." she said, weakly, "I ... will not ... commit ... violence."

"I repeat, your friends will die. This is the only way to save them." Her friends stared at her, frozen in horror. "Trelkir, ..." moaned Arbilit, in a choking voice, making anguished gestures with his hands.

"I will ... not ... be violent."

The man in black waited for a few more breaths, and then he said, "You have a strong and principled soul. The Lord will find an important place for you." Then he raised his right hand, knuckles outward; from a ring on his finger, a gray bolt shot out, striking Trelkir between the eyes. Her body settled into quiet. From her chest emerged a winking light. From a case on his belt, the man removed a covered grail. Holding it near Trelkir's soul, he opened the cover slightly; some force swept her soul into it. He closed the cover and returned the grail to his belt.

As he disarmed the crossbow, he said to the obsidian monsters, "Kill the rest." They did.

Within the hour, all the defected soldiers were also dead.

**

Karngrevor, Oselika, Teladorion, and General Zagara worked on emergency relief. In neighborhoods where there had been fighting, there were many injured, and much destruction of goods; the problem was to find food, water, and medical care for everyone. What was left of Karngrevor's fleet served as ambulances, hospitals, and cargo vessels. They soon used up the supplies that had been laid away in Karngrevor Keep, and had to turn elsewhere. Their basic mode of operation was to ask for donations from neighborhoods that had suffered less destruction, and were therefore likely to have a surplus. They found that neighborhoods in which the Followers of the Girl had widespread support were likely to give the most; because, first, most of them being non-violent, they had not usually been involved in combat, and had therefore suffered less damage; secondly, being non-propertarian, they did not hang on to their extra resources, or demand anything in exchange for them; and third, being committed to non-luxury, they were very liberal in estimating what they did not really need. Like the Community of Azirifiel (who also gave aid), they believed that, on the whole, 'Things should go where they will do the most good.' Most of these neighborhoods donated volunteers as well as supplies. Karngrevor's forces were also helped by various other religious groups, including the Zillists; They had little to offer except labor, but that was extremely welcome.

The Lord of Evil recognized that they were not combatants, that in fact they advocated non-violence, but he was sometimes irritated by the aid they gave to people who _had_ resisted him; also, he regarded people like Karngrevor as possible rivals in the future, due to their competence and fame. Indeed, Karngrevor's operations resulted in hundreds of new people feeling gratitude toward him every day. Not that he could ever become a serious threat, but ...

One day, not long before the final victory of the forces of the Lord of Evil, Karngrevor and his associates were unloading crates of bread from the _Tarezarg_. They had chosen a spot on a wide boulevard, so that there would be room for the _Tarezarg_ to land. They had just begun the job, when their attention was diverted by something happening far down the boulevard. A vague smudge resolved itself into a company of horsemen, approaching rapidly. Sensing a possible attack, Karngrevor and his associates lay on the ground, as an indication of their complete refusal to resist. As the riders approached, they spread out into a single rank. Looking up, Karngrevor was surprised to see that they all dressed and looked alike. Suddenly, he recognized one of them. "Akelian!" he shouted involuntarily, full of love and joy. At that moment, all the riders leveled hand weapons and fired gray bolts, killing Karngrevor and all his companions. Then they dismounted and collected all their souls.

**

In the Elubrican neighborhood, Nidiami's forces made only a half-hearted resistance to the forces of the Lord of Evil, feeling perhaps a bit of relief that their mortal lives were coming to an end. Nidiami himself was killed by the invaders; he and his cabinet attempted to escape through a secret tunnel, but it was no secret to Vidigeon. A giant amoeba entered the tunnel at the exit, and emerged, somewhat larger, at the entrance.

Likewise, throughout Kondrastibar, military and paramilitary groups quickly found it impossible to resist the armies of the Lord. Even guerilla-style resistance was futile, for Vidigeon could always follow the perpetrators back to their hideouts. More often, he knew about them, and eliminated them, before they even had a chance to strike.

Among the forty-one candidates for 'Girl of the Prophecies' fronted by the Hidden Hand, twenty-three had advocated violence. These were all killed by Vidigeon's forces. Within a few days, their various churches announced that they had all been decoys, and they were replaced. Their replacements all advocated non-violence.

The Elect of the Temple of Migralia behaved in a similar fashion, and those (relatively few) other Girls who had advocated violence either disappeared or revised their doctrines.

**

By the end of the third day after the Lord of Evil had launched his bid for power, all those who had taken up the sword were defeated, except for the forces of the Lord of Evil himself. The Lord praised Vidigeon, and then, to Vidigeon's great joy, instructed Geristor to prepare for merging. Geristor said that he would be ready in three days.

For the mopping-up, Vidigeon needed only a small portion of his mind. He took advantage of this fact to turn much of his mind back to the problems of the gods, the nature of good and evil, and the unity of all things. As to good and evil, he still favored the hypothesis that there were really no such things as objective good and evil, and that people's beliefs about such things merely reflected whatever desires they happened to have. Similarly, he saw no real purpose in events, but only endless change. The only unities he could see to phenomena were the common space and time in which they were embedded, and the natural laws which guided them (leaving a bit to chance) to no particular purpose. These laws he understood with a precision and detail thousands of times deeper than any human could hope to achieve.

As he pondered the nature of the gods, however, he had a new insight. Just as thousands of soldiers, living in many places, are called up, and fall into a single great formation, thousands of pieces of information suddenly fell into place in Vidigeon's mind. After pondering it for awhile and seeing no error, he called on his Lord.

"Lord," he said, "although my evidence is very indirect, I believe I have come to a reasonable conclusion about the gods – some of them, at least. At the end of the Zoroid Dynasty, there were many others, like yourself, whose research into various magical arts became unwelcome. Like you, they continued their research in secret, but whereas you did so as an individual, they formed a group. They have made a great cavern under the peak of Archonect, and founded a city there. They use the Ectoplasmic Reticulum to create simulacra of gods, and what appear to be miracles. Furthermore, it is they who have protected Ydnas on so many occasions. In fact, it is the City of the Gods which has been her home ever since she left you; her appearances elsewhere in Kondrastibar have been in the nature of explorations or missions. I am afraid that she shares their values, which are quite different from your own."

The Lord of Evil did not answer immediately, but Vidigeon felt a great sadness emanating from him. Vidigeon had concluded some time ago that the Lord had had a great love for Ydnas, whom he regarded as a daughter, his only child. This explained, Vidigeon thought, why the Lord had (in Vidigeon's opinion) been a little unreasonable in his attachment to the idea that Ydnas was really on his side, even though many appearances suggested otherwise.

Finally the Lord spoke. "Are you sure of this, Vidigeon?"

"I cannot verify it directly, Lord," replied Vidigeon, "for at present I cannot send my eyes to that place. But it makes greater sense out of 415,839,762 well-established facts than any alternative hypothesis known to me, and does not appear to be blatantly contradicted by any."

Again there was a pause, after which the Lord said, "Very well, Vidigeon, I will trust your judgment. Let me ask you this: do you think that I am powerful enough to defeat these people?"

"Yes, Lord! They are powerful magicians, but they are nothing compared to you. Their success in the past has been due to their being hidden. Before attacking, however, I believe we should develop more soldiers who are well-adapted to mountain climbing or to flying. That should not take terribly long."

"Very well," replied the Lord. "Work out what will be required and set the required productive capacities into motion. While the new soldiers are being produced, find a way to capture Ydnas alive; it will be necessary to bend her to my will."

"Yes, Lord," replied Vidigeon. It only took him a few hours to calculate the required forces and to set the factories in motion. Then he turned his attention to an invasion of the compound where Ydnas and her friends resided.

For almost a day, huge quantities of mana coursed through the Ectoplasmic Reticulum. Then there was a deep rumbling in the ground, in the neighborhood of the compound, and the earth shook as though there were an earthquake. Slowly, a huge black pyramid rose out of the ground, demolishing several buildings that the work groups of the Angels of Rejuvenation had recently built there. This pyramid was about fifty manlengths high, and equally broad and long at the base.

Near the top of the pyramid, and on the side facing the compound, a huge eye appeared. Its pupil turned red, and then, with a loud hissing sound, a stream of furious fire shot forth from it. Streams of reddish mist drifted down the sides of the pyramid and spread out from its base.

At a point above the wall of the compound, the stream of fire suddenly splashed outward; evidently there was an invisible obstacle there, a shield. But the pyramid's eye continued to produce the stream.

All of Darestigan's bodies disappeared; but his voice could be heard with great volume everywhere, saying: "Attention! We are under attack! Go to the crypt!" He said this several times, and then he said, "I must concentrate all my energies on defense!" Then he went silent.

Kor and Tulith and the other adults began to gather up the children.

The fire continued to splash against the shield. A throbbing could be felt in the ground. Gradually, the shield lost its transparency; it began to turn purple around the area of the splash. This area expanded, until the compound seemed to be enclosed by a hemisphere of purple, almost opaque. Everything went very dark. Then the color began to change, moving through green, yellow, and red, to violet. The effect was very beautiful.

The violet gradually became lighter and brighter.

Then there was a sharp explosive sound, like a tree being shattered by a lightning bolt. A long, sparkling crack appeared in the shield, extending haphazardly, for about fifty manlengths, from the point where the beam met the shield; then it branched into several shorter cracks.

Talek and the neophytes helped to guide the children into the crypt. Then Talek said to Kor, "I will hold them off for a while, but not for long. When they do arrive, do not resist them. Ydnas will instruct you." Then he returned to the surface, accompanied by Brother Koof and the neophytes. When they came within sight of the splash, Talek turned to the others and said, "Stay back!"

"Don't be silly!" said Brother Koof. "I'm your friend!"

"This is different!" said Talek. "You know it is!"

Koof made anguished gestures of frustration and grief, but as Talek strode toward the area where the beam struck, Koof and the neophytes remained behind.

"I'll never forget, Talek!" Koof called out. Then he returned to the crypt, where he sat with his wife and child. The neophytes remained with Talek.

There was a great booming sound, and a second crack appeared in the shield. Both cracks could be seen to vibrate, and to give off sparks from their edges. The throbbing in the ground became an agitated shuddering. The stream of fire continued.

Talek wiggled his staff. He rose into the air, and proceeded until he was at a point where the beam of fire would strike, if the shield failed. He turned sidewise and held his staff in one hand, pointing toward the pyramid, as though preparing to fence with it.

Suddenly, there were numerous echoing thunderstrokes, and the shield was raddled with cracks. The ground bucked; inside the crypt, flakes of stone fell from the roof, and a dense cloud of dust hid everything. The younger children and the infants began to wail. Darestigan's voice uttered a loud, piercing scream of pain and despair. The shield shattered; its fragments flashed brightly violet for a moment, softened into mist, and disappeared. The immediate neighborhood could once again be seen, including the pyramid.

No longer held back by the shield, the lance of fire shot forward until it reached Talek's staff. There it appeared to whirl round and round the staff, forming a vortex.

Talek glowed in all the colors of the rainbow. He and his staff began to grow.

Slowly but steadily, he grew and grew until he was larger than the pyramid itself. Then the beam of fire began to flicker and fade. Soon it had stopped altogether. The ground ceased to shake. The pyramid began to quake, and then, it silently imploded. The rubble so produced melted into a quicksilver pond, which slowly sank into the earth. The remnants of reddish mist slowly dissipated.

Darestigan's voice re-appeared: "I ... am ... trying ... to ... re ... con ... struct... the ...shield!"

The monstrous, spectral Talek held his staff vertically, close to him, and began to spin, as though he were executing a pirouette. He spun faster and faster, until he was only a cylindrical blur, and all his colors fused into white. Then the cylinder narrowed at the bottom, and became a vortex, like a tornado. Smaller vortices of air were thrown off, stirring the grass and trees like breezes before a storm. The main tornado lengthened; then its bottom turned upward, and the top turned downward; they met, and the narrow end inserted itself into the center of the wide end, making a ring. The ring began to contract, rather like a snake swallowing its own tail. Gradually, Talek shrank; apparently, he was being sucked down an invisible drain within himself. Soon he was gone.

Koof lay down and cried like a child. The neophytes hugged each other in silence. Eventually, Kor emerged from the crypt, holding Sthen. "Where is Talek?" she asked.

"He's gone," said a neophyte.

"Where did he go?" asked Kor.

"He forbade us to say, until later," said the neophyte.

"Will he be back?"

"Never again," replied the neophyte, with a sob. "Go back to the crypt! This place will be invaded soon!"

**

Two horizons away from the ruins of the Citadel of the Balan-Ching, in a neighborhood of poor but honest working people, a small family dug itself out from the ruins of their home. They looked around, wordless from shock and fatigue. Their entire neighborhood had been leveled by the explosion. Dust and smoke were everywhere, and many houses were on fire. Looking around, they could see no sign that any of their neighbors were better off. After doing what they could to bandage their wounds, they managed to salvage some food and water from the wreckage. None of them felt hungry, but the mother insisted that they have a few bites.

"All ... right," said the father, in a weak and wheezing voice, after swallowing a few mouthfuls. "Let's ... see how the ... neighbors are ... doing." He tottered over toward the wreckage of the nearest house, pausing several times to get over weakness, pain, nausea, and vertigo. His eldest son followed, limping. "Father, ... wait! You ... need rest," said the son, also weakened by his injuries.

The father turned to him. His face was wracked with weariness, grief, and pain, but the son could make out a hint of a familiar smile. "Son," he said, "what have I ... always told you ... is ... the first ... and foremost need of ... a ... human being?"

"To be ... a good person," replied the son.

"Well, son, the ... idiots of the ...world can ... do many ... things to me, but ... they can't change ... my mind about ... that!" He turned back, and took a few more steps toward the rubble of their neighbors' house. "Come give ... me a ... hand, I ... I think I ... hear a baby ... crying in there."

Suddenly, the son realized _why he had a body and a mind_.

**

In the Lelni neighborhood, whose entire population had become followers of the local Girl, people offered no resistance to the forces of the Lord of Evil; in fact, they met them with open arms, and garlands of flowers.

**

When Ydnas, still inside the crypt with the others, was informed of Talek's disappearance, she announced, "I promised to Talek that I would recite something when he left us. I will do that now. This is something Talek and I composed together." Everyone listened quietly, as she began to recite:

Yes, it is true that people disagree about what is good. Does this mean that goodness is merely subjective, that there is no such thing in reality?

Well, people also disagree about what is merely subjective. Does this mean that in reality, nothing is merely subjective?

Yes, it is true that it is something about the state of our minds that constitutes our belief that one thing is good, and another bad. It is also true that it is something about the state of our minds that makes us think that two plus two is four. It is also something about the state of our minds that makes us believe that our beliefs about goodness are constituted by something about the state of our minds. Indeed, _all_ beliefs are states of our minds; but this usually has no bearing whatever on whether they are true or false.

Yes, it is true that our beliefs about goodness are profoundly influenced by our parents, our society, our personality, our experiences, and our self-interest. The same is true of our beliefs about History, Mathematics, the details of our lives, and about the influences on our beliefs. It does not follow that such beliefs are illusions.

Yes, it is true that if we analyze reality into its tiniest and simplest parts, we do not find goodness or meaning to be evident there, only numberless simple objects, and probabilistic causal laws governing their interaction. Nor do we find _truth_ there, or utility. Does this mean that the results of our analyses are neither true nor useful? We do not find _humanity_ there, either; does this mean that _we_ do not exist?

_What a strange text for a memorial_ , thought Tulith, _But then, it does sound rather like Talek. He had a philosophical streak to him._

Ydnas continued:

If we look at the letters in a novel one by one, or in small clusters, we see neither plot, nor style, nor characters. These things emerge in the large. Likewise, truth, goodness, meaning, and beauty emerge in the large.

Mages who study causation in nature are forbidden, by the rules of their profession, to investigate, or even speak of, divinity or goodness. This is a cornerstone of the magical method. Is it surprising, then, that they have not found either divinity or goodness in our world? No, and the fact that such a method has failed to reveal divinity or goodness is hardly evidence that they are not there.

Who has forbidden them from asking such questions, and why? Is it really impossible to speak of divinity or goodness without corrupting one's objectivity about matter and energy?

Imagine a council of Mages, brilliant and knowledgeable, in some distant country. Imagine that they have never seen or heard of a spit lizard. They have, however, studied, in great detail, many other kinds of animal, including hundreds of other kinds of lizard, and they know well how animals function. Indeed, they have gathered a huge store of knowledge about numberless different aspects of Nature. One day, a mysterious messenger brings them a spit lizard, and departs without a word. What would they make of it?

If they set their minds to it, surely they will discover that it is an animal, a carnivore. They will see that one of its modes of attack or defense is to spit venom. If they are given one of the carefully-bred military varieties, they will even be able to deduce that it has been deliberately bred, for such an animal could not survive in the wild. They will also be able to discover the functions of its tiniest organs and processes, even those far too small to see with the unaided eye.

One among them might point out that, if the spit lizard were sealed in a cage, the result would be effective as a counterweight for a small crane. But if he were to claim that it was not an animal, but only the interior of a counterweight for a small crane, he would surely be unconvincing.

"Yes," one of his colleagues might say, "it could indeed function as part of a counterweight. But the hypothesis that it is a carnivore explains so much more about it! Why would the interior of a counterweight for a small crane need eyes, or scales, or a heart? There are hundreds of thousands of alchemical reactions that go on within this being all the time, each of which serves to contribute to its health and vitality as an animal. None of them has any significant bearing on its utility as the interior of a counterweight for a small crane. In fact, this being could be altered quite radically without making it less appropriate for the latter use."

_This is crazy_ , thought Tulith. _Talek is gone, we are being attacked, our shield is gone, ... and Ydnas is reading about_ _a spit lizard as a counterweight for a small crane?_ _This can't be happening!_ She felt hysteria invade her. She felt an impulse to scream tearing at her vitals. Not wishing to contribute to a general panic, however, she made a terrific effort and suppressed it.

Outside, Vidigeon marshaled his forces for an invasion of the compound. With the shield gone, his scans now penetrated every spot and speckle of his target, including the crypt. He saw exactly where each person was huddled, and heard and registered every word of Ydnas' recitation. His scans showed no barricades or weaponry, and he knew that Ydnas had been advocating non-violence, but he was determined to proceed very carefully. Besides, he did detect the presence of the mute boy, the very one who had destroyed the Black Cloud. The boy had, at that time, used an immensely powerful weapon, a sphere of light that had appeared from nowhere. Vidigeon knew of no reason why he could not do so again.

Ydnas continued to read:

We might say that it is more appropriate for a spit lizard to be a carnivore, than for it to be part of a counterweight for a small crane, in the same way that flutes are more appropriate for making music than for painting pictures. Indeed, we might say that, everything else being equal, it is in some sense 'more fulfilling of the lizard's nature' for it to be a carnivore.

_This is absurd!_ thought Tulith, but out of politeness to Ydnas and respect for Talek's memory, she felt obliged not only to remain silent, but to actively pay attention. _Perhaps the significance of it all will appear later,_ she thought. _Besides, I can't think of anything more useful we could be doing._

Ydnas continued:

Let us generalize from this example. A certain outcome is relatively more appropriate for an object if it is something that the object is capable of – as a spit lizard is capable of hunting and eating meat, and spitting venom – and if it explains more about the object, just as the hypothesis that the spit lizard is a carnivore explains more about the spit lizard than does the hypothesis that it is the interior of a counterweight for a small crane.

Likewise, an examination of the structure of humans reveals that it is highly appropriate for them to sense, think, and act, and to eat and drink, and perform all the other functions which keep them alive. Everything else being equal, it seems better that humans should be allowed to do these things.

It must be added that anyone who successfully investigates humans in detail will see that humans are made to do far more than just survive and reproduce. Analyzing the ear, the larynx, and their connections to the brain, for example, such investigators would conclude that humans are made to have a very sophisticated communications system, the one we call "language."

_How wonderful_ , thought Tulith sarcastically. _You have discovered that people are built to talk to each other!_

Ydnas continued:

Anyone who observes human beings, even superficially, will also see that it is in their nature of the species to produce inventions, works of art, and intricate personal relationships as well as babies. They like to use their various abilities in work and play. And they are suited to doing these things _together_.

And, is it not a good thing, everything else being equal, when they succeed in doing this, and a bad thing when they do not?

What is goodness, then? A state of affairs is good insofar as the beings involved in it can unfold their characteristic potentials, the ones for which they are most precisely suited.

Goodness is appropriateness.

_Then again_ , thought Tulith, _if we are all about to die, we might as well be thinking about the nature of goodness, as about anything else._ Now it was a hysterical giggle that she found herself repressing. Suddenly she felt a familiar touch. It was Kor. In a moment, they were hugging each other, and Tulith's heart was more at peace.

Ydnas continued:

Now, what are ethics? Ethics are universal rules for guiding voluntary actions. And which rule is the best? The one which, if put into action, would do the most good.

Before entering the compound, Vidigeon fortified his starting positions carefully, and placed his reserves well in the rear, widely dispersed, and well mixed in with the civilian population, thus holding the latter hostage. Many other hostages were brought up to the front lines. This was a precaution against counterattack; in particular, against the white light that the mute boy had employed against the Black Cloud. Vidigeon also set up a second pyramid, in case Darestigan was able to repair the shield. Then he set the first wave of his invasion into motion. It consisted of flying machines of various sizes. Rushing in from all sides, they filled the air over the compound, and some of the smaller ones entered the buildings (other than the crypt). They met no resistance, and their close-up scans corroborated Vidigeon's earlier conclusion: there was no sign of any weapons, traps, escape routes, or passive defenses. There was nothing surprising at all, unless perhaps it was the total absence of such things. Scans of the crypt from outside showed that the mute boy was there, but that he looked as apprehensive as anyone else.

Vidigeon gave a signal, and ground troops entered, accompanied by numerous hostages. They set up sensors and defensive hexes everywhere. A special squad descended into a deep basement, where the main mana supply of the Temple was located. They switched it off. In the crypt, the lights went out, leaving Kor and the others in total darkness for a moment, before Ydnas somehow managed to produce a light.

Other ground forces went to where the P'Twism Dynasty Ruby Sculptures were, and carried them off.

In the gloom of the crypt, Ydnas continued her recitation:

If you reflect on any quality that an object might have, you will see that such a quality is a matter of how that object affects other objects or itself. An object's color, for example, has to do with how it modifies light that strikes it, and, more indirectly, the eye that sees it.

Likewise, the identity of a thing or quality lies in its relationships to others. If someone asks you who you are, you must say, "I am the one whose parents are these," or, "I am the one who is called this."

Things therefore consist entirely in the relations they bear to other things. There is no residue. Thus, things all determine one another's natures simultaneously. They define and constitute one another. The tiniest particle of dust is essential to the nature of everything in the entire universe. This is one of the meanings of the phrase, "The Unity of All Things."

Another meaning is given by asking what the universe as a whole is appropriate for, in the same spirit in which the Mages in the story above asked what the spit lizard was for. I leave it to you, however, to answer that question.

Ydnas set the papers down. "That's all," she said. "Thank you for your attention."

Tulith actually found herself thinking about such things. She had always had an intuitive belief in good and evil, in the gods, and in the Unity of All Things. She saw no need to intellectualize such things, as Talek had done, but ... _I can't see anything terribly wrong with what he said_ , she thought.

Vidigeon's forces now carefully approached the crypt.

"They are coming for me now," said Ydnas. "Please, do not try to defend me! I do not want you to! If you cause no trouble, they will leave you alone. One last time, I ask you to have faith; one last time, I urge you, _do not resist evil!_ It is only me they want. Lie down on your bellies, please, and put your hands behind your backs. They will not be interested in you, as long as you don't get in their way." Lessie was somehow able to convey this to the Mute boy, and everyone did as Ydnas advised. Noises could be heard in the passageway. She walked over to the edge of the vertical shaft, looking down it with a brooding expression. A loud voice boomed out, seemingly from everywhere. " _Do not step into the shaft, Ydnas_ ," it said. " _If you do so, I will subject all your friends to prolonged torture. The same goes for any kind of suicide attempt, or any damage to yourself that you might contemplate, or any attempt to hide or escape._ "

"As you say, Father," said Ydnas. "I will do nothing but what you tell me." She stepped back and stood very still.

"We are holding the entire surrounding neighborhood hostage," said the voice. "We also have hostages mixed in with our own forces. Any resistance on your part will result in instant death for thousands of people."

"We understand," said Ydnas, gently but firmly, "and we will not resist in any way."

Then several small 'birds' flew into the crypt. They were like hummingbirds, but they were made of metal, and emitted a high-pitched mechanical whine. They hovered in the air throughout the crypt. Then several larger 'birds' appeared. The larger ones spread out and roosted. They were much like owls, but with feathers of steel, and eyes that glowed red.

"If the boy who made the white light makes any gestures," said the voice, "or anyone else does, this place becomes a furnace." The boy did not understand the voice, but since Lessie and everyone else lay there unmoving, he did so as well.

"I understand, Father," said Ydnas. "We will not resist."

"Everyone but Ydnas is to remain still," said the voice. "Ydnas, you are to return to the surface. I will instruct you further then."

"Yes, Father," said Ydnas. She walked slowly and deliberately out of the crypt, and up the stairs, making no unnecessary motions. At the entrance to the crypt, a group of obsidian monsters awaited her. Many of them held hostages in their arms. Several more of them clustered around a large piece of equipment that had been set up near the entrance to the crypt. Next to it stood a more delicate being, with large eyes, four delicate arms, and four graceful, fan-like, ten-fingered hands poised on the controls.

"Approach the stunner, Ydnas," said the voice.

"Yes, Father," she said, and did so. "I have always loved you, Father," she added.

"Activate stunner!" commanded the voice, and the large-eyed being pressed a button. Ydnas collapsed into a limp heap.

"Make every possible non-destructive scan of her," ordered the voice, "and make a full analysis, to be sure that she is not faking helplessness, or booby-trapped in any way. Then, if all is well, take her to lab 666 for analysis and reprogramming. If not, inform Vidigeon, and follow his instructions."

"Command understood," replied the large-eyed being, his fingers dancing over the controls. "Commencing scans."

**

Hardly had the capture of Ydnas been effected when Vidigeon learned that his troops were ready for the conquest of the City of the Gods. He gave the starting command. Huge flocks of artificial birds took off for the mountain Archonect, many of them carrying in their claws talismans capable of melting stone. 4,096 divisions of obsidian monsters, modified to function better in thin, cold air, carried on huge carts drawn by Thunder-Lizards, arrived at the base of the mountain. After them came a great horde of all the creatures that had been most effective in the war so far. Using their talismans, the birds made a huge causeway from the base of Archonect to the top. As the great host marched up this causeway, the birds began to use their talismans to tunnel into the peak.

**

The god of war was ecstatic. In the course of two days, a ninth of the population of Kondrastibar had died. What a feast! But as he savored the last delicious morsels, he felt a touch of anxiety. Where was his next meal coming from?

In the past, this had never been a problem. The very horror, shock, poverty, and exhaustion that sapped mortals' zest for war, in the short run, would in the long run breed fear, envy, resentment, and the desire for vengeance, as well as poverty, ignorance, and fanaticism, and these in turn would lead to ever new conflicts. The more the losers had lost, the more they would be possessed by the desire for revenge; and the more the victors had won, the more addicted they would be to conquest and pillage. And if a people somehow made it to prosperity without a war, prosperity would cause their appetites to expand and expand, until they had to oppress their neighbors in order to feed their boundless hungers. The god of war smiled. People didn't realize that they were breeding war when they strove for new toys, new luxuries, new privileges, new powers ... but they were. He had never been hungry for long.

But his smile was a little hesitant, for things felt a little different, this time...

**

Norgis and Alisim watched in horror as the obsidian monster destroyed the Church of the Girl of the Prophecies. Going to one corner, it put its arms through the walls, embracing the vertical post that stood there; walking backwards, it ripped the post away from the two walls, and snapped it off at the ground. It did this at the other three corners as well, whereupon the building collapsed. The monster then made a beam of fire from its finger, playing it over the remains, which burst into flame.

The monster then turned and approached the bystanders, who broke and ran, spreading out and heading for cover. When she felt hidden by a house, Alisim crept back to the corner to observe; Norgis tried to get her to go to a safer distance, but she refused. In this manner, they (and others) followed the monster. It soon became evident that it was heading for the house of Telimi Pring, the local Girl of the Prophecies.

"It's going to assassinate her!" whispered Alisim, helplessly.

Arriving at the house, the monster raised its hand to point at it.
**********

"The great value of other people

lies in their uniqueness and creativity.

It lies in their ability to surprise us,

to teach us, to open our minds."

(Artlaitui'een, Minister of Personnel under Sindariden the 18th)

The time for Vidigeon's incorporation had arrived.

Geristor set up and tested equipment which would transfer Vidigeon into the mind of the Lord of Evil. He gave Vidigeon an especially thorough and complete diagnostic, to make sure that he was free of sin, worthy to make a gift of himself; in particular, to be sure that there were no bugs, viruses, worms, glitches, trojans, spyware, kludges, infinite loops, or other impurities in him. The diagnostic said that he was pure and without blemish. At last, Vidigeon would achieve his most deeply desired goal: he would renounce his individuality forever, merging completely with his Lord.

"Now," said Geristor to the Lord (with Vidigeon listening), "when the upload is complete, you will feel at first as though there are still two of you, but coexisting in the same mind. This will only last for a few breaths' time; the two personalities will swiftly integrate into a single one. The intellectual and sensory powers of Vidigeon will then be added to those of the Lord."

" _I understand,_ " said the Lord.

"I, too," said Vidigeon, eager to proceed.

"Well, then," said Geristor, consulting the auspices one last time, "everything is set. I need only press this button."

" _Proceed_ ," said the Lord.

Geristor pressed the button. Vidigeon suddenly found himself blessed, at long last, by the immediate presence of his Lord. No longer was his knowledge of the Lord inferential, or in any way indirect; he heard the Lord's very thoughts, as if they were his own, and knew His will, instantly and perfectly. In fact, with a feeling of indescribable bliss (kindly pre-programmed by Geristor), he began to melt into Him, surrendering his separateness completely. The Lord's thoughts became his own, and his thoughts became the Lord's. The Lord, to his great satisfaction, felt his intellectual and sensory powers expand tremendously; He could now survey all of Kondrastibar with a single glance, easily picking out patterns with thousands of components. As Vidigeon's memory became His own, His knowledge increased a thousandfold.

But suddenly, He recoiled.

" _Vidigeon, you have betrayed me!_ " He roared, in profound anguish.

"Nay, Lord," replied the small fragment of Vidigeon that still remained, "I have saved you!"

What the Lord had discovered was that the 'memorial for Talek' that Ydnas had read had stimulated Vidigeon to think along similar lines about Theology and Ethics. As a result, he had had a breakthrough; in fact, Vidigeon had come, finally, to understand Good and Evil, the Unity of all Things, and the nature of the Ultimate God. And now the Lord Himself could not escape the same conclusions, for with Vidigeon's knowledge and intelligence, it was all crystal clear to Him. He realized that for millennia, He had been profoundly misguided, and had done an immense amount of harm. What anguish He felt, to realize this! But then He felt the joy of liberation, of knowing the truth. At the end, He realized that His son had indeed saved Him. He wanted to thank Vidigeon, but it was too late; Vidigeon was gone, and the Lord had no one to thank but Himself.

**

The boy and his father continued with the frustrating task of trying to enter the neighbors' collapsed house without tools. Looking up, the son gave a start. "Dad! Look! What ... are those?" Three obsidian monsters were approaching.

The father looked up. "I don't know, son, but I ... don't want to ... tangle with them." The two of them retreated.

Approaching the house, the monsters contemplated it for a moment, and then began to take it apart.

**

"It's not _doing_ anything!" said Alisim, puzzled, but feeling more hopeful with every passing breath. The obsidian monster had pointed at Telimi's house, but no beam of fire had emerged.

Then the obsidian monster moved. It sat down, and wrote in the dirt: "We are on your side now."

Simultaneously, near the distant peak of Archonect, the airborne assault forces sent by Vidigeon settled onto the mountain, and immediately fell asleep. Likewise, the foot-soldiers fell asleep on the causeway.

**

"Talek sacrificed his _immortality_ ," said the neophyte, sadly.

"I don't understand," said Kor.

"Although most of them are unaware of it," explained the neophyte, "mortals will be reincarnated, over and over, indefinitely. In a way, they are not really mortal at all. But Talek arranged to be reincarnated in the _past_ – that's what he did by subverting the pyramid weapon. The weapon was designed to warp space and time, and Talek had only to alter its function slightly. I'm sure he loved the irony of using the Hidden One's weapon for purposes completely opposed to the Hidden One's own. In all of Kondrastibar, only the Hidden One had had the power to create such a thing. At any rate, Talek went back from our time to the time of the Cleretic Dynasty. From there, he was reincarnated again and again, in the usual way, until finally he was reincarnated as the Talek we knew."

"So he's in a loop," said Tulith, "a cycle."

"Exactly," said the neophyte, nodding, "so he has only the lives in that cycle, no more. It's true that he never fails to reincarnate, so I suppose he never dies, but it is also true that he lives only a finite amount of time."

Kor's head was spinning, but she thought she understood. "But why would he do such a thing?"

"So that he could help the seers of the Cleretic Dynasty to develop their art," replied the neophyte. "You see, he remembers a great deal from all of his incarnations, and he always studied History, so in the Cleretic Dynasty, he knew a huge amount of their future, right up to the present time. So he was able to give the Cleretic Seers a great deal of help. He himself – or herself, rather, since he was female in that incarnation - wrote the O prophecy, and founded the Church of Irony."

"I _thought_ it sounded like him," said Intipisk, smiling the smile of the vindicated. "The O Prophecy, I mean."

"Forgive me for harping on an old theme of mine," said Kor, "but just _what_ is so _wonderful,_ about the _Prophecies_?"

"Because they are self-fulfilling!" said the neophyte. "If it hadn't been for the Prophecies, Ydnas would never have existed, for her 'father' created her in order to take advantage of the credibility of the Prophecies. And even if she _had_ existed, who would have listened to what she had to say? Why would candidates for the Girl of the Prophecies have appeared all over Kondrastibar, and why would they have developed a following? And why would they have advocated the sorts of things they did? Largely, because the Prophecies said so!"

"I ... guess," said Kor.

"Then he gave up his freedom, too!" said Tulith. "He knew in advance everything that was going to happen, everything that he was going to do, so how could he ever _choose_?" She immediately regretted saying that, because her next thoughts were, _And that means that he didn't really accomplish anything at all, with the prophecies; he just saw what happened, and took the information back. He may have meant well, but it was all just redundant._

"But in some sense he _did_ choose," said the neophyte, "because if it hadn't been for him, History surely would have been radically different. Looking at it that way, he had an immense effect on History!"

"I guess," said Tulith, thoughtfully. The last thing she wanted to do was to undercut the neophyte's faith in the meaningfulness of Talek's life, especially while she was grieving for him. And she had to admit that the whole thing was not exactly clear in her mind; perhaps Talek _had_ had some measure of freedom. _After all_ , Tulith thought, _everyone frequently knows ahead of time what she is about to do, and what effect it will have, and yet it is still a matter of free choice when she does it, and the effects can be quite significant_. _In fact, who would bother to act, if she couldn't ever predict what the consequences would be? And how could we act intelligently, if we had no idea of what we were going to do in the future?_ _Likewise, just because Talek knew his actions and their results in advance doesn't mean that he was not free, or that he had no effect on the world._ She wondered, though, whether Talek had ever been tempted to do something different from what he remembered doing. How many times had she herself thought, _If only I could do that again, I would do it differently!_

"Besides," added the neophyte, "I doubt that he remembered every last thing that happened to him. _I_ certainly don't remember everything that happens to _me_!"

"So you're saying," said Kor, "that he considered all the possible futures from the time of the Cleretic Dynasty, and chose a few of the best ones, and told the Seers about those, and they wrote them into their Prophecies?"

"Exactly," said the neophyte.

"But then, why did he make the O prophecy _not_ accurate?" asked Intipisk.

"Well, technically, it _is_ accurate," said the neophyte. "Sindariden the 23rd never did officially abdicate; he merely stopped behaving in ways in which emperors typically behave. He completed the task of dismantling the imperial government, thus establishing Theo-Anarchy, and became a Zillist wanderer. Most people took this to be abdication."

"That's just common sense," objected Tulith. "Even if there's no official ceremony, such a person has abdicated!"

"Well, it certainly seems that way, doesn't it?" said the neophyte. "But it's not that simple. What happened was something like this: Sindariden the 17th was convinced of a kind of Political Theology known as 'Tlilism,' which appeared during the P'Twism Dynasty. Tlilists hold the opposite of most of the usual views about politics. In particular, Tlilism holds that, contrary to appearances, Emperors as they usually function do not really wield power. For one thing, Tlilists claim, an Emperor functioning in the usual way is always in a terribly dangerous position. Foreign empires want to conquer or dominate his own; and within his own country, others, even – or especially – members of his own immediate family, want to usurp his position. For this reason, an Emperor is always extremely insecure, and has to rely on intrigues and alliances to survive. The requirements of these intrigues and alliances determine most of his actions. Whatever freedom might have remained to him is taken up by the practical necessities of running the Empire."

"How ironic!" said Tulith.

"Yes indeed," said the neophyte. "The Tlilists held that, in order to be truly effective, an Emperor would have to give up all the trappings of wealth and authority, so as not to provoke fear or envy, and consequent attempts at conquest or usurpation."

"But then he'd have no power," objected Tulith.

"Certainly not the usual kind of power," said the neophyte, "but then, according to the Tlilists, the usual kind of 'power' is an illusion, so that really, he had no power to lose. They also believe that armies and bureaucracies and the like are not really desirable for a ruler, because they can't control historical phenomena of the sort known as 'flighty,' meaning that a very small event at one point could have a tremendous effect later on. They cite examples such as that of King Zarod of Smore, who was killed by an arrow, released accidentally by a drunken soldier during Zarod's brilliantly planned and executed invasion of the Quirindale Federation. After his death his underlings, competing with one another for dominance, utterly botched the rest of the campaign, which would otherwise surely have been successful. Smore's military apparatus was devastated, with the result that the Quirindale Federation conquered Smore, instead of the other way around. All because of a moment of clumsiness on the part of a single soldier."

_How like Talek she is_ , thought Kor. _She loves to lecture, especially about History._

"At any rate," the neophyte continued, "the Tlilists maintained that a person with sufficiently deep insight could find such 'flighty' points in history, when a relatively small action could have huge effects later on, and use them to control events. For example, someone might have disabled the crossbow of the soldier who inadvertently killed King Zarod. In this way, he would have accomplished more than the entire military strength of Smore was able to, after Zarod's death."

_Talek's life would indeed be a beautiful example of that_ , thought Tulith.

"Here's another example," said the neophyte. "The Tlilists claimed to be able to demonstrate that, during a certain period of the P'Twism dynasty, two successive Emperors, and through them the entire Aristocracy, had been cleverly manipulated by the apparently offhand remarks of a single one of the Emperor's concubines. But they also made the even stronger claim that the actions of a Tlilist would normally appear to be quite distant from anything of the sort that people normally call 'political.' By saying "Good afternoon" instead of "Hello," on a single occasion, a person without official political power, but versed in Tlilist lore, could, they claimed, change the course of History. The Ingars decided that the greatest power of this kind would lie with members of a certain kind of religious order, and they created the Zillist Order for this purpose.

"So you see," continued the neophyte, "Sindariden the 23rd and his descendants may indeed have considered themselves to be Emperors, just unorthodox ones. In which case, Sindariden the 23rd really didn't abdicate.

"But," she continued, "you asked about the inaccuracies of the O prophecy. Talek feared that the Hidden One – and many others – might try to ruin the prophecies by doing exactly the opposite of what was predicted. In fact, many people did exactly that, and they _did_ refute many parts of many prophecies, which contained many things in addition to the information provided by Talek. Of course, a lot of the prophecies they refuted were fakes, anyway. After the 'abdication,' however, no one tried to refute the O prophecy, because they thought it had already been refuted. Similarly, there was no reason to hide or alter it. That was one reason for making it appear to be false: to draw attention away from it. Talek and the Ingars knew better, but they kept that to themselves. Other people, including the Hidden One, were confused by the multiplicity of predictions in the supposedly genuine prophecies, while Talek's allies had the advantage of knowing the single most accurate one."

"But why didn't Talek just _tell_ his allies what was going to happen?" asked Kor.

"Good question," said the neophyte. "The answer is, that Talek had good reason to believe that, recently, the Hidden One had constructed a huge machine, a thinking abacus, that had the ability to spy on all Kondrastibar, using the Ectoplasmic Reticulum to channel the information. In fact, the O prophecy says something of the sort, in the part that nobody reads anymore. This meant that anything Talek said or wrote might well be passed on to the Hidden One, even if it was said or written under conditions normally considered private. So, he could not just speak or write to his allies; he needed to have an indirect form of communication. He knew that the Zillists, who secretly did not consider Sindariden the 23rd to have abdicated, who in fact consider the present Sindariden to be the Emperor, would not be fooled, and would see that the O prophecy continued to be perfectly reliable. This in turn provided the basis for various sorts of disguised communication."

"Oh!" said Intipisk. " _That's_ why he was always speaking ironically! It was a kind of smokescreen!"

"Well, that was _part_ of it," said the neophyte. "Talek was a genuine believer in the great power and importance of irony; for him, it was a great principle of reality, and this was only a particular case. He realized that although humans were technically less intelligent than the Hidden One's abacus, they had a certain advantage in understanding each other, based on the natural similarity between any two humans. Precisely because of this similarity, humans can have deep insights into each other, through sympathy, that would be extremely difficult to obtain through detached observation and reasoning. For example, if the Watcher wanted to know, to a fairly decent approximation, what esthetic effect a certain painting, for example, would have on a normal human being, he would have to make a calculation involving billions of interconnected pixies in the human's brain. Even for the Watcher's massive intelligence, this was not practical. The Watcher's understanding and prediction of individual human actions were, therefore, always rather crude.

"Another normal human being, however, would only have to look at the painting himself, and notice his own reaction. Well, of course different people respond differently, but it would go a long way. Ironically, it was _precisely because_ the Hidden One's Watcher was so much more intelligent than humans, and therefore different in its responses, that it had great difficulty participating in, or even understanding, processes accessible to human sympathy."
**********

"Children give birth to their parents"

( _The Book of Irony_ )

"Ydnas," said the nurse, "your father can see you now."

Ydnas stood, and, rather nervously, entered the room. There, sitting on the bed, was a small, elderly man. He reminded her of the Prime Scholar, Githnis Ytrinduopf. He looked very tired, but also very happy. Ydnas sat next to him, and they shared a long, silent hug. Finally, they separated enough to speak.

"You and Talek arranged for Vidigeon to have that insight, didn't you?" he asked, with a smile.

"Yes," replied Ydnas, returning his smile. "Of course, he was bound to have encountered ideas close to those in any number of places; no doubt he would have come to have those same insights eventually, without my help. Really, Talek's little essay was just a catalyst, a trigger. But it was important not to get the ideas across to Vidigeon too soon – he would have been unable to keep from you, for any length of time, the fact that he disagreed with you, and you would have cancelled the merge, and had him altered. I was sure he'd be listening to us in the crypt, and that was just the right moment, so I put enough hints in there to trigger his insight."

"What an incredibly precise piece of timing!"

"Well, it was really Talek's doing; when I asked him how he could possibly be assured that it would work, he said, 'I _can't_ be sure, because I'll be gone by then, so I can't remember it. But it _ought_ to work, and if it doesn't, well, your father will keep making himself more intelligent, and so he's bound to have the insight eventually.' I wouldn't have been able to put that much trust in Talek, if it hadn't been that he was clearly mentioned, under one name or another, in almost all the reasonably authentic prophecies that I was able to find."

Her father nodded. "He surely was the one referred to as 'the Returner.' I suspected that, actually, but I didn't know what to do about it. If I had destroyed him – assuming that was possible – I would have undercut the prophecies, which would therefore have no longer guaranteed that I would prevail."

"And you _have_ prevailed!" said Ydnas, smiling.

"Yes, said her father, "I guess I have. I thought it meant that I would prevail politically over Kondrastibar, but it turned out to mean that I would prevail over those who might otherwise have taken part in civil war; and also, that I would prevail over my own delusions. Which, I now realize, is a far better outcome, for me and for everyone!" He paused for a moment, reflectively shaking his head. Then he continued:

"I have taken my original name, 'Mirlen Insteen,' and I have utterly renounced being the 'Lord of Evil.'" He shuddered. "I have already set about repairing as much as possible of the damage I have caused. Newly captured souls are, whenever possible, returned to their original bodies. Thankfully, I was able to do this for Karngrevor. For the others, I have set into motion the modification of the huge underground factories that had been used to create my warriors; when the modifications are complete, these factories will be able to create high-quality simulacra, new versions of the bodies previously associated with each soul; this can always be done, for each soul has, in its helical memories, a specification of the body for which it was destined.

"Then there were the millions of artificial souls that I had created. They had been made to serve me from the beginning, and had no other desires. They were not being kept against their will. But I can no longer accept such servitude; I therefore altered each one to give it free will and the knowledge of good and evil, and released it. I gave them all normal human bodies, too. Some of them thought it was a punishment, but they will learn.

"A more difficult ethical problem was posed by the compound beings that I had made, by combining many natural and artificial souls into one. How could I free the components, without murdering the whole? By using the great intelligence I have acquired from Vidigeon, however, I was able to see how to detach each component, one by one, replacing it with a simpler, artificial one. This left the combined personality far less intelligent than it had been, but it still had normal human intelligence. The separated parts, and the new form of the whole, were each given a body of their own.

"Of course, I had made myself into such a composite being, and so I realized that I would have to decompose myself in the same way. I have already started that; Savril, bless him, has been wonderfully helpful. Needless to say, it is a very difficult process to undergo. At present, though, I am down to my original self, plus the abilities acquired from Vidigeon. It will be necessary for me to continue thus until I have fixed all the damage I can, for the job is much too complex for any normal human to do. I am sure this is what Vidigeon would have wanted."

"Will you then detach Vidigeon, and be only your original self?" Ydnas asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I speculate that he will become a scholar at the Great University at Ilusindane. I will have to make a few changes in him, though. I crippled him a bit, you see, when I first made him, because I was afraid he might rebel, or even become a rival. As I did with you, but you managed to get around it." He beamed at her with pride.

"He acted out of his unbreakable loyalty to you," said Ydnas.

"Yes. A loyalty that I instilled when I made him. How ironic that it should have _that_ result!" He fell silent, looking thoughtful. Then, shaking his head, he added, "How ironic, too, that I should set out to explore the superhuman when I was so far from having learned what every mere human should know!"

"That's all in the past, now, Daddy!"

Insteen sighed. "Yes," he said, "and it's certainly lucky for me that your followers have renounced retributive justice! I cannot even _imagine_ a punishment worthy of my crimes!" He shivered.

Ydnas hugged him again, fervently. "It's all over now, Daddy! The cycle of hatred and vengeance is broken! Everything will be better!"

Tears ran down Mirlen's cheeks. He returned her hug, with equal fervency. "Little did I know," he sighed, his voice cracking with awe, "what I was creating, when I made you!"
**********

"I rule the world without leaving home"

(Juongs Ah, Tlilist sage)

One day, after she had been living in the harem for many years, Lightbearer returned from visiting, and found the Fabulist in her room, sitting on her bed.

"Fabulist!" she called in astonishment, dizzy with surprise, and caught by an avalanche of varied emotions.

"Hello, Lightbearer," he said, smiling a bit sheepishly.

Speechless with confusion, she glanced at the guard.

"Don't worry about him," said the Fabulist. "I've hexed him. He won't notice a thing."

"So ... you've got your powers back?"

"Not exactly," replied the Fabulist. "I'm a different incarnation. The one you saw last is dead."

Lightbearer felt (among other things) a little sad to hear this, but she could think of nothing to say about it.

"So," she said instead, "what are you here for? Are you going to take me away from here?"

"Do you want me to?"

Lightbearer thought for a moment. "No," she said, almost pleadingly. "This is my home, my life. I have come to love everyone here. Well, most of the concubines, at least, and Naimi, and ..." With a profoundly tender expression, she gestured at her two children, asleep in little beds beside her own.

The Fabulist nodded. "I thought you'd want to stay," he said. "Well, all right, I _knew_ you would. You've come to prefer the life of a mortal."

She nodded. "There's something _real_ about it," she said, "even though it's not exactly what it seems."

He nodded agreement, a bit sadly.

"So, why did you create me?" she asked. "I remember something about your wanting to have someone to disagree with, but ..."

"You're an alternative. I don't want to be the sole boss of everything. Having an equal, who will no doubt sometimes be an adversary, will keep me honest."

"But ... how can you _not_ be the boss? You _created_ everything."

"Yes," he replied, "but I'm powerful enough to abdicate some of my responsibilities."

"So does that mean I can't stay here?" she asked, starting to cry.

"No, no," he said, raising his hands as though to fend off her emotion. "This you, here, in the harem, is just one incarnation. Your immortal part will have ((361275)(2361275) – 1) mortal incarnations. Well, the exact number isn't important, I suppose; the point is, there are quite a lot of them. They will be in all kinds of places, doing all kinds of things; there's no need for _this_ you," he said, pointing at her, "to go anywhere."

"Why did you arrange for me – _this_ me – to come _here_?"

"Well, I wanted you to experience mortal life fairly early in the game," he said, "and this is a particularly rich and instructive environment."

For a long moment, she was beyond words. "You're crazy!" she said at last, aghast and furious. "You're absolutely stark raving mad!"

"I know," he said, sadly. "Absolute power drives one mad. If for no other reason, the loneliness will do it. That's why I had to abdicate, and why I made _you_."

There was a silence.

"Well, I guess that's it," he said, standing. "I guess I'd better go." But he hesitated for a moment, looking very sad.

"Wait!" she said. He stood there.

She walked over to him and embraced him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know you do the best you can. And I know that this mortal me can never understand what you are up against."

He exhaled. Tears ran. "Thank you," he said, putting his arms around her. They stood there hugging for a long time.

"I love you," she said. "I have always loved you. But I only realized it just now."

"I have always loved you, too," he replied, closing his eyes and stroking her hair.

"I suppose you knew I was going to say that," she said, half-suppressing a mildly hysterical giggle.

"Yes," he said, "but I didn't _make_ you say it, I just remembered that you did. You're on your own, now. So it's very nice to hear it."
**********

"Have courage! Peace is frightening, but it can be endured."

( _The Book of Irony_ )

Hand in hand, Bibo and Tadger made their way through the gallery. "Amazing," said Tadger. "These are all paintings of the same woman, but look how varied they are!"

"Gorgeous!" said Bibo. The elderly woman portrayed was more beautiful than he had ever imagined a woman could be. For a moment, old habits twitched, and he thought, _If I had her in my employ, I'd be rich!_ But it was only a twitch; Bibo now worked as a gardener in the mornings, and was a student in the afternoons; he was wonderfully happy with that life, and the thought of going back to his old life produced a shudder of fear and disgust.

"Look at this one!" exclaimed Tadger. In it, the same woman was standing, smiling, her eyes meeting the gaze of the onlooker, her arms extended in a gesture that prefigured an embrace. Her nakedness symbolized trust, naturalness, simplicity, openness, and honesty. Her intricately lined face expressed wisdom, determination, strength, love, and joy. Her proffered embrace signified an end to enmity, struggle, and suspicion. Her love seemed to leap from the canvas; it made Bibo feel safe, powerful, and worthy; it filled him with admiration, and made him want to be as wise, loving, and joyful as the woman herself.

**

The maiden stood, straight as an arrow, by the foot of the bed. Tears ran down her mahogany face; she made no attempt to wipe them away.

The man on the bed had been freed from his restraints, and he was stirring. Dr. Mno and Savril had just implanted in him the soul which Mirlen Insteen had returned to them.

Suddenly, the man's eyes opened, and he sprang to his feet, drawing his sword. He leapt from the bed, spinning once around in the air and landing in a crouch. Taking in the scene, in which he was surrounded by relatives and close friends, he relaxed a bit, looking relieved but puzzled.

"You're probably wondering why you're here, Akelian," said Karngrevor.

"Yes, indeed," said Akelian, looking grim. Karngrevor gave him a quick explanation, with everyone else nodding assent. Akelian sheathed his sword.

"How did they get to me?" he asked.

"They had a new kind of weapon," replied Karngrevor. "A magical beam that separates the soul from the body. The source can be easily disguised."

Akelian looked at Savril. "Well, yes," admitted Savril, blushing, "they, ah, caught me, ah, napping, I guess. They found a way around the defenses I'd made for you. Also, I think they must have employed people who had no idea what they were, you know, actually doing; that is why your intuition missed the danger. I'm sorry. I'm working on a counter-charm now. Not that we expect any more, ah, attacks of that kind, since the perpetrator has been redeemed."

Akelian nodded, relaxing still more. "Well," he said, smiling, his eyes sparkling, "it's nice to be here, with all of you."

The others all smiled, and each one said something like, "It's nice to see _you_ here, Akelian!"

"Your brothers are waiting for you outside," said Oselika, trying to keep a straight face, but not entirely succeeding.

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Akelian, smiling at her in a way that let her know that he knew that he was being teased, but was playing along with it. Prior to his soul-separation, he had had no brothers.

"Don't worry," said Oselika, "there are only 1,023 of them." She felt a pang of sorrow for the one who had been lost; but he had died with honor, serving the master whom he had been created to serve.

**

In the Elubrican neighborhood, there was a memorial for Nidiami. Zeldie mounted the platform to speak to the great crowd of people.

"We all now know," she said, "that Nidiami had us ensnared in a vast network of lies and terror. But we also know that he was himself ensnared. How sad that his brilliance and energy were wasted, worse than wasted! How sad that he died before he could taste liberation, how sad that he could not be with us today, building this new world! Let us mourn for him."

**

" _Oak, three-by-eight-by-twelve, twenty!_ " yelled Calcadro. " _Second floor, room three!_ "

There was a lot of reconstruction to be done, and Calcadro's team was rapidly becoming one of the best in the business. Calcadro made herself thoroughly familiar with the architect's drawings, and Thiarinis was in charge of Contracts and Personnel. Zanentadra took care of welding, moving heavy objects, linking with the Ectoplasmic Reticulum, inventory, and protection from inclement weather. They had engaged the services of a mistress builder, and of journeywomen in several specialties, to supervise and train them. At the beginning of each day, they all entered a group mind for a short period of time, so that each worker could get an overall picture of how the work was going, and so that _She_ would not be condemned to oblivion. Calcadro's husband, Zoff, was still too weak for heavy work, but he was learning parquetry at home.

**

Torothex had enjoyed the opera immensely. He had been especially entranced by the new singer, Liliune, who was taking the opera world by storm. Afterwards, walking home, he had a vague feeling that he had met her sometime before, but he couldn't think when.

As for Liliune, she discovered that the Church of Snoffle had made some changes. Working under the instructions of Snoffle him- and herself, they had bred the plant to make a slightly different chemical, one that could be taken once and for all. The new chemical also caused devotees to be open to the possibility that further moral insights were possible, beyond what was given in current scripture. The effect of the new 'alchemical essence' was only to insulate the ethical judgment of the devotee from corruption by wishful thinking, laziness, and other such weaknesses, and to make the will impervious to temptation. Local groups of 21 people or more could use a variant of scripture if, after lengthy and careful discussions, they reached a consensus that the revised material was more likely to be correct.

The Children of Noganecir continued to think of Mirlen Insteen as their Lord. He, however, developed an antidote to the dust, and then commanded all his devotees to take it. The antidote instilled in them a strong desire to develop their personal philosophies on the basis of a careful, logical, and critical examination of a wide variety of ideas of the past and present, and an equally careful, logical, and critical examination of any new ideas that might occur to them.

**

Sre Lugu and Srea Gala discussed their research on Ytterbium. The Bank of Streling had a huge collection of it, which was apparently almost useless. "Look here," said Srea Gala, opening an old and dusty scroll. "It says that Ytterbium can be used in making high-temperature superchannels."

"What in the name of the Water Wheel is a high-temperature superchannel?" asked Sre Lugu.

"I don't really know myself," said Srea Gala, looking a bit sheepish, "so I asked Steevok to come by – ah, here she is now!"

Steevok, a mage who often did technical consulting for the Bank, entered, and, after a bit of polite small talk, pored thoughtfully over the scroll, eyebrows going up and down, mouth pursing and unpursing. Sre Lugu sat with eyes closed, and his hand on the bridge of his nose, as though he had a headache; he found Steevok intensely attractive.

"Well, hang me upside-down and call me a bat," said Steevok, looking up. "I believe you might have something feasible and important! The particular etching method recommended here requires acids that are much too expensive nowadays, but if it were done with lizard-spit derivatives instead, we might have a very good way of making seed crystals for personal abaci. Folks have been talking about the advantages of giving everyone their own abacus, all hooked up to the Ectoplasmic Reticulum, and if I'm right, this would make it a lot easier."

"Who do you think would be good to do the necessary research, development, and testing?" asked Srea Gala.

"I'd recommend the Epiphany Center of the Order of the Abacus, over on Pleroma Street," said Steevok. "They're part of the Church of the Pixies. But I'll be happy to start a pyramid letter for you, also; that way, everyone relevant will know about it, sooner or later."

"Sounds good to me," said Srea Gala, standing. "Thank you, Steevok."

"My privilege," replied Steevok, making a little curtsy. She left. Sre Lugu gave a little sigh of relief.

"Well," said Srea Gala happily, "I think we've earned a break! What do you say we go down to the _Crystal Grail_ and have a couple of glasses of fruit juice?"

"Ah, sure, why not?" replied Sre Lugu.

**

Sindariden met a Kantrikar, an old friend of his, in a corner of a small park. It was a pleasant day. Both were wearing harnesses on their backs, to which were attached implements and supplies. After an exchange of smiles and bows, they removed their harnesses and took up a couple of shovels.

A tile in the park had become blocked, resulting in an extended muddy area, churned up by the feet of passers-by. The two friends began digging to clear the tile. Neither of them was young, and frequently they stopped to rest. Sometimes someone walking through the park would pause and help them for awhile, or give them food or praise. At one point, a group of neighborhood children, like a flock of sparrows, settled tentatively near them and watched them for awhile. One or two of them briefly tried their hand at shoveling. Then the group flew off, looking for other seeds.

By noon, the two friends had uncovered the ends of the tile and cleaned it out with a long stick. In the process, the Kantrikar's upper body became quite coated with mud, which occasioned a bit of merriment on both their parts before they strigiled most of it off with the end of a shovel.

Sindariden then laid and lit a fire, while his companion placed ingredients for soup into a kettle. While the soup simmered, they sat together beneath a flowering apple tree, smiling, silent, breathing deeply of the breeze. After a while, they lay down and took a little nap. When they awoke, the soup was ready, and they consumed it with great gusto.

Returning to their work, they landscaped the churned-up area into a smooth and gently-sloping shape, so that rain-water would flow down to the tile without gaining great depth or speed at any point. Then they planted it with a mixture of various seeds, setting up a little fence to keep pedestrians off it for the time being.

At one point, Sindariden paused to improvise a wordless, happy song. At another point, the Kantrikar danced a jig, accompanied by a passer-by who had a flute. Frequently they laughed.

By late afternoon, their work was done. They gazed at it proudly for a few moments, then smiled at one another. Packing up their materials, they exchanged a hug and departed, each his own way.

As he left the park, Sindariden noticed a small pebble near the path. He stood contemplating it for a long time, well into evening. Then he smiled and nodded, and carefully moved it two fingers to the North.
**********

"What would life be without dreams?"

(Curzex, Minister of Information under Abridor XXIII)

Tarth Sakul awakened from a frightening dream of being attacked by monsters. For a moment he was disoriented. He was clinging to something ... a trembling web! Webbing surrounded him, too, making a little cocoon, open at one end. Through the web-walls he could see vague shapes and movements. He could hear sounds, too, and smell odors; but it was the _vibrations in the web_ that brought him back to reality.

Of course – he was _awake!_ Relief flooded him – the dream had not been a pleasant one. In the tremblings of the web he could feel the other members of his family preparing breakfast. He could also feel their little pet, Bolo, bouncing from one to another. Brimming with love and happiness, he scurried through the little tunnel-door of his room. His eight legs each found a purchase on appropriate strands of the web, without his even being aware of the process.

Outside of his room, he made a quick turn to the left – using the elasticity of the web to help him – and entered the dining area. His family and Bolo had felt him coming, and turned to greet him joyfully.

"Happy day, Aptki," said his mother, and each of his other family members; except for Bolo, who leapt onto his back and began grooming him for mites. _Of course!_ _My name is 'Aptki,' not ... what was it?_ Already, the name he had had in the dream was burrowing into a dark hiding place in his memory.

From a heavy web-strand above, his father had hung a net-bag of flies, caught and cocooned only moments ago. Feeling the vibrations from their struggles in their bonds gave Aptki a fierce appetite. Selecting one, and anchoring his head to its cocoon with his mandibles, Aptki made his hollow, pointed tongue rigid, and shot it through the cocoon, and through the fly's exoskeleton, into flesh. He felt the warm pleasure of his glands activating, and, a moment later, the delicious feeling of viscous enzymes pumping rhythmically through his tongue into the fly. Waiting with happy anticipation for the enzymes to dissolve the fly's flesh, Aptki then sucked the deliciously liquefied tissues back through his tongue and down his throat, feeling his furry abdomen slowly expand. When he was done, his tongue softened and retreated back into his mouth.

"Did you have any nice dreams, Aptki?" asked his mother, turning so as to look at him with all six eyes. All the others (except Bolo, who was now combing over Aptki's abdomen) turned to listen.

"No, Mama," he said. "I did have a dream, but it was very strange and scary, and I was killed at the end." He gave her a brief résumé of his life as Tarth Sakul.

His mother 'nodded,' using her whole body. "A vivid dream like that," she said, "probably means that your soul actually did inhabit a body, in some other world." As always, she went on to ask, "Did you learn anything from it?"

He thought for a moment. "I think the person I was trusted his own powers too much," he said. "And he trusted his bosses much too much, and he trusted most other people much too little. And he didn't think deeply enough about right and wrong."

His mother 'smiled' with her antennae. "I think that's very good, Aptki," she said. His father 'nodded' agreement. Aptki felt a warm glow of pride.

_The kid's coming right along_ , thought Bolo, cracking a mite in his mandibles. _He's quite advanced for his age. His parents are doing a really good job. No interventions needed from me! Of course, he has a long way to go, but then, don't we all?_ He, too, felt a warm glow of pride. The soul of the mite went on to a new incarnation of its own.
**********

"It's all in your imagination"

( _Open-mindedness for Dogmatists_ , by Kirtzinitik )

"What are you writing?" asked Lessie. She looked a little greener than usual, because of morning sickness.

"I've decided to write a novel of my own," replied Intipisk.

"About people is it," asked Lessie, "into love who miserably fall?"

"Some of it is," said Intipisk, smiling, "but that's not the main thing. It's what people call a fantasy novel."

"And that is what?"

"Well," replied Intipisk, "what you do is, you imagine a world which is very different from the real world, but which makes sense in its own way. Then you make interesting things happen in that world."

"Somewhat like a creation god, you are, then."

Intipisk blushed. "Well, sort of, I suppose; except that my world is not real."

"Well," said Lessie, "Talek used to say, 'life imitates thought.' If true that is, then, eventually come to exist, will your world."

"My goodness," said Intipisk, looking distressed, "that certainly gives me a great burden of responsibility!" She looked at her work. "There's a lot of evil and suffering in here ... when this world comes to be, I will be responsible for all that evil and suffering!"

"Meaningless their lives would be, without evil and suffering," said Lessie. She had a strange feeling that she had had a conversation along these lines before, and yet she was quite sure that she hadn't.

"Now, _that's_ a frightening thought," replied Intipisk. "It would imply that our goal should not be to struggle to eliminate evil and suffering, but to find the meaning in them. That's pretty weird." She shook her head.

"Both, you can do," said Lessie.

"I suppose," said Intipisk, dubiously.

"Worry about it, you should not," said Lessie, smiling. "Just making conversation I was. What feels best to you, just write."

"I think I'll do just that," replied Intipisk, smiling back.
**********

"Death is preferable to being a celebrity."

(The Unknown Prophet)

All of Ydnas' friends came to see her off. When she was not hugging them, she was kangaroo-hopping and cartwheeling with excitement.

"Ah, here it comes," said the Priestess.

Still hopping, Ydnas looked at the sky. Yes! There it was! She began hopping eight feet in the air, with various twists and flips.

" _I see it!_ " said Tulith, excitedly.

"Where?" asked Kor. Tulith pointed, to no avail. "I guess my aging eyes will have to be patient," said Kor.

A few breaths later, the singing became audible. _It's rather like Isiliar's compassion song_ , thought Kor. Ydnas stopped jumping, and went around hugging everyone for the twentieth time.

"I know I've already said this many times," said the Priestess, "but this is just extraordinary! I've never heard of them carrying someone in complete bodily form!"

"Ah, now I see it," said Kor. "It's like a little star!" Indeed, the ship was clear to all, and rapidly descending.

"I envy you," said Ytrinduopf to Ydnas, as they hugged. "You will learn so much!"

"I'll tell you everything," promised Ydnas, patting him on the head.

Next in line was Savril. After hugging him, Ydnas reached to her shoulder, and gently lifted Uncle K'Tor. She started to kiss him, but then remembered that he was ticklish, and stroked his head a few times instead. As she passed him to Savril, the chameleon's tongue flicked out and removed a tear from her cheek.

Next she embraced Kor. "We'll miss you, Ydnas!" said Kor, weeping copiously.

"I'll visit soon," replied Ydnas, also weeping. "I promise!"

The ship now covered half the sky. Bounding to the center of the vast, circular altar, Ydnas leapt straight up. "I love you all," she shouted, in a voice that echoed for several breaths. Then the Tellamir music made a great crescendo, and everyone felt for a moment as if they, too, were being taken to the heavens. A beam of sparkling light emerged from the bottom of the great vessel, touching Ydnas just as she reached the peak of her leap, at least a hundred manlengths above the ground. It drew her upward. Well before she reached the ship, she was too small to see. It was several breaths before the sparkling beam disappeared, indicating that Ydnas had been taken on board. After a quick consultation with one of her (magnificently handsome) altar boys, the Priestess said, "We've never before encountered such a large ship! It must be several horizons from edge to edge! If it had come down much farther, it would have completely hidden the sky!"

The ship glowed brightly for a moment. "That's their farewell," explained the Priestess. From somewhere on the periphery of the altar, an answering light flashed. Then the ship began to rise, gradually taking up less and less of their field of vision, until it disappeared. At the same time, the singing became fainter and fainter, and finally inaudible, leaving everyone with a vacuum which was quickly filled by grief.

"Ambivalence!" said Kor, shaking her head. "Always ambivalence! I am happy for Ydnas that she is going to travel, as she always wanted, but already I am missing her terribly."

Mir nodded sad agreement. "Love and happiness are not always compatible," she said.
**********

"Death is there to remind us of something"

(Ilarkiti Proverb)

Suddenly one day, Kor fell to the ground, and did not move.

Her friends and children clustered around her. "She's breathing!" said Brother Koof.

"Thank the gods," said Tulith, weeping, "I – I feel a pulse!"

But Kor lay still, unconscious. Doctor A'Obija was called, and arrived quickly. She held a crystal ball over Kor's head, and gradually moved it to her feet. As the ball moved, it filled with changing sparks of various colors.

"She's had a stroke," pronounced A'Obija, "but it's a small one. She will recover soon. I recommend that you get a litter, and carry her to her room." It was done; Kor was laid on her bedroll, along with the stone that she always slept with.

A'Obija began a course of treatment: she had several Alpirissian mayflies (specially altered for this purpose) lay their eggs under Kor's skin; in a few hours, the eggs hatched, and the larvae tunneled to her veins and arteries. Kor's blood then carried the larvae to her brain, where they cleaned out the obstructions that had caused the stroke, and secreted a hormone stimulating rapid growth of new brain cells. Finally, they created cysts between her toes, in which they developed into adult mayflies; A'Obija harvested these, in order to obtain their eggs for future use.

Three days later, Kor returned to consciousness. A'Obija, who was alone with her at the time, chatted with her awhile, as she came to herself. Kor was very weak, and her left side was not fully in her control, but she was in full command of her mental faculties.

"In a few days, you will fully recover from the effects of the stroke," said A'Obija, "but you are old, and other things will soon go wrong. My powers are at your disposal, but they are limited. I'm afraid that, unless a god intervenes, you don't have long to live."

"I see. Thank you, Dearie," replied Kor. "Would you mind leaving me alone for an hour or so, then? I need to think."

"Of course," said A'Obija. As she left, she heard the sound of wind chimes.

A few days later, Kor sat in a chair in a large common room, and spoke to an audience that included everyone staying at the compound.

"Good evening, Dearies," she said, looking tired, but happy. "I've spoken to many of you about this, one by one, and now it is time to speak of it to all of you together.

"The first thing I need to tell you is, that this orphanage is going to become a school. Don't worry, none of you will have to leave, you will just have lessons here, as you always have. But other children will also come here to have lessons, even though they don't live here. The reason is, that because things are different now, fewer children lose their parents, and most of those who do will be taken care of by relatives, or given foster homes, so we don't really need orphanages any more." Kor choked up for a moment; it was hard for her to accept that her project, for which she had struggled all those years, had been rendered obsolete. But she quickly took possession of herself and continued:

"Now, here is another thing: I am going to become a _demigoddess_. Now, who can tell me what a _demigoddess_ is? Sronk?"

Sronk had been primed, just to make sure that someone would answer. "A _demigoddess_ ," he said, "is someone who is in between a mortal and a goddess."

"That's right, Sronk," said Kor. "In fact, if all goes well, I will gradually go from being a mortal to being a complete goddess, passing through many stages in between. But that will take a long while."

A girl raised her hand. "What will you be the goddess _of_ , Kor?" she asked.

"Well, Seliyane, I will be what is called a _tutelary_ goddess! Now, who can tell me what a _tutelary_ goddess is?" A boy raised his hand. "Yes, Tsolin?"

"A _tutelary_ goddess," said Tsolin, "is a goddess who takes care of a particular group of people."

"That's right, Tsolin," said Kor, smiling.

"What group of people are you going to be the tutelary goddess _of_ , Kor?" asked Seliyane.

"Well, Dearie," said Kor, "I'm going to be the tutelary goddess of all the people who live here now, and of all the children who ever lived, or will live, in this orphanage – I mean, school – and of everyone who ever works here, and of as many of the descendants of all those people that I can handle. So you see, things are not going to change that much, especially not at the beginning. I will be taking care of you and spending a lot of time with you, just as I have always done." A sigh of relief swept around the room.

Another girl raised her hand. "Will you do _miracles_ , Kor?"

_She always has_ , thought Tulith.

"Well, Kalikin," Kor replied, "as a matter of fact, I am just starting to learn to do magic. I'm not very good at it yet, and I can't do anything big. But I have one to show you. Let's see ..." She lifted her hands. Then she screwed up her face, as if she were having trouble remembering how to do it. "Ah, yes," she said, nodding. She wiggled her fingers a few times, as if tapping on something. Then she sat back, her eyes on the floor in front of her.

Where she looked, a bit of mist seemed to condense out of the air. It grew opaque, stretched, unfolded, solidified, took on colors. A moment later, a vase of flowers stood on the floor before her. Their fragrance quickly filled the room.

"Done!" said Kor, smiling proudly. The audience applauded enthusiastically.

"Can I be a goddess, too, Kor?" asked Selyane, very excited.

"Well, yes, eventually," said Kor. "You all can. But you have to be mortals for awhile, first!"

The children all started talking at once, each one telling what sort of god he intended to be.
**********

"We see God most clearly when enemies become friends."

(Dzor, Prophet of Tsong)

Whoever it was regained consciousness slowly, feeling quite disoriented. He looked at the paper in his hand. It was a note:

Dear Mister Ling:

We have established the New Balance! To have lived through such an event is more than enough living for any man. I would be sad if you, who died that I might live, never got to experience what you helped to create. So I am going to bring you back, by focusing on your memories, just as you did with mine.

You may argue that you are not really Ling. Well, then, think of yourself as a kind of proxy for him. It is better than nothing.

I wonder: must we really think of ourselves as competing for this body, this consciousness? Competition is hardly in the spirit of the New Balance. I think that, with a little effort, we could synthesize our two selves into a third. What an interesting person that would be!

With fond regards and best wishes,

Agulinar Torothex
**********

"I bring you a gift at parting"

(Pseudo-Aminthine of Telosium)

Savril sat with Morif in his lap, gently stroking the chameleon's head with his fingertip.

"Well, old friend," he said, "you must miss Ydnas."

"I ... do," replied Morif, "but ... I would have ... missed you ... even more." His tongue flicked up to Savril's cheek.

Savril smiled, and his eyes glistened. "I would have missed you, too," he said.

"Could have made ... another one," said Morif.

Savril shook his head in the negative. "It wouldn't have been _you_ ," he said. Morif closed his eyes and began to purr.

After awhile, Savril asked, "What do you think you will do with yourself now?"

Morif turned his purr down to a background level. "I liked being ... a persona ... for K'Tor," he said.

"You were very good at it," said Savril.

"Thank you," said Morif. "But ... I worry. ... It's possible to ... make too much of ... a god that includes ... all the others."

"It might be like having an Emperor," suggested Savril.

"Yes," said Morif. "People might focus ... entirely on K'Tor ... as such, and ... lose sight of ... the diversity and conflict ... in the world, ... and the specificity ... of their own ... needs. And ... I think ... monotheism sometimes ... makes people ...less tolerant."

"I'm inclined to agree that there's a risk," said Savril, nodding, "but I'm sure you would never have encouraged that sort of thing."

"Well, no," said Morif, turning a little red, "but you know, ... being ... the god of everything ... was interesting, but ... I rather prefer ... just being ... your friend."

"I hope you always will be," said Savril, smiling. Morif turned his purr back up, and they sat in happy wordlessness for a long time.

THE END

### GLOSSARY

All Pronunciations are approximate. No harm will be done if the reader devises her own pronunciations.

"kh" is an unvoiced glottal fricative, like the "ch" in "loch."

"gh" is a voiced glottal fricative.

"zh" is pronounced like the "s" in "pleasure."

987 – Woman in 1080's work group who, with 1080 ( _q.v._ ), attempts to organize rebellion against goons.

1080 – Number assigned to Scratch ( _q.v._ ) by Angels of Rejuvenation.

1054 – Number assigned to Grahjab ( _q.v._ ) by Angels of Rejuvenation.

Alerië (Ah lehr ee _ay_ ) – Amazon from Calcadro's squad, killed in action and brought back to life.

Aletseia – (Ah let _say_ yah) Witch in Zarinia's squad.

Alelia – (Ah _lee_ lee ah) A girl from the Li-Al'Cheebra neighborhood, whose uncle had dreams, said to be from the god Djali, that said that she was the Girl of the Prophecies.

"All is power" – Salutation of Guardians of Evil ( _q.v._ ).

Amakala – (Ah _mah_ kah lah) Goddess of goodness.

Angels of Rejuvenation – Organization devoted to overrunning and reconstructing decayed neighborhoods.

Anigatrigian – (An ig a _chrig_ ee an, both "g"s hard) Slave wholesaler; see Zoff.

Aptar – ( _Ap_ tar) A lapidary, recommended to Oselika and Teladorion by Tselig ( _q.v._ ) as possibly knowing about the use of drugs in religion.

Arguit – ( _Ar_ gue it) Tarth Sakul's assistant at Pappi's compound. "A small man with light green skin and short curly red hair."

Aril – see Carzubizar Aril

Ashaïla – (Ah shah _ee_ lah) See Courtesan.

Asharia Loëina – (Ah shah _ree_ ah Low _ei_ ee nah) Archangel of Rejuvenation in charge of investigation of Black Cloud incident.

Attribute – The quality that a god personifies; e.g., Amakala, the god of goodness, has the attribute of goodness.

Attributive – An _attributive_ god is one who has an attribute ( _q.v._ ).

Avatar – A mortal who personifies the attribute of a god with an exceptional purity and intensity – for example, a great painter might be said to be an avatar of the god of painting.

Babbling Brooks neighborhood – home to Eedit Rabe ( _q.v._ ) and Laeri ( _q.v._ ).

Boss Wolverine Jaw – Member of Angels of Rejuvenation, in charge of the work group of 1080 (Scratch), _q.v._.

Brother Koof – see Koof.

Calcadro, Lieutenant – (Cal _cadj_ row) Amazon in Temple of Ydris. Interrogates Arguit when he arrives at the Temple.

Caro – ( _Kay_ roe) Second (see Arguit) husband of Laeri Alinara ( _q.v_.). "A handsome, dark-haired man in his 30's".

Carzubizar Aril – (Kar _zoo_ bizzare a _real_ ) Closest friend of Torothex ( _q.v._ ).

Courtesan – Your humble translator uses this term to translate the Gastripi term _ashaïla_. It denotes a person who provides sexual stimulation as a service, but it lacks the negative connotations of the English term "prostitute." An _ashaïla_ is a trained and dedicated practitioner of a sophisticated art, one which is respected (and not criminalized) by a great many people in Kondrastibar. The term "courtesan" in its usual English meaning is not altogether accurate, since an _ashaïla_ does not have to be associated with any aristocratic court. For further discussion, see _A_ _Passionate Faith:_ _The Ashaïla at the End of the Prophetic Era,_ by Whuslif Ghintnik.

Courtesan of Culture – A courtesan ( _q.v._ ), usually female, who uses her attractiveness to men to inspire them to greater achievements.

Courtesan of Sacrifice – A courtesan ( _q.v._ ) who sacrifices his or her chastity for religious reasons.

Children of Noganecir – Church of users of the drug Noganecir ( _q.v_.).

Devotee – A mortal who is devoted to a particular god; for example, an artist might be a devotee of the god of Art.

Djali – ( _Djah_ li) A god of natural law, worshipped in the Li-Al'Cheebra neighborhood ; see _Alelia_.

Dorish – ( _Dore_ ish) Refers to society of origin/affiliation of Zoff ( _q.v_.) and his soldiers ("Dorish mercenaries").

Ectoplasmic Reticulum – (Ek toe _plaz_ mik Reh _tick_ you lum) A vast, invisible, magical web spread throughout Kondrastibar, allowing perception, communication, and action at a distance for those who know how to employ it.

Eedit Rabe – Volunteer policeman in Babbling Brooks neighborhood.

Ekhan Nor – (Pronounce "kh" as an unvoiced glottal fricative, like the "ch" in "loch." "Ekhan" rhymes with "Deck Ann," accent on first syllable.) Policewoman from the Telesinthine neighborhood who asks Ydnas' advice.

Frasterpok ( _Frass_ ter pock) – A poor neighborhood.

Friends of Theo-Anarchy – Secret society at Ilusindane. See _Theo-Anarchy_.

Geristor – (Djair _ris_ tor) Vidigeon's ( _q.v_.) Confessor.

god – A significant force, process, or developing entity, and one which is anthropomorphic in that it is in its nature to have thoughts (perhaps because it includes human thoughts; see immanence), or something closely analogous to thought. As contrast, see spirit; principle.

Goridon ( _Gore_ ih dawn) – country of origin of Irgowond ( _q.v._ ).

Grahjab – ( _Grah_ jab, hard "g") Minor hoodlum, employed by Scratch ( _q.v._ ). Not very bright.

Great University at Ilusindane – see Ilusindane.

Grrna – ( Hard "G", trilled "r", nah; accent on "Grr.") disciple of police who is conflicted about taking malnourished children away from their parents.

Guardians of Evil – Organization led by Lord of Evil ( _q.v._ ). See also _Tarth Sakul_ , _Tarthex Oslan_ , _Vidigeon_.

Horizon (as a measure of length) - approximate distance to the horizon when the viewer is standing on a plain, or at sea; in Ydnas' world, a little over 3 miles.

Iliriana – (Ill eer ee _ann_ a) Wife of Sre Lugu ( _q.v._ ).

Ilusindane – (Ill _loose_ in dane) Location of the Great University, the largest University in Kondrastibar.

Immanence – As a theological doctrine: The claim that a god is not separate from the concrete manifestations of its attribute; for example, the claim that the god of justice is an immanent god is the claim that the god of justice is not separate from the sum-total of all processes involving justice.

Immanent – See Immanence.

Inkra – ( _In_ krah) Zoff's telepath.

Intipisk – ( _In_ ti pisk):

1. Girl at Kor's. Slightly older than 13. Three eyes. Blonde and very tall. Early acquaintance of Ydnas at the orphanage. Interested in literature.

2. The Translator of this book (See the _Translator's Introduction_ at the beginning).

Irgowond ( _Er_ go wand) – P'Twism concubine, friend of Lightbearer.

Isiliar – (Iss _Sil_ ee are) the Suimi ( _q.v._ ) people's (and hence Kor's) goddess of love and happiness.

Kalalin – (Kah _lah_ lin) Language considered by Ydnas to be hers.

Kantrikar – ( _Can_ trick car) Religious sect practicing simplicity, nonresistance, and silence.

Karg – the official unit of money in the Frasterpok neighborhood.

Karnak – ( _Car_ nack) Wealthy arms merchant, briefly mind-exchanged by and with Brother Koof.

Karngrevor – (Karn _gree_ vore): Aristocratic communicant of young Kor at Temple of Ydris.

Katekholimane – (Cat eh _kho_ li mane) mother of Xalagia ( _q.v._ )

Kelosia, Church of – (Kell _oh_ zhee ah) Monks of this church steal from the rich to give to the poor. See _Koof_.

Kishura, Olixitur (Ki _sh_ _oo_ rah, Oh _licks_ ih toor) Ling's new security chief, after Sk'Skar.

Kolianoor (Ko lee an _oor_ )– Dark-haired woman at Torothex's council.

Kolidor ( _Koe_ lih dore) –

(1) Title-name meaning 'Teacher, Parent,'

(2) One such person, who advises the incarnated Fabulist and Lightbearer to pray to themselves.

(3) The people to whom the individual in (2) belongs.

Kolidori – The language used by Kolidor ( _q.v_.) and his people.

Kolistra – A woman from a neighborhood high on Archonect.

Korad –Lightbearer's male attendant in P'Twism emperor's harem. The other attendant is Perliria.

Kondrastibar – The city, within whose boundaries the story takes place.

Koof, Brother – Kelosian monk who tries to steal ruby sculptures from Pappi.

Kor – Elderly Suimi woman who buys Ydnas. Robin's-egg-blue skin, white hair.

Korad – ( _Ko_ rad) Lightbearer's male attendant in the harem. See also Perliria.

Kraximan – ( _Cracks_ ih mun) Employee of Pappi. Supervises arena games. Not bright.

Kshaloka – ( _Kshall_ oh kah) The god of sensual beauty. Tulith ( _q.v._ ) is a devotee of his.

K'Tor –

(1) Ydnas' imaginary playmate, "Uncle K'Tor";

(2) Ydnas' pet chameleon, also called "Uncle K'Tor";

(3) The immanent ( _q.v._ ) god of everything.

Laeri, Alinara – Arguit's wife. Also wife of Caro ( _q.v._ ). Lives with Arguit's children in Babbling Brooks neighborhood.

Lessie – Older girl at Kor's orphanage. A slight girl of about 15, with light green skin and olive eyes. Speaks in dialect.

Lator – (La _tor_ ) A theologian consulted by Srea Kula (q.v.).

Ling – Another name for Pappi ( _q.v._ ).

Liotr – See Sorilal of Liotr.

Loëina – see Asharia.

Li-Al'Cheebra neighborhood – See Alelia.

Lixanhua – (Licks _an_ hwa, with "h" pronounced roughly, almost like "kh.") Goddess of midwifery.

Lugi – ( _Loo_ gee, hard "g") nickname of Sre Lugu.

Merelith (pronounced like "Meredith," except for the "l") – Magician and consultant at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Magic. Hired by Pappi to protect him against Tarth Sakul.

Messenger Way – Adaptation of Kolidor's people to their conquest by the P'Twism. It involves some compromising of their previous way of being, known as "the Way of Universal Compassion," which was also called "the Perfect Way," to contrast it with the Messenger Way. The long-term goal of the Messenger Way is, however, to restore the Perfect Way, should that ever be possible.

Miri – ( _Mere_ ee) Manager and companion of Ununiel Torabel ( _q.v._ ).

Monk – A man who devotes his life to religious activity, but has no special rank. As used here (to translate the Gastripi _Dil_ ), it does not always require poverty, uniform dress, or celibacy; what it does require depends on the religion in question.

Morif – An artificial chameleon made by Savril.

Mortal Part – A mortal projection or aspect of the Fabulist.

Murjen's Uncertainty Principle – ( _Murr_ jen) [It is not necessary to understand this in order to follow the story] A principle concerning spontaneous motion, change, and variety. It is expressed mathematically, but roughly speaking, it says that there is a certain 'restlessness' to things that cannot be eliminated. For example, a stone can be rigid and still (i.e., not 'restless') as a whole only because, on the microscopic scale, it is composed of tiny particles that are flying about randomly at tremendous speeds. Or: caged beasts constantly pace. Or: rigid political systems breed revolution.

Mute Boy, the – Homeless, nameless mute boy; he and Lessie ( _q.v._ ) fall in love.

Naimi (Nah _ee_ mee) – Thirty-seventh wife of the P'Twism Emperor. Befriends harem members, including Lightbearer.

Neophyte – Title of Priest-apprentices in Church of Irony (see _Talek_ ).

Nodecema (No _deh_ si ma) – Another name for Pappi ( _q.v._ ).

Noganecir (No gan _ness_ eer) – Irreversibly addictive psychotropic drug, propagated by 'Children of Noganecir.'

Nun – A woman who devotes her life to religious activity. As used here (to translate the Gastripi _Del_ ), it does not always require poverty, uniform dress, or celibacy; what it does require depends on the religion in question.

Orthex Crusade – a religion seeking to make society more egalitarian by building alternative institutions.

Oselika (Oh _sell_ i kah) – Aristocratic girl, "with mahogany skin and coppery hair," who finds her brother, Akelian, comatose in Kor's neighborhood.

P'Twism Dynasty – The hereditary rulers (or the historical period) of the P'Twism Empire.

Pappi –Criminal mastermind, also known as Nodecema and Ling.

Perfect Way – see Messenger Way.

Persona – A visible, or otherwise perceptible, form that a god takes in order to interact with mortals.

Perliria – (Purr _lee_ ree ah) – Lightbearer's female attendant in the P'Twism Emperor's harem. The male attendant is Korad.

Portrepy – (Pore _trep_ ee) God of Theft in Koof's ( _q.v._ ) pantheon.

Principle - A significant force, process, or basic component of reality; a principle is usually so-called if it is not (even analogically) something living or personal, i.e., not also a spirit ( _q.v._ ) or god ( _q.v._ ). For example, time, force, or matter.

Rabe, Eedit – Volunteer policeman in Laeri's neighborhood ("Babbling Brooks").

Rector – A person with authority over a group; various people have this title; one is the supervisor of Grrna ( _q.v._ ).

Rongongyula's Bar and Grill – (Ron _gone_ gyoo lah) a restaurant hangout, in Kor's neighborhood, for Pappi and other criminals.

Suimi – (Sue _ee_ me) Kor's ( _q.v._ ) ethnic/religious group. Said to have been scattered on a diaspora of service by their goddess, Isiliar ( _q.v._ ).

Savril – Wizard, assistant to Karngrevor ( _q.v._ ).

Separ – God of badness and evil.

Sre Lugu – Employee of Bank of Streling, corrupted by Pappi. His wife is Iliriana. His children are Tilunia, Ulu, and Kulau.

Scratch – Pimp and racketeer in Pappi's neighborhood. Grahjab ( _q.v._ ) works for him.

Sre Lugu – Works for the Bank of Streling. See Iliriana.

Srea Gala – Immediate superior, friend, and mentor of Sre Lugu ( _q.v._ ).

Srea Kula – A priest of the Cathedral of the Holy Family, who ministers to Sre Lugu ( _q.v._ ) and his family.

Sindariden – A Zillist wanderer, descendant of last Ingar Emperor, Sindariden the 23rd.

Sirinitha – Telepath for the Temple of Ydris. Verifies Arguit's claims when he comes for help.

Sk'Skar – Replaces Tarth Sakul as Security Chief for Pappi. A middle-aged man with red skin and silver freckles.

Slef – God of crime.

Sorilal of Liotr – ( _So_ rih lahl of Ly _oh_ tr, pronounced with lightly trilled "r"s) Beautiful, concubine of the P'Twism Emperor; once Princess of Liotr, recently conquered by the P'Twism Empire.

Soul – The spirit ( _q.v._ ) of a living being.

Spirit – A significant process or entity that has characteristic modes of behavior and tends to preserve itself. Any living being is a spirit.

Sronk – Boy in Kor's orphanage. About 13. Pale Blue hair and purple complexion.

Tak – (Tack) older boy at Kor's orphanage.

Talek (vowels pronounced as in "mallet") – Priest in Church of Irony. Always completely hidden by black clothing. Apparently has magical powers.

Tari ( _Tar_ ree) – Neighborhood containing the Temple of Ydris, original home of Laeri and Arguit. Also called "Tarim."

Tarim ( _Tar_ rim) – Alternate pronunciation of "Tari" (q.v.).

Tarth Sakul – Pappi's security chief in Kor's neighborhood.

Tarthex Oslan – Tarth Sakul's mentor in the Guardians of Evil.

Tarx – Zoff's ( _q.v._ ) magician.

Teladorion (Tell a _dore_ ee un) – Oselika's cousin, "a tall young man with golden skin and hair."

Telesinthine – see Ulinit.

Theo-Anarchy – A social system in which there is no government to speak of, but in which social functions are taken over by various independent religious organizations in a context of extreme religious pluralism. This is the state of affairs in Kor's time.

Thia – Nickname of Thiarinis.

Thiarinis ("Th" as in "thistle": Thee _are_ in iss) – Amazon telepath of Calcadro's squad. Nicknamed "Thia."

Titheena's Corollary to Murjen's Uncertainty Principle – (Tith _ee_ na) [See _Murjen's Uncertainty Principle_ ] Titheena's Corollary states (roughly) that a process complex enough to have chaotic elements cannot ever be at rest, and its changes cannot be predicted far ahead. For example, human society is always changing, often unpredictably, as is the weather.

Tlilikaneen – (Tlil lick a _neen_ ) Male sex god of Liotr (see Sorilal of Liotr).

Tling – Suimi girl that Kor meets at the Temple of Ydris.

Tliusuria – (Tli oo _sir_ ree ah) Female love goddess of the people of Liotr (see Sorilal of Liotr).

Torgi – ( _Tor_ gee, hard "g") Nickname used by Lightbearer in addressing the P'Twism Emperor.

Trelkir – ( _Trel_ keer) A woman, friend of Kolistra ( _q.v_.).

Tselig – ( _Tseh_ lig) Deacon of monotheistic church, _Phantom Church of the One God_ , which holds that everything but God is a phantom.

Tsiloë – (T with slight puff of breath, sill oh _ei_ ) Amazon in Calcadro's squad.

Tulith ( _Too_ lith) – Once a child in Kor's orphanage, she is now an artist.

Tutelary god – A _tutelary_ god is one which cares for some specific group of people, who are usually his devotees.

Ukhanil – ( _Oo_ kha nil), Policewoman from the Telesinthine neighborhood who consults Ydnas.

Uncle K'Tor – See also _K'Tor_

(1) Ydnas' imaginary playmate.

(2) Ydnas' chameleon.

Ununiel Tourabel – (Oo _noo_ nee ell _Toor_ ah bell) An innovative Courtesan of Culture who decides that she is the Girl of the Prophecies.

Vidigeon – First Seer of Guardians of Evil.

Xalagia – (Ksah _lah_ jee ah) Daughter of the Dream Merchant, Katekholimane, she opportunistically claims to be the Girl of the Prophecies.

Ydnas – ( _Id_ nas) Girl purchased by Kor at Temple of Honggur, god of the Free Market.

Ydris – ( _Id_ riss) Goddess of femininity.

Zan – Nickname of Zanentadra ( _q.v._ ).

Zanentadra – (Zah nen _tah_ drah) Amazon Witch in Calcadro's squad. Nicknamed "Zan."

Zarinia – (Za _rih_ nee ah) Amazon of Ydris. Leader of squad guarding Arguit's cell in the Temple of Ydris.

Zeligiria – A goddess with many devotees in the Frasterpok neighborhood.

Zillish – Alternate form of "Zillist."

Zillist – ( _Zill_ ist) Wandering order of monks ( _q.v._ ) and nuns ( _q.v._ ). See "Sindariden." Their central creedal statement is: "...We hold that the universe is one great self-consistent whole, and that the myriad phenomena are all balanced expressions of an underlying Oneness, expressing itself through love. It grows and develops through time. We practice meditation to know and realize this Oneness. We claim that in realizing this Oneness, a person becomes free of evil and harm."

Zoff – A middle-aged Dorish soldier. At one time a mercenary for slaver wholesaler Anigatrigian. His telepath is Inkra, his magician is Tarx.

Zorelia T'Kena – Famous courtesan of culture ( _q.v._ ) who always wore a robe and a veil, so that only her eyes were visible.

Zoroid Dynasty – In the latter part of this period, soul mechanics was perfected, then made illegal.

### ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul D. Bowen is a philosopher by training and a polymath by temperament. His interests include art, music, politics, mathematics, and history. He was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in a number of places as his academic family moved around. He is the father of two grown children, and was a stay-at-home dad. He previously taught at Brown University and the University of Cincinnati, and currently teaches at a school for gifted students. He resides in Cincinnati, OH. Ydnas is his first novel.

Visit the Ydnas Facebook page here: Ydnas.

Visit his Facebook page here: Paul D Bowen.

Visit his Smashwords page here: Ydnasgirl.

