"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." -Robert Louis Stevenson, El Dorado

Red and gold leaves drifted gently from the trees towards Daniel's face, as he drifted slowly to consciousness. Marshalling his will, he managed to scratch his neck where a twig was poking him. Naptime's over, he thought ruefully. He levered himself up onto one elbow, grabbed his canteen of water and took a large swig, flinching with the cold as it dripped down his neck and under his shirt, then pulled out his watch and puzzled out the time from its face -- just 2:37, so there was still time to make a good fifteen miles of easy walking before it was time to camp for the night.

He glanced at his compass and looked over his map before slowly pushing himself up to his feet. The glen that he had stopped in was a lovely place for a nap, with tall maples providing shade and a bed of leaves. Walking over to the stream that was currently his sole traveling companion, he picked up his full water filter, and emptied its contents into his canteens. After he had eaten a bite he hefted his backpack onto his back, checked to ensure that his weapons were safe and accessible beneath his overcoat, and strolled off to the south. It was about forty more miles to the campsite where he was supposed to meet Joseph, but Daniel wasn't due to arrive at the campsite for another four or five days, so there was really no rush. He was planning to take it easy and enjoy the beauty of the terrain. Following the lay of the land towards the campsite, he relaxed into the warmth of the afternoon, his thoughts drifting towards the coming meeting with some apprehension.

He had met Joseph a month and a half ago at a bar in Basil's Springs, a small encampment several miles north of Daniel's grandparents' farm. Daniel's grandfather Ralf had sent Daniel for market day, and several hours before sundown he had already gathered everything that his family needed for the coming fortnight, so he had decided to step into the bar for a drink or two.

Daniel was sitting at a small table in a smoky corner, halfway through his third pint of beer, when a blond stranger slid into the chair opposite him.

"Find what you're looking for at the market?" the man asked, peering into his beer as if there were something amusing in the mug.

"Yep. And yourself?"

"Mm. Perhaps," the man said, looking up at Daniel. Daniel's head began to spin drunkenly, and the thick smoke in the room seemed to coalesce about the man's face and golden hair, obscuring everything but his eyes. "Perhaps."

Goddamn. Was that a flashback? Daniel shook his head to clear away the fog, and tipsily raised his mug, sloshing dark beer onto the table. "Well, here's to finding what you're looking for!"

"Indeed." The man raised his mug in agreement. He introduced himself as Joseph. Despite the disorienting first impression, Joseph seemed rather average, if affluent and perhaps a bit inebriated. He was a cloth merchant, currently headed south for the large market in Ridgway with a cart of woolens. His talk was full of news from the north, and also full of questions. He chatted drunkenly with Daniel about the good weather this season, the quality of the food available at the market this fortnight, and the harvests and slaughters just now beginning that would probably turn the next market into a madhouse. He also seemed quite interested in Daniel, and in what exactly he did on his grandparents' farm, and how their farm was run.

When they had finished their mugs of beer, Joseph ordered a bottle of wine. The topic of conversation drifted from gossip and agriculture into drunken philosophy, one of Daniel's favorite but rarely indulged pursuits. As the wine disappeared, the two smoked and debated the nature of the world in which they lived. Joseph believed heavily in technological development, and insisted that the key to prosperity in the area was building a factory in Ridgway.

Daniel shook his head. "You know what happened to that factory in Jamestown."

Joseph nodded in intoxicated solemnity. Five years ago, the factory in question had rotted away where it stood, a year after it had been constructed. The frame had been eaten by termites, and metal equipment left there rusted overnight. The people in the region, mostly Christian with a strong Protestant heritage, had taken it as a sure sign of God's displeasure, and the project had been abandoned shortly thereafter. "Why do you think that happened?" he asked, shaking his head sadly.

"My family thinks that it was the wrath of the Almighty," Daniel offered, smiling a bit.

"But you don't," said Joseph.

"Well, I don't know. It's the only explanation anyone can think of." Daniel shrugged.

As Joseph was insisting on paying for the drinks, he offered to let Daniel share a room at the inn. "Actually," Daniel said, "The farm's just over an hour's walk from here. I'm going home for dinner." He briefly considered the possibility that Joseph was a robber, or worse, but a glance at his rich clothing and bulging purse convinced him that Daniel had little that could be of value to him. "I'm you'd be welcome at home though," Daniel said, a bit drunk. "It's just a mile off of the road to Ridgway, and we have an extra bed, as long as you don't mind sleeping in the same room as my brothers and I."

"My cart can't go as fast as you can on foot," said Joseph, "but if you're not in a hurry to get home, then I truly appreciate the offer, and would love to join your family for dinner."

Daniel retrieved his family's pack mule from the market's stables and loaded his purchases onto it, and soon he and Joseph were traveling down the road south towards his home. As he walked along the crumbled pavement, sobering somewhat, he began to doubt the wisdom of his invitation. The point at which he would have been ambushed if Joseph had been luring him into a trap had passed, but Daniel was unsure of his grandmother Sarah's reaction to an extra guest at the dinner table. But it was a bit late for that now.

Daniel stared up at an immense maple tree. About ten miles from the glen where he had taken his nap the stream had curved widely around a large hill which had this tree near the top, visible from nearly a mile away. The tree looked as if it dated back to before the Collapse, even its massive lower limbs far out of his reach. He set his backpack down near the base of the tree. Finding a spot where he could see the stream twinkling far below, he settled himself between two massive roots, and rolled a cigarette, losing himself again in contemplation.

Shortly after the sun set behind the mountains, he and Joseph had arrived at the farm and left the old paved road behind. It had been a mostly silent journey, which had given plenty of time to work himself into a state of distinct anxiety about his grandmother's reaction to the unexpected visitor. Times had been difficult lately as they prepared feverishly for the harvest, and the family had been eating meager, if sufficient, meals. As he was walking the last half mile through the waving fields of hemp, he saw a figure emerge from the gently lit farmhouse.

It was his elder brother Will. Joseph jumped down from his cart and stood a respectful distance off as Will approached Daniel. "Who's our guest, Daniel?" he asked in low tones.

"This is Joseph. We had a few drinks together in Basil's Springs, and I invited him home for the night. He's a good guy."

"Uh-huh. Grandma Sarah will love this." Will turned to Joseph and greeted him. "Welcome to our farm. I'm Will, Daniel's brother. There's not much to eat here, but you're welcome to what we have."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Joseph, and I thank you for your generous offer, but I couldn't think of imposing. Might I share my provisions? I'm carrying food to get me through to Ridgway, and I'm sure that I have a bit extra back here somewhere."

As it turned out, Joseph had more than "a bit extra." He had no sooner encountered Daniel's grandparents than he began producing prodigious amounts of food from the back of his wagon: smoked meat, hard cheese, dried beans, fresh bread, oil, and two clay jugs of red wine made their way into the arms of Daniel's astonished grandparents. The food, combined with his friendly torrent of speech as he introduced himself and complimented Daniel's grandparents on the beauty of their farm quite astonished Ralf and Sarah, and rather precluded any protestations on their part.

Daniel's recollection of the rest of that evening was dim, as the wine was quite good, and he consumed a great deal of it. Joseph had gotten on well with Daniel's family, charming them with his news from far off places and his seemingly boundless interest in their own lives. Notably absent in the conversation were Joseph's controversial philosophies on factories and technology, however.

Daniel's dreams that night were long, bizarre and disturbing, but he awoke with very little recollection of them and a nasty hangover. When he dragged himself out of bed late in the morning, Joseph was in the kitchen, washing dishes with Daniel's aunt Mary. "We saved you some oatmeal," Joseph said, waving him familiarly to a seat. As Daniel was finishing his oatmeal, rich with Joseph's oil and sugar, and drinking the last of the morning's milk, Joseph came over to sit with him. "I could use some help hooking up my wagon after you're done."

As Daniel helped Joseph repack his wagon, they chatted about the upcoming harvest, and Daniel's part in it. When the preparations were complete, Joseph glanced down at Daniel. "So what are you doing after the harvest is over?" he asked.

"I don't know. Winter is usually long and boring around here. Mostly I sit around and read and smoke and just pass the time. The market every two weeks is pretty much the most exciting thing that happens around here."

Joseph looked directly into Daniel's eyes, and although this time he was cold sober, Daniel's head began to spin. "If you want a job over the winter, meet me here in forty-four days." He handed Daniel a map. "We're going to be busy, and we could use your help."

As Joseph's cart pulled away, Daniel's head began to clear. "What?" he yelled. "What do you mean?"

Joseph called back. "We need some good people! Meet me there!"

Daniel rose from between the roots of the large tree and glanced at his watch, his grandfather's final gift to him as he left for the winter. He had another hour until he needed to make camp, but this was the best place to sleep that he was likely to find, so he began to set up for the night.

Joseph's enigmatic invitation had confused him. Even more baffling though was the short note that he had found on the bed that Joseph had slept in. "Daniel-- I need an open-minded young man like you. The purse is for your family. --Joseph" Beneath the note was a small leather purse, with as much money in it as Daniel's family would earn from a tenth of the harvest. It was a rich sum, enough to purchase a new horse and more. Daniel's family had been baffled by the money, entirely incommensurate with any favor that they could have offered the stranger, and even more confused by his invitation to Daniel. They saw Daniel as a dreamer, prone to smoking the crop, and spending whatever money they gave him on beer and sending away for more books through the small local library -- not exactly their ideal of a 'good man.'

Once the crop had been harvested and carted into Basil's Springs to be processed and sold, Daniel's forty-four days were mostly gone, and he began to feel a strong urge to set out for the campsite marked on the map. He packed enough supplies to make it to the campsite, and back if necessary. His family was somewhat sorry to see him go, and made it clear that he would be needed when they began to plow the fields. He got the impression, however, that they half expected him back within a week or two

His grandfather had given him the pocketwatch, an antique over a hundred years old, with the flag of a long-vanished nation on it and a stem which had to be twisted every two days to wind it. Ralf said he had given it to him 'to make sure that he would come back to return it,' but the gesture had touched Daniel. The watch was his grandfather's most prized possession. Such gadgets could only be acquired through inheritance, unless you were quite wealthy. As the first person in his family to make such a long journey in several years, perhaps since his family's journey to Jamestown when he was a teenager, he felt bold and adventurous, like a hero in a book, but it was comforting to have a memento of home with him in such a far off place. As he lay in the tent with a hot dinner inside him, the watch's quiet ticking in his inside pocket lulled him to sleep.

"Storm's comin', Mr. Joseph."

Joseph smirked in the drawing darkness of his wagon. I knew that six hours ago, Ben, he thought. Why do you think we camped on the south side of a hill and two hundred yards away from the creek? Because I like listening to you grumble about having to cart water? That was the problem with operating this far south during the winter, the storms could come out of any direction, and bring anything with them. You had to pack accordingly, and heavier. Everything turned into a bigger operation in general, and that was really something you'd rather avoid. Especially with something like this. Joseph sighed and put his thumb between his temple and his left cheekbone and rubbed vigorously. Tom Adams paid a year's trade-wages for his quicksilver glass, and I was born with one in my head.

"Thank you, Ben," Joseph said, now pressing his palm hard above his left eye. "Be sure everything's lashed down well."

Ben stuck his head inside the wagon flaps, gave a brief nod and said, "Everything we won't need tonight has an extra clove hitch on it already."

"Well done," Joseph said perfunctorily.

"I set out the willow bark for you, Mr. Joseph. In case it's a bad one." Ben frowned briefly with concern. "And I made sure there was extra wood on the fire." He gave a short nod and ducked out between the flaps.

Joseph chuckled at himself. That's Ben, he thought. Thank God I've got him, I might need him if one of these young fellows doesn't like the plan.

Ben was up late in his tent, going over and over the names, provisions, and timetables listed in Mr. Joseph's ledger. Despite Mr. Joseph's confidence, nothing seemed to add up... He turned his gaze out the window and studied the countryside revealed by periodic flashes of lightning. Sometimes he resented that aura of supreme authority. Mr. Joseph couldn't be half as brilliant as he pretended to be, but when he barked his orders Ben found himself kept -- forced, really -- in line. Mr. Joseph knew Ben was the type who wanted someone to follow, and he loved and hated him for taking advantage of that. But now it was time to find out what Mr. Joseph really had in mind. He struggled to focus on the figures and names strewn across the ground outside, but every time he looked at anything it started to shift and squirm into incomprehensibility... which wasn't unusual, considering that Ben couldn't... read...

Daniel's eyes snapped open. He was wide awake, but confused as hell. Strange dreams were one thing, but he'd never been that far inside another persona before. He stared at his hands, trying to convince himself that he was seeing his own pale, graceful fingers (now callused from the intense labor of Harvest) and not the thick, dusky, sinewy ones he'd had a minute before. Probably just nerves, he thought. Who wouldn't be a little anxious, going to meet someone like Joseph? The man was intriguing, all right, but that fake-casual demeanor and the constant extravagance didn't exactly put anyone at ease (not anyone sober, anyway). Still, of all the people to dream about being, why would he have chosen someone he wasn't going to meet until tomorrow?

Sister Fukanuma got to her feet and sighed. Not only had she let her mind wander again, but her fantasies weren't even making sense. Why couldn't she get her mind off that madman Joseph? And how did she know where he was, anyway? No one had heard from him for months. She sat down, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. The room was starting to spin. He... she... was staring up at the trees, wondering why she'd thought she was in her meditation cubicle when she was clearly in a tavern... no, in the ocean... on a hook... Joseph tricked her... no, seduced... someone else... Jamie? Keats? Yesod?

Stop it. Reach out. Find your diaphragm. No, the real one. Reach it. Pull real air into the real lungs. Feel it. Take control.

Joseph returned to himself, and desperately wished that he had been Ben. Or Daniel. Or anyone who didn't get migraines. But his dreams didn't usually break apart so badly without a reason, so he suppressed the urge to bury his head back in his sleeping bag. What seemed important enough to focus on? The most likely candidate was Ben's voice, shouting at someone -- no, it sounded like at least two people -- somewhere outside. He glanced ruefully at the willow bark, but this was no time to boil water, and it was going to be hard enough figuring out how to play a militaristic Marxist shaman, or whatever the hell they needed this time. No point trying to do it with saliva-encrusted wood chips dribbling down his chin.

Opening the flap to his tent, he emerged from the throbbing pain of his dream into the throbbing pain of this head combined with the piercing pain of too bright sunlight. Soon the dark clouds would roll in and blot the sun into obscurity. This seemed to him an apt metaphor for the times. Perhaps a bit cliched. No matter; business to attend to. His head squeezed tighter around itself; the light burned his retinas; two men rode up from the creek, a black standard waving behind them, much to Ben's apparent agitation.

Cardinal Baxter's factory loomed ahead like a sooty reptile coiled into the cracks and rifts of the hillside. It was a blackened cavity in the rocky terrain; a complicated structure of jagged scrap-iron spires and hollows illuminated by the ruddy flickering of firelight from deep within. Dark smoke drifted out and westward in a steady stream, obscuring the distant line of old city skyscrapers jutting up from the horizon with a brown haze. The Cardinal called the place Masada.

Alexandra raised a gauntleted fist to the guards as she guided her charger through the massive concrete gate with subtle movements of her knees. She was mounted on a great stamping beast nearly the size of an elephant and covered with shaggy black fur; its steps were accompanied by heavy clanking from the thick coat of crudely wrought chain mail thrown over it. Her armament was more sophisticated; a thin chrome-glazed breastplate shaped to follow the contours of her body, lavender cloak cascading down her shoulders and over the charger's rump like spilled cream.

She was an oracle, an Artifex. The position was sacred and honorable, but like anything worth having it had come at a price. "An impure Artifex cannot create but impure things," the Cardinal had said when she came to him those many years ago. "The Artifex of Masada must be pure. But impurity can be removed, Alexandra."

Certainly purity had been restored to her physical form; any physician in the world would say that she had never known the carnal attentions of a man. But that did her no good; it was her mind she wished she could purge. The memory of her once-husband's embrace haunted her. The memory of what happened after the birth of her second son was an even greater torment. How had she done it? She had been young, so young. Just a girl of seventeen when her sweet little Daniel was born, she rationalized, too soft to know any better. A tear trickled down one side of her face as the portcullis pounded shut behind her; she let it fall, armored hands hanging limply beside her.

Alexandra roused from her reverie at the sound of rhythmic, booted footsteps -- the sound of the Mother's approaching escort. She wiped her face hurriedly, the chainmail back of her gauntlet rough on her face. No time for sentimentality now. The Mother's presence at Masada was just one more reminder of the importance of this day, and of the immense burden that rested on the Artifex's shoulders. Today she would be pushed to the limits of her skill, merging with the tools of her craft in pursuit of a Goddess-given vision. It would be her first unaided effort at the Foretelling, a necessity now that her mentor and friend, the previous Artifex, lay ill, her once-muscled arms wasted with sickness.

She straightened, attempting to regain her sense of confidence, relishing how the sculpted metal of the armor held her upright, gave form and firmness to her body. On this all-important day, she hoped, it would lend similar structure and support to her wandering mind.

Her massive black animal halted a few yards before the figure of the Mother, flanked on both sides by ceremonially armored guards. At the Cardinal's signal, Alexandra dismounted, then dropped to one knee in salute, carefully avoiding looking at the imposing female figure. It was not merely a mark of respect; the Mother's long years in the service of the Goddess had given her gaze a penetrating quality that Alexandra had to steel herself to endure. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Cardinal kneel to accept the Mother's gesture of blessing. When she saw him begin to rise, she also stood and raised her eyes carefully.

Her caution, it seemed, had not been entirely necessary. As befitted the occasion, the Mother had already donned the close-fitting metal mask of office, crafted to reveal rather than obscure the nuts, bolts and screws that held it together. Metal wings that jutted from the sides of the mask rested comfortably on the Mother's shoulders to support its weight, and finely beveled glass that alternately magnified and obscured the Mother's eyes covered the eye sockets. Though overall awkward and heavy, the mask had been molded so delicately to represent the Mother's features that she was as instantly recognizable as if she had been barefaced. Even after her years of association with the sisterhood and their male counterparts, however, Alexandra found the effect disturbingly alien. In full regalia, the Mother seemed neither human nor machine, but a strange blend of both.

Mechanically, the Mother and Cardinal chanted the short ritual of greeting, Alexandra stepping forward at the right moment to kiss the Mother's burnished ring numbly. The formalities completed, the Cardinal ceremoniously took the Mother's arm. Stablehands stepped forward to lead Alexandra and the Cardinal's chargers away, Alexandra giving her beast one last wistful pat before falling in step behind the two Holy figures as they moved toward the center of the fortress. The angular military helmet and the Mother's headdress made strange silhouettes against the red light emanating from the central building ahead, and Alexandra, her thoughts drifting again, was uncomfortably reminded of the ruined cloudscrapers she had seen on the horizon as she rode towards Masada. She fixed her eyes on the Cardinal's head, doing her best to look regal before the eyes of the watching entourage.

Alexandra had always been impressed by the Cardinal's wisdom, but learning that Masada had petitioned the Church and been given the contract for the engine reminded her that he was also very skilled in the Church's politics. It was an incredible honor to hold any part of the contract for the machine that would, if the records were true, take them closer to Heaven. It was this task that they had required a full Artifex for. Usually, she would simply give the official approval for the various factories' products, which were busy constructing altars that glowed or crosses that folded outward. Here, though, she would actually be called upon to enter the trance from start to finish, to receive heaven-prints for plans, and to calibrate the constructors to follow those plans.

She had been working on the project for the machine since the beginning -- now almost a year back, when her predecessor Adrianne had first been enlightened with the heaven-prints, and had, Alexandra now suspected, also seen her own illness growing within her and feeding on her. It was immediately after her enlightenment that Adrianne put in motion Alexandra's repurification and the final stages of her Artifex training.

The newness and scope of the project kept Alexandra from being able to see it through, as a whole, to completion -- like all the other Artificers, and so she, like the rest, was told to concentrate only on one section. Alexandra remembered that late night in the Church's deep basement, lit only by channeled moonlight to keep it as cold as possible, consulting the prayer boards and seeking a response from the angels. She was in a deep trance, and no longer felt the pain in her hands as they danced their prayers on the boards -- by focusing on the engine, she extended her insight farther and farther, seeing the processes, the types of constructors required, the blacksmithing skills that the Church Eunuchs would have to perform themselves. And then a final ingredient appeared before her: the Devil's Spittle, the Black Bile of the Earth. This broke her trance. She sat shivering, yet sweating in the dark room for an hour or more, trying to re-enter the trance and verify that requirement. She could not. For a week she tried to find other ingredients to complete the process, but each time it came back to the need for the black bile. The prayerboard called it oil.

Had she known any other Artificers whom she trusted, or who trusted her, she would have gone to them. She knew that the Church would not, or even could not, accept this as a part necessary for the flying machine -- how could the Devil's Spittle bring anyone closer to the heavens, after causing so much destruction during the Collapse? Adrianne suggested that she seek help outside the Church -- a solution for getting it into the engine at the right step would present itself, but first the ingredient must be readied. Somehow, Adrianne managed to get a skillful and charismatic merchant in contact with Alexandra, even though the Church harshly restricted all sort of public or market trading and even, usually, contact. Alexandra still suspected that Sister Fukanuma somehow knew of the situation -- but for her own devious reasons hadn't used this to destroy Alexandra.

A dark storm boiled on the far horizon, undoubtedly the beginning of the turbulent winter weather that ravaged the continent each year. With the Goddess's grace, the merchant's group's mining operations and subsequent last-moment delivery would not be delayed -- provided the bile got that far without someone finding out about the despised ingredient.

Sunlight glanced through the low-lying clouds as Daniel consulted Joseph's map. He tilted his head up to greet the warmth, which had been absent in the steady light rain of the past few days. Daniel returned his focus to the map and sighed - his path lead through the forest just ahead, into more darkness. Oh, well, he thought, I'll likely see the sun again soon. It's only a few miles wide, more like a grove, really.

As Daniel's feet treaded a trace though the undergrowth, his mind wondered many other places. Home, for one. There had been no wood dry enough to make a fire for days. Daniel knew he would be far warmer, drier, and better-fed if he were still at home. But far more bored, too. He wondered what sort of work Joseph could have for him through the winter. Not farm work, certainly. He considered Joseph's unusual opinion of factories. Could it be? No, factories never lasted, they always met with disaster. The Wrath of God. Daniel snorted. He wasn't even sure there was a God.

A protruding root broke Daniel's contemplation. He tripped and fell to his knees just short of a puddle. Some of his personal effects were not so lucky. His grandfather's pocketwatch flew free of his shallow pocket and plopped into the water. Daniel fished it out frantically, opened it, examined it, held it to his ear. It seemed to work despite the dunking. Daniel returned it to his pocket, straightened himself, and moved on, paying more attention to the trail.

Daniel walked clear of the trees and surveyed the low hill rising before him with consternation. Joseph's camp was supposed to be there, but Daniel saw nothing but green grass and a few last autumn flowers. As he tried to decide what to do next, Daniel spied a man approaching from around the base of the hill. Too large to be Joseph, though.

"Daniel?" the stranger called.

"Who wants to know? Are you with Mr. Joseph?" Daniel cringed almost immediately at his own naivete.

"Yes, I work for Mr. Joseph," Ben replied, loudly. He waited until he was close enough to talk normally, then said, "We're camped on the far side of the hill because of the rain, so Mr. Joseph sent me to meet you and take you there."

Ben extended his hand. Daniel shook it warily. They headed for Joseph's camp.

Chapter Two

"Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we do not experience it." -- Max Frisch (1911-)

Sister Fukanuma concentrated. Her mind did not usually wander during meditation, but this was the second time she had gotten lost this week. She considered again the first intrusion. The Artifex in meditation... a wave of disbelief washes over her face... fingers moving furiously, casting their prayers... "oil?"... lost in puzzlement...

The sister knew better than to regard this as anything less than a vision. If the first was, then surely tonight's was connected. How could Alexandra be connected to Joseph? She rarely had opportunity to leave holy land with her responsibilities, and would certainly not fraternize with that ruffian regardless. That he thought he knew anything of science was simply arrogant, but that he encouraged technology outside the care of the Goddess made him a heretic.

She'd expressed some curiosity in the Artifex's work in the last week, but with this second message she would need to conduct some actual investigation into her person. The sister warned Cardinal Baxter of the inadequacies of physical purification; she could not see the Cardinal's ideas of mind following body in the scriptures. Now the man's laxity may have endangered the most important project that Masada had ever seen.

With the engine would come redemption, Reunification. Attainment of all that was lost, with the grace of the Goddess, in the light of the Divine Father. She thought of the vast monuments to sin and technology clawing at the sky, decaying where they stood, just miles away in the great ruin. There were pilgrims who journeyed there from as far as the distant planes of the mammoth hunters, just to sift the broken glass through their fingers, touch the crumbling concrete and flaking steel beams with their own hands. Just to wonder at the ancients who had been masters of whatever mysterious forces it took to create such marvels. Blasphemy! Science without the guiding hand of the Church was abomination; the ancients were nothing more than witches, wielders of the greatest forms of carnal power. But Holy retribution had taken them down. Now with divine right the Church might rebuild, in righteous glory. Sister Fukanuma would be damned if some tarnished Artifex was going to lead the project astray.

She settled her skirts about her and let the slits of her ancient eyes narrow to nothing; silvery irises sank beneath thin folds of flesh like diamonds into murky water. She cleared her mind. Only in the quiet of meditation could she really feel the construct, gently pulsing behind her eyes, feeding on the diaphanous orgone of distant dreams. She was a Sister of the Order of the Holy Seeing. Like all members of her Sisterhood, she had been given the gift of the construct while still in her mother's womb. It was a living organ, grown under the guidance of Artifex and ordained physician, growing still, an intricate web of delicate tissues within her skull that required a lifetime of melding to really use. She could feel it, probing the vistas of divine truth. She began to see. Colors bloomed in the dark of closed eyes like exotic dyes drifting through calm water.

The city in the sky. It hung in her mind like a mirage, calling, pleading for her attention. She knew its sparkling towers, the delicate lace of its flying buttresses, the softly luminous ivory that grew like moss upon its perfect surfaces as well as she knew her own thoughts. To regain what has been lost, to rejoin the Holy Goddess and the Divine Father in paradise in the sky. There was a tear trickling down her frail withered cheek.

"O Holy Maker, Virgin Mother, Whose hands shaped the earth and tempered it with fire, your creations cry out to You in the Lord's Name, O First Artifex, Creatrix..." The prayers of the sisters gathered in the Temple droned in Alexandra's ears as she followed the Mother and Cardinal Baxter into its cavernous outer hall. In honor of the occasion, the massive steel doors to the inner chamber were open, and high-ranking sisters were ritually cleansing the space, saying blessings, polishing the already shining metal surfaces of the machines, greasing moving parts with specially prepared fat and vegetable oils. At their approach, one broke away from the group and scurried forward, then curtseyed deeply at a respectful distance. Alexandra noted the large ritual smith's hammer hanging at the woman's side, and mid-sized metal rings, perhaps wide enough so that a fingertip could be slid through, stretched the woman's earlobes into unnaturally round shapes. Such piercings were reserved for sisters with some distinction in their craft; the presence of the hammer indicated that this sister had earned them in that most holy and fundamental of crafts, metalwork.

"Daughter?" The Mother's voice had a hollow quality to it, coming from the mask.

"We are ahead of schedule, Mother. Maintenance of Her Temple is proceeding with efficiency." She curtseyed again, a trifle nervously, the metal circlet holding back her hair glinting in the light. At the Mother's nod, which she must have sensed rather than seen, she retreated back into the inner chamber and resumed cleaning the great hinges of the chamber doors. Alexandra noticed a few furtive glances pass between the sisters, and their activity -- polishing, scrubbing, adjusting, tightening -- quickened ever so slightly, a show of diligence to impress the Mother and Cardinal with their efficiency. A few of them glanced curiously at the Artifex.

But Alexandra's thoughts were far away again. She swallowed hard against her tightening throat as she gazed into the inner chamber, spellbound almost against her will by the towering presence of the Goddess's image. The sleek black body was smooth except for the seams of rivets along the sides of the long limbs and torso, tracing out of the lines of narrow hips, small nippleless breasts; the legs were spread wide in triumph, one foot planted squarely on a smith's anvil, the right arm raising a hammer aloft, and in the left hand... It was an object of the past, a weapon their craftsmen could now only recreate in rough and inelegant form. But in the left hand of the goddess was a delicate black revolver, exquisitely rendered in every detail. In the early days of Her Church She had held a sword; but by Her Grace, that primitive period was past. The beautiful agent of Her wrath represented their evolution, their greater mastery of the Forms, a piece of the dark past made pure again by the Goddess's cleansing fire.

Yes. Purity. For the Goddess was that, eternally inviolable. Alexandra knew, that had she stepped closer to look up at the imposing image, between the Goddess's widespread legs she would have seen only the smooth, unbroken surface of polished metal. She looked away, suppressing an irrational stab of shame at what the cut glass eyes of the image might uncover in the unworthy vessel of her flesh.

But in truth, the reflection of her flesh in the glass would show its purity. Yet what truth do images hold? The Scriptures taught that the smallest Artifacts paradoxically held the greatest truths, contradicting their humble appearances. Yet to question the appearance of purity in her reflection would be to question her faith itself. Was it not the mission of the Artificers, their most central tenet, that through the attentions of the Goddess and Her works in the physical world, purity could be restored to that which was impure? Yet the Scriptures were silent on what this process did for the essences of those objects. It was of course heresy to suggest that an object purified through the Goddess could maintain impurity, but what of the less tangible aspects of the object? What if the object was alive?

Oh, Goddess -- the bile! thought Alexandra. Is it the key to this mystery? And is there a connection -- that if the bile, that most impure of substances, can be made clean, I can be, too?

"What so occupies your thoughts, Artifex?" The Mother's voice came from some distant place.

"My thoughts are of the Purity brought to us by the Goddess."

"I find that Daughters so concerned with the Great Mother's Purity are often more concerned about their own."

Alexandra blushed. The room again fell to the sounds of maintenance as she pondered whether this exchange could have gone any worse.

As the tent's flaps fell into place, Daniel squinted in the darkness. At first, all he could see was the dim glow of a burning brazier, from which pungent smoke drifted. As his eyes acclimated to the darkness in the tent, a dim figure emerged from the gloom.

"Come sit down," the shadow said, gesturing to a stool. It was Joseph. Daniel cautiously moved to the stool, and lowered himself onto it. Joseph was sitting on a cot, sipping a steaming beverage, from which Daniel's sensitive nose detected the sharp green scent of willow.

"Hello, Mr. Joseph," Daniel said warily.

"Joseph will do," came the amused reply. "You've been talking to young Ben, haven't you?" There was a long pause, in which Daniel waited uncomfortably. "So, what do you think you're doing here?"

"I've been wondering that myself," Daniel replied. "I was hoping that you'd tell me."

"First, I'd like to hear what you think," Joseph said. Was he smiling? Daniel thought so, but it was difficult to tell in the gloomy morning sunlight that dimly penetrated Joseph's leather tent.

"Well, I'd been thinking that maybe it had something to do with a factory," Daniel said cautiously.

Joseph laughed quietly, then winced. "No, no. I would hope that we would find a better use for your particular talents than as a human interchangeable part."

"I see," said Daniel confusedly. He didn't.

"You're wondering what I mean," said Joseph. "It's complicated. My interest in technology isn't why I brought you here. In a sense, it's the opposite. There are some in the world who would keep the secrets of the universe for themselves, and use them to gain power. Sadly, in that arena they are far ahead of where I could ever hope to be. Have you heard of the city of Masada?"

Daniel nodded slowly. Stories of Masada occasionally drifted around, but most sensible people classified them with the tooth fairy in terms of their credibility. In a moment of unusual tact, Daniel decided to keep his mouth shut.

"I can see that you are skeptical. That's a good quality for a man to have; you should be proud. Your desire for some evidence will be satisfied in time. I'm going to ask you to stay with me for the next fortnight. At the end of that time, if you want to go back to your family, you can. But I'm confident that by then, you won't want to."

"My family needs me," Daniel said hesitantly, rubbing the ticking object in his pocket.

"Your family will be more than compensated, should you decide to remain with me. Loyalty is another good trait for a man to have. But I have the means to ensure that your family will be able to get along well without you. I suspect that after you see what I have to show you, the world encompassed by a small hemp farm will seem less important to you."

"What am I going to do?" Daniel was getting a bit worried now. Joseph was beginning to seem a bit weird.

"Have you heard of Tai Chi? Calculus? Kabbalah? Glossolalia? Telepathy?"

"What?"

"Learning. Disciplines. Have you heard of them?"

"I... Well, I, I know -- I think calculus has something to do with numbers and..."

"Never mind." Joseph grasped the fleshy part of Daniel's hand between his finger and thumb and pinched, bearing down until the boy yelled out against the pain, pushing the sound from deep in his gut. "Accupressure?" Daniel blinked at him, shaking his hand. "They are sci-- things to know. Arts. Knowledges. Taos -- though..." He stared at the ceiling through his eyebrows. "Some would call hemp farming a Tao, smoking it too. Anyhow. Ways and means of seeing the world, Daniel, that's what those things are. Learn one, and you have a new way to think. Learn two, and you have four new ways -- before, after and each filtered through the other, and so on with each one. The names are mostly fairy stories now, but they were real, as real as Masada, or San Francisco or Atlantis or Atlanta." He drained his mug. "There are those for whom this knowledge would mean much. Are you a religious man, Daniel?"

Daniel's eyes went hard and bright, then dimmed as he lowered his head. "Well, sir, I used to be. But my family goes to service every week, and I know my scripture backwards and forwards--"

"Well, we can discuss that later," said Joseph, interrupting. "Any knowledge of the divine will stand you in good stead here -- though you may find our theology a bit different from your church at home. We need men with open minds, and faith not just in gods, but in their fellows. You can't trust any other kind of man with this knowledge."

"Like calculus?"

"Indeed, like calculus. Here." He tossed a shining metal disc ten fingertips across on to the table in front of Daniel. "Can you guess what that is?"

The disk shimmered bizarrely in the dim light; it glowed in a way that Daniel had never seen anything glow before, like a shattered rainbow encased in silvery metal.

"What is that?" asked Daniel.

"It's a book," Joseph replied matter-of-factly. Daniel fought an urge to squirm uncomfortably. The last thing that he needed was to have fallen in with a madman. Still, despite his strangeness, Joseph did not seem mad, but instead quite earnest.

"It doesn't look like a book," Joseph said, "and it's not like any book you're used to, but a book it is nonetheless, with pictures and all. I have a great many of them, and each contains more words than any library you could have ever seen in your life." Daniel remembered the library in Jamestown, which had almost a thousand books, and tried to make the comparison. It made so little sense...

"I have learned many things from these books. Things that powerful and knowledgeable people today do not dream of because they are too ensnared in the near future to heed the wisdom of past ages. They discounted the idea that these books from the vast yet godless society which caused the Collapse could be worth reading. But I read them. And while they were very foolish, as godless ones will be, they were in some things powerful beyond the mere trifles of our day. I am now ready to pass my learning on."

He stopped, grinning crookedly at Daniel. "Well, Daniel, my boy, are you educable?"

Daniel looked into his reflection in the disk and nodded slowly. At this point, his idea of what was being offered was still very dim, but it still sounded better than another tedious winter on the farm.

Frustration. Frustration because her probing still yielded nothing. She rubbed the bridge of her nose wearily with one delicate hand, the skin faintly yellow with age like fine paper.

While the construct opened Sister Fukanuma to visions of divine truth never witnessed by ordinary minds, it was of little help to her in perceiving remote events in the mundane world. That was a skill she longed for as she broke from her reverie and resolved to hear a full account of Alexandra's first apprentice Foretelling from Cardinal Baxter. Any undue hesitation, any inappropriate nuance of the questionable Artifex's behavior, could be of use to her. An Artifex could not be replaced lightly, and should it become necessary, Sister Fukanuma would need proof of that necessity.

And there was Alexandra's possible connection with Joseph. Certainly she could not get the information from the merchant himself, but perhaps someone in his circle. Someone new, someone easily bribed, or coerced... But it would have to wait. Cardinal Baxter first. Weary of her meditation and its recent interruptions, Sister Fukanuma went to tend the late plants in her small garden.

The wind was a moaning beast, a dark serpent whispering through the brittle branches above. Daniel hurried down the path, cloak clutched about him against the chill, thinking of Joseph's so-called book. Broken stones and packed grit lay still beneath the dancing moon shadows as he walked. The trail lay open before him like a great misty orifice, girded in the iron boles of ancient oak and the stabbing claws of defoliated cyprus. He heard something.

There was a thin sound, a distant wailing aria. The wind, perhaps. Daniel looked around. Silvery tendrils of evening mist crawled along the trail like living things, pulsing in the moon light. "Someone there?" he called, tightening his grip on the stun staff under his cloak.

Something moved ahead -- a deep shadow within the darkness, twisting through the air like a black knot of writhing larvae. The suggestion of a shape pulled together, crouched upon slick glistening flanks before him. It let out a soft hissing breath, and Daniel heard the moaning of a thousand winds whispering in the thing's onyx throat. And then he began to hear words, voices, chanting in many languages like a choir of the damned. And he began to understand.

You are one of us, the thing said. It said many things, all at the same time; the sentences bubbled up into Daniel's consciousness through the white noise and static like inspired realizations, like thoughts. You are one of us. The Nephilim. The Antediluvian unborn. We are brothers. Daniel took a step back. Your birthright. The City in the Sky. Dusky red smoldered from within the thing's ephemeral eyes like soft embers. It rose, slowly; darkness spilled away from it like the rippling gossamer of an exquisite gown. Remember your mother, Daniel.

Daniel's fists went white around the shaft of his stun staff. The instrument began to hum with anticipation. "What do you know of my mother?" he growled.

She has many faces, Daniel. Your mother. Without seeming to actually move across the ground, the thing came closer, throbbing waves of darkness obscuring his view of the path. A void yawned before him, an unfathomable abyss, and he reeled with vertigo. He would surely fall into it -- gravity seemed about to lapse, and he would fall screaming into its shifting depths, its infinite darkness. She thinks of you, Daniel. Daniel raised the staff with a convulsive jerk, shivering. The face of the darkness seemed to hang directly before his eyes now, a wall of tangible emptiness. As do we.

"Daniel?"

Daniel came to himself with a start. A thirtyish woman was smiling at him reassuringly, though clearly with some excitement. "You're one of the lucky eight percent, young man. Extremely suggestible. You can sit back now." She gestured, freeing her feet from the wooden pedals she had apparently been pumping. Daniel, feeling a bit dazed, lifted his chin off the little shelf where it had rested. He blinked. He remembered the efficient young woman and her device, with some sort of frame to hold his head, and a light flashing rapidly... And then it had seemed he was somewhere else. With... with that thing. He shuddered again, involuntarily. The woman was removing the bits of wire she had attached to his forehead with some sort of slimy substance. "Are you cold? I can get you an extra coat."

"No, no, I'm fine, really." He had felt terrified, but now -- it was fading so rapidly. His heartbeat was already back to normal. He sat up straighter, touched his forehead where the wires had been. A bit of the goopy substance remained. "Yuck."

"Here, I'll get that for you." She wiped his forehead with a soft cloth. "You'll do very well here, I think. It's an unusual and very useful talent to be able to alter your brain waves so easily -- to fall into a trance state. And don't worry," she said, seeing his confusion, "anyone can learn to trance to some degree. It's perfectly normal."

"I don't understand." He shook his head. "I was here, and you had me stare into that bright light -- and then -- it was as if I was somewhere else entirely." The light -- it had been white, not like the flickering, smoky lanterns they used to brighten the farmhouse. He'd never seen anything like it.

She nodded, tucking a wisp of hair that had escaped from her no-nonsense hairdo behind one ear. Her ears were pierced, Daniel noticed, but it looked as though the holes had been stretched horribly out of proportion and never entirely healed. He looked away quickly. Rude to stare.

"I'll try to explain it as simply as possible; you'll learn the more complete explanation later, after you've had more training. Dropping into a trance state is very much like going to sleep. The goal is to attain the state of mind you experience when dreaming -- except, of course, that you're awake. Then you can learn to control that dreaming state."

Daniel nodded. It all seemed fantastic and strange, but he wanted to seem like a good pupil. And as for that -- that vision, he supposed he would call it. Best not to mention that now. He didn't know why Joseph had asked him here, and he didn't want to say anything that might make him seem like an unsuitable candidate for -- for whatever they did here. He wanted to seem sane and earnest, eager to learn.

It wasn't like he'd never had a hallucination before, anyway. Daniel's grandfather smoked a special type of hemp for his arthritis, and as a curious adolescent, Daniel had tried it himself and figured out it did a lot more than just ease pain. Daniel's brothers, after they found out about Daniel's fondness for old people's pain medicine, had tended to look at him a bit askance. It was kind of embarrassing, after all. Another thing these sophisticated people didn't need to know about.

The sturdy tent groaned as the wind picked up suddenly, then died down again. The air was damp. "We can talk more about this later. I'm sure you'll want to settle in before this storm hits." Daniel nodded and rose, gathering up his bags. She stood as well, smoothing her grey coat. She wore pants, Daniel noticed, like a man. At home, the women only wore pants when they were doing some kind of labor where skirts would be a hindrance. Things were different here, in the little ways as well as the larger ones. He looked at her again, shyly. Grey eyes, like the coat.

"Just head over the main tent. They'll assign you to a work group and give you a place to sleep. And if you have questions, you can come and talk to me any time I'm not otherwise engaged. If you need to find me, my name is Anna. Anna Keats." She opened the tent flap for him to step through; a gust of cold wind hit his face.

"Thank you, Miss Anna." Daniel stepped out of the tent and glanced around. The large tent at the center of the camp looked promising. A thrill of a excitement passed through him. He didn't know what the severe young woman's praise meant, but he had been told he would do well here. Even the vision failed to shake his growing sense of confidence. He had been meant to dream while awake, right? And the dream seemed as meaningless as most of his dreams were, if a bit more frightening. His mother was long dead; he hardly remembered her at all, or thought of her very often. Maybe his homesickness was just getting to him a bit. Adjusting his pack on his shoulders, he strode off toward the main tent, the heavy wind in his hair.

Chapter Three

"For the fact is enough to drive one to despair, that it requires no art to seduce a girl, but good fortune to find one worth seducing." -- Søren Kierkegaard

Daniel pushed aside the stiff canvas flap which barely fluttered in the rising wind, and surveyed the room before him. Young men and women were seated in clumps along three lengthy tables which were lit by lanterns hung from loops in the tent seams. Evidently the camp had already been secured for the coming storm, for most had tall wooden mugs in front of them, and they were smiling, laughing and speaking expansively. Two slits in the back wall were doors into other rooms, and as Daniel took note of them a young woman -- her blond hair parted, with a braid over each shoulder -- ducked through the one on the left and sat with the group nearest the door. They made space on the bench, and she distributed the mugs which she had brought with her. The broad-shouldered man sitting at the head of the table took one, drained it, ran a hand through his wavy, auburn hair and shouted something unintelligible at the sky. He lowered his head, smiling, and his eyes fixed on Daniel.

"Hey there," he called. "In the door, what's your name?"

Daniel, out of habit, started to look around for the intended recipient of the message -- even though the big man was looking right at him -- but caught himself and answered "Daniel," as confidently as he could manage on short notice.

"You new here, Daniel?"

"Yep."

"Well, come over here and meet people." Daniel threaded himself between the benches, careful not to bump heads with his pack. The speaker stood and offered his hand as Daniel neared. "Daniel, I'm Jed." Daniel did his best to return the vise-like handshake -- not too tight, but rock hard.

"Good to meet you, Jed."

"Good to meet you. Have a seat, take a load off. Anderson'll drag you off to unpack soon enough," he said, sitting. "Eric, scoot over." A dark-haired teenager with thick black eyebrows made room for Daniel on the right-hand bench next to Jed's chair. "Let me introduce you," Jed continued. "This is Eric, next to him is Hannah. The guy with the red hair and blue shirt there is Tommy, the guy on the other side of the table with the red hair and the green shirt that looks just like Tommy is Timmy, his brother. Sitting next to him is Charlie. Charlie's the smartest guy in the camp. Sitting on this side of Timmy is Emily. Everybody, this is Daniel." A chorus of 'Hi Daniel' sounded. "Daniel, you look like you need a drink. Emily, would you do the honors?" Emily, the woman with the braids, got up and disappeared through the flap. She returned almost immediately with four more mugs. "So when'd you get here, Daniel?"

"A few hours before sundown," he replied, sniffing at the mug Emily handed him, and taking a sip. "What is this?"

"Metheglin," Emily explained. Daniel stared at her. "Herbed mead. Honey wine with spices."

"What kind of spices?" Daniel asked.

"I don't know," Emily mused. "Anna makes it." Daniel nodded.

"Anna," Jed proclaimed, "What a woman. To Anna." He raised his glass high; everyone else bobbed theirs in his direction and he drank deeply, then slapped Daniel on the back. "Wasn't seeing her again like seeing, well, damn was it wonderful."

"This is one of his favorite topics," entoned Charlie from the other end of the group.

"She's one of my favorite people," Jed parried. "The most brilliant and beautiful woman in the world. One of the most beautiful, I should say." He smiled at the women at the table. "That honor goes to either Hannah or Emily, depending on which one I'm looking at." He winked at each girl in turn. He turned to Daniel. "So, how long did it take you to decide to accept her offer?"

"Uhm, I just met her."

Jed looked puzzled. "So, how'd you find out about this place?"

"Joseph invited me."

Jed let out a low whistle. Daniel looked around; everyone was staring at him.

"Charlie's the only other person I know who was actually recruited personally by Joseph. How'd you meet him?"

"In, uh, a tavern," replied Daniel, feeling like it was stupid thing to say.

"Joseph found you in a tavern?" Hannah asked, incredulous.

"Y-yes," Daniel stuttered uncertainly.

"Well, all right." Jed nodded, and took another big pull on his drink. "Emily, my love, could I trouble you for another?"

Emily gave him an indulgent smile and said, "I guess so." As she passed, she bent and whispered into Jed's ear. "But I know that you only really love Anna." She ruffled his hair and slipped through the flap.

"Well, Joseph," Anna sighed as she balanced herself in a lotus position atop the stool in his tent. She stretched her back. "It would seem that you've maintained your one hundred percent success rate."

"Daniel? I knew that he was eight-percenter; you needn't even have tested him. He grew up on a hemp farm, for Masada's sake. Hard to avoid it."

"With Daniel, that makes sixteen this trip. Out of twenty-three, that's perhaps our best percentage yet." She twisted her neck right and left as far as it would go. "How many more are you expecting?"

"Daniel was the last of mine. You?"

"One more possibly, but I'm doubting that she'll come. She was betrothed, happily it seemed. I only ventured an invitation because she was in trance when I first saw her, in her village square on market day, and she seemed curious about the world over the next hill."

"So, we have our take. To be honest, Anna, I couldn't be happier with them. All sixteen will do quite well by us."

"Sixteen. Three too many; shall we rotate them, or use some as alternates?"

"The Circle of Thirteen is dogma, Anna, not necessity. I know that I could get into trouble for saying that at Masada, but I think we're a little south of earshot here, don't you. Hasn't the Goddess come to you in meditation? She'll do the same for two or six or sixteen."

Anna pointedly said nothing, then changed the subject. "Well, we only need eight for the Initiation, so we'll be able to divide them evenly."

"That's something else. I don't know that I want to Initiate all of them."

"But without the Initiation," she protested, "we can't be certain that our secrets will be retained--"

Joseph shook his head and grinned wryly. "Of course we can. This is something it took me a while to notice, but it's true. They'll all take an oath of secrecy, of course, but that's just to impress them with the power of their knowledge, and don't misunderstand me, some will be Initiated. Jed, for instance. He needs it. Right now he'd follow you to the edge of the earth or die in your track. He's a second son who you rescued from a certain life of dependence and resentment. But he needs to have his suspicions that there is an unseen world just around every corner confirmed. He needs to be formally entrusted with the Mysteries because those will be his inheritance, and he'll put his ample talents into cultivating them, as surely as he would have his father's vineyards. But without it, he'll be gone as soon as he realizes that he'll never have you, and our secrets will be gone with him.

"Take Daniel, though, our most prodigious young man. He's smart, but more, he's cautious. You should have seen him when he sobered up and realized he'd invited me home to dinner. Of course, he didn't have a choice, but he didn't know that. I had to get him drunk before the idea would take root. Furthermore, if he were three years older, he wouldn't be here, he'd be sitting before his grandmother's fire thinking about his sweetheart and figuring how to squeeze out a few more bales per acre.

"But I have an idea that Daniel is a farmer at heart, and if, say, his brother Will were to die of a fever, he very well might decide that he needs to head home to help out with the harvest. And when they do that, they never come back. Now, if he were Initiated he'd realize that he belongs to Defenders of Masada body and soul -- and I know that you remember as well as I do that the Litany is very effective in conveying that impression -- and he'd turn against us, join our enemies, lead an uprising, generally become a nuisance. But if he only sees enough to realize that he knows more than is safe for a simple hemp farmer to know, he'll go home and convince himself that he was an ignorant child with his head in the clouds to have thought that Old Joseph was anything more than a merchant with a caravan full of antiquities and a penchant for ecstatic worship, and he'll never mention a word of what happened to anybody. And if he should fall into a delirium, and rant about the Mysteries, which he'll have no idea are The Mysteries, everyone will think him, well, delirious."

"I don't know that I agree you, Old Joseph." She arched an eyebrow, and he flashed a boyish smile that for a moment made him seem far younger than his forty-five years, then grew serious again.

"It's not a popular view among the Defenders, Anna, I know that. But it's safer; less certain, but safer. It requires individual skill, which isn't something you can base an the long-term survival of order such as ours on, so obviously the rules forbid it. But I know this, some people need to pass a point of no return to take it seriously, and others pass that point and immediately begin looking for a way out -- both Schisms were led by men like that. And still others need to always have the option of walking away and pretending it was all a bad dream. How's your Catechism, Anna?

"Word for word, Joseph. How's yours?"

"Less exact, I'm sure. But, do tell me, who was the savior of our order during the First Schism?

"Arun Namanado."

"Correct. And how was he able to rally the Defenders while the faction Councils were debating what to do?"

"He.... Well, he attacked the Rebels' camp just before dawn, and killed Methias Morton in the battle that followed. Then by the grace of the Goddess, the rebels recanted their oaths to Morton, and swore fealty to the Namanado. When they returned to the Council Grounds he was acclaimed High Marshall of the Defenders of Masada by the faction Councils."

"Because they had no choice, what with all but twenty-one of the Defenders beneath his standard. But that's not what I asked. I asked you how he did it."

She smiled. "I just realized that I don't know."

"Well, picture the scene. Here are most of the Loyal Defenders, i.e. those not following Morton, standing around the Council Grounds, and the three faction Councils are off arguing with each other and sending their members back and forth between them. The Defenders' Councils make up only a tiny fraction of the total number of Defenders, though, so no one who doesn't know what to look for really misses them. After all, can you name all seven members of our faction's Council?"

"No."

"Neither can I. You could be one for all I know. You could be one and still be telling me the truth. They almost never all gather in one place. Regardless, so most of the Loyal Defenders are standing around, and Arun Namanado comes running in, having seen the rebel column advancing through the Fulda Gap, and he knows that they'll be camped in a vulnerable position, since a vulnerable position is the best that the Gap can provide. Since he can't find anyone he recognizes as an authority, he gets up on a rock and tells the assembled Defenders what he's seen," his voice took on a sonorous depth, and Anna chanted with him. "'And thus the Goddess let slip the mantle of greatness, and it draped upon the shoulders of Arun Namanado.' Now, why didn't he seek out the leaders of his faction with this portentous intelligence? For the simplest reason of all, Anna, because he didn't know that the factions existed."

"WHAT?"

"Arun Namanado was never Initiated."

"That can't be true." Anna was shaking, and the stool quivered under her.

"It is."

"It can't be," she insisted.

"Anna, where are names of all the Initiated recorded?"

"On the Scroll of Life, in the Outer Chamber of the Unseen Citadel."

"Correct. Now, when I was younger man, I was apprenticed to the Keeper of the Scrolls, and I assure you, since I had to dust it weekly, that the name of Arun Namanado appears nowhere on it."

"But, how?"

"Anna, if a man walked up to you, made the Five Signs in the correct order, and correctly answered your Three Challenges, would you accept him as a Defender?"

"Yes."

"Would you tell him which faction of the Defenders you belonged to?"

Anna chuckled. "No, I would not. Nor would I discuss the Initiation with him," she said, anticipating his next question.

He smiled. "Have you ever seen me make the Five Signs?"

"Not outside of ritual."

"Exactly. That's how he did it. He thought of himself as a Defender, because he didn't realize that there was more to it. No one discussed it because they weren't sure if he was an Initiate."

"Unbelievable. I understand why this doesn't get taught to Novices."

"Nothing gets taught to Novices, if you think about it. Would you even admit the existence of the Initiation to anyone else but me?"

She thought for a moment. "By the Goddess, Joseph, you are the only person with whom I'd discuss this so freely."

"You know who decided to accept Namanado uninitiated?"

"Who?"

"The Great Infidel of the First Schism himself."

She raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps that's not a position to which you should aspire, Joseph."

"Methias Morton had more ambition than I do."

"Where did you learn all this?" she asked, rising from her stool and walking toward the door.

"I told you," he said, rising as well. "I was Apprentice to the Keeper of the Scrolls."

"But," Anna puzzled, "you would have had to have been a Keeper, how did you switch factions..."

"Never mind about that, dear Anna. One day you'll understand." He patted her on the head. "For now, get some sleep. We've many busy days ahead."

"Yes, Papa," she teased, and she hurried to her tent as the first drops started to fall.

Daniel lay awake on a hard cot, face towards the ceiling, trying to comprehend the day and failing somewhat miserably -- it was an uphill battle against the mead and the humidity. The cloth above him faded into darkness, and then into the oozing darkness of that creature. The creature, one of the Nephilim as it had named itself, was working on a machine, and was in a field of darkness so complete that its black silhouette looked almost radiant against it.

Daniel woke with a start, and checked to make sure he wasn't falling, for he felt he had fallen, but in such a way that he would never hit the ground. He felt uncertain if it had been exhilarating, terrifying, or, possibly, both.

We were dying. I suppose that that was the central irony of it all -- we, who had immortality in our grasp -- we dying. The world had grown too big, too fast; there were too many bipedal monkey-kin mucking about the whole place. We had the technology to live forever, and we had the ambition to sprawl over every inch of this planet. And we did. Evolution, even guided evolution towards the end, failed to relieve our increasing sense of suffocation. It was change or die. We felt no guilt; we had no regrets; we chose revolution instead.

We concocted a holocaust in a test tube, an elegant catalyst of death and rebirth. The mechanism was lovely in its simplicity. The bacterium we engineered thrived in natural oils, excreting highly toxic waste as it ate. We started by tainting a few small oil fields to build hysteria. Of course, no government would have condoned what we planned, that bloody path of creative destruction. We left them ignorant. When we set the bacteria loose in earnest, government agencies worldwide swarmed impotently with bureaucrats, like anthills just scattered with a good kick. Their clean-up efforts were aimless and confused. Too little, too late.

So they burnt it all -- the only way to stop the bacteria, of course. Governments burnt the oil fields, companies their wells, and the panicked citizens did the rest. Fires raged out of control, belching particulate filth of all kinds into the air and leaving the countryside a scorched wasteland. A winter of the worst proportions followed, almost a new ice age. Humanity's ranks thinned, forgetting as they went.

At last, the smoke slowly cleared. The temperature fluctuated wildly and the rains came, with resultant floods washing away much of the civilization that remained. This time there was no ark, no saving rainbow; death came to the righteous and the wicked alike. It was a designer apocalypse, custom-made for a race that had been drowning itself in its own wastes. In defiance of the old poet, we had cleansed the world with fire and ice both.

Some centuries later and Earth looks like the Dark Ages meets the Industrial Revolution with a bit of creative gengineering thrown in just to make things interesting. We couldn't be happier. Those of us who entered this "New World" revel to see the drive and sense of discovery, though we laugh to see our old techniques in use -- or misuse, as is more often the case -- in shrines or on rough-hewn tables in wooden huts. And we do our part to help move it along -- point the people in directions we never thought to go the first time around. It's like the darkest imaginings of bygone artists and dreamers. Rural life and technology... science seen as God's (or the Goddess's) will once again. We have sown the seeds of a better way. It's a daily sense of change or die. And people are constantly changing in little ways.

When I go back to visit the Cities, I grow prouder of what we have achieved in the refreshed world. Oh yes, there are still the Cities. We never intended to wipe the whole slate clean. If you had our eyes (or any number of the enhanced organs we have), and if you ever really looked to the sky above you, you could see the Cities gliding above you. They are clean, efficient, camouflaged continents. They have made their own evolutions in the years hence. They are alive and waiting for denizens. They babble and talk like excited children when we return to walk their streets. They chatter incessantly about the newest changes they have made and ask when we will bring them people again. We smile and say soon. Masada is making great leaps, we say. They smile when we tell them this -- it makes us feel warm. Change or die, they remind us.

It took both to get us here. And we -- we have no regrets.

The Mother sighed and laid the faded document down on the stark writing desk, her gaze absentmindedly drifting to the blank eyes of the ceremonial headdress that sat facing her. The mask was a heavy burden, both physically and mentally -- a reminder of her office, and of her responsibility.

This document... this prophecy, recorded some fifty years ago out of the first Foretelling of a apprentice Artifex, was shrouded in secrecy. The copy in her possession came from her own private vaults, those that had been passed to her from the previous Mother, Goddess bless her; the other was in the possession of the Keepers, the faction of the troublesome Defenders that kept both religious and secular records. Though the Mother felt less than satisfied that a copy of the sensitive document existed outside of her direct control, the Keepers were notoriously reclusive and particular about who was allowed to access their archives, and how. Even now the location of the Great Library was a secret to her, though her personal intelligence network had provided her with some clues, should she ever need to locate it.

But that was another matter. She pored over the document again, lingering over the description of the sky cities, the strange jargon that the Church's incomplete texts on the old language did not quite illuminate. "Dial up?" and what was "Christmas" or the "Industrial Revolution"? So much history, so much lost. Yet this document... a promise of things to come, a true Heaven within human reach. Paradise.

But its source? The Foretelling had been like none previously recorded. Instead of the plans, equations, and measurements that usually poured from the Artifex as she manipulated the prayer boards, something had seemed to possess the body of the young woman, speaking in a hollow voice that was not her own -- at least, so had the senior Artifex present reported in her shaken testimony to the Mother herself. The matter had been quickly silenced as potentially heretical -- the young Artifex sent to a distant convent, where she later died mysteriously of an unidentified disease; the elder sworn to silence and encouraged to retire. The Scriptures did not speak of spirits, only of direct divine revelation from the Holy Maker. This spirit seemed to equate itself and its fellows with Gods, and spoke only tangentially of the Goddess in a way that was potentially threatening to the received doctrine of the Church. For what purpose did it speak through the mouth of a mere child, a figure of minor importance in the Church hierarchy? Why its explanatory tone, almost as if it were reading a history lesson or story, rather than attempting to communicate? The text had the markings of something prepared, almost like a recording of some kind...

The implications still made her head spin, even after a year of mulling over the document, trying to piece together its meaning. Clearly it held the makings of a split in the Church. Some would undoubtedly side with the Prophecy as a new Scripture, the Goddess speaking through a new messenger to hasten their ascent to the City in the Sky. Others would reject the Prophecy as false, an attempt by dark powers to lead the Church astray, away from direct communication with the Goddess. The Creatrix only knew how the Defenders, in their partial estrangement from the Church and history of volatility, would react. It could be disastrous. Yet with a strong hand at the helm of the Church... Destruction could sometimes be used for creative ends. The sword, and now the pistol, in the hand of the Goddess taught that lesson.

The Mother sighed again, stretching languidly in a way that she never could in front of the devoted but demanding eyes of the Sisters. She was a young Mother, barely forty years of age, and unlike many previous Mothers, the memory of youth's hot blood, of desire and of longing for a human touch, was still fresh in her mind. That desire she had subsumed to the service of her Goddess, her passion going into overseeing the creation of new technology. The document used that term "technology" so casually, whereas most people today used it with a combination of fear and awe. It seemed a secret word of power from the past, pointing towards the future.

Desire. She had rebuked the Artifex this afternoon for her wandering mind, her continual obsession with Purity -- an obsession that Baxter had noted several times in his monthly reports to her. Did she still question the second virginity that had been bestowed upon her, with the Goddess' blessing? The Artifex had flinched visibly at the Mother's words. She smiled sadly. How little Alexandra guessed about her. Despite her powers as Oracle and Artifex, she too was unable to successfully look behind the mask. But that was as it should be. The Mother had been a Sister of the Order of Holy Seeing, and she knew the art of hiding herself well.

She gathered up the several pages of document, revealing a short stack of shining metal disks beneath. She touched them absently, another secret that, at least in the Church hierarchy, was hers alone. The Mother did love secrets.

Alexandria woke from a furtive catnap at the sound of mechanical clanking outside her cell. She was naked and alone in a damp hollow cube of cement, dark save for the slowly pulsing jade luminescence of glow moss on the ceiling. She had been seized and arrested hours ago, by masked soldiers on unnamed authority. Well, there would be reckoning for this transgression soon enough.

The steel door shuddered and swung open on a gust of ruddy torchlight. The man who entered was a captain in the foreboding ceremonial garb of the Seekers for Purity -- he wore a leather kilt studded with iron spikes in a row down either side, and there was a great steel helm bolted about his head, black and faceless as death. His voice rumbled out from within the grated mask as from a deep cavern.

"Here she is, madam."

The Seeker stepped aside, making way for the frail form of Sister Fukanuma. Alexandria drew a breath, sharply.

"You!" she hissed. "Why have I been arrested? I swear, Sister, you will face justice for this--"

"Enough, girl." The Seeress slid through the dim room like a serpent. Her face was like bleached parchment stretched over the gears and shafts of some twisted mechanical structure. "You are part of treasons so deep you aren't even aware of them. We are here to help you."

"On what authority?" Alexandria watched the Sister in silence, then spat with contempt. "The Cardinal doesn't know about this! The Mother has no part in your scheme! You have acted alone, Sister. I can see it in your eyes. And you will pay alone."

"Will I?" Fukanuma's livid visage loomed before the Artifex like a shimmering death's head; Alexandria felt her arms go limp at the woman's approach. She felt the doors of her mind loosening. "Will I, indeed..." The Seeress placed fingers like bony talons upon her temples, and the room began to drip and pool about her like a painting in the rain. And then the images came.

"No," she whispered, trying to shake her head, at the first remembered glimpse of her newborn child. "No!" Her pleading grew to screams she knew no one would hear.

Chapter Four

"We ... have dreamt the world. We have dreamt it as firm, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and durable in time; but in its architecture we have allowed tenuous and eternal crevices of unreason which tell us it is false." --Jorge Luis Borges

The images stretched out and on like the storms in winter. At first Alexandra fought them, unsure of Sister Fukanuma's skills as a Seeress to read her, but the learnt massages of the Seeress' fingers untied and unplugged every attempt to stop the flood.

The memories came mixed and jumbled. Her first embrace -- what more had she lost than her virginity in that night? Her humanity? Her first child, conceived before her marriage, the poor doomed Mishael. A year later, Daniel, the protected one. The birth with the midwife from the village -- Alexandra tried to manipulate the memory, to switch faces with that country midwife, but knew that already it was past, already the Seeress bitch has read it. And then Daniel's conception, the preparation for his birth -- as if the fact that she had known the attentions of a man who was soon to be her husband was not enough to be demoted, if not banished, from her position as an Artifex -- especially the Artifex of Masada. But Sister Fukanuma pried onward -- what more did she need? Was she seeking the reasons that she had passed the ordeals and purity tests? Did she know of Cardinal Baxter's restoration? What would she do if she found out?

But the spiraling spider-like fingers continued, with an added tapping on her neck to complete the memory trance.

A trance. She was in a trance state. Sister Fukanuma had forced her into a memory trance, and the key was the trance. What difference was there between a memory trance and the trance of Foretelling? Were they one and the same?

Alexandra stopped fighting the inevitable gauze. The sliver of consciousness that had been reduced to an observer of her own private life shifted its focus from the immediate to the infinite and looked out upon the past as she had looked out upon the present and future so often.

It was not the divertable, controllable experience she had hoped that her shift into the Foretelling trance might allow, nor the wide-reaching prophetic view of the past that she had expected as a secondary alternative, still more desirable than Sister Fukanuma's directed probing.

She was slammed into the memories of being of pure sensing. She saw the midwife of her first son, and she saw herself sweaty and reddened and hair matted all over her face, and everything was in painfully sharp detail. The carved canyons that were but the creases of her bent knees. The practically luminescing sheets with their coarse weave, the scent of boiled riverwater and antiseptic alcohol. The acrid smell of lye soap eating its way out from the kitchen door into his nostrils, fighting the salty taste of his mother still in his mouth and nose.

Oh, had she only known the truth! The terrible sharpness of vision, of every sense he had -- before she had only imagined it, but now, with the rhythmic damning massage of her temples and her in a Foretelling trance, the full bore of the memory was engaged. Poor Mishael with his preternaturally acute senses and she totally unprepared to dampen them. He had awoken still inside her from her screams and nearly drowned in birth. Alexandra knew this moment as her awakening to her deeper powers as an Oracle, as she felt Mishael awaken within her own mind. Now she knew the horror that had powered her own awakening. As if later costs hadn't been sufficient! The softest blankets they had in the country home were like so much sandpaper to his hypersensitive skin. The post-mortem that they conducted in secret revealed that he had died from this initial overload of the sensory nerves. She had understood this, but now knew it as the memories of her first-born wracked her mind with the unbearable intensity of the cloud-covered moon and the ear-cupping thunderclap of the bathwater lapping against the tub sides.

The memories began to recede. The last thing she saw through Mishael's eyes was a smooth-edged object high above the clouds through a window in their shared bedroom, with herself at the same window, looking up, unable to sleep because of Mishael's piteous whimpering -- he stopped crying as soon as he started, it being more painful to him than to others, replacing it with a quite whimper more painful to Alexandra than the birth itself.

But Alexandra remembered seeing only the clouds and the moon that night.

Suddenly the Seeress was pushing forward rapidly, dredging up memories from Alexandra's past and discarding them almost as rapidly as they crystallized. A memory of Alexandra's husband flickered briefly -- a flash of naked flesh on a warm summer night -- Daniel's birth, less painful this time but no less undignified, messy and organic, and then -- Alexandra cringed as the Seeress probed at her memories of Baxter, the years that he tutored her and cared for her as a father before she was given to Adrianne for Artifex training. A forbidden fantasy floated before her eyes, Baxter with his hands on her young waist, his mouth on hers... She felt a spasm of amused disgust emanate suddenly from the Seeress, then disappear just as quickly. Fukanuma had lost her control, if only for a second. Alexandra sensed an opportunity. As the Seeress moved towards the present, an image of Joseph began to materialize in her mind's eye. With all her strength, Alexandra forced the memory away from the truth -- their secret meeting in the dim tavern, the money for the oil changing hands -- and imposed another fantasy, visualizing it in as much detail as possible in an attempt to convince the invading Seeress of its reality. She saw herself behind the same tavern under cover of evening, her commoner's disguise in disarray, her hands sliding through Joseph's silky blond locks as he...

With a flood of relief, Alexandra sensed that Sister Fukanuma had faltered in her probing. Outside senses returned slightly; she felt hot tears down her face and snot coming from her nose, and noticed that she, as was the Seeress, was drenched with stress-smelling sweat. The ruse had worked; even if Fukanuma ordered an investigation into Alexandra's purity, the ordained physicians would only confirm her second virginity was intact. Her secret, the planned delivery of the forbidden oil, was temporarily safe. For a brief moment, Alexandra continued and indulged her Foretelling trance, aiming it backwards again, seeking balance.

Daniel had been protected as soon as his nervous system had developed. The operation had been dangerous, and might have had long-term negative effects -- but it was necessary, and provided to her by the Church, who had mysteriously descended upon her after the birth -- and death -- of Mishael. Seeing Daniel's birth through his own eyes, with his calm acceptance of the world around him, returned Alexandra to a self she could accept. For a moment she relaxed, bathing herself in the memory of his clear, faintly surprised newborn eyes. Then, bracing herself, she shook herself out of the trance. The memories that followed, of losing him forever in trade for the Church's promises, would ruin the mood irrevocably, as it in fact had tarnished her life.

Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the calculating gaze of Sister Fukanuma.

Joseph lay in his bunk, crossed his hands over his stomach, and took measured breaths. He focused on a point just above his breathing and inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Need to ask Ben about the wagon wheels. No real roads here, so we'll probably lose more than normal. And Anna, I wonder... Focus. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Just listen to it. In. Out. In. Don't say it, just do it... Shit.

Joseph tore away his blanket and sat up. "Fine," he muttered. "I'll do it the old way." He seated himself next to his bed in the lotus position. Why have I been having so much trouble recently?

He closed his eyes, and let the flood of words and voices and half-glimpsed pictures rush over him. 'Don't hear it,' the words rose up at him, 'just listen and let it go by.' He let himself observe detachedly, and slowly he drifted above it and the flood rushed far below. It was a tiny thing now, unheeded. Smiling, he set the pitch pit before him. How will I find oil in this? He held it before him and waited for the Goddess.

"Been a long time, Joseph." The voice glistened in his mind, and he went still with stunned sudden longing. Far below, he was surprised to find that he was still in trance.

"I know," she said. "I'm all tingly about it too, seeing you again. So, how are you? All grown up and responsible now, running around the land harvesting all these young minds. But you're still my same old Joseph. Let's see who you've brought me. Oh yes, to me. You couldn't have known that, I guess. But yes, I check in on everyone you bring to your fold. It's a fun way of keeping up with you. Because I do miss you, Josie." She stepped around an invisible corner and leaned on the unseen wall. Blue dress, polished black heels, chin length brown hair. A heavy silver bracelet, smoothly interlocking square links with rounded edges, tight around her left wrist. "Have your tastes changed?" Her image skittered like a deck of cards thumbed in front of your eyes, clothes and hair and face and body changing and changing again. Then they were as they had been. "This was always how you liked me best."

"I could watch you watch me all day -- you're the only one who seems to want to anymore -- but I'm curious about this." She pushed herself off the wall and suddenly began juggling circular images, her dark eyes never leaving his. He saw Anna, then Jed, then Daniel, then Hannah, Emily, Ben, Charlie, and the rest of his companions.

"Joseph and his amazing technicolor dream coterie. Quite a crew you've amassed, my loving lad, and I really do think they'll do quite nicely. Especially this one," the other images vanished, and she was holding only Daniel's. "He's special." She smiled. Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it couldn't last. Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona for some callow farmer de grass, si? Junior High?" She sighed. "Oh, Josie," she said languidly, what fun we could have had. Sitting on the couch, watching those old videos, holding hands and sipping gamma. Shame you were born so late." She walked toward him, place one foot directly in front of the other, her loose skirt stirring around the tops of her tapered calves. "Ah, probably better off anyway. I probably wouldn't have appreciated you anyway.

"So so, Mr. Jo, shall I visit the other and tell her what I know?" She held up the image of Anna, and cocked a smooth black eyebrow at him. "She's intriguing, isn't she. I can see why, Joseph. Where can I find a woman like that, like Josie's girl, da nana nuh na. Yes yes yes, I would have lots of things to tell her, but that would take all the fun away. Let her find them out for herself."

"Why now? Is that all you can think of? Just seeing you going through the old routine made me all mushy inside, Jo boy, it did. Remember, back when you used to come here to look at all the doors to try to find out which one you wanted? Learned a lot that way, didn't you? And that's how we found each other." Sigh. "I figured anyone who could find his way here on his own was worth watching, and besides, you were so cute."

"That's not really the reason, though, Joseph. Not really a social call, I'm afraid. No. What this is really about is that your Mother has been thinking an awful lot about something Jereth was foolish enough to blab about. He was always so damned proud of himself for coming up with that, and I'm afraid she's taking it seriously, chapter and verse. I know you know what I'm talking about -- yes, that's it -- and I know you know where the other copy is. If, and darling, this is purely conjecture here, if someone were to blab that, I'd really need for the other copy to appear from the Keepers' archive in somewhat different form." She stepped toward him, tucked her head down and gazed at him through her eyelashes. She smelled like the desert. She had always smelled like the desert. "Some are actually worried about this, but they don't know you like I do. I know you'll do what needs doing." She slid her left hand up his chest, around behind his neck, and caressed his cheek with her thumb as she pulled his head down into her kiss, her bracelet cool against his neck. When their lips parted, she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her body against his. He could feel the individual threads of the fabric between her breasts and his ribcage as she whispered, "I'll see you soon."

Joseph was lying on his bunk. He tensed and tried to hold his breath, vaguely hoping that no one could hear him.

"On your next inhalation, you can unfold."

Daniel slowly pulled in air, and allowed his body to come out of the strange twisted position that he had held it in for the past minute.

"Now sit down in the way I showed you, and close your eyes," said Anna. Gratefully, Daniel sunk into the cross-legged sitting position, letting his sore joints and muscles relax into the ground. "Feel your body. Concentrate on it," Anna's voice continued. "If other thoughts occur to you, let them go, and concentrate on how your body it feels as you inhale and exhale."

Daniel contemplated this instruction, and wondered at it. The past several days had been full of many things to think of. Every morning and afternoon, Anna led the young men and women in performing strange movements that made the body ache in odd ways, rather different than the aches and pains associated with the harvest. She used strange words for the movements, like 'Tai-Chi,' 'yoga,' and 'exercise.' Anna had told Daniel that they were intended to improve both the mind and the body, but they just made Daniel hurt. And after the movements were completed, Anna apparently wanted him to concentrate on how much he hurt. Daniel exhaled slowly, and again attempted this bizarre task of concentrating on his body.

At first, the sensation had been novel. Daniel had rarely concentrated on his body, but had simply relied on it to perform its tasks as he required. When it complained, he had usually ignored it, and sometimes used hemp or other herbs to help quiet it. During the harvest, he, like almost everyone, would consume generous quantities of poppy tea after dinner, to help him sleep. So the act of concentrating on his body had been an interesting one.

After a week of doing this twice daily, it had become rather tedious, and his mind had developed a strong tendency to wander. He had spoken to Anna about this, and she had told him that he should ideally feel somewhat like he had during the trance he had been in when she used her device on him. He shuddered a bit at the unpleasant memory, and brought his mind back to his body.

Daniel sat with his eyes closed for what seemed like a long time, and slowly drifted towards sleep. The cups of coffee that he had consumed with breakfast buzzed through his head in conversation with the cigarette that he had smoked before the 'exercise,' and he relaxed into the sensation of floating towards a dreamlike state of partial rest. He was drifting on a cloud, floating above the campsite, off into the blue. Night fell, and dark birds winged their way through Daniel's dreaming, cawing discordantly. One perched on Daniel's knee, and cocked a bright black eye at him.

Daniel, it cawed quietly. And suddenly all the birds were screaming his name. Daniel! Daniel! Daniel fought to regain consciousness, but he was paralyzed. The bird sitting on Daniel's knee took two short hops up his leg, and looked him squarely in the eye. Change or die. The bird collapsed into a mass of thrashing worms which flailed up Daniel's torso towards his face. As they covered his eyes, he was suddenly able to move. He threw his hands to his face, trying to claw the mass of worms off, gasping for breath. Change or die.

But there were no worms. He opened his eyes and looked around, and was mortified to find both Anna and Joseph, as well as a couple of his new companions, looking at him with a mix of bemusement and concern. Daniel blushed furiously, and shut his eyes once again. What was wrong with him?

Anna's chime sounded. "Return your awareness to the world around you," she said, "and when you are ready, open your eyes." Daniel obeyed and looked around. Soon, all eyes were open and looking at Anna. Everyone seemed to have forgotten Daniel's quiet outburst.

Joseph silently gestured to the young men and women to follow him into the main tent, where he gave lessons every morning. Daniel hurried ahead of the crowd so that he could sit near Joseph. As he sat down in Joseph's tent, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light inside, Emily plopped down next to him. "What's he going to talk about today?" she asked.

"Don't know," replied Daniel, secretly hoping that the lesson would be about what Joseph called 'Mathematics.' Daniel was familiar with numbers; one of his jobs at home was keeping ledgers that kept track of his family's expenses and income, a skill he had learned from his grandfather. It was a task that Daniel enjoyed -- making the columns of numbers add up was challenging in a way that few things that he did on the farm were -- and it was especially enjoyable because he could do it many times faster than anyone else. But Joseph talked about numbers in a way that made Daniel's head spin. Daniel and Charlie were the only people in the camp who enjoyed it, though -- the others seemed to find it boring.

"So," said Joseph, picking up one of the chalk rocks with which he scratched symbols on the large surface which he wrote on. "Where were we?"

"You were talking about how there's always a fraction between any two other fractions," volunteered Daniel. "And how that means that there are more fractions than whole numbers."

"Ah yes. As you recall, I said that it seemed like there must be many more fractions than whole numbers. But are you certain that this is the case? What would that mean?"

Daniel's contemplation of this question was interrupted by a voice from behind him. "Why does this matter?" It was Anderson again. "What does this have to do with the work we're supposed to be doing here?" Daniel winced. This was the third time since Daniel had arrived that Anderson had interrupted Joseph's lessons.

"Nothing," said Joseph. "This has nothing at all to do with the work of extracting fossil fuel from the ground. That's just a side project that I need a few extra hands for." Daniel scratched his head. 'Fossil fuel'? "Now, regarding fractions..."

"Then why are you talking about it? What are we doing here?" Tommy piped up. Daniel turned to look at him, and saw other heads nodding in agreement. Emily nudged him and frowned.

"Well, I can see that this is an important question for several of you. I have a question for you in return. What are the most powerful tools?" Joseph tossed the chalk from hand to hand, gazing challengingly at the sixteen young people. A glimmer of a smirk played about his lips as the group puzzled over the riddle.

It was an odd question. Daniel had used many tools in his life. Picks, shovels, plows, hammers... The list was long. But the most powerful ones?

"A sword?" suggested Eric.

"A rope?" said Karen.

"A sword is good for only one thing," said Joseph, "which is to kill other people in spectacular fashion. I have used swords in my day, and ropes far more often. But both of these tools have strict limits on what they can do."

"A stick?", "A knife?" came the responses. Joseph shook his head.

Daniel probed his memory for a tool that could be used for more things than ropes and knives. But for the life of him he couldn't think of... Ah.

"A mind," he said.

Joseph slammed the chalk down on the table, looking deeply into Daniel's eyes with an unnerving smile. "Indeed! Ropes and knives can be used for many things, but perception, thought, intuition, willpower -- these are the tools that you will always need. An untrained mind knows neither the world nor itself, and it constantly mistakes thoughts for perceptions, desires for will." He straightened, brushing white fragments of rock from his hands. "The world is not made of rocks and sticks, but of beliefs and dreams and spirits. If you assume that it is a fixed and unchanging place then you will be unable to flow with the universe. You will be brittle, and break like chalk. The key to being strong is being adaptable. When you stop growing, I will personally throw the first shovelful of dirt on your face. Change or die, kiddos. Change or die."

Daniel's world spun wildly, and despite his attempt to control his reaction, Joseph looked at him sharply.

"I don't think we'll do any more this morning. There's an old tradition called the 'weekend.' I think I'm going to reinstate it for today. Go have yourselves some fun."

The class broke up slowly, the young people talking solemnly amongst themselves at first, then easing the tension with jokes and plans for the afternoon. Daniel felt a tap on his arm and turned to see Emily giving him a wry look. "Looks like you managed to impress the boss, Daniel sweetie. I'd be careful, though. Ol' Joseph has a policy that ability and responsibility go together. He'll have you doing lessons all night long if he thinks you need the challenge." She smiled and jerked her head towards the tent's opening, where students were filing out. "C'mon. A few of us are going to the mess tent for lunch and a game of cards. You can join us."

"Well... I'm not a very good player..."

"It's fine; we'll teach you. And we won't let Ben play against you yet. He's the resident champion since before most of us got here -- he says we think about our hands so loud he can't help but win." Daniel remembered Joseph's dour assistant with a sense of curiosity. Ben attended some of Joseph's lectures and not others; sometimes he was gone when the young people rose in the morning and didn't return until after sundown. The young man, like so many other things about this place, was a mystery.

Emily flipped her braids back over her shoulders and moved toward the tent opening. "C'mon. Before they decide they want to talk to you." Daniel obeyed, glancing behind him as he slipped out of the tent. Both Joseph and Anna, seemingly deep in conversation, were watching him. Even in the bright sunlight, the scrutiny of those two intense pairs of eyes made him shiver.

The darkness inside the tent was less welcome than Daniel expected, reminding him a bit too closely of the opening of his trance during meditation this morning, the flapping canvas not unlike the sounds of birds' wings, the voices of his new friends not unlike the one that told him, "Change or die..."

Ben was already in a fierce game with Charlie, Anna and Jed, some odd strategic game where Anna and Charlie competed against Jed and Ben, collecting stacks of cards. It was unlike the basic poker hands Daniel had played with his father or the men at bar in Basil's Springs, but something like a game that he had seen some travelling missionaries play. It had more cards than the poker decks he knew, and more rules, too. From the conversation, it seemed that Ben and Jed were winning.

Emily, seeing Daniel's amazement that Ben was winning against Charlie, gave him a nudge. "Told you so. Ben's a natural. What card games do you know?"

"Poker -- twenty-one, five card stud... that's about it, actually."

"Well, we usually don't play poker here--we have a larger deck. There's a game called 'spades' you can play with the poker deck that's like this game."

"I don't know that, either."

"Good. You won't have to unlearn it, then," she replied wryly. Emily motioned to Eric and Tommy to join them for a game. She dealt three cards to each player, then placed one card in the middle, repeating until she had used the entire deck.

"We'll start out without using the pool -- that's those cards in the middle. Each card is worth what is says, and then the Royal cards are worth more, like in poker, except here they are the Knight, the Queen, the Prince and the Princess. We play that the Queen is worth the most, then the Knight, then the Princess and finally the Prince. Some people play with different values; always check how people score those.

"Let's do a test hand. The goal is to put down the highest card in a given round and 'capture' the trick -- but you have to play a card of the same suit that the first player put down. If you don't have a card of that suit, you have to play one of the trump cards -- those are the cards that you won't find in your normal poker deck."

"But I only have one of them, the Magus." Daniel stared at the colorful cards in his hand, unable to take all of the intricate designs at once. It's not the same deck that the missionaries used, I'm sure of it.

"Well, then -- I've never had that happen! Um, Eric, we re-deal, right?"

"I think so. It's, well, there's a word for it, but yeah -- we redeal."

"Well, this is practice anyway, so we'll just show you how it's supposed to work." Emily fanned her cards out, "Say that I began. I have lots of Cups, so I will lead with the Six of Cups. If you have any Cups, you have to play one, even if the only one you have is lower. If you don't have any Cups, you have to 'trump' it with one of the Majors -- the cards that aren't in poker decks."

"So, if I have the Knight of Cups, I should play it, right?"

"That would be good -- it's pretty high, but someone might play the Queen and you'd lose the trick. If you waited until the Queen was played, putting down the Knight would be a guaranteed win, unless someone was out of Cups and trumped it."

Daniel adjusted his cards again, scanning his hand. "This is awfully complicated."

"No more so than the math you're so good at," Tommy challenged playfully.

"So I should keep the Knight and play... a really low card? Or, I suppose, a moderately high card to try and get someone else to play the Queen?"

"Yes -- see? It's easy once you think on it a little."

Daniel laid down the Prince of Cups -- his only other Cup actually, his hand being mostly Disks and Swords -- and the test round began. After a few practice runs, Emily dealt 'the real hand.' Instead of having just the Magus, Daniel ended up with many trumps -- even the second highest, a card labeled "The Aeon." The picture depicted a being with another being inside it, expanding through to the outside.

Staring at the intricate art on his cards, and on the Majors in particular, Daniel's cheeks heated with what felt like the beginnings of a fever. A wave of dizziness washed over him; he felt as though he might get lost in the detailed lines and curves of the designs. Am I ill? What a terrible time to come down with something... He started to take a deep, slow breath, then caught it as the shadowy being inside the Aeon card darkened and shifted like the creatures of his dreams. And the snake head of the Two of Cups... somehow it reminded him of the crows, with their yellow eyes... The snake's body slithered and Daniel, frightened, threw the card down on the table.

"Well, I guess Daniel's leading the first hand!" Emily was looking at him closely.

"Yes, I mean, um, I don't have to, but I'm still trying to get the hang of it."

"It's all right. Eric?"

The game resumed, and the Two of Cups expectedly lost, but did attract high Cups, paving the way for Daniel to pick up a few tricks off of his Ten and Prince. By the time Daniel was down to two cards, he was tied with Eric and was wondering which card to play -- his Aeon card was high, but the highest trump was still unseen. Daniel's only other remaining card was the Prince of Disks. Daniel had watched and seen the other high Disk cards be played, but he was equally sure that Emily was out of Disk cards, and maybe also out of Majors as well. His indecision was solved as the wheels painted on the Prince card began to grind, crushing the prince sitting atop them. Daniel, unable to watch, threw the card down.

Eric grimaced and laid down the ultimate trump card, The Universe, and took the trick. Daniel took the last trick with The Aeon.

Eric handed his cards back to Emily and shot Daniel a questioning look from under his dark eyebrows. "And I thought you'd never played before."

"I hadn't." He shrugged. "Beginner's luck, I guess." I keep seeing things. What's wrong with me?

"You want to play another game?" Emily was already shuffling the deck.

"I'm feeling... a bit off, actually. I think I'll take a nap."

Hannah caught sight of Ben as she came around the side of Joseph's wagon and she walked quickly over and sat down beside him on the fallen log. She gazed at him, patiently imploring, but he was intent on coating a metal dish with black from a candle flame. When it was opaque, he reversed the positions and dribbled beeswax onto the the blackened plate, then fanned the plate back and forth. He stared at it while it cooled, then began to knead it with his thumbs until the wax was black. He peeled it from the plate and added it to ball he already collected. He turned to look at Hannah.

"Could you hand me those boots next to you?" he asked.

She obliged. "What happened, Ben?"

"I decided it was time to shine my boots."

She rolled her eyes and rested her hand on his shoulder, leaning in. "Ben, what's the matter?" Ben said nothing. "Why don't you like him? I think he's nice enough; so does every one else."

"I'm sure he is nice, Han." Ben said, staring straight ahead. "But when someone has the sort of things he has hovering around him, it doesn't matter how nice they are."

"What kind of... things does he have hovering?"

He glanced at her, and smiled with one corner of his mouth. "Not that sort of things. But something black is sticking near to him, and what's nettling at me the most is that I can't tell it's there, I can only see what he sees of it when it startles him. I can't help but see that."

Is it really that easy to read-- hear our thoughts? she wondered at him.

He smiled at her. "Yes. And don't worry, you can call it reading, even when it's me doing it. I'll get it learned one of these days." He sighed and put his arm around her and she snuggled in against his shoulder, which was like an oak limb under his shirt. "I will get it learned one of these days."

Ben shut his eyes briefly as a flash of what he'd glimpsed during the card game flickered by, accompanied by a cut-off spasm of sound -- a bit like a bird squawk, and yet strangely reminiscent of an infant's pained cry. On the inside of his eyelids, a worrying network of cracks and fissures had appeared.

Chapter Five

"Reality is the Court of Final Appeal." --Ayn Rand

"She's of more danger than value to us now." Alexandra had not been able to hear much of what the Seeress said to her slavering pet soldiers, her Seekers for Purity, but she had heard that. No more than a masculine grunt in return. A wordless ejaculation that told her more than she wanted to know -- simple agreement, total devotion. They were Fukanuma's, blood and soul.

They were like monsters, great hulking beasts in iron and leather. Their order cultivated an air of inhumanity, implacability; every advantage was important when they put heretics and apostates to the question. But these two! They were like twisted slabs of scrap metal. The only indication of life was the gleam of uncaring eyes peering out from the gnarled recesses of their masks. The Artifex knew what was coming when she saw those feral gazes. There would be no examination of her purity by ordained physician or holy Mother. Sister Fukanuma needed an accident. A defection. A smokescreen.

"What are you going to do, Sister?" whispered Alexandra. "Make me disappear?"

The Seeress whirled around in a flair of robes. "There have been worse scandals than an Artifex gone rogue before, Alexandra." The woman's face was hollow, livid as dry bone. Carved out like driftwood. "Traitor."

"No one will believe this! Cardinal Baxter--"

Fukanuma's hand lashed her face like a whip. Alexandra reeled under the sudden pain, more shocked than hurt.

"Take her."

As the Seekers dragged Alexandra roughly away, Fukanuma hid her shaking hands in her robes, slumping slightly as a wave of fatigue washed over her. That woman's mind was a cesspool, a pit of unthinkable filth. She'd had her doubts about the effectiveness of physical repurification, but this--! She'd thought the Artifex unclean, but the image of her lascivious encounter with that heretical merchant burned in her mind still, leaving her with a sense of physical taint. No wonder that madman had been so encroaching on her meditations -- it was a warning from the Goddess that he was the key to Alexandra's unworthiness. A far more dangerous man than he had first appeared, to seduce an Artifex...

If indeed he had. She tried to breathe more slowly, the dank air of the cell clammy as it passed through her parted lips. There was a strangeness to the memory she'd seen, a certain lack of detail... and what opportunity would Alexandra ever have had to disappear long enough for the tryst to take place? It suggested that either the memory be a false one, or that the tight control usually imposed over apprentice Artificers had been relaxed for Alexandra. Could Baxter's indulgent attitude towards his charge have led him even to that folly? It was easily possible. The man's hard, strict exterior had always seemed an overcompensation, a correction perhaps for a too-soft heart. His doting attitude toward Alexandra had always seemed like that of a father with a favorite child -- it had been he who had pulled the proper strings to install her as Masada's Artifex at a crucial point in the flying machine's development. Yes. Poor judgement had made the man blind to the Artifex's unfitness...

And perhaps more than poor judgement. The Seeress' stomach churned uncomfortably as she relived Alexandra fantasy of Baxter -- only a fantasy, she was certain this time, but in the years of close contact Baxter had had with the woman, it was an attraction that he could hardly have failed to notice. Could he...?

Blasphemy! Goddess, the horror of it -- such corruption even in the highest ranks of the church hierarchy! Yet it would not be the first time. She felt suddenly exhausted. Age was pulling on her; she was missing important details, estranged from her Order's inner circles as a result of her opposition to the current Mother's ascension five years ago. She was of an older, harsher regime, one whose influence was weakening in the Church as its members died off, to be systematically replaced by the young and inexperienced... Conspiracy. The possibility of an outside force. Mind control? Her own recent illness... It was becoming too much for her.

Yet there were still ways open to her, power she had not yet tapped. Her withdrawal from the heart of Church intrigue had lulled her opponents into thinking her influence negligible, but the secret alliances and debts of her powerful middle age remained. Yesod and his Seekers were with her. A force for purity remained; the pendulum would swing back again.

She smiled suddenly. Hers was a bold move, out of character for her; it was unlikely Baxter would suspect she had anything to do with Alexandra's disappearance, even if he did not believe she would have deliberately defected. And though she had failed to learn anything more of Alexandra's interest in that vile substance that legend named 'oil,' the Artifex was no longer at risk of tainting the upcoming Foretelling with her impurity. There would be a furor, and Alexandra would be disgraced, another Artifex found and rushed to begin the opening rites...

And Baxter was helpless to prevent it. Her visit to his chambers that afternoon had found him suddenly called away on unnamed emergency business. A few coins to Baxter's messenger boy, however, garnered the information that the call had come from the Church's main center for neuropsychic research, some thirty miles to the north. She knew nothing more, but it was enough. In his brief absence, the Cardinal's favorite child was vulnerable. For the first time since her illness had confined her to bed three years ago, Fukanuma felt powerful.

Paeter's charger lumbered down the road from Masada, gently tossing him back and forth in his saddle. The huge creatures had been created less than a decade ago, mostly from equine and elephantine stock with some lupine traits thrown in to give them at least minimal intelligence, and they could cover the distance to the remote outpost in a mere three hours, but the price was paid in the quality of the ride. Cardinal Baxter, whose garish crimson charger was directly ahead of Paeter's, bounced around fitfully in the saddle. Paeter suppressed a smirk; the Cardinal hardly ever rode anything but his phelix, which carried him around the fortress in comfortable style. Baxter was thrown around on the mammothlike creature's back like a raw initiate -- Paeter doubted that he would walk comfortably for days. But even he realized that his phelix couldn't carry him to Ganglir any faster than he could walk, and the summons had apparently been quite urgent.

As Baxter and his retinue approached the small fortifications the gate swung open. Baxter's unsightly charger was quite recognizable at a distance as that of a cardinal. No sooner had Baxter approached the gate than the Prelate of the facility, a grey-haired woman with bright blue eyes, rushed out, followed by a thin middle-aged man with the large ear piercings and insignia of an accomplished neuropsychic researcher.

"Cardinal," said the Prelate, briefly touching her left knee to the ground, "thank you for coming so rapidly. I have news that you must hear immediately. Will you accompany me to my study?"

Baxter nodded graciously, and awkwardly descended the knotted rope that hung from his saddle. Paeter and the other two escorts dismounted as well, following Baxter through the gate as initiates rushed to tend to the chargers.

"What is the nature of this news, Tyana?" asked Baxter impatiently, as the two clerics entered the plain portico of the facility. Paeter almost missed the answer for staring at the atrium. The huge room was paneled in dark wood with gold and red enamel inlay in the shape of what he recognized as neurons, interconnecting across the walls, ceiling, and black stone floor. The gold glinted in the light of hundreds of candles that flickered in the otherwise dim room. Paeter suppressed the urge to fall to his knees in prayer at the work of the Goddess in the human mind, and instead let his mind return to stillness so that he could attend to what was being said.

"In my study if you please, Cardinal. Walls have ears." Baxter paused momentarily, and it was all that Paeter could do to remain calm and still. In this place especially he had to be still, and let events take their own course. Here, walls had more than ears.

Baxter motioned to the other two guards to find a place to wait for him, and beckoned Paeter. Tyana raised an eyebrow at the silent man-at-arms, and the researcher studied him carefully, but neither questioned the Cardinal, and Paeter followed them down wooden corridors to the Prelate's study. He stood against the back wall and thought idly about what he might have for dinner and whether he needed a bath, listening with only half an ear to what was said.

The Cardinal settled himself in the Prelate's chair behind her desk, and motioned the Prelate to take another chair. "You know, Cardinal," she said as she sat, "of our confidential program to study the possibility of suppressing neuropsychic characteristics in the general population. We have had great success with this as long as the child which is to be protected is found early enough. Until recently, however, we have been unable to reverse this procedure and have left most of these protected children as untapped resources, preserved against the eventuality that we might be able to harness their inborn potentialities at a later time. I've requested your presence here to inform you that for the first time since the procedure was discovered two decades ago, we have successfully reversed it."

"Indeed?" Baxter leaned forward with an expression of intense interest. The shape of his mouth, as always, betrayed him; there was a hint of impatience there, half-hidden by the red beard.

"One of our younger subjects, a girl by the name of Trina, was returned to our care after the sudden death of her foster family a few months ago. The resulting trauma, as well as contact with one of our stronger Talents, seems to have jarred loose some of her psychic potential. Her powers are rudimentary at best, but the development is significant, considering the string of failures that resulted from our efforts to effect a reversal using more conventional methods. If it pleases you, Your Grace, I have the girl's complete file for your review, and you'll be able to conduct a brief interview with her at your leisure."

"This is stirring news indeed," Baxter averred carefully. "At last She has seen fit to smile upon our efforts here."

"As you know, Cardinal, for quite some time the Defenders have had young men and women appearing in their ranks who had once been protected. Previously we had thought that they had discovered a procedure that we had not, but been continually frustrated in our efforts to uncover it. Now that this discovery has been made, it has become clear how the Defenders have been removing the blocks. It seems that the standard training of a Defender is often capable of reversing our protection because it consists of the breaking down of mental barriers and the training of the mind into shapes that were not possible with those barriers."

"Barriers against blasphemous thought and heresy," Baxter rumbled warningly. "The Defenders with their unholy rites and wicked tongues are enemies of the True Church."

"Indeed." The Prelate folded her hands slowly, gathering her thoughts before she continued. "Cardinal, you might also recall a boy which you brought to me eighteen years ago. You wanted him protected, and hidden, and you wanted it all done quietly. Brother Mathias here performed the procedure for the protection, and I myself placed the child with a family on a farm. We have had reports of the Defenders recruiting in the area, and while I have no certain knowledge that young Daniel has been found, it seems quite likely that given their unusual methods of recruitment, they are certain to find the boy sooner or later and attempt to break his protection. They home in on young men with his potential like magnets finding iron, regardless of how well they are hidden. If there is a Defender within ten miles of Daniel, chance will bend their paths to cross."

From the first mention of the boy, Baxter had been a mess of emotion. His face of course showed no sign of dismay, but he was clearly in quite a state. The face of an Artifex from Masada popped into Paeter's head, and he banished it.

"But Daniel must be too old to be affected by the Defenders. He was protected less than a month after his birth, and he's been living with farmers for eighteen years. How could he ever become anything other than a farmer after growing potatoes for two decades?"

"Brother Mathias?" said the Prelate, motioning slightly. The brother looked uncomfortable in the Prelate's comfortable study, as if he would far prefer to be ensconced in a laboratory right now instead of addressing a Church official. But he spoke readily enough.

"With most children I would say that there was little chance that they would ever become more than a farmer. But Daniel had remarkable potential, perhaps as great as I have seen, and Prelate Tyana tells me that the news of him from less than a year ago was that he was known as a dreamer and a dedicated reader. Also, he has been growing hemp, not potatoes, and apparently smoking it too, as well as engaging in many other mind-altering behaviors. Taken together, I would have to say that these factors indicate that he would be an excellent recruit for the Defenders, particularly understanding what we are beginning to know about psychological methods for breaking down protective blocks."

"I'm not sure why you were so interested in this boy," the Prelate said, "but I thought that you should know. The Defenders are remarkably lucky at ferreting out the people that we try to protect."

"Thank you, Prelate. You were right in informing me of this. Please have the file sent to my chamber; I shall see the girl shortly." The Cardinal rose, and allowed the Prelate and brother to kiss his signet ring before sweeping out of the study, snapping at Paeter to follow him.

It was not until the Cardinal and his retinue were settling in to their lavish rooms that Paeter allowed himself to start thinking again. The image of the Artifex, old for her position at about thirty-five but unusually young for such a prestigious post as Masada, drifted from the Cardinal. The image was followed by of a baby, coupled with the same Artifex two decades younger. The Artifex was the mother of the child, that much was clear. Paeter would have to make sure that the Defenders knew of this, and soon.

Daniel opened his eyes slowly to a view of a vast landscape. He was standing on the top of a tall tower, from which he could see for miles. There was no visible way down. Slowly, he became aware that he was not alone. A man in a dark blue robe with a deep cowl stood across from him, and although it seemed like Daniel should be able to see the man's face, he could not.

"Daniel," the man said. "Whatever have you done with your feet?" Daniel instinctively looked at his feet, and realized that they were gone. His legs ended in round stumps. No sooner had he realized this than he fell over heavily. "You must always remember to bring your feet with you, Daniel. If you run out of books, you can read them instead." Daniel shook his head. What?

"The sky is yellow, Daniel. And cheese is the answer to all your questions." This was easily one of the stranger visions that Daniel had had recently. The man seemed to smile within his hood. "One more thing," he said. He tossed back his cowl to reveal Joseph's face. "Don't always believe what you see in your dreams."

Daniel's eyes popped open and he found himself in the tent that he now shared with Eric, on the cot where he had laid down to sleep. Joseph's face was before him, still wearing the same amused smile. "Daniel my boy," Joseph said. "We need to talk."

"But why do they do this?" Daniel could not understand why the church was hampering prospects, and how that was supposed to protect them.

Sitting on the cot to Daniel's right, Joseph answered, "In truth, they do have a point. We lack the social structure to support the number of us born with gifts. I believe it would work itself out, but they do not. I fear they've drifted from this original reasoning and are themselves buying the lines they feed to the mothers when they mysteriously take their children from them for a week of 'protective treatment.'"

Joseph leaned back and quietly began gnawing on a piece of willow bark. You know, Daniel, though you should always keep your feet with you, you can leave behind your voice.

"What?" Daniel sat up, startled. He had heard Joseph speak, but he didn't remember actually hearing it.

You were one of the 'protected' ones, Daniel my boy. And indeed yours seems an odd case. We break the protections -- we think everyone should be free of their shackles. We do this, usually, by having one of the more powerfully talented evoke unconscious memories from the few months of unprotected life. But you, Daniel, they got to you immediately. The first hands you felt were no midwife's, but the Church's hands, protecting you immediately.

But how did they know? Particularly since you were living in a backwater village like Basil's Springs. They were waiting for you, Daniel. You are something they want, or fear.

"But why me?"

"Stop speaking, Daniel. Keep silent if you want to become free. Speak with your mind."

A silence fell between the two as Joseph waited and listened. Joseph opened his ears -- at least he perceived them as such -- as wide as he could and listened. Ben and Hannah were mentally linked and some murmured wordless emotion was radiating out, and the normal noise from dreams filled the night air, but nothing from Daniel.

Open your mind, Daniel, Joseph directed, not particularly coaxing. Free yourself!

...yourself... The word impressed itself into Daniel's mind, coming as a muted echo. Daniel tried whispering under his breath, thinking the words "Can you hear me?" aloud in his mind, but Joseph didn't respond. He heard his own words echo in the muted blue silence: ...hear me...

Daniel felt the atmosphere grow thick, and heard just a whisper of Joseph's mind speaking, asking him to follow his voice out -- it felt like it was towards his left, and up perhaps. The blue-black screen he saw -- the inside of his eyelids -- gave no indication.

Dammit, Daniel! Follow my voice! I know you can hear it, why can't you respond! shouted Joseph at his maximum projection. He had never heard of a protection this thick -- and it, or something, seemed to be winding it thicker the more they both tried to rip through.

Daniel clutched his grandfather's watch in his pocket as he thought around in the darkness of his own mind, following the echoes of Joseph's thoughts towards the left. He screamed inside and deafened himself with his echoes, but Joseph did not respond. But the thick blueness did respond -- a hot white crack no thicker than a hair seemed to open, and the echoes ceased. He could hear Joseph yelling at him, and he heard heady smells of lust, and felt Joseph fearing that this tough-love approach was going to fail.

Joseph? Daniel thought.

Joseph bit through the willow bark and chipped a tooth from the volume, but before he could recover his composure from the sheer force of Daniel's mental voice and instruct him to 'whisper,' Daniel let out a scream of pain and terror that ripped through the encampment with its mental ferocity. Joseph tried to shout back but was buffeted by the wail and passed out.

Daniel had whispered, "Joseph?" at the bright crack amidst the blue, but the atmosphere which has seemed so overwhelming and abundant before washed away like so much fresh mud off of boots in the river -- and the world flooded in. The smells of lust became as immediate as if Daniel were one - both -- of the lovers, and the dreams of the camp flooded his mind with illogical images and the labyrinthine constructs of the deep psyche. The trees themselves seemed to speak in a slow language that the other noises crowded out. Joseph's mind was laid bare and his immediate intentions unavoidable. And the bright thoughts kept streaming in -- the blue was all gone and only the unbearable light was left.

Daniel screamed, and wasn't sure if he was using his mouth, or even breathing. The sensation of the watch shattering into his palm was nothing in comparison to the pain.

"By the Goddess!" one blasphemed.

"What is she doing?"

The Seekers' voices were bare whispers against the maelstrom of pain and fury tearing through Alexandra's mind. She was screaming, with her voice or her thoughts she could not tell. There was power in this anguish; she could feel it pulsing in her veins like white hot molten steel.

This was like nothing she had ever felt, since... Since Mishael, when the unvoiced wailing of her firstborn had opened the doors in her mind, awakened her own more subtle abilities. But this was a thousand times more powerful. This was the tortured shrieking of a fully mature being with Mishael's power. The realization struck her like a blinding light, absolute and undeniable -- Daniel. Daniel had thrown off his protective chrysalis, and the shockwave of his agony was like a tsunami. The sensitive would feel it to some degree for hundreds of leagues; for his mother it felt as though the distance between them had barely diminished its force.

Heavy hands fell upon her, grasped her by the arms and dragged downward. She was convulsing. "Get her down," a man grunted. "Hold her, damn it, hold her!" She could feel her ropes burning grooves into wrists and ankles. The Seekers had smuggled her from Masada the night before, bound and sacked beneath a cartload of straw. Shipment of arms for the Lleuwin minutemen, they had claimed. Five men, three wagons, several hundred pounds of steel armament that most likely was intended for the township of Lleuwin, some fifty leagues from Masada on the river Decheutes.

There was a sudden surge of power. It gushed through her like liquid fire; she could feel her body arching back like a bow. Searing anguish, bright and fast. After that the pain began to subside. She could feel her son slipping into torpor; the power was too much. His surrender was her release. It took her a moment of calm to realize that there was no sound anywhere around her. She opened her eyes.

Ben rolled left and thudded to the floor between the his cot and the tent wall, knocked sideways by his own instinctual reaction to move away from the blast. Hannah felt a split second of indignant confusion, then Daniel's scream rolled over her, twisting her into the fetal position. She locked her throat against her screams and fought to find a center in the chaos. There was only one, and it was though the whole world was pouring out from him. The hard imperative joy of emptying known mostly to the rainclouds, a millionfold magnified.

What is Daniel? she wondered when the chaos had abated and she helped the quivering Ben to his feet. What on earth could unleash something like that?

Paeter lifted his head. Someone, far away, was under attack, and he was screaming. The feeling buffeted Paeter like an assault, one that he could not have withstood from nearby. Had he not been dwelling within the still place at the center of his mind, it might have been painful in the moment it took him to wall the sensation down into a corner of his mind. Deep in meditation as he was, it felt more like being struck by a stiff gale.

Slowly, being careful not to let his mental shield falter, Paeter came back to himself. He opened his eyes to the sun setting through the trees outside Ganglir, and slowly oriented himself on the source of the sensation, away to the east. The man -- it was a man -- was very far away, maybe as far as the coast, maybe not quite.

The sensation was one that he had felt before, albeit more weakly, almost five years ago. He had been just past twenty, and his mentor within the Defenders had been training a new batch of recruits with his assistance and that of a woman named Yselle.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Paeter asked Melvene.

His mentor slowly shook her head. "I haven't, but I have heard of it. As far as we can tell, it always sees to itself eventually. It can be forced, but from what I'm told it's quite painful, and often not effective."

Melvene, Paeter and Yselle had gathered new Talents during the last fall, and had been training those who had accepted their invitation throughout the winter -- or at least throughout what passed for winter in this hot green land. All but one of those who had come had progressed nicely; they would be initiated on the Equinox, and would be ready to attend Conclave by Mayday.

But one young girl, Liza, had not responded to the training in a way that was compatible with expectations. In sleep and meditation she seemed a strong Talent; awake as well, she stood out from the crowd as a unique person, her mark somewhat visible even to people who usually showed not the slightest spark of awareness of the world around them. Liza excelled in the lessons that Melvene had taught. Tai-Chi, Chaos Theory, Kung-fu, and every other discipline of learning had come to her naturally, and although she was still clearly a decade from coming into her full ability as a Defender, her untrained abilities in these disciplines were as strong as his had been. In every way she seemed like she would someday make her name well known among the Defenders. But when she was awake, her inner voice was silent, and her innate awareness of the world around her was no greater than that of any other woman or man.

It had been he who had found her, some thirty miles from their current campsite, in the city of New Memphis. She had accepted her invitation gravely, and her family, poor shoemakers, had taken the purse with wide eyes in which he had seen thoughts of months worth of food, and little else. It had seemed upon arrival that she would certainly be the first to manifest an inner awareness. He himself had shown signs of it after less than two weeks of daily meditation, although he had not understood what had been happening until much later. But throughout the darkest part of the winter, and almost into the coming spring, she had shown great promise, but no fulfillment of that promise.

Melvene had told Paeter and Yselle that Liza's seemingly stunted growth might be the result of a psychic procedure that the Church sometimes performed on talented young people. Although this area fell well south of the Church's normal region of influence, they were strong in New Memphis, and Melvene said that it was quite likely that she had been blocked by the Church, although the problem might also have been innate.

The normal training of a Defender always eventually wore down the work of the Church; their 'protection' apparently consisted of little more than conditioned barriers against certain kinds of thought. Since a Defender's training routinely involved the weakening of barriers against unusual thoughts and perceptions, the end of the Church's bond was inevitable. But with Liza, the process was taking an inordinately long time.

"How..." Paeter broke off as the flap of the tent flew inward, letting in a gust of the misty pre-dawn February air, as well as some of the sweaty dung-stench of the fields of New Memphis. Yselle glided into the tent with the breeze, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"They're coming," she said. "Two hundred Church soldiers will be here by noon."

"You saw this in a dream," Melvene said.

"Yes. I am certain of it."

"Then we must flee. We will go to ground separately."

"But Liza," protested Paeter. "She will not survive if we send her out alone. One of us will have to go with her, to help her avoid patrols."

"She will not be able to hide from them," said Yselle. "A dozen Seers ride with them. Unless she can shield her presence, she will be found, and anyone with her."

"Then we will have to force her," Melvene sighed, her face grim.

They had gone to her tent and pulled her protesting from her bed, back to Melvene's tent. "You must do this, Paeter," said Melvene. "Of the three of us, you have the best chance of doing it properly." Images of what he was to do flooded Paeter's mind. What this 'forcing' seemed to amount to was a mental assault, an attack on Liza's mental barriers from both inside and out. If they succeeded, her mind would fly wide open, which would cause her great pain. But if they were lucky, and if she was really ready, when the pain subsided, she would retain the awareness that was forced upon her, and would stand a chance of surviving the coming assault. All this Paeter saw in a flash of intuition, and shuddered.

When he turned to the task, it was surprisingly easy. Liza's mental barriers fell as if they had been ready to crumble forever, and when they did, he could not believe the pain that flowed through her. She silently screamed her pain into the dawn, hitting Paeter like a blow to the gut. Watching her in agony, Paeter felt the echo of her pain ring through his mind. But in time, she subsided.

Paeter? she said. Is this really me?

Paeter gently removed himself from his reverie, realizing that the distant cry had vanished. He hoped that the young man whose mind had been ripped open had fared as well as Liza had. Of the twelve young men and women that they had been training, nine had arrived safely at the rendezvous, Liza among them.

He rose smoothly from the ground, stretching his legs into a brisk walk. It was good to be out in the open, far from the Church's trained minds. The Church took abilities that could be used to open the mind to the world and bring the world to the mind, and trained them into shapes as cramped and artificial as the doctrines of the Church itself. Their Seers, who learned only the arts of extended perception, were perhaps the least bizarre. Far worse were their neurological and genetic researchers, who squeezed their powers of perception and kinesis down to the smallest possible scale, tinkering with cells and molecules, when they could free their minds and dance with the universe.

Soon, hopefully before the next Mayday, he would be called away from this crippling service. Ingratiating himself with Baxter had been simplicity itself -- rarely had he seen a mind so unreflective. It was ripe for the plucking when he had met the man. Supposedly a religious official, he was really no more than the administrator of a handful of factories and labs. And Paeter was his dog. His devoted slave. Disgusting.

As Ganglir appeared over the hill, he willed his mind back into simpler patterns. He dared not think of anything of importance within Ganglir's corridors -- some of the Church's talents were trained exclusively in mental snooping. A man walking to his room with a mind too busy, too still, or too closely guarded might be noticed. His only defense was in almost convincing himself that he was nothing more than the Cardinal's humble servant. And he could feel the lie nibbling away at his spirit.

Chapter Six

"...[W]ith an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, / We see into the life of things." --William Wordsworth

"What were you thinking?" a woman's voice said. "I mean really, he's been here all of a week and a half, and you rip his mind! Didn't you think to consult with Ben or me before doing this?"

"I don't have to justify my actions to you, Anna," a male voice said. "But if you must know, I did it because I thought he was ready. I thought that he might come through it. He's been getting visits in his dreams. Visits from someone distinctly unsavory. A spirit by the name of Jareth, who isn't going to go easy on him just because he hasn't woken up yet. And I didn't consult with you because I knew that you'd object, and it was important for me to try."

"I could have told you he wasn't ready!" Anna said. "I've been watching him meditate for a week now, and it was perfectly obvious to me that he just isn't ready to be forced into anything."

"And somebody's been attacking him," another male voice said.

"Aha! And who other than himself do you think is going to be able to protect him? Can you stand against one of the Nephilim, Ben? If I could have gotten him to open up, his untrained talents alone might give him the luck needed to survive. And I didn't have to rip his mind, in fact. He did it almost by himself. Although I suppose that you're right about his not having been ready."

"Nephilim?" Ben's voice said. "I don't even know what the Nephilim are."

"That's probably just as well for now," the third voice said. It was Joseph's.

"Well," said Anna, "He fainted. He wasn't ready. It looks like we're just going to have to wait on him anyway, for now. Oh, look! He's coming around."

Daniel was sure that he had not stirred, but it seemed futile to pretend insensibility, so he opened his eyes.

The dark room faded into sharp contrast with sunlight creeping into the tent from outside Ai! too bright. Daniel looked at the three huddled around his cot, seeking a dark place to focus his eyes, landing on Anna's dark brown hair, framing a surprised face.

"What did you say, Daniel?" Anna whispered to Daniel.

"I didn't say anthing -- I just woke up.^{I wonder why she's surprised?} Joseph, who are the 'nephilim'? I heard you mention them just as I was coming to." Daniel tried to focus on Joseph, but his blonde hair was between Daniel and the doorflap, and was ablaze like the pictures of angels Daniel had seen, and he could not keep his eyes on him without tearing up from the light. Nevertheless, Daniel understood that Joseph's face was contorted as it expressed surprise and pride, wry humor, and ... and fear, all together.

"We're not really sure what they are, Daniel. We know they're old -- very old, probably they come from before the Collapse. They're very powerful, mentally speaking. They tell great lies and hide greater truths. ^{And Daniel, you must learn to cage your thoughts. You're broadcasting them to the world. Anna was surprised by this -- she thought that you had rebuilt the protections as a defense.}"

But you are broadcasting, too? sent Daniel

!! Joseph thought in surprise.

You know more about the Nephilim. You've met one, Daniel prodded.

What?! screamed Anna in the silent and muggy air between them.

How did you?! thought Joseph, By the Goddess!

Are they like the bile in real life too?

Suddenly, Daniel felt Joseph go extremely quiet mentally, and after a short moment of shock and confusion, Anna and Ben as well, but still the noises of the other campers intruded like rain and the trees murmured their slow speech.

"Daniel, my boy, perhaps Anna was right about opening your mind so soon, perhaps not. But we must teach you control. I was not broadcasting my thoughts. You were in my mind reading then." Joseph paused. "Yes, I've met a Nephilim. They're just like you or I, excepting a few minor variations that you don't notice immediately. The one I met was always wearing dark lensed glasses. Maybe they all do, or maybe this one had a penchant for the drink. They can read minds -- and influence them - with humbling ease.

"When I was... in the recordkeeping side of operations, I caught one of my fellow clerks trying to implant some thoughts into my head. I responded with a well placed nerve pinch and then some Talent-crippling drugs. I learned a lot from this fellow before he got away. Never got his current name out of him, but I did manange to pry one of his past aliases out. Methias Morton..."

Anna gasped, while Ben and Daniel looked on, confused.

Joseph continued, "There is more to the Schisms than just the apparent politics. There is more to our organization than just its vision. There is more to the Church than what we see. All of these 'mores' would not surprise me if they were very similar -- if not the same.

"Maybe my thinking is a bit too conspiratorial here, though. I truly do not know more."

Daniel screwed his eyes shut tightly as a migraine bloomed in his mind as bright as the sun outside, but red and menacing. It faded to a dull pulsing and the world was silent to him again. Joseph? he thought.

There was no answer. Daniel looked around at his friends and said, "It's all quiet. I can't hear anything anymore."

Joseph sighed, and Anna said "I was afraid of this."

The conversation continued, but Daniel faded back into the slow explosion of the migraine.

"Ben," Joseph turned to him, straightening his back, "check all of the recruits, make sure they are all as well as can be expected, and tell them that Daniel is all right. They'll know it was him anyway. Anna, you stay here and make sure Daniel is as comfortable as he can be." He pulled a drawstring pouch from his coat pocket, and tossed it onto the foot of the bed. "Make him a tea of this, should he need it." He turned and walked from the tent.

"Where do you think he's going?" Ben asked, turning to go as well.

"I hope he's going to search for... clerical types. They surely know that something's happened." Anna brushed her hair back with her hand and knelt beside Daniel's cot.

There was no trail that led up the crumbling shelves of the hillside, but Joseph climbed it as though it were carved as gently as the steps to Keeper's Garden, where the old men sat addled in the sunshine.

Joseph ripped the image from his vision and focused his will on a toehold that was obviously too small for his foot. Without breaking stride he crammed his boot into it, and without a second thought used it to support his full weight as he raised his knee to chest level in order to take next outcropping. So much easier, drifted mistily behind him, to use it doing something, rather than sitting and listening.

But sitting it'll be, he thought solidly, coming to a halt before a craggy wall, maybe fifteen feet high. He glanced at it for handhold and began pulling himself up. Because now I have to wait, and try to riposte. He threw a knee over the ledge. Deadlier, sure, but more dangerous. So much better the strike in the night, the sword they never see coming. He pushed himself upright, brushing his hands. Just as he'd known, before him was a waist high slab of smooth grey stone, maybe nine feet long by seven wide. He could feel the echoes of power around it. It had been an intense place for eons, apparently. Appropriately, he shrugged. Certainly appropriate.

He stretched himself out on the stone, with his arms relaxed at his sides. He relaxed his shoulders, then his face, and the routine ritual progressed by itself. So much the better, he remembered having thought before, that I don't have to think about it anymore.

As the trance pulled itself over him, he listened. This is the hardest -- he tried not to think -- not doing anything. So much easier for false signals to creep in. He cut the thought loose, watched it drift away, playing itself out to the end.

He took several breaths and the trance set in, and he drifted, listening, trying to hear over the horizons, trying to find see who was looking this direction.

"Well, I am, for one." she said, sitting against the edge of the stone where he lay. "But then, you knew that." She tilted her head to the side and murmured, "I'm always looking in your direction."

Joseph stared at her, fear and a nameless flush washing across him together.

"Don't look so scared, Joseph, my darling." she said, hiking her sunset-blue sun dress over her knees and pivoting to sit crosslegged next to him. "I haven't come to hurt you." Joseph stared at her calf, cream-colored and smooth -- he could touch it by stretching his left hand. He blinked. She didn't have any hair on her legs?

"Joseph." She leaned forward, putting her chin in her hands. Her bracelet slid into view just below her wrist. "I do so love that you stare at me, and I could watch you for hours, but some people will be making some decisions concerning my beloved Joseph very soon, so I have to ask you some questions, and maybe tell you some things, and maybe, just maybe, Shoeless Joe can still hit a homer in spite of it all. Okay?"

Joseph nodded.

"Super, Josie," she said, stretching out her left hand to tousle his hair "Scrambled Eggs Super." she stared through him for an instant, then went on. "Where did Peter T's pipes call the boy Danny from? Wasn't he the hemp farmer from Basil's Springs?"

"Yes."

"And do you have any idea what caused him to make that godawful noise?"

Joseph closed his eyes and sighed, remembering.

"Is that right?" she said. "So that's what happened. Oh, Joseph," she laid her head on his chest and gazed up into his straining eyes. "No, no, no," she reached up and caressed his temple, "you really don't understand. He was," her brow furrowed and she made a concentrating hum, flipping quickly through his memories. "He was..." she raised her head "Don't you have anything that spontaneously explodes anymore?" Joseph looked puzzled, "Never mind, sweetling," she said, patting his cheek, "Trust me when I tell you that he was nitroglycerine riding in a Nova with no shocks. Okay, got it? Nova with no shocks. No choice in the matter. He was going to go boom regardless of what you did. Twenty years of crawling were bottled up inside him. He was one of their band-aid babies, and most of them go crazy, but the one's that don't, go boom. And we like the boom. Unfortunately, he'll be dead in two weeks unless drastic measures are taken. Oh, nothing like that, it'll be a very mundane dagger in the heart, at the hand of some fanatically loyal churchman, who most likely won't remember what he's done after the fact. The Church is much more successful at planting than it is at killing seeds. You'd think that would clue them in, but no. They've probably gotten all geocentric again, knowing them. Anyway, you must bring the boy up here as soon as he can walk," she sighed, "which, unfortunately, will be some time, three days at least."

She stood up, and vanished, but her voice lingered. "Things are begining to move faster than we thought, but now we know what we're dealing with. Soon, darling, soon."

"So unplanned, by the Goddess, your lack of planning approaches heresy!" shrieked Sister Megaera for at least the third time today. Thrown into the Engine project after Alexandra's disappearance, Megaera had neither the vision nor the willingness to wrap her mind around the project. "Did that woman not have the presence of mind to write even the bare minimum of her Sights down?"

The priestesses and acolytes continued their prayer for enlightenment and progress, letting Sister Megaera's complaints join in with the rest of the unnatural groans and shrieks familiar to Masada. At another time, another place, the assignment to the Engine would have been an honor. But now -- another Artifex had to be found, the project continued. This was a delicate time for the Church, and -- that woman! Megaera's thin mouth tightened. Of course she had heard the rumors. Impure. Unclean. And now the Artifex had disappeared, just hours before the Vigil of Foretelling had been slated to begin. Perhaps the stress of the approaching Foretelling -- her first time entering the trance entirely unaided -- had unhinged the Artifex's mind?

All was in chaos, and with the Cardinal directing both the search for Alexandra and the process of selecting a new Artifex, Megaera had been left to try to make order out of the mess Alexandra had left. The Artifex's notes and diagrams, however, were so incomplete and disorganized as to border on incomprehensible; briefing a new Artifex on the project would be difficult. Megaera was the highest-ranking member of the Order of the Anvil; she was used to holding positions of authority. Today, however, as she picked up a pen to make yet another evasive administrative report, she prayed to the Goddess to make it her hammer instead. She stared at the tattered pieces of parchment covered with Alexandra's cramped scribbles -- with not a paragraph or even a complete sentence anywhere among them -- and felt distinctly ill.

Hammas Thir Oradin filled one dark corner of the pub, glowering like a bear wedged into a small cage. One heavy hand like a great slab of meat rested on his beer stein; he made massive stone vessel look like a tea cup. The little man sitting beside him chattered away with the irritating voice of an agitated sparrow.

"Well, well," he chirped, looking through his silk bound ledger. "At this rate you'll be free in a couple of years. Quite something, really; you know most of the indentured don't live to pay off their debts." Hammas grunted. The small man was Ral Llewis, banker, financeer, prospector. "It's your stonework, I tell you. Amazing. Just that sculpture I sold today earned you thirty gilder."

Hammas drained his brew in a smooth swallow and bellowed at the nearest waitress. "Wench! More!"

Ral frowned at the woman with the pitcher, made a mark in his book. "Twenty-eight gilder, then." He shook his head, pointy face swiveling on thin neck like a beak.

The price was sickening. That sculpture was worth more than this pathetic hamlet could muster in a year; Hammas had sculpted for kings. He had forged the septers of mighty mage-knights in the lands of Tham Pallaen, beyond the great water. The sacred technique of a hundred generations was his inheritance; stone and metal were as living things seeking the light in his hands, and in the hands of his people.

Not that the technique was a matter of the hands; it rested in his soul, in his mind--like any great power, it was a matter of the intellect. It had taken him nearly a year working with the tools that Lleuwin's blacksmiths could produce just to construct a basic workshop. From there he had begun to build the equipment which would allow him to truly perform his task, to forge the art of the Thir Oradin. This was the only way a man of his line could find solace.

In the meantime he followed orders. He hauled ore from the mines, and felled timber, and grimly silenced the wailing that rose up within when the orders were to smash vibrant living stone--to destroy so that a road might be cleared or a field might be plowed, without a thought for the soul of the rigid Earth, for the art that particular vein of Gaia's body truly existed to express.

"I will spend my earnings as I will, Llewis."

The banker's reply was cut short as a tall figure burst into the tavern with several chattering townfolk in tow. A woman! But taller than any of the malnourished men Hammas had seen since he arrived here, and wearing a sword that reached from her shoulder to her knee. The Lleuwin men guided her to Ral.

"Ral Llewis." She made the petty name sound like a mage-knight's title; her intonation carried the respect due to a thousand years of grandeur. "You buy armament?"

Ral overcame his surprise easily enough, then. The two of them haggled all the way from the tavern to the lot where she had left her wagons on the edge of town. He was in his element. For Hammas, though, the discussion of price and worth held no interest. It was the strange woman herself from whom he could not move his eyes while Ral ordered him to follow, while they walked down the pathetic dirt street that divided Lleuwin in two.

The wagons sat alone in Fllewr's feed lot, guarded by a pair of teenage boys while the beasts of burden grazed. At first they seemed to be ordinary black wagons, but as they got close Hammas realized that they were in fact blackened with ash and cinder, as though burnt from wheels to rails in some great fire. It looked as though their mistress had been lucky to make it as far as she did with them. What was her game? Surely she was no highway robber...

She noticed his puzzled gaze, and gave him a smile and a wink.

Daniel floated. Without landmark, orientation, or thought, he drifted aimlessly through the deep blue void. Gradually, a sensation penetrated the depths.

Don't worry, Danny Boy. You'll be right as rain before you know what happened. Josie'll take care of you like a mother hen with a nest full of eggs. But you'd better keep working while you're on vacation. Let's see... How about a cross between Chomsky and calculus to begin with? That should make for an interesting dream. If we combine your luck and my determination, you should begin to wake up shortly after you're able to walk. As long as Jareth doesn't find you and begin to meddle, you should do just fine.

Daniel floated. The faster he floated, the further he traveled, although he traversed no real distance at all. But what did that mean, anyway? Floated...

Jaimas Anaurac peeked around the edges of his bedroom's windowframe, looking one way then the other. There was nothing out there, of course. Just silly, a grown man being frightened by a nightmare. He looked again, just to make sure, but there was nothing but the night, a few wispy traces of cloud across the waxing moon. See, nothing, probably just a dog walking past, or a vine brushing against the wall. The night air was heavy and warm, but he quickly closed the shutters and latched them anyway, feeling even more embarrassed because he wasn't able to stop himself.

His wife murmured in her sleep as he slipped back into bed. He wondered why that dream had occured to him now, after what, thirty years? In it, he'd gotten into a scuffle with one off the other boys after church. The other kids had taken Erich's side and thrown dirt clods and rocks at him until he'd run behind the chapel, and climbed over its garden wall to escape from them. From the other side, he could hear them taunting him, hoping he'd make himself a target again. He wasn't supposed to be there, but the garden was empty, and convinced that he was safe he began to look around. Gravel paths stretched along flower beds and though a stand of apple trees. One path led to a fountain, which bubbled in the breezy quiet that surrounded this place. He walked toward it, and stared into the water. Cold splashes tapped at his face and forearms.

"What are you doing here?"

He jumped and spun around to see a aging woman, with dark gray hair and a rigid face, sitting on a bench that hadn't been there before. She tapped a walking stick sharply into the gravel three times. Tshct, tshct, tshct.

"I, uh--"

"Come here, Jaimas, I won't hurt you." Tshct, tshct, tshct.

"I'm sorry I climbed the wall, I won't do it again."

"Shh, lad, I know about the children." Tshct, tshct, tshct. "Come here." She stretched her hand out to his temple. Tshct, tshct, tshct. "See," she said "Everything is fine."

Tshct, tshct, tshct.

He blinked awake with a start, and yawned. You fool, you drifted off thinking about it, and almost had it again. He yawned again. Oh well, at least you'll get some sleep tonight.