The Weave

    women chant soft blue shadows
    God
    dance iron sister
    said velvet lips
    and linger at peace
    with your poison desire

- FIRST -
In the Green of the Meadow

In the green of the meadow, the people who had come down from the sky intermingled with the people who had come up from the earth. In the dance, the people who had come down from the sky lost their glistening wings, and the people who had come up from the earth lost their lovely coats of red clay. The clouds sealed themselves up, overhead, and the people who came down from the sky forgot their past. The earth closed itself together, and the people who came up from the earth ceased to remember their lives below the ground. In the dance, the people mingled, and at last were no different from each other. Their skins were red, and black, and blue, and pale; yellow and tan and pink, and the color of chocolate. Their voices were high and low and in between and they sang and danced in the green of the meadow.
 The people looked above, at the glorious sun, the brilliant moon, and the dazzling stars; at the heavens that rained water and snow and heat upon them; at the vast blue forever and the wispy white clouds, at the lightning and the storms and at the sunsets and the thunder. The saw great power there, and beauty. And the people combined the word "ile"--which meant power--with the word "kalo"--which meant beauty--and they called the sky ilekalo.
 Then the people looked below, at the vast deserts, the interminable forests, the impossible rolling plains; and at the great towering mountains, and at the endless tracts of the earth. They looked at the trees that bore fruit; at the animals that had secret wisdom; and at the slowly moving mists that passed through the valleys. They looked at the thunderous waterfalls, the grand chasms, and the violent erupting volcanoes. They saw great beauty there, and power. And the people combined the word "kala"--which meant beauty--with the word "yle"--which meant power--and they called the earth kalayle.
 The people sang to kalayle as they went to sleep--songs of the mountain music, and of the rolling bog of the marshlands. And as they awoke, they sang to ilekalo--songs of the fiery dawn, and of the wind that blows through all space. They adored the birds, who could live within ilekalo, and the reptiles, who could live inside kalayle. They themselves lived together between the earth and the sky, and built fires from the wood of kalayle, and sent smoke twisting up into the openness of ilekalo. They swam deep in the sea to touch the heart of kalayle, and they climbed the cliffs and stood on the mountaintops, breathing the air there, at the center of ilekalo.

 From the unearthly palor of extreme discontent bubbled forth an exuberance of imagination. Magic flooded throughout the hills and a hundred butterflies rose bravely to ride the wind.

 Once, long ago, before the sands of time had been collected, there was a small village, called Ipequana by its inhabitants, which clung to the rocky shore of The Great Ocean. The people of this village were spicy folk. Their lives were rich with dance and celebration. They worshipped the God Myati and the Goddess Bouri, who were called "the lovers" by some, and by others, "the twins."
 One fateful evening, as the fishermen of Ipequana were pulling in their heavy nets, full with glimmering masses of silver Chegya fish which were so abundent in that area, a most unusual event occured. A woman appeared, waist-deep in the murky, flickering waters of the Great Sea, walking uncertainly towards the sand. The fishermen on the shore ran to her assistance--the undercurrents were treacherous at this hour--but soon drew back, averting their eyes. The woman was clothed only in mossy strings of seaweed and the long tangled curtain of her jet-black hair. The Ipequani people valued nudity as highly sacred, and it was customary to look upon another's naked body only during certain ritual ceremonies. Presently, the strange woman reached the sandy shore, and fell to the ground, unconscious.
 The villagers, discarding the nudity tabboo out of necessity, brought the unconscious woman to the hut of Nilla Marcela, the wise woman. There she was bathed in warm water and soapflower oil.
 It was soon decided among the crowd which gathered in the village common that Bouri, Goddess of the Great Ocean, had come to them in human form.

 There is a bloody day coming, my people, and we must hide. There are emerald cities that will descend on this land, hellfire that will scorch these hills. There are armored gatekeepers who will storm the towers, and living spikes that will maim our families. There are violent policemen in the castles, and amber demons sleeping in the caves. There is a bloody day coming, my people; let us hide.

 Vision makes us wild. That is why we love it. When the last rays of sunlight had left the waters' edge, Victor went down onto the beach below and waded into the water. It was almost pitch dark, then. No rays of sun pierced the stony night sky, but a soft lazy glow still filtered up through the mist. The sun was gone, but not forgotten.
 The water was warmer than he had expected it to be. It drew him out deeper, past the rock named for his uncle, past the place where the water grew cold... past the place where his sister had told him the faeries lived below. He knew this place well, could find it by aligning himself with two points on the land. This spot was the only place in the ocean, as far as Vic knew, where you could look out of the bay and see the Winster Lighthouse blazing, and then look east to the bluff and catch the top of the red roof of his grandfather's house between the palm trees and bushes of lilacs and bananas. Now Victor was swimming.
 Without sight, he felt a strange calm come over him. There was no difference, now, to his eyes, between underwater and floating. Both were black, and Vic kept his eyes closed. There was just the feeling: that cool enveloping touch when below, and then the breezy dryness of coming up for air. Vic swam to the edge.
 At the edge of the ocean, the sun had dropped below into a strange canyon, flying over some twilight cavern to a hemisphere that sorely needed it, having been in darkness for a whole night, by then. But between the next segment of the world and the last, Vic found the water stopping, popping him out from its side, and he fell out onto swampland.
 Behind him, the water he called home rose up unceasingly, like a tidal wave stopped in midcrash. Before him was a second beach, lit from below by the uneasy light of the sun, as if the world was reluctant to show him this part of itself, and hence gave him only a meek, red light to see by.
 Was this a vision? Vic stuck his hand back inside the wall of water and found it pulled upwards. He could leap into it, float to the surface, return to the place he knew. But his eyes felt a strange pull into this alien landscape. He went forwards, into the misty sunset, following the sun. He tracked the sun around the world, watching it light the sea, never allowing himself to get too close.
 Where am I? he wondered.
 Then, Who am I?
 Finally: What is night?
 Then the water crashed over him, buried him, brought him up gasping, floated him back, lay him upon the beach, took him upstairs and dried him off. Salt fell from him carried by sweat and tears. He lay exhausted upon his tiny bed, peered out the window, saw the night black as any abyss, and fell to sleeping.
 In the morning, the water was as it always was, as it ever could be, as it must have been before there was a pair of eyes to watch it. Vic was wild with the vision, searched the ocean, scanned the canyons, did not find the misty reddish landscape he had walked upon. Like Mars, this place was just beyond his reach, though clearly visible, sometimes, from the point at just the right angle to the land; that point where, his sister had told him, the faeries lived.
 And Vic had no reason not to believe her, after all.

 I am old, and remember so very little of the past. The pool drops quickly, and the flood will soon be here. I cannot explain what urge makes me need to etch my memories onto these drift canes that I found in the mountainfeet. Ambri calls this task foolish, but I remind him that the foolish can be wise.
 I have seen many marvels of art, many paintings, many scuptures, and many histories. But no human work has remained in my mind like the mural of Achtenidine, which I saw as a youth, after the destruction of the silver city. Even so, I can remember very little of that vast painting beneath the streets of once-great Qualifectiori. I remember that it began and ended with a great, grey ocean, perhaps the same one at either end. I remember how the ocean faded into sands, and how symbols arose, keys and cloaks and carved stones and daggers.
 I remember how the symbols gave rise to landscapes and worlds, how figures and animals arose, humans and birds and waterfalls. I recall two bloody battle scenes, each occupying many yards of space. Each scene was bloody and violent, and insets big and small told the stories of kings and kingdoms and rulers and mothers and individuals and lands. There was redemption and multicolored towers, many sunsets and many dawns, cities and portals, histories and texts and illustrations.
 The images go on for miles. Dancing men, lions and wolves, shamans and goddesses and hawks flying into the sun. Cloth and tools and weapons and prophecies, until Talen's pool drowns the land at last.
 I do not know what of this is true, but it is magnificent to see.

 Men often tell their daughters of the great Knight Almira, who sunk the great ships of the Rai and eventually negotiated the alliance that would lead the Knights of Jacqueline to win the War. Such greatness in a fighter is not often found, and Almira's stories kindled sparks in the hearts of many such daughters.

 Skylark tells this story to the disciples of wind and courage:
 "Flying mountain to sea west, the lark sees what the raven cannot bear. With mountains in its eyes, the lark is well open to the vast gatherings of humanity that sting the raven's sensibility like tears. These outcroppings rise variable distances in space but each scrapes the ceiling of heaven with its bright whims and subtle glories. Piercing are the golden eyes of this sun bird though few know it. Grasp it quick. Watch these tales. Here are cities five.
 "Qualifectiori rises high and rips the clouds down with its silver spires. The glow of brains is feverish and the song is low and loud. Capital runs the market and the state. Dirt is cleaned away and pumped downwards. Iron hands climb the steeples, pulling elevators up by their tales, executing officers and deals. Arms reach from every window, but not outside. The step of show on marble gives a click. The city is cut off from itself below, where the sewers run, where a history of this land is painted, and one day time itself will scramble within those catacombs, until an order green and white pierces the roads and rises into place on horses of dark metal and crowned with weed and sand.
 "Alexandria rests on hills and folkland, buried in mist and history. Libraries run the length of every street and beggars sleep in caves of settled gold. The smoke at sunset from the chimneys bleeds down between the cracked walkways and among the stones. Conjurers and jurors melt into the shops and return with canes and decisions. Memories float through alleyways and drift into kitchens made of wood, where cinnamon anoints brown temples of steam. Candles light rafts which float on the blue river that shines under the city's bridges, and rituals and prayer mix in the night. One day a librarian there will read each book in turn and then destroy them all. The golden force unleashed will not to this fire sing kindly. Out of that place will the sun of amber rise.
 "Tritariatriat is low and flat and the wind blows low over pastel homes. Smoke and clay blend in the streets and solidify, and people walk like friends among the cobbled roads. The city sits in the center of the desert and thinks itself to be dry. Unknown beneath it roils the ancient sea that will flood the world when Talen's pool goes down. A vicious race tiny skelvic beasts lives there, their claws like porcupines', their eyes like rattlesnakes', their mouths like fire-worms'. Steal but one drop of their blood and they will avenge the land a thousand fold.
 "Vethico Tyne is the dungeon of the insane, where blood seeps through broken woody shafts and the sun is blocked by high stone walls and gates. The smog comes low and explodes in the night, and the peace is lost and wandering far away. Pain is bought and sold in glass districts, where clarity is the price for discontent. Wrack the bones of shopkeepers buried long ago, and you will hear tales of hellfire underneath. The stranger who visits here is lost, persuaded into a pact or sold in violence. The trades that work here require blood and sweat, and all other parts of corpses or living material. Sing songs of fright beneath the terrored steps of old libraries and ghostly homes. Ask a stranger for a friend and wake up smelling of decay and rats in the basement of a house of torture. Trust no one. Devils work her, and snakes in human form, and dragons underneath.
 "Parate Thalian is where the ships come in. The wind blows of the Great Ocean and forgets the continents that are far away. Life of all kinds is here, money and trade and goods and sweet friendships and bitter love affairs. To live here is to trade, to care for nothing more than its worth. Always changing what one is, visiting with strangers and opening, amorphous, to the dilating sea. Ships come here but no pilgrims disembark. They say the world is juxtaposed just so that Parate Thalian is at the center of the lines of wayfarers. Languages are spoken here that no one can remember, and others that no one can forget. But when the soldiers come from the ocean into the bay in ships of emerald green, then the port city will be trodden underfoot.
 "These five cities mark the sights that humans can aspire to. They stand on hills of idealism and they will crumble quickly when blood is shed. Watch them close. Some of you will join the forces of an army, others will hide. All of you will die. Sing brightly before you go, and touch the world. The cities are nothing except as we remember them."

 Women of the Blue Shadows:
 Shihlaeleut Anandacain Timarcalaeus bore a child and the earth, and the child was Eve. Eve lay in the forest and was barren, and the line was to end there. But Eve spoke to the Voice of the Crumbling Walls, and learned to breathe life into the earth. She sculpted a daughter from the dirt, and breathed life into her, and she was called Grace. Grace swam and sculpted, and her lover was Perijawa of the earth-people. Perijawa bore twins, and the twins were Andala--whose wings were clipped--and Naranje--who wore the read coat of clay of the power called Kalayle. Naranje's lover was a man from the mountains, but Andala was alone, and led a battle. Her grand-daughter Jacqueline led the famous Knights of Green Silver against the wyrms of the void. Jacqueline's generation believes in two aspects of Shihlaeleut, which are called the Keeper and the Mage. Jacqueline's daughter was named Sylla, and her generation believes in three aspects of Shihlaeleut, which are called the Turtle, the Eagle, and the Wold. Sylla's daughter was named Grace, and she lived in our era, and wore jeans. Her generation does not believe in Shihlaeleut.

 Kindle stumbled among the wreckage of the city, falling this way and that against the buildings by his side. The sun was almost gone from the sky but the air was lit with blazing fires and explosions. The soldiers of Rai were invading the city from portside, and the Omnark's army was preparing to defend itself. It was the last day of the first week of the year, and Kindle had lost his family to war.
 Behind him, somewhere, was his family, lying dead and perhaps already buried by the landslide of destruction that was sweeping the city. The soldiers were torching everything and exploding the buildings they could not burn with some sort of crude powder and spark device. But Kindle did not think about his parents and his sister behind him, only moved onwards, driven to get out of the city before he was dead.
 He was in the back alley of what had been the jewelry district of Parate Thalian, the city of merchants and trade. The residential area was nearby and Kindle could hear the shouts of the soldiers as they tried to drive back the invading army. Suddenly, dragons were overhead, screeching and breathing fire into the buildings, where people hid. More death.
 The green armor of the Rai came into sight behind an old shop and Kindle ducked inside just before the soldiers came through. It was dark there, and rats were already scavenging the dead bodies of the shopkeeper and whoever else had lived here. The Rai hurried by. Something touched Kindle's arm lightly. He spun around but the figure was on the other side of him. Before he knew it he was face down on the floor of the old shop, staring at the wooden floorboards and the tiny bits of rice that were strewn around the place. His assailant spoke in a harsh whisper, pressing something sharp into his back.
 "Who are you?"
 Kindle mumbled his name, his occupation. "I just want to get out of here." His attacker asked if he was Rai, and he said no.
 "One of the Omnark's boys?" she grunted, pushing the knife a little closer to his back. He shook his head. She let him up. "Then let's get out of here," she said. Then she was outside of the shop, stealing silently along the walls of once-great Parate Thalian. "The bridges are closed off," she said, in a tight whisper. "We'll swim the distance to Thalian and head West, following the Maripo Road. Where are you going?"
 Kindle said he didn't know, that he'd follow her until he knew what to do. His eyes were still wide from watching his parents die. He had no plans of his own. He asked her who she was.
 "I'm a knight," she said. "I follow Jacqueline. What's your name?"
 "Kindle," the boy answered.
 "You can call me Almira," she replied.
 Together, they escaped the city.

 Dylan spent much of his time by the sea. Unlike the rest of his world, which did not recognize him and could not remember his presence, the ocean seemed to him to believe in him. All waters reminded the boy of the first time he had seen his reflection in a thawing pool in Spring.

 How the winds created the tides:
 The wind was jealous of the Great Ocean that had been created before her. She swirled and puffed with silent rage. "Is it not I who am the breath of the Gods?" she muttered. "And what is more important than the air that fills the Great Gods' lungs? It was my right to have been created before the lowly ocean." With contempt she glared at the placid sea, and vowed to get revenge. "I will play a trick on the Ocean," she decided, "and then my envy will be placated."
 She thought and plotted for many hours, and slowly a devious plan was invented.
 Early the next morning, when the newborn sun had showed his shining face above the horizon, the wind came to call on the Great Ocean.
 "My dearest sister," she began (and her voice was the sweetest summer breeze, colored with deep concern and pity). "It has come to me in a vision that you are in grave danger this night. I saw the sun falling toward your darkened surface, and as he fell a terrible thing occured. An army of flickering flames moved toward the sunset, and when they reached the sun, his power multiplied a thousandfold.
 "Then," she lowered her voice so the ocean had to strain to hear. "The sun dropped into your waters, and his immense heat boiled them all away. What was left was an empty desert, and you, my sister, were no more."
 The ocean churned with fear at this prophecy. "Oh, say it isn't true," she pleaded, but the lying wind had not yet discovered Mercy, and her only words were: "My sister, I am sorry." Then, with affected grief, she left the Ocean.
 In moments the sea had begun to climb upon the shore, hoping to escape the fiery sun. With all her great expanse, she moved quite slowly, and by midday, had only gained 300 steps of shore.
 Then came the sky wind again, and She called out "sister ocean, I must warm you--A mountain, inland, spews burning melted rock. It was also in my vision, like the sun. The flood of fire will boil your salty waters, and you, my sister, will be no more."
 The ocean trembled in her terror, and fled slowly back from the treacherous land. "Wind," she called, "where shall I go? The sun threatens from the West, and the fiery mountain, inland." But the wind only whistled smugly, and blew away. And so the Great Ocean, though first created, has always lived in fear, fleeing this was and that from imagined terrors, always slowly. And the wind, so clever and malicious, skips across her surface, laughing.

 I dreamed that a multi-colored man and a pale green goddess were the lords of this world. Their lines descended through the years and their power spread itself over the land. Shileiloot Amandacane Timarcaleus had a daughter, who carried the pulse of life in her eyes, and a son who could follow the sunlight to the dawn. Jacobi Root Pergamon had a son who was invisible to wolves and a daughter whose skin was purple and red.

 I dreamt of a woman lying naked on the floor of the forest in the moonlight, heaving and grunting with the pain of childbirth, but her stomach was flat and there was no baby to be born. After bleeding and sweating under the light of the moon, the barren woman heaved herself up onto her legs, knelt and stood, and walked through the forest paths, lit by the glittering rays of the moon. She came to a pile of crumbling walls, where stone barriers fall apart and decayed into the forest dirt. The stones whispered secrets in her ear, and the woman learned to mold a daughter out of clay. She anointed the statue with her spirit, smearing her blood on its abdomen, wiping her tears against its eyes, licking her tongue on the daughter's mouth, and breathing into her nostrils. Then the daughter awoke. By the grace of the moon and the stones she had been born, and her mother called her Grace.

 I dreamt that I saw a figure on the waters, passing low, stepping lightly on the rushing tide. Talen's cloak was dark, but it shimmered with secret intent, blue and gold and violet and maroon. From that cloak came bubbles, peeling off and floating like spheres of soapy water above the sea. Each ball contained a brightly colored image, a tiny world or miniscule universe, like the werala that my people's storytellers offer to the gods as prayer. Talen's very substance was the creation of those tiny bubbled worlds, and from each of Talen's organs springs forth stories and design.

 I dreamt that my people's lore was a solid thing, sheets of fine cloth-like material. I carried these fine parchments to other lands where they were eaten or burned. I gave lengths of the stuff to giant sun birds, and they drowned them in the fiery morning star. I floated the patches of lore in the oceans, and the patches sunk. I returned to my people, but they had fallen into the earth. I wept for a while by their grave of dust, and then had visions of things far away. I saw the lands where I had brought my people's cloths of lore. Those who had eaten the story sheets now told their own tales, but their words were the voice of my people's love. The fires that had burned those patches floated smoke up into the heavens, and the smoke was my people's history. The sun that had enveloped those parchments returned their quality to our earth every day, in the light it sends to us through distant space. And the ocean that had drowned my people's gift brought back that meaning in each tide, washing shells and seaweed and my people's stories back up onto the sandy shore.

 I dreamt that I walked a beach under a starry sky, saw lights flickering in the distance, grew somber, wept at the far-off beauty of the untouchable lights, braved the water to swim to that mysterious land, felt the chill of the icy depths, and slept in the cool womb of the sea.

 I dreamt of a woman with skin the color of a ripe plum. She glanced at me from the corner of a tower made of red sand, and I followed her through alleys of clay and streets of dust. I never saw her again, but as I stepped outside the city, I found myself thinking of her as if she had been a bird.

 I dreamt that I was a coyote seeing my reflection for the first time in a pond in springtime. I saw my own face, and then the face of a tremendous yellow lion. The lion's roar rippled the water of the pool, and my reflection disappeared.

 I dreamt of a host of white moths flickering through a forest. Then the moths became fireflies, and the fireflies became flames. Candles grew down from the flames and I found myself in a great hall, where five tremendous shadows watched me from above.

 I dreamt that cities could be ground up into a powder and carried around. I saw a conjuror who had pouches hanging from his every bone, and in each pouch was a city. I asked him why he carried the cities, and he said it helped him to forget his past.

 Our group was among the first to arrive in the Catric plain. We set up our encampment that night, as the purple sunset faded over the Western Mountains. That night we stayed away from the other groups, unsure in the darkness, and made a small twig fire to keep us warm. I remember lying there, gazing up into the dark violet sky. I heard another group arrive just before I fell asleep. We were only one of many. Before long, the Catric plain would be brimming with folk from all across the land. That night we slept without tents.
 In the morning, we arranged our encampment and drove posts into the soft ground to support tents to give us shelter. Laurestene woke me up with a kiss. He wanted to go into the Mountains and collect drift canes. I left him to pack his hiking bag, and went to visit a couple of the other groups. Visicar came with me. The air was cool and spicy. I hadn't seen the pool yet, and neither had he. But we wanted to save that for last.
 A bunch of Loric folk were eating breakfast as the yellow sun took its place in the sky overhead. They called us over and invited us to join them. We exchanged stories. They had come from Loria all the way over the Mountains. They had been traveling for almost three months, then, and were glad to be resting. They'd just arrived, the day before we had. Visicar told them about our journey from Pyrabintha. He asked them if they knew from which city the flood would arise. They just shook their heads. They fed us silver rice and tan-toms, which were delicious.
 We found a small cluster of Danners camped only a couple of meters away from the Pool. They had gotten there first. They had set up some sort of instrument to measure the drainage of the Pool. I asked one of them, an old woman wearing a red cloth dress, why she cared about the speed of drainage. She looked at me intently and said, "I have been waiting for this my whole life." I left it at that.
 The golden Temple had four sets of stairs leading up to the landing. One of the Danners told Visicar that the stairs pointed in the four directions where the four points of the compass used to be. I asked when the compass points had moved, and she just shrugged. I took out my compass, though, and she was at least partly right: the stairs were about twenty degrees off from where my compass marked the four directions. I wondered what could cause the directions to move.
 At first I was scared to enter the temple. There were no walls, and I somehow didn't want everyone around us to see me looking into the Pool. But Visitar climbed up the stairs quickly, and when I saw him in silhouette under the dome of the temple, I realized there was nothing to be embarrassed about, and joined him. The stairs were very hard, and I could see my reflection in them.
 The Pool was dark and beautiful, when I looked over the edge. I almost wanted to cry, it was so calm and pure. I noticed that it was very dark underneath the temple's dome. I looked up. Visitar was gone. It was night outside the temple. I could see the Western Mountains, and the sun setting over them, leaving the sky purple behind it.
 "Ambri!" Laurestene called to me from behind. I turned and stumbled down the steps of the temple. I couldn't speak; I just gave him a confused look. Luckily, Laurestene always knows what I'm thinking. "Visitar's already gone back to the camp. I passed him a few minutes ago, coming here. I want to tell you about the drift canes I found in the mountainfeet."
 I couldn't understand how I'd missed the whole day. Laurestene had already been to the Mountains and back. Visicar had gone back to the encampment. Somehow I'd spent the entire day looking into the Pool. When we got back to camp, Visicar had built a fire. It was nearly time to sleep. Other groups were arriving around us. That was the first day.

 In the year of the turtle there was much havoc in the land. A great army of beetles spread over the crops and the people went hungry. Chinuki was a leader at this time, and the people went to him for assistance.
 "We have no bread to feed our families," they cried, and Chinuki, seated on a throne of polished quartz, dismissed them with the promises of a powerful ceremony which would bring the people all that they required.

 The sculptor lived in a studio among the cobbled streets of the pastel-colored rows of the city in the desert. The city was dry, and water was scarce and rationed carefully, and he was often thirsty. His basement was packed with old belongings of the people who had sold the house to him. Douglas Faulk began in early summer to organize the stacks of trunks and boxes and packages below the first floor of his home, and by late autumn he had uncovered a door into another world.
  Behind where the blue ladder lead down into the basement was a small portal in the floor, and Doug could see the front of it as early as the month of August. But it was not until he had spent several more weeks unpacking the trunks that rested on the trapdoor and shifting boxes around the small grey room as if he were fitting together a puzzle, that the artist was finally able to open that tiny door.
 Beneath it was a pool, of clear blue water of some sort. He was mistrustful of it at first but eventually took a swim in it, being careful to remove the trap door from its hinges so that it could not fall and close him into the pool. He even went so far as to invite his lover into the pool, and the two men spent several hours playing there, joyful and nude, before they thought to uncover the dimensions of the pool. They found no walls, no edges, and no corners in the water. The pool was an ocean, and the water in it was pure and good and clean.
 So the city rested on a sea, though no one knew it. How far did the body of water extend? To the edge of the city? The the ends of the desert? Outside the continent--did it merge with the Great Ocean? There was no way to know. Douglas removed one liter of the clear water in a vial, and brought it upstairs into his home to drink, so that he would not be so eternally thirsty. Water in a desert city was the sculptor's dream. He drank the water, finally, with hesitation. There was no way to know if it was sade. But, feeling no ill effects, he then went down for more. This was one week after he'd first pried open that strange portal in his basement floor.
 Douglas Faulk was murdered by the creatures of the deep that day, ripped to shreds by their dripping claws and chewed up and spit out inside their toothy mouths, thick with running reddish pulp. The prines came up from the old sea in search of their stolen water, but found it gone, for the artist had drunk it all up. They called their brothers and took revenge on the city and then the land, as a blaze of prines screeched up from the sea below. When the basement was finally sealed by an earthquake nearby, nine hundred and ninety-eight prines were loose in the land.
 Havoc ensued.

 It was a winding stair that had climbed the long heights to the Palace of the Omnark. No one had actually climbed them for years; the servants of the Omnark either flew to the heights or had some magical means of transport. The staircase, then, was only used as a deterrent to unwanted guests. Indeed, the few that had tried the climb had given up or fallen before reaching even halfway.
 But Ambri was different. Determined was he, burdened with a message that could prevent great calamity. At first he strode up quickly, taking the steps three at a time, but then slowed as the stairs went on and on. Soon weary, he sat and rested upon a middle step and felt the stair sway in the breeze. Onward he continued, now taking the steps only two in a stride, stopping frequently for rest. How a staircase could be so long he did not know, only that it stretched on endlessly above him.
 No cliff or support held the stair; it seemed to float or hang from above. Onward climbed Ambri, stepping now on each stair in turn. At last he reached the top, and fell forward onto a small platform before him. But he saw no palace. Beyond the platform were only clouds.
 Ambri was about to despair when a shrill voice rang out: "What brings you here?" Ambri stood and unfurled his scroll, facing into the clouds. Before he could read, a great gust of wind blew up and tore the scroll from his hands.
 "Wait!" was all he had time to yell before the wind also took him and blew him off the platform. For a long time he fell, and then he reached the ground.

 There was once a King who had two daughters. He named one Night, for her skin was as black as the dakrest sky and her teeth, like the brightest moon, shone pearly white. The other he named Autumn, for her hair was the deep auburn of the maple trees in that season. The King loved his daughters dearly, thoughneither had been the product of his seed. Until the baby girls had arrived, the King and Queen had remained childless.
 "You were given to me by the Goddess," he would say to his daughters when they pressed him about their parentage. And no more would he say about that subject.
 "The daughters gre up as close as two sisters can be. Together they would explore the palace, hand in hand, and at night they would tumble, exhausted in a tangle of bright curls and ebony skin, onto the embroidered cushions of their royal bed. As they grew they whispered secrets into each other's ears, and dressed in their mother's clothing to stride around the palace, giggling and twirling blissfully. Soon the tail end of childhood and come and gone, and the King saw that his two daughters had become young women. He himself had grown old and frail, and he knew his days wer numbered. "Goddess," he prayed, kneeling reverantly before his jewel-encrusted altar, "I am in great need of your wisdom. My daughters have come of age, and I am dying. To whom shall I entrust my Kingdom when I am gone?
 That night the King had a dream.
 The following morning the King wrote a proclamation.
 "It is hearby announced that any man who can discover which of my daughter is the eldest will have her for a bride, and will rule in my stead when I have passed on to the Other World. This is a difficult task, for there is little proof in this world of whether Autumn came before Night, or Night before Autumn."
 Word spread quickly through the Kingdom, and soon the challenge was a flame in the thoughts of every young man. Only one man heard nothing of the gossip and the proclaimation. His home was in the branches of an immense oak tree, in the heart of Huntsman's Forest, just a little ways from the palace walls. As a boy he had retreated to that place, hoping to avoid the chaos and evils of humanity. His dream was to become a wise and liberated hermit, alone with the trees and the voices of the forest. Unfortunately for the young man, his dream could never become reality, for he had accidentally fallen in love.
 Night, daughter of the King, was the recipient of this love. He had seen the young woman as she walked through Huntsman's Forest in search of a delicate mushroom which was one of her favorite treats. He was enchanted by her black skin and livelyeyes. Her step was proud and yet properly respectful of the sacred forest floor. The young man's thoughts, usually filled with collectioins of complex ideas and images, now only had room for dark, beautiful, Night. The thought never crossed the poor man's mind that his love was the daughter of the King.
 Autumn, meanwhile, was having a love affair with the wind. He softly touched her face as she knelt tending her vast and luxurious garden. Autumn's temperment contradicted her fiery hair, and she was quite at peace with the world around her. "Hmm," she murmered to the wind, "the sun is smiling down on us today." She breathed deeply the scent of honeysuckle, and dug her fingers into the warm soil. The wind laughed joyously and lifted her mane around her glowing face. "Never have I felt so alive as in this moment," she breathed, and the Wind rustled his amusement in the maples overhead. Autumn made a similar announcement at least twice a day. She stood and, lifting the hem of her long white gown, ran happily along the garden path. The playful wind grew strong and steady, and she reveled in its pressure against her skin.

 "What do you know of flying?" Victor asked. He had been to the edge of the world and back, and knew many things, but he had never felt the soaring freedom of a bird.
 "My mother had wings," the man with long fingers said. "And one day I will ride the flaming reptiles in the sky, and murder my eldest daughter."

- SECOND -
That it Could be Barbaric

 That it could be barbaric had not occured to me, until you came. That you could so greatly misjudge our perfect ritual... You, with your pathetic notebook and eternally dried-up quill pen, with your flashing spectacles and measly understanding of the world you tried to record. I warned you, didn't I? I told you: Laria is not Buri, Tan is not Myati. But you would not heed my words; you took their deeds at face value, not stopping to consider the masks they wore. You were so very wrong.
 It was so easy for you to desire Laria. I say desire because love is not within your capacity as a journalist. Love cannot be written; cannot be trapped and flattened like a flower pressed in some heavy text. Love is free, as you are not. Laria was beautiful. Her skin was olives and peaches, her eyes were gold and sunlight. Her voice was song and whisper. And that was all you saw of her.
 Did you long to see her lips? Did you want to pull off that oaken mask, reveal her subtle features, touch her cheek? I can tell you that her face was as beautiful as the rest of her, if that's what you want to know. I remember her, you see, from before the mask. But you could never see her face, and now you never will. That has to be painful. Good.
 I remember that last night, when we sat in this very room, though you were not confined to bed back then. I remember when you asked me how the ceremony ends, and would you be able to see Laria's true face after the Loving. I remember the look on your face when I told you that you would not. How you bolted from the room, ran to her, pleaded with her, begged her not to go, "in the name of love..." In the name of love! You had the audacity, the pathetic arrogance, to ask Laria--as Buri!--not to Love, in the name of your own foolish desire. You make me sick.
 And you still call it barbaric. You still think that two weak individuals sweated and fucked in the candlelight that night, with the whole village watching... What do you take us for? Some perverted little bunch of primitives, starved for violence and sex, trying to get both atthe same time? But you never could see the masks for what they were. Maybe it was your upbringing. The don't have gods where you cme from, do they? Or goddesses, for that mater. Listen close, and I shall tell you one last time.
 Laria was a beautiful woman, yes, and Tan was a lovely man. But both were more than this. From their first blood ceremonies, they were more than we are, Ambri. Greater than I, and certainly greater than you.
 Listen well. You will only hear this once, and then you will die. That was not Laria, it was Buri, the Goddess of Ipequana. That was not Tan, it was Myati, the God of Ipequana. And that was not some carnal sex act, not some barbaric show for our own pleasure. It is you who are barbaric for seeing it so.
 That was the Loving. That was the prime ceremony of Ipequana, when the Twins--some call them the Lovers--come together. And if their passion is worthy of their masks, then they will never return to this plane. Not because this life is poor, but because love, after all, is the chief thing, is it not?
 Laria and Tan were given the greatest honor the people of Ipequana have to offer. They became the death-lovers, the twin-spirits. They split their bodies open with their joyous pain. They died in the Loving, in the ceremony... And this you call barbaric. Because you are jealous. Jealous of the lovers, because they possessed each other, and jealous of the people, because they can comprehend a beauty that is ugly to you. Well, Ambri, I give you this last thought as my goodbye: that a man who envies the gods is pathetic, but a man who envies the people is lost.
 And now, Ambri, goodnight. May you dream of what you cannot live.

 Above the surface of the planet, flying wildly around it, were eight moons and an asteroid. On each celestial body grew a single life form, each a different herb. On the first grew Hul, which was a plant with pink flowers that could be used to prevent seasickness or increase potency. On the second grew Yut, which was a fungus that grew close to the ground. Yut could be used by lizards or Prines to make their scales more shiny, either by eating it or rubbing it on the skin. It was also incorrectly used by the People of Ipequana to prevent sunburn, but in fact it only exasperated the situation and caused peeling. On the third grew Bep, which was a tall tree with long leaves that reached the ground. The leaves could be used as an antidote to many poisons, and the roots as a spice for cooking. The fourth moon was watery, and on it grew a kind of light purple algae that was called Wer. Some civilizations used Wer to clean their teeth, but most smoked it because it was a hallucinogen. The fifth was dry as a desert, and thick waterproof plants lived there. They were called Pos and had many uses, the most common of which was as a prevention of heart disease in children. The sixth had a spiky plant called Keb whose spines were used for knives and weapons. Ground up Keb was also considered good luck by some, or protection from spirits. The seventh only had growth on the dark side, facing away from the sun. The organisms were white and pasty but brittle when dried, used as way bread by travelers because of their thick, dense structure, filled with vitamins and minerals. These plants had no name, but the way bread was called variously teblen, krembold, and untree. The eighth had a low vine that bore a fruit called Mel that was nutritious and delicious for most but deadly for pregnant women and people who were allergic to it. Mel extract could be used as a skin lotion, and applied to the scalp would prevent headaches. The ninth was the asteroid which moved much faster than the others and had a fungus called Lum which had no known use and was the object of much speculation..

 It was in the early days of Ipequana that a girl child of unusual beauty was born to the village leaders. As a baby, her soft black hair covered perfect tan cheeks and she would giggle and gurgle at the villagers all day long as she sat with her parents, the wise leaders of the town.
 As she grew older and still sat with her parents as they settled the town's disputes and troubles, she grew quiet, always listening, always more beautiful. So it came to be that Y'nfes, as she was called, was known as the town's recorder and historian.
 The years passed, and Y'nfes grew into her role. No recorder before her had held the position from such a young age or filled it with such wisdom. Now people would come from far and wide to hear her tales of times past and to ask her questions.
 Some believed that Y'nfes could also see into the future. People of Y'nfes' own village of Ipequana were the first to believe so, but soon folk from other villages as well would ask her questions about what would come to pass.
 Y'nfes' parents were aging, and soon it would need to be decided who would become the leader of the village when they died. There was no set tradition of whom would become the leader when the current leaders died, but in this case there was little question.
 It was on a beautiful spring day that both of Y'nfes' parents passed away. The villagers all gathered in the town circle to partake in the ceremony that would mark their passing and Y'nfes' assumption of leadership. As prescribed by custom, Y'nfes came forth bare of all clothes, weeping freely. She walked around the gathered circle of villagers, and as she passed, each one would touch his finger to Y'nfes' wet cheek and rub her salty tears into a small wound that he had made in the crook of his arm. When Y'nfes had completed her circle she stood before the group and said, "We are about to enter a new age. We have seen beauty and strength, tradition and caring leaders. We are about to enter an age of prosperity and abundance, harmony and new ways. We will gather our strength within us and make Ipequana a village of wisdom and new greatness."
 So it was that Y'nfes became the new great leader of Ipequana and under her it prospered and grew as promised. Samil, her niece, became her own recorder and wrote the entire history of Ipequana in three scrolls called the Shrarm, the Phloo, and the Jernaht. When Y'nfes grew old and died, the position of leader was offered to Samil, but Samil wished to remain recorder, and so it was that Eftola became leader.

 In a locked up tower in a locked up room with the key in a far off lake somewhere was a pair of brothers, forsaken, forlorn, imprisoned by the Omnark Antisage for vague and murky reasons. Each hated the other more than any other thing on Earth, and their punishment, a lifetime of enforced intimacy, was absolute. After three months of imprisonment, they had still not spoken a word to one another. One night an angel alighted at their window and slipped between the iron bars. I will set one of you free, she promised, but you must decide between you which one it will be. The brothers began arguing immediately, each one demanding that he be the one to attain freedom. They fell to blows, and in the end killed each other simultaneously. The angel was called uyi, and she suffered ever after with the death of two mortals on her conscience.

 In the time of the Omnark Antisage there were 4,000 towers built to house prisoners. Dungeons were a rarity. It was near impossible to escape from a prison tower, but it was accomplished on three occasions. Twice the Knights of Green Silver broke through the walls and freed their captured comrades. This was a miracle in itself, for the materials used in the walls of the tower were thought to be indestructable. The third escape was entirely unexplained. Two little-known brothers from the mountains simply disappeared from their prison tower. It was said that they were the immortal sons of the Rain Goddess, and She turned them to waters so that they could flow through the iron bars and fall the earth below.

 Skylark dove into the forest and passed among the trees into woulds and coulds and should not do what he did. The bird sang of impossibility, and gripped the handle of the world as it spun around behind him. He wrote nonsense with chalk in alleyways and posted lights in the sky that did not make any sense so that no one should ever cease to wonder.

 As a child, Jacqueline played happily in her mother's house. But even as a youth she took to finding her own places--little secret alcoves that were no one's but hers. She would creep up the ladder into the attic space, or crawl through the tiny gap in the fence that led to the neighbors' ignored and overgrown garden, and sometimes when she felt a particular delicious lonesome need she would climb the scaffolding on the nearby office building and slip through a broken hatch to an isolated section of roof, where the strange rumblings of the city were transformed by the distance into a sad, comforting murmur. She imagined she cultivated a flame in each of these places, and she tended it each time she came. She felt she let the glow of the flame warm her and give her strength to return to the world. Then she would return.
 She began this practice when she was very young, and continued it until she was eleven years old. That was when Galen came.
 Galen was her mother's lover for a time. He was a tall man who wore rings of crystal and his hair was very straight and never got disheveled. He worked as an investment banker in a tall glass building in the very center of Qualifectiori, and he brought Jacqueline and her mother with him to an apartment near his work.

 The storytellers of the people have an art they call werala, which means "images." It is related to but different from storytelling, which the people also practice. In werala, the artist conjurs up just a single image or event in a few simple lines. There is very little plot or direction to the werala images, and they are very short. Nevertheless, a master of werala can hold an audience spellbound with these tiny flashes of story.

 A dark, strong man came into the restaurant and ordered a table for one. He requested the prime waiter and said that he would wait until such service could be given. When the man with long fingers came over to the table and offered him anguish of an infinite variety, the dark, strong man said this: "You are playing with forces that you do not understand, but I will make a deal with you." From the air was plucked an old parchment, and an agreement was reached. The waitor who owned the castle of pain sliced his arm open to the elbow and signed the contract in his seeping, dark red blood, beneath the terms of the deal. The Fallen made no contact with the long-fingered slave, neither by hand nor by eye. He left the restaurant silently, and the next day, the Dragons came.

 I drip worlds. My very flesh is story, my eyes are spinning galaxies, my mouth is speaking histories. My heart is pulsing mythical, my step is creation, my memory is the love of a thousand peoples and a thousands doors lead out of my windy skin. My body is the text of existence, my hands are the laws that govern the physical world. I hear ten thousand voices at a time, and taste a hundred dreams with every flicker of a candle or a flame. I watch each story, only my reflection interferes. I build each fortress, and my past influences my future. I carry my stories with me, yet they are greater than I. I walk on the primal waters, yet I am the result of the peoples' tales. I follow the sun bird, yet I am the sun.

 I was born with wings upon my back, and yet I hate the sky. My name is Andala, which means She Who Does Not Cry Out, because I did not cry as my mother held me in her arms and sliced my growing feathered limbs from my shoulderblades to protect me from the bloodfathers on the mountains. Blood streamed from my back, but I was silent.
 My mother was beautiful in all ways known to me. Her name was Perijawa, or She Who Swims In Water The Color Of Pearls, and her twins were born with the vestiges of the ancient powers of ilecallo and kallayle. My twin is named Naranje, or She Who Is Rooted To The Oak, because of what happened to her when she and I were but one day old.
 It is customary for childred to sleep their first night away from their parents, and my twin and I lay in a field under stars when we were one day out of the womb. When they came to find us in the morning, I was already awake, though silent, true to my name. My sister was as yet unnamed, but as Perijawa knelt and lifted me from our tall, grassy bed, she saw that my twin's coat of red clay had not fallen away, but had grown into the earth, entwining itself into the roots of an oak tree, and it had to be pried away in order to free the girl who was now called Naranje.
 I was still silent when the naming ceremony took place, and so they called me Andala. My twin had grown into the earth that night, and they called her Naranje.

 Almira grinned up at her Uncle Rabes, who was visiting her at last. For years he had been promising to visit, but now she could not only hear of his adventures in letters, but actually look up into his glowing brown eyes and hear the stories first hand.
 It had been years since they'd seen each other, and Almira wanted to show him everything. Uncle Rabes seemed to have grown much taller since she had last seen him, which was strange because she thought he was too old for that. There was more to Uncle Rabes, perhaps, than met the eye.
 "Almira!" came the call from the kitchen. Almira lived in quite a large house, but her parents always seemed to be able to make themselves heard when they wanted Almira to do something for them.
 "Yes," she called back, abandoning Uncle Rabes and running off in the direction from which her mother had called. Almira's attention span was occasionally very short. But what she saw before her stopped her short. The kitchen, with her mother in the middle of it, was filled with all sorts of food: meats, breads, fresh vegetables, all in the process of being cut, simmered, stirred and generally prepared.
 "Shut the door," said her mother, and Almira complied. "Listen," her mother continued. "Uncle Rabes has travelled a long way to visit us, and we are going to prepare him a surprise. You must help keep him away from here."
 Something was strange about her mother's voice. A tension that had not been there before. And her mother usually loved to cook. An occasion such as entertaining guests usually kept her bustling about happily for hours. But something was different.
 Almira shrugged it off as a quirk of her mother's, and decided to appreciate the fact that she had been sent off to do exactly what she wanted to, which was entertain Uncle Rabes. She went back out of the kirchen, careful to close the door securely behind her. Uncle Rabes was standing there still, clearly having been listening to every word that Almira and her mother had uttered.
 That made Almira frustrated. She couldn't figure these people out. Adults were so strange and unpredictable. But who cared. It was time to take Uncle Rabes around the house and grounds. Taking him by the hand, Almira led Uncle Rabes outside and around across the field to the chicken coop. Suddenly it seemed as if Almira was no longer leading this expedition, but that Uncle Rabes had a plan. They rounded the bend, and behind the chicken coop saw that a new structure had been built. Almira was surprised, and looked over at Uncle Rabes to shrug, but saw that Uncle Rabes seemed already to know about this.
 Almira looked the structure over. It was large and sort of a reddish purplish color. It had many sides, and didn't have a clear orientation, either vertically, horizontally, or any which-way. Uncle Rabes motioned for her to follow, walked up to the structure, pushed in a little door, and climbed in. Almira followed.

 There was no beginning of the Great Goddess. She has always been. Not since the beginning of time, because the Great Goddess knows no time, only circles. The universe grew within her womb, and she was its mother. When the universe grew too big for her to contain, she gave birth to it, and nourished it with stories.

 In the beginning, the land was cold and dry and barren. In the beginning, there was no God. From the land came the people and they created the creatures and the plants, the mountains and the oceans. And then they created Fear. The people forgot that the world was their own creation, and created God to protect them from the creatures and the plants, the mountains and the oceans.

 The Mage tells this story to the students of tempered power:
 Once a poor woman named Leko gave birth to a baby girl. She called the child Aylu, and loved her dearly, and she sang songs to her. In the winter she brought the child into her meager bed, to keep her warm. For twelve years they were happy with each other, despite their poverty. But then Leko grew ill. She began to feel weaker and weaker, and soon she could not get up from her bed. Aylu searched in the woods for the abapo, healing herbs, and she wandered to villages to ask strangers for shalha, the healing stones, but all the herbs and all the stones she could gather would do no good.
 When Leko knew she was near death, she kissed her child and sent her outside, saying, 'Go find me one more healing herb.' Aylu went to the patch of abapo, finding only one stalk left. When she knelt to pluck it, she upset the violet butterfly that was perched on its single flower. The butterfly spoke to her, saying, 'If you want to know what you can do for your mother, follow me.' Then it fluttered off, leaving a trail of pollen behind it. She snatched up the herb, ran in to place it in her mother's dying mouth, kissed her, and ran back out in pursuit of the butterfly.
 She chased it for a season from summer to autumn, over hills, through forests, glimpsing it only a few times as she followed its pollen pathway. Then one day, when the leaves were crisp and falling from the trees, her quest was stopped when she heard a young man moaning nearby. She followed the voice to where the young man lay. He was bloody from a gash in his side; he was trying to rise, but kept falling again.
 Aylu tore a long strip of her garment and used it to bind the wound. Then she helped him up and let him lean on her as he walked, staggering, to his shack. She lit the fire, hauled up some water from his well, and sat by him, cleaning his wound and offering him drink until he began to recover. Then she began to leave. He said to her, 'You have saved my life and I want to do something for you.' But she said, 'My mother is very ill and I am following a violet butterfly to find out what I can do for her. I have to go on.'
 'At least let me give you a token,' he said, 'so that you will know what your gift has meant to me.'
 So the young man gave Aylu a bead he had made, on a thong which he put on her neck. 'Thank you,' she said, and she left him.
 She followed the butterfly's trail for another season from autumn to winter, though forests and between cliffs, until one day she tripped into a deep pool of freezing water under a thin layer of ice. She struggled to climb out but couldn't hold firmly to anything, and was shivering too much to be able to steady herself.
 Suddenly, she felt a hand take her arm. She looked up to see an old, wrinkled man. He helped her out of the water and led her to his clearing, where he warmed her by his fire until she could speak again through her shivers. Then she said, 'You have saved my life and I want to give you a great gift. But my mother is very ill and I am following a violet butterfly to find out what I can do for her.' She took the thong and bead the young man had given her and placed it on the old man's neck. Then she began to go.
 He said, 'You are still very cold.' And he took a green stone from by the fire and placed it in her hand. 'This will warm you.'
 'Thank you,' she said, and she left him.
 So Aylu followed the butterfly's path for another season, from winter to spring, between cliffs and across meadows, staying warm with the warmth of the old man's green stone until she no longer needed it. One day she came to a wellspring, and bent down to drink from it, when she saw in the reflection that someone stood behind her. She spun to see a girl her own age. The girl was beautiful, and Aylu did not know what to say.
 The stranger went to the spring's edge and lifted some of the clear, clear water in her cupped hands. She offered the water to Aylu.
 Aylu looked in the strange girl's eyes and drank the water. Then she bent down and brought up water to offer in return. 'I am Aylu,' she said. The strange girl drank the water from her hands, and then smiled.
 For the rest of the day they played together, in the water of the spring, and that night they told each other stories. But in the morning Aylu said, 'I want to stay with you here, but my mother is very ill and I am following a violet butterfly to find out what I can do for her. I do not want to leave you, but I have to go on.' The strange girl said goodbye and Aylu gave her the green stone that had kept her warm. She touched her cheek and kissed her and said, 'Will you remember me?'
 'I will,' said the strange girl.
 'Thank you,' said Aylu, and she left her.
 She followed the butterfly's trail for the last season, from spring to summer, across meadows and over hills, glimpsing it only now and again, until one day it was in her sight and close to her. She began to run toward it, but it flew over a river and she could not follow. The river was deep and wide and fast-moving, and she could neither ford nor leap nor swim it. She sat down despairing, under a tree by the bank. She did not feel able to stand.
 After a time she bgean to hear the murmur of the river, and she began to watch its movement. She thought about her mother and her journey and the river and she was finally thirsty and hot enough that she approached it to drink from it. She cupped her hands in the water as she had done with the girl by the spring, and drank a cool and replenishing draught. She put her hands in again and this time they came out holding a cool, silvery-clear transparent stone. She held the stone to her forehead and it cooled her, and she felt it was time to return to her mother's house.
 In the autumn she reached again the spring of the strange girl. The girl kissed her when she saw her, but then stepped away.
 'Are you leaving again?' she asked.
 'Come with me,' said Aylu. So they went on together.
 In the winter they reached the clearing of the old man who had saved Aylu. She gave him the clear cooling stone that the river had given her. Then they went on.
 In the spring they reached the shack of the young man whom Aylu had saved. He gave her a garment he had woven, to replace the one she wore which still bore the tear she had made to bind his wound. Then they went on.
 Finally, in the summer, they reached the house of Leko, but Leko had died two years before, on the day she sent Aylu outside, just as she had known she would. Aylu wept and the girl of the wellspring embraced her, and together they burnt the body, and together they mixed the ashes with the soil of abapo, the healing herb. And when the white flowers of the abapo came up, a flock of violet butterflies came to give them pollen.

 No Door Into Him made a pilgrimage to the volcano to find his fire-soul when he was nine years old. His mother had bade him go, as all mothers do when their children first show signs of medium wondering. After the large wonderings, questions like "What is anything?" and "Why am I?" and before the small wonderings, questions like "How do we cook this?" and "Where do we choose to live?" are the medium wonderings: questions like "What is life?" and "Why is the sky blue?" Then the mothers, male and female, send their children to the volcano to find their fire-soul.
 There was a path that led east towards the volcano, and No Door Into Him trod that path for two cycles of the moon fruit. At the end of the two cycles, he came to the foot of the volcano, weary from the journey. He set down his pack of belongings, and left it there. If he returned, it would be there still. No Door Into Him whispered a goodbye to the forest, and began to climb the mountain, wearing only his six clothes and his knife and pocket.
 Spake the vision of the volcano:
 "His son crossed the frozen desert.
 "Her daughter listened to dirt.
 "His daughter learned a history.
 "Her son followed the sunlight to the dawn."

 No Door Into Him set out to travel west to east. He began at the spot where the sun goes down and he walked until he came to the spot where the sun rises. He wore his six cloths, one for each of the prayer winds, and his dagger, and his pouch, and that was all.
 He came to the serpent's house and the beast descended upon him, but he was not afraid. He called on the prayer wind of the silent stone to protect him, and the serpent was afraid. Then No Door Into Him threw his first cloth to the ground and went east.
 At the spot where the light from the Glowering River flickers in between the branches of a giant oak, No Door Into Him met the old travelling man. The old travelling man tried to convince No Door Into Him to leave his eastward path, but the boy called on the prayer wind of the running mist, and the old travelling man scurried away. So No Door Into Him threw his second prayer cloth to the ground and went east.
 Crossing the ocean that lies between five colored mountains, No Door Into Him was met by the grey king fish. The grey king fish tried to upset the boy's boat, but he called on the prayer wind of the sparkling rocks, and the fish returned to its home in the deep. No Door Into Him threw his third cloth to the ground and went east.
 By the babbling brook that marks the boundary between the kingdom of white butterflies and the kingdom of violet butterflies, No Door Into Him stepped into the water by accident. The guardian of the waterstones rose up and cut a gash in the boy's side, and he could not go on. But No Door Into Him called on the prayer wind of the stinging rain, and he was healed. So he threw his fourth cloth to the ground and went east.
 When the warm season was ending and the first ice came, fire spirits offered warmth to No Door Into Him, in exchange for his promise not to go east. But the boy refused their offer, and called upon the prayer wind of the shining eye to warm him, and so he survived the cold. When the ice melted at the thaw, No Door Into Him threw his fifth cloth to the ground and went east.
 At the great chasm that separates the west from the east, No Door Into Him called upon the prayer wind of the lifting stars to bear him across. Once he reached the other side of the cliff, he threw his sixth cloth to the grouns and went east.
 Near where the sun rises, No Door Into Him lost his ability to speak. He went east, mute. He lost his ability to drink or eat, and he went east, hungry. He lost his ability to return food to the earth, and his ability to give new life into the world. His skin closed up all over, until there were no doors into him. He even lost his eye holes, and went east, blind.
 Without ears nor eyes nor mouth nor bowels nor sex, No Door Into Him was a sealed man, moving east by his sense of touch. He had realized his name; this was the price of going east.
 Now the boy reached the spot where the sun rises. No Door Into Him was blind, so he could not see if it was night or day there, but he touched the ground and it was hot, and so he knew that the sun would soon rise. But he was all closed up. The sun rose, but No Door Into Him could not see or hear its presence. He could only feel its heat on his cheeks.
 No Door Into Him took his dagger and cut his eyes open, and looked atthe sun, and he was blinded by its brilliance. He cut his ears open where they had closed up, and he was deafened bythe hot roar of the rising sun. He cut his mouth open and tasted the fiery sun wind, and his tongue was charred so that he could no longer taste or speak. He cut his bowels open, and reopened his sex, and the sun flowed through him, burning him closed again.
 No Door Into Him came back to the people of the west blind, deaf, without opening or orifice to the world. But his skin was always warm from feeling the sun rise above him, and he could remember the feeling as each of his senses were opened, and then closed again by the beating sun. And he carried a pouch in which, he said, he kept a little piece of the sun which he had stolen from the east.

 When her mother died, she cried a thousand tears, and her tears flowed towards the great sea, leaving a trail of sorrow in their wake. She cried until the emptiness had solidified into a fiery pain, and then she cried hot tears that scorched her face and left scars forever. Even the murmerings of her lover could not console her, and she felt as if the universe had turned into a wasteland of misery.
 As she sat, robbed of all the tears that she could ever contain, an angel appeared behind her. Gratefully, she sank into his arms and slept. And as she dreamed she was healed.

 The Glass Rose is a restaurant in Vethico Tyne which offers a menu of torture and pain, not in any metaphorical sense but in the sense that waiters bring implements of torture to the customer's table there, and hurt them for as long as the customer can afford. It would be incorrect to say that the people of Vethico Tyne desired pain, but nevertheless the restaurant was heavily frequented. Whether through so masochistic despair or because of a deeper driven martyrdom, the bums and drunks and owners and carriage drivers of the dark city kept the place in business with their money, selecting from the menu options like "thumbscrews," "knife," or "boiling oil," or the more expensive "twisting machine" or "violent metal."
 The waiters were trained in all the arts of pain, and knew how to deliver just the right amount of anguish for the money to be paid. The owner was a tall man who wore all black and had fingers that always seemed slightly too long. He owned the Glass Rose but worked there as a waiter, and he was feared and admired alike by the other employees, for he could cause pain like no other worker could.
 When the Glass Rose went out of business, the building did not last long. The man with long fingers and all his waiters disappeared, and the building was blown to shreds in some freak explosion that left a tough, black crater in the center of Vethico Tyne. The hellish city only burnt more to a crisp when a holocaust of dragons emerged from that rough crater, the Chief Rage ridden by the man with long fingers.
 Havoc ensued.

 It is said in Qualifectiori that there is a small hidden town by the sea that escaped the Great War of Six Armies. Many have tried to find it, but all who journey toward the sea in this search return empty-handed with only tales of woe, or do not return at all. It is said that the people of this town, which is known as Ipequana, are very secretive and only wish their privacy. Dubious tales of gruesome destruction come from neighboring lands, and many have emigrated from the vicinity. Still no town has been found along the rocky shores of the great sea and the scientists of Qualifectiori, in their shining silver towers, which recently have been rebuilt, refuse to believe that Ipequana exists.

 Do you know what it is to be taken by a goddess? Do you know what it feels like to have your seed ripped out from inside you and taken into the womb of an angel? Do not speak to me of experiencing the glory of the western sun, Victor. I have had the sun and moon surround me and pull my insides out. I have loved a goddess and experienced that pain. Ask your mother, the goddess of the open heart, if you can find her. Ask her why she did what she did to me. Ask me why I haven't abandoned you long ago. Then come back to me and tell me why my life was destroyed by a goddess of love. Until then, you cannot speak to me of love, or passion, or pain.

 Wolf Child wandered patterns across the land before he saw his own reflection. He was born of no people. He walked on the earth without feeling it beneath his feet. He was lonely.
 In his wanderings he came across the Eagle Maiden. Beautiful was she, and possessing strong, feathery wings that bore her high into the wind with no effort at all. She is not of me, he thought, and he passed on.
 Next he met the Elderly Turtle, who could glide beneath the waterflowers in the river and see mysterious sights below. He is not of me, though Wolf Child, and he wandered on.
 Wolf Child traveled through the seasons, and it was winter. Cold and troubled, he sat beside an icy pool, and stared at the frozen water. "Nothing is of me," he thought. "I must be of a different place, and have only gotten lost here accidentally."
 He set out to find the place from which he came, and retraced his footsteps. He stared into the river and saw that it was long and flowing. He heard it rush across the rocks. He touched its surface, wet and cold. The Wolf Child turned his back and whispered, "this is not of me," and continued on.
 From a mountain peak he watched the clouds drift overhead. He felt the pull of the air currents and heard the roar of the wind. Then he turned his back and shouted, "this is not of me," and wandered on.
 By and by Wolf Child passed into springtime, and came upon the icy pool, now thawed. He fell upon his knees and pleaded, "let me find those who are of me, and where my place is."
 The surface of the pool hardened and was smooth. Boldly Wolf Child approached and saw his own reflection. "That is of me," he said, and thought inside himself for awhile.
 Then Wolf Child continued on his way until he came to the Elderly Turtle. "Good morning to you, Grandfather," he said, and smiled. The Elderly Turtle nodded wisely and handed him a bit of mud from the riverbank.
 Next, Wolf Child came across the Eagle Maiden. "Good afternoon to you, sister," he said, and smiled. She laughed and offered him a bit of fire from the sun. He went his way then, and wandered into a thick woods. Standing, aware, he saw the trees and plants and shadows. He heard the rustles and chirps and buzzing, smelled the earthly forest floor, and tasted safety. "This is my place," he thought, and dropped the Turtle's and Eagle's gifts. The mud became an earthen shelter, and the flame grew large and warming. Wolf Child sat outside his home and basked in the heat of the hearth fire. He was contented.

 At the end of things, the Purposeful asks the sages and wizards of the world to summarize their wisdom in six words. These sixty thousand words are collected and stored in a single vast tome, locked with a key and kept in a golden cloud.
 At the end of things, the Fallen restores order to the world, returning the stories to the storytellers, returning the light to the stars, returning the water to the primal sea. Then the place is dead and dark and dry, and it is locked by another key.
 At the end of things, the eldest takes both the key to the book of the world, with its sixty thousand words, and the key to the world, dead, dark, and dry, and looses them in the foldings of her robes.
 At the end of things, the foolish saves one seed from every species in a glass jar, but forgets where the jar is kept, and the seeds are lost somewhere in the sands of time.
 At the end of things, the child begins again.

 It is three days travel along the length of the river Jaen, from where the waterfall cuts through the clouds and falls into the smoky lower basin to where the river splits in twain at the six monoliths. The length of the entire Jaen, from source to mouth, is twenty times this length, they say. The sun bird can fly thsi distance in one day's time, and they say it takes the sun bird one cycle of the moon fruit to cross the Great Ocean. As the Great Ocean is to the river Jaen, they so, so is this world to that ocean. The world, they say, is but one speck of sand on a vast, pale beach, where the first sea rests its own primal tides. On that sea, they say, a figure walks. This is how the people talk about god.

 Jacqueline drove the jeep up into the driveway and jumped from the car. Her feet hit the ground and she was running up the path through the twilight air and into the house. The smell of blood had already begun to sicken her, but she ignored it, pretending it was some veneer of false pain. They could not be dead.
 Inside the house, the fireplace was still burning, and there was a body pushed halfway into it. Other bodies lay on the floor, there, on the old rug that had been her childhood. Jacqueline didn't scream. She was completely still, observing the death that surrounded her. Claw marks on the couch and bodies meant prines, death wyrms from clear water that threw them up to clean itself. But her rage was not so subtely directed. She counted and identified the bodies from where she stood in the doorframe, unable to enter the room. Her mother, her father, her sister, her uncle, and someone unidentified in the furnace, which would have to be her brother. Her entire family was lying dead before her. Sounds from outside sent Jacqueline out the back window, dropping a few feet onto the grass below. She landed noiselessly.
 Soldiers were entering the house from the front. Rai, by the sound of their walk. The mural had foretold all this, but she was too late. Then time stopped. Her brother's voice upstairs. He was not dead. The last of her family was alive. She didn't stop to consider the body in the fireplace, but jumped up to grab the window above her, and missed.
 She backed away from the window, not letting the tears of impotency come as they had in the past. She looked at the window. She jumped, caught the ledge, swung herself inside, landed silently, heard her brother scream above her, heard him fall to the ground. The warrior's instinct took over. She went out the back window again, onto the field behind the house.
 Jacqueline remembered her days as a child. From her bedroom window, where her brother had just been killed, a person could see the path that led up to the lookout, but not the underbrush behind the path. Jacqueline went into the bramble, crawling on all fours until she came out on the other side of the tree that marked the edge of what you could see from that window. She glanced over her shoulder and ran up to the lookout. She saw the beach below covered in blood. She saw the ships of the Omnark coming in onto the beach. She did not move.
 A throwing knife shot by her left shoulder. A single soldier in green stood on the porch near the lookout. Jacqueline ran towards him, screaming, as if to leap up and attack him. Instead she dove under the porch, rolled out on the other side into the woods and was gone, leaving her family and two armies behind her.
 She had to return to the city.

- THIRD -
There was a Woman in Our Village

 There was a woman in our village, in the time when we lived in the jungle and built structures and discovered our place in the universe. Her name was Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky, and she was a great magician as well as a mathematician. Her home was a tall, brown tower among the trees, and she lived in her observatory. Her walls were covered with strange charts of galaxies and foreign lands, and she had built a telescope with which she could see over the mountains.
 She knew a great many things, like the nature of every animal of the jungle, and the uses of every plant. It was she who identified the nine sacred herbs which the shamans carry in their sun pouches. These herbs are selected from hundreds such plants in the jungle, for their special meanings. Each herb that grew by our village was associated with a power, and therefore a word, such as wind or joy or light or chewing or whispers. Because each spice was a word, a simple language could be built using them. The spice called aantico, which was the sweet breath of the air, could be placed with the seeds of the clypso ("morning") and the tiyka ("bird") to give the image of a bird flying through the sweet morning air.
 Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky knew all the legends of the people by heart, but she was most deeply touched by the story of No Doors Into Him, because, for her, the sense of sight was so important and essential. She could not imagine the self-sufficiency that No Doors Into Him was capable of; he could navigate blind and without ears, and he could think without eating or speaking. Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky was in awe of this ability, and, when she designed an array of herbs for the shamans of our village, she named it the sun pouch, after the puch that No Doors Into Him brought back from the east, which contained the fire of the sun.
 The sun pouch contained extracts from nine plants that grew in the jungle. The first was ahuli, which was the power of strength. Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky included this herb to help shamans withstand their long travels. She also included ayula, which was the power of light, so that the shamans would not be afraid of the night. And because every shaman is a healer, the wise woman included the herb called abapo, which was the power of healing. As an inspiration the the shamans, and to assist them in their visions of sacred design, she tied in the stalk of the flower werala, which was the power of images. Next, she wrapped the other herbs in a leaf of possi, which was the power of the pulse of life, so that the shaman's lifepulse would be everlasting. Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky lined the sun pouch with kebb, a grainy root that was the power of luck, so that the shamans would have good fortune always. Then she dropped a handful of teblen seeds into the pouch, because six teblen seeds was enough to feed a strong shaman for a full day, so replete with minerals and nurturance were the flowers of the teblen trees. When the pouch was finished, Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky tied it shut with a string made from the fibers of the mellia reed, which was the power of calm and tranquility.
 Finally, the wise sage ground the leaves of the lumi bush into the leather of the pouch. This plant was the power of the sun, and Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky knew that it was essential for the sun pouch to represent the fire that No Doors Into Him brought back to the people. These are the nine holy spices, which the shaman carries in the hip-slung sun pouch. Learn them well.

 Dylan had always been outside of everything. Until the time of his birth, no one knew that his mother was pregnant, nor did she remember the event when more than a month had passed. He was raised in the plains by the buffalo, learning their hard step on the earth and how to roar so as to make trees fear the sound. He learned the language by spying on his people, and he was never seen. He learned the art of wielding a dagger from his people, but he did not learn why the dagger was inscribed. He learned what clothes were warm in winter's chill, but now why the cloth was colored and cut as it was. He learned the methods of his people, but not their stories. He learned to live, but not to celebrate. He was alone.
 He was outside the people, outside even the buffalo gods and the powers in the trees. He spoke roughly to their gods, but the people did not notice him. He was invisible to them, fading from their memory even as he left the room. He killed a shaman, once, to get their attention, and was sentenced to exile. After he left, the people forgot the deed.
 Dylan's mother was known to him, but she did not remember, by then, that she had had a child. Dylan decided to seek his father, instead. He went north through the frozen desert and found nothing. He went east to the Great Sea, and found nothing. He went south to the cities, and found nothing. He returned to the west, but it was not his home.
 In his travels, he had heard of all the gods. The omnipotent Gods and Goddesses and the pantheons of gods and goddesses all lay tangled in his mind. He called out to them, each in turn, and swore to pay their due if they would appear. But the road was silent and dry, and the sun was overhead. Dylan called Talen, master-creator, but Talen did not come. He called the Goddess, the great green power called Anandacain, but she did not come. He called upon Myati, the great Lover, but he did not come. He called upon Pacuavero, the architect of stories, but he did not come. He called upon the Fool, and the Fool appeared.
 The Fool wore patches black and white and smiled into the sun as it glistened off the dark and light patches and made them seem colorful. The Fool said: "Dylan, son of Senti of the People and Jack who is Outside, what brings you to call my name and promise me my due?"
 "I want to find my father," Dylan said. "Who is Jack of the outside?"
 "Watch," said the Fool, and waved his hand in front of Dylan's eyes. A sparkle of light seemed to jump from the Foolish hand, and then Dylan's eyes were cleared, and there was a vision. A great ocean, stormy yet calm, washed up on a beach of pastel-colored sand. The sand was arrayed, multifaceted, in mounds and valleys of chaos. But in some patches, a pattern emerged, and it was beautiful. The colored sand twisted around itself, blown by some subtle shifting wind, and the patterns were growing. The patches of order overtook the patches of chaos, and the sand spiraled through and around itself, each colored particle finding its place. There would be order.
 A tiny light jumped from off the crest of the wave and fell onto the shore. From where the light hit, the sand was disrupted, the colors spiraled away, the pattern was destroyed. By the time the tide of the great grey ocean came in, the beach was in disarray.
 The tiny light was a man, tall and thin, himself multicolored, with patches all over his body. He stood in a vast, white room, surveying twists of colors that seemed to emanate from his body. From that room, he was disrupting the order of the universe. And he was barely doing anything, just sitting on a pile of books, holding a saxaphone--also gaudily colored--in his hand.
 Suddenly Five were in the room with him, across the white expanse, stretching as if to cover all four walls and the cieling, one on each side, leaving the multicolored man alone on the floor.
 From a wall, a woman spoke: "For disrupting the universe."
 Another woman: "For disrupting the plan."
 A man: "Exiled from the universe."
 Another: "Exiled from the plan."
 From the cieling: "Stop it, Jack."
 Jack grinned his wide, multicolored grin. "Stop me if you can." Then he was gone, a tiny flash of light again on the beach, still disturbing the pattern and the plan as fast as the Five could bring it together again. And the tide was coming in.
 "That man is your father," the Fool said. Dylan was back on the country road, the sun was almost gone. "We Five are the custodians here: Mage, Keeper, Fallen, Lark, and I the Fool. Jack is outside of our time, outside of our plan. A constant annoyance." The Fool grinned in the semidarkness. "And so are you!" And then he disappeared.
 Dylan wondered what the price would be for this knowledge revealed. The gods always demand some payment, even if they're someone else's gods. For now, Dylan had but one task left: to find the multi-colored man, his father, they'd called him Jack.

 From Jernaht, the last scroll of Samil from the age of Eunephes:
 Into the village at night came the Prines. It was thus that we knew the war had begun. We packed up our belongings, each donned our nine herbs and six cloths and weaponry and made for the encampment. Between high hills we had planned it: a cavern so large as to hold the whole village, our home for the next thirty years. Babes would be born in that cave and wise women die there. We traveled for three days to get there, where our scouts had prepared a large fire. We set up our tents, all facing West, away from the war, because we had not yet had time to build houses.
 As the days passed our scouts watched the war and reported on its development. Six armies had gathered to fight a tremendous war of attrition. The carnage was immense.

 The young girl fled to the sewers and found herself in the deep catacombs beneath the city where she had lived for many years. There were many wonders in the tunnels; other homeless folk and strangely-colored waters and quirks in the design of the tunnels that could not be explained. But the most marvelous discovery by far was the vast mural that stretched for miles through the catacombs.
 She followed it from the first image of the ocean through many scenes of love and triumph and peace and growth and war, around its long circular path to where a flood enveloped the land. The flood became an ocean and the ocean swept onto a shore, and Jacqueline found herself back at the start of the mural, and she began to read it through again. Jacqueline studied its wordless text until she knew its tale by heart--the history of the people of this land.

 I once broke bread with a shaman of the People. It was a great honor--perhaps the greatest I will ever recieve--and I learned much from the experience. I was exploring Huntsman's Wood out past Westcastle Gate, where the beech trees give way to vast tracts of wild oak. There are legends that claim that the People still live out there in the mountains: legends that I now believe.
 The shaman crept silently up behind me, until he stood not more than three feet away. Though my own step was loud with the crunching leaves underfoot, I had not noticed the stranger's approach. "You look weary, friend," the shaman said. "Would you do me the honor of eating with me under this sun?" At that point I did not recognize his tribe.
 The shaman wore brown leather strips wrapped around him, on his feet and at his waist, where a loincloth covered him. Six colored scraps of cloth dangled from him, at each ankle, wrist, across his chest, and one around his forehead, surrounding a shock of light brown hair. At his hip was a small pouch of yellow leather, and an old, grey knife.
 As we sat and took our provisions from our bags--I pulling a sandwich from my pack and he removing a handful of seeds from the pouch at his hip--he spoke: "I will tell you six stories before we part."
 "Great," I nodded. I collect stories.
 "Lyo was the first of our people. She was the daughter of the sky and the child of the earth, and she grew up in the mountains. When she was thirteen, she had to go down into the forest and visit with the civilization that lived there. Each day she would go down to the towns below, and each evening she would return and weep on a great stone that lay high in the mountains. She knew that she did not fit in among the animals of the mountain, but she did not feel comfortable in the forest towns. She felt as if she could have no home. Her tears went deep into the rock, but the rock was always silent.
 "One day, when Lyo came up from the forest villages, she found a strange leaf on the silent rock. The leaf had fallen from a tree that towered a hundred feet above the rock. Lyo had never seen that kind of leaf before. She began to suck at the tough strands that made up the leaf, and soon she had made herself several lengths of strong thread.
 "Finally, Lyo had to go down into the forests for good. She decided that the last thing she would do in the mountains would be to make a thread out of that stringy plant material. She worked on the cloth for a full cycle of the moon fruit, and when she was done, she had a fine patch of cloth. She wrapped this patch around herself for courage, and descended into the forests. She never returned to the mountains after that, as long as she lived. But she had learned the prayer of the silent rock."
 I looked questioningly at the shaman. What did this story mean?
 The shaman gestured to the green cloth tied around his left ankle.
 "Antasi was the first leader of the people," the shaman began again. He found the river Jaen and followed it to the valley, where the people lived for many years. He ferried the people back and forth across the river Jaen, and brought the people to their first home. He ruled wisely and well. When he was old, the people decided to bring him a gift. They sent five warriors out in secret, to hunt the running mists that travel quickly through the valley of the Jaen. The first warrior was attacked by bears. The second warrior was drowned. The third warrior starved, and the fourth warrior was lost. Only the fifth warrior survived, and returned with one of the running mist. She brought the mist to the Antasi, the leader, who now lay on his death bed. She thought that he could use it to save himself.
 "But Antasi knew the ways of the running mists, and knew that only by bargaining with it for its freedom could he profit by its capture. Antasi made the running mist teach him a certain weave of cloth, before he set it free. At the end, he dragged himself into a sitting position so that he could see the mist, through his window, flying away into the forest.
 "As he died, he summoned his daughter to his side, and told her what he had made. He gave her the white cloth that the mist had taught him to sew. In this way he passed on the prayer of the running mists." The shaman gesture to the white cloth that adorned his right ankle, and continued.
 "The first shaman of the people was a young woman named Nilla. She did not scorn the lives of the people, working as farmers and living on fruits and nuts, but she knew that it was not for her. The first time she went into the deep woods outside the valley, she was gone for half a cycle of the moon fruit. But her parents knew better than to look for her. They could only remain at home and worry.
 "Nilla had a vision on her sixth night away in the deep forest. She saw a great ocean, and watched millions of tiny asteroids plunge into its cool depths. She saw islands form from these pellets, and grow thick and wide. She saw the islands merge, and form larger islands, and then continents. Then she saw fruit and animals spring forth on the land.
 "She returned to the people and taught them what she had learned. She told them the story of each island, its people and its gods, and explained the significance of each tale. She taught them about the creation, and about the falling rocks that brought life to the cool, grey shifting waters of the open sea.
 "One day, when Nilla was living as a sage in the village of the people, a woman came from the Great Ocean onto the land, and the people knew that she was Bouri, Goddess of the Great Ocean. She did not stay long, but when she left, twelve of the people followed her into the sea. Eleven of them were never seen again. Nilla returned, many years later, and she brought stones from the bottom of the sea, those crashing stones that had not floated and become islands.
 "These rocks were purple and bright, and Nilla had carried them in a purple shawl." The shaman gestured to the purple cloth on his left wrist. "And that is how the people learned of the prayer of the sparkling rocks."
 Here the shaman paused to eat a couple of the seeds he held in his hand, chewing them slowly and thoughtfully. Then he went on. "The people lived for a time in prosperity, and their ruler was Y'nfes. She was the wisest ruler the people had known since Antasi who had bargained with the mist. Her story is short, though her life was long. The stinging rain plagued the valley, and she saved the people from it, by asking for help from the Sky Lark who rules the winter night. She passed on this wisdom, and so the people learned of the prayer of the stringing rain." The shaman gestured to the grey cloth on his right wrist, and went on.
 "When the cold came to the valley of the river Jaen, the people had to move on. But the winter was hard, and the frozen desert surrounded their homes. They had no way to cross the vast icy tracts of land. They tried all their magic, but they could not survive. The people were dying.
 "Finally, when only half of the original village remained on the icy trail across the frozen desert, a man appeared in front of the traveling party. He was the god Myati, lover of the goddess Bouri, and he lent them his eye for the journey. The eye glowed with warmth and light and healing power, and allowed the people to cross the icy plains.
 "The eye rested on a piece of red cloth, and when Myati took his eye back from the people, on the other side of the desert, he left the cloth with them. That is how the people learned of the prayer of the shining eye." The shaman gestured to the red cloth that covered his forehead. He chewed the last seeds joyfully before continuing with his tales.
 "Later, the people lived in a jungle. They built structures there, and it was there that they began to study the stars and create numbers and theory. There was once a brilliant mathematician in the jungle village of the people, and she slept in her observatory. She built the people's first telescope, and discovered the planets for which we named our nine spices.
 "There was a time, in that jungle, when mathematics mingled with magic, and miracles were worked. The brilliant woman would meet all kinds of people in her observatory, from shamans to scientists and from storytellers to priests. Anyone who could make it through the jungle was welcome in her home.
 "When she left the people to go east in an expedition to recover the past of the people, she taught her apprentices a certain trick she had learned. Although her expedition never returned, her disciples passed down their knowledge through the generations. That is how the people learned of the prayer of the lifting stars." The shaman gestured to the black cloth that crossed his chest. Then he was standing up, though I had not seen him rise.
 The sun was near to setting by that point. "Good night," the shaman of the people said to me. "May you follow the sunbird your whole life, and never know it." Then he was gone, fallen back into the shadow of some great tree, and I left to wander back home in the darkness and ponder the stories of ancient people.

 Long high on the tower she had stood, imperfectly surveying the bloody mass below her, until finally her stomach's knawing, wrenching agony got the best of her and she descended the long narrow cliff into the body-peppered grounds below the castle. There a bard met her with a lute and was rudely dismissed by her icy glare, and she saw the cook flee from the lower levels of the bastion. She kicked a corpse and it rolled over. It was the face of her father that greeted her, smiling in a bawdy death mask of unfinished pain. She grimaced, was no longer hungry, moved on.
 He watched her from the lower field where he lay drenched in mud and weeping. A sword pierced his gut but he ignored the pain. All that mattered was that he reach the top of the hill and speak to her. But he could not move.
 She was hungry, saw some bitter slave moving below a pile of slaughtered bodies and laughed at it. Poor, dead fool. But the battle was finished, after all, and there might be some chance for the groaning brute to live. She took her dagger from her side, finished the job, grimaced, moved on. She looked to the lower fields.
 There was something standing, wobbling, no post, no spear; but a human, trembling, stood from the broken bodies strewn around. He came towards her, impossibly, struggling through obvious pain. His eyes were wild and reflected the sun at her. He sped up, moving quickly now, dragging a longsword behind him. No; the sword was stuck inside him. He wrenched it from his body, moved on towards her.
 "Kindle!" she called to him, almost smiling, wanting to appear malicious but not wicked. "What brings you here?"
 He did not speak, did not acknowledge her words. He moved calmly towards her. He came upon the Mound of Dreyfus, pulled himself up it. For a moment his shadow on the tiny hill reminded her of the first time she had looked out the North window of the East tower and seen Gregory stab a small mist dragon with his knife. Kindle approached her, pulled his knife from his side.
 "Bitch," Kindle said. "I love you." He collapsed.
 Long high on the hill there she stood, waiting for his body to turn cold. Finally she dropped her own knife by his side. Looked to the West, saw the sun go down; moved on.

 The people have a complex language to describe angels, the way cultures living in icy regions have vast vocabularies for snow, or cultures involved in the creation of new technology require whole new libraries of terms for their devices. The people have words for angels of heaven, angels of earth, and angels of the in-between. They speak of would-be angels and once-were angels, risen mortals and fallen deities who walk as lonely angels on a medium plane. They distinguish between mythical angels, historical angels, and eternal angels, and between angels that speak to humans, angels that sing to humans, and angels that are silent. The people have more words meaning "angel" than they have words to catalog all forms of weapons and tools.
 The people speak of the angel Sala, who lights the way for travelers on midnight roads. They speak of the angel Tala, who sings into the ears of lovers watching sunsets far apart. They speak of the angel Nett, who dances on the whitecaps that form on a stormy sea, and of Sey, who catches drops of blood as they fall to the ground and converts them to water to protect the innocence of the bloodless earth. They speak of the angel Myrai, who catches the talca spice thrown over the shoulder of a sailor for good luck, and of the angel Naphte, who comforts daughters when their lovers' murmers are of no help against the painful death of a parent. They speak of the angel Uyi, who comforts twins when the struggle for individuality brings brothers to angry jealousy.
 They speak of these angels and more, never telling how much they believe. "Do you really think that all these angels exist?" some unthinking passerby may ask, and the speaker will nod. "Of course they do. Doesn't a sunset comfort you? Doesn't the smell of a mossy forest after rain remind you of your childhood? These things are angels."

 The old woman eased herself into the cold pool slowly, like mud sliding lazily into a puddle. She grimaced with the temperature of the water, but it had to be born. Each day the cold water sent a shiver up her wrinkled spine, and each day she grimaced and bore it. The years had not been kind to her bones or skin, but her mind and will were intact.
 The pond was small and circular, hidden in a grove of trees behind the Western Gate of the castle. Grand hemlocks tightly planted blocked the turrents and spires of the castle from view. The day was fair, and the air mild.
 "Permission to approach," a sentry requested from within the grove of trees. Though the woman was naked and ugly, she had no compuction against letting her subjects gaze on her.
 "Come," she said. A young man with dark hair and sharp eyes entered the clearing. She did not know or care what he thought of her aged, dissipated body. If he had commented on it, he would have been executed. Instead, he gave his report.
 "The fourth battallion is in the northern mountains near the Tieth Macabra, fighting the emerald soldiers under dire circumstances. Ammunition is low and ambushes are destroying an average of six platoons every week. The ninth regiment is in the area, by the Pool of Jacordan. General Comensor of the ninth regiment requests permission to send reinforcements to the fourth battallion through Smint Pass."
 "No," the woman replied immediately. "Send the fourth battallion into the heart of the mountains and wait. Have the regiment draw the emerald soldiers down there with them and blast the length of the valley, north to south."
 "There's no need to send the fourth battallion to certain death--" the messenger began. The Omnark had been staring into the pool before her. Now she looked at the messenger and raised a single eyebrow. The messenger grunted a "yes, sir," and bolted from the clearing back into the grove of trees surrounding it.
 She was losing the war. Her only chance was to act wildly and with daring, butchering her own armies to show the enemies that she had no pity and make them believe that her forces were greater than they were. She had nothing to lose by such gambits: a dead, old woman in a cold pool behind a castle somewhere. She would be dead soon, she knew. Before she died she would ensure that her name would be remembered.

 I look up through the bars of my cage and see the stars glowing above, individual points in the caky black night. The air is as oil poured into my lungs, but this is as much for lack of water as because of the fetid quality of the air. I have had nothing to drink in over a day -- water is scarce in this desert, and the captured Knights of Jacqueline naturally are overlooked in favor of the Prines.
 My cage feels tight about me, although I am lucky compared to others. If I stretch my arms I can just touch opposite corners of my confinement. I wonder at the arrangement. What un-thought-of escape is being prevented by placing the cages with their top surfaces level with the ground? Perhaps it is to avoid communication with the other prisoners. Suddenly I feel very alone. I do not know which other Knights have been captured, if any at all. Surely not Jacqueline herself. I saw her in a deadly fight with a Prine just before I was captured. The weapons I did not recognize. The Prine had a set of close-range darts, probably poison, that he was aiming with great skill at his opponent. Jacqueline wielded a large triangular device, curved and sharpened on all three sides that she used both for offense and as a shield.
 A shadow comes over my cage as I stare up in thought. From where I stand it seems as if the stars are blinking out, but it is only a dark, shapeless prine, jet black as the night. I realize what it is only when it drops down my nightly ration: two stale crusts of bread. They fall to ]the floor, hard and inedible, and I am determined not to eat them. My resolve lasts all of two seconds as my ravenous hands greedily grab at the tough crusts and push them toward my mouth. The desert night is hot and dry. I feel dejected, the very corners of my mouth pulled down as my body sinks into the deep corners of my cage. What use is a prisoner? How can I, Ambri, justify my existence as a Knight of Jacqueline, sitting dejected in a cage while she could be in peril? But already prison has changed me. My so far short confinement has given me the chance to escape from the battle fields, and already I am afraid. If I escape, I will again have to be heroic, have to find and give my life for Jacqueline and the Cause. Here, where I have no water and am caged as an animal, I can do nothing, and must do nothing. There is no war in my cage.

 "Twenty."
 "That's a hell of a long time. What'd you do?"
 "Don't wanna talk about it. Made some mistakes. Some foolish mistakes."
 "Yeah. Yeah, so do we all. Look at me. I'm almost out of here, but what do I have to look forward to? I fucked everything over five years ago, and what now? This place takes everything away. It takes anything that you might have left and snatches it. Gone. Gone. That's it."
 "You're making me feel a lot better."
 "Sorry. It's hard to talk about anything else in this place."
 "Yeah. Twenty. Twenty goddamned fucking years. What the fuck am I gonna do in here for twenty years? I haven't even lived that long."
 "Your record said you would be twenty next week."
 "How'd you get my record? They said that was confidential."
 "I've been here a long time."
 "I could take up making chain mail. I love that stuff. It makes you look tough. Then, when I leave --"
 "Yeah, when you leave. Have fun."
 "Don't you get out in a few months? Whatcha going to do?"
 "Yeah, they're gonna make me leave in a few months."
 "Make you leave? Aren't you dying to get out? C'mon, five years of your life -- but now you're gonna get it back."
 "Get it back. You'll learn. There's nothing to get back anymore. They take everything away. How would I live? There's nothing. Nothing."
 "C'mon, you got a wife, don't you?"
 "Yeah, I got some lousy bitch. Or I did. She stopped calling me after the first year."
 "She doesn't visit?"
 "No."
 "Twenty years. Fuck."
 "It could be worse." "How?"
 "You could have five."
 "You're crazy. You're screwy in the head. You've been in here too long. You don't know what you're talking about. If I had five I'd get out of here."
 "When you're there, you'll know. They take everything away. There's nothing to go back to. The world, it gets -- big."
 "Yeah, I know, that's why I wanna be there. You're weird. This place really got to you. I'm not gonna be like that. I've got my beliefs, and I'm gonna stick with them. I have a life and I don't want to stay in this fucking place."
 "So what did you do?
 "Why are you so eager to know? You keep a journal?"
 "I like to keep track of folks."
 "Well, some people like their privacy."
 "You'll tell me."
 "Look, just 'cause you've been here five years already doesn't mean you can scare me with some little words about a big world. I've got a name out there, and no one's gonna take that away from me. And cut the crap about what I did."
 "Why are you here?"
 "I'm innocent."
 "Like hell."
 "Look, people fuck up. People make mistakes."
 "And people tell lies."
 "Yeah."
 "I'm scared."
 "What, you trying to scare me? Get me to be a weak fairy like you?"
 "No. I'm just scared. I've only got three more months."
 "And I've got twenty years."
 "Lucky bastard."
 "Lucky bastard."

 The angel Uyi told a tale:
 "This is my greatest grief, how two mortals bound together with ties greater than either knew killed each other for lack of understanding. I came upon them in their confinement and gave them a great choice to which they knew not how to respond. This is what transpired.
 "The brothers who had not faced each other in months looked each other finally in the eye. Geylen was the stronger, but Rabes the wiser. They circled each other slowly like wolves, sizing each other up in body and mind. Though they hated each other with all of their hearts, each knew the other better than he knew even himself.
 "They had no need for words, for their communication in hatred was perfect. Each knew that he had faced the greater perils, fought the bravest battles, and bested dire enemies. Each had a purpose which was greater than the world.
 "Each claimed to be the father of the Knight Jacqueline, born to Rolya of Qualifectiori. Each had been her lover, and the issue that resulted had grown to great prominence. Now they were both facing imprisonment for even the Omnark Antisage knew not which had committed the great crime of fathering the toppler of his Omnarky.
 "Each had lived a varied life, Rabes wandering between worlds and finding heroes, living for a time in one world and for a time in another. Geylen had traveled among immortal things, men with long fingers and squishy things that thrived in the dark, stopping only here or there to form brief alliances of beauty and rapture.
 "Each had lived a long life, and each knew that he was right. Each understood the other perfectly, but could not accept what he knew. They fell to vicious blows, and both were mortally wounded. Still they did not speak, and only lay together, silently dying.
 "This is my greatest sorrow," said the angel Uyi.

 Tibep was only a young Prine when the lifeblood was stolen. He wasn't even a real Prine yet, but only a Jyuk and still in training. So he was surprised when he was chosen to be part of the vanguard of the force to invade Traterriatriat. Two days before, a grievous crime had taken place: a human of the city of Traterriatriat had taken and consumed a part of the lifeblood of the Prines. No crime so great had ever come to pass in all history. The lifeblood, so pure and clean and glowing with the blue mineral Sunan, the only vehicle, the air, the water, the food, the blood, the very substance of the Prines, had been taken. The wise Prines immediately knew the grave consequences of such an act, but the younger ones, still Jyuks, such as Tibep, did not at first understand. Within a few days, all were convinced. The birthing Prines had ceased to produce, and there was great unrest in the underground sea. Prines became annoyed at one another and fought easily. A people who were usually peaceful could not be content until all of their lifeblood had been returned.
 Tibep was among the first to understand this. Valuable time had been lost in the two days since The Great Crime. Although the siege of Traterriatriat proved successful and all the humans were dead or had fled within hours of when Tibep and the vanguard had first entered the city, still not all the lifeblood was recovered. Drops had been dispersed here and there, and those that had fled the city had unwittingly taken some of it with them.
 Meanwhile, in the great underground sea, unrest grew. The birthing Prines remained sterile and fights broke out with greater and greater frequency. Another effect of the missing lifeblood, even now that most of it had been recovered from the body of the human, was discovered. The plants of hunari, on which the Prines depended for food, were flagging in their growth, and many Prines were going hungry. The elder Prines met together on the third day and declared a holy war. Until all of the lifeblood had been recovered and the birthing Prines could produce again, until the hunari plant would grow again, until Prines could again live without conflict, an immense war would be undertaken to scour the world from corner to corner, edge to edge, in search of the lifeblood.
 A blaze of the most courageous Prines set out immediately, 998 in number and immense in force. Tibep was among them, the only Jyuk allowed the privilege of vindicating his people in the search for the lifeblood. They flowed out into the city, dark and scaly and silent, genderless as all Prines. They would scour the continent until they could return successful or die in the process.

  Mystical land of fairytale rhyme
  My own sweet kingdom, succumb to time
  Sand trickles softly, sad, sublime
  Trace away the distant chime
  Let the dark veil fall over wonder

 In the city of Wonder, many many years before this time, there was a beautiful garden, tended by the citizens, and touched lightly by the spirits and fairies who were never far away. The people sang as they worked, weeding and watering, planting and reaping. But the city had not always been this way.
 Once the city of Wonder had been a desolate place. Hatred ran unhindered through the streets, scattering the seeds of discontentment into every household. No one was welcome in the city, and no one was happy. The people moaned at the sorry state of their existence, but never once considered escape. They had forgotten that the world was far wider than their unhealthy piece. One morning that could have been just the same as any other, but certainly was not, a brightly clothed man danced into the city's shabby streets, and in the very center he sat down. The people glared with obvious mistrust. They went about their gloomy business, whispering visciously about the intruder. Still he sat, until, almost accidentally, a child offered him a smile. Then, bounding up with incredible glee, the multicolored man grasped the child's hand, and into it he pressed an assortment of strangely-shaped seeds, like none the child had seen before. "Plant these," he said. "If you want to save your city."
 And so the Garden of Wonder was born. The child tended the seedlings every day, and the love the plants gave in return seeped through every crack in the city's bitter shell, and the people's joy returned. The flowers bloomed and dropped their seeds. Soon the entire population was required to properly attend the expanding garden. Smiles became commonplace, but were never taken for granted. Laughter rang through the city, and the people discovered their song. As the garden flourished and blossomed, the spirit of the city did as well. The fairies deemed the place worthy of their presence, and soon all sorts of magical beings were passing through. The people came to discover that all they needed and desired could be found in the central garden. This is how the city of Wonder came to be a place of growth and joyous prosperity.

 Goddfrey worked on the ship The Keeper's Lock, which ferried around the port city, offering rides of varying lengths out and back into the Great Ocean, and occasionally providing a means other than the two bridges by which to cross from Thalian into the City of Merchants, also called Parate Thalian. The Keeper's Lock was a sturdy raft, fairly large but just small enough to fit into the northern dock of the city, rather than having to port in the eastern dock, where all the great freight ships came in.
 The sailor's red hair covered his head a fiery blast, and his eyebrows and bushy mustache also were the color of fire on a summer night. He had just left the last batch of passengers on the dock in Thalian, and was heading back around in the port city for the night, when he saw the flags across the city. He was on the western side of the penninsula city, and, although the buildings were not high, they blocked off his view of anything on the other side. Nevertheless, Goddfrey saw a green flag raised high in the night, and it did not come from any building he had known. Looking closer at it, he saw that it was on the other side. In other words, it was born in the ocean by some vast ship coming into the eastern dock. But what ship could possibly be so huge?
 Goddfrey swung the boat around the island and passed by the northern dock. He wanted to see this ship come in. But as he rounded the corner of the island, he thought for a moment that he had completely forgotten the lay of the land; that the mainland curved around here, and touched the city. The ship in the eastern dock was approximately as large as the city itself, stretching out far into the ocean to the east and occupying the entire eastern dock with a part of itself that stuck out from the rest of the ship.
 Even in the light of the setting sun, Goddfrey could see that the ship was emerald. From it, streaming onto the dock, came soldiers wearing green. They arranged themselves in formation, and other figures, in darker cloaks--still green--disembarked. Goddfrey sailed around the entire emerald ship that night, looking it over from where its translucent hull fell into the water to where its many masts and structures rose high into the air. He kept The Keeper's Lock a good distance from the ship, and sailed around it, docking in a lesser dock in eastern Thalian. Then he fled the city, running only from a feeling of impending doom.
 Behind him, the vast emerald armies of Raiku torched the city of merchants, burnt the docks, and smashed the headquarters of the Guild of Mercantile Affairs. They laid waste to the residential areas and merchant districts with no discrimination. By the time they were done, fleeing residents of Parate Thalian had burnt the two bridges behind them, but the Rai erected their own bridges and crossed over onto the mainland.
 Havoc ensued.

 Matt stumbled in through the kitchen door, slamming the screen behind him and walking, wavering, towards the fridge. He took a beer--his eighth that day--and chugged it down, quickly. Then he sat, suddenly, on the kitchen floor, lying back against the table and hitting his head. "Ow!" he shouted, and slammed his fist up at the table, bruising his knuckles. He stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the sudden pain.
 There was a white moth fluttering around in the kitchen. Matt reached out, lazily, to catch it, and missed. He saw another one out of the corner of his eye. He swore softly at the moths. A third one appeared. They were beautiful, tiny creatures, delicate and white and glimmering in the ugly light of the kitchen. Matthew didn't trust them. They were too cute.
 Matt tried to stand up, but stumbled, and sat back down on the cold floor. He hadn't realized he was this drunk. "Matthew Perkins Rabes," he admonished himself, trying not to slur his words. "Get up right now and go upstairs to bed." Again, he tried to stand. There were many white moths, now, in the kitchen.
 This time he managed to stand, and got himself to the stairs, where he had to pause. He started to mumble about needing another beer, but stopped. It required too much energy to speak. He pulled himself up the stairs. The moths followed behind him, filling in the stairway with their bright fluttering wings. Matt eased himself onto bed and rolled over. He opened one eye to look at the door through which he had come. It was slightly ajar.
 Through the tiny crack where the door opened into the hallway, the moths streamed in. Like a waterfall viewed sideways, their bubbling paleness frothed in through the door and fell sideways into the room. They swirled around the lamp and onto the ceiling. They cascaded onto the floor. They passed over the bed, where Matthew lay, but they did not touch him. He mumbled something, swearing to himself about having to get an exterminator first thing tomorrow for this damn moth infestation. Gloria would be home later, she could take care of him. He was busy job-hunting. Besides, he needed a drink.
 The moths were coming together somehow. Forming a shape in the corner of the room. They flew together and melded in the center, growing, a white wispy form. Hidden by the shadows, Matt could only make out this shape's outline. It was a figure of some sort, indistinctly formed. When Matt tried to catch a glimpse of some part of this body, a moth would fly in front of him, blocking off his sight. He couldn't get a clear look. he let his head fall back onto the bed, and he stared up at the ceiling.
 A voice came from the moths, pale and shimmering like the creatures themselves. "Mattias," said the whiteness that shrouded the room. "Wake up."
 Matthew woke up. The room was empty, and no moths were in sight. He stared for a few seconds into the corner where the figure had stood. Then he sat up, no longer so confused, and went into the bathroom, where he rested his head against the mirror cabinet, and then took a long drink of cool water from the tap. It was time, finally, to bring the girl to the City. It was time to visit his niece.

 From the unearthly palor of extreme discontent bubbled forth an exuberance of imagination. Magic flooded throughout the hills and a hundred butterflies rose bravely to ride the wind. In that span, the sands of time were scattered loosely across the globe, and continuity was lost. But the fragmented waves of story grew on their own, like ashes which, carried by the rolling wind, spark new fires in distance regions.
 A girl named Grace lived in this time, in a small village that clung to the rock shore of the Great Ocean. The village was called Pequana. Grace was aware of the chaotic sands of time, for her grandmother had explained their nature to her. But she did not understand how grave the situation was.
 Once, when Grace was picking flushberries in the forest, she accidentally upset one of the grains of time. She saw the path before her wobble, and then tumble away like a pebble on a beach. Behind where she had been was a field, and above the field was a castle. Grace had never been to this place before, and she could not see any way to return to her home. The sands of time had been disrupted, and she had become lost in the sea of places and histories. Whose story was this? she wondered.
 Grace went into the castle and spoke to the King that lived there. "Where can I find the being that scattered the grains of time?" she asked him. He sighed.
 "I do not know," he said. "The Goddess moves in mysterious ways. But if you can tell me which of my daughters is the eldest, then I will ask the Goddess to speak to you."
 "Who are your daughters?" asked Grace.
 "One daughter is Night, and the other is Autumn," said the King.
 Grace went out of the castle and down through the field and the city below. She passed through the city and found a tiny hut by the side of a wooded grove. Inside there was a wise man. Grace could tell that he was wise because he smelled of cauldron-flower and gripseed, just as Nilla Marcela always did. "Please tell me," Grace asked him, "which is older, night or autumn?" The old man sighed.
 "I will tell you which is the elder," the wise man said, "if you will answer me three questions." Grace nodded. "First," the wise man began, "who are you?"
 "I am Grace," she said.
 "Where are you from?"
 "From Pequana," she said.
 "Why?"
 Grace was stumped. She shrugged. She frowned. The wise man grinned at her. "Because," she said. "Just because I am."
 "No," said the wise man. "That is not right. But I will tell you anyway who is the elder twin. Listen close." He bent down and whispered in her ear. "Autumn is younger, because night has been around since the first summer. But night is also younger, because she has not lived a single day. Autumn is the elder, because her leaves are falling out like hair, and she is bald. But night is also older, because the first ocean slept for thirteen nights before the sun rose up from behind it."
 Grace went back into the city and up the hill, through the field and into the castle, where she spoke to the King. "Autumn is younger," she said, "because night has been around since the first summer. But night is also younger, because she has not lived a single day. Autumn is the elder, because her leaves are falling out like hair, and she is bald. But night is also older, because the first ocean slept for thirteen nights before the sun rose up from behind it."
 "Thank you," said the King, and he prayed before his jewel-encrusted altar to the Goddess above.
 That night, as Grace slept in a canopy bed in the castle of the King, the Goddess appeared to Grace. "Hello, daughter," she said. "What can I answer for you?" Grace asked about the sands of time. She wanted to go home to Pequana. "Child," said the Goddess, "Time is made of tiny stones on the beach of the first ocean. In your time, the sands are mixed about, and straying too far can bring an explorer out of their story, and into another tale. In the time of your grandmother, time was even more chaotic, still. Your grandmother found a magic by which she could manipulate the grains of time. She and her followers became great through that magic. And in the time of your granddaughter, time will be more compact. When the final night closes on this beach, the sands will all be in order. Like a necklace made at last, the beads will finally fit into their pattern. Trust in that. One day the sands of time will be collected, and then the tide will come in on the smooth, pale shore of the first ocean, and wash the pattern away, and magic will flood the bumpy land again, and the sands will start to fit themselves into a new pattern. For now, return to your story. You have much to do."
 Grace found herself in the forest by the flushberry bramble. Soon she was back in Pequana. She went directly to the home of Nilla Marcela, the wise woman. "Nilla," she called into the hut from the outside. The door was opened, and Grace stepped into the smell of cauldron-flowers and gripseed. Grace asked Nilla what the wise man had asked her. "Why am I who I am, and where I am from?"
 Nilla Marcela sighed, "Because," she breathed. "Just because you are."
 "But the wise man said that wasn't the reason!" Grace protested.
 "You were in the wrong story," Nilla explained, "where you weren't supposed to be. Therefore you were whom you weren't meant to be, and that's never 'just because.'"
 From that time one, Grace was careful never to disturb the sands of time.

 The lion pawed the dirt with his tremendous yellow claw. Behind him, the cliffs fell backwards into the infinite sea. On the path there stood a woman of some kind, gazing with force into the tawny eyes of the lion. She tasted his breath, she felt his encompassing warmth. She defeated him. She slept by the wayside of the road, dreaming of lion cubs.

The Turtle said:  The sky is yellow because I peed in it.
And the Mouse replied: No, it is red with my blood.
The Turtle said:  The ocean is salty with my tears.
And the Mouse replied: No, it has iron because I am strong.
The Turtle said:  The elephant is my friend, because I was kind to it.
And the Mouse replied: That is because I scare the elephant.
The Turtle said:  Time moves because I breathed it.
And the Mouse replied: Time is sand.
A bell rang and a god appeared to them. The apparition swayed from side to side, saying, "Shihlaeleut Anandacain Timarcalaeus," over and over again. Then all was dark.
The Turtle said: I am god.
And the Mouse replied: Andala of the clipped wings and Naranhei of the clay are my only masters.

 When the people were six families together, Antasi did not believe that they could be led. The family of Lyaro was not interested in hunting or growing crops. They dreamed all day and slept in the grass. The family of Alya could not be made to move or change themselves. They were stubbornly attached to their land and to their lives. The family of Enilyo could not content themselves with staying in one place. They were restless and felt the wild calling them outside. The family of Ley did not believe in any gods, but studied all their lives to create devices and tools that served no purpose. The family of Enliy mistrusted tools of stone and wooden devices. They believed in the power of the running mists and in the wisdom of the deities. Antasi's family felt alone. They knew that it was important that the people stay together, but the families were so different, and argued so much of the time.
 One night, Antasi had this dream: he saw a golden bird fly over him, and land beside a tree. He saw it become a dancing man in a many-colored suit. The dancing man approached him. He took six cards from his many-colored vest and showed them to Antasi. The first card showed the sun, and the second card showed the moon. The third card showed an eye and the fourth card showed a wheel. The fifth card showed a key, and the sixth card showed the outline of the figure of a tiny dancing man.
 The man placed the first five cards on top of the sixth card, and the pack of cards became a morsel of food. The man ate the morsel of food and then he showed Antasi each of his limbs. On his ankles were the sun and moon. On his palms were the eye and wheel. On his chest was the key, and on his forehead was the symbol of the dancing man. Then the man became a golden bird and flew away.
 When Antasi woke up, he made this announcement to his people: "The family of Lyaro that dreams of histories that never were shall be the storytellers of our people, and they shall not work in the fields nor hunt in the woods. The family of Alya that loves the land shall grow our seeds and grain, and we shall live here in the valley. The family of Enilyo that wanders in the wild shall hunt our game and bring us news of distant lands. They will not remain in the valley with us, but they will be of our people, wherever they are, for they shall not forget our people's stories. The family of Ley that creates its own designs shall build machines and tools for our people to use. The family of Enliy that loves the wisdom of nature shall be our shamans, and they shall guide us and bring us the council of the wolves and sparrows. And I shall be your leader."
 So Antasi brought the people together in the valley.

 It That Cannot Be Known Or Understood said: "Let there be a spark that can bring forth lucious beauty, let that spark begin at the center, let it expand, let it whirl, and let it grow. Let there be a force that cannot be reckoned, let that force blow through the spark, and change it, let it be eternal, let it have meaning." Thus was the heart of the universe created, that could explode, and life, that could explore. The voice that made these things was paradoxical and unreasonable, so we call it the Lark.
 It That Cannot Be Known Or Defeated said: "Let there be matter that flies in this space like sand through clouds, let that matter join and fuse and break apart, let it be unstable and perfect, let it have power." Thus were the stars and planets created, and the sun. The voice that made these things was potent and wise, so we call it the Sage.
 It That Cannot Be Known Or Remembered said: "Let there be change that is not change, that is bound by its own laws, that governs the shape of things, let that change be long and slow, let it be eternal." Thus was time created, and the days and nights and the ticking of a clock, and the difference between today and yesterday. The voice that made these things was protective and secret, so we call it the Key.
 It That Cannot Be Known Or Pitied said: "Let there be innocence and pain, joy and wisdom, let the spark be neither good nor evil, but always striving to be understood. Let nothing be true nor false, let there be no simple answers but only riddles that lead to greater questions still." Thus was the nature of spirit created, that cannot be satisfied, yet never ceases to try. The voice that made these things was cold and unfathomable, so we call it the Frost.
 It That Cannot Be Known Or Denied said: "Let there be sunlight on the faces of newborn mice. Let there be red leaves in autumn that crunch beneath feet and paws alike. Let there be shadows and blood and eyes and questions. Let there be what is." Thus was the universe brought into clarity. The voice that made these things was young and bright, and wrote in luminous ink across the page of the world, so we call it the Quill.

 I am the architect of this country. Every rafter you see in every major city, every road that spirals unreasonably through the countryside, and every village layout is mine. Not because I drew the actual plans or drafted the architectural designs--though I did that too, in most of the cities here--but because the very concept of this country is mine. I created it, in the city of Clario, at the university there, long before the war.
 Now I rest here, in the Tythe Macabre, hidden in the mountains of the Mokillimije. I watch my land through foreign eyes and through the messages of my network, and my friends. I stay here because it would be unfortunate if the architect died in the war of his own design. I started the war, the way I built my cities. Hiding the mural in the catacombs under the silver city... Building the desert village right on top of the passage into the Old Sea... and selling the rights to the central block of Vethico Tyne to old devils with long fingers, made long by strangling the thick necks of hundreds of lesser beasts.
 When I return, the land will be bloody, and I apologize for that. But the iron hand of the monarch they call the Omnark--whose name only I can speak, of all living people--was too much for me, and, as chief architect, I had to move to do something. I only pray that I was not too late.

 The Seeds of Dream:
 I had, for several nights, visited the same dream, which I think must be from some other land deep in dream's kingdom. In it I held a seashell--to our people, such an unfamiliar word! I've only seen one four times in my life--and I was...you'll have to forgive me. The languages of the kingdom of dreams are always difficult to figure into our own wooden, twiggy(ish) tongue. I am holding this shell and attempting to trace the lines of symmetry which are mixed into the leafstrewn forest floor. I must hold the shell a certain way and compare it to the dark telling tongues of the trodden ground, and I will be told the song of the lines of symmetry when I am standing correctly. The lines tell a song that takes me deep down an unheard path of this our forest and I find myself among young trees, saplings--and you must know that there are no more than ten young trees in a days footflight from our village--and a heavy mist has lain to rest here; I can see it as clearly as our shaman tells histories. The mist wrapped coolly upon the ground, lying neatly between the soft melodies of the symmetry lines I've traced and its hair flowing gently over the grey-white saplings, whose ten thousand fingers stroke and brush it gently--and are lost, with all other distance, from my view.
 And I knelt to the ground and the song was songs, and the songs were more beautiful and more strange than any that any traveller who had come to our people had told us, and I felt the lines coming together. Out of the grey of the mist an the grey-white of the tender trees, from the convergence grew a redness, like the mystical fires which need no wood, of which our shaman tells us. And it became a man, a glowing red man-form, who embraced me...
 I did not forget the dream, so I knew that I must find where I had been in it. As is the custom, I first told it to my youngest child, but he knew not what to think. I then told it to my husband, and he was only frightened (and I think a little jealous!), and so I went to our shaman. The shaman said she could not see that far into the kingdom of dreams and that she would consult the gods. I woke early that morning amidst the warm barely blue of the dying night before the sun's first kiss signals her utter end, and could not forget the dream that had revisited me twice more since then. What could be a dream that neither the shaman, nor my youngest child, so recently himself directly from the kingdom of dreams, could interpret? As I gathered roots, mushrooms and berries for the first meal--the sun's fatally passionate kiss to Night just beginning--I sang to myself the melody of the leaf's cycle, and I thought of the symmetries of the shell that came from the far off kingdom called the sea. And... it could not have been Myati. That red form that felt so known but I had never seen was nothing like the masked form of our ceremonies... to myself singing, "If a leaf should fall its destiny lies amongst the depths of the many worlds, for dust on windback is the string which, knotted, holds our world"... Night's blood had spread across the lower regions of the (still brighter) sky, and Day fled up away from the world where his passion had caused such sorrow, the death of his beloved--not even knowing this was one of the many great signs of the Lovers' strength in the world. A breeze stirred and a leaf fell and the thin melodic branches sighed a bare melody--that very one which I had heard, stopped low to the mist-bearing earth in that forest so like our own in the Kingdom of dreams! I cannot describe...my heart cried the cry of mourning and sang the song of victory and the song of joyous occasions all at once and I was suddenly aware of the breeze, which was grabbing at my garments and pulling them toward the hill where the three moons meet and I jumped up and left the gathered food, and followed; the whole forest sang softly but brightly the melody and my heart's feathers misted and beat against my ribs, and I was suddenly aware of a great heat in my belly--but I ran and was at the hillfeet, where the rushes of unstamped leafage are always greatest, for which we always assemble the stone stairways to the hilltop altars--and I put my hand under my garment and my belly was twice its usual size and very warm to touch, and growing warmer still and I stepped up the stone steps and the hill rumbled the melody and the trees hummed it and sky was grey, and my heart sang wilder and I felt myself heavier and hotter; I cannot tell you how I reached the top of the hill...I had grown so hot that I had thrown off my garment and saw my stomach swelled and a bright red, and the singing was all colors--as they tell us of the timesands--and I was at the entry to the altar at the top of the hill and barely able to walk. The singing was louder and I lay down and the singing was glorious and painful and now in my lower section was a searing pane and the singing was pain and just as, if not more beautiful,and the red hotness was a burning chant and colors grew and faded--I was aware of no more until, there, between my legs sat a baby who glowed a dull purple-red, like the rich round fruit from the trees of the southern forest, and with eyes of a deep brown and bright white that looked at me fully. I lost consciousness, and when I awoke, Day, having grown lonely and having long since forgotten his previous passion was now being drawn to his own deathkiss by a young and beautiful Night out of our horizon , and a young girl of perhaps three summers' turnings , with fine flowing hair and purple-red skin, and heartfelt eyes knelt beside me.
 "My mother, who was born of the people below, rise up." She had a tear in her eye and her voice was oh so very soft. She handed me what I recognized as my garment, but it was no longer tan and brown as our garments have always been-it was indigo as the night bird's tail feathers, with red and golden fine weaving in it, of the most intricate and unseen patterns, as you can see here.
 "My mother, who was born of the people below," the girl said, "You must go. You must find the sea."
 So I have traveled ever since, always following the Day's first and Night's last and deadly passionate kiss, and this is how I have come this far to you. Oh--I have seen her, have seen my goddess-daughter often. She looks out at me from shadowy doorways in foreign town,s and more often I see her bright figure (she is now a woman) on nearby hills at night,and amidst the tree thickenings, shadowdappled, of the many foreign forests I have come through to here. I have sometimes awoken to a warm red form bending over me and the feeling of a kiss still warm on my forehead, but that is all. That is my tale.
 I don't tell it to many people. Strange gods and exiled people take it as ill-omened, but you, kindly stranger, seemed as if you would understand. I cannot sufficiently repay you for this meal and lodging, but may your gods smile on you--may they honor the winddestined sojourn of a goddess's mother, but a simple woman from a people near the mountains. Five fives' blessings on you. Many blessings.

 There was once a house with seven windows in its walls. Terrible storms wracked the dwelling, but the windows held strong. To the house came four visitors, sitting and praying in the sunlit room. They took their tea with immense pleasure, and together made up a song.
 "Kindly let us stay between your walls," they asked the structure. "Keep us safe and warm and dry and fed." But the house would not allow their blissful pleasure, and He dropped His windows down and let the storms come in.
 "Why did you do this thing?" the one cried sadly, and in reply the house smiled sadly and said: "There is no way of wisdom without storms to blow the course. I'd let you stay and rest a while for sure. But let you stray from simply creature comfort, my seven windows will brong forth a peaceful war."

 Then the prophet said:
 "I saw these five figures: one was walking as though dancing, fleetingly, from one side of the path to the other. His step was light, and he looked always toward the sky. He wore many colors. One walked upright, dignified, back straight and very tall; he had a long black cloak and he carried a bright crystal stone in his left hand. He had a grey beard and bright blue eyes. His face was upright but his eyes looked down before him, as though the ground were a great distance away. The third wore white and carried nothing. Her long gray hair fell to her waist, where a single key hung from the belt of her robe. Her face was lined and gentle, and she looked about (with perfect calm) equally in all ways. The fourth one walked with a long, straight staff in her hand; she wore deep purple. She looked steadily forward, never turning her eyes, though she seemed aware of everything she passed or that passed about her. The last was a mere child. I would say 'he' or 'she' but I could not discern whether the one or the other. The child ran sometimes and walked sometimes, seemed now to be laughing and now to be crying. I thought that the robe the child wore was the blue of the sky."
 Here the prophet paused to eat a mite of his food.
 "And the child's eyes?" the student asked.

 At the end of everything, a great flood arose to sweep the world away. When the world was gone, the gods turned to each other and asked each other what was next. None of them had a plan, so they mutually decided to create a new world, this one different and more complex than the last.
 For twenty-three days and twenty-one nights, because they began in a time they called morning and ending in what they called evening, they worked on the new world, which was to be called Onkalla. On the first day, they took a ball of clay and formed it into a pear shaped ball. On the second day, they spit onto the pear and created the Great Ocean. On the third day, they tossed the ball and made it revolve about a sun. On the fourth day, they blew on the pear and gave it wind. On the fifth day, as the gods rested, the wind created the tides. On the sixth day, they created all eight moons. On the seventh day, they planted trees -- for these they used seeds that the youngest god, who was nostalgic, had saved from the last world. On the eighth day, they planted flowers, herbs, and mushrooms. On the ninth day, they buried minerals and dinosaur bones deep within the ground. On the tenth day, they gave the pear a little push and it started rotating on its axis. On the eleventh day, they started counting time based on the rotation of the pear and figured out that they had been working for thirteen days and eleven nights, because they had started in the morning and worked until evening. On the twelfth day, they filled the primordial sea with nutrients and salts until it was no longer pure. On the thirteenth day, they nurtured new life that was forming from the nutrients. On the fourteenth day, they watched in surprise as a fish jumped out of the sea, and they named it Ghunt. On the fifteenth day they rested, because they were not as young and energetic as when they had made their previous worlds. On the sixteenth day, they got back down to work and populated the land with animals. On the seventeenth day they put ice caps on the ends of the pear, because they thought it looked bald. On the eighteenth day, they gave birth to the Keeper and gave her the key to the pear. On the nineteenth day, they instructed the Keeper in the ways of her charge. On the twentieth day, they dug caves and etched fjords. On the twenty-first day, they blew hot air on parts of the pear and created deserts. On the twenty-second day they replaced the core of the pear with molten iron so that it would not rot. On the twenty-third day they went over the whole thing bit by bit and fixed all the mistakes. Then it was done.
 Time moved on and the gods watched animals grow and develop into humans. They watched the humans build cities. They watched the cities rise and fall. They watched the humans wage war on each other. They watched the humans die out.
 The gods decided to make more humans to give them another chance, but this time gave them competition, and thus created the Prines and Dragons and Antyrepes as well as Humans. Again the gods watched as all creatures made war on each other. The Keeper could do nothing, for her key fit no door. So the gods built a door for the key of the Keeper. The Keeper took the key to the door and turned it in the lock and the internal waters of what had always really been a pear flowed out and left only rock and dirt. And so the Earth was born.

 When the Keeper had scattered the sands of time across the newly-formed Earth and Ocean, she swallowed a single grain herself and bore a daughter, whom she called Scalendre. Scalendre became, on the day of her birth, Goddess of imperfection.
 When Scalendre was only 3 years in existence, she grew thirsty and drank from the well of mortality. Thus she became human. Her mother, the Keeper, placed her in the care of the under-earth people, who numbered only 500 at this time. They wrapped her in a blanket of red clay, and she promptly became deathly ill.
 Many songs her mother sang over the tiny fevered body. The Keeper sang healing songs and whispered the wisdom of the 13 herbs into the thoughts of the under-earth people. But the people were not ready to listen, and the baby died.
 Her mother embraced the body, and breathed new life in Scalendre. She returned to the house of Eternity with the child, and wrapped her in fragrant night air.

 There was once a boy to whom vision was elusive. Sometimes he could see and sometimes he could not. It did not bother him.
 But each night his mother wept and prayed for his faulty eyes. She gave all her possessions to the priests, hoping to buy God's favor. She took her yound son to the wise man of the village, to the hermit in the forest, and to the temple of Shilaluet. His vision remained elusive, and she wept and prayed with more fervor each night for his deficiency. Finally, convinced of his own misery by his mother, the boy fell ill and died of elusive vision.

 The Song of Jubilee:
 In a dark forest in the heart of a vast land stood a tree so wide and tall that it could be seen from miles around. The tree was known as Jubilee and many creatures of the woods lived within its trunk.
 Passersby often felt that they could hear a low music coming from Jubilee and liked to stop and listen. But as soon as the traveler had stopped, the music would also halt and be no more. So the passerby would again begin to walk, and again the music would play, and again the passerby would enjoy it, and try to stop to listen. And again, just as the traveler stopped, the music would cease to play.
 As this happened over and over again, the traveler would become quite confused, and whether her mission was urgent or she was just wandering in the woods, she would inevitably be drawn closer and closer to the great tree Jubilee.
 All travelers were drawn to the tree, and then drawn inside. Through the bark of the tree they went, in through each layer of wood, grown slowly year after year. And when each had reached the center, there she would stay, joining into the song of Jubilee.

 The people smoke sky and breath dirt. They dance when the wind is ripe and recline when the birds sing of dryness above. They are orderly when thunder brings floods up the cliffside, and leap joyfully into chaos when the fruit of spring is born. The shamans wear the six clothes of Alivera and their mothers' dagger and their fathers' sun pouch. They carry nine spices and know the meaning of each. They track the moon winds through the forest when the night sky is dark and empty, and find sun pools to burn during the eclipse. They chart the seasons by the heat of the ground, and write by pressing clay into wet bark.
 The people celebrate their birth with the Loving, where the twin lovers breathe each others breath and become one. They speak the five words of twospeak, the language made of syllabels that can only be produced by two mouths pressed together. The two Lovers don the masks of the gods in early summer, and the ceremony Loving coincides with the end of autumn. During winter, the people wrap themselves in darkly colored clothes and sing songs to the Lark, lord of the winter sky, praising the strength of the sunlight that reflects off the ice and driven snow.
 The people are strong and have lived through many thousands of cycles of the moon fruit. They whisper legends of the first moon fruit, which has never been cut down, and which has grown to the size of a human, and grows still. They have survived wars and famines, guided always by the council of wolves and sparrows. The people are fragmented, and no longer agree. The people are angry at their loss of unity. The people fight amongst themselves. The people are wrong.
 The people have allowed themselves to be lost in the world as it is, exchanging their buffalo for cars and their huts of dried gripseed for houses. The people treat themselves badly and have become dependant on their eyes and ears. The people have forgotter how to hunt deer blindfolded and with their ears closed off. The people have forgotten how to close the doors into themselves, and they let themselves be scarred and whipped by the world's modern terrors. The people have forgotten the Loving ceremony. The people have forgotten the Lark of the Sky, and the songs they used to sing about the brilliant ice.
 The people have sold their legends. The people have forgotten most of the stories, and those they remember they must write down before they are also lost. They have forgotten the war, and how they survived that war, living in the mountains they called Mokilimijay, where the Great Ocean gives birth to the twelve Great Rivers. The people have forgotten their shamans, and turn their priests away when they come to beg for food outside their doors. They turn away from those wearing the six cloths, forgetting the story of Sun Tracker, who made the first sun pouch, and of Swift Lion Reads The Writing On The Sky, who identified the nine sacred spices.
 So far, the people remember the dagger that opened up Sun Tracker to his glory. So far, the people still carry their mother's dagger, and still inscribe it with the ancient text. So far, the people remain. May they live forever and never meet the ghost who rules the black night sky of death.

 I touched the tree in giving thanks, could nearly wrap my hand around it. I felt its roots, so strongly underneath the ground, like touching that part of me that is so unfathomably secure. The solid trunk bent and swayed in the wind, confidently, grounded. Its beauty and power sent a pulse of joy through my heart. Its power and beauty made me glad to be alive. Kalayle. Ilekalo.

- END -