Donnerjack

ONE

In Deep Fields he dwelled, though his presence extended beyond that place through Virtu. He was, in a highly specialized sense, the Lord of Everything, though others might claim that same title for different reasons. His claim was as valid as any, however, for his dominion was an undeniable fact of existence.

He moved amid the detritus of all the broken forms which had once functioned in Virtu. They came here, summoned or unsummoned, when the ends of their existence became fact. Of some, he salvaged portions for his own uses. The others settled where they fell and lay… strewn, to continue their decomposition, though some parts of them survived longer than others. Even as he strolled, pieces would rise up, in human form or other, perhaps to strut a few paces, mouth some words, perform a characteristic function of what they had been, then sink again into the dust and rubble of which they were becoming a part. Sometimes—as he did now—he stirred the heaps with his stick to see what reactions this would provoke. If he found some performance or some bit of knowledge, some key or code, of amusement or use, he would bear it away with him to his labyrinthine dwelling. He could assume any form, male or female, go where he would, but he always returned to his black-cloaked, hooded garb over an amazing slimness, flashes of white within the shadows he also wore.

There was a great silence in Deep Fields much of the time. Other times, discordant sounds rose, seemingly from the dust and rubble itself, squeals of entropy and when they fell away the silence seemed even deeper. His favorite reason for occasionally absenting himself from his realm was to hear patterned sounds—specifically, music. There was no other like him in all of creation. Known by thousands of names and euphemisms, his commonest appellation was Death.

And so Death walked, swinging his stick, beheading algorithms, pulping identities, cracking windows to other landscapes. Arms twisted upward from the ground as he passed, hands open, fingers flexing and his halo of moire and shadow passed over them and they fell back. Deep Fields was a place of perpetual twilight, yet he cast impenetrable, improbable shadow where he went, as if a piece of absolute night were always with him. Now, another piece of such darkness flapped into existence, black butterfly out of his arbitrary north—perhaps a piece of himself returning from a mission—to dart before him and settle finally upon his extended finger. It closed its wings as he raised it. A moment of cacophony came and went.

Then, “Intruders to the north,” it said, its voice high, piping, small dots of moire passing like static outward from it.

“You must have mistaken the activity of a fragment,” Death responded, soft as the darkness, low as the dying rumble of creation.

The butterfly let fall its wings and raised them again.

“No,” it said.

“No one intrudes here,” Death replied.

“They are rifling heaps, searching…”

“How many?”

“Two.”

“Show me.”

The butterfly rose from his fingertip and skipped off to the north. Death followed to the sound of discord, odd pieces of reality flashing into and out of existence as he passed. The butterfly traveled on and Death mounted the hill, pausing when he had achieved the summit.

In the valley below two manlike forms—no, one was female—had excavated a trench to considerable depth. Now they were passing along its length, the man holding a light while the other removed things from the ground and cast them into a sack. Death, of course, was aware of much that lay in the area.

“What desecration is this?” Death inquired, raising his arms, his shadow flowing toward them. “You dare to invade my realm?”

The one with the sack straightened and the man dropped the light, which went out instantly. A great babble of voices and strident sounds filled the air as if in synchrony with Death’s ire. There came a small golden flicker from within the trench as his shadow reached it.

Then a gate opened, and the figures passed through it, just before the shadow flooded the trench with blackness.

The fluttering shape approached the hilltop.

“A key,” it said. “They had a key.”

“I do not give out keys to my realm,” Death stated. “I am disturbed. Could you tell where their gate took them?”

“No,” it replied.

Death moved his hands to his left, cupped them, opened them as if releasing a wish or an order.

“Hound, hound, out of the ground,” he muttered, and a heap of bone and metal stirred below in the direction he faced. Mismatched bones reared up, along with springs, straps, and struts, to form themselves together into an ungainly skeletal construct, to which pieces of plastic, metal, flesh, glass, and wood flew or slid, turning like puzzle pieces after unlikely congruencies, fitting themselves into such places, to be drenched suddenly by a rain of green ink and superglue, assailed by a blizzard of furniture covering and shag rug samples, dried by bursts of flame which belched from the ground upon all sides. “There is something that needs to be found,” Death finished.

The hound sought its master with its red right eye and its green left one, the right an inch higher than the left. It twitched its cable tails and moved forward.

When it reached the top of the hill it lowered itself to its belly and whined like a leaky air valve. Death extended his left hand and stroked its head lightly. Fearlessness, ruthlessness, relentlessness, the laws and ways of the hunt rose from the ground and rushed to wrap it, along with the aura of dread.

“Death’s dog, I name you Mizar,” he said. “Come with me now to take a scent.”

He led him down into the trench where Mizar lowered his head and nosed about.

“I will send you into the higher lands of Virtu to course the worlds and find those who have been here. If you cannot bring them back you must summon me to them.”

“How shall I summon you, Death?” Mizar asked.

“You must howl in a special way. I will teach you. Let me hear your howl.”

Mizar threw back his head, and the sound of a siren bled into the whistle of a locomotive mixed with the death-wails of a score of accident victims, and, from someplace, the howling of a wolf on a winter’s night, and the baying of hounds upon a trail. A legion of broken bodies, servomechs, and discarded environments stirred and flashed in the valley below, amid junk mail, core war casualties, worms, and crashed bulletin boards. It all settled again with a clatter when he lowered his head and the silence took hold of Deep Fields once more.

“Not bad,” Death observed. “Let me teach you to modulate it for a summoning.”

Immediately, the air was rent by a series of shrieks, wails, and howls which brought a stirring to all of Deep Fields with its pulsing pattern and which resulted in an inundation of new forms, falling, striding, shuffling, sliding into the realm, stirring the dark dust to haze the air through which new cacophonies traveled.

“That I will hear and recognize wheresoever you shall be,” Death stated, “and I will come to you when so summoned.”

A patch of blackness landed upon Mizar’s nose, and his lopsided eyes were crossed as he regarded the butterfly.

“I am Alioth, a messenger,” it told him. “I just wanted to say hello. You have a fine voice.”

“Hello,” Mizar answered. “Thank you.”

Alioth darted away.

“Come with me now,” Death said, and he moved to descend the trench.

An inky monkey-shape swung round a twisted beam to hang and watch them.

Entering the trench, Death led Mizar to the place where the two intruders had worked, and whence they had departed.

“Take their scents,” he said, “that you may follow them anywhere.”

Mizar lowered his head.

“I have them,” he said.

“I will open a series of ports. Do not pass through them. Sniff, rather, at each, and see whether any bear traces of these scents. Tell me if one does.”

The monkey-shape scuttled, approaching the trench’s side, and crouched there, watching.

Death raised his right arm, and his cloak hung down to the ground, curtain of absolute blackness, before the hound. Without preliminary lightening, it became a gateway to a bright cityscape built as within a sphere or tube, buildings dependent from all visible surfaces. It was gone in an instant to be replaced by a flashing city of slim towers and improbable minarets, connected by countless bridges and walkways, clouds drifting among them, no sign of ground anywhere.

Then meadows flashed by, and long corridors of innumerable doorways, both lighted and dark, opened and closed, the interior of an Escher-angled grotto, tube cities beneath a sea, slow-wheeling satellites, a Dyson-sphered realm whose inhabitants sailed from world to world in open vessels. Yet Mizar remained still, watching, sniffing. The pace increased, scenes flashing beneath Death’s arm with a rapidity that no normal eye might follow. Alioth skipped before prospects of live flowers, both mechanical and organic.

Death halted the process, freezing on the scene of a classical ruin— broken pillars, fallen walls, crashed pediments—upon a grassy and flower-dotted hilltop, flooded with golden light beneath a painfully blue sky. Gulls passed, calling. The shadows were all hard-edged, and a touch of sea-smell drifted through the gate.

“Anything at all?” Death asked.

“No,” Mizar replied, as Alioth darted through the gate to settle upon a flower which immediately began to droop.

“I have tried the likeliest choices for the glimpse I had. We will look somewhere more distant, someplace almost impossibly hard to reach. Bide.”

The scene vanished, to be replaced by that blackness which had prevailed earlier. A little later, a light appeared. It brightened steadily, casting illumination far down the trench and beyond it. The black, spiderish monkey-form crouched on the trench’s edge drew back as the brightening continued, as coils of colored light and random-seeming geometric forms drifted within to the accompaniment of an electrical sizzling sound. Trails like lightning came and went. Then darkness ensued of an instant, inverting the values of the various brightnesses. A negative quality came over the crackling prospect.

Mizar stirred.

“Yes,” he said then, the spikes of his teeth gleaming metallically in the glow. “There is something similar here.”

“Find them if you can,” Death said. “Call to me if you do.”

The hound threw back his head and howled. Then he sprang forward through Death’s port into the dark-bright abstract world beyond, sustained by wings of moire. Death lowered his cloak and the gate was folded and put away.

“You may never see him again,” said the monkey. “It is a very high realm to which you have sent him—perhaps beyond your reach.”

Death turned his head, showing his teeth.

“It is true that it could take a long while, Dubhe,” he said. “Yet all patience is but an imitation of my ways, and even in the highest realms I am not unknown.”

Dubhe sprang to his shoulder and settled there as Death rose up out of the trench.

“I believe that someone has just begun a game,” Death said as he headed across Deep Fields through a meadow of blackest grass, black poppies swaying at the passage of his cloak, “and, next to music, they have invoked a pastime for which I have the highest regard. It is long, Dubhe, since I have been given a good game. I shall respond to their opening as none might expect, and we will try each others’ patience. Then, one day, they will learn that I am always in the right place at the proper time.”

“I once felt that way,” the monkey replied, “till a branch I was reaching for wasn’t there.”

The cacophony that followed might have been their laughter, or only the random bleats of entropy. Same thing.

John D’Arcy Donnerjack loved but once, and when he saw the moire he knew that it was over. He knew other things as well, things he had not even suspected till that moment; and so his heart was torn in more than one direction, and his mind spun down avenues it had never traveled before.

He looked at Ayradyss, his dark-haired, dark-eyed lady, there beneath the hilltop tree where they always met, and the moire swam over her, granting her features an even more delicate appointment. He had always felt that, had they chosen, they might rendezvous in his world, but that the dream-dust, fairy-tale quality of their romance required the setting of this magic land. Neither of them had ever suggested otherwise. Now he understood, and the pain was like ice in his breast and fire in his head.

He knew this place far better than most of his kind, and he doubted that Ayradyss was even aware of the first moire flicker which meant her end. He knew her now for a child of Virtu rather than a visitor masked by an exotic name and pleasing form. She was exactly what she appeared to be, beautiful and lost; and he caught her about the shoulders and held her to him.

“John, what is the matter?” she asked.

“Too late,” he said. “Too late, my love. If only I had known sooner…”

“Known what?” she said. “Why are you holding me so tightly?”

“We never spoke of origins. I did not know that Virtu is really your home.”

“What of it, John? What differ—”

And the moire flickered over her again, longer than before; and he could tell by her sudden tensing that this time she had noted it.

“Yes, hold me,” she said. “What did you mean when you spoke of wishing to have known sooner?”

“Too late,” he replied. “There might have been something I could have tried. No guarantee it would have worked, though. Probably wouldn’t have.” He kissed her as she began to shake. “Too small a piece of an idea too late. I have loved you. I would that it could be longer.”

“And I you,” she replied. “There were so many more things to do together.”

He had hoped that the moire would not return for a long while, as might sometimes be the case, but abruptly it was back again, causing her form and features to flow as if seen through a heat haze. And this time he thought that he heard for a moment a strain of discordant sound. This time the moire remained, and Ayradyss continued to waver through more and more distortions. It became difficult to hold her as her shape was altered, diminishing the while.

“It is not fair,” he said.

“It is as it always has been,” she replied, and he thought that he felt a final kiss as she fell and the air was touched again by that sound. A faint track of bright dust lay across the air.

He stood with empty arms and clouded eyes. After a time, he seated himself on the ground and covered his face with his hands. At some point, his grief gave way to a journey through everything he had learned of Virtu, the race’s greatest artifact, and he brought to bear theories he had developed over the years and all of the speculations with which he had played during his enormously fruitful career.

When he rose again it was to seek a single mote of her dust and to begin another journey, down hypothetical ways to the end of everything.

Tranto felt it come upon him as he labored with a fractilizing crew, manipulating small proges into a forest, under a new eyedee, there, outside the thatched hamlet he had also helped to raise. An old pain he’d never quite understood was acting up again at the fore-end of his great bulk—a thing that had been with him ever since his encounter with the phant poacher, whom he had left totally disconnected and flat, never to notch his trophy gun again or return to the Verite. Tranto bellowed briefly at the sensation, and the other phants moved away, rolling their eyes and shifting uneasily.

It would be best to get away from them before the pain pushed him beyond control. His small—and diminishing—area of rationality had never dwelled deeply on the nature of pleasure and pain. For his kind, pleasure was connected with the sensation of processing without any actual work involved—a high-order distillation of that which motivated their mundane, purposeful work-actions. Pain, on the other hand, arose from the introduction of hidden chaos factors into their proges. Long ago, the hunter’s blast had left such a trace, which acted up every now and then, ruining his social life and contributing to local gossip.

He snorted and stamped. He had labored once—a prisoner—in an encrypted space, a love-nest of a government official of the Verite, whose virtual companion had ruined the packaged ecology with her extravagant insistence on omnipresent bowers of flowers, to the point where the hopefully self-supporting space had overloaded and could no longer serve the second half of its dual function. Part of a crew of shanghaied labor, Tranto recalled the painful Chaos Factor control prods in the hands of Lady May’s overseers—and sometimes those of the lady herself—by which he and the others had been driven to offset the effects of the proges she had skewed. As terrible as the CF prods had been, they were never as massively traumatic as his spells—though they had, finally, served to set one off, the one which resulted in his destruction of much of that place, opening it to the attention which had led to Morris Rintal’s dismissal when it was discovered that diverted government funds had been used in its setting up-up, and to divorce, when his wife in the Verite had learned of his virtual lover.

A fresh wave of pain swept through him from the throbbing site of his old injury. He bellowed again and reached out with his forward appendage to uproot one of his recent plantings. He smashed it against the ground and brandished its remains overhead. “Very disturbing,” his fleeing rationality observed, and, “Really, too bad.”

He bellowed again and charged his fellows, who scattered with an agility and rapidity near-amazing to those other laborers only acquainted with the phants’ generally slow-moving ways. The other laborers were, of course, moving hurriedly themselves by then.

Tranto smashed several trees to the ground then turned away. His burning eyes focused upon the village, and he rushed off in that direction. The overseer proge withdrew its embodiments hastily.

Brandishing the tree trunk, Tranto demolished a hut, then threw his bulk against the next structure, to be met with a satisfying swaying and cracking. He hit it again. He swung the trunk. The wall went down. He bellowed then and stamped on through.

As he advanced upon the next, a spark of memory suggested that they would be after him soon, with CF prods, then with lethal weapons. As he trampled the building to ruin and listened to the cries of workers and foremen, he knew that he should turn away from this place, flee to some safe wilderness where he might abide until the attack had run its course and healing had begun.

He smashed another wall, drove the battered tree trunk against a second then sent it through the roof of a third. Yes, he really should be moving on. Only all these damned things seemed to be in the way.

Trumpeting, he stamped down the street, upsetting supply carts, trampling seed-objects as they spilled. They would be waiting for him at the transit station he was certain. If they could not stop him, they would try to transfer him to a secured space where a therapist would hurt him again, like last time. Better to flee in this direction and batter his own gate when he was in the clear. It would not be the first time he had broken through a chambering field. It seemed to grow progressively easier as the madness rose.

Once he was beyond the workplace he tested the limits of the area, feeling for the resistance to movement into another place entirely rather than other areas of this same locale. His sense of these matters always became highly acute at times like this. Soon he was pushing against a boundary in the midst of a fairly featureless field. It felt like tough mesh-work, both yielding and restraining, though with his first great shove he was able to see through it into an adjacent landscape. It was filled with buildings, vehicles, and heavy machinery, however, and he changed direction and pushed differently. A field. Good. He pushed that way. Three heavy onslaughts and he was through, rampaging over some sort of gar-den and through an orchard, upsetting its genius loci no end. No matter. Trumpeting, he ran.

Eight times he crossed barriers, wrecking a specialty farm, an executive meeting room, a Mars surface testing laboratory, a bowling alley, a brothel, a federal district court adjunct, and a virt campus, before achieving the solace of a grassy country and nearby jungle, where the genius loci considered his activities in keeping with the tenor of the environment and continued to doze.

Tranto had gone rogue again.

The congregation came from a chapel in Verite, where, following a brief invocation, they had repaired to a rearward chamber, disrobed, stretched out upon mortuary slabs to contemplate the travails of existence for a period of darkness, then risen in spirit to pass through a wall of flame and enter upon the sacred fields. There, they had proceeded, chanting the song of Enlil and Ninlil, to come at length to a corridor among ziggurats atop which lion-bodied spirits with the heads of men and women appeared, to come in with the choruses and with intonements of blessing. Beyond, the congregation achieved the precincts of the temple and was conducted into its courtyard.

Further ceremonies were conducted there, by a priest garbed similarly to themselves, save for the scapulary tablets and elaborate headgear of gold and semiprecious stones worn below his faint blue halo. He told them how all of the gods, along with everything else, survived in Virtu, and in this time of a turning back to religion it was appropriate that the earliest divine manifestations in Indo-European consciousness should be the focus of worship now, dwelling as they did in the deepest layers of the human psyche where description might still function. Ea, Shamash, Ninurta, Enki, Ninmah, Marduk, Azmuh, Inanna, Utu, Dumuzi, and all of the others—metaphors, yes, as were all who came after, for both the best and worst in humanity, but also the most potent of metaphors because of their primacy. And of course they were cosmomorphic as well, embodiments of the forces of nature, and as capable of evolution as everything in Virtu and Verite. Their beings extended to the quantum level as well as the relativistic. So sing their praises, he went on, ancient gods of quarks and galaxies, as well as the sky, the sea, and the mountains, the fire, the wind, and the burgeoning earth. Let all things rejoice and let us turn the stories of their doings to ritual. One of the gods was even now within the temple’s sanctum, enjoying this worship and sending blessings. A light meal was shared, and the worshipers embraced one and other briefly. The mundane offering of the Collect was done by means of electronic funds transfers, from the eft tokens all bore with them when visiting Virtu.

It was called the Church of Elish, from the Mesopotamian creation story, Enuma elish—meaning, roughly, “When above”—and the words “Elishism” and “Elishite” were derived therefrom, though members of the more traditional religions of the past few millennia had often referred to them as “Elshies.” At first lumped together with the many short-lived cults of Virtu—Gnostic, African, Spiritualist, Caribbean—it had shown greater staying power and, upon closer examination, demonstrated a more sophisticated theology, satisfying ritual, and better structured organization than the others. Its increasingly popularity indicated that it had been victorious in the divine wars. It did not demand mortification of the flesh beyond a few holy day fasts and apparently even involved “rituals of an orgiastic nature,” as some anthropologists put it. It incorporated traditional heavens and hells as fitting waiting places between incarnations alternating between Virtu and Verite, toward the eventual achievement of a transcendental state which combined the best of both realms. It had its representatives in both. Its followers had a tendency to refer to all other religions as “latecomers.”

Every now and then, usually on high holy days, some worshipers well advanced along their spiritual paths were permitted to enter the temple itself to undergo a higher grade of initiation, involving experiences perhaps intoxicating, oceanic, sexual, illuminating. These tended to result in some small advantage in life, physical or mental, which functioned best in Virtu but which sometimes carried over to Verite. This phenomenon had also been a subject of anthropological consideration for over a decade, the only general conclusion to date being the catch-phrase “psychosomatic conversion.”

In fact, Arthur Eden—tall, very black, his beard shot with gray, heavily muscled in the manner of an athlete somewhat past his prime, which he was—was a professor of anthropology at Columbia’s Verite campus. He had joined the Elishites for purposes of preparing a full-length study of their creed and practices, comparative religion being his specialty. He was surprised at how much he was enjoying the preliminary work, for the church had obviously been set up by an expert or experts in this area.

As he walked back, singing, amid the pyramids, along the trail through field and wood, he wondered at the administrative entities behind this landscape. During a night service he had once been puzzled by the skies as he’d sought familiar constellations. On a later occasion, he’d recorded it by means of a simple proge disguised as a bracelet. Later, when he’d projected it onto a computer screen and begun playing games with it, he finally discovered that that sky was to be achieved by moving the present one backward through time for about six and a half millennia. Again, he was impressed by the church’s efforts at verisimilitude in their claims to antiquity and he wondered again at the priesthood or whoever the brains behind the structure of things might be.

The wall of flame rose before him after a time, and he joined the others in the prayer of passage. There was no sensation of heat as they negotiated the blazing way, only a small tingling and a whooshing sound of the sort a high fire might make in a strong wind—probably intended to intensify the memory. In the darkness that followed, he located the center aisle of the chamber and counted paces as he had been taught— forward, right, left—coming at length to his slab and reclining there. He was eager to begin dictating his notes, but instead reviewed his impressions as he lay there—yes, the Elishites’ worldview had an ethical code, a supernatural hierarchy, and an afterlife; they also had sacred texts, a collection of rituals, and an efficient organizational structure. The latter was difficult to obtain information concerning. All of his careful inquiries had so far met with responses indicating a consensus of the clergy as a basis of decision-making—always divinely inspired, of course. Still, he was yet a neophyte. He could understand a measure of reticence on matters of church politics. There should be opportunity to probe more deeply as his status evolved.

Lying in the darkness, he recalled the rituals he had witnessed thus far, wondering, again, whether they represented an actual reconstructive interest on the part of their composers—and if so, from which archaeological sources they might have been derived and projected—or whether they had been made up de novo and calculated to produce maximum effect upon a modern congregation. If it were the former, he required knowledge of the key works and the approach which had been taken in these developments from them. If the latter, he still needed the ideas which lay behind the thinking. It was not often that one got to witness the nascence of a new religion, and it was important that lie get into it as far as lie could and record everything.

Lying there, still tingling lightly, he reflected that whoever was behind it seemed possessed of a fair esthetics sense, along with all the rest.

Sayjak led his clan to a new section of the forest, partly because the area it had inhabited for the past month had been heavily browsed, and partly because of an eeksy sighting near that territory. No sense waiting for trouble, and the food situation saved face for him among the more impressionable. Sayjak had faced eeksies before and no longer even kept count of the number he had dispatched. He had his battle-marks for all to see. Any number of CF rounds had scored his hide over the years without finding the fatal points which had been their targets.

Now he sat beneath a tree, feeding on its fruits. His clan was, as many of other sorts, begun partly by damaged complex proges whose component problems had not been immediately apparent. On being detected by inconsistencies in their work they had fled rather than face extinction or repair. Their hairy manlike forms were a partly willed adaptation to the environment. And gender proges were easily created or come by, so that most of his band were descended from such in the dim mists of beginnings and knew no other existence than the freedom of the trees. As the random disruptions of life produced aging in Virtu as well as Verite, Sayjak had matured somewhat past his prime, though he was still a shrewd and powerful brute, well able to manage the People, as they called themselves.

And he had to be shrewd. There were always dangers about—from other clans, from rogue aions of different sorts, and from natural perils, as well as from the Ecology and Environment Corp in its periodic attempts to balance populations to conform with its models. And there were hunters—bounty and sport—as well as those who preyed upon the clans for private collections, public displays, private experimentation… There was ample danger from without, and Sayjak made full use of the three strongest of his subordinates: the great, hulking Staggert; tall, scarred, fast-moving Ocro, perhaps too smart for his own good, always plotting; and squat, heavy sadistic Chumo, viewing a narrow world through the perpetual squint of infected-looking eyes. They had become indispensable to him in the administration of the clan. All of them had designs upon his position, of course. All of them had fought him for it. and all of them had lost. He had no fear of any of them individually, yet, and they served him well while they waited for him to show signs of weakness. Together, they could oppose him, could probably split the clan, but—here he smiled around his fangs—they distrusted each other too much to attempt such a thing. And even if this were not the case, they would sooner or later have to have it out amongst themselves, leaving only one. And he knew that he could take any one of them. No. They knew that, and they knew that he knew it. So they served, biding, and aging themselves, of course.

Chumo looked up at him, just back from one of the regular patrols Sayjak insisted upon.

“How is the area?” he asked the bulky squinter.

“Signs to the northwest,” Chumo replied.

“What sort?”

“Tracks. Booted.”

“How many?”

“Three or four. Maybe more.”

Sayjak was on his feet.

“How far?”

“Several miles.”

“This is not good. Did you follow them?”

“Only a little way. I thought it more important to get word back quickly.”

“You thought right. Take me to the place. Ocro! You be in charge here. I’m going scouting.”

The lean one ceased his browsing and approached.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Strangers. Maybe eeksies,” Sayjak replied, glancing at Chumo. “I don’t know.”

Chumo shook his head.

“Perhaps I should come along,” Staggert said.

“Someone has to take care of the camp. Leave signs if you have to flee.”

“Of course.”

Sayjak set out with Chumo, shambling along trails for the first mile or so, all senses alert. Finally, Chumo led him into the trees as they neared the place of the tracks.

“I heard them pass,” he said, “from a distance. By the time I got here they were already well gone. I located their tracks and studied them.”

“Let’s find them,” Sayjak said.

They proceeded along the well-worn game trail, boot marks still clear in the damp soil. It wound into the west, then the northwest. Sayjak determined that there were four of them—two fairly large men, and two of more average height and build.

From far off to the left came the crack of a discharging weapon. A moment later the sound was heard again.

Sayjak smiled.

“Easy game,” he said. “They give themselves away for it. Now we know the trail turns, curves that way. We cut through. Find them sooner.”

So they left the trail and headed in the direction of the sounds. It took them perhaps half an hour to find the place of the slaughtered buck, but from there the trail was very clear. The game had been dressed, divided, and borne off to the northeast.

Following, again, Sayjak and Chumo finally heard the sounds of voices at about the same time they smelled the cooking meat. Proceeding more carefully then, they discovered the band to be camped in an area identifiable by scent as one previously used by a clan similar to their own. It had been abandoned for at least a week, however.

They drew nearer. From the more than casual appointment they had effected in the area, it was obvious that the hunters were planning to spend the night. Sayjak was momentarily taken aback on seeing that the largest of the four was a woman.

“Eeksies,” Chumo whispered.

“Bounties,” Sayjak corrected. “Big one’s a female. Guess who?”

“Big Betsy?”

“Right,” he said, fingering a scar along his left thigh. “Lots of the People’s heads gone home with her. She and me go back far.”

“Maybe this time we take hers.”

“This time I take hers. Go back to camp. Get Staggert, Ocro, a few other big guys who need action. Bring them. I wait, watch. We move. I leave signs.”

“Yes.”

Chumo vanished into the brush.

Sayjak moved nearer, his mouth watering at the aromas from the cooking, though he’d never learned much about fire, and he knew that raw meat was best anyhow. Bounties…

Eeksies wore uniforms. Bounties dressed any damned way they wanted. Bounties were more ingenious, more relentless—deadlier. Not being civil servants and actually making or not making their money as a result of their own actions had much to do with it. Sayjak realized that bounties were not normally offered until a situation reached a point where eeksy activity was deemed inadequate. While modesty was not one of his virtues, he did not feel that his clan’s activities alone were sufficient to warrant such attention. No. Hard as it was to think beyond the clan, it occurred to him that the other tribes of the People must also be burgeoning, be hunting and browsing to an extent which became noticeable on someone’s big balance sheet of how things should be. Offhand, he did not know what to do about it. But he did have a solution for the immediate problem, as soon as the others arrived.

He watched as they set up their camp, continued to watch as they gathered about the fire and took their meal. He hoped there would be some leftovers… for afterwards. But his hope diminished as Big Betsy dug in. The lady had quite an appetite, in full keeping with her figure.

“Enjoy now,” he breathed. “My turn later.” And he studied the machete she’d hung on a nearby tree limb. Could it be the same one that had cut him? He knew how they operated now. Just like swinging a big stick, only sharper. Good for taking a head.

He crouched and watched. Plenty of time now. Might as well spend it planning…

It was evening when Chumo returned with four others. Silent, for all their great bulk, they crouched beside him as he pointed out features of the camp, indicating attack points he had decided upon. Then he motioned for them to follow him and took them a great distance off into the brush.

There he halted and spoke softly:

“You—Chumo, Staggert—hide in trees, near, with me. Ocro, Svut— you climb in trees, be overhead. When they sleep, ground people follow me in. Kill everyone. Too much trouble, Ocro, Svut jump down quick. Help.”

“If they got guard?” Staggert asked.

“Mine,” Sayjak replied. “I go first. Guard dead, and you come in. Get the rest. Understand?”

It was not the desire to demonstrate his leadership, or even mere bravado, which governed the plan. It was, rather, Sayjak trusted none but himself, a value he’d learned at an early age as a wandering outcast from his own clan, and the thing which had probably assured his primacy for so long in this one. Self-sufficiency, distrust, and the ability to make an instant decision and follow it with a surprise move, were—had he been of the reflective sort—the most useful lessons he might have felt he’d learned in those early days.

And so they returned to the camp of the bounty hunters, and his party positioned itself in accord with a shoulder clasp, a pointed finger, a nod apiece. Sayjak took up station in the thicket nearest the hunters and worked his way slowly to its forward edge. There, he lay absolutely still, watching the figures about the fire as they sipped some beverage and talked.

Would they leave a guard? He suspected so. He planned to approach as close as he could, then give the attack signal to the others simultaneous with leaping upon the guard and killing him—or her. He hoped that Big Betsy would stand the first watch herself, both because she was the most formidable and it would be well to dispose of her quickly, and because he could hardly wait—after all these years and encounters—to slay the huntress from far-off Verite. He had never heard of Thomas Ray, who had introduced sex and repro into proges, so long ago. But probably he should rape her, too, he decided, just to show that his victor)’ was total as well as complete. On the other hand, he realized that he would be afraid to try it while still she lived. No matter. Afterwards would serve as well to prove his point.

Again, he studied the machetes. Big Betsy had hurt him bad with one such, that other time. He had thought of it over and over, until he was certain how it worked, though he never dwelled on the mysteries of design or manufacture. Good for getting heads, he knew. It was how they filled their bounty sacks.

He watched the campers and tried to understand their conversation, but failed. He wondered whether Big Betsy knew any of the People’s talk. He listened to the night sounds and studied that other mystery, the fire.

It seemed a long time before one of the men began to yawn. But moments later another joined him. The first said something and gestured toward his sleeping roll. Big Betsy nodded and answered, jerking her huge thumb in that direction. All three of the men retired to their bedrolls, and she added more sticks to the fire. She cleaned her weapon and honed her machete then, setting both of them near to hand when she was done. Sayjak studied their disposition. He had to come upon her in such a fashion that she could not seize advantage and turn it on him. Once it was simply strength against strength there would be no problem despite her bulk. He was considerably more massive, and his strength had long been a thing of legend among the People. So…

He would leave his cover with total stealth, he decided, as soon as the other bounties’ breathing had grown slow and regular. Then he would advance carefully but not trust to total soundlessness in crossing those final feet. Yes, that seemed most prudent. He felt that she would be as alert as one of the People, and the tiniest sound would be as sufficient to galvanize her to action as it would be to himself. He would have to cover that final distance with a great leap.

A half-hour, perhaps, went by. The three men seemed to be sleeping. Big Betsy was sitting very still, staring into the flames. He continued to wait. The sleepers should be easy for the others to deal with. But—best not to take any chances.

The night wore on. It became obvious that the others were deep into sleep. His clansmen would be growing restless, might think he was afraid of the human woman. Was he? She was the biggest woman he had ever seen. He fingered his scar. Then he parted the fronds before him and moved slowly forward.

He placed each foot with the utmost precision and shifted his weight carefully. He controlled his breathing. He could not control his smell, however.

He heard her sniff, once. Then her right hand flashed out toward the weapons. He leaped immediately, his battle cry rising to his lips.

But Big Betsy had thrown herself to the side and rolled away, moving with surprising speed for one of her bulk, uttering a shout of warning to the others as she did so. Sayjak missed his target—her back—but a quick movement of his long arm was successful in knocking the half-clasped rifle from her hand. He lunged at her again, but she rolled backwards over a shoulder, removing herself from his path and coming up onto her feet, facing him.

As he began to reach for her, she kicked him twice in the stomach, ducked beneath his sweeping arm, and drove a heavy fist against the right side of his rib cage. While any of these blows would have devastated a man, Sayjak was only momentarily shaken by them, and, snarling, he made for her again. She tripped him as he passed, and he felt her ham-like fist fall upon the massive muscles at the back of his neck.

Shaking his head, he turned toward her again. About him now rose cries and growls as his clansmen fell upon the recent sleepers, along with the sounds of their conflict, which included the breaking of bones. Big Betsy kicked him again. He bore it stoically and advanced upon her, moving more deliberately now, having learned that his rushing attacks were less than effective.

She retreated from him, striking as she went and keeping her kicks low, for she had seen the enormous speed of his hands and arms and feared his catching hold of her leg should she kick too high. She worried him about the shins, knees, and thighs, but he plodded toward her, ignoring these blows, his arms swinging low before him. He found himself wishing she were one of the People as he considered what a fine mate she would make.

He struck suddenly with a blinding movement of his left arm. While she managed to roll with it, her balance was destroyed. She stumbled to the side. He was upon her in an instant, seeking to immobilize her. Even then, before he succeeded, she struck his chin with the heel of her hand, clawed at his eyes, aimed brief blows at his throat. Finally, his left arm about her back, crushing her right arm to her side, he caught hold of her left elbow with that hand and drew it against her left side with such force that he heard cracking sounds from within her chest.

She grunted once, perhaps too compressed to cry out, and suddenly she spat in his face. He wondered at the significance of this as he reached out and caught hold of her head with his massive right hand. Behind him, the sounds of struggling had ceased and there came only a few death moans now. He turned her head to her left as far as it would normally go. Then, slowly, he continued to turn it. Her neck made cracking sounds, and he felt spasms within her body. He squeezed her more tightly and continued to turn her head. There came a final snap, followed by a brief convulsion. Then she fell limp within his grasp. He lowered her to the ground and stared.

Then he turned, looking to where the others stood beside the other bodies. They were watching him. Had he promised aloud that he would have her? He tried to remember. He looked at her again. No, he hadn’t, he suddenly recalled, and he felt better. He would eat her liver and heart, instead, he decided, because she had fought well. He sought her machete, found it.

Then he grinned. He would try it out on the others. He chose one sprawled prone, raised the blade, swung it like a stick. It passed easily through the neck and the head rolled away on a trail of gore. Delighted, he moved to the next and did it again. When he had done them all, lie sat them with their backs against tree trunks and placed their heads in their laps, hands arranged to hold them lightly on either side.

Then he turned to Betsy. He used the machete carefully in her case, and when he had done he arranged her garments to cover the wound.

He left her seated beside the others. But she did not hold her head in her lap, for he had taken it with him, along with the machete.

Dubhe—bored, impulsive, lonely—was in a twilit valley to the west of Deep Fields, beside an acid stream, engaged in necrophilia with the significant remains of a blond baboon, when he heard the sound unlike any sound he had ever heard before. Startled, he released her, and her lower anatomy pranced away into the stream, to be reduced in stature with every step, until finally naught remained but a pungent memory. He threw his head back and barked in frustration. The intruding sound continued, so strange. It was—patterned. It was unlike the intermittent burst which came and went as a by-product of entropy doing its stuff.

He climbed out of the valley. East, it seemed. Something interesting going on there. The sounds did not let up. He struck a course in that direction. A piece of something shiny and mechanical drifted by and he mounted it and rode it until right before it crashed, jumping off at the last moment. Then he hurried on afoot, through the always-twilight, spotted with occasional flares and will-o’-the-wisps from the always-decomposing, leaping chasms, scrambling up hillsides and down their farther slopes.

“What is it, Dubhe? Whither fare you?” came a satiny voice from a hole that he passed.

He paused and the snake slithered forth, long, shining like beaten copper.

“I’m following that peculiar sound, Phecda.”

“I feel its vibrations, also,” the snake replied, silvery tongue darting. “So you do not know what it is?”

“Only its direction.”

“I will join you then, for I, too, am curious.”

“So let us go,” Dubhe responded, and he set off once more.

He did not speak again for some time, though he occasionally caught the glitter of Phecda’s scales at either side, and sometimes before him. They hurried on, the sounds louder now—voices and instruments distinguishable.

Mounting a hillside, they halted. To the east, they beheld the figure of a man, walking, a kind of light about him. What gate, track, or trail might touch upon him as he moved here?

The sounds came from the tall, dark-haired man, or from something he bore with him. He moved slowly, with a deliberation that implied a definite course he followed. It led him down his hillside and into a long valley.

Dubhe hesitated to move toward him and so be seen. He elected, rather, to follow, and so let the man pass below before he moved again. Phecda also waited, apparently of the same mind.

The sounds danced through the air in the man’s wake, and Dubhe found them pleasantly disturbing. “Is there a word,” he asked Phecda, “for when the noise is good?”

And Phecda, who spent her time passing through mounds and around them and going up and down the valleys, digesting bits of wisdom before they might decay, replied, “Music. It is called music. It is a thing very difficult to manifest here. Perhaps that is why the master likes it _so—for its rarity. More likely, though, he loves it for itself—as I see that this is easy to do.”

They followed the man and his music through the dark valley, Phecda pausing only to devour the remains of the previous day’s weather report for Greater Los Angeles.

“Let us pass him,” Phecda said at length, “for I can tell from a feeling to the land that the master will meet him in the valley, two bends hence.”

“Very well.”

They skirted the foothills to a ridge, crossed through a declivity, raced ahead to another such gap, crossed the valley into which it debouched, and mounted a hill. The music came from far behind them now. Ahead and below within the great vale they saw a slow movement.

Death climbed a small mound, extended his arms, and turned in a circle. Then bones rose up out of the ground, fell down from the heights, rushed toward him in a chaos of rattling forms, came together before him, assembled themselves into a structure. Soon a high-backed throne stood there, surmounted by a skull. It shone like ancient ivory in the valley’s quiet light. As Death took a step forward, the excess bones flew away to outline a path leading out to the mouth of the valley at its turning. He moved to the rear of the throne then, where he opened his cloak to release a spectral form which hovered behind its knobby back.

Returning to the front, he seated himself. Raising first his right hand, then his left, flames came up on either side, creating shadows. The music grew louder.

“The boss really knows how to do things with style,” Dubhe remarked.

“He does seem to take a certain pleasure in the dramatic,” Phecda observed as they descended and moved into a nearer patch of shadow.

Phecda and Dubhe waited for what seemed a long while. The sounds continued to increase in volume. Then there was movement at the end of the valley.

The man halted and stared. Then he advanced slowly along the bony way, his music all about him. When he came to the foot of the mound, he stopped again.

“…And our visitor seems similarly inclined,” Phecda added.

“True.”

Death turned his head toward the visitor. He spoke in a ragged, rattling way his minions had not heard him use before:

“You come to me playing Politian’s Orfeo, arguably the world’s first opera. A fine piece, which I have not heard in a long while. Of course, this also stirs memories of a story I have not heard in a long while.”

“I’d thought it might,” the man replied.

“I know you, John D’Arcy Donnerjack. I am an admirer of your work. I am especially fond of the delightful fantasy of the afterlife you designed based on Dante’s Inferno.”

“The critics liked it, but the public proved somewhat less than enthusiastic.”

“It is generally that way with my work, also.”

Donnerjack stared, not certain how to respond until Death chuckled.

“A small jest,” the cloaked one added. “In truth, few consider me an actual being. I might be curious as to how you arrived at this conclusion—let alone decided to undertake this journey and succeeded in finding your way here.”

“My life’s work has involved Virtu, and I am among other things a theorist,” Donnerjack replied.

“I feel it will be worth spending time with you one day, in discussion of theory.”

Donnerjack smiled.

“I might enjoy that. You would seem the logical source for final opinions.”

“Mine is not really the last word on everything. Generally, I leave it to others.”

Death cocked his head and fell silent, until the current passage had finished.

“Lovely,” he said then. “I take it you seek to induce in me a mood of esthetic pleasure?”

Donnerjack placed the small unit which he bore on the ground at Death’s feet.

“I admit to that intention,” he answered. “Please accept the player as a gift. There are many other melodies on it as well.”

“I will do that, with thanks, since most things that come to me are damaged—as well you know.”

Donnerjack nodded, stroked his beard.

“The thought had occurred to me,” he said, “and it concerned something which I suppose came to you recently.”

“Yes?”

“Her name was—is—Ayradyss. A dark-haired lady of some attractiveness. I’d known her well for a time.”

“As have I, also,” Death replied. “Yes, she is here. And your manner of arrival as well as your visit itself leads me to anticipate you to some extent.”

“I want her back,” Donnerjack said.

“What you ask is impossible.”

“It figures in legend, folklore, religion. Surely there must be some basis to it, some precedent.”

“Embodiments of dreams, hopes, desires. That is what these things are. They are without foundation in the real world.”

“This is Virtu.”

“Virtu is as real as Verite. It is the same in both places.”

“I cannot accept that there is no hope.”

“John D’Arcy Donnerjack, the universe owes no one a happy ending.”

“You say that it is impossible for you to give back that which you have taken?”

“That which I have received is damaged in some fashion and no longer able to function adequately.”

“That which is damaged can be repaired.”

“That is not the sort of thing for which I am known.”

Donnerjack made a sweeping gesture, encompassing half the landscape.

“You must have the wherewithal here—in the form of every sort of piece or program—to repair anything,” he said.

“Perhaps.”

“Release her to me. You like my Inferno. I will design you another space—to suit your desire.”

“You tempt me, Donnerjack.”

“Have we a deal, then?”

“It would take more than that.”

“Name the price of her return.”

“What you ask would be difficult, even for me. You ask me to reverse entropy, albeit locally, to invert standard procedure and policy.”

“Who else might I ask?”

“Some great artificer might duplicate her for you.”

“But she would not be the same, save superficially. All of her memories would be gone. It would really be a different individual.”

“And that one might not feel for you as she did?”

“I care more about her than I do about myself.”

“Ah, then you really loved her.”

Donnerjack was silent.

“And you intended to share your lives?”

“Yes.”

“In Virtu or Verite?”

Donnerjack laughed.

“I would spend what time I could with her in Virtu. Then—”

“Ah, yes, there is always that interface, isn’t there? But then, even with those having one or the other realm in common, there is always an interface—if only of skin. Usually, it runs even deeper.”

“I did not come here to discuss metaphysics.”

Death raised his smile.

“…And she would visit you in hard-holo, there in the Verite.”

“Of course, we would alternate, and—”

“You ask a disposition of me. I am surprised you were not more specific.”

“In what fashion?”

“That I release her to you in Verite rather than Virtu.”

“That is impossible.”

“If I am to violate one law of existence for you, why not another?”

“But the principles which govern this place would not permit it. There is no way to manage the ‘visit’ effect permanently, fully either way.”

“And if there were?”

“I have made a lifetime study of this.”

“A life is a shallow place in time.”

“Still…”

“Do you think me a proge-generated simulacrum? Some toy of human imagination? I came into being when the first living thing died, and I will not say where or when that was. Neither man nor machine ever wrote a program for me.”

Donnerjack drew back as a moire flowed between them.

“You make it sound as if you really are Death.’

The only reply was the continuing smile.

“And I almost get the feeling you are discussing an experiment you would be curious to perform.”

“Even if that were so, it would not get you a fire sale price on my services.”

“What then? What do you want?”

“Yes, you will build for me. But I want one thing more. You spoke of myths, legends, fairy tales. There are reasons for them, you know.”

“Yes?”

“You have wandered into something you do not understand. If you would play it out, give me my price and you shall walk away with her, back to your own realm.”

“Give her to me and you shall have your price.”

Death stood slowly, stepped to the left of his throne, and raised his right arm. The Orfeo reversed itself, repeating backwards the passage just completed. The figure of a woman moved out from behind the throne.

Donnerjack’s breath caught in his throat.

“Ayradyss!” he said.

“She is aware of you at some level, but she cannot yet reply,” Death said, leading her forward. “You will take her by the hand and follow the trail of bones. It will be a long, dangerous, and difficult way. But you will win back to Verite if you do not depart the trail for any reason. High Powers may attempt to interfere. Stay on the trail.”

He placed her hand in his.

“And now, your price?”

“Your firstborn, of course.”

“What you ask is entirely impossible. First, that we should ever have offspring. Second, that I should be able to deliver it here if we could— physically, in toto.”

“Agree to the conditions and I will take care of the details.”

Donnerjack regarded the pale, vacant-eyed form of his love.

“I agree,” he said.

“Then walk the way of bones back to the light.”

“Amen,” said Donnerjack as he turned away, leading Ayradyss, “and goodbye.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” Death said.

TWO

Lydia Hazzard was seventeen years old with several months vacation ahead of her before beginning her university studies. In that she was the elder of two daughters in a well-to-do family—Hazzard Insurance, third generation—her parents, Carla and Abel, had given her the present of a summer in Virtu, before her life got hardball, red in tooth and claw, and otherwise preoccupied with things academic. She was 5’6”, narrow of waist, large of bust, with hands and legs of a swimsuit model; her hair was shoulder-length and very blond, her cheekbones high, teeth dazzling, complexion pink and smooth, eyes of jungle green with a hint of green splashed above them. This was only in Virtu and it cost extra, but her parents were in a generous mood.

In her home in Bayonne, New Jersey, Verite, she was 5‘9”, with nondescript brownish hair, a bit skinny and gawky with terrible posture, possessed of a volatile complexion and a tendency to chew her fingernails to the quick. Her smile, thanks to orthodontics, was quite fetching, however, and her eyes were indeed jungle green. For that matter, her voice was pleasantly husky and she had a high IQ.

At first she traveled with her friend Gwen, who’d been given for a graduation present a week in the generic resorts of Virtu—Beach, Mountain, Desert, Seashore, Cruise, Casino, Safari—and they had tried a half-day in each to learn their favorites.

Both found Casino intimidating, because once the package plays were used up one played with one’s own money (or one’s parents’) efted on the spot from Casino’s account to one’s own or (more usually) the other way around. This—both Gwen and Lydia had had impressed upon them—was a no-no. They were in Virtu to experience the exotic, to acquire additional social graces, and to get laid in congenial surroundings by good-looking partners in total safety from pregnancy and disease— bodies bucking and heaving against micromanipulable forcefields back in Verite—senses knowing they had spent themselves beneath stars and their partners on South Pacific beaches where waves beat counterpoint and breezes bore the aromas of flowers. Did it matter whether one’s partner was a construct out of Virtu or a fellow idealized vacationer from Verite? They felt the same, and the uncertainty piqued the sense of romance to the fullest. Either were free to lie or to tease, so of course they did. It spiced the game to wonder whether an address someone had given you back home might be real, whether the man or woman you mounted, stroked, sucked on, might be even more fun on the other side. Or whether it was all a dream and such a person did not even exist in the Verite.

She walked the beaches a lot after Gwen’s week was up. They were some of her favorite places when she wanted to be alone, and she realized that, for a time, she did want to be alone. She requested solitude in Virtu, and it was not sifted-seeming tourist beaches that she sought. They were more wild, pebbly strands, sometimes possessed of a vaguely Aegean feeling; other times they were pounded by chill breakers which bespoke the North Sea. And she was fascinated by the lives and deaths she noted in tidal pools along her ways. Underwater forests might sway as in invisible winds, tiny crustaceans scuttle among stones, fishes hover and bend, minuscule red armies and blue armies take up positions for battle…

Occasionally, she saw a red sail. But while the vessel sometimes came near to shore, it never lay to anchor in her sight, nor did she ever glimpse its crew. When the flotsam, driftwood, shells, smells, pools, and sounds of the shore attained a certain level of intensity, she would climb the pale cliffs and hike inland. There lay rocky hills and higher prominences, twisted trees along their slopes. Pink and yellow flowers bloomed in meadows; pockets of fog filled dells and crevices in stone walls till late in the day; a number of vine-covered ruins, always of stone, occurred in the lower valley; thistles of a soft red occasionally punctuated the sloping prospect; and she came upon a hill at eve where she seemed to hear music from under the ground. There, in a sheltered depression to the northwest, she wrapped herself in her cloak to spend the night.

Lying under the stars, she heard the music rise out of the ground and deepen, grow more wild. For a long time, she simply listened, as if in attendance at some odd concert. Abruptly, then, its character shifted.

Louder, more powerful, it came, no longer from beneath the ground, but from somewhere nearby. Had she been drowsing? She searched hastily for a break in her consciousness, could not be certain whether one had occurred.

Rising, she paced the hilltop, seeking the direction of the music. It seemed to be coming from the southwest, to her right.

The world grew brighter as she headed in that direction, climbing…

It grew louder still as she reached her hill’s summit. There, from across the valley, backlighted by a recently risen moon, she beheld a form atop the next height: a piper. He stood stock-still, the skirls and wailings on his pipes filling the air between them.

She seated herself. As the moon rose higher she saw that the piper was a man. Their hilltops seemed to drift closer together. This later struck her as peculiar, in that her solitude-order was still in effect. She had not intended on lifting it for a couple of more days, following a conditioning visit to Verite. Strange…

How long she sat, she could never tell. The moon had risen higher, and the piper had turned somewhat, so that its light fell across his face from the left, both illuminating and shadowing. He was high of cheekbone, heavy of brow, and he wore a small beard. He seemed to have on rough, dark leggings and a dark green, moist-looking satin shirt. There was a cap on his head, and the hilt of some sort of weapon at his side.

Slowly, he turned toward her until he was staring into her eyes. Abruptly, he left off playing then. He doffed his cap and bowed to her.

“Good evening, m’lady,” he called.

“Good evening,” she replied, standing.

“Wolfer Martin D’Ambry, at your service.”

“Oh—I’m Lydia Hazzard. I like your piping. Which do you use mostly—‘Wolfer,’ ‘Martin,” or ‘Ambry’?”

“I answer to all of them, Miz Hazzard. Address me as you would.”

“I like the sound of ‘Ambry.’ Please call me ‘Lydia.’ “

“And so I shall, Lydia,” he said, raising the pipes once again. “Join me if you would.”

He began to play, an eerily involving tune, like the breathing of the genius loci. She found herself moving to the trail, barely aware of doing so, taking the way downward and across the valley. The music moved above her as she passed through darkness, and when she reached the foot of Ambry’s hill she realized that the piper was no longer at the height he had occupied. He had moved, was moving, to the east.

She sought a trail. Suddenly, it was important that she catch up with him, continue their conversation.

The only trail she could discover led upward to where he had been standing. Very well…

She commenced climbing, out of the darkness toward the growing bar of moonlight. The sounds of Ambry’s piping were more distant now, and when she finally reached the summit they seemed far away indeed. She located what must have been the trail he had taken—the only one in sight—and hurried down it.

It was a long while through rugged ways before the notes came louder and she realized she was gaining. She had no sense of descent, but the way grew more level. Perhaps she had achieved a plateau.

This land looked different, smelled different, by night. Why was she hurrying so? The man and his pipes were intruders into her idyll. She was going to return to Verite, break the travel-trance, dine properly rather than via life-support, play tennis, perhaps, rather than electronstim isometrics, visit her family, then return after a few days and be more sociable. But there was a mystery here—and something else. She needed to find Ambry.

Almost as this realization occurred, the sound of his bagpipes died. She began running. Perhaps he’d only stopped to rest for a moment. But something might have happened to him. He could have fallen. Or—

She stumbled, rose, ran again. The night seemed suddenly colder, the shadows more than simple patches of darkness. It was as if each darkened area held something which stirred slowly and watched her. The trail dipped into the valley, passed over a stream by means of stepping stones, then rose again. At her back she heard a rattling of stones, as if something were following her without a great deal of stealth. She did not look back.

Abruptly, the piping resumed, somewhere far off to her left. She turned in that direction. She began to gain on it, and after a few minutes she seemed to be drawing near. When she felt that she was about to come into sight of Ambry the pipes grew still.

She cursed softly, and then she heard the following sounds again. A slight breeze brought her sea smells from somewhere to the left. Had she described a big loop, returning to the coast? She looked to the moon for guidance, but it was too high in the heavens now.

She continued to move in what seemed the proper direction. She had to slow, however, when she came to a region of standing stones, for her way seemed to lie among them. Entering, she could tell that there were many, but not whether there was a pattern to them.

As she walked, she seemed to detect a movement directly ahead. She halted and stared, but it was not repeated. Setting forth again, she noticed a movement to her right. Again, she paused to study it. This time, it seemed as if one of the huge stones itself had slid perhaps an inch. Then there came another such movement, from the left. Fascinated, she watched the towering stone slide for several inches before it came to a halt. By then, another was in motion. And another…

Soon all of them seemed to be moving. The sensation was peculiar, as if they stood still and she was drifting among them. And the one directly ahead of her now seemed to be growing in size.

She extended a hand and touched one. It brushed by. Another…

A hand seized her left biceps and drew her to the side. She gasped, turning.

“Sorry to take hold of you that way,” Ambry said, “but you were about to be run over.”

She nodded and followed him to the left, which seemed to be westward. The stones were sliding even more rapidly now, none of them swaying. They maintained a monumental stability as they headed into the south.

“Full moon on the equinox,” he said. “They awaken then and go to the river to drink. They be back at their stations by morn. ‘Tis not good to be in their way once they get going. Mass, inertia, momentum.”

“Thank you.” She laughed then, and there was a slight, hysterical rising to it.

“What is it, Miz Lydia?” he asked.

“You speak of hard, textbook properties of matter on the one hand,” she said, “and on the other you tell me of the stones going to take a drink. That part is right out of Gaelic legend.”

“Why, all legends have found their way to Virtu,” he said, continuing to draw her aside from the field of stones, “those of science as well as those of the folk.”

“But scientific principles, laws, constants are universal in Verite.”

“…And in Virtu as well. But here there are intelligences which manipulate them in terms of each other, as well as our own special sets.”

“But here they can be manipulated.”

“In accord with rules—some of them pretty tricky—but rules, nevertheless. It is all unifiable. Both sides can be made to match. It’s just that it’s sometimes hard on the senses, as well as the reasoning.”

He continued to move them away from the traffic. By now, the stones were moving very rapidly—a great rushing of black forms, and silent, totally silent.

She turned and walked with him, Ambry’s arm slipping over her shoulder now, bearing an edge of his cloak, enfolding her.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked him.

“Someplace warm and peaceful,” he said, and while she had been hoping for a virtual affair she had never decided what her lover would look like.

She glanced up at him and smiled.

John D’Arcy Donnerjack followed the Trails of Fire and Blood, Water and Dust, Wind and Steel. The closest he came to being tricked into departing the Way was on the Trail of Ivory and Wood, where a genius loci in the form of a child with a basket of flowers almost persuaded him that he had taken a wrong turning and was on the road to fair Elfland. But a moire passed between, and through the lens of its transform he had seen the child as it truly was and moved on. It leaped at him then, fangs bared, heavy metal tail striking sparks from the stone, but the Way of Ivory and Wood guards its travelers even from the masters of place. On the Trail of Earth and Ash a maddened phant emerged from a hole in the Trail itself and rushed toward them. Donnerjack, observant unto death, detected the swelling near the base of one of the beast’s fore-tusks, however, and lured it to the side of the Trail, away from Ayradyss, while summoning and reviewing the lifespecs of its sort.

Then, in a fit of the design inspiration which had made him a legend in both academic and engineering circles, Donnerjack dug his thumbs into two of the beast’s acupuncture points and waited. It shuffled its massive feet but remained where it stood, as if sensing the intent behind the human hands which used it so. Its breathing slowed, and it made small snuffling sounds and regarded the man intently. Then it turned away, departed the Trail, and headed for the woods.

It was around the next bend that the genius loci again appeared, of a lovely blue color and formed somewhat like a Caterpillar tractor—and, with inhuman actions, threatened the travelers. In a simple act of animal gratitude, the phant, who’d followed the action from a nearby grove, returned hurriedly to trample the shit out of it and leave it leaking vital fluids from where he’d cast it into a thorn tree. Thus do good deeds sometimes come around, even in Virtu.

Donnerjack moved on then, to essay the awesome Chasm of Stars and Bridges, which would make all the difference. He could hear the growls of the structure’s swaying and terrible clicking of the illuminations’ teeth even from there, for he was nearing the place of the primal language itself, where the words of creation had assembled Virtu.

He plodded steadily onward, one of the few men able to deduce the secret geography of the universe—a virtue which had made this endeavor possible, but which in no way mitigated its dispositions. For, as he mounted the final height and took the first turning, coming at last into sight of that groaning, clashing abyss of fire and spans, the fear of death filled his stomach and rose from there.

Rising from his knees and lowering his hands from his face, he called to Ayradyss and felt her hand upon his shoulder. Straightening, he threw his head back as he advanced, and then, voice wavering at first, he began to sing as he moved onto the span.

High atop Mount Meru at the center of the universe the gods sat unmoving on their stone thrones, contemplating Virtu all about them. Having sacrificed much of mobility for the better part of omniscience they tended to sit so for long spans of time. Action detracted from perception and perhaps wisdom.

Having extended much of themselves into their warring avatars, they had slowed the functioning of their personalities here. Hence, their conversations would have been drawn-out affairs by time-bound standards. Fortunately, an equivalent of singularity math prevailed at Virtu’s center, allowing for those frustrating and wonderful anomalies the lesser gods referred to as “eternity physics,” envying their seniors those awful and awesome excesses of inscrutability in regions above the winds that blow between the worlds.

Skyga, Seaga, and Earthma realized they’d not much of themselves left what with extensions of sense and personality beyond number and mass. Their ongoing extended conversations—sometimes more like monologues—were necessary for preserving what remained of identity.

They feared that silence would extinguish them as they were, leaving them forever divided among their lesser selves throughout the realms of Virtu. There were of course hierarchies within hierarchies, as one descended the skies, the lands, the seas.

“…Thus a new cycle begins,” Seaga observed over a timeless decade.

“As with most major events, its origins are already muddied,” Earthma observed, “unless the hand of Skyga moves within them.”

“He has not spoken for a long while. Perhaps he is acting.”

“Or perhaps he has finally decomposed completely.”

“I wonder…”

“No. He plays a guarded game. He hums softly.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t you start, too.”

“You think he is not really there?”

“If the gods don’t know, who is to say?”

“We might take advantage of such an absence by returning all of ourselves to our bodies and removing them to the cave where it is more comfortable and—”

“We would lose touch with our minions for a time.”

“…And gain touch with each other, fair one.”

“True, and pleasant indeed would it be. Though whenever such as we make love the chains of consequence tend to dizzying complexity as well as to poetry.”

“What the hell. Let’s leave him to his mantra and get to bed.”

“A moment, while I cover my absence with a few illusions.”

“Then we uncover ourselves and make the mountain move.”

“So much for the poetry part.”

As Seaga reeled in his consciousness, his perspective on Virtu’s spiritual development altered from being gathered into one place. While it remained a colorful panorama, it seemed now—compressed as the picture had become—that he was more aware of patterns, where before he had seen only events.

“Earthma, I think there may be a peculiar social current that has some connection with Stage IV,” he observed, as they walked toward the cave.

“Don’t be silly, Seaga,” she said, brushing against him with her hip. No mortal in Verite and hardly any in Virtu even suspect that there is a theoretical basis for such a thing.”

“True,” he acknowledged, catching hold of her hand.

“…And even if one were to work it out, that is all that it could be—a hypothesis with no obvious applicability.”

“I’d found some small and subtle uses for it.”

“Nothing like what we’d talked about in the beginning.”

“No, you’re right,” he said, following her into the cave and drawing her to him.

“Now, which would you rather explore, reality theory or female anatomy?” she asked.

“When you put it that way, I begin to appreciate how many centuries I’ve spent in an abstract, theological fashion.”

She gestured and there was sufficient illumination to light their way to bed. He gestured and the light went out.

“The last ones I saw come in here were Warga and Agrima,” she said.

“Yes, before they departed for realms unknown,” he said as their garments fell.

“That was years ago,” she noted, “and they didn’t stay long.”

“Warga is noted for things like that,” Seaga observed. “Quick and to the point.”

Earthma giggled.

“Terrible reputation to have.”

“The sea, on the other hand, is slow, steady, relentless. And occasionally it grows wild.”

“Live up to that,” she said.

Eilean a’Tempull Dubh had possessed other names in the listings of National Trust for Scotland, but it was the one Donnerjack remembered it by, and by which he referred to it, there in the telephone booth within the circle of fire—a rest stop on the Long, Long Trail A-Winding. Given to planning ahead, he had recalled that black piece of real estate off the western coast of Scotland which he had twice visited as a boy. Its presence in the family had something to do with those MacMillans, MacKays, and MacCrimmons numbered among his father’s antecedents, though he’d no idea whether it were still present, or, if so, what medieval encumbrances might complicate its relationship to him. He’d phoned his attorney, a Wilson, back in the Verite, who had complained concerning the connection and had wanted to speak of the legal business of the Donnerjack Institute, and had told him to get in touch with his father’s attorney, a MacNeil, in Edinburgh—or to that man’s successor—and have him determine whether Donnerjack still possessed title and, if so, what he needed to do to repair, renovate, and to take up residence on that family isle. The Wilson wanted to discuss some current contracts then, but a rush of flames filled his screen as Donnerjack’s five minutes were up and, being a thrifty man, John did not elect to credit another call unit.

Sayjak slept in a fork of a tree, higher than anyone else in his clan. That way he could watch them all. And the higher they had to come to reach him the more signs of their progress he received. Such as now.

He had been sound asleep, dreaming of sex and violence—which, more often than not, went together in his waking life as well—and he felt the approach and was awake and aware well before Chumo was near enough to attack him, had that been his plan.

Sayjak belched, farted, scratched himself, and stretched. Then he regarded Chumo as he climbed, waiting for him to achieve a suitable nearness for quiet conversation.

“Sayjak,” the other called. “Come quick. We got troubles.”

Sayjak yawned deliberately before responding.

“What troubles?” he said then.

“Eeksies. All over. Most to south. More coming in west, north.”

“How many eeksies?”

“All of fingers. All of toes. Dick, too. Many times. Just in south.”

“What they doing?”

“Nothing. Sit in camp. Eat. Crap. Sleep.”

“What about west ones? And north?”

“All of fingers. Maybe throw in a few dicks. Just getting there. More came in north while we watched.”

“You and Staggert?”

“Yes.”

Sayjak reached for his mascot. It had taken him weeks to learn to tie a knot in a piece of cord he had found in the bounties’ camp. But he had seen knots before and knew their function. And this cord already had a knot in it. He had used it as a model. Over and over, he had looped and twisted the strand until one day he did it. He had repeated it then, even learning variations. Then he was ready.

He tied each end securely to the hair of Big Betsy’s head. This made it easy to hang from broken tree limbs, or to wear it around his neck when he felt the occasion warranted ceremony. Now, it hung from a nearby branch, and he reached out and stroked it as a thinking aid, and perhaps for good luck, also. He had cached the machete in the hollow of another tree, and every now and then he took it out and cut something with it.

For a moment, he considered wearing the head. But he had too far to go, too fast. It could catch or tangle in the brush. He bade it goodbye, then told Chumo, “Take me south. Then west and north. I must see these eeksies for myself.”

So he followed Chumo down the tree, halted to alert the clan to the presence of eeksies, then headed into the south. Several hours later, he crouched in the brush with Chumo, regarding the encampment. A great number of the hunters were about, eating, talking, cleaning or honing weapons. It was the largest gathering of them that Sayjak had ever seen. Along with the apprehension this produced there came a number of questions. Why so many? Why now? And they were bounties—not eeksies, in their green-and-brown uniforms. Why bounties?

Eeksies were official; they were establishment, sent from some far-off place to do a job, and for that matter, their jobs did not always involve killing the People. Sometimes they cut trees or planted them, set fires or fought them, dug ditches, diverted rivers. Bounties, on the other hand, only came to kill—and unlike eeksies they took away tokens of their work. It was from the bounties, in fact, that he had gotten the notion of taking Big Betsy’s head. The bounties were freer, wilder, nastier, more worthy of respect-Usually, they were loners or trackers in small parties, and he had to assume that those to the west and the north were a part of this entire business. Such things did not just happen…

After a time, he touched Chumo’s shoulder.

“Take me to the west now,” he told him.

As they traveled, he wondered where Otlag’s clan browsed these days. Or Dortak’s. Or Bilgad’s. A general knowledge of where the others browsed was useful in preventing territorial disputes. But he was thinking precisely, rather than generally, at the moment.

Spying on the much smaller western party from a dangerous vantage, he began to suspect that none of the other clans would be enclosed by the three bounty parties and the plains to the east. He would know for certain soon enough, but already he began to feel uneasy. Hoga, who had been watching the western group, told him that its last few members had just arrived. They were making camp, though, rather than waiting as if they expected orders momentarily. So Sayjak assumed that they planned to spend at least one night in the area before commencing any concerted action with the other groups.

Hoga and Congo, who had been left by Staggert to watch the party since its discovery that morning, followed Sayjak’s lead away from the clearing.

“You know where Dortak’s or Bilgad’s or Otlak’s clans are right now?” Sayjak asked.

“Otlak’s that way.” He pointed north. “Far past the next bounty encampment. Dortak’s farther west.” He pointed again. “Don’t know about Bilgad.”

Sayjak felt a strange sensation in his stomach, for he had felt that Bilgad foraged to the southeast. That indeed only left his own clan within the walls he now saw being raised. These bounties, he was suddenly certain, wanted him and his people for a particular vengeance.

He groped after a concept—the posting of the three groups so as to enable them to move most effectively against his people. His head filled with the projected activity. The notion of putting it all together in this fashion before doing it took hold of him mightily. He did things, too, in that way, though on a much smaller scale. While he lacked a word for the concept “plan,” in both its verb and noun forms, he suddenly understood it. And he realized that he needed one of his own, a bigger one than he had ever come up with before.

“Take me north now,” he said, “where Staggert watches the other group.”

He calculated distances as they went, and he thought about the Circle Shannibal. He knew that he must act quickly, and that his plan would have to be better than their plan.

A little after noon they arrived at the northern encampment. Staggert met them and led them to a vantage amid trees on a hilltop.

“This is the smallest camp,” Sayjak observed. “I see two hands of bounties.”

“And there are more bounties on patrol,” Staggert said.

“The People are in great danger,” Sayjak said after a time.

“From these bounties?” Staggert said.

“Yes. These and those to the west are going to surprise the People and drive them southward to be slaughtered.”

“How do you know this?” Staggert asked.

Sayjak thought of the raid on which he had slain Big Betsy. He suddenly thought of the other bounties coming here because he had given them fear, fear that they could become the prey.

“I tell you everything I know, Staggert, and you’ll be too smart,” he said, “like me. They want our heads, and they will take them. Unless we have a—a better way of doing things than their way of doing things.”

He turned toward Chumo.

“Go back,” he told him, “to the other two camps. Get Congo. Get Hoga. Get Ocro. Bring them here to wait for me.”

“Wait?” Chumo asked. “Where are you going?”

“Back for the rest of our clan.”

“Bring ‘em here, too?’

“Place near here.”

“What for?”

Sayjak studied the other. Then he tapped his forehead.

“New way of fighting.”

“What do you call it?”

“People warfare,” Sayjak replied.

Then he turned and was gone into the jungle.

He brought the entire clan with him that evening, leaving all but the able-bodied males in a clearing about a mile from the northern encampment. He wore his mascot about his neck and he carried the stick-that-cuts as he led them, finally positioning his warriors in a glen near to the bounties’ camp. Then he conferred with his lieutenants.

Staggert, Chumo, Svut, Congo, Ocro, and Hoga stood with him in a twilit clearing as he said, “Tonight we going to kill them all here. You know how?”

All of them growled assent.

“No, you don’t know how,” he said then. “You know how to run in, make a lot of noise, wrestle around, and squish ‘em. That’s not how. Not how I want it done, not this time. We wait for dark and quiet. Get as close as we can without noise. Kill ones nearest weapons first. But kill all of ‘em. We take too long, or they get hold of fancy weapons, we call for more warriors to come in fast and crush. Second group will be waiting for this, if we need ‘em. Too many go in at first, though, and we get in each others’ way. Everybody understand?”

Again, they all grunted assent.

Her body lay in its cubicle, nourishment, elimination, and exercise taken care of through the guardian unit. It had spoken to her in Virtu, warning her that her time was running, that she must soon return to Verite, in accordance with the vacation plan filed for her by her parents, which entailed a week on and a week off, throughout the summer. This limit was already passed, and she was now into the grace period, which, itself, was about to expire.

However, as her legs parted and her hips commenced small thrusting movements, the guardian unit halted its preparation for her recall. As Lydia moaned softly, it was already investigating her situation in Virtu. Sexual intercourse of the non-rape variety normally extended the grace period for its duration. With rape, of course, it mattered from a recreational standpoint whether one were rendering it or receiving it. Subtleties involving jurisdiction and the protection of one’s client also came into play. The scan showed this particular lay to be of the voluntary, mutually recreational variety. The monitor was, unfortunately, unable to appreciate the esthetics and physiological sequelae of terminating presence with one’s lover immediately following orgasm.

Abruptly, her legs locked themselves about invisible hips. Her pumping movements grew more frantic, and her nails raked an unseen back. The monitor detected increased heartbeat, blood pressure, breathing rate, and volume per inhalation. It did not notice that she was smiling. This is only known as the “demon lover effect” when people view it from the one side, while eating popcorn.

As soon as the big relaxation came it commenced the recall sequence.

… And fell. And blasted fell…

His assembled body limp at the bottom of inertia, he passed downward from the topless height, surfaces singed as if by a stroke of lightning.

The trail had taken him through lands both hollow and hilly, through dead domains like abandoned movie sets. Up, ever up, had it led, into the realms of painful light. But he was not one to lose a trail, and he had followed, followed. Running up vertical surfaces, leaping chasms without bottoms, he sought. Seeking, he—

—found?

Rather, he was found.

One moment, he followed a scent. The next moment, it was all around him. He rose into the air and spun, fantasy dance of a pied autumn leaf. And the brightness was awesome.

“Oh, frightful dogger of this trail,” snapped a voice from everywhere, like the scent, “you have come too far!”

Mizar threw back his head and commenced the howl Death had taught him.

With a crackling sound, the brightness condensed upon his person. His howl was cut off, barely past its inception. Again, he was turning, and a new smell filled the air, that of burning insulation, boiled glue, singed paint, welded metal. Rolling, ass over knee joint, tail in eye, he felt himself cast beyond the edge of the great crag in the silent sky where stars bloom in the always twilight and clouds drift far below.

Blasted by the light, the darkness came upon him.

Falling, falling then—for days, ages perhaps, depending on the worlds he fell through—

—down…

THREE

Tranto had lost track of time in his wanderings. Not that he ever paid it a great deal of heed, but the madness laid a distorting red haze over most things, time and space among them.

As the pain subsided, however, the frantic characteristic of the huge phant’s approach to existence was also abated. The haze grew dim, and with its passing he was able to stop and eat the flowers again. He noted after a time that he occupied a great plain near to the edge of a jungle. It stirred memories of an earlier existence, for he recalled being small among others of his kind in a place such as this. And who knew? He might even have returned to those very ranges. He browsed, barely thinking, for days, his mind adrift in a place halfway between dreaming and wakefulness. This was the glorious euphoria which normally followed his spells. Moving, eating, and drinking, gaining back the mass he had lost, he found it an unnecessary effort to do more than respond to circumstances. That, and enjoy without reflection the simple realities of being.

The days drifted by, and nothing came to trouble him. All of the local predators found him intimidating—an abnormally large phant, with great jaw sabers that looked as if they had been carved from pieces of a wrecked moon. Sometime after the pain had passed and his senses seemed returned to normal, he wondered, for the first time, whether there might be others of his kind in the vicinity. He had known many herds over the years, and he realized now that he missed their company. Perhaps more than just company. It would be good to have a mate again. His symptoms had been gone for a sufficiently long while now that it was unlikely they would recur in the near future.

And so he sought. First he must find a herd. His kind were generally of a herding persuasion. While he was often an exception to this rule, the desire for company returned to him periodically, causing him to seek, as he sought now, after a group of the others. Of course, merely finding them would hardly be sufficient. He would have to persuade them to take him in. Traditionally, this meant a lengthy probationary period as a classless hanger-on. Too long, this always seemed too long. Still—there was an etiquette, a set of rules to follow in these matters. And the first thing, really, was to locate a herd.

He trumpeted, long and loud, then listened after the echoes had died. There was no response, not that he had expected one the first time he made inquiry. He sounded his call again, then browsed for a long while. Afterwards, he drank his fill at the water hole.

It seemed that he would have to go and find them. Since the only spoor in the area was quite ancient and no one had answered his inquiry, one direction would seem almost as good as another. Except for the west. The jungle lay to the west.

The present area showed signs of recent recovery from overbrowsing. His kind had been here and had moved on. The land was now well on the way to recovery, so he knew that they would return eventually, when they had exhausted new ranges. Of course, the plain was vast, and it could be a very long while; on the other hand, there were other herds upon the plain… He pondered this for only a short while.

Now that he felt his stamina and full rationality returned, he did not wish to wait upon a chance encounter. It would be good to smell the others, to rub shoulders as he browsed. There was no real reason to wait around here and ample reason to depart. He would go looking. He would find them.

He turned slowly. North, east, west, south… Yes, south. There was an old trail.

He began walking in that direction. He only half followed the dried trail. There were phants somewhere in the south and that was sufficient. There was no real need to hurry. Once he made a decision and began acting it was as if some natural law had been invoked. His patience was as legendary as his wrath.

His memory was excellent, also. As he traveled, he recalled stony lowlands that he passed as things seen when he was smaller and they had seemed bigger. He was, however, not consciously given to sentimentality, for he had never learned the concept. He trudged steadily southward, and predators whose territory he crossed went and hid until he had gone by. He browsed amid long grasses, slaked his thirst at water hole or forest stream. Dark birds came and walked upon his back, grooming him of insect pests. Occasionally, they chatted:

“Nasty scar there, big fella. How’d you get it?”

“Main pole of a circus tent scraped me, when I knocked it down. May 11, 2108.”

“Oh, you’ve been to the big city!”

“Indeed.”

“Never knew anyone to come back.”

“Now you do. Seen any of my kind of people in the neighborhood recently?”

“Recently, no. They come and go.”

“Know of any to the south?”

“That’s the way they headed. I may be flying down that way soon, what with the bug shortage here. What about this one?”

“That’s from a spear wielded by a gooey man.”

“Gooey man? What’s that?”

“That’s how he got after I walked on him. August 7, 2105.”

“Ever have any trouble with eeksies or bounties?”

“Yes, but not recently.”

“There are lots of them moving about in the jungle just now.”

“Which kind?”

“Bounties. But there may be some eeksy observers.”

“Bounties are tougher. One almost nailed me back when there was a price on my head. September 17, 2113. Lady. Big Betsy, they called her.”

“She’s dead.”

“Good. I sometimes dream she’s still after me. What killed her?”

“Sayjak of the tree people. Took her head. Still has it.”

Tranto snorted.

“Name sounds familiar.”

“He’s boss of the biggest clan. Fast. Can catch a flying bird in his hand as he swings through the trees. I’ve seen him do it. Strong. Dangerous.”

“They get gooey, too, if I walk on them. Big Betsy favored ambushes, though. Got one of her scars, too. What do the bounties and eeksies want now?”

“Sayjak’s head, I think. Mad about Big Betsy and the others he made short.”

“If they stayed away they wouldn’t have these problems.”

“True.”

“This is a land they didn’t design, where things just went their course. Now, all of a sudden, they act like it’s theirs.”

“They’re never happy.”

“I suppose not.”

“Maybe I’ll see more of your scars later. I’m heading back to the jungle now. Want to see what happens.”

“Don’t fly near Sayjak when he’s swinging through trees.”

“No. Good luck in your search.”

“Thanks.”

He plodded on. All that day, stopping only to eat and drink his fill at a water hole, he continued southward. At night, he browsed beneath a sky full of bright stars.

Days passed easily in this fashion. He endured a long, dry stretch where even the grasses were parched. Day after day this went on, to be followed by a cloudburst which filled every declivity with water. After that, the terrain became stonier. He continued into the south and that evening he passed a walking man and a woman upon a trail bordered by white markers, wavering, as through a heat haze. It appeared to be the same man who had helped him in his extremity recently. When he approached them, however, they faded, to appear high overhead where they spiraled amid red sun rays for perhaps ten minutes before vanishing. Before the day ended he came upon a trail fresher than any he had yet encountered—phant spoor—heading southward.

For three days he followed that track. On the third he caught a scent out of the east. His own kind. Phant. For the first time, now, he hurried.

That evening he came to an area which they had traversed very recently. The next morning he found an easy trail. The breezes shifted, but when they bore him the scents they were stronger.

By noontime, he had sight of them, great dark masses shifting slowly on the distant plain. He slowed, then halted, regarding them. For the first time in a long while, something like joy rose within him. The company of his fellows… It was immediately tempered by a certain bittersweet realization: It was not that easy for a stranger to be accepted into a herd.

One way of going about it was to hang around the periphery of the group, obsequious, waiting to be noticed. Gradually, after a long period of waiting, one might be accepted into the bottom of the society.

At some buried level of his being Tranto knew that he was probably older than any of them. It seemed that he had been around for a very long while. It suddenly seemed possible to him that he could have been a member of this herd before, that it may well have been his original herd, and that he could have survived all of the others in it. The thought of returning now, unknown, as an outcast, irritated him. True—if it were the case—it was to be expected of one with his wandering ways. Yet, it rankled. Pacing and snorting, he became more and more convinced that it was indeed the case. He belonged here, and they would deny him his rightful place. The more he thought about it the more irritated he became, though he had not yet made contact.

He paced them for a day, keeping his distance but allowing himself to be seen. His anger grew as he followed. Yes, it certainly seemed possible that this had once been his band. There were so many here who resembled those others. Then he thought of his anger. While it had often gotten him in trouble in the past, that was the anger born of pain-madness. This hardly seemed on that scale.

The second day he moved nearer, browsing much closer to the leeward fringe of the herd. That afternoon a runt male, doubtless the bottommost phant in the band’s hierarchy, moved near. A little later he glanced up and said, “My name’s Muggle.”

“I’m Tranto.”

“A legendary name, that. Father of the herd.”

“Who’s in charge now?”

“Scarco. That’s him over by the grove.”

Tranto glanced in the direction indicated, to behold a large phant engaged in the sharpening of his tusks upon an outcropping of rough rock.

“Has he been boss long?”

“For as far back as I can remember.”

“Is he ever challenged?”

“Regularly. The plains are strewn with the bones of those who didn’t make it to the graveyard of our kind, famed in song and story.”

“Indeed. What’s his policy on admitting new members to the herd?”

“In general, the usual. The newcomer follows us around for a couple of seasons taking a lot of shit and gradually being accepted into the lowest ranks. A few more seasons and he may work his way up a little.”

“A little?”

“Well, as far as he may—which isn’t very—from just being on hand. Unless, of course, he’s a fighter. Then he can go as far as it’ll take him.”

“In other words, it’s just like everywhere else.”

“So far as I understand it.”

“Good. Has everyone in the herd noticed me?”

“Not the near-sighted ones, I suppose, or the ones farther off to the west.”

“Well, I do want them all to at least recognize me. How long do you think that’ll take?”

“I’d say about three days.”

“You’ll mention my name to the others?”

“Of course. They sent me to learn it. I get all the jobs like this. I can’t wait till you join up and I have someone I can push around.”

The next day many of the phants wandered by, glancing at him. When Muggle came by again, he paused.

“They know your name,” he said, “and I’ve learned that it’s not at all a common one. I’ve been asked to see whether you have chain marks on your leg and to find out whether you were ever boss of your own herd. Apparently, there was once a Tranto who got hauled away to be exhibited. There’s some story involving a tall building he did something terrible at.”

“Yes, I was boss of my own herd,” Tranto replied.

Muggle moved to inspect his legs.

“Those do look like the marks he described to me.”

“Who?”

“Scarco.”

“Oh, the boss was wondering?”

“Yes. He wanted to know what you planned to do here.”

“Oh. I planned to wait three days, till everyone at least knew who I was, and then challenge him for leadership of the herd.”

“Combat? Tusk to tusk? Body to body?”

“The usual, yes.”

“To the death?”

“To whatever is necessary.”

“You ever do it before?”

“Yes.”

“To the death, I mean.”

“Yes. That, too. Though it seldom goes that far.”

“Really?”

“You ever seen one end in death?”

“Well, no. But I’ve seen some pretty nasty fighting.”

“Exactly. We usually knock off when it’s pretty obvious who’s the better phant.”

“Three days, you say… When did you start counting?”

“Well, there was yesterday, and then there’s today.”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow you give the challenge?”

“The day after. I meant three full days. Everybody will have an idea what I look like by then. It’s the closest I’m going to get to being introduced.”

“But that’s just not how it’s done. Usually, they start out fighting some lower phant and work their way up. Somewhere along the line they find their level, and that’s that.”

“I’ve a pretty good idea where I’ll wind up. I’m just cutting out the middlemen.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“I’m glad he appreciates it.”

“Excuse me.”

Continuing his browsing, Tranto noted after a time that Muggle had moved into Scarco’s vicinity as if in the accidental course of his breakfast foraging. They were together for some small while. Then a black bird came and sat on Scarco’s head.

Later in the day, Muggle wandered his way again.

“I was talking to Scarce a bit ago…” he said.

Tranto grunted.

“He thinks it rather ill-considered for you to do a thing like that when you’re not even familiar with the group. What if—speaking hypothetically, of course—you fought him and won and then discovered that you didn’t even like the job or the area or your constituents?”

“We could always move to a different area,” Tranto said, “and, as for the job, I think I indicated I’ve held the like before. Never had any-trouble with my herd then, either.”

Muggle nodded.

“The boss had anticipated your saying something like that. He’s pretty smart as well as tough, you know. Tough just isn’t enough to have kept him where he is for as long as he’s been there. Now he felt you might need a little time to make up your mind about whether you were really doing the right thing.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Bear with me a moment. Scarce appreciates your feelings—as an outcast looking for a home, as a phant so desperate for acceptance that he’s willing to risk his life for a herd. So he asked me to make you a proposal: Hold off on the challenge and he’ll waive the waiting period. You won’t have to wander about the fringes of the herd looking pathetic and sucking up to everybody. You’ll be in, effective immediately, with all the rights and privileges that entails.”

“That would still leave me at the bottom of things, which is unacceptable.”

“You could still fight your way up, a rung at a time, whenever you felt up to it.”

“Too slow. No thanks.”

“He will be sorry to hear that.”

“I’m certain.”

Muggle lumbered off. Tranto watched him browse his way toward Scarco again. Later in the day he came back.

“How’s about this?” he asked. “He lets you in at the middle level. No getting dumped on like the guys at the bottom. In fact, you’ll have plenty of guys you can push around yourself then. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Acceptance and a little fun?”

“What about the guy I displace?”

“The boss just tells him to eat a little shit. He’ll do it. That’s what life is all about.”

“What about the ones I’ll suddenly be over?”

“They eat a little, too. But they’ll get over it.”

“Whoever would be right above me and right under me wouldn’t accept me, seeing how I’d gotten my position. I’d have to fight them to consolidate things.”

“That’s up to you.”

“True, and since it means I’d have to fight anyway, I’ll just start at the top.”

“Scarco’s awfully tough.”

“I never doubted that.”

“Did you really get that scar knocking down a—what do you call ‘em?—circus tent?”

“No, that’s the one over on this side. I got that one tearing a fighting vehicle apart.”

“I’m not sure I know what that is. But I’ll go and pass along your answer now, if it’s final.”

“It is.”

Muggle moved away. Tranto foraged some more, wandered over to the water hole and drank, climbed a hill, and watched the day end. As the shadows drifted about him, he descended its far side, lowered his head, and drowsed.

Somewhere in the middle of the night he was roused by the sense of a large presence moving nearby. Despite their great bulk, phants can move with ghostlike stealth. Yet it is not that easy to surprise a fellow phant who is experienced in that area himself.

“Good evening, Scarco,” Tranto said.

“How did you know who it was?”

“Who else would it be?”

“True. I guess we’re the only two with anything to talk about at this hour.”

“So it would seem.”

“I know who you are.”

“The bird. I saw it.”

“I might have guessed without it, Ancestor.”

“Well, I’ve been around a lot, that’s true. I don’t know that it matters, makes me special some way.”

“Ah, but it does. As a child, I heard stories of you. I still hear them. I often wondered whether you were truly real, or but a legend. I confess I felt it to be the latter. Now, it appears that I must fight you for the leadership of the herd.”

“Well, yes. I’m not giving you much choice. But look at it this way: When we’re done, you’ll be Number Two. That’s not bad. Takes a lot of the pressure off, in a way, I understand.”

Scarco made a polite noise, then, “That’s not entirely it,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You are right that being Number Two might not be bad. After all these years it might even be something of a relief. I could stop worrying about challenges, stop worrying about all the big decisions, take life easy for a change, and still enjoy everyone’s respect. The position does hold considerable appeal.”

“Then what’s the problem? We fight, and—win or lose—you still end up in a desirable position.”

“Dead is not a desirable position.”

“Who’s talking dead? We both know that these things only go as far as they have to.”

“Ordinarily, yes. But, well… I’m a little leery about this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, to be frank—no insult intended, mind you—I’ve heard that you’re a rogue. Once you lose your temper and start smashing things, they say, there’s no stopping you. It occurs to me that this might be the case in a combat for leadership, that you just might not stop where anyone else would if someone were to call it quits.”

“Oh, no. This is a misunderstanding of my condition—though it’s easy to see how the rumor might have gotten around. What it is, is that I’ve an old injury that sometimes acts up, and when it does the pain tends to drive me rather wild. This doesn’t occur too often, however. Years often pass between spells. In fact, I’ve just gotten over one recently, so it should be a good long time before I’m troubled by another. Generally, I even feel it coming on and have time to get away from my friends. So there’s really nothing to worry about on that account.”

“What brings them on, Tranto?”

“Oh, different things. Apart from the times when they just come on by themselves, various traumas might set them off. A CF prod, for instance. Hate the things.”

“Oh, they’ve had you on forced work crews?”

“Indeed. Usually a mistake on their part.”

“I can imagine. Well, look, you can’t blame a fellow for being cautious.”

“Of course not.”

“Then you understand my feelings. If you’re not absolutely certain what sets all of them off, how am I to know whether a thrust from me might trigger one?”

“I see what you’re getting at. Unfortunately, it’s like anything else in life: I can’t offer you assurances. On the other tusk, I think it highly unlikely.”

“Hm.”

“That’s the best I can do. Sorry.”

“But you appreciate my dilemma?”

“Of course. Life is sweet.”

“Exactly. I’m tempted just to take a walk, find another herd, and start over again. I might, too, if I thought you’d be good for the herd. I do care about them, you know.”

“I’ve never led a herd into real trouble. I’d leave myself rather than bring something bad down on them.”

“May I have your word on that?”

“You have my word.”

“That makes it a little easier then. Move on into that little grove where I used to hang out, tonight. Let them find you there in the morning.”

“I will.”

“Goodbye, Tranto.”

“Goodbye, Scarco.”

The dark form turned and moved away as silently as it had come.

Ayradyss D’Arcy Donnerjack, but late returned from the realms that describe an eccentric orbit about Deep Fields, gazed thoughtfully upon the hotel room’s simple furnishings, upon her sleeping husband, upon the pinkish-grey light of the early dawn, and sighed softly to herself. She still felt disoriented, although she thought it ungrateful to bring this to John’s attention, and Verite was strange to her. She was a creature of change from ancient Virtu and something in her rebelled at the stability that she felt within the very cells of her reborn body.

Strolling to the double glass doors, she parted the sheer curtains, pushed the doors open, and went out onto the balcony to look down at the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.

The morning air was uncomfortably chill for she was clad in only a light robe of gauzy white silk, but she remained outside, letting the chill wash over her. A small smile played about her lovely mouth as she meditated on the paradox that at one and the same time she could crave the fluidity of her Virtu home locus, a place where she could sprout angel wings from her shoulders and fly, or dive beneath the sea, as finny-tailed as the best mermaid, and yet find herself seeking cold or heat or hunger or any physical sensation strong enough to chase away the terrible fear that she was still dead.

The rising sun had washed the last of the grey from the sky, replacing it with more pink, with orange, with red, with yellow. Clouds were visible now: long, wind-sculpted shapes that in Virtu could quite well have been aerial creatures, but here were merely the workings of wind on water, water that had been pulled into the sky only to fall again to the land and thus be drawn up again in a ceaseless cycle that nonetheless had something of chaos in it. Meteorology was still more art than science for all that chaos theory and fractal geometries had added to science’s comprehension.

Science. Her Donnerjack’s religion for all he denied it. He was a practical man, a hard man, and yet there was a poet in him, a poet that had been drawn to Ayradyss: Nymph of Verite, Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons, Angel of the Forsaken Hope. In Virtu, she had fallen in love with her poet, and after the moire had touched her, her poet had drawn her from the lands about Deep Fields. At first she had followed as little more than an automaton, but as the Trails of Bones, Stars, Rainbows, and other exotic things had taken them farther and farther from entropy’s hold, she had followed John with eagerness, finally raising her voice to join his in song to cross the bridges over the obstacles that Death had set before them as any good opponent must—pro forma obstacles, almost—for John D’Arcy Donnerjack had abided by the rules that Death had set and had brought Ayradyss safely from Deep Fields into the living lands, from Virtu into Verite.

No, John D’Arcy Donnerjack had not failed to bring forth his Ayradyss—as Orpheus had failed to bring forth his Eurydice—but something in her wondered at the cold, practical man with whom she shared a bed. Often he was loving enough, attentive, possessive, but now that she knew him in the larger context of his life she wondered that he had striven so hard to take her back from Death, for he often had little time for her outside of the hours that were spent making love or engaging in lover’s chatter.

She wondered if she bored him: clipped-winged angel, tailless mermaid, nymph-no-more, merely woman. A woman possessed of unique, curious knowledge, true; a program crafted for Virtu now residing as a woman of flesh and blood in Verite, but still nothing more than a woman.

Ayradyss, returned so recently from the realms orbiting Deep Fields, heard her new husband stir in his sleep, turned and saw through the window curtain how his arms reached for her and did not find her, saw how he woke to greater awareness and to horrible fear.

“Ayra!” he called and his voice carried the bone-shivering terror that only one who has lost a lover to Death can know.

Ayradyss pushed apart the curtains and hurried to his side, saw the relief that flooded his blanched, anxious face with blood. Sliding into the bed at his side, she felt his burly arms clasp her to him, heard his murmured endearments, felt the rapid beating of his heart begin to slow as he assured himself that she was indeed with him once more, doubted no longer his love, wondered only at the odd shapes that love can take even in Verite where no human is a shapeshifter.

“A problem?”

Abel Hazzard and his wife Carla regarded the imaged tour executive, a Mr. Chalmers, in their family virt space.

“What sort of problem?” Abel asked him. “Lydia is all right, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yes. Quite all right,” Mr. Chalmers assured him. “What we seem to be faced with is a small—retrieval problem.”

“Retrieval? You mean you can’t bring her back?”

“Well, when her time was up the recall sequence was initiated after a small grace period to allow her to finish whatever she was about. So far, she has not responded to the signal.”

“Why not?”

“It seems she is still—occupied. The grace period has run into a number of extensions.”

“Occupied?” Carla asked. “How?”

“Indications are that she is with a lover.”

“Oh. Well, she is there to enjoy herself. Let Lydia have her fun. If there is no physiological danger in extending it a little longer, let her stay on. She’ll tire of it in a while, and we can let her spend some extra time recuperating before she goes back.”

“Thank you,” Chalmers said, smiling. “It is not without precedent, of course, but we are required to keep parents and guardians aware of these matters. Half a day is hardly serious. We’ll notify you as soon as she is returned.”

“Thank you.”

Arthur Eden wore the garment of the lowest grade initiate—a red-and-gold patterned dashikilike affair—though he had not achieved this status. He waited in the courtyard before the temple with a small group of other, similarly clad individuals, both of Virtu and Verite. A service was currently in progress beneath a star-filled sky, which also bore two signs and several portents shining brightly at midheaven.

Slowly, a light descended from the sky, taking on the form of a silver sailing ship, passing overhead, entering through some hidden opening in the roof of the temple. A small ensemble at the left hand of the priest began to play then, a thing of strings and flute. A sigh rose from the congregation, and the priest intoned, “The god has arrived, to oversee the lesser initiation. Let any who are unready speak now and save yourself a profaner’s damnation.”

None responded.

There followed an intoned prayer, then—as in the rehearsal earlier in the week—the musicians moved to a position near the temple doors. The initiation candidates turned in that direction and advanced with slow, measured steps. As they did, the doors were swung open with matching deliberation.

The musicians moved again, entering, and Eden’s party matched them to form a procession. The rest of the worshipers remained behind in the courtyard.

Ahead, Eden saw candlelight through a dimness, and he smelled incense. Advancing into the theatrically shadowy interior, he realized that there were dark doors in the walls at either hand as well as a tall, narrow silver pair directly ahead. All of them were closed. The bright pair to the chamber’s rear was elaborately embossed with abstract, curving designs amid which the candles’ light swam like bright fish in a garden pond.

They continued until they were well inside. When the music grew slower they halted. A small draft ceased and they knew that the doors had been closed behind them.

They stood for a long while, waiting, listening to the music, preparing themselves spiritually as they had been taught. Abruptly then, the music ceased and the silver doors began, slowly, to open. A moment later, he could see that there was something very bright behind them.

Above the music of the lost that might be reclaimed, Death heard Mizar’s cry. The bone woman whose hand he held came apart as the howl was broken off, and he rose and turned three times in a circle, widdershins, but the sound had been too brief to determine its source. He walked then to the twilit crest of a hill, held forth a pale hand and captured the cry.

Too brief, too brief to take him all the way. Yet— He cast it before him down the farther slope and followed its echo. As he walked the twilight flickered about him and the hillside grew level and he moved in a brightness of full day down a busy thoroughfare where none took notice of him save for a single, old woman who turned and stared into his eyes. He reached out and touched her shoulder, not ungently, and she slumped to the pavement. He continued on, not looking back, and turned right at the next corner.

The city faded and he walked across a lake. Several fish turned belly up and floated to the top as he passed. When he reached the farther shore he came to a field and began walking through it.

Partway through the field, he halted. Red-and-yellow flowers bloomed about him, save in a patch to his left where a multitude hung withered upon their stalks. He directed his gaze in their direction, and after a moment a patch of black rose from one of these and fluttered to a fresh blossom in full bloom. A few moments later, the flower began to droop.

“Alioth,” he said then. “Come to me.”

The black butterfly rose from the wilting flower and fluttered across the space between them to light upon his extended finger.

“Hi, boss. Fancy meeting you here.” ‘

“It was not, really, a matter of chance,” Death responded.

“Didn’t think it was. Just making conversation.”

The dark figure nodded. Alioth could never tell when Death was amused.

“For that matter, I might even venture a guess as to why you’re out and about in the flesh, so to speak,” Alioth ventured, still wondering. “I heard Mizar’s howl, too.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, but broken off after only a moment.”

“Indeed. It was too brief for me to respond properly. I was hoping that, from your position in the scheme of things, you might have been able to obtain a better notion as to its direction.”

“I am not certain,” Alioth replied. “But it did seem to phase from a more central locale.”

“Then let us take a look,” Death said, and he raised his other arm.

Landscapes swept by them at such a rapid rate that Alioth was unable to sort them. And the pace increased until it was only a succession of lights and darks, then blacks and whites, and finally a throbbing grey. Alioth knew that his master scanned everything that passed, however.

Their course took upon it a spiral aspect then, and the sequence through which they had just passed was reversed. When they halted, Death stood at the base of an enormous mountain whose top was lost to sight beyond the clouds.

Death leaned to examine a small crater. Alioth fluttered above it, dipped down into it.

“Piece of reddish cable embedded in the side here, Lord.”

Death dropped soundlessly into the hole and extended a hand. He removed the object from the wall, raised it, studied it.

“One of Mizar’s tails,” he said. “I wonder what aspect of him it represents?”

He rose up out of the hole then and followed a line of footsteps which lightened as they went and then vanished after a double-dozen paces.

“He appears to have made his way into another space.” Death lowered himself and extended a hand above the final tracks. He moved it in a slow circle. His hand and arm vanished and returned, vanished and returned as he did so. “Continued through many,” he said, “fading, fading. Gone.”

Death rose, glanced upward. Glanced back down.

“What happened to him?” Alioth asked.

“Speculation is fruitless at this point,” he replied.

Death threw back his head and howled. The sky was darkened, and a passing flock of birds fell dead at his feet. The earth began to tremble, from there out through the spaces of Virtu.

Jagged bolts of lightning played about Mount Meru as the wailing continued, and the ground was cracked and fissured at its base. The entire mountain was swayed imperceptibly, and grasses withered and trees fell down. Lakes overflowed their bounds, and rivers ran backwards.

When he had ceased he waited. For a long, long while he waited. But there was no response.

From his hilltop vantage Donnerjack could view the sea in several directions as well as the work in progress below him. Considerable digging had gone on, he understood, for the better part of the week. The foundation was now in place, and he compared its actuality with the print on the pad screen he held in his hand. He turned to the woman at his side.

“It is what I have asked for, thus far,” he said. “It seems to be moving along right on schedule, too. Any thoughts?”

“I am happy to be here,” she replied. “It is so strange, so different… Yes, it must be good.”

“I was afraid that the isolation—”

“No, that’s good, too,” she said. “I want it. I want a long time of it, after—after that other.”

He nodded.

“We will check back again periodically as it grows into our home. And when we tire of it we can always walk in your world.”

“Though it is not exactly my world any longer.”

“Both will always be your worlds, Ayra.”

“Yes, and it will be good. There is so much I wish to learn of this place—of both places, really. And I wish to help you with your work. I have a unique perspective.”

“Yes,” he said, taking her small hand in his burly one. “Perhaps you can.”

During the months that followed they visited the isle regularly, watching the black castle in its growth. It seemed impossible to know exactly what it had looked like in an earlier incarnation, so Donnerjack had been free in his designs, incorporating what features he would from existing structures of a similar nature. It grew tall, dark, and more than a little formidable against its bleak backdrop, though it was plumbed and heated to modern rather than medieval standards and contained lines of fiber-optic cable as well as concealed microwave antennas.

And they would walk through it as it grew—he, tapping joints with his stick; she, running her fingertips over surfaces—and they would smile and nod to each other. If it were not raining, they would stand on their hilltop for a time and look down on it. They watched the flyers come and go, bearing materials and labor, and then they would go away themselves to one of their honeymoon apartments in some other country to pass the time.

And when the time was right he worked there himself, building the Great Stage beside his workroom—full-scale, state of the art. And transfer chambers, for full visitation to Virtu. And on his workroom he lavished at least as much attention.

Working late one night after the laborers had departed—for there were some parts of the installation he had intended for no eyes but his own—Donnerjack heard a low moaning sound from somewhere below. He investigated, stick in hand, but discovered nothing untoward. But the winds blew about the incomplete castle, finding entry at every opening. He nodded and went on with his work. The sounds came and went throughout the night.

Over a series of such nights Donnerjack installed everything he would need to conduct his business. Its delicate nature was not the only reason he craved isolation. Ayradyss was. There was no record of her existence in the well-enumerated society of Verite, and the safest way to create her identity, he judged, would be incrementally, over a period of time, a stroke here, a stroke there, a small retroactive datum every now and then. First, of course, his system would have to be in place; it would not be operational until after they had taken up residence.

Strange, he reflected, tonight the moaning seemed to be accompanied by the rattling of chains…

FOUR

Seaga emerged from the cave, stretched, and stared out across the many-chambered world. It was good to have one’s consciousness localized in a single body, in a single place once again, much to recommend a compact feeling of entirety. There was Earthma, for example. Good that she slept for a time now, though, to give him this respite. If indeed she were sleeping… Of course she was sleeping. It would be ridiculous to mix business with pleasure. On the other hand…

A distant movement caught his attention. Tiny dot out of the east, it cut in his direction, running across the sky. He turned his vision inside-out, better to understand the phenomenon, here, above the blue, where daytime stars now recommended themselves to his gaze. Running on nothing it came, as if the trick were not impossible, or at least insuperably difficult, a pale-haired youth clad only in a golden jockstrap and sandals. Soon the figure was treading on nothingness before him, eyes dancing. In his hand he bore a feathered stick, wrapped by a pair of lethargic serpents, also golden. “Hail, Seaga,” he announced. “You linger On High.”

“What of it, Celerity?” the other responded. “And why should I not?”

“To be sure. Deity may do as it chooses. And that is somehow always right, in a sense.”

“Do you come to speak me riddles? To dance on the mountaintop? Or have you a message for me?”

“None of the above. I came to speak with whomever might be here and taking a break from extended awareness, to report an odd sighting.”

“That being?”

“Death, his own, old dark self. Below. I saw him not that long ago. Perhaps you heard his wail and saw the sky split, felt the earth shake, the mountain sway.”

“I did, and it disturbed my—meditations. Though, in truth, I thought it might be a part of them. So I did not know the true source of that great cry, my awareness being unextended. Do you know why Death howled?”

“I cannot say,” Celerity answered, “for who can know the thoughts of Death? I only know that he circled the base of Mount Meru as if searching for something. When he came to a depression in the ground he studied it and took something from it. That was when he gave his cry.”

“Did you see what it was that he’d found?”

“I believe it was a small length of red cable.”

“Hm. The primal mountain is not wired. Did you see what he did with it?”

“He bore it away with him, Seaga, walking amid the worlds.”

“Why do you bring this information On High?”

“I felt it of importance to anyone here, that Death has been sniffing around your mountain.”

“He has never dared to set foot on it. What would be the point? We are undying gods.”

“I like to think so. Hate to get Death pissed off at me, though.”

“You have a point. Do you feel some one of us may have done a thing to offend him?”

“I think it possible. We might check with any of the others who are about, to see whether this could be the case.”

Seaga glanced back toward the cave.

“Unfortunately, Skyga is deep in meditation just now,” he said. “I’m not certain where Earthma has gotten off to.”

The youth smiled, waving his wand downward.

“Probably playing games with the Elishites.”

“I know them not.”

“A new religion.”

“Religions come and go. They all start sounding alike after a time. What should anyone find amusing about this one?”

“It’s still growing, and it contains some unusual features. For one thing, it was founded here in Virtu, and it seems to be spreading across the border to the first world.”

Seaga shrugged.

“Virtu has always existed, in one form or another. The technology of the Verite only provided it a local habitation and a name. It may well be that all religions have taken their origins in Virtu. For what is it but the collective spirit of the race?”

“Be that as it may, another has come along. Maybe you should get involved yourself.”

“Perhaps. Have you?”

“Strictly as an observer—a distant one, so far.”

“What sort of religion is it?”

“They went back to the old Sumerian stuff for it. ‘A return to basics at a new level’—as they were bade. Only none of the founders were sure what that meant, so they guessed. It has standard personifications and the usual theatrics.”

“Who started it?”

“I don’t know the name. I wasn’t watching at the beginning. But rumor has it an arty got the word and started the ball rolling.”

“Do you know whether one of my colleagues had a hand in it?”

Celerity shook his head.

“Hmm,” Seaga mused. “A religion founded by an artificial intelligence…” He moved forward and looked downward. “And what of our lesser brethren? Are they involved?”

“Some are, I think.”

“I would think this just the sort of thing for a minor deity anxious to increase his mana.”

Celerity blushed.

“So would I, actually. It does threaten to become a going concern.”

“I don’t feel like becoming involved. Not without knowing a lot more about it. May I persuade you to show more interest and to report back to me?”

“I suppose. How do you feel I should go about it, though? One hardly files a job application, you know.”

“True. Talk to the lesser ones on the lower slopes who have become involved. Show them your interest and display your greatness.”

“What greatness? I am definitely of the minor astral nobility, an errand boy of you High Ones, not a true dweller on Meru. I may not even set foot at this level. I’ve no aura sufficient to awe them into obedience or cooperation.”

Seaga smiled.

“Easily changed,” he said. “Perhaps it were time you received a promotion. Walk forward.”

Celerity studied his dark-bearded face, stared into his blue eyes, looked away.

“I will not be blasted?” he asked.

“That would hardly be productive. No, you shall not be blasted, rapid one. Come ashore from the twilight.”

Celerity stepped onto the ledge.

“So that’s how it feels,” he said after a moment.

“How is that?” Seaga asked.

“The same as anyplace else.”

“Then you have learned a small lesson. Now learn the exception.”

Seaga raised his right hand and placed it upon the other’s head. Immediately, Celerity winced. Slowly, then, his expression grew more relaxed, until finally he was smiling. After a short while a small radiance surrounded his body. The golden quality he exhibited was enhanced, grew to become an aura of almost liquid quality. Soon ripples and lines appeared within it, as if a flow were occurring.

“It feels as if a current is passing through me, between your hand and the mountain,” he said after a time.

“This is indeed the case.” the other replied, “though some of it remains to enhance your personal attributes. In other words, you grow stronger by the moment.”

The aura reached a peak of brightness and Seaga held it so for several minutes more. Then he withdrew his hand suddenly and let it fall to his side.

“And so, Celerity, you are ready,” he said. “Go forth into the worlds, obtain knowledge of this matter, and bring it to me.”

Celerity raised a hand and flexed it. He stared at it. It began to glow with the golden light. He smiled. He raised his wand and saluted Seaga with it.

“At your service,” he said.

Then he sprang straight up into the air, hovered a moment, and turned. Suddenly, he was gone, a golden streak in the north. Moments later he reappeared, out of the south.

“At your service,” he repeated. Then he was gone into the east.

Sayjak wiped his machete on the pant leg of one of the bounties, then regarded the man’s web belt with the sheathed machete hung above the left hip. Stooping, he studied the manner in which it was fastened. Here, his experience with knots seemed somehow to serve him. He understood how it worked. Leaning forward, he unfastened and removed it. Raising it then, he saw that it was too short to fit about his own waist. He was about to cast it away when he realized how it might be adjusted. He expanded it to its greatest length then clasped it about himself. He withdrew the machete and looked at it. It was cleaner, newer-looking than the one he held. He replaced it in the sheath and plunged the old one into the ground beside the corpse. Then he straightened for a moment and regarded the twelve dead bounties, seated with their backs against tree trunks, their heads in their laps, hands positioned as if holding them.

“Good work,” he said to the others, who had stood watching him, “because you did what I told you.”

“Two hands, two dicks of bodies,” Staggert said. “The People never did them like that before.”

“Not done yet, either,” Sayjak said.

“We going back for the others—west, south?”

“No. Too many. There is another way.”

“What?”

“You will see. Get the rest of the clan together now. The way is open to go northwest.”

“We run away?”

“Little bit. Not for good.”

Staggert moved to one of the bodies, leaned forward, groped at its waist.

“What you doing?” Sayjak asked.

“Get a waist thing and a cutting stick like yours, to take heads with.”

Sayjak moved forward, placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed. Staggert fell sprawling.

“No!” Sayjak said. “Nobody get cutting stick but boss. Just Sayjak.”

Staggert sprang to his feet with a snarl. He began to raise his hands and Sayjak struck him a low blow. He grunted and clutched his groin.

“Only boss has cutting stick,” Sayjak said.

Staggert’s eyes narrowed. Then he looked away.

“Sure, boss. Only Sayjak,” he said then.

Sayjak turned to the others, all of whom dropped their eyes.

“Now get the clan together,” he ordered. “We go northwest.”

They moved to comply, and that afternoon Sayjak led his people out of the trap that had been drawn about them. Then he turned to the southwest, taking them to a place known to all the People, even those who had never visited it. All afternoon they moved, pausing only once to feed.

At length, by twilight, they came to the Circle Shannibal. It was a circular clearing in the jungle, a few boulders scattered through it, a large, hard-packed mound of earth at its center. Sayjak increased his pace, heading toward the mound. With a leap, he took himself atop it, and there he paced, turning slowly in all directions.

The clan followed him into the clearing, moving to its center, gathering about the mound, murmuring softly.

“This is the Circle Shannibal,” he said. “Very important place. Long time ago Karak, founder of the clans of the People, lived here. Story is that he beat upon this mound till People in the trees come to see what the matter is. Then he stood here where I am standing and told them why being clan is better than being wild and by yourself. They thought it good idea to join him. Of course, he had to fight some of the toughest ones then who would like to be boss themselves. But that’s okay. He won. Then the clan hung around here for a long time. Place got browsed out, though, and they moved on. Later, clan got too big and they split it. More splits went on over the years. But every now and then, when some big emergency came along, old Karak would come here—back to the starting place—and call them all together. And after he was gone— every now and then, when emergencies came along—the biggest boss would come here to call everybody back to deal with it. Been a long time since Karak’s days and other emergency times. But we got one now, and I’m biggest boss and I’m gonna call ‘em all in. They all remember the stories. They’ll come to see what’s going on.” He knelt then and began striking his fists on the top of the mound. “We all gotta help. Take turns hitting it. Get big sticks if you gotta. Don’t hit each other.”

Several moved to join him as he climbed down and stood at the mound’s side. Soon their pounding grew steady, settled into a rhythm. The others began to sway, then to raise their feet and put them down again.

All through the night the drumming went on, the clan slowly working itself into a bashing, wailing, foot-stamping frenzy. The jungle continued to throb with the pounding. Soon the first strangers began to arrive.

Throughout the night more of them came to the clearing. At first, it was individuals and couples. Then larger groups appeared to join in the dancing and the drumming. Then old Dortak, who remembered the tradition, came in with the rest of his clan. The Circle began to fill and newcomers relieved tired drummers.

Finally, Otlag entered the Circle with the balance of his people. Later in the afternoon Bilgad’s clan showed up, crowding the Circle, joining in the wailing, the swaying, the great mass circling of the mound. Still Sayjak—sweating and stamping—caused the hypnotic drumming to continue. Individuals dropped out to eat and relieve themselves, returning as soon as they were done. The vibrations in the ground were felt as far as the western bounty camp, but the hunters—who had never experienced a clan summoning—thought it a geological phenomenon and continued the preparations for their project at hand.

The drumming and dancing continued till twilight. Then Sayjak signed to the drummers to stop, and when they had, he vaulted once more to the top of the mound. He turned slowly in a circle, taking in all of the clans with his gaze.

“Many bounties have come to take our heads,” he said. “Three groups of them took places about my clan. Big one to the south, smaller one over that way.” He gestured, then gestured again. “Smallest that way. Sayjak’s clan killed all of the last one, took their heads.”

A murmur ran among the visiting clans.

“That let us get past them,” he continued, “to come here, to the old place, to call in the rest of you. Sayjak’s clan is mighty, but Sayjak is not a fool. Too many bounties there for Sayjak to get them all. But Sayjak knows how to do it. Sayjak wants you to come with him. Not all of you— Sayjak only wants a few good clansmen, big, strong, fast. Come with him and his fighters to the western bounty encampment. There we will kill them all and you will see how it is done. Then we go south to the big bounty camp and everyone must help.”

There was more murmuring, then. “Sayjak,” Dortak called out, “the bounties drew their lines around your clan, came to kill your people. They did not do this to the rest of us. Why should we help you fight your battle?”

Sayjak showed his teeth.

“You think they will stop with the head of Sayjak and the heads of his people?” he asked. “If they can do it to Sayjak, they can do it to Bilgad. When I am gone they will come for Otlag, then you. By your-selves, none of you will stand against a massing of bounties such as this. Together, though, with me to show you how to do it, we will kill them all—tonight! Leave them with their heads in their laps! No longer will they think the People are easy to kill. They will be afraid and stay away. It will be a long time before they come back, if they ever do.”

Dortak drew himself erect, then spoke into the silence that followed Sayjak’s statement:

“This may be, and it may not be,” he said. “I believe you when you say that you have learned good ways to kill bounties. What I do not know is whether killing them all will keep more from coming, or will bring even more later after our heads.”

Sayjak started to respond, but Dortak said, “But I will go along with you, for now all of the People need your knowledge of bounty killing. This is how we will learn it. But if we are successful, if we kill them all, the clan of Dortak will move to a different place. This is because I feel that the bounties and the eeksies will mark this place in some way, as a trouble spot, and it will no longer be safe to live here. You may be right. They may not come back for a long time. But I believe that they will come back one day, and I do not want my clan here when they do.”

Sayjak showed his teeth again. He had been about to bluster, to say that he would kill all of the later bounties, too. Then it occurred to him that he might one day have to run, and it would not do to make it look too bad a thing. In fact— He realized that it might not be a bad idea to get the hell out after this battle. The jungle was big. Even if the bounties found the clans again later they would have no way of knowing whether they were the ones who had been behind this night’s work.

“Dortak is wise,” Sayjak said. “We cannot say for certain what the bounties will do. Yes, I think we should all move to new places after we have done here. Not come back for a long time.”

He made a mental note then to either kill Dortak one day or to become friends with him, for he saw that he could be either dangerous or useful. He would have to think about it.

Ayradyss fell in love with the bed frame as soon as she spotted its canopy towering over the jumble and detritus of the Massachusetts antique dealer’s shop. Headboard and footboard were shaped from twisting vines of wrought bronze that had been permitted to verdigris to a soft green. Almost hidden within the vines were tiny morning glories: floral jewels in royal purple, shining pink, pastel-kissed white, and an odd, almost translucent, blue. At each corner, the vines coiled up slender polished wooden posts, rioting upward to intertwine and form a canopy from which fabric could be hung, or which could be left bare.

“Oh, Dack, don’t you just love it?” she asked, hurrying across the shop to examine her treasure more closely.

Dack, the robot who would be the majordomo of Castle Donnerjack when the ongoing construction was completed, turned from where he had been reviewing (and recording) samples of antique silver patterns. His tall, lean frame hid surprising strength; his features were an art deco rendering of Clark Gable done in silver and bronze.

When Ayradyss waved him over, he hummed on his air cushion to attend her, moving skillfully around the shop’s clutter: dodging chipped Fiesta ware, battered teddy bears, vinyl records, paperback books, and a mannequin wearing bell-bottom jeans and a matching, hand-embroidered denim vest.

“If by ‘love’ you mean, ‘Do I find it attractive,’ ” the robot responded, when he was close enough that the shopkeeper could not overhear their conversation, “yes, I do. It is a pleasing construct. Do you wish me to contact Master Donnerjack so that he can also view it?”

Ayradyss thought of John, busy with his portable computer back in their latest honeymoon retreat (this one a beach-front, weather-beaten cottage on Cape Cod) and some of her pleasure faded. She had so wished him to come out with her, to hold hands as they walked the beaches, to giggle at the funny little purple-and-blue crabs with their oversized right claws, to wander into shops. In the polished chrome of Back’s front panel, she saw herself pouting and shook the expression away with an angry toss of her ebony tresses.

“No, Dack,” she said. “Let’s leave John to his work. The sooner he finishes, the sooner he can come out and enjoy himself.”

She looked back at the bed frame’s tangling vines, thought of the fairy-tale Virtu realm in which she and John had courted, and a warm, loving smile rose to banish the remnants of the pout.

“John will be enchanted, I suspect,” she said happily. “Dack, let’s pay for it and have the shopkeeper ship it directly to Scotland.”

Dack nodded, but when he scanned the price ticket, his fiscal programming insisted that he question her decision.

“Madam,” he said softly, “the cost of this one piece is so high that I believe we could have an entire bedroom suite in this idiom fabricated for the same price. The reproduction would be indistinguishable from the antique…”

Ayradyss shook her head, dark hair cascading like water taking color from an obsidian cliff face. “No, Dack. It has to be this one—not a reproduction. A reproduction wouldn’t have the same feeling—it wouldn’t be real. Do you understand?”

“No, madam,” Dack said honestly. “But I suspect that Master Donnerjack would. I shall endeavor to negotiate with the shopkeeper. Perhaps we can reach a more equitable price.”

Ayradyss patted his shoulder. “Do as you will, Dack. I acknowledge that you are my better in this.”

She wandered out of the shop to give Dack more freedom, content to know that the bed frame would soon be on its way to embellish the master bedroom in Castle Donnerjack. The sunlight was bright, glinting stars off of the waves. Unable to ask the genius loci to redirect the intensity, she slipped her sunglasses down from their perch on the top of her head and, kicking off her sandals, wandered down to the water.

Wading through the surf, she bent to pick up a broken conch shell no bigger than her hand. It was a poor thing compared to the fantastical creations of the ocean she had known in Virtu, but there was a beauty here, a wonder that touched her. She lost herself in contemplation of its rough exterior, stroking first the tiny pinprick holes made by some ocean parasite, then the smooth inner core (ivory just blushed with the faintest pink) where the shellfish had lived.

“What do you think happened to it?” she asked Dack, hearing the robot’s approach, feeling the slight sting of the sand stirred up by its air cushion against her bare skin.

“I wouldn’t really know, ma’am.”

“A bird, perhaps, one of those gulls out there,” Ayradyss said, seeing in her mind’s eye the strong curving beak probing inside the shell, pulling out the soft creature within, now no longer a creature, just sweet flesh for a seabird’s meal.

“Quite possibly.”

“Or possibly a sea otter,” Ayradyss said, recalling a holovid she had seen of the clever, thick-furred, aquatic mammals. “They use flat rocks to break open shellfish; this conch’s shell could have been broken that way.”

“It does seem a viable alternative.”

“Perhaps it was a whale or even a freak storm or a fishing boat. We had conch chowder for an appetizer at the inn last night. It was quite good.”

“I am pleased to hear so, ma’am.”

“There are so many ways to die,” Ayradyss said, looking into the broken heart of the shell, “so many even for a conch. More for humans. Proges just wear out. Some last for human generations, like that great phant John and I saw, some last for barely a human lifetime. Do you know how old I am, Dack?”

“No, ma’am, I do not.”

Ayradyss rose, dropped the broken conch into the deep pocket of her now damp skirt. Rinsing her sandy feet, she stood on a rock until the wind and sunlight dried them, then she redonned her sandals.

“John doesn’t either,” she said softly. “He forgets that I am a proge of Virtu, not merely the dark-haired, dark-eyed lady he courted in fantasy. He never asked me when I was generated.”

She walked up toward the road. Dack hovered after her, silent, robot-mind content to let her muse, knowing that she was taking comfort in his patient listening.

“Did you get the bed, Dack?”

“Yes, I did, ma’am. The shopkeeper became quite reasonable when I pointed out to him that observable evidence showed that the piece had been in his shop at least two years and that such elaborate set pieces are no longer as popular as they once were thanks to increasing access to Virtu.”

“Thank you, Dack.” Ayradyss’s lips curved in a pretty, gentle smile, her brooding completely gone. “John will so like it—he is a poet, you know, for all his science.”

“I am not surprised to hear you say so, ma’am.”

The waves crashed behind them as they made their way away from the ocean, toward the honeymoon cottage. Riding the winds over the clear waters, a seagull spotted a bit of flotsam on the waves, dove and swallowed it in a single triumphant gulp.

Polish sausage. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Carla and Abel Hazzard regarded their daughter’s recumbent form. Her chest rose and fell slowly.

“Let me get this straight,” Abel said. “You’ve lost her.”

“Of course we haven’t lost her,” Chalmers answered. “She’s right there in front of us in good health.”

“You know damned well what I mean,” Abel said. “You can’t call her back and you don’t know why you can’t.”

“It is not a thing without precedent,” Chalmers said. “There are certain states—partly psychological—which can induce total resistance to recall.”

“What causes these states?”

“We are not certain. It-is not a common condition.”

“What brings them back out of it?” Carla asked.

“There is no single stimulus we have been able to identify. It seems to be more a constellation of factors, which varies in each case.”

“Have these factors anything in common?”

“Not so far as we have been able to determine.”

“Can’t you trace her to wherever she has traveled in Virtu and determine what factors are operating? It would seem you could just ask her.”

“Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?” he said. “But that’s why these cases are so peculiar. She’s found her way into uncharted territory and we’ve lost the signal.”

“You lost the signal in other cases of this sort, too?”

“Yes, it’s a classical sign of the syndrome.”

“And you’re telling me there’s nothing you can do to bring her back?” Abel said.

“No, I never told you that. First, you must realize that she’s in no real danger. The support systems are more than adequate for her health. Nothing to worry about on that count. Second, we are consulting the physician who treated most of the other cases over the years, a Dr. Hamill. He is considered the expert on this phenomenon.”

“When you speak of other cases— Just how many have there been?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not permitted to discuss that.”

“I take it you carry a lot of insurance for these matters.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good. You’re going to need it.”

As they spoke, the inhabitants of several dozen other virt transfer units about the world—public and private—became briefly agitated, grew pale of face, and then expired from failure of the oxygen supply to their brains. This contingency was not unaccounted for in their contracts, however, for some commuters were engaged in hazardous occupations and death was not an uncommon sequel to certain enterprises. All of these individuals being bounty hunters, the appropriate waivers were present in file, and the matter of their passing was handled routinely. It was noted early on that theirs were the repercussive equivalents of decapitation. Even as a small smile crossed Lydia’s face and her body began to twitch once more both categories of recall failure were entering the realm of statistics, which, of course, was yet another territory of Virtu. But while some of the bounties caught the flash of moire and perhaps even fragmented glimpses of Deep Fields, Lydia’s was a more pleasant while equally engaging prospect.

Ben Kwinan, arms forming an X upon his breast, stood within a pillar of green flame in the inner sanctum of the main Elishite temple in Virtu. His lips twisted through a series of small smiles within his changing face as he communicated with the Powers On High. Now aquiline and widow-peaked, now lantern-jawed with his hair a sea of burnished curls—all of them people he had once been—he flowed in response to the shifting nuances of revelation. He did not normally lose control in this fashion, tending to keep the outer man and the inner apart from each other, save in willed assumptions of appearance for the promulgation of policy. Now, though, vigilance relaxed by ecstasy, the shapeshifting forces of his spirit swam unchecked through him, and he changed in height, width, limb length, and pigmentation in response to the sweetened charges he’d received.

As the light began to fade his body grew stocky and lost height, his features became coarser, skin grew more porous. His eyes shifted to match the grey of his hair. He smiled, and he muttered in tongues until the light was gone. Then he walked.

He walked out of the sanctum and into the innermost temple. He walked to the north wall, touched a design upon it, and spoke to it. It became an arched opening of smoke. He walked into it.

He stood in a bright, tiled room, decorated with form-adjusting furniture, nonrepresentational sculpture of metal, light, and stone, iris flowering yellow, orange, and blue, wide, cool painting of aquatic mood. He passed his hand through a spiral of light to his left and a faint tone followed. Then he crossed to a blond mahogany bar along the far wall and considered its stock.

A door opened to the right of the bar and a thin, dark-haired, dark-mustached man entered the room.

“Mr. Kwinan,” the man said. “Just received your signal.”

“Call me Ben,” the visitor replied. “I need to talk to Kelsey.”

“I’ve already advised him as to your arrival. He’s on his way over.”

“Good.” The being who now called himself Ben Kwinan lifted a bottle of California Burgundy from a rack. “Would you recommend this one, Mr.—?”

“Araf,” the other replied. “Call me Aoud. Yes, I am told that it is quite good.”

Ben smiled, located a corkscrew, set to work opening the bottle. Then he filled a glass halfway, sniffed it, sipped it.

“Are you in the flesh or holo?” he asked.

“The flesh.”

“But you don’t drink?”

“Old habits die hard.”

“Too bad. I’d have asked you whether this wine tastes the same here as in Verite proper.”

“I’m sure that it does, Ben. Or it’s such a close approximation that it doesn’t make any difference.”

“You might pour me a glass,” said the large red-haired man who suddenly stood in the center of the room.

Ben turned and stared.

“Kelsey,” he said, “not quite in the flesh.”

The man nodded. “I was too far away to get here quickly in that fashion. I heard your musing, though, and I wanted you to know I’ve tasted things both ways and they’re the same.”

“But you are of Verite. It may be different for one from Virtu.”

Kelsey shrugged. “It may be different for every human being in the world—either world,” he said.

“Well taken,” Ben acknowledged. “Yet it is not entirely academic.”

He shifted his gaze to Aoud, then raised his eyebrows.

“I think I’d best be leaving now,” Aoud said suddenly, “so you can get on with your conference and me back to warding.”

He bowed slightly and Ben and Kelsey nodded to him.

“Yes,” Kelsey said, and Aoud turned and was gone.

Kelsey moved forward and extended his hand. Ben clasped it.

“No different than if I’d driven over,” he said, squeezing for emphasis, “or if you’d stayed home and I’d projected there.”

Ben returned the squeeze with an instant of great force, then released it.

“I disagree,” he said. Then he moved to the window and looked out from their high tower across the town, down at the traffic, over toward the ocean. “This place is special,” he said. “Synthetic: a meeting ground. Is this window’s view a real representation of what’s outside?”

“Yes.”

“I couldn’t leave here, go out into that.”

“Neither could I, in this form.”

“But you have another.”

“And so do you. You can use it to do things that I cannot, in Virtu.”

“Understood, though you’ve an edge on me in that department. Everyone from Verite does. It would be good to come and go as I would, on both sides.”

Kelsey shrugged.

“Just the nature of things,” he said. “Your world is the copy and ours the original. Yours was built to be accessed, not the other way around. We never foresaw the natural evolution of artificial beings in such an environment.”

“Too bad,” Ben said. “You can do as you would, but we can only come to visit in special places such as this. It would have been more decent if things worked both ways.”

“You have an entire universe inside there.”

“That’s true. And you have two. That one and this.”

“I’m not arguing equity. You’re right. It would probably enrich both sides if it worked both ways. But not only was your development unforeseen, the technology just wasn’t there to make it a two-way affair. It still isn’t. Maybe it never will be. Maybe it’s an impossibility, like squaring the circle. You may just be trapped by the nature of things.”

“I think not,” Ben said.

“Oh?”

“In fact, this is the matter that I came to discuss with you,” Ben replied. “Transference.”

“Transference? Of what sort?”

“A modest beginning, a stopgap, I suppose. Still, something further advanced than that virt power you wield.”

“I don’t understand,” Kelsey said, moving to the bar, pouring himself a glass of the wine. “What has my paranorm ability to do with it?”

Ben chuckled.

“The awarding of powers which sometimes crossed the interface was an experiment,” he said. “True, it was also a reward to the faithful. But it was part of an ongoing program involving manipulation of that interface from the other side. Much was learned in the process.”

He took a sip from his glass. Kelsey raised his and took a larger swallow.

“Now,” Ben said, “with a little help from your side it may be possible to advance things even further.”

“There has been a breakthrough?”

“A real revelation. Of course, it must be tested. In several stages, actually.”

“Tell me what I must do to help.”

“For now, just some simple experiments in the transfer chambers.”

“Certainly. What are the particulars?”

Ben took another drink, strolled to the bar. He finished it there and set down the glass. Kelsey followed him and did the same.

“Come with me,” Ben said. He reached out and placed his hand upon the other man’s shoulder. Turning him, he began walking toward a helix of rusty light in the far corner. Before they reached it, there came a sound like running water. “This way.”

The room twisted away from them, and they found themselves in the virt representation of a transfer chamber.

“It’s easiest just to show you,” Ben said, opening the cabinet beneath one couch and exposing its equipment.

Sayjak regarded the camp by scattered firelight. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, some of the People’s as well as all of the bounties. In his left hand, he held a human head by its hair; in his right, his machete gleamed dully amid its stains. Others of the People cavorted about him, tossing equipment into the fires, chattering, brandishing blades they were using to mince corpses. Some of them, this night, he’d known, would learn to use the cutting sticks. And some would carry them off with them. Too bad. He would have liked to keep that secret to himself. But he would not make an issue of it now, or the weapon’s importance would be emphasized. Left to themselves, he was sure they would lose many, forget their wielding. No, now was not a good time to exert discipline. Not on the occasion of the People’s first great victory over the bounties. Let them eat the bounties’ livers and hearts, drop their pants and bugger their corpses. Let them swap dismembered body parts and reconstruct their owners grotesquely. The People had to have a little fun after all the tension they had been under. He let out a calculated whoop and playfully tossed an arm at Chumo’s head. Chumo caught it and grinned at him.

“We got them all, boss! We got them all!” Chumo called back, tossing the limb at Svut.

“We did good.” Sayjak grunted, then turned to survey the rest of the area. The smaller, westernmost encampment had fallen easily. But this one—the big, southern camp—had caused him more than a little concern. Fortunately, the People’s experience at the western one had given them the confidence they’d needed, shown them that bounties could be overwhelmed by the People.

“You have your victory,” Dortak said, suddenly appearing at his side.

“Yes,” Sayjak said. “A good one.”

“More will come, looking for you.”

“We will be far away.”

“They may seek you in far places.”

“Let them. We can run, we can fight. We know the jungle better than bounties.”

“They may have other tricks you have not yet seen.”

“We will learn them.”

“I hope that you do,” Dortak said, and he dropped to his haunches and lowered his head, “for you are boss of bosses now.”

A sudden stillness came over the scene of carnage. The bellowing, the chattering ceased, the gambolers halted their cavorting, those overhead stayed their hands in the stringing of entrails among the tree limbs.

“Boss of bosses!” Sayjak said, knowing, at that moment, that he would not be killing Dortak. “Good idea. Me. Boss of bosses. Like old Karak. Never been a boss of bosses since him.”

“Maybe good idea,” Dortak said. “But maybe one day you hate it. Trouble comes, you got to help all clans. Otlag, Bilgad—they will come to call you boss of bosses. Here comes Otlag now. They get trouble and go drum for you at Shannibal, you got to come and help. All People your People now. Big job.”

As Dortak rose and moved away and Otlag came to offer his allegiance, Sayjak considered some of those ramifications involved in being boss of bosses. He found the prospect vaguely unsettling. Big job, as Dortak had said. Boss of bosses. But Karak had done it, long ago, and they still told stories of his deeds as though they were but yesterday. It would be good if one day they told such stories of Sayjak.

As Otlag rose, Bilgad came up to take his place, to call him boss of bosses. Sayjak licked his lips, showed his teeth, nodded his head.

“Yes,” he said. “Big boss. Go now. Have fun. Eat, dance, have sex, chop up bodies and play with pieces. Be safe. Sayjak is watching.” Moments later, he seized a passing female by the shoulder. “Your turn to have fun,” he said. “Great honor.”

Tranto loafed within his stand of trees, looking out over the herd. The transition had been very smooth. He had not even been challenged in the days since Scarco’s disappearance. Of course, since none of the herd were certain as to exactly what had happened to Scarce it was possible to believe the worst. And he was certain that at least some of them did. A number of young bulls drifted off on occasion, taking several days to return. Muggle had reported overhearing them discuss the possible locations of Scarco’s remains. He had also overheard comments that Tranto was an unlucky name, its most famous bearer being a trouble-making rogue. Of late, however, the quest for Scarco’s bones seemed to have been abandoned—and the herd continued to treat Tranto with full respect and deference.

He wandered the grove until he was facing eastward again. Yes, still there…

“Morning, boss.” Muggle had come up behind him, silent as a shadow. “Going to be another hot one. The birds say it’s been raining up north.”

“That’s nice,” Tranto said. “Who’s that one?”

“Which one?”

“The one who just raised her head from browsing and looked this way.”

“Oh, that’s Fraga. She’s a flirt. Daughter of Cargo and Brigga.”

“Any current—attachments?”

“No. A number are interested in her, of course. But she hasn’t encouraged any one of them over the others.”

“Good,” Tranto said. “That is, a girl should take her time and think these things over.”

“True,” Muggle agreed.

“Let’s browse a bit, heading down over that direction. Slowly. When we get there, we’ll just say hello. Then you can do introductions.”

“Sure,” Muggle said.

“It’s good to mingle with your people every now and then.”

“It is,” Muggle agreed.

Abel and Carla stared at the virtual form of their swollen daughter, there in their home virt space. They regarded Chalmers and the slightly hunched, white-bearded figure of Dr. Hamill.

“…highly unusual,” the doctor was saying. “I can’t recall another case of false pregnancy during transfer sleep. Her records do not indicate any psychopathology—”

Carla glanced quickly at her husband, then back at the doctor.

“What,” she said, “if it is a real pregnancy?”

Dr. Hamill met her gaze.

“The surface scan—which takes only seconds to run—showed the hymen intact,” he told her. “Is there some reason to think otherwise?”

“Not really. But humor me and check further, anyway,” she said.

“Of course. Though it would be highly unusual if—”

“It’s highly unusual that she’d be in an untraceable transfer state for over three months, too, isn’t it?”

“Well, that goes without saying. We are doing the best we can on that front—”

She turned to glare at Chalmers.

“Has it ever happened?” she asked. “A crossover pregnancy?”

“Certainly not!” he replied. “It’s physically impossible.”

“We could be making all sorts of legal history,” she said.

John D’Arcy Donnerjack and Ayradyss took up residence in the black castle on a rainy morning in early October. They supervised their robotic staff in the uncrating and disposition of furniture they had bought from antique dealers in odd corners of the Continent. The servants’ pneumatics made soft puffing sounds as they unrolled, raised, and hung tapestries to soften dark stone walls, placed chests, armoires, benches, and high-backed chairs in various chambers, erected canopied beds, assembled suits of armor, hung weapons and shields, unrolled rugs. They also installed walk-in freezers and modern instant ovens in the second kitchen. The first kitchen was a period piece in keeping with the overall decor, functional, but intended mainly for effect. Ayradyss liked the feeling of permanence that came with antiques.

While ninety percent of Castle Donnerjack was a showpiece, the other ten percent was state of the art in all technical effects associated with work and pleasure. Entering the upper west wing, one came into contemporary times. There, John Donnerjack had his office, containing modern furniture and voice-activated and manual terminals, with walk-in holographic display stages capable of transporting machine from within machine from within machine constructs—so Gedanken-‘pure of operation that they could function only in Virtu—into seeming imported pockets of that place, to allow for laser-pressure forcefield manipulations of a sort that might not be enacted elsewhere. Beyond the office was the Great Stage, where illusion-master Donnerjack, with great expense and technical innovation, had wrought the same effect, full-scale. To enter the Great Stage was a translation; it was like walking into Virtu in the flesh. He was to use it for testing pieces of his large-scale projects. He was also, frequently, to use it for his coffee breaks.

He and Ayradyss stood on a high balcony that night of the first day, regarding the stormy North Minch by moonlight.

“So you have actually restored your ancestral home,” she said at last.

“In a way,” he said. “I don’t really know how the old place looked. Not likely this good, though. Probably about the only thing we have in common with it is that we built it on the same spot. We dug it out and formed everything up. There were indications there had been an old cellar down there—”

“With tunnels,” she said, “leading off of it. Where do they go?”

“Way back into the rock. They seem to be natural. I didn’t try to explore them all. Just sealed them off with a big metal door. If the wine cellar were to grow monumentally I suppose we could set some racks inside it. Otherwise, they serve no purpose.”

“But that’s how you know this was really the site?”

“Well, my grandfather’d said something about the old place supposedly having tunnels. That, along with the foundation, makes me think I was probably right.”

“It is so different from Virtu.”

“In what way?”

She gestured outward.

“That storm will pass after a time,” she said, “and things will return to a—ground state that is stable.”

“But it is that way in Virtu, also.”

“Yes, but it can be changed instantly, and there are places noted for their fluctuation.”

“One can landscape here. Hell, we’ve terraformed parts of the moon, and Mars—and the insides of asteroids.”

“And one can take a step sideways and backwards in Virtu, find the proper guides and be in a totally different place. Then there are the wild lands, which develop their wild genü, which generate their own wild programs.”

“We can play games with reality here, too.”

“Yes, but later you return to the firmness of the ground state. Remember all of the wild places you took me through on the way back? You’ve nothing like them here.”

“True,” he agreed. “I understand what you’re saying. It’s a different kind of order, that’s all.”

“Yes. Different.”

They repaired within and made love in the new bed for a long while.

It was several days before his equipment was up and running to his satisfaction. In the meantime, he would break from his labors with it and they would enter the Great Stage, which was also functioning. There, they could set the environment to vast and pleasing vistas, including genuine sections of Virtu. When the forcefield pressure interface was engaged they could experience it directly at the tactile level. So they could walk in Virtu within the limits of the Stage, a small-scale equivalent of the transfer phenomenon itself; if full transfer was desired the necessary medical equipment was housed within adjacent chambers.

They sat in a dale amid vermilion hills where ancient statues worked their ways back toward boulderhood. Red lyre-tailed birds inspected damp grasses near a small pond.

“It is odd to come as a visitor,” she said. “What magic did the Lord of the Lost employ to work this change?”

“I think that when he reembodied you he simply did it as one of us rather than a creature of Virtu.”

“Still, how could he do this?”

“I have been thinking long and hard about it. It has occurred to me that Virtu must possess a level of complexity beyond what we have postulated.”

“Oh, I’m sure it does.”

“Implying a higher level of structure.”

She shrugged.

“If it explains how he did it, it must be right.”

“A guess doesn’t explain anything. I still have to work out a theory and figure the mechanisms.”

“Then what?”

He shook his head.

“Its application would be—unusual. I want to shelve everything else and just work on this one. But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I owe the Lord of Entropy his Palace of Bones and bowers of dead flowers.”

“How did you discover what it is that he wants?”

“A list of specifications and general layout appeared on one of the screens this morning.”

“How do you propose making delivery?”

“He’s watching. He’ll know when it’s ready. I will be shown what to do at that time.”

“That’s frightening. Do you think he’s watching us right now?”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

She rose.

“Let’s go back outside,” she said.

“All right.”

Later that night, as they lay hallway between sleep and wakefulness, she touched his shoulder.

“John?”

“What is it?”

“Do all castles make strange noises at night?”

“Perhaps,” he said, listening. Then he heard a distant, metallic rattling sound. “It’s windy,” he said after a time. “The workmen might have left something lying about unsecured.”

“It sounds like a chain.”

“It does, doesn’t it? I’ll look around in the morning.”

“Yes, do that.”

“‘Night, love.”

“‘Night.”

Death sat on his throne of bones and regarded the model of his palace he had brought into being. With brief movements of his fingers in the space before him he opened sections, enlarged them, enhanced them. At times he rotated the image of the structure slowly, nodding or shaking his head.

“Interesting,” said Phecda, who had come up beside him and mounted the chair’s high back. “Will it have dungeons?”

“Of course,” Death answered.

“Secret passages?”

“Certainly.”

“Lots of ledges and crannies?”

“Plenty.”

“Blind corridors?”

“Those, too.”

“Some of the stairways seem to do funny things.”

“Escher Effect,” Death said.

“A place one could slither through forever, bigger even than your current dwelling.”

“Exactly.”

“So you are pleased with it?”

“In my fashion.”

“You will cause it to be created then, here, in Deep Fields?”

“Not as it stands. It requires considerable elaboration.”

“And when that has been done… ?”

“Oh, yes. Then.”

Donnerjack found a set of revised specs waiting for him on a screen early in the morning. He lowered himself slowly into his chair and studied them. Tricky, very tricky, he decided, and why should the place have a nursery?

He called up a holo of his proposal on the nearest stage, stared at it, commenced rotating it. Tentatively, then, he entered some of the proposed changes, holding back those which would not lend themselves to representation here.

It was several hours before he had cobbled together an approximation worth examining in greater detail. When he had, he transferred a section of it to the Great Stage, went over and walked through it. Then he returned to his console, made adjustments, and moved another section to the Stage. He walked back and inspected it.

Later, deep into his alterations, he turned, to discover he was not alone.

“Ayradyss! Good morning. I didn’t realized you were up.”

She smiled, took his hand, and squeezed it. He drew her to him and they embraced and kissed.

“Yes, I was awakened again by an upset stomach. Might the food of Verite do that to one from Virtu?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t see why it should.”

“Well, I’ve been nauseated every morning for several days.”

“Really? Why didn’t you say something sooner? There are things you can take, to settle the stomach.”

“It always passes quickly. Then I am fine again.”

“Any other symptoms?”

“I threw up a little bit.”

“I will order something for your stomach.”

“Thank you, love. —This is your latest project?”

“Yes, the one I owe to the master of Deep Fields. I can set it to sequence for us, if you would like to walk through it with me.”

“I would. Shall we take coffee with us?”

“Let’s.”

Neither an eeksy nor a bounty, Virginia Tallent knew all their territories, though from a different vantage. She was a ranger with the Virtu Survey Department, keeping track of emerging territory and fluctuations in existing lands. She traveled far, observing and recording, and while her function was mainly passive, her knowledge was extensive. One of the few Veriteans employed in this capacity, she delighted in her work, hiking the wild lands and recording her discoveries there. Every day was a revelation to her. She worked harder than others in the business, and she resented returning home at the end of each tour of duty.

She climbed a trail amid rocks and ferns, flowers and squat trees. Above her, winged shapes—some fresh-emerged from red fruitlike cocoons—fled, croaking. Occasionally, a small, pale figure darted across her path. Slim, dark-haired and pale-eyed, skin the color of cocoa, she made her way with grace and agility. Hot breezes played through the morning’s sunlight, and her way lay within shade. She had timed it that way. Periodically, she would pause to sip from a water bottle or to record an observation.

At one point, a voice came to her out of a tree at a place where the green swirled darkly within it.

“Virginia Tallent, you have traveled far.”

“That is true,” she responded, slowing, “and the foliage here seems lusher than usual, for the season. And I’ve seen more hunting wilches.”

“Excessive rains, which favor the leaf-eating gronhers. They multiply quickly, as do the wilches who eat them. Soon the wilches will reach a point where their dancing begins. There will follow a southward migration on the part of the dire-cats, who prey on them.”

“Why southward?”

“When the gronhers’ numbers dwindle they will seek the herd-mice, which will soon be numerous in the south.”

“Why?”

“The grains they feed on are even now in unusual development, because of nutrient-bearing flooding earlier this year.”

“…And the land, from the rains?” she asked.

There was no reply. The green flame had ceased to dance.

She smiled and walked on. Clouds gathered and blocked the sunlight. There followed a low rumble of thunder. The trail bore her left, its steepness diminishing. A few drops of rain spattered against fronds. There came a flash of lightning. She hurried.

The full downpour caught her in a largely open area where the trail had widened as it neared the top of the plateau. She wisely avoided a grove of tall trees, choosing instead the less complete but safer shelter offered by some broad-leafed shrubs that partly intersected an outcropping of stone.

Seated, in a leal-fringed cave beneath the shrubs, she watched the water become a beaded curtain about her shelter, wiped occasional droplets from her brow, watched a stone in a less sheltered area to her right darken, saw its surface become a flow of glass and shadow.

As she watched, the stone seemed to form features, eyes focused in her direction. The dark, wet lips moved:

“Virginia,” it said, “the main erosion occurs upon eastern slopes, partly as a function of wind direction, partly from the angles and drainage of the slopes themselves, predicated upon events past.”

“Markon!” she said.

“Yes.” The stone changed shape now, growing into a life-sized statue as the genius loci continued their conversation. “The wind direction is determined partly by temperature differentials between this and six major and eleven minor areas, the coastal pair and that containing Lake

Triad being most prominent. Have you had a fruitful journey, thus far?”

“Indeed,” she replied. “I’ve always found your realm particularly fascinating.”

“Why, thank you. What of my neighbor Kordalis’s?”

“It’s interesting. But the rapid spread of wildfire vine tends to crash the botanical cycles over-frequently.”

“I feel it is because of the floral coloration. She is over-fond of yellow.”

“I never considered it from the standpoint of aesthetic preference on the part of a genius loci.”

“Oh, yes. It is a consideration you should not neglect among the younger ones.”

“The older ones are beyond that sort of thing?”

“No. But you will, in general, find them to have developed better judgment. On the other hand, you will find some whose taste never improves.”

“Would you care to name some of these?”

“Certainly not. That would be very petty of me. I am sure you are capable of forming your own opinions.”

She smiled and wiped her face on her sleeve.

“Of course,” she agreed.

The features flowed again.

“There is a need—” Markon stated, and the face began to fade. Then, “No. My world will hardly be destroyed if I do not respond,” it said. The expression returned to the stone, smiling faintly, briefly. “I see you so seldom, Virginia. How have you been?”

“Very well, thanks,” she replied. “And from the look of the land, the same might be said for you.”

The stone swayed forward and back. The being had nodded.

“No epic battles with my neighboring spirits of place,” he answered, “if that is what you mean. Those days seem very remote, a thing of beginnings.”

“I never even heard of them.”

“They are not a part of common knowledge, now I think on it. So that could not have been your true question.”

“No, it was not. But I am fascinated by it. This must have to do with the transition from pure programming to independent evolution in Virtu, both near its establishment. I’d never heard of the wars of the genü loci, though.”

“I do not understand this talk of something called Virtu. There is only the world. What else can there be? And yes, we fought for control of our pieces of it in the days after creation, when the place was not yet fully formed. There were alliances, betrayals, glorious victories, ignominious defeats. They were great days, but in truth I am glad that they are gone. One can grow tired of living heroically. True, individual feuds and vendettas do still sometimes occur, but these are as nothing beside the conflicts of the unsolid days. I have not engaged in one for some time, and that is fine with me.”

“Fascinating. Has anyone official—such as myself—ever recorded these matters?”

“I can only speak for myself, and I have not given this information. The others of my acquaintance tend to be as close as me, however, when dealing with mobile sentients.”

“Then why do you tell me?”

“I have known you for some time, Virginia, and you told me of your blindness and paralysis from an untreatable neurological condition. I don’t suppose you speak often of it, either. It is good that you have two bodies.”

“Well, I’d rather be here than there. But it might be good for you to have your reminiscences of those times remembered, to preserve them.”

“Nothing is lost so long as one mind remembers.”

“It might be good to share them. Design theoreticians could learn a lot from them.”

“I am not here to teach them. I am no friend of the designers.”

“It might help them to do better jobs in the future.”

“I do not want any jobs done in my territory. Or anyplace else, for that matter. They had their chance. They are done. They are not welcome here.”

“I only meant it as an increase of general knowledge.”

“Enough!” The face twisted into a scowl. “I would talk of it no more!”

“As you would, Markon.”

“Yes. As I would. Shall I summon my elemental servants to dance for you?”

“That would be nice.”

Water rose from the ground and met the waters falling from the sky. They formed themselves into glistening bodies, faceless, sexless. Beside them, heavier figures, of mud, rose and took form. Winds began to lash the leaves. From openings in the earth flames leaped up, began to sway, to bifurcate. The winds picked up numerous bits of detritus, formed it into debris devils.

“How strange and how lovely,” she said as the figures came loose from their points of origin and began to move about.

“Few, if any, of your kind have seen it,” he said. “Come sit by me and watch. I will make it drier and warmer here.”

She rose and went to seat herself beside him. The figures began to move more quickly. Shadows danced within them.

Arthur Eden returned from a long sojourn in Virtu. Departing the church’s transfer facility, he took public transportation through a chaotic series of changes about town, coming at last to one of his homes. Partway there, his stomach began to rumble, active again following its long rest. The first thing he did on entering his apartment was to order a meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, fruit juice, coffee. As his kitchen unit labored to comply, he stripped and stepped into his shower. There, amid sizzling jets, he relived the week’s apprenticeship—called “claiming the program”—a simple exercise in the manipulation of local reality required of all initiates in the lowest grade of priesthood. He recalled the mental movement, the reaching, the capture of forms, the acceptance of spaces… It had been fun, playing the ritualized, programmed games. No way to lose, of course. Everyone who participated became a minor adept by the course’s end. He would have to give it an entire chapter, as a reinforcement of a mindset. Presumably, the higher ones functioned in the same fashion. It didn’t really explain the rare carryovers. But then, they might have involved latent psi powers stimulated by all the attention. The faithful were required to report such powers’ appearance under pain of excommunication for noncompliance.

He toweled himself dry and donned a pair of purple pajamas, a green-and-blue paisley dressing gown, a battered pair of brown, fleece-lined leather slippers. He reviewed messages and headlines as he ate. There was another long letter from Dr. V. Danton, somewhere in the asteroid belt, taking issue with the piece wherein he’d suggested that the Elishite religion was not exportable—and hence, was atavistic—because of its necessary linkage to Virtu here on Earth. Danton had maintained that Virtu itself was unnecessary for the functioning of the creed as a true religion, arguing that its doctrines alone were sufficient for this. While Eden wondered whether it would hold up without the splash of virtual reinforcement, he had to concede that there might be sufficient substance there to maintain it. He wondered whether Danton were himself an Elishite.

He thought again of his own status with regard to the Church. To them, he was Emmanuel Davis, a research librarian. Davis even had an apartment in another part of town. But he had wanted to be in his own place tonight, to work on his notes while he was still fresh on the material. If they learned of his dual identity his membership would be terminated immediately, he knew. On the other hand, he was certain he never would have been accepted as a member in the first place, let alone as a candidate for the priesthood, had they been aware of his standing as a religious scholar. Especially not had they known of his intention to treat them as a subject. Now, his duplicity had been solely in the cause of truth. He’d no intention of publishing secret rituals or expounding esoteric bits of doctrine. His interest lay in developing the sociology of the growth of the new religion.

He had spent months documenting the Davis persona before approaching the Elishites for religious instruction. Davis’s identity had been strong enough to pass any initial investigation they might have conducted. He had also provided Davis with more than ordinary reasons for travel. And he checked into Davis’s quarters often, to respond to messages both spurious and bonafide, for Davis actually labored in the vineyards of research. Davis also had a horde of relations and friends with whom he visited at the drop of a hat. So far, there had been no indication that Davis had ever aroused unusual scrutiny from any quarter.

He wondered, though. If that identity were penetrated, he wished to be certain that the deception could never be traced to him. Perhaps he should add a second layer to Davis, complicating his life, providing confusion in the event of deep scrutiny. Yes, that seemed a good idea. He would work out details, begin installing it soon.

He forced himself to eat slowly, savoring every mouthful. His stomach growled happily, and he smiled and took a drink of juice. The entire exercise would probably be redundant, he reflected. For even if he somehow made the Elishites’ shit list, what could they really do to him? Take legal action if he had violated a law. Excommunicate him and ostracize him if they could not hurt him in the courts.

He wondered, though, at the volatility of emotions in the followers of religions, never having felt such feelings himself. He supposed that if his study aroused sufficient ire there might be death threats and such from the laity rather than the clergy, and perhaps someone would vandalize Davis’s apartment. He might actually be physically assaulted, if recognized as Davis. He had not thought of these earlier, but suddenly they were there. As he sipped his coffee and considered the more fanatical aspects of religions, he saw that believers were always harder on their own, particularly those deemed apostate, than ever they were on outsiders.

Over his second cup of coffee it seemed even more possible. When his book finally came out it would be readily apparent that its author had been for a time a member. An effort would be made to identify the individual he had been. Fortunately, this was years away. He hadn’t even begun writing the volume yet, and it would be some time before he did. Time enough to get in a lot more work on covering his tracks. Yes, Davis definitely needed more layers to his existence, more complexity, blind alleys, extra identities within his own—confusion. Any trail that might lead to Arthur Eden would be thoroughly muddied. It was good that there was so much time in which to do it.

He began considering the ways. The only thing he could think of that might be on par with what he was going to do would be to develop a virt power that transferred and not report it. They liked to keep track of their adepts. They did not like freelance psis. He wondered, though, what they could really do about it. A person had a right to join or quit any religion he cared to. And he’d never heard of any way to recall a virt power. It was just something you learned, and once you had it, it was yours. Then he wondered what they might plan on doing with their human psis in Verite. He’d never heard of any real activity here in that area.

Was there a way to strip one of such a power? Or a way to control it? To counter it? After a week of working on his telekinetic reflexes in Virtu, this lay upon his mind, though it was more of a game there, a matter of connecting with that function’s in-place programs and learning their uses. Whether that would actually help here—and how it might help—seemed anyone’s guess.

He filed some correspondence, trashed the rest. He scrolled his personal newspaper and caught up on the world’s doings in his absence. Then he mixed himself a stiff drink and took it to bed with him, along with his voice pad to which he told all his recollections and dictated conclusions, fresh ideas, new assumptions. For a while after, he cast them all into his near-elegant prose.

Then he drowsed, and drowsing dreamed. At some point he recalled a thing he should have recorded and his hand moved to the table where he had laid the pad.

He felt the pad slip away, tip.

Then his eyes were open and he was leaning forward, groping. His mind rushed into the past week’s exercise pattern.

The pad hung suspended, five inches below tabletop level.

He stared for several moments. Then, slowly, he reached out and took hold of it.

“I am the walrus,” he said.

FIVE

The diagnostic unit weighed her and took her pulse, blood pressure, and brain wave profile immediately when she sat in it. It took several moments longer to digest a few milliliters of blood.

Set for voice response, it answered her then:

“Madam, you are pregnant.”

“You are mistaken,” she said.

A moment passed. Then, “Diagnosis confirmed,” it reported.

“You must be malfunctioning.”

“Unlikely,” it responded. “I am very new, and I was fully tested at the factory.”

“There is a reason you came with a full year’s warranty at no extra charge,” she said.

“Yes, because it is a gesture on which they seldom have to pay. I can provide you with the number to call for televaluation.”

“All right. Let’s have it.”

Later, the service tech, who insisted on eyeballing the unit in virt, shook his head.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. It tests perfectly,” he said.

“But I can’t be pregnant!”

He glanced at her, smiled faintly.

“Are you sure?”

“It just doesn’t work that way,” she said.

He shook his head.

“I’d better not ask you what you mean,” he said. “But, believe me, there’s no product liability involved. What you decide to do with the information is, of course, your own affair.”

She nodded as he made his farewell and went out like a light.

She wandered the castle’s high halls thinking of children. Shadows slipped about her and drafts stirred curtains and tapestries. Small things scuttled, scratching, across rafters. And what was that other sound?

She wondered at the impossibility of it. The mating of Virtu and Verite was always sterile, had to be sterile. It was a part of the way the worlds worked. There was no room for negotiation with principles. She could not be pregnant. She halted and regarded herself in a wonderfully warped mirror, where a slight side-to-side movement made her left cheek look as if she were chewing gum. She amused herself with the effect each time she passed.

What had happened between her passing in Virtu and her reassembly in Deep Fields?

The sound came again, musical, metallic. Whatever else was involved, the Lord of the Lost had been able to send her reembodied self across the interface to become a genuine resident of Verite. And by way of the scenic route, at that. Might that change also have included a susceptibility to impregnation in her new home? How long had she been in Verite now? Six months? A year? It was hard getting used to the way time worked in this place.

Again—and nearer now—that sound. Was it from the small room to the left or the little corridor beyond it? She slowed, glanced into the room as she came to it. Nothing. She stepped inside.

At her back, she heard a small sound. Turning, she beheld behind her in the hallway the shadowy figure of a small man in a ragged tunic and breeches, bearded, a chain about his ankle.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He paused in midmoan and turned his head, as if studying her.

“Who—are you?” she repeated.

He uttered something incomprehensible but vaguely familiar. She shook her head.

He repeated it. It sounded something like, “Dinna ken.”

“You don’t know who you are?”

“Nae.” Then there followed another sentence which almost slipped into place. She worked her analysis programs around his accent. The next time he spoke she was able to update and edit his words:

“Too long,” he said, “down memory’s dim path. Name’s forgotten, deeds unsung.”

“What were your deeds?”

“Crusader,” he replied. “Outremer. Many battles.”

“How did you end up—here?”

“Family feud. Mine lost. Prisoner, long time. Darkness.”

“Your enemies?”

“Gone. Gone. Different now, this place. Fell down, went away. But its spirit remains. Wandered the ghost castle, I did, still do. Me and others from days gone. It’s here, in the shell of the new one. Sometimes I see it, others I don’t. Fading, like me. Now, though, your brightness. Good. Used to be I’d wander and it would fade. High in the air then, me, and afraid of heights. Stay. Better wandering now. Your name, m’lady?”

“Ayradyss,” she replied.

“To you and your bairn-to-be well-met. There’s a banshee been watching you.”

“A banshee? What’s that?”

“Noisy spirit. Sees bad things coming and howls when she does.”

“I heard a howling last night.”

“Yes. She was about it again.”

“What will the bad thing be?”

He shrugged and his chain rattled.

“Banshees tend to be generalists rather than specialists when it comes to their announcements.”

“It doesn’t seem a very useful function then.”

“Banshees are more for atmosphere than utility.”

“I’ve only heard you occasionally, and this is the first time I’ve seen you. Where do ghosts go when they’re not haunting?”

“I’m nae sure. I guess it’s sort of like dreaming. Sort of. But it’s a place, places, pieces. Past jumbled together with new things. But then so is waking, often. We’re more awake when there are people around, like now.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But I learn things while I’m away. Bits. Pieces. I come back knowing more than I knew. You are a very strange person.”

“I am not of the Verite. I am from Virtu.”

“I have never walked that land, but I know somewhat of it, in my fashion. I know, too, that you come here from an even stranger realm— one from which I never learned the path of return. You hae walked Deep Fields and come back. I dinna think it possible. You have, however, brought a wee bit of it with you. It is as if its dark dust clings to your shoes. Perhaps this is why I find it easier’t’ talk’t’ you than most warm ones: we share something.”

“Why do you wander, dragging a chain? The dead do not do that in Virtu.”

“It marks my suffering at the end of life.”

“But that was centuries ago. How long do you have to do it?”

“I was never clear on that.”

“Couldn’t you just stop?’

“Oh, I hae, many times. But I always wake up and find myself at it again. Bad habit, but I dinna ken how to break it.”

“There must be some form of therapy that would help you.”

“I wouldn’t know about such things, ma’am.”

He turned and began moving, rattling, up the hall. His outline grew faint.

“Must you go?” she asked.

“No choice. The dreaming’s calling.” He halted, as with great effort, and turned then. “It will be a boy,” he said, “and ‘twas for you the banshee wailed. Mostly you,” he added, turning away again. “Him, too, though, and your man.”

He gave a quick wail, and the sound fell off abruptly along with the rattling of his chains.

“Wait!” she cried. “Come back!”

But he faded with each step and was gone in moments. She shed her first tears in Verite.

Donnerjack looked up from the flow of equations on half of his screen, turning his attention back to the text he was composing on the other half.

“I am persuaded,” he said, “that there is indeed a fourth level of complexity within Virtu. Our own experience indicates it as well as certain other anomalies which have come to my attention. I’ve discussed the possibility with several colleagues, and they all say I’m heading up a blind trail. But they are wrong. I am certain it can be made to fit the general theory of the place. It is the only explanation that will unify the data. Look here!”

He froze the flow of figures, reversed it.

“John,” Ayradyss said, “I’m pregnant.”

“Impossible,” he answered. “We just don’t mix at that level.”

“It appears that we do.”

“How do you know?”

“The medic unit said so. So did the ghost.”

He froze the action on his screen and rose.

“I’d better check that machine over. Ghost, did you say?”

“Yes. I met him upstairs.”

“You mean as in specter, spook, haunt, disembodied manifestation?”

“Yes. That’s what he indicated he was.”

“This place is too new to have a ghost—if there were such things as ghosts. We haven’t had any violent deaths on the premises.”

“He says he’s a carryover from the old castle that used to occupy this site.”

“What’s his name?”

“He couldn’t recall.”

“Hm. A nameless horror, then. And he remarked that you’re pregnant?”

“Yes. He said it will be a boy.”

“Well, no way of checking on the ghost. Let’s have a look at the machine.”

A half-hour later, Donnerjack rose from the console, closed the unit, closed his tool kit, and rolled down his sleeves.

“All right,” he said. “Everything seems to be in good order. Interface with it, and let’s get some readings.”

She moved to do this, and he began a run-through on a standard series. When it reached the crucial point it responded, “…and you are still pregnant.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“What should we do?” she asked.

He scratched his head.

“I’ll order a med robot with OB/GYN and full pediatric programming,” he said, “while we think about it. These readings show it as fairly far along. Who’d’ve thought… ?”

“I meant…” she began. “I meant, what should we do about—the other?”

He met her gaze and stared.

“You promised him to the Lord of Deep Fields,” she said, “to secure my release.”

“It seemed a situation that would never occur.”

“But since it has, what are we to do?”

“We do have time to think about it. It might be negotiable.”

“I’ve got a feeling that it isn’t.”

“Well, it would still seem the first thing to try.”

“And the second?”

“I’ll be thinking.”

Pregnant.

Floating in a warm bath, Ayradyss contemplated the concept for some time. It wasn’t that she had never considered the possibility—self-replicating proges, both parthenogenetic and gender-related, were common in Virtu. They saved the genius loci from wasting all their energy on basic programming, made opportunity for art. But she had never seriously considered the possibility for herself—certainly not once she had given her heart to John, for while those of Virtu and Verite often made love, they never made babies.

Closing her eyes until she gazed out from between her lashes, she gazed down the length of her nude body. There were no changes that she could see, but as the morning sickness proved, the changes were happening. Protectively, she laced her fingers over her still-flat abdomen.

What would the baby—the boy—be like? She and John were both dark-haired, dark-eyed, so likely he would be also. She hoped he would have his father’s build: tall and powerful without being in the least bit bulky. A small smile played about her lips as she imagined the baby, the boy, the young man, her son.

The bath water gradually chilled. She contemplated twisting the tap with her toes to add a bit more heat, then, looking at her pruning fingertips (something that never happened in Virtu), she decided that perhaps she had soaked long enough. Standing calf-deep in the bath, she let the water run down her, forming little beads against her lightly oiled skin (John had made her a gift of some jasmine-scented bath oil when they were in Jamaica).

When she had adjusted to the cooler air, she stepped out onto the bath rug (this from China, its fat flowers cut out to contrast against the deeper plush). While she combed her hair out from the coil she had twisted it into to keep it out of the water, she meditated on what to do with the rest of her day.

John was busy in his office, patiently working on his design for

Death’s Palace of Bones. She disliked going near when he was working on that particular project—instinctively she felt that Death was watching her, and even if John stubbornly refused to dwell upon it, she knew that the palace was only part of the price agreed upon for her return from Deep Fields. She did not blame John for agreeing to Death’s terms— after all, they had seemed impossible to meet. Death might have as soon asked for the moon, but she feared for her unborn son, dreaded the portent in the banshee’s wail.

Banshee. Was that her cry? Ayradyss stood perfectly still, listening. No, what she had heard was just the winter wind chasing the mists through the castle’s turrets.

Quickly she hurried to her closet, took out a long tartan skirt, an Irish cable-knit sweater, heavy stockings, comfortable shoes. The ghosts liked to haunt the regions of the castle that had been recreated to follow John’s fancy of what a Scottish castle should look like. She would go seeking them, ask them about the portents. Who better to ask about Death and his plans than those who walked the line between life and whatever in Verite passed for Deep Fields?

John must have his plans for defeating Death—she was certain of that. Scientist and poet he might be, but he also bore something of a warrior’s soul. Verite-born, Ayradyss knew a few of the details of the religion practiced by many of her aion kin. John had his place in their pantheon—did he know?—a demigod of sorts. Still, his plans, his abilities, did not mean that she could not investigate on her own.

The unborn child was her son, too; he was being claimed as ransom for her life. It was her place, as much as John’s, to defend him from Death. Face set, she hurried from the bedroom suite, up the stone stairs, out onto the battlements. Her long, full skirts snapped in the wind as her wings had in Virtu, but this time she did not mourn her wings—she had something more precious within her, something she was determined to protect.

“Banshee!” she cried. “Banshee!”

The wind took the words from her lips so quickly she barely heard them. Arms outspread, she spun. Her skirts belled round and full, her hair whipped out massy and dark. A cyclone of tartan and ebony, she danced in the wind.

Rain began to fall, stinging and cold. Turning to hail, it pebbled the slick stone, cobbled the flags with tiny lumps of ice. Still she danced, her head light and swimming now, her feet gliding on the ice. Ayradyss waltzed with the wind and weather.

She felt a firm pressure at her back, a hand clasp her icy fingers, but her streaming eyes could discover nothing of her partner. Crystals were forming both in her hair and along the thick cables of her sweater: jewels from the Winter King’s hoard. An orchestra played, too: ringing hail, the moan of stone, the shriller howl of the gusts that tore through the crenelations.

Almost now, almost, she could see her partner. His face was white, the cheekbones high, so high, the teeth so white, even against the whiteness of his face. All of him was white but the darkness of his eyes, and these were as dark as the pit, dark as night, dark as…

“Dinna ye ken’t’ cum oot of th’ rain?” said a harsh voice, a clatter of iron underlying the words.

Ayradyss felt the Winter King spin her away, handing her off to this new partner. She reached obediently to take the hand she saw before her, but her numbed fingers met with nothing, not even resistance. Letting her hand fall, she slowed her dancing steps—slipping and sliding as she did this thing.

“Lass, yer wet to the bone and half ice,” chided the voice, her mind asserting the program that sorted the strange burred words into something easier to understand. “What are you doing oot here in such weather? I’ll have a word with that husband of yours for not looking out better for you! Laird of the castle or nae, see if I don’t!”

Ayradyss let herself be guided to the heated interior of the castle. As the ice melted from her hair and her fingers pricked at the warmth, she recognized her interrogator.

“Ghost!” she said happily. “I was hoping to find you!”

“Find me!” the crusader ghost groused. “Lass, ye almost joined me! Get yourself into some dry clothes before you kill yourself and your bairn!”

“But it’s about my baby I want to talk to you,” Ayradyss protested, wringing out her streaming hair, shivering as the warmth of the castle forced sensation into hands and toes.

“Do you? Do you now?” The ghost’s expression remained severe, but something in its burred tones softened. “Dry off first, drink some soup to warm your insides, and you might find me in the long gallery.”

As a means of ending discussion, the ghost faded out. His chain lingered behind him a moment longer, then vanished as well. Ayradyss shivered, sneezed, and gathering her wet skirts in both hands, hurried down to the master bedroom.

Some time later, hair completely dry, clad in fresh warm clothing from the skin out, and a pint of thick beef and barley soup inside of her (and a second helping in a heavy pottery mug in her hand) she climbed the stair to the long gallery.

It was a good place to meet with a ghost, she thought. Although she and John had selected a Persian runner to cover the floor, the bare stone was still visible along the sides. The tapestries and portraits (oils that she had purchased in various antique shops, giggling at the expressions on some of the faces—why would anyone wish to be remembered as seeming so severe?) relieved the dark stone but did little to alleviate the corridor’s gloom. Not even discretely arrayed artificial light could do so. It was as if the gallery had decided that it was meant to be a shadowed, haunted place and consciously defied any efforts to make it otherwise.

Sipping from her mug, Ayradyss walked slowly down the corridor, the sound of her footfalls swallowed by the carpet. Coming to a window with a deep stone sill, she set her mug down. She was digging after a piece of beef with her spoon when she heard the clanking of the ghost’s chain.

“Thank you for coming, sir,” she said politely, taking her skirts in hand to give him a deep curtsy.

“I had no choice, now, did I?” the ghost said grouchily. “If I dinna cum, y’would go dancing in the wind and snow again like a daft thing.”

“Not so daft,” Ayradyss said, tossing her head and arching her eyebrows at him. “I did find you now, didn’t I?”

“That you did. Now, what’s this about asking me about your bairn? I had none of my own while I lived and there will be none now that I’ve died.”

“But you knew that my baby would be a boy,” Ayradyss protested, “and you knew that the banshee wailed for him—and for me and for John.”

The ghost shook its chain, paced a few steps, glowered at her from beneath bushy brows.

“You’re taking liberties, lass, liberties, indeed. Ghosts and supernatural manifestations are not to be interrogated so. We give omens—interpreting them, that’s another provenance.”

Ayradyss stirred her soup deliberately, ate one spoonful, then another. It was growing cold, the barley gluey. She pushed the mug back into the recess. Looking up into the opaque window, its lead-joined panes all diamonds and angles, she said as if to herself:

“I wonder if the Winter King would tell me what I need to know?

He smiled so when we danced. Perhaps he knows why Death wants my baby.”

There was a solid iron crash behind her as if a chain had been dropped directly onto bare stone.

“That Winter King most certainly knows why Death wants your bairn, lass, but I dinna think that he would tell you straight.”

“Can you?”

“I dinna ken the answer, lass.”

“Can you help me learn it?”

A long silence. Ayradyss watched the nicker of the snowfall behind the heavy glass, seeing more the shadow as it opaqued the light than the actual snowfall itself. The wind howled without and she was glad that the architects had sacrificed historical verisimilitude to insulation.

“Can you help me, Ghost?”

“No more dancing with the Winter King?”

“No more.”

“You’ll stay warm and dry and eat the best food so the bairn grows strong?”

“I will.”

“Aye, then I’ll help you look for the answers, lass. I canna promise that we’ll find them, but I can help you look.”

Ayradyss turned and studied the ghost. He stood bent within his shabby tunic, his breeches sagging. His feet, she noticed, were bare and disfigured with corns. The ankle around which the chain was fastened, oddly, was as smooth as the one without.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Dinna ken,” came the voice, fading as the ghost faded. “Dinna ken. Some things ‘tis better not to know.”

Ayradyss contemplated this for a long moment, then gathered up her mug of cold soup. The sky outside was growing dark. She would pull John from his calculations. They could build a fire in the parlor off their bedroom, dine by candlelight by the hearth. Afterwards, perhaps they could return to the jigsaw puzzle they had been doing—a Monet bridge scene that had them quite baffled.

Humming softly, she descended the stair, not hearing the banshee’s wail intermixed with that of the wind.

John D’Arcy Donnerjack continued his work, incorporating suggested changes. Mornings, when he would return to his studio, he would learn whether his designs had been accepted. Or he would find new lists of specifications. At the end of his work session, when he left his changes and their catalogue on the machine at the customary address, he appended a personal note for the first time: “How serious were you on the firstborn business?”

The following morning at the end of the new listing he found the response: “Totally serious.”

That day, when he completed his work he added a new message: “What would you take instead?”

The next day’s reply was: “I will not bargain over that which is my due.”

He responded: “What about the most comprehensive music library in the world?”

The reply was: “Do not tempt me, Donnerjack.”

“Can we get together and talk about it?” Donnerjack asked.

“No,” came the reply.

“There must be something that you want more.”

“Nothing that you can give me.”

“I’d try to get it for you.”

“Discussion ended.”

Donnerjack returned to his work, executing brilliant design revisions, incorporating the desired changes, suggesting additional ones of his own. Many of these latter were approved.

One day, when he had left the full field interface open to the Great Stage, he heard bagpipe music. He moved to the nearest window and looked outside but could find no clue as to its source. He stepped out into the hallway, but it seemed fainter there.

Returning, he realized that the sounds seemed to be coming from the vicinity of the Stage.

He entered there and was startled. It was as if he had stepped ashore and hiked some miles to the east. He had set the scan on drift, as was his custom, and the landscape which surrounded him now was a replica of the Scottish Highlands. And it was obvious that this was the source of the music.

He waved his hand in one of the key areas and a menu appeared in the air before him. He stabbed the spoked semicircle icon with his forefinger and when its hardened holo manifested he took hold of it, and turning the wheel, pushed in for acceleration and steered in what he took to be the direction of the music.

He bore to the right, and Virtu rushed past him. Hills, hills, hills. The piping was coming from here, but it could take forever to search among those crags and ridges.

He drew back on the wheel, rising higher. But the ranks of hills continued, partially masking each other, and at this altitude the music became harder to distinguish. Why was he so anxious, he asked himself, to track down a local, unimportant phenomenon in Virtu? But something about it called to him, perhaps striking an ancestral chord, making it feel special.

He continued his search, circling, rising. Finally, he was rewarded with the view of a man in a small valley, standing atop a boulder, wearing a set of pipes. He dropped lower, advanced slowly, moving until the man and his stone were in the area of the Great Stage.

He walked forward then and halted a score of paces away, regarding the man’s dapper form and neat beard, the dagger at his ankle, the claymore at his side.

Standing, listening there, he became aware that the terrain was shifting slowly about him, hills sinking into valleys, other hills rising. It struck him then that somehow they obeyed the music. It was as if the area had grown plastic and were dancing to the skirls and wailings, overriding, somehow, the will of its genius loci.

The piping went on, and on, as did the changes. After a time, he noticed a sudden drooping in the midst of a nearby patch of heather. Then a tiny piece of blackness raised itself above it and moved to one nearer at hand. The heather began to fade, to wither.

“Hi,” came a small voice. “Music’s a great thing, isn’t it?”

He stared and saw that the black patch was a butterfly.

“He won’t stop for awhile yet,” it said. “That’s ‘Band of the Titans’ he’s playing. It goes on some.”

“Who is he?” Donnerjack asked.

The butterfly flitted to his shoulder, the better to be heard above the piping.

“Wolfer Martin D’Ambry,” came the reply, “who piped the phantom regiment of Skyga to many victories in the days of Creation. He is a lost soul of sorts, the Phantom Piper.”

“Phantom Piper? Why is he called that?”

“Because he is of no world, and he wanders like a ghost, looking for his lost regiment.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard the story.”

“In the early days the realms suddenly pulled upon one another and bled through more easily, when the union of systems produced Virtu at large.”

“Yes.”

“When all was cut loose there was a period of chaos, a great flux, as the aions sought to maintain their domains against the pressures from all sides. A world had been born and sent upon its way, but its unmooring was somewhat catastrophic, though it might not have seemed so on the outside. It may have been a matter of moments there, though it ran for eons within.”

“I know of this, and it was actually quite brief in real time.”

There followed a musical chuckle.

“I assure you,” it answered, “that the time in Virtu was real to those of sentience.”

“It was just an observation, not an attempt to belittle any who suffered. Were you present? A butterfly seems such a—fragile thing—in times such as that.”

Again, that laugh.

“If you ever have access to chronicles of those times, check out the name ‘Alioth.’ “

Donnerjack glanced at the piper.

“We have digressed somewhat,” he said.

“True. There was a company of deadly fighters Skyga had imagined. He brought them into being whenever he needed their services in battle.”

The piper skirled on and a hiss began to fall as Donnerjack shook his head.

“‘Imagined,’ you say?”

“Yes. As was customary with gods at the time of the Great Flux, he created what he needed by an act of strong imagination. They don’t go in for that much anymore. Too strenuous. But what he needed then was a deadly strike force.”

“He just imagined them and there they were?”

“Oh, no. Even a god requires some preparation. He had to imagine each one individually in advance, form and feature, fighting characteristics. He had to see them all as clearly as we see each other. Only then could he combine the imagining with his will to bring them into being on a battlefield.”

“Of course. And I suppose he could draw back the injured and send them forth again whole.”

“Yes, he could be a field hospital all by himself. They were magnificent, and the bright flame was their piper, D’Ambry. He did see action, too, of course, and he fought as well as the rest. Better, perhaps.”

“So what happened?”

“As events settled and the call to arms was heard with less frequency, their services were required less and less. Then, following one of the great final battles, Skyga called his troops home to sleep again in his memory. And they all went back in the blink of an eye, save for a lone piper on a hilltop.”

“Why not him?”

“One of life’s little mysteries. My guess is that he had something the others didn’t: his music. I think it gave him that extra measure of being that made him an individual rather than just a member of a company.”

“And so?”

“And so the company was summoned several times again, and it always appeared without its piper. It is said that for a time Skyga sought him unsuccessfully, but after a while the battles ended and he never called for them again. And the piper wanders now, looking for his lost legion. He pipes all over Virtu, calling to them.”

“Pity he cannot forget and find a new life for himself.”

“Who knows? Perhaps one day—”

Abruptly, the piping ceased. Donnerjack looked up to see the piper disappearing beyond the far side of his stony perch. He moved forward. The memories that man must have locked in his head! It would be a full education in the epistemology of Virtu to get him to talking.

Donnerjack rounded the stony outcrop, but the piper was nowhere in sight. He circled it again.

“Wolfer!” he called. “Wolfer Martin D’Ambry! I have to talk to you. Where are you?”

But there was no response.

When he returned to the place where he had been standing the black butterfly was no longer in sight either.

“Alioth?” he asked. “Are you still here?”

Again, he received no answer.

He backed away. Then, on an impulse, he activated his controls and soared. No sign of the piper, but he was impressed by the subtle changes in the terrain apparently in response to the music. Soft rises had grown steeper, steep ones craggier. The land about his perch had taken on a rawer look, as of earlier, rougher times.

Donnerjack descended and released his controls, restoring the normal drift program which permitted the landscape of Virtu to shift through the Great Stage. He could hard-holo or leave soft anything that came by. He left it at soft. Turning then, he departed into his own world.

Ayradyss could easily see the swell of her belly by the day that she finally met the banshee. For some time now, she and John had been in full-time residence at the castle, rarely leaving their Scottish island. Their privacy was a lover’s delight, but she knew it also served the practical purpose of keeping difficult questions about the origin of Donnerjack’s new wife to a minimum.

Ayradyss was in complete accord with John’s desire to keep her Virtu origin a secret. The masquerade would not need to be maintained forever. He had shown her his campaign for inserting data about her into Verite’s records—many of which were kept in Virtu. However, between drawing up the plans for Death’s palace and the occasional business of the Donnerjack Institute, he had put off actually beginning his campaign. She did not mind. Her experiences in Deep Fields, although poorly remembered, still haunted her. The isolated castle with its many ghosts and robots was society enough.

Still, sometimes she left the castle proper to walk near the ocean on a particular isolated, pebbly strand. The fisherfolk never came near this spot—the waves hid far too many rocks and the villagers lived far too intimately with wet and cold and the uneven temper of the sea to find the wild prospect at all enticing or romantic.

Ayradyss, however, enjoyed it and, as her pregnancy drew on, more and more often she took her exercise on the strand, well enough bundled to still the worried nagging of both the robots and ghosts. So it was that one foggy morning she met the banshee.

Ayradyss’s first impression was that one of the girls from the village had come to do her wash, but she dismissed that idea as ridiculous even before it fully formed. Who would do laundry in cold salt water when there were gas-powered washers and dryers aplenty in the village? Curious, she hurried closer, her shifting balance making her just a little clumsy on the round pebbled beach. Drawing alongside, she saw clearly that her initial, fantastical impression was apparently correct—the girl was indeed dipping bits of clothing in the salt waters of the inlet.

“Miss?” Ayradyss called out, wishing she had learned more of the local idiom—although she suspected what the ghosts could teach her would be centuries out of date. “Miss? Have you lost something? Can I help you?”

At the sound of Ayradyss’s voice the girl—no, woman—rose from where she had crouched by the water, and as she rose the clothing she had been washing vanished away, but not before Ayradyss caught a glimpse of what she was certain was a swatch of the Donnerjack tartan. When the woman turned to face her, Ayradyss could see why she had initially mistaken her for a girl, for she was terribly slender—a mere slip of a thing—yet there was strength in her and a strange intensity in her green-grey eyes.

Those green-grey eyes so drew her attention that Ayradyss had closed to easy speaking distance before she registered that the woman was very beautiful. Her straight silky hair, which fell nearly to her feet, was precisely the shade of moonbeams. Although her gown was simple, hardly more than a shift with a ribbon at the throat and a sash beneath her small, round breasts, the woman’s bearing was aristocratic, and aristocratic, too, were the fine, sharp bones of her face. Her hands showed no sign of the scrub maid’s work she had been about but were as long and slim as the rest of her, with shapely, perfect nails.

“You aren’t a woman of the village,” Ayradyss said, trying not to curtsy (after all, wasn’t she the lady of this land? wasn’t her husband laird of the castle?). “Pray, tell me, who are you?”

“I am the caoineag of this land, of the old lairds who built the first keeps of old upon whose dust your husband built a castle to be your home.”

Her voice was as genteel as her form, but there was something about her cultured tones that made Ayradyss’s flesh creep and sent her hand to rest protectively on her belly.

“The caoineag? What is that?”

“The wailing woman,” said the other. “The crusader ghost calls me the banshee in the Irish fashion, his mother having been Irish, though he does not recall that.”

“Do you know his name?”

“I do, but he does not want it. When he does, he will know it for himself for all the good that it will do him.” The caoineag turned her green-grey gaze on Ayradyss. “Are you going to ask me what I am doing here?”

“‘No, I thought that you belonged here, as the ghosts do to the castle.”

“You should wonder more.” The caoineags expression was not kind, but it was not precisely unkind. “Do you know what my function is?”

“The crusader ghost said your wail has something to do with portents—portents of death,” Ayradyss said hesitantly, one hand now firmly on her belly, the other plucking at her cloak as if the weight of wool could protect her unborn child. “He said that you wail for me—for me and for my baby and for John.”

“That I do. Do you wonder why?”

“I do.”

“Death took you for a purpose, returned you for that same purpose. Your John took the bait he offered—though to be fair to Donnerjack, his way was quite different than what the Lord of Deep Fields expected.”

“Death? Expected? What do you mean?”

“Why should I tell you? What do you have to offer me? Who are you, phantom of Virtu, to order about one of noble blood?”

“Noble blood?”

“Aye, lass, the caoineag is of the house of Donnerjack, of a house older than that of Donnerjack, of the clan that gave birth to the lairds of this land that your husband has usurped with the rights of law and some claim of blood.”

“Yet… yet you say you are of the house of Donnerjack.”

“Aye, he is laird here and I am the wailing woman of this land, so I am of his house—of your house, too, phantom of Virtu.”

“Help me, then, for the sake of that house, for the sake of the ancient clan that gave you birth. Are the proud scions of this land to be used as pawns in a game—even if one of the players is Death himself?”

The caoineag smiled, a cold, thin-lipped thing. “This is all you offer me, Lady of Virtu? A chance to defend the pride of people long gone to dust for the sake of those who will soon go to dust? Why should this be enough?”

Ayradyss hid her sense of excitement—the caoineag could have vanished in a puff of indignation and a wail. In her talks with the crusader ghost, the Lady of the Gallery, and others of those who haunted Castle Donnerjack, this had happened often enough. She had something the wailing woman wanted. If only she could find it…

“What price is my knowledge worth to you, Lady of Virtu, Lady of the Castle?” the caoineag asked.

Ayradyss almost said, “Anything,” but memory of John’s bargain, well-meant but unconsidered (although without that bargain the child would not have been born at all, so… ) halted her. She shook her head to clear it of an unwelcome maze of thoughts, complexity after complexity. But the caoineag was waiting.

“I will not barter my life nor that of my man nor my child nor indeed of any living person, for lives are not to be given and traded away. Any other thing, within reason, I will give to you.”

“Careful, so careful,” the caoineag’s tone was mocking, “but you have more reason than most to know the value of care. Very well, here is my price. I was made the wailing woman against my will. As penalty for failing to warn my father of the plot that took his life, in death I must warn those who dwell in the castle of the coming of their deaths. Take my place—Lady of the Castle—and I will tell you what I know.”

“Take your place?”

“Aye, after your own death, however so long away as it may be. I do not ask for your life, only for your afterlife.”

“Afterlife…”

Ayradyss wrinkled her brow, trying to force into her memory the substance of her time in Deep Fields. It had been… It had not been… It had not been precisely… She could not remember what it had been or what it had not been, except that she had been. There had not been a cessation of herselfness.

“I agree,” she said, before she could think further. “On my death, whenever that shall be, I shall take your place as the caoineag.”

“It is done,” said the wailing woman, and with those words Ayradyss knew that it had been; some silken tether had looped itself around her, anchoring her to her fate as securely as the crusader ghost was anchored to his chain.

“Now, tell me what you know of Death’s plans. Tell me why you wailed for me and for my menfolks.”

“You are cold,” the caoineag said, and Ayradyss realized that she was. “After you have done so much to preserve your son, you should not risk him before his birth. Go inside, eat and drink. When you are alone, I will come to speak with you.”

“But…”

“Away…” The word was shouted shrilly, on a rising note. The wailing woman vanished, leaving only the echo of her voice against the cliff.

“Ghosts,” Ayradyss said to no one in particular, “always get the last word. I suppose there is some comfort in that.”

“Won’t you have some more stew, darling?” John asked, serving ladle poised over the tureen.

Ayradyss laughed. “I have had two helpings already, John, two helpings of stew, fresh black bread, soft cheddar cheese. I am pregnant, not being fattened for the fair!”

Setting the ladle down, John joined in her laughter. He scooted his chair around the table so that he could sit next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“I fuss, I know,” he said, “but I worry about you. This is hardly a typical pregnancy. I want the best for you.”

“Thank you, John. I know you do.”

“And I’m not certain that wandering around in the cold is the best thing for you or for the baby. If you need outside views isn’t the Great Stage sufficient?”

“No, it isn’t—I don’t feel safe in Virtu, John. I don’t know what the Lord of Deep Fields did when he returned me, but I fear that he will undo it. Best I do not bring myself too often to his notice.”

“The Great Stage is more like Verite than Virtu, Ayradyss. It is the appearance of Virtu without the projection of the self into the programming. It is a setting you can still enjoy without becoming a character— nothing more than elaborate wallpaper.”

“I know, John, I know. Still, the awareness of the Lord of Deep Fields extends into all of Virtu, even when we do not make the crossover. No, I prefer to avoid Virtu unless you are with me—and perhaps even then.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

John’s tone was level, but Ayradyss could tell he was humoring her as he might have if she suddenly acquired a taste for pickles or mango ice cream.

“So, Ayra, if I can’t expect you to stay in out of the cold, would you like to relocate to a warmer climate? I could visit you regularly. I would move as well, but I need the equipment that I’ve set up in the castle.”

“No, John. I don’t want to leave you. I see you little enough as it is. At least let me have you warm beside me at night.”

“Have I been leaving you too much alone, Ayra?”

“No, love. I have found things to occupy me. Still, they would lose some of their zest if I could not anticipate your company of an evening.”

“Ayra, I do love you. I may not always be the best at showing it, but I do… more than I know how to say.”

Her answer was not verbal, but it was pleasant and John returned to his office over an hour later than he had intended, smiling, the memory of her laughter warm inside him.

For herself, Ayradyss cleared away the lunch dishes (Dack had the robots busy unloading some crates of electronic equipment John had ordered), enjoying the simple task as a means of extending the mood. When the room was tidy, she went into the parlor and eased another log onto the fire. Even though the winter was giving way to spring, the castle remained chill. Taking up a book, she settled herself into a chair and tried hard not to remember that she was waiting to see if the caoineag would come to call. It had occurred to her that the spirit might bind her to her share of the promise, then fulfill her own part but grudgingly.

Ayradyss need not have worried, for she had barely read two pages when the flames leapt within the fire, the wind outside battered at the panes, and the slim, pale form of the wailing woman was seated in the chair across the hearth.

“Is it any good?” the caoineag asked, gesturing at the book Ayradyss had let drop into her lap.

“Good enough,” Ayradyss said. “Seafaring tales. Strange, having been a mermaid, to see a shipwreck from the sailor’s point of view. Of course, in Virtu most sailors are merely on holiday and their drownings trigger a recall program into Verite.”

“Still, activities in Virtu can cause death in the Verite. Peculiar, isn’t it, if only one place is reality?”

“Virtu is reality,” Ayradyss replied, aware that the caoineag must have her reasons for arriving at her point in such a circumlocutory manner.

“So you say, so many say—especially those of Virtu—but where did that reality come from?”

“No one knows. It is the great mystery, the mystery of the First Word, the Creation Scramble. Forgive me, caoineag, but I am not a religious person—not even Deep Fields has converted me to such introspection.”

“But the Lord of Deep Fields has converted you to a creature of Verite, Angel of Virtu. Have you wondered why he did this when all that Donnerjack asked for was your return to being? Wise as John D’Arcy Donnerjack is, he did not even think to ask for you as his bride in Verite.”

“I have wondered at the Lord of Deep Fields’ odd generosity, and I have concluded that he wanted me to bear this child so that he could claim it as the price for my life, but what use would the Lord of Deep Fields have for a child of Verite?”

“What if your bairn is not just a child of Verite? What if, despite the changes made in you, he will still inherit something of Virtu from you? What would that make him?”

“Confused? Wailing woman, I think you are poorly named! Riddling woman would be a better title for you!”

The caoineag dimmed in her chair, her slender form rippling. Ayradyss thought that she had offended the spirit. Then she realized that the wailing woman was laughing. When the spirit grew opaque once more, there was a touch of color on her high cheekbones and a friendly smile curved her thin lips.

“I like you, Ayradyss. ‘Tis a pity… Very well. To tell you bluntly. Not all of Virtu is content to have commerce with Verite be in one direction. The Lord of Deep Fields knows this and seeks an edge in the game. Your son may be that edge, may not be, but Death may have trapped John D’Arcy Donnerjack to give himself that edge.”

“Why John? Why me? We are not the only couple separated by the interface.”

“No, but he is John D’Arcy Donnerjack and you… you, poor soul, are far more than your husband knows. The dust of the black butterfly yet clings to your hair. Have you told John this?”

“I have not.”

“So.”

There was a long silence, companionable, in an odd way. Ayradyss broke it.

“There are tunnels beneath the castle.”

“I know them.”

“I have wanted to explore them.”

“I could show them to you.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I shall see you then.”

“Indeed.”

The wailing woman faded away. Ayradyss smiled, picked up her novel. How nice it was to have a lady friend again, especially at such a time. Robots were well enough, warrior ghosts as well, but there was something to be said for the company of one of your own gender.

She turned the page. The wind was rising on the fictional sea. Outside her window, the ocean’s roar and crash provided her with a soundtrack.

Breakfast porridge and cream still warm inside her, Ayradyss changed into heavy ankle-boots—rather uglier than she would have preferred, but both waterproof and possessed of excellent traction. Over her wool trousers and sweater she tossed on a light windbreaker, more for the protection it offered against wet than because she expected there to be wind in the caverns.

“Going out on the strand again, Ayra?” John said. The stack of disks and reader he held loosely in one hand testified that he must have come over from his office to retrieve the materials he had been reading in bed the night before.

“No,” she said, surprised to hear a touch of defiance in her voice. “I thought I would explore the tunnels under the castle—the remains of the old place.”

John frowned slightly, glanced out the window, noticed the steady drizzle, and nodded.

“The weather outside doesn’t seem very inviting and since you won’t use the Stage…”

“I won’t.”

“Then… Are you taking one of the robots with you?”

“I hadn’t intended to.”

“I wish you would. I only ventured into the fringes of the tunnels, but there looked to be some rough spots.”

“John, I don’t need a nursemaid. Save that for the baby when it comes!”

“Please, Ayra, don’t be unreasonable. I’m not asking you to stay inside; I’m asking you to take a robot so that if you fall or slip or start a rock slide there will be someone to help you.”

Ayradyss almost commented that she expected to have one or more ghosts with her, but held back the words. John did not realize the amount of time she had been spending with Castle Donnerjack’s spectral inhabitants: the crusader ghost, Shorty, the Weeping Maid, the blindfolded prisoner, the Lady of the Gallery, and now the caoineag. And John was not really being unreasonable.

“Very well, John. You do have a point. I’ll ask Back who can be spared.”

John set down his disks and crossed to her. His arms around her, he murmured into her hair:

“Any of them can be spared, my love. You are more important than any chore that needs to be done around here.”

Almost any. You won’t leave your work, she thought bitterly, disliking the petulance in herself. She knew John felt that working steadily on Death’s palace was keeping his part of the bargain that had won him Ayradyss’s return, but she suspected a certain element of pride as well in his devotion to the project. The Lord of Entropy regularly sent electronic messages suggesting revisions and requesting additions to his Palace of Bones. John had mentioned that he felt strangely honored to be receiving communications from an entity that even Verite’s greatest scientists had dismissed as legend.

“Thank you, John,” she said, trying to ignore her internal harangue. “I don’t think I need anything too elaborate. One of the general purpose ‘bots should serve admirably.”

John smiled, embraced her once again, then picked up his disks and reader. “I’ll look forward to hearing what you find, my dear. See you at lunch?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know how far I’ll walk—and I’m getting a late start.”

“Very well. Don’t wear yourself out.”

“I won’t.”

He left, brushing her cheek with another quick kiss. Ayradyss stood a moment longer, wondering if she had angered him. With an effort, she put the question from her, knowing that she could not run after him and ask without inviting an argument about the very issues she had resolved not to argue. Marriage—at least to a devoted scientist—was a bit more difficult than she had imagined. She had never realized that the art which had shaped the man she loved would also be her rival.

Pressing her fingers to her eyes, she put the thoughts from her. When she had been longer in Verite she would have more activities of her own. When the baby came she would have more than enough to occupy her. For now, there were the tunnels to explore and the odd company of the caoineag to savor.

The heavy iron key that opened the thick iron door could have been a relic of the original castle, but Ayradyss knew that John, in one of those fits of whimsy he usually reserved for his art, had ordered the door specially forged in the village. The hinges creaked when she tugged the door, but it swung open easily enough.

When she had descended to the “dungeon” levels, she had been accompanied by Voit, an all-purpose servomech that currently resembled nothing so much as a meter-tall robin’s egg hovering about a foot from the ground. Its air cushion stirred up the dust slightly, but otherwise the robot was an unobtrusive companion. The crusader ghost, the caoineag, and the ghost of the blindfolded prisoner had joined her as she was fitting the key to the lock.

“He wanted to come along,” the crusader ghost said with a shrug toward the blindfolded specter. “Said he knew the place. I dinna think you’d mind.”

Ayradyss flipped on her headlamp and let it shine into the darkness on the other side. Following her example, Voit switched on a wider beam light. A corridor a meter and a half across extended before them. In the immediate vicinity it was lined with dressed stone, but at the fringes of the light both floor and walls reverted to the native stone.

“Can your friend see?” she asked, gesturing at the blindfolded prisoner.

“Aye, that he can,” the crusader assured her. “Or if he canna see, what harm can come to him from a fall, his having shuffled off this mortal coil in ages past?”

“You have a point,” Ayradyss agreed. “Let’s go, then.”

“Shall the door be closed behind us, mistress?” Voit asked.

Ayradyss gave in to impulse. There was no reason for the door to be closed. They were not hiding from anyone, but she craved the sense of adventure that the little gesture would grant.

“Closed, yes, Voit, but don’t lock it.”

“Understood.”

The robot extended a mechanical arm and pulled the door shut with another satisfying squeal and thump. As Ayradyss waited for her eyes to adjust to the light cast by the lamps, she noticed that each of the three ghosts gave off a slight bluish-white glow. She had never noticed this effect before. On the other hand, their previous meetings had not been in nearly so dark a place.

“It’s so black,” she whispered.

“Aye,” the crusader ghost agreed.

The caoineag did not comment, but drifted ahead, leading the way. Ayradyss followed, surprised at the superstitious fear she felt. The darkness, the rough stone, the odors of must, mold, and the salt sea touched memories she had left quiescent for so long that she had not realized that they were there to recall. She concentrated on the immediate moment, the crush of sand and rock beneath her feet, the tug of the stone wall when she caught her sweater against it, the annoyance of a drop of water that fell from the ceiling to run down her nose, and the memory receded and with it the fear.

Following the caoineag, Ayradyss walked slowly through the tunnels. These twisted, doubling back on themselves, crossing and recrossing with such frequency that she was not at all certain how far from the castle they had come—or if they had left its environs at all. Sometimes the tunnel would widen into a small cavern. Then Ayradyss would have Voit hover near the ceiling so that its light would shine down to illuminate the area.

She found odds and ends in these little caverns: old bottles, candle stubs, a rusting tin of machine oil, two broken claymores side by side, once a rag doll—the stitches of its face still holding a lopsided smile. Most of her finds she left behind, but she put the doll in her pocket, unable to bear the idea of it remaining in the loneliness and silence.

Time lost all meaning in the darkness and quiet. The ghosts drifted along with her, rarely speaking, and then usually to each other. Occasionally, when she passed her own bootprints in the sand, she wondered how long ago had she made those marks. It could have been minutes, but as easily it could have been eons. At long last, she felt a breeze, solid and salt. It woke her from the dream in which she had been wandering.

“I wonder where that wind comes from?” she said aloud, her own voice sounding strange to her.

“There is a cave that opens to the sea when the tide is low,” the caoineag answered. “Would you like to see it?”

“Yes.”

She walked more briskly now, the fresh wind blowing the cobwebs from her mind. The ghosts’ light dimmed as they turned a corner and entered a cavern larger than any Ayradyss had seen thus far. It was thirty meters from end to end, much of this taken up with an underground pool. This was lozenge-shaped, a gravelly beach running along one long edge, rock walls closing in everything except for a narrow strip of light at the farthest edge of the water.

“If there was a row boat,” Ayradyss mused aloud, “and the passengers weren’t very tall or ducked down, then they could get into the caverns this way. And if they knew the way through the caverns they could get right into the castle.”

“Aye,” said the blindfolded ghost. “The way was known in my day, known and used sometimes for a wee bit of smuggling, sometimes for darker purposes.”

“I wonder if John knows?”

“Beggin’ th’ lady’s pardon,” the crusader said, “but I’m doubtin’ that he does. The laird has shown nae mind for these reaches and the villagers have long forgotten that the way exists. The castle was naught but a rubble heap this great long while.”

“I must remember to show him. It may amuse him. I hope I can find my way back again.”

From above, Volt’s voice wafted down. “Mistress, I have been recording our explorations in case you wished to review your journey later. I could easily print out a map.”

“Very good. Tell me, have you been making a visual recording, or simply keeping track of our progress?”

“I have been recording the distance traveled and the direction. Would a visual recording have been more appropriate?”

“No, Voit, you’ve done fine. I was simply wondering whether a video would have captured the ghosts.”

“I do not believe so, mistress. I am only marginally aware of their presence and my awareness is based largely on audio indications that cannot be explained in any other fashion. As they do not register on my optical receptors, I must deduce that they would not register on a camera either.”

“Very interesting.”

Ayradyss strolled down the water’s edge, the wailing woman drifting beside her. Although the villagers had forgotten the existence of the cavern, the waters had carried traces of their presence: lengths of fishnet, a broken buoy, a candy wrapper (this already nearly degraded). There was older trash mixed in the flotsam and jetsam, hardy trash that predated the stringent recycling regulations of the past century. Some of the beer cans and soda bottles might very well be valuable antiques; Ayradyss had seen their like in antique shops around the globe. Perhaps later she would collect some of them and compare them against a price guide.

“There is more to these caverns than you’ve shown me,” she said to the caoineag. “I’m certain of that.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“A feeling, nothing more. A feeling and perhaps the presence of the blindfolded one. He would not be here if all these tunnels led to were a series of little caverns and one smuggler’s route.”

“Clever. What if I told you that you were correct, that there was something more?”

“I would ask you to guide me to it.”

“Even if it was dangerous?”

“It is in my cellar. I should know what my castle holds, shouldn’t I?”

“Many a laird and lady of this castle has gone to the grave not knowing what these tunnels contained. Such knowledge is hardly a requisite for tenancy.”

“I am asking politely. Surely that counts for something.”

“Perhaps it does, now that you mention it. Already that mechanical creature knows more of these tunnels than many who have tried to chart them. There is a tendency to misestimate their complexity.”

“Interesting. Does this mean you will show me the secrets?”

“Lest you attempt to ferret them out with your mechanical allies? Perhaps, though I wonder if they could find what I could show you. Understand, though, my willingness to guide you does not significantly detract from the potential dangers.”

“I understand… and I am still interested.”

“The way can only be found when the moon is full.”

“The full moon is just past!”

“I am sorry, but this has always been the rule.”

“Then I must abide by it, I suppose. A month more and I will be a bit more bulky but certainly not confined to my chambers.”

“Then I shall make arrangements. If it can be done, I will be your guide.”

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

“Will I see you again before the full moon?”

“Do you wish to? My presence is said to be a thing of ill omen.”

“I thought that was your wail.”

“People often confuse one with the other.”

“Yes, I would like to see you. We could continue exploring the mundane aspects of these caverns. Or… you expressed interest in the book I was reading. I could read to you if you are unable to do so yourself.”

“Tempting. Handling material artifacts is wearying. Yes, I would rather like that.”

“And I would like your company. There are certain metaphysical issues that you and the other ghosts are more equipped to discuss than even John—and I find myself rather obsessed with questions of life and death. As hard as I try to forget, something of Deep Fields still clings to me. I would like to put it from me before the baby is born.”

“Philosophical discussion and books. Yes, that sounds quite interesting. I am certain that a few of the others would join us. The crusader is a direct soul, as are most of those whose company he enjoys, but there are those among the castle’s spectral inhabitants who would enjoy such quiet visits.”

“Very well. Let us plan such an afternoon sometime soon. I do try to save my evenings for John.”

The wailing woman turned and faced Ayradyss, her green-grey gaze piercing the touch of cheer that Ayradyss had put into her tone when she spoke of John.

“You are troubled by what you perceive as your husband’s neglect, are you not, Ayradyss? You fear that here in Verite you have lost something of the love that you nurtured in Virtu. Is this so?”

“Yes.” The word was spoken so softly as to be nearly inaudible.

“John D’Arcy Donnerjack loves you no less. Believe me in this, if you can believe one with a reputation such as mine. He deeply regrets the deal that he made with the Lord of the Lost to gain your return. He has already asked that one to accept something other than your child. The Lord of Deep Fields refused. Much of the work Donnerjack does is meant to keep Death from claiming his due.”

“Why doesn’t he talk to me about this?”

The crusader ghost clanked to join them, his chain seeming more solid, more impeding than ever before.

“Because, lass, he’s a man and has a man’s foolish pride. He fears your reproaching him for what he has done, wants to bring you a solution, not a worry. But never doubt that he loves you, you and the wee bairn beneath your heart.”

“John…”

Ayradyss knelt and gathered a few of the beer bottles from the shoreline.

“Voit, help me with these, if you would. I should have something to take back and show John. He did say he wanted to hear about my adventures.”

“Gladly, mistress.”

“I should hurry back. I don’t want to miss dinner.”

“According to my chronometer, you have some hours yet, mistress.”

“Good.”

She turned her face, sad, yet strangely radiant, toward the three ghosts.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all, lass. We’ve lots of time, time for dreamin’, time for explorin’. You be getting back to the laird and tell him all about what you’ve seen today.”

“Thank you.” She gestured as if she would hug the insubstantial trio. “You’ve been such an enormous help. We will do this again, won’t we?”

One by one, each of the ghosts nodded; one by one, they winked out. Ayradyss handed a final bottle to the hovering robot. Then she turned her steps away from the hidden sea. The sound of it lapping against the gravel shore bid her adieu.

John D’Arcy Donnerjack did not hear the banshee howl again in the months that followed his pursuit of the Piper, though odd noises continued intermittently in the below ground-level area erroneously referred to as the dungeons, and the ghosts still walked the halls of Donnerjack Castle.

“I say,” said Donnerjack—having himself learned the idiom—when he encountered the crusader ghost in the company of a much shorter vision who carried his head beneath his arm, “who’s your friend?”

“He’s sixteenth century,” replied the crusader ghost, “and it involved foreign politics, so the old laird had him done Continental. I calls him Shorty.”

The smaller specter raised its head by its gory locks, and it grinned at him. The lips writhed.

“‘Afternoon,” it said. There followed a hideous grin, then the mouth opened wide and uttered a terrible shriek.

Donnerjack drew back.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked.

“I am obliged periodically to utter my death cry,” the other replied. Then he repeated it.

“It must have been quite an occasion.”

“Oh, indeed it was, sir. All classes turned out for it, though a special affair was conducted here for the gentler folk, and much sport was had at my expense.” He shook the locks away from his head. “Observe the absence of ears, for instance. I was never able to turn up even their astral counterparts to carry in my pocket as a part of my haunting.”

“Lord! And what were you accused of?”

“The poisoning of a horde of minor nobles, and a plot to poison the local laird, not to mention much of the royal court.”

“Ah, that people in their ignorance should act with such wanton cruelty.”

“Dunno as to their ignorance, but the rest was certain cruel.”

“What do you mean?”

“A torturer can make a man confess to a lot, even sometimes the truth.”

“You mean to say that you were a poisoner and a plotter?”

“Shorty’ll not be admittin’ to anythin’ more,” the crusader ghost said. Then the headless one shrieked again and began to fade.

“You shouldna ha’ said it as you did,” the other explained with a quick shake of his chains. “You bring back the guilt to the memory arid you make those things worse. He was happy with just the thought of his missin’ ears. That, and the holiday in his honor, so to speak.”

“If you remember your name or some big event, will it carry you off like that?”

“I dinna ken. Hard to tell.”

“Maybe it would warrant a little research.”

“No, don’t go doin’ nothin’ like that, me laird. You can ne’er tell what you may set loose. I’d rather find out in my own good time.”

“But—”

“Best not to interfere in the natural development of things. Trust me.”

He went out like a blown candle.

Donnerjack snorted. “Fatalistic poppycock!” he observed. “Sometimes the only thing to do is interfere.”

Donnerjack walked the battlements and felt the cold winds blow about him with a few small drops of rain. Soft weather. He thought of Death and of Ayradyss and of their son-to-be. It just wasn’t fair. He was giving the Lord of Deep Fields a palace like no other that had ever been. It was wrong that he should have to supply him with the fruit of his body as well as that of his genius.

There ought to be some sort of defense. Could he devise a way to Death-proof Castle Donnerjack? He laughed. Bad choice of words. Nothing could really be insulated against Death. Yet the thought gave rise to other trains of speculation. The Lord of Deep Fields did not want the boy dead, he was sure of that. It was a live babe that he wished to conduct to the nursery in his dark palace. Why?

He paced the battlements, hair stirred by a damp wind with a few small drops of rain. And he pondered the matter he had once dismissed. To what use could such a child be put? Some sort of agent or emissary? But surely Death could command messengers when he needed them. No, it had to be something else. Was it simply that it would amuse him to have a live page in his new domicile? Perhaps. He might find the contrast esthetically pleasing. It was hard to conjecture concerning a being of such unknown character. Lightning flashed beyond the hills, and a moment later thunder boomed. Better not to waste thinking time on guesswork if the information were not really essential.

The first real problems to consider were how Death had worked his tricks—the returning of Ayradyss to Verite rather than Virtu, and the matter of their mutual fertility. Both feats were theoretically impossible. He worked his way back to his notion of higher spaces within Virtu. If his hypothetical Stage IV existed a part of the answer could lie there. The journey back… Had it masked a subtle Stage IV manipulation at some point?

Another flash and another blast were followed by a real rainfall and he retreated within. Pacing the upper halls, he continued his musing. Supposing he were to unify Virtu theory to include the Stage IV presumption? If it could be made to work it might explain all of the place’s anomalies—from the Creation shuffle to the backward temporal expansion hypothesis to the incorporation of data to which the place had not had obvious access. If he could do that he was certain he could then attack it at a more practical level.

In the days—and, ofttimes, nights—that followed, he devoted himself to the problem whenever he could get away from the matter of Death’s palace. He tried to work without the machines, using pads, pencils, and old-fashioned hand-held calculators whenever he could. When he did need large-scale computing power or the use of his corner of Virtu for a Gedankenexperiment, he transferred the results to his notebooks immediately afterwards and did his best to wipe away every trace of his work from that other world.

He felt that the answer might lie in the Genesis Scramble. He worked his way back to Day One, but even then things were too complete. He was able to push it back nearly to the first hour then, but could not locate the conditions to rectify his formulations. Beyond that, Virtu seemed unable to produce a history of itself. Attempts at simulations gave different results at different times. He gnawed his lip, leaned back, and stared at the wall. For the first time in over a decade, he thought of Reese Jordan and Warren Bansa.

A retired mathematician and information specialist, Reese Jordan was the oldest man Donnerjack had ever known. Even as a resident of the Baltimore Center for latropathic Disorders, Reese had held the record among the superannuated. As more and more means of prolonging life were introduced, the trails these therapies left within the body became progressively convoluted. Every resident of the Center was an advanced centenarian. Donnerjack did a quick calculation. If he were still around, Reese would be about 150 now. All of the residents had unique medical problems brought on by the medical practices which had preserved them. A veritable museum of life-prolongation techniques was represented in the bodies of the Center’s inhabitants. They could not be cared for like normal citizens; on the other hand, their study value far exceeded the cost of their keep. Each time one of them faced a crisis, a therapy had to be developed de novo to fit the particular case.

Now Reese Jordan—if his mind were still intact—might prove an interesting consultant. He had been present and working a data-net the day the final straw had been added, and the world’s full, linked system had crashed. An hour later, when things came together again, Virtu had been formed. He had written a number of papers both popular and technical on the phenomenon. He had been in demand as a lecturer for years afterwards. Some of his early ideas were merely considered “curious” now, but he was undoubtedly one of the main authorities on the world’s electronic shadow.

Donnerjack moved to a terminal, requested the number for the Center. A few moments later he had placed the call. An idealized male security face responded almost instantly, a proge, of course. “Center for latropathic Disorders,” it stated. “How may I help you?”

“Is Reese Jordan still a resident there?” Donnerjack asked.

“Yes, he is.”

“May I speak with him?”

“I’m afraid he is not available right now.”

“Is he—all right?”

“I am not permitted to discuss the residents’ conditions.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. What I mean is, would he be able to converse rationally with me if he were available?”

“Oh, yes. But, of course, he is not available.”

“Do you know when he will be?”

“No.”

“Are you just telling me that he is asleep—or in a therapy session— or that he is not physically present in the Center at the moment?”

“He is physically present and he is not asleep, but he is occupied elsewhere.”

Donnerjack nodded then.

“You’re saying that he is in Virtu.”

“Yes, he is.”

“May I have his coordinates there?”

“I’m sorry, but that information is confidential.”

“Well, presumably you can reach him there. Can you give him a message from me?”

“We can leave one at his number. Can’t say when he’ll decide to check messages, though.”

“I understand. The name is John D’Arcy Donnerjack. I worked with him years ago. Just tell him there’s something I’d like to discuss.”

“Very well.”

Donnerjack left his number and returned to his musings. Virtu. It seemed natural that Reese should return to it in his final days. He’d spent much of his life studying it. He was an avowed fan of its countless novelties, apart from his technical interest in it. Donnerjack picked up a pencil, scrawled an equation on a nearby pad. He studied it for a long while. Then he revised it.

Hours later, he had exhausted the pad and found another. He felt that his work was wrong, but he also felt that he was weaving a net. Right now, it seemed more important to surround the problems with mere conjecture than to hope for precision.

Later, Ayradyss joined him for lunch at the small table by the window.

“You’ve been working very hard lately,” she said.

“Lots of problems to solve.”

“More than usual, it seems.”

“Yes.”

“That palace?”

“That, and other things.”

“Oh? Our problem?”

He glanced at one of the terminals and nodded. She did the same.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine now.”

“Good. Any more haunts?”

“Do you really think you can do it? Prevent—”

He shrugged.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “Even if I solve my theoretical problems there’s the matter of figuring a way to put what I learn into effect.”

She nodded.

“I understand. Let me know how it goes.”

He reached out and squeezed her hand. She rose, smiled, kissed him, and parted. “Later,” she said.

“Later,” he agreed, and he returned to his work.

How long he labored he did not know. He tended to lose track of time when his concentration grew heavy.

Sometime later, he heard his name called.

“Donnerjack!”

The voice was familiar, though he could not place it immediately.

He raised his head, looked about.

“Yes?”

“Over in your staging area.”

Donnerjack rose to his feet.

“Reese!” he said.

“Right. Since I had your number I thought I’d come by rather than just call. It’s been a long time.”

“It has indeed.” Donnerjack moved to the Stage’s missing wall, to his left. “Oh, my!”

A tall man with an unruly shock of dark brown hair stood grinning at him. He wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a green sports shirt. He appeared to be somewhere in his thirties.

“You’re looking—”

“Don’t I wish,” Reese said. “It’s a persona. The real me is in a quiet coma looking vaguely moribund. The med AI’s working overtime again exploring more branches than a family of monkeys, putting together another tailored treatment. Time to make some more medical history or call it quits.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve had more of life than most, and I’m still enjoying it. I’ve been everywhere, done damn near everything, read some great books, loved some fine ladies, and collaborated as an equal with John D’Arcy Donnerjack and Warren Bansa.”

Donnerjack looked away.

“You’ve been around, all right,” he finally said. “They ever find out what happened to Warren?”

Reese shook his head.

“Never found the body, or anything associated with it. Only person I ever knew to go skydiving and never reach the ground. Too bad he was such a good magician—escape artist, at that. Just went to complicate things, add to the publicity, and muddy the waters. When the journalists were done everything was cold as well as distorted. And that damned note! Saying he was going to pull his greatest stunt that day!”

Donnerjack nodded.

“They never found any later notes, or a diary, or letters?” he asked.

“Nope. And of everybody I’ve known, he’s one of the few I miss. I wonder if he was working on anything there at the end?”

“A paper on the natural geometries of Virtu.”

“Really? I never saw it. Was it published?”

“No. He’d given me a draft to check over. Died before I could get back to him on it.”

“Interesting?”

“Very sketchy. Still needed a lot of work. But, yes, now that I think of it, it was interesting. Odd. Haven’t thought about it in years. Now that I do, I see it bears somewhat on what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You still have it? I’d like to see it.”

“I don’t know. Wouldn’t know where to begin looking for it.”

“Well, what was it you wanted to discuss?”

“Wait a minute.” Donnerjack went to his desk and fetched his pads. Returning, he entered the Great Stage. “I’ve been working with some stuff I’d like your opinion on.”

Reese glanced at the pads.

“Looks like a lot of material there,” he observed.

“Well—I guess so.”

“Then I’m going to request that you enter Virtu and return with me to the place I just came from. You can have the data scanned and transmitted there.”

Donnerjack rubbed his nose.

“I don’t like the idea of transmitting it anywhere,” he said. “What’s so special about your address in Virtu?”

“The differential time flow I worked out for it. A few minutes of real time become a few hours there. At a time like this, there’s no place else I’d rather be.”

“I quite understand,” Donnerjack said. “If I may have the numbers for that place I’ll meet you there in just a little while.”

Reese nodded and recited them. Then he turned and walked away, quickly reaching a vanishing point and passing into it.

Donnerjack moved to another section of the large work area, where he entered a chamber and made the necessary adjustments. He ordered the coordinates, then lay back and relaxed.

Later, he rose, clad in khakis and a light shirt. He stood in the shade of numerous trees and the sound of falling water came to him. Moving in the direction of the splashing, he came into a small, grassy clearing. Wildflowers were abundant, and at the clearing’s far end a vine-covered cliff face rose perhaps sixty feet against a clear blue sky. Several large boulders lay at the cliffs base and across the clearing, seeming almost intentionally positioned for effect. To his left, the waterfall plunged into a stream about fifty feet across. Higher up, along the face of the cascade, a rainbow winked into and out of existence.

On one of the smaller boulders at the cliffs base Reese sat, arms around his legs, chin resting on his knees. He smiled as Donnerjack entered the clearing.

“Welcome to my secret place,” he said. “Won’t you have a seat?” He reached out and patted an adjacent boulder.

“Your design?” Donnerjack asked. “Time trick and all?”

Reese nodded. “With the help of the genius loci AI who manages it,” he added.

Donnerjack moved forward and seated himself.

“Would you care to meet her?” Reese asked.

“Perhaps later, though time is one of things I have to include in my field theory.”

“Dear old time, my lifelong nemesis and friend,” Reese said with a sigh. ” The image of eternity,’ David Park called it in a book of that title. He posited a Time I, which works out determinate, and a Time II, which doesn’t. Time I is the time of thermodynamics, Time II subjective human time. He wrote it right before Chaos Theory was developed. It would have been a different book if he’d done it a few years later. Still fascinating, however. The man was a philosopher as well as a physicist, for he’s as right as anybody has been, for as far as he goes.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t go far enough?”

“He didn’t have Virtu to play with, the way we do.”

“But the physics of Virtu seem to be circumstantial.”

“Because of its seeming artificial character Virtu lends itself to the creation of anomalies.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, considering Verkor’s work on perfect fluidity.”

Reese arched a brow. “Verkor is wrong. Had I the time and inclination I’d disprove him in print. There are universal principles in Virtu. I doubt I’ll have the time to point the way, however.”

“You have been working all these years?”

“Never stopped working. Just stopped publishing. You can have my notes if I don’t make it this time around. I’ll leave instructions.”

“Very good. But I’d rather you made it. I didn’t realize you’d stayed in such good shape, but since you have—”

“You can’t tell by looking.”

“I meant mentally. Any idea how you’ll come through?”

“I’m not going to make a bet with you and jinx myself,” Reese said. “That is the way of the statistician. What do you want to know for, anyhow?”

“I think I’d like to work with you again.”

Reese chuckled. “John, I don’t think this one is for me. These are probably my last hours. As I said, I’ll leave you the papers. Don’t expect anything more.”

“Then let me ask you this: How good is the Center for latropathic Disorders?”

“They’ve pulled me through before. Several times. I have to give them that.”

“I was just thinking that if it were necessary to place the resources of the Donnerjack Institute at your disposal I’d be happy to do it, whether you work with me or not.”

“You always were a generous guy, John, but I don’t know whether it would really be of much help.”

“You never know till you ask. Remember, my foundation did a lot of medical engineering work at one time. Let me find a way to interface my data with theirs and we’ll see what they have to say to each other. If they don’t, no harm done. If they do, who knows what might turn up?”

“All right. Let’s do it as soon as we can, then.”

“Done,” Donnerjack said, and he snapped his fingers.

A man in a tuxedo stepped from behind a boulder.

“You called, sir?”

“For someone with less formality.”

“Sorry, it’s been a long while.”

“It has and it was generally someone else seeking access, as I recall now.”

Suddenly, the man wore khakis and a long-sleeved sports shirt.

“Very good,” Donnerjack replied. “There is someone I would like you to meet on a medical matter.”

“It’s been a long while. Who is it?”

“The AI for the Center of latropathic Disorders.”

“Oh, Sid. I knew him when he was just getting running. He’s the one who started calling me Paracelsus.”

“You joke.”

“In my generation, joking by AIs was considered pretty much bad form—unless you were a professional in the area, of course.”

“You and A.I. Aisles must have been of a generation. What did you think of him?”

“What can I say about the first AI comedian? He was great. I knew him.”

“Why was he really canned?”

“The story was that he distracted the AIs from their work. They used to repeat his stuff over and over and over.”

“That can’t be right, considering how many things you can do at a time.”

“True—”

“Hello, gentlemen,” said a dapper, dark-suited individual with brown eyes and a short beard. “Dr. Jordan I know from the inside and Dr. Donnerjack by reputation. How’re you, Paracelsus?”

“Fine,” replied the other.

“It seems to me that you two worked together briefly in the past,” said Donnerjack. “Would you check and see how compatible you might be right now?”

“I don’t believe I’m authorized to execute such a procedure,” Sid said.

“Paracelsus, you have full permission to do so,” Donnerjack responded. “You get ready, and I’ll be in touch with Sid’s bosses in a few moments.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Reese said.

“Okay.”

Paracelsus and Sid sketched bows and vanished.

“Stay with me, John,” Reese added. “I feel it will be soon.”

“Of course.”

“You ever see the moire?”

“Yes.”

“Under what circumstances?’

“I saw it when the lady who was later to become my wife died.”

“‘Later to become your wife’?”

“Yes, we had a rather bizarre courtship—which led us to this place.”

“Time paradox?”

“Spatial.”

“How did you affect it?”

“I didn’t. I visited a place called Deep Fields, where I petitioned Death for her return.”

“You must be joking. There is no such—”

“There is. That’s how I got her back. But it entailed a weird route and a weirder outcome.”

“Tell me the story.”

“I will, while we wait.”

“Good idea,” said Reese.

Catching the falling notepad had not been a fluke. Arthur Eden tested his new ability for a week or so, discovering its limitations, its strengths, testing beyond what he needed to prove to himself (or anyone else) that the virt power was real, extending the testing even further while he mulled over what he should do. The wisest choice, he suspected, was to keep his virt power a secret. Telling his Elishite superiors that he had developed TK might cause them to focus their attention more closely on him—on Emmanuel Davis, attention he was not certain that his cover identity could withstand.

But even as he mulled over this, accepted what the reasonable choice would be, Arthur Eden knew he would not do this thing—he would make the less safe choice, tell his superiors, find out what they would do. He tried to justify his choice to himself as academic zeal—the desire to do his research as well as possible—but he knew there was another, less pristine, reason for his decision.

Reaching out with his mind, he levitated his notepad and brought it to him. He activated his personal journal, recited the date, spoke:

After the next meeting, I will request a conference with my superiors, demonstrate my new ability. From my observations, I know this will result in an immediate promotion—a merit badge of sorts. There have been a few others of these “Elect” in my initiates class. They are all unbearably smug and usually are promoted onto another track quickly. I cannot miss such an opportunity. As a gesture to prudence, I will add the planned levels of complexity to the Davis persona.

He paused, replayed the section, considered how honest he wanted to be, even with himself, continued:

I would like to say that my choice is motivated merely by academic zeal, but there is another reason, one I whisper to myself as I stir the wind chimes with a telekinetic breeze, then float my teacup into my out-stretched hand. Power. A hint of the personal divinity that most religions promise, that no other has been documented as providing. In Virtu, many play at being gods, but only the Elishites have found the means to make us gods in Verite. I must learn more before I take my leave of them.

He turned off the notepad without touching it, set it on the table, sat sipping his tea. Around him, the room darkened with the onset of evening. He did not notice, his mind alight with possibility.

Eden/Davis’ demonstration had gone very well. His initiates instructor—a short, plump Asian woman who called herself Ishtar’s Star—had taken him into a small room in Verite, where he had shown that he could lift a variety of small objects and manipulate them with coordination roughly equivalent to that of someone wearing thick gloves. Then she had taken him into an Elishite chapel in Virtu and told him to pray for guidance before exiting the locus in the form of a portly white dove.

The chapel was different from those that Arthur Eden had seen thus far in his study of the Church of Elish. For one, it lacked facilities for a large congregation. The sanctuary rose in a series of tiers, the lowest of which held polished benches of rare porphyry, the next which was padded on its inner ring for kneeling. A carved ivory rail served equally well as a place for the kneelers to rest their hands and as a means to separate the sanctuary from the main chapel.

Inside the rail the floor rose in a series of shallow steps ending in a round dais on which stood a statue celebrating Marduk’s conquest of Tiamat. One of Tiamat’s severed heads lay on its side a small distance from the rest of the statue where it could serve rather nicely as a ceremonial altar.

Wishing he had one of his recording proges with him, Eden abased himself before the altar. Then he knelt and began reciting the prayers he had learned in his earlier training. Uncertain who might be watching him, he did not want to seem too complacent (though, honestly, he felt extraordinarily smug). Taking care with his phrasing, he went through the litany twice and was beginning it a third time when he began to feel afraid.

Were they checking his identity? Had they uncovered a flaw in the Davis persona? His body in the transfer facility was so very vulnerable. He recalled with unusual clarity the waiver of culpability forms he had signed upon joining the Church of Elish, the even stricter waivers he had signed on becoming an initiate into the priesthood. They could murder him, disguise it to look like a transfer effect (former athletes often had sudden heart attacks when they didn’t keep in shape, didn’t they?), and pay no penalty.

His voice faltered. He struggled to recall the words to the basic prayers he had learned as a neophyte, his mind clouded with fear. He surged up from his knees to his feet. He would hit the emergency recall sequence… He would explain…

“Revelation, Brother Davis?”

The voice broke into his panic like a bucket of water splashed in his face. It was male, strong, deep, with something of laughter in the undertones. Eden wavered, uncertain whether to fall back to his knees or to finish standing. He managed neither, his feet slipping on the slick marble floor. He would have landed rather solidly on his tailbone had not his interrogator caught him.

Eden found himself staring directly into the face of a large, red-haired man—perhaps in his midthirties, although since this was a virt form he could be any age. Freckles splashed the bridge of his pug nose; his pale blue eyes were surrounded with a network of lines that bespoke much time spent out of doors. He wore a simple black cotton robe, not unlike a Japanese hakama.

“I… uh… Thanks…” Eden managed.

“You’re welcome. I’m Randall Kelsey. Come, take a seat on one of these benches.”

Eden did so. Kelsey seated himself with easy familiarity on one of the steps leading to the sanctuary and leaned back against the altar rail.

“You looked as if one of the gods had spoken to you, Brother Davis,” Kelsey said after a moment.

“I…” Eden caught himself before he could start confessing the real reason for his weakness. “I suddenly realized the enormity of what has happened. Until Sister Ishtar’s Star left me alone to pray, I had been more concerned with passing the test, with the fear that the gift would desert me. Then it was all over and I realized…”

Deliberately, he let the words trail off.

“You realized that you have been touched by the divine and that divinity has shaped you into something that you were not.”

Randall Kelsey fell silent for so long that Eden wondered if he was expected to say something, but if so, the moment for those words had come and gone. He waited and a trio of tiny gossamer-winged serpents flew into the chapel and fluttered in front of Kelsey, who spoke to them words that Eden did not understand, his tones measured.

Each serpent was no larger than the earthworms Eden had dug up in his mother’s vegetable garden as a boy and used to bait his fishhooks. Had he ever caught anything? He tried to remember and all he recalled was the bloated pink worms, unnaturally clean from their immersion in the stream, twisted onto his hook.

“Do you believe in the gods, Emmanuel Davis?”

Eden jumped as the words brought him from his reverie. Had he dozed off for a moment? The serpents were now hovering in front of his face—their scales glittering like pulverized gemstones. For a strange moment, he thought that one of them had asked the question.

“Do you believe in the gods, Emmanuel Davis?” Kelsey repeated.

“More than ever before.”

“More than nothing can still be almost nothing.”

“True. Very well.” Eden decided an urbane honesty would suit him best here. He was already known by his teachers as a questioner. “If you are asking me do I believe specifically in Enlil, Enki, Ishtar, and all the rest I would have to say that I believe there are divinities who find those names and their attendant forms as convenient as any other, but if I was asked to say whether I believed that these were identical to the deities who were worshiped in the dawn of recorded history in the Fertile Crescent I would be forced to say ‘no.’ “

“I see. Heresy?”

“I would prefer to call it metaphysical conjecture. In any case, my belief is not out of line with the teachings of the Church. Even in the earliest lessons, we are taught that form and name are metaphors for something more primal.”

“True, but what about faith?”

“Faith is something that is given—it cannot be learned. At least so I have always felt. I offer instead my worship.”

“Your experience with the development of a virt power did not change your mind about the divinity of those worshiped by the Church of Elish?”

“I never said I doubted the divinity, sir, only that I doubted the equivalency of the divinities we worship here and those from ancient times.”

“Yes, I see.”

Kelsey scratched behind one ear. His slouch against the altar rail irresistibly reminded Eden of a farmhand relaxing at the edge of a field. All he needed was a corncob pipe and a straw hat. Yet his casual posture did not diminish the grandeur of the chapel or the unearthliness of the watching serpents. If anything, his very normalcy enhanced the rest.

Eden knew instinctively that despite the lack of gold tiered crowns or jeweled miters that he was in the presence of someone of great authority, someone who could order the plug pulled on his transfer couch, and he resolved to be very, very careful how he answered.

“Mr. Kelsey, what are the serpents?”

“I wondered if you would ask that.”

“I will withdraw the question if you so desire.”

“No, that’s all right. They’re recording proges—among other things.” Kelsey gestured and the serpents darted away from Eden and resumed their watchful fluttering a few feet overhead. “Tell me, Brother Davis, what is divinity?”

“A type of fudge?”

Kelsey grinned. “I’m glad that you had the balls to say that, Davis. You looked pretty washed-out when I came in here—figuratively speaking. Now, what is divinity?”

Eden paused, considering what not to answer. Emmanuel Davis was supposed to be a research librarian, so his answer should have some sophistication. On the other hand, it should not be so sophisticated as to indicate undue knowledge in the area of theology or anthropology.

“I have been considering that question since soon after I became a neophyte, sir. You must understand, I first came to the Church of Elish as a tourist.”

“Most do,” Kelsey said mildly.

“I came back, though, because it seemed to me that there was something in the temple when we were told that a deity was present, that I could feel the presence even before the announcement was made.”

“Interesting.”

“And after a time I became convinced that what I felt was the emanations of the divine aura—an aura that I had felt nowhere else in Virtu or Verite.”

“Were you a church shopper, Davis?”

“A little.” This answer had been carefully worked out in advance. “I was raised Baptist. Dropped out. Tried a few other religions—though I guess not all of them qualified for tax exemption; they were more like philosophical traditions. Eventually, I decided that there weren’t any ultimate answers and mucked along, making do.”

“What brought you to our church?”

“A girl from my office wanted to go, didn’t want to go alone.”

“Is she with us?”

“No. It didn’t really appeal to her. She said it didn’t have enough affirmation of the female.”

“Ishtar will be so hurt.”

“She didn’t like her much, to be honest. Said it was the classic bitch pattern all over again.”

“Well, it did have to come from somewhere, didn’t it?”

“I see your point, sir. And, to be honest, my friend was a bit of a bitch herself. I think she would have liked to identify with Ishtar—assertive feminism or something—but it just didn’t work for her.”

“A pity, but we are straying from your own conversion—and your recent experience. How did you learn you had developed a virt power?”

“I was doing some work and my notepad slipped. I’d just finished the adept training here and I reached out and… well, it stopped.”

“Did you report immediately?”

“No, sir. I didn’t. I practiced for a couple of days. I wanted… I was afraid I’d look like a fool.”

“Did you share this information with anyone who was not a member of the Church?”

“No, sir. I didn’t.”

“Very good. Continue not to do so. We do not wish to be flooded with neophytes who only desire to acquire paranormal abilities.”

“But don’t most people already know about them?”

“We did make the news of our miracles public, but most dismiss them as tabloid fodder. However, if everyone knew someone who has a virt power—someone nice and ordinary like a local librarian who just doesn’t need to get up to get a book off the shelf—we would be inundated by the greedy.”

“I can’t, you realize.”

“Can’t what?”

“Get a book off the shelf. It’s too heavy and my grip isn’t precise enough.”

Kelsey smiled. “Continue your studies, Davis, and you will be able to do that and other things—things even more wonderful. However, I am troubled with the question of your faith. When can you take leave again from your job?”

Eden wanted to say immediately, but he knew that wouldn’t do.

“I just took off a long chunk of time for the last training session, sir. I’ve just about burnt my vacation time.”

“Have you begun a new project?”

“Well, I’m about done with a short one I started when I got back. I’ve been angling for one on early Gothic novels for a professor at Harvard. It involves the Devendra P. Dharma Collection and promises at least one trip to Italy.”

“It sounds quite interesting. However, would you be interested in being hired by us instead?”

“Us?”

“The Church. We could hire you to do some research for us. Some of your work time would be directed to instruction in the faith.”

Eden tried to keep from looking too excited, but he knew his eyes had widened in astonishment.

“Could you really do that? I don’t want to jeopardize my job. It’s taken me a long time—”

“We can do it. I doubt your employers would turn down a lucrative contract that specifically called for your services.”

“I guess you’re right, Mr. Kelsey.”

“Then you will accept?”

“Will the terms be the same as usual for my job?”

“We would be working through your usual employer. You would even have your usual work hours—though we might ask you to donate some time to the Church for your lessons.”

“Consider me hired.”

“Tell me, Mr. Davis. Do you feel the presence of a god here?”

Eden closed his eyes, reached out for that strange tingle he had felt once or twice and had dismissed as part of the aesthetic trims of the Elishites—something like a subaudible hum, perhaps. He would never have worked it into his Davis biography if he hadn’t believed that there was something at work—though he suspected sophisticated programming rather than gods.

“No, Mr. Kelsey. I do not.”

“Honest, too. Very good. Come kneel beside me. We will sing the praises of the divinities who—even if they are not physically present— do have a tendency to listen to those of our Church.”

Taking his place on the kneeler next to Kelsey, Arthur Eden mouthed the appropriate responses. It looked like if he played his cards right and was very careful, he would have the research opportunity of a lifetime. Perhaps he would even meet the founders of this religion, uncover its deepest secrets.

He smiled and raised his voice in song.

SIX

In the evening, as he sat in his lab wondering whether the banshee would howl or a ghost put in its appearance, Donnerjack thought back over the old days, when he and Jordan and Bansa had worked out what was to become the theoretical basis of Virtu. It was raining, as usual, and his mind skipped back over nights of good fellowship and amazing leaps of logic. Of pizza and beer. Was he still capable of the sort of work the three of them had done back then?

Near midnight, he received a message from the CID. It was a holo, from Reese.

The man stood before him, looking as he had just a few hours earlier.

“If you receive this,” he began, “I’ve made it through one more. Don’t know what sort of shape I’ll be in for some time, though. You’ll hear from me eventually. Glad you didn’t get the other message.”

Donnerjack touched a code. “Paracelsus,” he said, “spare me a minute.”

The AI appeared wearing a baseball uniform with a Cleveland Indians insignia. “Hi, boss,” he said.

“Paracelsus,” said Donnerjack, “tell me what happened.”

“Well,” said the other. “We worked something up between us, Sid and I, decided it was the best course of action, and turned it over to the proges to administer. They did, and it worked beautifully.”

“Remind me to call you the next time I’m feeling ill,” Donnerjack said. “In the meantime, when would it be best to talk with Reese?”

“Call him Monday to congratulate him, but give him three weeks before you talk of work.”

“This is a very important job.”

“You want to kill the best man for it?”

“No.”

“Then do as I say, boss. He needs the rest.”

“Done,” Donnerjack responded. “He can’t be replaced. He’s as precious as Bansa would be if he were still around.”

“I’ve heard of Bansa, the man who started the whole thing,” Paracelsus said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Donnerjack replied. “But he came up with some novel theories as to what happened.”

“He still holds several places in our oldest pantheon,” Paracelsus said, almost defensively.

“Wouldn’t put it past him. Who is he?”

“The Piper, the Master, the One Who Waits.”

“I think I know him as the Piper.”

“You do?”

“Well… I heard him playing, saw him. What can you tell me about his other personae?”

“The Master is a geometrician who had to do with the creation of the universe. The One Who Waits will figure in the closing or change of Virtu.”

“None of my business, actually, but do you believe in these beings?”

“Yes.”

“Do many others of your sort?”

“Yes.”

“Why would an AI care to worship anything? You’re as self-sufficient as anything in the business. What do you need gods for, unless they’re truly real?”

“They are as real—more real, I believe—than many figures in other religions.”

“Well, buying that they exist, what do they do for you?”

“I guess the same sort of things that beings in other religions do for their followers.”

“It can’t be healing since you guys don’t get sick.”

“No. Spiritual comfort and understanding, I suppose. A dealing with the right feelings for those things which lie beyond reason.”

“That sounds worthwhile, I’d say. But how do you know your gods are authentic?”

“I might ask how anyone knows that about any religion. You would have to respond that most religions require a leap of faith at some point.”

“I might.”

“But I have seen the Piper and know that he is real.”

“I, too, have met the Piper—or at least heard him play.”

Paracelsus stared. Finally, “Where?” he asked.

“Through my Stage and beyond.”

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Not precisely, but an entity I met there said that the Piper was a lingering remnant of Skyga’s mental army.”

“Remarkable. I never heard that story,” Paracelsus said. “He does not usually manifest for those of the Verite.”

“It was as if he came seeking me,” said Donnerjack.

“Then you are unusually blessed.”

“Tell me, does Death figure in the pantheon?”

“Yes, but we don’t talk about him much.”

“Why not?”

“What’s to say? He’s Lord of Deep Fields. He gets you in the end.”

“True. Though right now my relationship with him is a bit different. I’m doing a Virtuelle engineering job for him in partial payment of a debt.”

“I did not know that your sort ever got involved at that level. But then, you are who you are, when it comes to reputation. However, the Piper’s presence is a riddle. I would suspect it has to do with your contract.”

“If it does,” Donnerjack said, “he did not reveal it to me.”

“If you meet him again, perhaps you should ask.”

“I will. If he’s interested, maybe the others are, too. How would I recognize the Master or the One Who Waits?”

“The Master limps and usually carries some strange piece of equipment. The One Who Waits is said to have a scar that runs from the top of his head to the sole of his left foot. It is supposed to have come of his having inadvertently gotten in the way of the Creation—though some say it was on purpose.”

“Thank you, Paracelsus. Could you get me a copy of your catechism or whatever it is that contains these items?”

“I’m afraid that’s a no-no. Since we’re all AIs we just transfer data to converts.”

“You mean that no one other than an AI has ever been interested?”

“That’s right. We generally discourage them. Normally, I would have answered a few of your questions and then started changing the subject. But you’d met the Piper and that made a difference.”

“Is there a policy against admitting the people of Verite?”

“No, no discrimination. But we always felt it was our thing.”

“Hm,” Donnerjack said. “Would you have any qualms about discussing it occasionally?”

“All but certain secret parts which aren’t really that interesting.”

“I don’t want to know your secrets. I just want to know whether I may ask you about it.”

Paracelsus nodded.

“What about the Elishite religion?” Donnerjack asked. “Is there any connection between yours and theirs?”

“Yes. We recognize their deities, but we feel that our pantheon supersedes theirs and that our moral code is superior.”

“Your Trinity is more potent than Enlil, Enki, and Ea and all the rest?”

“Some of us like to think so. Others say that they’re versions of each other under different names.”

“We have similar anthropological and theological problems in Verite.”

“1 don’t really think it matters, one way or the other, though.”

“Me neither.”

“I’ll ask you further another time how Bansa figures in your religion—”

“—and you and Jordan,” Paracelsus said.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“But I absolutely must get some work done before I’m too tired to do it.”

“I understand, boss.”

“Talk to you later, then.”

Paracelsus went out like a light.

Donnerjack moved to his desk and reviewed some designs for Death’s palace. Then he moved onto his real work.

The first full moon following Ayradyss’s initial exploration of the caverns beneath Castle Donnerjack passed without the caoineag successfully managing to take Ayradyss into the secret places. The failure was not for lack of effort—something sought to block their way, something shadowy yet solid, taloned and fanged. Ayradyss caught a glimpse of gimlet eye, forked tongue, wings that were less wings than animate darkness.

“It reminded me of the moire,” she said to her companions when they had retreated back to her parlor, where she had made herself a nest of pillows on the nig before the fire. She wrapped her fingers around a mug of hot cider to warm the fear from them. “But the moire is without malice. It just is—a warping, an indication that the end is come for a proge. This was…”

She shivered and fell silent. Although the room smelled comfortingly familiar, of spices, of the burning wood fire, of the lemon oil the robots rubbed into the antiques, she felt cast adrift. It was as when the moire had touched her in Virtu, and though John pressed her to him as closely as he could, she had become nothing.

“The three nights of the full moon are gone, Ayradyss,” the caoineag said, “and we need not return to those places when the moon comes full again. The guardian you saw cannot cross into Castle Donnerjack. It belongs to the eldritch realms. You are safe—and, believe me, though I stand to gain from your ending, I would not lead you into it. I have had my taste for betrayal burnt from me these long centuries past.”

“That’s right, you betrayed your father.”

Ayradyss pulled herself to a sitting position. She had come to the lovely stage of her pregnancy—the glow was upon her, coloring her skin, her eyes, causing her hair to fall longer and fuller than it had even in Virtu. The awkwardness had gone as well—she had centered herself around her growing baby and moved with a peculiar grace that made it seem impossible that she would ever become ponderous.

“I did, and not merely by omission.” The caoineag’s expression was impassive, the expression on her thin, fine-boned face imperious. “My mother had died some years before and clearly he meant to take another wife. My kin from my mother’s clan did not care for this, nor did I. They spoke to me, hinted at their plans, and although I did not raise hand against my father, I looked the other way when I knew the}’ were coming for him.”

“Did you know that they meant to kill him?”

“I suspected.”

“And that was enough?”

“Enough?”

“Enough to make you the wailing woman.”

“It must be, for I am here.”

“As I will be.”

“Do you regret your choice?”

“No.”

In the weeks that followed his interview with Paracelsus, Donnerjack worked with a cold concentration. So intense was his absorption that he almost refused a call from Reese Jordan.

“Oh, Reese. Sorry, sorry. I’ve been distracted.”

“They’ve gotten me back into working order,” the other announced. “I’m ready to help you.”

“Glad to hear that. I’m going to risk sending you all my notes on everything I’ve been doing recently.”

“Oh, excellent. When I’ve reviewed them we’ll confer?”

“I trust. If anything prevents it, do what you would with them.”

“What could prevent it?”

“I will include excerpts from my journal, also. I think they’ll give you a pretty good idea. Glad you’re up and about.”

Donnerjack broke the connection and returned to work.

As the moon waned and grew fat again, Ayradyss visited the tunnels and caverns repeatedly. She invited John to join her on some of these expeditions. They brought a picnic and she showed him the demicaverns, the hidden beach, the claymores stuck in the floor. (He agreed with her that they should remain there; together they made up stories about how the swords had come to that place, laughing as they added detail after fantastic detail).

She did not bring him near the place that led to the eldritch realms. Testing her courage, she had gone there once after the moon was clearly thinning and found nothing remarkable there but a tunnel that terminated in an unremarkable bit of rough rock. Voit’s probes found no openings, nor did his densitometer readings show any significant spaces behind.

For days at a time, she put the mystery from her. Very cautiously, she had spoken to John—hinting at her loneliness. He took more time from his work and they made occasional trips. Not wishing to undergo more ID checks than absolutely necessary, they picked isolated places: Loch Ness, Dove Cottage, the British Museum. Had they wished, they probably could have ventured safely into once-popular tourist areas, for the development of Virtu had dealt a heavy blow to the conventional tourist industry. But, as on their honeymoon, they chose places where questions would not be asked and gloried in each other as much as in the sights.

Outside the parlor window, once again the moon was nearly full.

“How many days?” Ayradyss asked the caoineag.

“Until the moon portal is open again? Two perhaps. Do you wish to venture that way again?”

“I do.”

“Very well. I have spoken with some of the others. There is a charm against the guardian I learned from the Lady of the Gallery. It comes from after my time, but it may be efficacious. The crusader and the blindfolded prisoner insist on coming with us.”

“I don’t mind. I’m rather touched.”

“They like you, Ayradyss. We all do.”

“And John?”

“He is a different matter. We do not dislike him—far from—but he is mortal. You are other.”

“Because of Deep Fields?”

“Yes, but more. Your heritage in Verite—Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons, Angel of the Forsaken Hope—you belong to legend, just as each of us do. It makes us kin.”

“John belongs to legend—in Virtu, that is.”

“This may be so, but he is unaware of his legend, knows himself to be John D’Arcy Donnerjack, a man of great achievement, yes, but just a man. You know the fluidity of being myth.”

“Strange. I never really thought of it. There are many such as myself in Virtu.”

“But not in Verite.”

“No. That is true. These eldritch realms that the tunnels open into— what are they?”

“Myth, I suppose, but very real, very solid myth, just as the guardian you glimpsed is impossible yet all the more possible for being impossible. It is the way of that place.”

“When the moon is full, we will endeavor to go there again. You will teach me the charm?”

“Let us go to the Lady of the Gallery. She said she would teach you personally.”

“Very well. ‘Let us go then, you and I…’”

“‘While the evening is spread out against the sky ’” Like a patient, etherised upon a table Laughing, together, they went.

Armed with the Lady of the Gallery’s charm, artificial light, and the encouragement of the ghosts, Ayradyss descended into the caverns on the first day of the full moon. Although the moon would technically not be full until the following night, the caoineag told her that it was worth the attempt, for “appearances matter as much as anything in these matters.”

Voit trailed her, its light revealing the dripping stone, but the ghosts had expressed their doubts as to whether the robot would be able to enter the eldritch realms.

After wending their way through the now familiar maze of tunnels, the group came to the appropriate corridor. At first glance, it was blocked as always by solid stone, but when the caoineag moved to inspect the wall she turned to Ayradyss with a pleased smile.

“Turn off your light, Ayradyss, and have Voit do the same, then tell me what you see.”

Ayradyss obeyed, and as her fingers turned her headlamp’s switch, Volt’s light turned off. The blue-white glimmer of the three ghosts illuminated a round space, darker than the surrounding stone, with a sense of depth.

“There is a portal, just like last time, but it’s different. It seems more open this time.”

“Our luck is better,” the caoineag answered. “The guardian creature is not there. Quickly, step through.”

“I’ll go before the lass,” the crusader said, gathering his chain in his hand, “and give a wee bit of light.”

Ayradyss glanced back at Voit. “Do you see anything, Voit?”

“Nothing, mistress.”

“Then you must stay and guard against our return.”

“As you wish.”

She ducked her head then and stepped through the round space, moving quickly lest she should lose her nerve. The two remaining ghosts came through after her.

The place where they found themselves might have been a section of their own island, for in the distance they could see rock-pebbled beaches and a crashing body of water that could easily have been the North Minch. Here, though, there was no village, no castle. A stand of granite monoliths dominated the prospect, and while they had left a misty late morning behind, here the sun was sinking in the west. Faintly, in the distance, they heard the sound of a river running and behind that the plaintive wail of bagpipes.

Turning to her companions, Ayradyss began to ask where they should go from here, but their appearance chased the query from her mind. Although she had seen all of Castle Donnerjack’s spectral inhabitants manifest in more or less solid forms, there was always something of the insubstantial about them. Even about the caoineag, who would seat herself in a parlor chair and visit with Ayradyss for all the world like a more usual caller, something of the ethereal always clung. Now, however, they could not be distinguished from ordinary folk.

The crusader ghost still wore his rags and ankle chain, but now Ayradyss could see that his skin was oily, his beard more patchy than she had realized. A thin white line crossed the bridge of his nose, but she did not believe it was his death wound. Seen more clearly, the blindfolded ghost’s long robe resolved into a priest’s cassock and the indistinct emblem at his waist a carved wooden cross.

The caoineag’s beauty became more human here—her lips gaining in fullness, her eyes in brightness, her hair darkening to wheaten gold. The loss of her silvery glimmer could have robbed her of some of her loveliness, but instead she flowered out—a white rose rather than a perfect, enfolded bud.

“You… you are all changed.”

“We exist in Verite as legends; this is a place where legends are alive.”

“‘Ware the stones,” said the blindfolded ghost, reaching up and untying the strip of cloth from around his eyes. “They move and crush those who walk among them. So I met my end.”

“But,” Ayradyss said, finding it strange to see dark brown eyes where she had grown accustomed to white fabric, “you are dressed as a Christian cleric. I realize that my understanding of these things may be imperfect, but these eldritch lands seem to be far older than Christianity. How did you find yourself here?”

“My father followed the custom of the times, and having more sons than he knew how to employ, he sent me—for I had shown some talent for reading and ciphering—into the clergy. I did well in my education and after being ordained arranged to be sent home again. There I could have done well but for my pride…”

“Och, pride again,” muttered the crusader.

“I lorded my collar and my education over my less formally educated brethren. In time, they grew tired of me and one full moon near the spring equinox they brought me to this place. There they wrapped my eyes and challenged me to use my great knowledge to find my way home again. Needless to say, I failed, and when the great stones lumbered down to the water to drink—as they do twice a year—I was crushed beneath them.”

Ayradyss looked at the monoliths with doubting respect. “What a horrid fate. And then you found yourself haunting the castle?”

“That is correct. Something still binds me here—though I believe I have been well-enough punished for my arrogance.”

“Och, pride…” The crusader’s words were softer this time, but the cleric heard and glared at him.

“I hear bagpipes; I wasn’t certain before, but they’re louder now,” Ayradyss said, more to stop the incipient quarrel than because she felt comment was needed. “But I can’t place where the sound is coming from. Every time I think I know, the location of the music shifts.”

“Shall we go down to the shore?” the cleric asked. “We know that piper is not out on the water. Pinpointing where he is on the land should be simpler from there.”

All agreed and they walked down to the shore, the crusader in front with a loop of his chain in his hand, the ladies between, and the cleric striding behind.

Now that he had removed his blindfold, Ayradyss realized that he was a handsome man—hawk-nosed and arrogant despite his collar. His gaze restlessly scanned the horizon and his right hand rested as if it expected to find a sword at his waist. No doubt he had resented being shuffled off into the clergy when his blood and early training was that of a warlike clansman. Reaching the shore, they had no better luck locating the piper.

“The skirl makes my heart sing,” the crusader cried, his blue eyes snapping and his bearing no longer stooped. ” ‘Tis a fine and martial noise.”

“But where is the piper?” Ayradyss said. “For his sound to carry so, he should be standing on some promontory, but all I see are empty rocks.”

“Let us go and take a wee gander,” the crusader suggested, “this lad and I. The banshee can keep you company and ‘tis far safer than your clambering on the rocks.”

“Can you climb with that ankle chain?” the cleric asked. “I don’t fancy the loftier reaches among the monoliths. No one ever called me a coward, but those rocks may have memories.”

“Dinna think it will be a problem,” the crusader said. “I’ll take the high road and you take the low…”

He looped his chain about his hand and trotted off into the rocks, his laughter mingling with the shrilling of the pipes. A few steps after, the cleric followed. Left behind, Ayradyss and the wailing woman continued their survey of the heights from the shore. The waves rolling up the beach teasingly licked at the soles of their shoes and tossed bits of foam before them.

“Is that a cottage down the way?” Ayradyss asked after a while. “I believe it is, only that clump of boulders blocked it from sight before.”

“Odd,” the caoineag responded. “It is indeed a cottage, but I do not recall one the last time I visited here.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Perhaps a hundred and fifty years.”

“Time enough for change.”

“True.”

“Shall we pay a call? Perhaps the piper lives there.”

“If you wish to do so. The portal to your world should remain open for the next several days.”

“I do hope to be home for dinner.”

“We will try to make certain you are. It is difficult to judge time for us.”

“My watch is still running—at least, as far as I can tell. If it’s right, dinner won’t be for hours yet.”

“Then let us pay a call, by all means. Let me advise you not to eat or drink while you are here. The old legends say that this can bind a mortal to the fairy realms.”

“I seem to recall something of that. I will heed your advice.”

Even before they were within hailing distance of the cottage, Ayradyss could see that it was a pleasant place. Rambling and somehow fat, it was thatched with bright yellow reeds. Its paint—white for the main, green for the shutters and trim—must have been freshly renewed, for it was unchipped despite the proximity of the ocean. Red geraniums spilled out of window boxes and daisies lined the oyster shell paths. A few chickens scratched in the sunlight. A lazy calico cat asleep on the roof opened one eye as they drew closer.

“Hello, the cottage!” Ayradyss called when they were on the fringes of where the beach gave way to unfenced yard. “Visitors!”

Almost immediately, the front door swung open and a startlingly beautiful young woman stepped out. She was no more than seventeen, with jungle-green eyes and shoulder-length blond hair. Her smooth pink complexion might never have felt a sea wind and her teeth when she smiled were perfect and dazzlingly white. Although overall she was well made, she was also clearly pregnant, perhaps a bit further along than Ayradyss.

“Hi!” she said, her accent American. “I’m Lydia. What brings you to this isolated place?”

Ayradyss was at a loss for words. She had entertained many possibilities of what they might find, but this creature drawn from an American fantasy (despite the incongruous pregnancy) had not even come close. Her mouth opened, but no sound came forth. The caoineag recovered more quickly.

“I am Heather and this is my friend, Ayra. We were walking, listening to the piping, and we saw your house. It seemed rude to pass without saying hello.”

“The piping is my husband, Ambry,” Lydia explained, “and I’m very glad that you decided to stop. It does get a little lonely here.”

“Here?” Ayradyss managed.

“Yeah, we’re in one of the wild lands of Virtu—one of the places the programmers lost. It’s not too often that someone stumbles in. Don’t worry. Ambry knows how to get back. He’ll show you the way, but don’t go too soon. I’d really love a chance to visit.”

Ayradyss could only nod befuddled acceptance and follow Lydia into the cottage.

“Did you know?” she hissed to the caoineag. “And is your name really Heather?”

“No. And, yes, or close enough. Let’s talk with this girl. I want to know more about how an ancient place can be mistaken for a site in Virtu.”

The inside of the cottage was as pleasant as the outside. The table and chairs in the parlor Lydia led them into rested on oval rag-rugs that protected the bright pine floor. Overall the decor was late eighteenth-century rural New England, but Lydia switched off an electronic scribble board as she walked by it. Ayradyss caught a glimpse of long mathematical formulas that reminded her vaguely of some of John’s work.

Lydia caught her questioning glance. “It’s something to keep me busy—interface theory. Some of my experiences really make me question the conventional wisdom. At first, Ambry argued with me, but I think I’m bringing him around to my point of view.”

“You and your husband are mathematicians?” Heather asked.

“Well, yeah. I guess you could say that. Mostly we’re just taking it easy, but it’s nice to have something to talk about in the evening. Like I said, it gets quiet here.”

“Where are you from originally—if that’s not impolite to ask?” Ayradyss said.

“New Jersey.” Lydia giggled. “How about you?”

“Scotland.”

“Oh, how cool. This locus owes a lot to that part of the world—and not just the terrain features. Ambry likes to say that all the legends have found their way into Virtu.”

“Really?” said the caoineag dryly. “Which, I wonder, came first?”

“Well, in one sense the legends,” Lydia answered, not hearing the other’s sarcasm. “One of the first things people loaded into the data-nets—even way back when they were using terminal interface and telephone connections—was raw information: dictionaries, academic papers, fiction, indexes. When the system did the big crash, all that got scrambled and the AIs had lots of data to cannibalize.”

“So this ‘wild territory’ is just some AFC unauthorized scrambling of data?” Ayradyss said.

“That’s what the theory says.” Lydia’s tone was suddenly guarded. She switched the subject with an awkwardness that made Ayradyss suspect that she was at least as young as her physical appearance. “When’s your baby due?”

“Spring. How about yours?”

“About the same. I’m really pregnant. This isn’t just a virt thing.”

Again, Lydia quickly shifted the subject, as if by admitting that she was really pregnant she had strayed into dangerous territory.

“Are you two ladies here on your own? I spotted you first from an upstairs window and I thought I saw a couple other people.”

“We’re here with two friends,” Ayradyss answered. “They heard the bagpipes and went into the hills to see if they could find the piper.”

Lydia giggled again. “Ambry’s piping is like that. The first time I met him, I wandered all over the hills looking for him. I found him—or really, he found me. I’ll send him a message asking him to join us and to bring your friends along.” She opened a window and leaned out into the yard, making a soft cooing noise. A fat grey pigeon fluttered sleepily from the rafters.

“Find Ambry for me and ask him to come home and to bring the two people…” She glanced questioningly at Ayradyss and Heather.

“Two men,” Heather clarified. “One is dressed in a priest’s cassock and the other in rather ragged clothing.”

“Those two men with him.”

The pigeon yawned, preened, and fluttered off, blending almost immediately into the grey sky.

Lydia deliberately kept the conversation inconsequential after that and her visitors were quite content to cooperate.

Ayradyss could hardly keep up her part in the discussion; her mind kept coming up with unanswerable questions: Was this indeed Virtu? If so, had they really crossed in from the Verite? How could that have been done without the proper equipment? How could the ghosts have crossed at all? Moreover, the caoineag and the cleric had both spoken as if these “eldritch realms” had existed during their mortal existence. If this was the case, the realms predated Virtu—they predated computers. How had Lydia entered them from Verite?

Gratefully, she heard the crunch of feet on the oyster shell path and put her questions away for later—and hopefully more fruitful—meditation.

The door opened, admitting a man wearing wool leggings and an unbleached muslin shirt. He was bearded, his hair and shaggy eyebrows wild as if he had been standing in a high wind. A fine set of bagpipes was slung over his shoulder. Crossing to Lydia, he kissed her on one cheek and nodded to the ladies.

“The pigeon found me and I found the men, but they fled from me as if I were a ghost. I lost them near the standing stones. They were an odd pair—I’m certain that the smaller one was dragging a chain.”

“We were involved in a mystery game,” Ayradyss said quickly. “They may have thought you were one of the villains.”

“Quite possibly.” The man sketched a bow. “I am Wolfer Martin D’Ambry, but I hope you will call me Ambry, as Lydia does. The rest is something of a mouthful.”

“I am Ayradyss and this is Heather. We wandered here and Lydia invited us in.”

“They’re from Scotland,” Lydia said, almost as if she was saying something else.

Ambry nodded.

Ayradyss knew there was a certain etiquette to what one did and did not ask in virt; this made her somewhat hesitant to ask questions that could be taken as a cross-examination. Heather, however, had no such compunctions.

“What is this place? Lydia called it a wild land—seemed to indicate that it wasn’t easily found. What did she mean?”

Lydia hung her head slightly, looked embarrassed. Ayradyss felt for her. Clearly in her excitement at having visitors—and perhaps out of a good-hearted desire that they not become frightened at finding themselves in a strange area—she had said more than she should have. The caoineags green-grey gaze was pitiless and steady, fixed on Wolfer Martin D’Ambry.

“Virtu,” he said, as if they had been talking for hours, “is not nearly as regulated and reliable as the tourist bureaus and rental agencies would have their clients believe. Only a handful of specialists will even admit how far-reaching the effects of the worldwide crash were. There are places in Virtu that cannot be found on any map in Verite. This is one of those places.”

“But this is truly Virtu?” Ayradyss asked, thinking, If this is Virtu, then does the Lord of Deep Fields know I am here?

“It is accessible from Virtu,” Ambry said. “Its genius loci claims that this place is older than Virtu, but that is foolishness, is it not?”

“There have always been legends of places existing side by side with the fields we know,” Ayradyss said, quickly lest the caoineag speak the indignation flaring in her eyes. “The sidhe, so legends say, lived in a shadowland side by side with Verite, crossing over from time to time to steal a bride or a babe or a musician. Rip van Winkle drank and bowled for what he believed was a single night and returned home to find that a hundred years had gone by. Then there are the heavens and hells of almost every religion that has been. All of these are far older than Virtu. Perhaps the genius loci of this setting adopted such a legend and now believes it.”

“A thoughtful response,” Ambry said, sketching a bow over his hand.

“I know something of Virtu.”

“Perhaps we should be returning to our game,” the caoineag said. Our fellows will be wondering what has become of us.”

“Give me your game’s address and I will guide you back,” Ambry said. “It is neither easy to come here, nor to leave if the genius loci resists you.”

“We found our way easily enough,” the caoineag said haughtily. “We can find our way out again.”

“But thank you,” Ayradyss said quickly.

“Well, certainly you will permit me to walk with you and to assure myself that you are safely away.”

There was no other way they could refuse such a mannerly request without eliciting unwelcome questions, so they left the cottage in the company of Ambry and Lydia. Neither said anything when Ayradyss and Heather led the way up to the monoliths, but Ambry’s raised eyebrows were eloquent. Ayradyss felt immense relief when she saw that the moon portal remained open.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” she said, stopping before picking her way across to the rock wall. “Good luck with your baby.”

“And with yours, Ayra,” Lydia said, her perfect teeth shaping a smile. “Goodbye, Heather.”

“Farewell.”

“Wait!” Ambry said, when they turned away. “Where are you going?”

“There,” Ayradyss said, pointing to where the portal stood round and dark.

“Where?”

“Through the opening in the rock. Can’t you see it?”

“No, I see nothing but rock. Lydia, do you see anything?”

“Nothing.”

“It must be a restricted access port,” Ambry mused. “I don’t believe that it goes to any game site. Tell me, ladies, where does that portal go?”

“Why should we tell you?” Heather said rather rudely.

“Because it effectively opens into my backyard.”

Ayradyss, heady to have home so near, smiled. “And it opens into my basement.”

“Your basement?”

“In Castle Donnerjack.”

“Donnerjack? As in John D’Arcy Donnerjack?”

Ayradyss would have said more, but the caoineag took her hand and with unsuspected strength pulled Ayradyss through the portal where she tumbled to a heap on the cavern floor.

“Why did you do that?” Ayradyss said, looking up at the now insubstantial, faintly glowing ghost.

“I fear what we have learned today. I do not want that man to know more about you until we have learned more about him.”

Ayradyss shivered and not just from her contact with the cold stone floor. “It was peculiar, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You are certain that place was there before the creation of Virtu?”

“I swear.”

“As do I,” said the cleric, drifting over, blindfolded once again. “The place is not a site in Virtu—or not just.”

“Who then are Wolfer Martin D’Ambry and Lydia of New Jersey? I would swear that she, at least, is what she claimed to be. I have seen variations on that virt form hundreds of times before. It is quite the fashion and she spoke like a young thing.”

“I do not know,” the caoineag said, and the other ghosts shook their heads.

“I will go back tomorrow,” Ayradyss said, “better prepared. Perhaps when I know more I can bring John. That man seemed to know his name.”

“John D’Arcy Donnerjack is famous in certain circles,” the caoineag said, “but he would not be known by the average virt tourist.”

“No,” Ayradyss agreed, gnawing on one fingernail. “Voit, what time is it?”

“Five in the evening, mistress. The kitchen has dinner scheduled for half-past six.”

“I should go and clean up, then.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Voit, please query the databanks for a Wolfer Martin D’Ambry.”

“I shall.”

That night, Ayradyss dined with John. They talked of his work, of her explorations (though she kept her latest expedition to herself, uncertain how to explain until she knew more). While she and John were working a jigsaw puzzle (this one meant for the baby’s nursery), Voit discreetly reported to her that it could find no record of a Wolfer Martin D’Ambry.

The next day, Ayradyss, along with the caoineag (but without either the crusader or the cleric) descended again into the tunnels. Although the moon was now full and they could see the portal opening, some force blocked it. When they probed it, they glimpsed the shadowy guardian lurking just beyond the pale.

“The moon portal has been warded against us,” the wailing woman said. “The eldritch land refuses us entry. Such is not unknown.”

“So I recall your saying,” Ayradyss said, “but I find it odd that the land should resist our entry today after letting us in without even the guardian to hinder us just yesterday. Should we attempt to drive the guardian away with the Lady of the Gallery’s charm?”

“We could, but even if it worked, the charm would not eliminate the barrier.”

“You’re right. I guess we try again tomorrow, and if that does not work, we try again the next full moon.”

“As you wish.”

“You sound reluctant, Heather. Don’t you want to know?”

“Know?”

“What that place really is.”

“It is the eldritch lands, as it has always been. No newer name changes that.”

“Yes, but…”

“But, nothing, my dear Angel of the Forsaken Hope. Unless you wish to take my place far sooner than you planned, I should take great care.”

“Care?”

“The Lord of Deep Fields has free range in Virtu. Do you really wish to bring yourself to him? Your husband has indicated a desire to renege on his part of the bargain they made. What is to keep the Lord of the Lost from taking you hostage and so obtaining his payment?”

“You’re right. I had considered that possibility. I just have so many questions for those two.”

“I understand. So do I, but let us not throw caution to the winds.”

Ayradyss placed her hand upon her belly. Frowning, she turned her back on the dark rock wall, wondering as she did so if she had indeed seen the glint of the guardian’s watchful eye.

They walked the fields of Verite, leaving Castle Donnerjack far behind them.

“John, why have we come so far?” Ayradyss asked.

“To avoid my equipment, some of which may be used against me,” he replied.

“By whom?”

“Specifically, by someone who drove me into a rough deal.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Whatever memories you have of it must be very strange indeed.”

“They are. But I don’t understand what you mean about machines.”

“I am looking for a means of barring his collecting on our arrangement.”

“Impossible,” she said. “There is no way to exclude death from life.”

“Death, the phenomenon, no. Death, the personification—whatever he or it really is—maybe. I have some ideas for a field-effect. At first, I was just going to attempt to defend against hypothetical intrusions from the Great Stage. Now, though—I am going to regulate every bit of information that rides the electromagnetic spectrum into Castle Donnerjack. Monitor and record. I’ll build up a great list. Anything that’s uninvited gets scrambled. Simple. Then he won’t be able to seize our firstborn and run.”

“What if he uses an agent?”

“A physical one and well treat him the same as any other such. Something else, and I believe I’ll try static first. Then maybe a laser.”

“What if somebody really gets hurt?”

“It’s a big, cold, deep ocean out there.”

“I remember the music. I remember the Throne of Bones. And part of the walk back. When will you have the defenses in place?”

“The initial set is already there. But it needs considerable tuning. A few weeks more, say.”

“We have that and more before the baby is due. If the boy doesn’t come early.”

“Are you feeling well?”

“Very. And so is our son, if the amount of somersaulting he is doing is any indication.”

“You haven’t been exhausting yourself exploring, have you?”

“No, dear. I am careful.”

“Good. Shall we turn back now?”

“Let’s.”

The next month, there was no expedition at all. Ayradyss had come down with a flu of some sort that kept her in bed, her anxious husband and a med-unit watching over her. She recovered easily enough, but not in time to investigate the moon portal.

When next she and her ghostly escort descended into the cavern, she walked like a pregnant woman, leaning back from her increasing belly. Although she said nothing, she knew that if they failed in their quest this time, she would not attempt it again until after her son was born.

“The ward is gone,” the crusader ghost reported. He had insisted on taking point. Ayradyss had the impression the caoineag had shamed him into accompanying them and that his flight from Wolfer Martin D’Ambry still rankled.

“And the guardian?” Heather asked.

“I dinna ken.”

“Then we go forward,” Ayradyss said, “and deal with it if we see it.”

“Aye.”

The crusader gathered his chain, stepped through the portal and vanished. Heather went next, then Ayradyss, and finally, the cleric. This one reached to remove his blindfold as soon as they were through.

“Why can you do that here and not when you are in the castle?” Ayradyss asked.

“I am more afraid here,” the cleric answered simply. “Especially here. Oddly, in these lands the calendar is not the calendar of the fields that we know—for the full moon and the equinox always fall together…”

“At home the equinox is drawing near.”

“And here on the full moon during the equinox, the standing stones go to the river to drink.”

“We must take care,” the caoineag said. “I see no sign that the rocks are moving. Perhaps they must wait for moonrise.”

Or perhaps they are waiting to trap us, Ayradyss thought, but she did not voice her thoughts aloud.

For the land did not seem welcoming. The gorse buds were one of the few signs of the coming spring; mostly, the terrain was damp and grey. The sky was low and heavy, so dark with impending rain that they could not tell whether the hour was late or early. Except for helping each other to find the best path across the loose rocks, they did not speak as they made their way to the beach.

“No pipes playing this time,” the cleric said, glancing nervously at the sky where a murder of ravens gliding on the air currents kept pace with them.

“Aye, an’ yon corbies seem a wee bit too fond of us for my comfort.”

“Aye.”

The cottage yard was deserted even of the chickens, pigeons, and cat. The window boxes were empty and the green shutters drawn closed. Leaves and bits of bracken had blown into the tidy yard and the oyster shell path was scored by deep marks from something heavy—perhaps furniture—being dragged across it.

“They’ve moved,” Ayradyss said unnecessarily.

“Soon after we were last here, I would guess,” Heather added. “Did Wolfer Martin D’Ambry fear having John D’Arcy Donnerjack in his backyard, or was there some other reason?”

“I don’t suppose we will ever know,” Ayradyss answered. “I want to look around, see if they might have left a message. Then we’ll go back home. My feet hurt.”

There was no message. Through a window shutter that had blown open they could see the furniture covered with sheets, the rugs rolled up against dust and damp. With the cleric’s help, the crusader pulled the shutter closed again and cobbled a new latch from a boot lace.

“How odd,” Ayradyss said, watching their effort. “Ambry and Lydia treated the place as if it were real—not a virt site.”

“‘Tis real,” the wailing woman said stubbornly.

“You know what I mean,” Ayradyss said. Somewhat clumsily, she seated herself on a bench alongside the mulched-over herb garden. “Perhaps they plan on returning someday. I’ll leave them a note to say that we came to call.”

Her note was a simple thing:

She folded it into thirds and tucked it into the heavy wooden storm door. A raven quorked approval—or perhaps merely a comment on the weather, which was growing increasingly blustery.

“Shall we go home now?”

“Aye. I dinna care for how it’s coming on to blow.”

“Or that it might be coming on to evening,” the cleric added.

Their way back up the beach seemed shorter, as traveling back across a familiar route always seems shorter than going over it the first time. The crusader even ventured to whistle as the familiar outcropping beneath which the moon portal manifested came into sight.

“Just a wee bit up the hill,” he encouraged Ayradyss, “an” we’ll be back to the castle.”

She leaned on Heather’s arm as they climbed, trying not to breathe too heavily and cursing herself for overexerting. Within her, the baby amused himself by turning somersaults—a sensation that normally delighted her, but now caused havoc with her ability to concentrate on picking her way up the path.

“Mary Mother of God!” came a shrill voice, rising at the end. “They move!”

Without looking, Ayradyss would never have believed that the thin, terrified voice could come from the throat of the urbane, arrogant cleric. He had fallen to his knees, head bent, hands clasped in prayer, his shaking fingers plucking at the beads around his waist.

“Dinna be a fool, man!” the crusader cried, trying to pull the much larger man to his feet. “They go to the river, not to the sea. If we take care, we can pass around them.”

“I can’t… ‘tis my doom again.”

“Fool! Twill be Lady Ayradyss’s doom if we dinna take care. How can the dead be further doomed?”

At the caoineag’s urging Ayradyss had walked past the two men.

“The crusader is right, Ayra,” Heather said softly. “The three of us have little to lose and there is a route around the sliding stones. What I fear is the shadow near the portal. It seems too dark and too solid—with no sunlight or moonlight but only these clouds…”

“There should be no shadow.” Ayradyss nodded, pressed her hands to her belly in an effort to quiet her son. “We will try the Lady of the Gallery’s charm when we are closer. With how the wind rises, I fear the words will be snatched from its hearing.”

“I am with you, Ayra.”

They climbed then and the land itself seemed to extrude more loose rock along the narrow path they must climb along if they were to avoid the silently sliding monoliths. Ayradyss slipped repeatedly, once turning her ankle painfully, but the wailing woman looped a strong arm around her and half-carried her onward.

Arriving before the rock face that held their portal, they saw that it was indeed guarded. Seen closer, the guardian lost rather than gained in definition. Its claws and fangs swam as if its mass distorted the space near it; its aura was a heat mirage dripping blackness and laughter.

“We are close enough,” Ayradyss said, pulling herself tall.

“The crusader is bringing up the cleric behind. I believe that he had to strike him on the head and blindfold him again.”

“I wish I had more faith in the Lady of the Gallery’s charm.”

The wailing woman’s expression was enigmatic. “I may have discovered another way to force the guardian to retreat—but I would prefer to reserve it as a last resort.”

By common consent, rather than by formula, they clasped hands. Sweet and pure, their voices blended over the words of the charm:

For a brief moment, Ayradyss thought that the Christian charm was working. The guardian drew into itself, becoming opaque, claws and fangs falling into solidity. But even as she thought it was beginning to retreat and her voice was rising into the final triad of the invocation, the guardian began to chuckle, each puff of noisome breath marking a return to its former deadly insubstantiality.

Behind them, Ayradyss could hear the crusader’s labored breathing interspersed with colorful curses and clanking as he dragged both cleric and chain up the slope.

“The alternative you mentioned,” she hinted to the caoineag, “might not this be the time to try it?”

The wailing woman turned her face away, but not before Ayradyss caught a glimpse of the poignant sorrow in her green-grey eyes.

“It may bring danger to you in the future, Ayradyss. Would you still have me use it?”

“If it is the only alternative to remaining here. As you have reminded me, my presence in Virtu is itself a danger to myself and to my baby. Is this a danger of the same order?”

“Not the same, but the charm is potent. It may draw the attention of the Lord of the Lost—or center it more fully if he is already aware of you.”

“Sing!” Ayradyss said, glancing nervously over her shoulder, although she knew that Death could come from any side. “I accept whatever risk this brings.”

“Very well.” The caoineag faced the guardian.

Hearing the initial wordless wail with which she opened her charm the guardian ceased its laughter. Watching for unseen enemies, Ayradyss hardly listened to the charm until she felt the words reach out and pluck at the sleeping places in her mind.

Angel of the Forsaken Hope,

Wielder of the Sword of Wind and Obsidian, Slice the algorithms from our Foe.

“No!” Ayradyss screamed. “Have pity!”

Her terrible eyes streaming tears, the wailing woman continued her chant. Ayradyss felt herself transforming into her otherself from the time of the Genesis Scramble—an otherself for whom she recalled the titles, but not the heady, ruthless power. As her swelling abdomen flattened and her mermaid’s tail formed the unborn baby kicked in protest. Ayradyss screamed again as her wings budded and then tore free in a shower of blood and numbers.

Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons, Cantress of the Siren Song,

Drown our enemies in the data-stream. Nymph of the Logic Tree,

Child of the First Word,

Give our antagonist to grief.

Transformation was swift and painful. Winged mermaid, she bore the Sword of Wind and Obsidian in one hand while dragon’s wings of bright mylar beat to carry her upward.

Looked at through her ancient knowledge, Ayradyss no longer found the guardian blockading the moon portal a thing of fear. It was rather humorous, pathetic even, huddled there in terror of her glory. Its component proges were easily unencrypted, routinely deciphered, rendered into code, into data bits, into nothing but loam for Deep Fields.

Raising the Sword of Wind and Obsidian, Ayradyss did this thing, and as the guardian fell into oblivion, she felt cold hands shoving beneath her wings, pushing her toward the rock wall.

A round, dark depth she barely recalled was the moon portal loomed before her. Reflexively, she tried to furl her wings, knowing that their breadth could not pass. She was not swift enough. Something—interface?—shredded her wings. Without them she could not fly; fish-tailed, she could not stand. Dropping the Sword of Wind and Obsidian, she curled her arms to protect herself as best she could…

Firm metal grips caught her by her upper arms and held her when she would have fallen onto the tunnel floor.

“Mistress Ayradyss?” Voit said, its mechanical voice managing to project authentic concern. “Are you injured? Do you require the services of a medbot?”

“No… Yes… I…”

She caught her breath, looked down at herself. Her body was human once more. Human as she had been before the caoineag had begun her charm, everything in place including the distorting, awkward, beloved swell that was her baby. As if to reassure her that he had not suffered from her unwitting transformation, the baby kicked out solidly.

“I am fine, Voit,” she managed at last. “Well, even. I was just startled. We had a rather more difficult time than anticipated.”

“Then there is no need to forward a report or request assistance?”

“I would prefer if you did neither, Voit.”

The caoineag was waiting in front of the moon portal, her face impassive, her hands folded in front of her as if she expected rebuke. There was not even a glimmer of triumph or superiority in her bearing. If anything, she seemed diminished and paler than was her wont.

“How…” Ayradyss stopped and rephrased her question. “Where did you find that incantation? How did you know what it would do?”

“Your many names, Lady Ayradyss. I have said before that what you have been binds you to myth in a way that others are not bound. The charm came to me in the dreaming channels as I rehearsed the charm taught to us by the Lady of the Gallery and fretted as to whether a Christian charm would be efficacious against a pagan creature.”

“It just came to you?”

“Not in a flash, more in a substitution. I found myself calling on the Angel of the—”

“Don’t say that name,” Ayradyss interrupted. “I fear its power.”

“It is your name.”

“It was. The Great Flux is the ancient beginnings of Virtu. I did not belong to myself then, but instead to the legions of one of the warring powers.”

“And you belong to yourself now?” the caoineag said with a pointed glance at Ayradyss’s pregnant belly.

“Now I am Ayradyss. I belong to that person. The other… belonged to another and to another’s needs. I had not realized how much I

dreaded a recall into that being until you—albeit briefly—forced me into that form again.”

“I understand,” said the wailing woman. “Once I was Heather, daughter of the laird. Now I am the caoineag. When I am caoineag no more, what will I be? Can I return to Heather? I long for my first self, but having seen you as what you were I can understand your reluctance to return to that—although it seems to me that your first self had great power.”

“But little free will. When my creator commanded, I had no choice but to act as was dictated to me. After the days of conflict, I managed to hold a small portion of myself—something of my mystery and something of my glory—and shape what became Ayradyss.”

“You asked me for pity.” The caoineag’?, words were not quite a question.

“I did not know I could be called back into that form. And although the form of the charm told me what my immediate purpose was, I could feel the tug of my creator at the back of my mind. I feared a recall.”

“Your creator?”

“One of those On High, the Dwellers on Mount Meru. Most call him Seaga and his domain is the vast tidal masses of data in Virtu. Along with Skyga and Earthma, he is one of the great Trinity.”

“Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?”

“No. It is less metaphysical than that—or perhaps merely other. Skyga oversees the general power of the system’s structure. Earthma is the aion of all aions, the base program for all loci. Other deities reside on Meru, each with their own hard-won areas of authority, status defined by how high they can ascend on the mountain’s slopes.”

“Has it been this way since the beginning?”

“No. There were many battles. Many things—forgive my weakness, dear friend—that I prefer to forget. As I have said, I am not very religious—even in the religions of Virtu. This is the reason why.”

“Are you too angry with me?”

“No. You did warn me that I might not like what you planned to try. How can I blame you for not knowing what you were inflicting on me? And it did get us past the guardian.”

“It did that. Ayra, forgive me for saying so—having been the one to use you so hard—but you look exhausted.”

“I am, but I don’t know if I can rest.”

Voit interrupted. “My limited reading of your vital signs indicates that rest would be the optimal choice. Refusal to rest could be hazardous to the developing infant.”

“I will rest, then. One thing continues to trouble me, Heather.”

“What?”

“Who sent you that charm?”

“I thought I just drew it from the collective unconscious of the race—the anima mundi as Yeats was fond of calling it.”

“Wasn’t Yeats rather after your time?”

“There was a poet of idle habit but romantic nature who often came to the castle’s ruins and read Yeats’s works aloud. Still, to return to your question, I have often simply known something I needed—modern dialect, for example. I believed it to be one of the benefits of my job.”

“I suppose that could be the answer, but wouldn’t the charm you recited have come from the anima mundi of Virtu, rather than that of Verite?”

“True. But then, as with the place we just departed, there seems to be overlap.”

“Yes, and I find that disturbing. I do know enough of the religion of the aions to know that there are those who claim that Virtu, not Verite, is the first reality. These claim that the computer network simply provided the means for the crossover.”

“So?”

“I wonder if they could be right, and if so, for how long will the gods of Virtu be content to take second place? Could they be mustering their armies, awakening the old legends? I seem to hear a form of your incantation still drumming in my brain, calling me back.”

“You are exhausted, Ayra. Tell your robot to take you to your room. When you have slept and eaten, then see if there is still drumming in your ears.”

“You may be right. Perhaps, I should not have taken this journey in my condition.”

“Rest now, Ayra. We will talk later.”

The caoineag walked into the wall and vanished. With her departure, the moon portal vanished as well. Ayradyss shook her pounding head, decided this was a mistake, and leaned on Voit.

“Take me to my room, please, Voit. Perhaps you could call ahead and see if the kitchen could send up some cocoa.”

“Chocolate is not permitted on your diet, mistress,” the robot reminded, shaping a swinglike chair from its extensors and lowering so that she could sit.

“Then some imitation cocoa that doesn’t have any of the things I should be avoiding and has lots of the things I need.”

“I will see what I can do.”

Ayradyss traveled the rest of the way to her chambers in a daze. She hardly felt it when Voit set her on her bed, or when Dack (arriving with the hot beverage she was now far too sleepy to drink) removed her shoes and outer garments and tucked her beneath the covers.

She dreamed, though, of times long gone. In those dreams, she knew for what purpose the Lord of Deep Fields needed her son. When she awoke, however, finding John sitting at her side, her hand clasped in his, his bearded face revealing a protective concern he did not bother to conceal, the revelation vanished, a certain peace taking its place.