Chapter 11 — “Taps”

IF YOU’RE NEW HERE, YOU ARE LATE TO THE SAGA OF A TALE OF TWO TIMES. WE ARE NOW BEGINNING THE 9TH AND FINAL VOLUME OF THE NARRATIVE, WHICH WILL WRAP UP IN THIS POSTED FORMAT IN APRIL ON GOOD FRIDAY, 2025.

TO START READING AT THE BEGINNING, THE FIRST VOLUME, THE MENACE OF THE ANCIENT FOE, CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING THE BUTTON:

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~ 1 ~ On a faint track in a shallow ravine, Diego was following Manuel and Indigo beside one of the many meanders of the Sundering Flood spreading out toward the Grassy Steppes.

Diego would never forget their descent into the ravine from the Craggy Heights near Rhoda’s Workshop. From the spot where Indigo had shoved Manuel’s wheelchair into oblivion, Manuel had led the three of them to the edge of a deep gorge. They had peered cautiously over the edge at the Sundering Flood, which had appeared to be many miles directly below their feet, where they stood on the overhanging cliff. The view had been truly breathtaking.

“Diego,” Manuel had said, “we must get you speedily to your station in the Horn Room. Follow me and do what I do. Indigo, you follow Diego.” Manuel had swung himself over the edge and had dropped down into the gorge, from which the roar of a powerful wind had issued at once.

Indigo had not hesitated to plop down on her belly and extend her head over the edge to peer down into the gorge. Quickly pulling herself back to her feet, she had reported to Diego, “The wind we’re hearing is holding Manuel against the cliffside. He’s working his way down. You’re next.”

The three of them, pressed hard against the rocky wall by the roaring wind, had clambered cautiously down to the bottom of the gorge, where a trail ran along beside the Sundering Flood. The wind had ceased, and Manuel had led them downstream on the trail for hours. Now that they were approaching the Grassy Steppes, and the Sundering Flood was breaking up into meanders, Diego had noted that every time they found that the stream beside their track was another even lesser branch of the Sundering Flood, the Commons’ Airs had changed. Some branches had been dark and ominous; others had been lighter and slightly hopeful.

The Airs of their current branch were dark. Diego looked ahead past Manuel, at a low ridge cut by the small stream along which they had been making their way. A small bridge arched over the cut, and on it stood a human figure, looking intently at them. In a burst of joy, Diego called out, “Isabel!”

Manuel and Indigo, seeing no one in the region of Diego’s gaze, looked at each other and shook their heads. Manuel warned, “It may be an Avatar, Diego. We have to be very careful, because Indigo and I are not seeing what you’re seeing.”

“Diego!” the figure called back. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. Who is with you? I hope they’re not guides you’ve picked up along the way.”

“What did she say?” Indigo asked. “I’m hearing a woman’s voice.”

“She said she’s been watching me for a long time, and that I should be careful about who I fall in with around here.”

“Both of you,” commanded Manuel, “wait here. I’ll go first to meet ‘Isabel’; if she’s a true Denizen like me, we’ll quickly know it. Indigo, you may have to lead Diego to the Bleak Berm, which will be visible from that ridge.”

Indigo watched Manuel resolutely climb up toward the cut, where a small bridge began to appear to her, arching over it. Then she saw the woman standing on the bridge.

Diego maintained his steady gaze on the image of Isabel, asking, “Why did Manuel say, ‘a true Denizen like me’?”

“He’s dead to Earth’s Province, Diego.”

Diego turned to look at her. He enfolded her in a gentle, heartfelt hug, murmuring, “I’m so sorry, Indigo.”

Indigo had expected cold comfort to come from the gesture of sympathy which she saw coming from Diego. Instead, she felt his hug’s warmth causing a weight to pass from her, as it told her that she would always be with Manuel!

“Manuel seems so substantial, Isabel. I hadn’t guessed.”

“The wrangling Calipers he’s wearing give substantiality to his body.”

Manuel’s voice called down to them to follow his way up to the image, which was truly Isabel.

While climbing up cautiously beside Diego, Indigo told him, “I know where we are, Diego. This ridge marks the up-Airs border of Thiuderieks’s Garth, and beyond it are the Grassy Steppes. The footbridge where Manuel and Isabel are standing was made by the ancient Makers of Thiuderieks's time.”

On the bridge, Diego and Isabel embraced against a backdrop of fog like churning darkness which obscured the Bleak Berm.

“Diego, why have you come here?”

“Sweetheart, on the day of my visit to the Bleak Berm with Leo, Ricardo told me I’d be called back to ‘help whoever is trying to close up the shop here.’ I thought it was a grim joke until Ricardo explained what I was supposed to do. Manuel has told me that I have to get to my station in the Horn Room quickly, and that now I’m nearly there. But why are you here?”

“I’ve been sent by Rhoda with instructions for closing up the shop. I can tell you more about it only after we get to the Horn Room—if we do get there. It hasn’t been easy for me to get this far, and I’ll have no idea which way to go if I walk into that ‘fog’. I sense something ominous going on at the Bleak Berm.”

Manuel asked, “Before you left Rhoda, what did she tell you to expect?”

“I last saw Rhoda when she sent me on the errand I’ve just come from, but she had told me what to do at the Bleak Berm long before that. Manuel, your sister told me that I could have some hope of seeing Diego again, and I thought she meant at Home Ranch. I’ve been accompanied this far by the swallows and dragonflies that are flying around us.”

As the others began to look around for Isabel’s flying escorts, the flock appeared, like a vast animated cloud, parting to let the sunlight through. Manuel knew that this sparkling of the nearest swallows and dragonflies was in truth caused by an intrusion of higher Airs which had come with Isabel. He watched the fog wall vanish into the somber light of the lower Airs, driven off toward the Bleak Berm by Isabel’s winged escort. As he cried, “Look!”, they all saw the Bleak Berm lying at the foot of a huge tower. “I hope we’re not too late,” Manuel said quietly. “That’s the Ziggurat, the Spiral City of the Foe. Its presence tells us that he is vested.”

Indigo clutched Manuel’s arm, and he flickered into and out of transparency before Diego’s eyes.

“Rhoda’s land ship is gone from the hill!” Isabel exclaimed in a loud whisper.

“It has become the Ziggurat,” said Manuel in the same hushed tone.

They looked along the ridge where they were standing, at a sight upon which Yohanna, on the other side, was telling Hans and Everett not to look: The power of the Netherworld on campaign. It was the procession of the Foe, vested in his Green Serpent Soma, being led from the Ziggurat by Gabrielle. The Foe's Powers attending him were personally present to the Shades of his Circle strewn along the Green Serpents’ long body. The Serpent would soon pass between the two watching parties, and Isabel and Yohanna would see the procession as a monstrous pale worm from which writhing tentacles protruded everywhere.

Manuel watched two round knobs of tentacles detach themselves from the pale worm and begin to roll through the knee-high grass of the Grassy Steppes, toward the four of them on the bridge.

“Those things are Third and Second Masen!” gasped Indigo. How did they get here?”

“They died to get here,” explained Manuel. “They’re Denizens like me. …I’m seeing them as two monstrous hydra-like creatures tumbling head over tentacles toward us…Isabel and Diego, go! Run as fast as you can to the Narrow Way entrance to the Bleak Berm! Now!”

Isabel tightly grasped Diego’s hand and led him on a desperate race through the Grassy Steppes.

“I’m staying here with you, Manuel.”

“Indigo, it’s already too late for you to do otherwise.” Manuel touched her face tenderly. “Tell me what you’re seeing, and keep telling me, because we’re seeing different views of the same thing. Remove your Calipers now, Indigo, unobtrusively; we’re decoys, not combatants.” Manuel did not remove his own Calipers.

Indigo was standing behind Manuel, looking over his shoulder, when three large panther-like Denizens bounded out of the steppes and joined the two hydra Denizens. She said, “I see three shadowy forms meeting up with Third and Second. I think they’re speaking together.”

Manuel saw that the Denizens were panther Animas, and each one masked a Death Stalker. The three panthers, whose large eyes were searching all around, had been Makers once, serving the Foe. They had long patrolled the shore of the Darkling Deeps inside the Bleak Berm, but now they had been called outside to keep watch on the Soma’s flank. Although the Bleak Berm had been breached by the Soma, it was held yet by the Clan. Not all of the Clan's Powers had retreated from it, and the captain of the panther Animas had been informed that those Clan Powers remaining in the Bleak Berm were centered in the region of the Horn Room, where the Clan's "one eye" kept watch over the Netherworld. The Horn Room itself was reported to be unoccupied by humans, and the panther captain had been instructed to prevent all Makers from entering the Narrow Way to the Horn Room. Recently, when humans had been present in the Horn Room, he had lost one of his crew to an armed Keen Maker at the Back Gate of the Bleak Berm; he was keen for vengeance.

“Step up beside me, Indigo. What do you see?”

“Third and Second are looking at me. They see me.”

“Wave at them, Indigo.”

“They’re waving back in a friendly manner.”

Manuel saw the three panther Animas hide behind the hydra-formed Denizens. He placed himself behind Indigo.

“Second and Third seem to recognize me, Manuel. What are those terrible creatures lurking behind them?”

“Be brave, my love. Walk toward them slowly, acting like you’re wounded. Behind Second and Third are three panther-form Animas that mask Death Stalkers. They’re all fascinated by the living—which is you. You and I are working to delay their discovery of Isabel and Diego, and pursuit of them. And your livingness is shielding me from their eyes.”

“Do they think I was on my way to the Bleak Berm?”

“Probably. Or soon they will think so."

~ 2 ~ Yohanna, with her new Keen Maker-like telescopic vision, had seen the meeting between the two couples—Isabel and Diego, and Indigo and Manuel—on the arched bridge. They had been invisible to Second and Third, who had been conferring with the three panther-form Animas while Yohanna watched Diego and Isabel slip off the bridge. Unnoticed by the Foe’s creatures, Diego and Isabel had hurried along beside the small branch of the Sundering Flood into the Grassy Steppes, toward the Bleak Berm’s Narrow Way entrance to the Horn Room.

Yohanna, watching the Foe’s five creatures focusing their attention on Indigo, realized that Indigo and Manuel were buying time for Diego and Isabel. She realized, too, that the hideous pale worm advancing toward the confused Delvers on the road would soon block her way to them. Yohanna darted between the legs of the shorebird Animas and ran down to do what she could to thwart any pursuit of Diego and Isabel, whom she understood were to be, in the Horn Room, the eyes of Ricardo’s Device for dealing with the Foe, who was now so near to her.

Yohanna’s passing across the road was felt by the Delvers as a windstorm. It refreshed a few of them, who ran off after those who were following Hector toward Hans and Everett. The remaining Delvers were cast down dead by the violent wind, and they rose up as Denizens who saw—rather than a pale tentacle-covered worm—a magnificent green serpent with a band of carousers congregating along its endless length. The Denizens hurried to the join in the fun.

Yohanna entered the Grassy Steppes and found herself only very slowly approaching Second, Third and the three panther-form Animas, although they had seemed to be only a hundred feet from her. She heard them clearly, however.

“Look,” Third was saying, “It’s Indigo who’s been sent to the Berm.”

“Shall we seize her?” asked one of the Animas.

“Not yet. Distance is deceptive here.”

Do I not know it! Yohanna was making slow progress.

“And I sense a power around her that may be dangerous.” Third waved at Indigo, who, after a few moments, waved back and began to walk toward them. The chief panther Anima watched her closely. “You’re right, Denizen Third. She’s weaving her way through a thicket of offsets.”

My staff, can you help me? Yohanna, had recalled her staff’s obedience to her on the Bleak Berm. Instinctively she thrust it into the earth at her right, trying to push herself forward more swiftly. She succeeded in an unexpected way: The chunk of earth directly beneath her feet broke loose and shot forward over the land, veering to her right. Quickly she pushed with her staff again, from her left, aiming the chunk of soil straight toward Thirds’s crew of Denizens. I suspect that I am sliding over those beetles’ backs!

“Two humans are approaching the Horn Room’s entrance!” shouted one of the panther Animas. The Foe’s Denizens were unable to look into the blinding light of the Narrow Way’s entrance, and through it they could not pass. But they were able to see by its light as well as they would by sunlight, and the Anima sprang after Diego and Isabel. Yohanna ran up onto the ridge just as Indigo and Manuel were flying at Second, Third and the two remaining panther Animas, all of whom had turned to see what their leader had seen. Indigo wielded a dagger given to her by Rhoda as she sprang at the chief panther Anima while Manuel seized the other Anima with his Calipers. The creatures were unable to break the grips on them. As Second fell on Manuel, attempting to break his grip, Third—wearing Refining Calipers—ran across the Steppes to aid in the pursuit.

Yohanna surveyed the battle, hearing animal snarls and human cries issuing from the blur of action which was Indigo and the chief panther Anima. And the tangle of Manuel wrestling with Second and the other panther Anima looked to her much like three drunks wrestling on a barroom floor.

Third was following behind the panther Anima, slamming his Calipers together, producing a great shower of sparks and an abundance of foul smells. It appeared that the two would overtake Diego and Isabel before they got to the Bleak Berm!

Yohanna administered a sharp blow of her staff to Second’s head and at once shot across the Grassy Steppes. Thrusting her staff rapidly into the ground on alternate sides, she quickly overtook Third, who had nearly caught up with the panther Anima. Third shouted a warning to the panther Anima, causing it to glance back and then double its speed. Yohanna found the strength to propel herself faster, too, and passed Third as Diego and Isabel neared the stairs to the Berm. The panther Anima was nearly upon them when Yohanna slung her spinning staff at it, knocking it to one side as she leaped onto the lowest stair, dagger in hand. She was standing between the panther and its prey—Diego and Isabel—as Third ran up.

Diego and Isabel stopped to look back, eliciting a commanding shout from Yohanna: “Go! Isabel and Diego, run through the Narrow Way now! Do not look back! Go, go, go!” As the panther leaped right over Yohanna’s head, she snatched a hind leg in the powerful grip of one hand and slit open the panther’s belly with the dagger in her other hand, then flung the panther into the embrace of Third’s Refining Calipers at the top of the stairs. The Anima sizzled in Third’s arms, emitting the Hell Stench, as Yohanna cut off Third’s head and kicked him and the roasting Anima far out into the Steppes.

Yohanna sprinted up the slope of the Bleak Berm to the Narrow Way just as the great doors were closing. She set her back to them, removed her second dagger from her purse and stood guard, juggling her two daggers. This is my Garth now. Oh, Rhoda! …And I am its gatekeeper. Yohanna laughed at herself ironically, surveying the scene.

~ 3 ~ Diego and Isabel paused at the outer doors to the Narrow Way, looking at each other in shock as they recollected a warning—from Rhoda to Isabel and from Ricardo to Diego—“If the person with whom you arrive at the doors to the Narrow Way does not have with him a great horn’s silver mouthpiece which is identical to yours, that person is an Avatar whom you must destroy. Then you must proceed alone.” Isabel placed her left hand in the satchel on her belt, her right hand preparing to seize her ankle dagger, and looked directly at Diego. Calmly, she said, “Diego, get your mouthpiece out before we open the doors.” Oh, please be Diego! Unwisely, she closed her eyes for a moment.

Diego saw the foolish act and smiled to himself. “I’ve got it right here, sweetheart,” he said, holding up the mouthpiece in his left hand while his right hand returned Martin’s gold-plated Ol’ Faithful pistol to its shoulder holster.

“Quickly! Beat on the doors!” Diego began a rhythmical pounding on the door before him.

Isabel, relieved, brought out her silver mouthpiece at once and beat in time with Diego on the other massive stone door. The doors burst open and a violent gust of Airs drove them into the Narrow Way, burst open the second set of doors, and slammed the doors behind them at once. They staggered, getting their bearings in the Horn Room, then each quickly clambered up to a great horn and pressed a mouthpiece into place. They glanced at each other on their separate platforms, then simultaneously took a deep breath and began to play the Battle Challenge which they had been taught. Before them loomed the empty Ziggurat—dwarfing the Bleak Berm—its Denizens now gathered around the Soma-serpent which was, under Gabrielle’s direction, following the Great Maze to the Home Ranch portal.

As Isabel and Diego winded the horns, the Ziggurat began to vibrate. When they blew harder, the Darkling Deeps’ surface became glassily still, reflecting a perfectly still Ziggurat. Yet the Ziggurat itself vibrated so rapidly that its identity was nearly indiscernible. Isabel and Diego watched the Ziggurat’s blurry form vanish, while its reflection remained, extending into the abyss from its foundation on the surface of the Darkling Deeps: a giant square from which no light came and on which no light shone. Biting Waves rose in seeming triumph from each corner of the inverted foundation of darkness, spreading out and becoming a confused rising sea of enormous Biting Waves. On that sea broke a sudden electrical storm.

“No! Diego, their mouths are spitting lightning and fire! It’s all wrong!"

"Dear Isabel, that’s not what’s happening. In fact, they’re choking on the lighting!" Biting Waves gaped and floundered, their jaws broken by over-extension which had been excited by a thin filament of lightning preceding the body of the bolt.

“You’re right!” Isabel had turned to Diego, her hair flying around violently as if a powerful wind were blowing. Then the Horn Room suddenly vanished in a long second of pure light—and reformed itself. Isabel had seen Diego become transparent in that flash of pure light. Looking at the Darkling Deeps, she saw all of the Biting Waves collapse and the surface of the Darkling Deeps grow still and mirror-like again. Isabel scrambled down from her platform and up to Diego’s.

She pulled him close to her as snow began to fall. Giant snowflakes struck the still water and became grotesque Death Eels which slipped beneath the surface. Isabel looked away from them, horrified and disgusted, thinking of her father whom she and Flavia had snatched from the Darkling Deeps and had set on his purgatorial upstream way.

Diego and Isabel descended the stairs together and stood arm-in-arm before the giant window, where they were nearer to the spectacle. They saw swarms of dragonflies and swallows darting among the giant snowflakes—the same swarms which had exhilarated Isabel’s hair after she and Reyna had parted from Thersa, who was on her way through the Commons to rendezvous with Thiuderieks.

What are they doing? Isabel focused her eyes on one giant individual snowflake: A moment before touching the water, it became the image of human person. After its feet touched the water, the shimmering image hovered there, and a dragonfly flew up before its face. The dragonfly suddenly expanded in size and grasped the human image with its six legs, and the image became more substantial—a woman, Isabel saw—before the dragonfly darted off with it. Isabel watched another snowflake become a human image from which a dragonfly flew away after hovering before it. That image melted and became a Death Eel.

Diego asked, “What are those things?” The snowflakes had become fewer—and huge—and the images which they became metamorphosed into human-shaped Death Stalkers among which swallows were darting. Diego had not seen Death Stalkers on his previous visit to Thiuderieks’s Garth. Now he saw each human form slip beneath the surface and become invaded by Death Eels. Death Eel heads emerged from all over these Death Stalkers, who crept upside-down along the inner surface of the sea, among frantically thrashing tails of the innumerable eels pressing their heads against the water’s inner surface. With their hands the Stalkers parted the eels’ waving tails, peering warily this way and that.

Diego and Isabel clung together in horror. Only a few giant flakes were still falling when Isabel saw one of the last flakes transform into a beautiful naked woman whom she recognized with a shock as the "Wicked Witch of the North" who had tried years earlier to nab her in the Student Union! The woman took a few steps on the water’s surface. Then a Death Stalker’s hand broke through the surface, grasped her ankle, and pulled her under, where the beautiful woman was transformed into the largest Death Stalker that Diego and Isabel had yet seen. Death Eels were still invading her body when she snatched up the Stalker who had dragged her under, and dismembered it. The Death Eels emerging from her skin feasted on the dismembered parts, and the newly spawned Death Stalker grew in size before their eyes.

“Oh, God! That monster is Gabrielle! She has landed in her own cauldron!”

“What?” asked Diego.

“I’ll explain, if we survive. The Queen of Evil tried to get me before I started for the Commons.” Shivering in horror, she looked back at the Darkling Deeps and saw the last giant snowflake falling. It transformed into the image of a naked man who stood irresolutely on the surface. The giant Gabrielle Stalker snatched at him, and Isabel screamed!

“No! It’s Het!” Isabel threw herself against the window, crying, “Save him!”

Three swallows swooped down and each grasped a large hank of Het’s hair in its beak. They grew larger and beat their wings furiously, dragging Het from the Death Stalker’s grasp— into the Airs and out of sight.

Diego looked at Isabel in astonishment. “Did they hear you, and obey you, Isabel?”

“I don’t know.”

At that moment, their eyes were drawn to the sight of a beautiful green serpent—the Soma, which was floating slowly down, like the coda of the snowfall, undulating gracefully as it slithered headfirst into the Darkling Deeps at the center of the Ziggurat’s dark foundation square—dragging with it the entire surface of the Darkling Deeps and its attached population of Death Eels and Death Stalkers. Swirling into the deepening whirlpool of the Serpent’s downward wake, the Darkling Deeps’ surface pulled away from the shore, exposing a transformed sea of crystal-clear motionless water.

At her first sight of the clear water’s edge, Isabel began to count, while her mind whirled with a perplex calculation. From the shore outward, the Darkling Deeps were freezing over, concurrently with her calculation. Diego was transfixed, watching it.

Isabel stopped counting. “Diego! We have to get out of here! Now!” Gripping his hand tightly, she nearly dragged him after her.

Isabel and Diego ran out between the open double doors of the Narrow Way and halted in the niche, looking out over the Grassy Steppes, which seemed eerily silent. Isabel turned toward the Netherworld, looking up over the curving edge of the Bleak Berm. She spread her arms wide. Can I do this?

Loudly and clearly Isabel sang out the ancient War Wail, her voice as glorious as that of Valkei or Rhoda Ingundis, Slayer of the Wicked. And all around the Bleak Berm, the Makers of the Ultimate Shift flung open their Berm Portals and rushed out onto the terrace. Watching Isabel as she finished the Wail, each Maker saw her as very near to him or her. Diego, who was truly close to her, was nearly overwhelmed.

“Rhoda taught it to me,” she explained calmly, “but I didn’t know I had it in me. Now we have to get out of this place fast, and lead the Garth Delvers to safety—down the incline, out onto that near ridge on the Steppes, to the arched bridge where we met."

Yohanna had watched from the shadows of the doors. She followed slowly, after picking up the staff of Thiuderieks lying to one side of the stairs down to the Grassy Steppes. Breathing the Airs, she learned at once that Indigo had died in her struggle with the panther Anima, and that Indigo and Manuel had passed together from the Commons and Earth’s Province.

Yohanna looked at the distant ridge where Indigo’s battle to the death had taken place. At her feet she saw the husks of two Death Stalkers—the remains of Denizen Third and the panther Anima. With the tip of her staff she gingerly lifted each one and dropped it into the nearest little stream of the Sundering Flood’s water. “Go with my blessings, Brothers, and be glad that you have not been returned to the Darkling Deeps.” After that, Yohanna was silent again, and thoughtful.

I am the War Queen now. I shall go to see what Hans is doing, for Isabel and Diego have this situation in hand, and Isabel can dismiss the Ultimate Shift.

~ 4 ~ In Rhoda’s empty room, the ancient dresser slid to one side and Isabel stepped out of the Great Maze. After Diego had followed her into the room, she slid the dresser back into place, and in its mirror she saw Rhoda’s face for a moment before her own face was reflected back to her. Through a window, she saw that the night sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, where a few stars were yet visible. On the dresser Isabel saw her own purse. Did I leave it there? She picked it up.

“This is Rhoda’s room, Diego. It feels to me like it hasn’t been occupied in a long time. Let’s go find out when we are.” In Rhoda’s sitting room, Isabel said, “Diego, the sun has risen. We must be mellowing.” Taking Diego’s hand, she slowly opened the door to the Head family quarters’ entry hall. Diego remembered lugging Rhoda’s suitcase up the stairs which they were beginning to descend, hearing the sounds and breathing the scents of second breakfast.

Martha saw them as she started down the stairs at the other side of the entrance hall, from which she hurried to them and hugged them both silently, feeling both glad and sorrowful. “We have been hoping that you would arrive here. Come up to my rooms and get freshened up. Then we can join the others at breakfast. I can see that you’ve had a long day—or whatever time it is that you keep in that place.”

Only after they had refreshed themselves did Martha tell them that the others at second breakfast were assembled for a Head Thing, in which Martin Knox was representing the War Thing and Ambrose Chapman was representing the Guild.

~ ~ ~

It was Ambrose who had put the final seal on Rhoda's Head Thing, which had turned on her public betrothal to Ricardo. Ambrose had been propelled to his feet then, thrilled by having witnessed a new and marvelously clever interpretation of Atawulf's Counsel, and he had shouted vehemently, “Yes! Ricardo and Rhoda, our Clan’s Head! Everyone else there had echoed Ambrose, shouting in one voice, “Our Clan’s Head!

Now Isabel and Diego, entering the room with Martha, heard Martin nominate Yohanna and Hans to be Co-Heads of the Clan. They heard Ambrose second him in the nomination.

During the ensuing discussion, Victoria whispered, “Come, Isabel; walk with me on the shady Thing House path. You have found and lost a sister, and I have borne and lost a daughter.” Isabel rose quietly and took Victoria’s arm. They left the dining room and passed through the kitchen to the Thing House path that began in the ranch’s garden. The murmur of low voices in the somber ranchhouse faded as the two women walked away from it, leaving the Head Thing to finish up its business.

As Isabel had risen to leave with Victoria, Diego had squeezed her hand and Isabel had kissed the top of his head. She had glanced quickly at the sorrowful faces of Hans and Yohanna, and had noticed that Yohanna had also a pensive look.

“You have lost a son as well, Victoria,” Isabel said at last, as they walked slowly along the path.

“Yes, Isabel, but I have been greatly blessed to love both Rhoda and Manuel; that is real, and always will be.” Victoria laughed softly amid the tears which had begun to fall as soon as they had come to the path. “How hard it was to hold back these tears in there! Well, Isabel, the affairs of state that are being settled by the Head Thing now, will remain settled for a long time.” They stopped walking as Isabel retrieved a handkerchief from her purse for Victoria. After Victoria had dried her eyes and they had begun walking again, Victoria asked, “Do you have one of those purses, too?”

“Yes. Rhoda gave it to me recently. Yohanna has one, too.”

“Affairs of state… My daughter has a reach like Ottilie Krüger had.”

“Do you think maybe Rhoda has not died?”

“She has passed beyond us. None of us have any sense of her presence—neither Yohanna nor I, nor Martin. Yet I cannot keep myself from hoping that we will be reunited before the Resurrection of the Dead.”

Isabel sighed.

“Are you still agnostic, Isabel?”

“I don’t know, Victoria, but I do know that I’m pregnant.”

Victoria stopped walking. She turned and grasped Isabel’s shoulders. Holding Isabel out before her, she looked intently into her face. Isabel recalled Victoria doing the same thing when they had first met. At that time Victoria had then turned her completely around like a schoolgirl receiving her morning inspection, and had asked Rhoda to cut a yellow rose, which Victoria had secured in Isabel’s hair.

Victoria hugged her now, shedding joyful tears and surprising Isabel with her shining face. “I’m so glad for you, Isabel! Does Diego’s family in Argentina know?”

“No. Only you and I know, Victoria. I know because when I left Reyna in the Commons, her Powers came with me. So this morning, when I was cleaning myself in Martha’s rooms, I scented my body’s pregnancy just as Reyna had scented Judith’s and Nanette’s pregnancies.”

“Did you learn about that from Reyna’s Living Memory?”

“Yes. Many Strands of it came with her Powers.”

A cloud came over Victoria’s glad countenance. “Do you walk with your Powers, Isabel? I know that Yohanna does.”

“I guess maybe I do. It hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Is Yohanna pregnant? You were sitting next to her this morning.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, you young people! Does she know that you know?”

“I don’t know that she herself knows.”

“Isabel, we must return to the Head Thing before it concludes. This is a matter of state: You and Diego must be made Heads of the Central and South American Guild.”

“We must?”

“Yes. The coincidence of your pregnancies tells me that the Foe’s confusion over the personal identity of the Clan’s Head must be continued, for the Clan’s security.”

“Oh. That may be so. Look, Victoria, Martha’s coming toward us in a hurry.”

Martha explained to them apologetically, “Ambrose says the two of you must return, because the Head Thing can’t conclude without the presence of all surviving members of the War Thing. I’m sorry. I share your sorrow deeply, and I know both of you need some private time.”

Victoria took her hand. “I know losing Rhoda causes you as much grief as it causes me, Martha. Well, Isabel and I were about to return on our own, anyway, because we have just now discovered that the Head Thing has unfinished business that it must attend to.”

Martha was startled by Victoria’s resolute tone. She is Rhoda’s mother!

~ 5 ~ “Vladimir Real Estate and Property Management”. The sign was being fastened to a chainlink fence surrounding the empty Knox Aviation hangar at the Ontario airfield. Eugene and Minnie, in Eugene’s car, watched the couple putting up the sign.

“Mother, that’s Leo Roberson. I’ve told you about him.”

“Yes, Eugene, I remember.”

Eugene heard the bitterness in Minnie’s voice. He had feared that she would have another breakdown (which he called a tantrum). Feeling relieved, he looked at her with a feeble, questioning smile.

“Marge Hemming is gone. Georg is gone. Your father is gone. I’ve never told you, Eugene, that Dwight—your father—was a jerk. But I loved him anyway.” Minnie laughed. “I haven’t told you this before, either, Eugene: When Giselle’s staff kidnapped me, they had to tie me to a chair for a day, because I was so frenzied with desire to get to the Keep.”

"Why, Mother?"

“Because I had knowingly begun taking the Elixir, Eugene.

“Oh. …Well, I followed Giselle out of the Keep without a struggle, but our exit to the parking lot took a week. I wonder if that balanced your day of struggle, Mother… Was that real?”

“Yes; it was real, Eugene. Although Giselle says the Elixir no longer works, while I was taking it I felt myself being called to some kind of erotic adventure—which did not happen, so I stopped taking the Elixir. Later, an impulse drove me to find Marge, who said she had been thinking that I would be the perfect person to take over Jen Su’s collection agency for the Arch Foundation. On the day when I had to be carried away from my office near the Keep, I had known that I would find at last, there in the Keep, the object of my desire.”

“Eugene, brief returns of that experience are what you have called my ‘tantrums’. But you, too, have experienced the call of the Elixir in your relationship with Miss Hemming; so you have some idea of my experience.”

Eugene blushed.

They had not noticed Leo walking toward the car while they were talking. Leo leaned down to Eugene’s open window, greeting him, and while Eugene and Minnie were getting out of the car, Antonia joined them. Antonia had been following Leo, and had left her realtor’s limousine near the fence. Eugene introduced Minnie, and Leo introduced Antonia, with somber and businesslike cordiality.

“Well, Mrs. Hemming,” said Antonia, “as the new head and majority owner of Hemming Chemical, you are now one of the people who might have an interest in this property. Would you like to tour it?”

“How is it that you know about my status?”

“Giselle has informed us.”

Eugene, understanding then that these people could explain things to him, blurted out, “The Circle’s section of the Keep is gone! It’s solid rock, like it never existed! I worked there with Herbert Schooner, and now all those people are gone! What’s happened, Leo?”

Minnie set her hand on Eugene’s shoulder. “Please, Eugene, let’s deal with one thing at a time. Mrs. Roberson, perhaps it is not entirely by accident that we have met you here. Are you familiar with all of the arrangements which Giselle Miller has made on our behalf regarding Hemming Chemical?”

“We are familiar with them in general, Mrs. Hemming, but not in detail. The sale or lease of this Knox Aviation property is independent of Giselle’s downsizing of Arch International Company. So, as far as Leo and I know, we have met you here by accident.”

Minnie saw the rear doors of Antonia’s automobile open. A man and a woman emerged, the woman carrying a fussing infant in her arms. Antonia smiled, walked over to them, and took the infant into her own arms, saying, “Thank you, Theresa Rose; I’ll nurse my sweet hungry baby in the car.”

The man took Theresa Rose’s arm. They turned to look at the empty hangar, and she said, “Oh, Alonzo, we’re going to miss Rhoda and Ricardo so much!” They walked slowly back to the automobile into which Antonia was settling with her baby.

Leo said to Minnie, “Even if you’re not in the market for a hangar, please come and take a look. It’s empty, so I can tell you there what I know about the situation you’ve both gotten out of, landing—more or less—on your feet.”

Eugene asked him, “Will I ever see Uncle Georg again?”

“Not in Earth’s Province, Eugene.”

~ 6 ~ “Dr. Scott?” The man had knocked politely enough, but Scott stared at him expressionlessly.

“I’m Eddie Kiander, Dr. Scott. I saw you around New City University a year or so ago, but I’m sure you don’t remember me. I’ve taken Alberto Mendoza’s place as editor of the New City University News.”

Scott relaxed. Recognizing Eddie Kiander as a name on his ‘society map’—which he had reviewed with Bridget on the night of the biologists’ party—he felt assured that Eddie was okay. He recalled that Bridget had thought that he might find Eddie interesting.

“Have a seat, Eddie. I’ve heard good things about you.”

Eddie smiled. He glanced out from Scott’s second-story office window and commented, “Nice office; nice view! Well, you’ve sure landed on your feet, sir!”

“Call me Scott. Why are you surprised?”

“You’re not up on the news about what’s happened at New City University?”

“I’ve left that place,” Scott stated flatly. “And I’ve kept my ears closed. Nobody has gotten in touch with me.”

“I guess I would have left, too, if I’d been in your place. Scott, I’ve learned how to decipher Alberto’s shorthand, and I’ve read his ‘Knox Aviation’ file. It’s so weird and scary that I’ve talked about it only with Arlo Ferguson. Almost all of the people Alberto was following have died or disappeared.”

“Het?”

“Chief among them are Dr. Het Kerrigan and Esther Rosen. When I told Arlo what I’d nosed out, he recommended that I let you know about it, and then burn Alberto’s notes.”

“So, Arlo’s still head of Natural Sciences?”

“He’s moved up. He’s head of the Institute for Ancient Arts and Relics.”

“What about Dr. Kane?”

“He’s gone missing along with Dr. Kerrigan.”

“I don’t want to know about Het. What’s the least you can tell me?”

“Investigation of the disappearance of Dr. Kerrigan and Miss Rosen was quashed by the military. I may be the only outsider who knows there was an investigation.”

“Thanks, Eddie. I’ve already forgotten what you told me.”

“I think I will burn that file. But, Scott, can you tell me in a few words what was going on behind what was in that file? Alberto said he couldn’t wrap his mind around the story, because it kept getting bigger.”

“They were all auditioning to play God, and close to getting the part. I think they were using my perplex theory as a smoke screen. She can do more than they can do with the help of my theory.”

“God’s a woman?”

“I exaggerated—a little. There’s a three-faced goddess involved. My “she” consists of Rhoda Knox, Yohanna Okubo and Isabel Tavares.”

“Shit. Scott, do you mean goddesses, like in Homer?”

“It’s as good an explanation as any.”

“How about a more scientific explanation, Scott. I did pass the poets’ physics class.”

“Okay. I can do that in a few words, too: Everything has a physical side and a psychic side, all the way down to atoms and electrons and that kind of stuff. It’s the psychic side that generates the physical side. She knows how to work with the psychic side and make things do weird stuff. I’ll give you one example that I learned about from a Russian colleague, by putting two and two together from what he told me. Her friends reworked some Soviet atomic bombs so that they’ll explode only on a test range—not where they’d kill people.”

“Wow! That’s got to unnerve the military!”