Chapter 2 — War Witch Rising
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 JUNE 2025.
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~ 1 ~ They rolled the dead beast over onto its back, and while Hank began to cut it open to search its entrails for body parts or personal objects which would identify the victim, Idiot pranced around, congratulating himself on his marksmanship. The fog pulsed in a constant thickening and dispersing rhythm, which only Froggy noticed. Hank was absorbed in his dissection, occasionally noticing—with disdain—Idiot’s behavior, but Froggy knew that something was about to happen.
Hank had succeeded in slitting open the animal’s entire underside, when the fog became so thick that he was forced to stop working—but not before he had found the victim’s head and had grasped it by the hair. Holding the crushed and lacerated object near to his eyes, he tried to identify it, but he was barely able to see it in the thick fog.
Idiot had stopped his prancing and had taken a seat in the beached skiff before the fog had grown so thick, wanting to watch Hank perform his smelly operation, and to be close to the weapons stored on board. Because the brooding apprehension felt by Froggy had settled on him, too, the weapons in the skiff were a comfort to him.
Hank was holding up the fog-enshrouded head of the victim, when the fog suddenly thinned. “Herbert!” he exclaimed. It was then that they all heard the garage door rolling open, and Hank and Idiot turned to look toward it. Froggy looked away, knowing what was happening.
Hank and Idiot saw a hideous apparition lurking in the garage doorway: the Left and Right Hands. Briefly frozen in fear of them, they did not see the woman in military attire standing to one side.
Hank had dropped the head.
Idiot lunged for a loaded semi-automatic rifle, spun around, and discharged from the weapon a volley which widely missed its mark because Idiot, in his horror, had fired it too soon.
The woman, standing with her feet planted solidly and holding a pistol steadily in her two hands, shot the Idiot dead.
“You,” she shouted to Hank, pointing the pistol at him, “pick up Herbert Schooner’s head and bring it to us!”
Froggy remained unmoving. Thersa save me! Thersa save me! With his back still turned to all of them, he stared resolutely up the length of Herbert’s Cut to the river. He heard Hank’s screams as the Left and Right Hands dragged him off, and he heard the garage door close behind them.
“Turn around, serf. You have work to do.”
Froggy turned around and looked at Gabrielle. She was wearing military-style skirt, blouse and jacket similar to those which she had worn in the heyday of Berlin. She had not dressed in that style then to accompany her husband, Commander Friedrich von Klopstock, for whom she must showcase her beauty. She had worn the outfit—which had looked very chic in its time—for meetings with the wives of other officers and ranking government officials. It had unnerved the other women.
It unnerved Froggy now, even more than the pistol in her hand, with which she was indicating the cut-open beast. “Search carefully for our dear Herbert’s effects,” she commanded. “I must see them.” Froggy squatted down, thrusting his hands into the gore, and began removing various torn-off body parts on which digestion had only just begun.
“He was nearly naked,” Gabrielle remarked. She stepped nearer. “Had he been swimming?”
“He was in the water, Lady. Here, I’ve found something.” Froggy lifted out by its cord, a pouch which was dripping with slime and which contained a ring—a Calling Beacon for the Comrade.
“Wash it in the river; then bring it to me.”
Froggy made his way cautiously into the water, holding onto the side of the skiff, while Gabrielle stood watching him, still gripping her pistol in both hands.
“Lady, this thing feels awfully strange,” Froggy remarked, returning with the cleaned object. “It’s making my hand tingle, and I’m getting short of breath. I don’t know…”
“Set it down on the bow of the boat and start looking for Herbert’s swim trunks.” Froggy went back to poking around in the belly of the beast.
Gabrielle reached out one hand and carefully picked up the pouch, at once experiencing the effects described by Froggy. She holstered her pistol and used both hands to feel the pouch’s contents through its exterior. After determining that it contained a ring, she opened the pouch slowly, being careful not to touch the ring, and saw that the ring and the inside of the pouch were clean. Strongly suspecting the nature of the Device, Gabrielle carefully tucked the ring, in its pouch, into her purse.
Froggy stood up. “I’ve found ‘em,” he said, noticing that the pouch was no longer in sight and that Gabrielle’s pistol was in its holster. Looking at Gabrielle herself, he saw a high overlord of the Circle. “Did Thersa send you?” he asked, before his brain was able to stop the question from escaping his mouth.
Gabrielle stared at him. She knew him as an underling, and she was nearly amused by his immediate expression of embarrassment. “Why did you ask that?” she asked him.
“Because I was under her protection. She told Cherokee—he told me—that he would have to pay blood gold to her if he killed me, as he wished. She’s always on my mind; I can’t help it.”
“What is your name?”
“Froggy.”
“Neither do I wish to pay her blood gold, Froggy.”
Gabrielle’s smile at him was Bauda’s evil smile, which Froggy had known long in the past. He cringed, standing there beside the crocodile’s body with Herbert’s tattered and bloody swim trunks in his hands.
“Did you serve Herbert?” Gabrielle asked.
“Yes, Lady. Me and Hank were his croc keepers, like I was for Cherokee before—for the devil croc Herbert made for Cherokee.”
“Devil croc? Explain, Froggy.”
“For the devil croc you gotta have a live one with its spike, and that’s what this one was.” Froggy kicked the bloody carcass. “Then, when he put this thing that was kinda like a croc skull over his head, he turned into a giant croc. I saw it happen, Lady, just today.”
“But this ‘spiked’ crocodile devoured Herbert. Did something go wrong?”
“I don’t know what. But when I heard that someone died and they didn’t know who, I guessed sure enough that it was Herbert here. I think maybe he was gonna kill somebody in the Big Pool and it backfired.”
“Where is the spike?"
“Maybe it fell out,” Froggy suggested. He was not surprised that the Lady seemed to understand.
In fact, Gabrielle had read about Herbert’s fabrication of the crocodile Anima for Godogisel, and her interest in that had sidetracked her from her real question: Who was it whom Herbert had wanted to kill? But if his attack had been foiled…
The garage door opened, and both of them looked toward it. Gabrielle raised a hand after seeing who was there, motioning them to wait. Then she asked Froggy if he had found anything in the swim trunks pockets.
“I feel keys, Lady.”
“Clean them and bring them to me.”
When she was holding the keys in her hand, Gabrielle asked, “What doors do these keys open?”
“One key opens Herbert’s apartment in the troops’ quarters; that’s all I know.”
“Who was Herbert trying to kill?”
“Someone in the bird-netting party; I don’t know who.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
After listening to Froggy’s description of the party’s members, Gabrielle believed them to have included Yohanna Okubo, Laura Payne and Leo Roberson. Then she turned her attention to Liubagilds and Eugene, who were waiting in the opened garage as a skiff with a few armed soldiers powered up to them. Retimer stepped from the skiff, where he talked for a while with Liubagilds.
~ 2 ~ Liubagilds and Froggy were squatting easily side-by-side on the nearly empty dock of the troops’ quarters, having acknowledged to each other that they were full brothers. The two of them—large-bodied Liubagilds with his giant-sized hands, and thin, stooped Froggy—sat with their bent knees jutting from their sides like those of a pair of odd frogs. They spoke softly, in bursts, between long intervals of silence. The skiff in which they had come from the dead crocodile’s location bobbed empty in front of them, while in the other skiff, Retimer’s two captains sat talking together in low and tense voices while awaiting orders.
Eugene’s bewilderment was growing as he paced back and forth on the dock, not wanting to enter the company of either party. Where is Herbert? What is going on? He was frightened, and he did not know where to turn as the evening passed into night and the large gibbous moon became bright.
A few hours earlier, all of the troops had been ferried across the river to Herbert’s Cut by a steady rotation of skiffs. From the lawn in front of the garage, Eugene had led each group of soldiers the short way to the Hands’ Camp on the path shown to him by Liubagilds. During that operation, Gabrielle had slipped away to meet and confer with the Left and Right Hands, while Liubagilds had remained in the camp, assigning the troops to various locations. After the troops had been settled, Liubagilds had left Eugene in the camp mess hall with a drink, which Eugene had not touched. The mess hall was stark, unadorned and musty. No one had told him what was going on. No one had even acknowledged Eugene’s presence. He wondered to where Gabrielle had gone. Now he thought of her as his protector.
Liubagilds, returning at last, had said, “Our mistress has need of us,” and upon their arrival at Herbert’s Cut, Eugene had seen the gore—crocodilian and human—on the shore, and had nearly vomited as they pushed into the water the skiff used by Hank, the Idiot and Froggy. While Gabrielle had crossed over in Retimer’s skiff, Eugene was given a place with Froggy and Liubagilds to reach the dock where Eugene was now pacing back and forth.
By only a few lights they saw the dock and the Dark River’s water flowing beyond it. The B&B was closed and dark, and the troops’ quarters were dark except for one lighted window behind Eugene and the two squatting men. Its light cast their shadows toward the moving river and revealed Captain Retimer sitting inside, staring silently at his own reflection in the window. Next to him, Gabrielle sat at a small table bearing a telephone, intently reading Herbert’s current Maker’s journal, which she had found in the apartment. Only after the two of them had entered Herbert’s apartment, had she told Retimer that it was Herbert Schooner’s remains which had been found in the crocodile. Earlier, Gabrielle had told Retimer and Eugene that the croc’s victim was nobody important.
At last Gabrielle closed the journal and looked up at her reflection next to Retimer’s. “All is not lost,” she said to the two reflections. She picked up the telephone, dialed, and spoke to an operator. After waiting for a while, she heard a voice answer, and smiled in relief. Fortune is with me. “Esther, this is Gabrielle speaking. I am at Quinceañera Beach, where I have just now learned that Herbert is dead.”
“Dead, Gabrielle? …My, my. Well, there goes Mr. King of the Clan and his generous offer to make me Queen of the Makers. I don’t suppose that you have a replacement for him waiting in the wings.”
Gabrielle was speechless. Retimer saw in her face the consternation which Esther was reading in Gabrielle’s moment of silence.
“Oh, well,” said Esther. “Gabrielle, I should fill you in—just between us girls—on what Herbert and Eugene have been up to. They were going to steal the Commons Crawler and meet Retimer in that nice little abandoned Gardenland at the Beach where you are now enjoying the nightlife. Then they were going to march with the troops over the Commons to the Wild Way and gather up Hector and company, with whom they would invade one of the Home Ranch Gardenlands—the one called Buttercup—and emerge in the middle of Home Ranch like Odysseus from out of the Trojan Horse. Then, the Masens’ Fifth Column within Home Ranch were to join the effort, and Herbert would be declared King of the Clan. I would descend from Heaven as its Queen, and we would overthrow the evil Knox-Okubo-Su empire. Would you have been jealous, dear, when Herbert had passed over you, for me? …I made up the part about descending from Heaven. Actually, I was supposed to ride shotgun on the Crawler.”
“Retimer! Ask Eugene if he knows how to operate the Commons Crawler,” Gabrielle commanded.
Esther, hearing that sound in Gabrielle’s voice, recalled a photograph which she had seen in Gabrielle’s apartment in the Stucco Palace. She had been startled then, to observe that Gabrielle was no older in appearance than she had been when that photograph had been taken of her sitting in an expensive restaurant with Hitler and two other Nazis.
Now I’m in charge. Esther asked, “Were you a Nazi, dear?”
Gabrielle snapped, “You are a Democrat; what is the difference? We always belong to the ruling party, or to the party which will rule.”
“Herbert was a side bet—not my party. I hope he wasn’t your party, Gabrielle. Let me make a personal confession: I’ve been following your reading of Herbert’s journals. I know you and I don’t go back very far in the history of the Circle, and I know you’re in Kane’s party. But I want to know: Are you in the secret party of Herbert’s pet god?”
This new question added to Gabrielle’s confusion. Retimer returned before she could reply, and his report confirmed Esther’s story.
“Esther, Eugene says that he and Herbert have had one practice session with the Commons Crawler, and that, with Herbert, he can operate it. He says that this Device requires a crew of two Makers and runs along a Beacon line, whatever that is. I have him waiting here outside the door. You have told the truth, Esther, about the Commons Crawler.” Gabrielle’s equilibrium had been restored, and she was thrilled by Esther’s disclosure.
Esther, guessing her state of mind, said, “When you have a moment, Gabrielle, ask Eugene if he speaks personally with the god Cleaver, which is the Clan’s name for the Friend’s second-in-command. Cleaver used to be known in the Circle as the Comrade, and Herbert once told me that the Comrade has a metallic-sounding female voice. I hope that helps. We girls have to work our way out of this fix together.”
“Did Herbert have a Calling Beacon for the Comrade?”
That Nazi bitch is smart. “Yes, Gabrielle, of course. It’s a ring carried in a pouch attached to a cord around his neck. Tell me now, how our Herbert died, and then tell me what you want me to do.”
“He was trying to kill someone at the Beach; they killed him.”
“A pity. So they have the body?”
“I have it, Esther.”
“Was he wearing his crocodile suit?“
Merde! This Jew bitch knows everything. “So I have been told.”
“Who is the somebody who killed him, Gabrielle?”
“I believe it is Yohanna Okubo.”
“So, she’s the witch who haunts their dreams.”
“Yes. Do you have the skill to activate the Soma, Esther?”
“Herbert has briefed me But, what’s in it for me if I do that for you?”
“What do you want?”
Your head on a platter. Esther lied, “With time and a better position, I might be able to revive Herbert’s scheme to control the Clan, but can you decapitate the Clan’s current headship?”
“After the Friend vests in the Soma, that will be the first order of business.”
“Really? I’m sure, Gabrielle, that I’ll need Eugene’s assistance with the Soma. It may take two Makers to work the vesting. I can’t trust Het.”
Gabrielle, noticing that Esther’s lack of trust in Het was a fact which she had unintentionally let slip, thought that Het might serve her better than would Eugene. She asked, “Esther, how long will it take you to prepare for the vestment?”
“How soon do we need to be ready?”
~ 3 ~ While the two women were working out a deal laced with lies, which neither of them intended to honor, Third and Second Masen were busy back in Ontario. The two brothers were surreptitiously pushing the Commons Crawler out of the Crawler’s Workshop, for Third had learned, with Herbert’s help, how to navigate it well enough, and he had a plan which he was about to execute.
~ 4~ Gabrielle, after ending her telephone conversation with Esther, asked Retimer, “Do you have a personal exit out of Quinceañera Beach?”
“Certainly. We can take a skiff up the river to a place where I have parked a Jeep. We can drive the Jeep the two miles to my ‘airfield’, which is the only straight run of jungle road anywhere around here. In the light plane waiting there, which has room for two passengers, I can fly us out of here.”
“That is good, Retimer, because you and I and Eugene need to leave soon for the Keep.”
“But the bomb sale is imminent; we cannot leave before it is completed.”
“Very well. Tell me, then: By whose authority have you agreed to have all of your troops mobilized for entering the Commons?”
“I have done so by Herbert’s authority. He has always spoken with the authority of the Friend, and this is a matter concerning the Wild Way, which he alone understands. Liubagilds had told me that the Left and Right Hands are willing to follow him. You have come here with Mortimer Kane’s authority, into a situation which has changed. If it had been otherwise, the Hands would have torn you to pieces.”
Gabrielle looked at him with increased interest. “Then there may be some wisdom in Herbert’s plan. Retimer, do you know the god who is called the Comrade?”
Retimer replied thoughtfully, “Yes. I do know of him. He is the god who negotiated with Thiuderieks for the Friend, concerning the Soma. Herbert told me this, after asking me if I know the Comrade.”
“When was that?”
“It was at the time when Liubagilds took me on as head of the guards at Swinthila’s temple, thousands of years ago.”
“Do you know the name by which the Clan speaks of the Comrade?”
“No, Mistress.”
Gabrielle felt the truth of Esther’s words: They were both new in the Circle. She had never thought that Retimer might have been at his post for ages. She reached into her purse and slowly pulled from it the Calling Beacon for the god Comrade.
“Retimer, do you recognize this?”
“It is a Device of some sort which Gesalec—Herbert—used to wear.”
“Did you know when you first met him that he is a Maker?”
“Oh, yes. Gesalec would appear at the temple every century or so and use his Calipers on the victims. Then he would go his way. He got on well with the Left and Right Hands, you know.”
“Yes; they told me. Retimer, with this ring Herbert communicated with the Comrade. The Comrade will speak with me now, or he will slay me.”
Retimer stepped back a pace while Gabrielle slid the ring onto her finger.
Comrade, Gesalec is dead. I am Gabrielle von Klopstock, Swinthila’s faithful servant.
“Truly dead? Ah, yes. I know of you, Gabrielle. Our Friend delighted in your company in Berlin.”
Gabrielle smiled at Retimer, a wave of nearly giddy relief sweeping over her. Retimer stared at her in awe.
I believe that he attempted to kill the Clan’s witch, Yohanna Okubo, but she foiled him, Comrade.
“Why would he do such a thing? Gesalec doubted the third god theory. Well, there are many evil chances in the world, are there not? Is the vestment of our Friend hindered by this circumstance?”
No. I have made the preparations for it to take place.
“So, are you a Maker, my dear?”
I have been Herbert’s secret apprentice since before Berlin.
“Yes. I see clearly that relationship between you and him. It was thoughtful of him to provide me with a successor to himself.”
I require your advice now, Comrade, on a matter which Herbert has left to me: He was preparing to invade Home Ranch by leading Retimer’s troops through the Commons. He has prepared a cadre of Masens who are related to those who are trapped in the Wild Way, to assist him in rescuing Hector Masen and his band. He planned to use Hector Masen as a temporary figurehead. Now we cannot soon carry out this plan.
“Gesalec’s adventure is not necessary to the vesting, Gabrielle. I have known of his scheming to control the Clan since the beginning of his service, and I have tolerated it. No one can keep secrets from gods.”
Is there any wisdom in mobilizing Retimer’s troops and the Left and Right Hands at the Gate made by Herbert, to the Gardenland?
“By what means was he planning to get to Home Ranch?”
Herbert was planning to steal a new Clan Device, called the Commons Crawler, for that purpose. The Clan has intended to use it to rescue Hector and his band from the Wild Way.
While Gabrielle was mind-speaking with the Comrade, a Strand of Herbert’s Living Memory beckoned to her. Guessing that it was not a trick of the god, she recalled it and learned at once the means by which to control the Calling Ring. She tested the means by touching the ring with her opposite hand to silence her mind-speech and then asking, Should we make plans to steal this Device? She received no response to this from the Comrade.
He said to her, “There is no wisdom in entering a Gardenland. Certainly there would be an ambush, for my lower Thanes are reporting to me, Gabrielle, that in your present time, Herbert’s Gate is being watched.”
Comrade, Mortimer Kane has not been informed yet of Herbert’s death.
“You may carry the news to him personally. I will inform my Liege Lord that he can expect you.”
Sensing that the audience had been ended, Gabrielle removed the Beacon Ring and placed it in its pouch. To Retimer she said, “It is the will of the gods that I return to the Keep and inform Swinthila of Herbert’s death. No troops should be sent into the Gardenland, for an ambush may await them.”
“I have felt that this might be the case,” said Retimer. “ With the exception of the old temple contingent, my men are not eager to enter the Commons.”
In Retimer there had been no doubt that Gabrielle was conversing with a god, because he had felt a crackling tension filling the room after she had slipped on the ring, and the tension had ceased upon her removal of the ring.
Gabrielle realized that Herbert Schooner had not revealed the death of Marge Hemming to either Retimer or Witteric. And with the sale of the atomic bombs being imminent, she must at once claim the position of Marge’s successor. She announced, “Captain Retimer, I must inform you now that Marge Hemming has been slain by the Clan witch.” As she spoke, Gabrielle recalled another Strand of Herbert’s memory: His killing of Marge Hemming! Her facial expression changed then, in a way which was unreadable to Retimer, as she said, “Her mantle has fallen on me.”
“Command me, my Mistress,” was Retimer’s response. “Now, I and Witteric are your servants.”
“Retimer, we must see to the success of tonight’s lucrative arms sale before we return to the Keep.” All of Marge Hemming’s wealth will be mine!
Liubagilds, sitting on the dock with Froggy, had sensed the personal presence of the god Comrade hovering in Herbert Schooner’s apartment nearby. “Brother,” he said, “the god is within, with whom Gesalec used to converse.” He inclined his head to indicate Herbert Schooner’s apartment. “If the Lady Gabrielle, who was sent by Mortimer Kane, opens that door and walks out alive, she will be our new Gesalec.”
“Brother? Liubagilds, I am not privy to your knowledge of the Hands and of the persons to whom they are truly beholden, such as Swinthila.”
“Kinthila, how long will you remain Froggy?”
~ 5 ~ After Gabrielle and Retimer had opened the door behind Liubagilds and Froggy, all of them heard gunfire, down-river toward the beach. They heard two explosions then, and more gunfire, followed by silence.
Retimer ran to the skiff where his two chiefs were waiting. To the man holding the radio unit he shouted, “Break radio silence! Contact the watch tower and find out what is happening!” To the other man he commanded, “Give me your binoculars.” Retimer surveyed the scene intently while listening to the radio man speaking to the watchtower. Gabrielle came up next to Retimer, and Eugene stood behind them, frightened.
Liubagilds and Froggy did not move from their places on the dock. They continued to speak together, seeming to be unconcerned—except that Liubagilds had turned his head far enough to keep his eyes on Gabrielle.
“Instruct Witteric to stand down the SAMs and the field radar immediately,” Retimer ordered. To Gabrielle he explained, “The transactions have been completed, but the Mexicans may have seized the bombs intended for the Chinese-Indian coalition. An American helicopter armada is nearly upon us, but they are coming late to the party. I assume that they are remote support for the Mexicans’ move, so we do not want to provoke gunfire from them. The Americans’ style is to make a big show of force at a crucial moment, and then to vanish, appearing to have had no hand in the matter. By dropping our defense, we will make their exit easier.”
Gabrielle took the binoculars from him and studied the scene. “How do you account for the burning vehicles near the beach?”
“My guess is that it is an internal Soviet affair.”
Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at him, then signaled to Liubagilds to join them. Froggy got into the skiff.
“Liubagilds,” said Retimer, “Tell my men to prepare for an imminent return to base. Order the old temple contingent to remain with the Hands. Do you agree, my Mistress, with the wisdom of these moves?”
Gabrielle nodded. She set her hand on Liubagilds’ shoulder and said, “I will go with you; Froggy can bring me back. I wish to speak with you about some matters of state.” Liubagilds bowed his large frame to her and returned to the skiff, telling Froggy to start the engine. Gabrielle glanced at Eugene before saying to Retimer, “Send one of your men with Eugene to arouse the women and the staff at the B&B. Tell them to turn on the lights and open the place for business so the Americans will think that your men are not on alert.”
Retimer nodded and Liubagilds said, “That is a good idea. I will send some of the men over there quickly in the two skiffs that are now beached in the cut, to give the brothel visible clientele.”
“I will return soon,” Gabrielle said to Retimer. With a wink at Eugene, she said, “Time is short,” and left them, springing lightly into Liubagilds' skiff. On their way across, she asked Liubagilds to explain to her the nature of the task performed by Gesalec in Swinthila’s temple. With Liubagilds’s answer, more Strands of Herbert’s Living Memory flowed into her mind to illustrate his words, so she soon understood the plan of the Wild Way.
Gabrielle’s skiff, piloted by Froggy, cleared Herbert’s Cut and entered the river. Gabrielle, seeing then the flight of American helicopters approaching Quinceañera Beach, ordered Froggy to move the skiff slowly. They saw green signal flares shoot into the air a mile inland. As the flares floated slowly down, the air flotilla of attack helicopters halted and hovered, and a single helicopter detached itself from the others and flew inland. Its two searchlights roamed the landscape like two fingers of a giant hand, feeling its way. They searched the ridge where she and Eugene had met Witteric and Sisebur, and in their light Gabrielle made out the figures of men moving about. The fires of the burning vehicles near the beach were dim and smoldering as the searchlights ran along the beach and up toward the dockside troops’ quarters, where she saw figures on the now-lighted area around the B&B. “Froggy, take us slowly toward the dock. Let the men on the helicopter finish getting their look before we arrive. You and Liubagilds know each other, do you not?”
“Yes, Mistress. He’s greatly changed, having taken a higher service than I’ve taken. We’re brothers from a princely family, and we’re the first to take service with the Friend.” Froggy had found the person who would believe him as he confessed his long-kept secret, and whose knowledge of the truth might profit him.
“And you are the younger brother?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What is your true name, Froggy?”
“Kinthila, Mistress.”
“Who else knows it?”
“Witteric knows, and I doubt that Thersa does not know; what doesn’t she know?”
“Kinthila, I am the last who has taken service with the Friend, and already the mantles of Godogisel, Bauda, and Gesalec have fallen upon my shoulders. I will become first in the Friend’s service, when I see that he is vested in his Soma.”
“So it’s truly about to happen? The Friend promised me that I would be the First Page in his Court. But then I was young, truly young.” Froggy rose and uncoiled himself into the full form of a man, then knelt before Gabrielle in the idling skiff. He asked, “Will you take my petition to the Friend, reminding him of his promise?”
“Certainly, Kinthila. Sit down now.” As he was sitting, Gabrielle quickly removed her military jacket and threw the powerful automatic weapons from the skiff into the water—just before a searchlight finger from the roving helicopter passed over their skiff and returned, locking on them. Gabrielle, squinting in the bright light, stood up in the skiff and waved at the menacing helicopter before blowing kisses with both hands into the beam. The light hovered on them for a moment. Then the helicopter wiggled back and forth, its searchlight beams were turned off, and it sped back to join the sky armanda which was beginning to fly away, back over the dark sea from which it had come.
~ 6 ~ Only the original temple guards remained in the camp of the Hands, where they were packed into the mess hall of Liubagilds’ jungle villa, eating and drinking. Liubagilds had called on his staff to feed the troops; then he had left them to their meal. The relatively younger peers of the temple guards had been ferried back over the river to their quarters, and they had joined in the partying in the B&B which spilled out onto the docks.
The crocodile, on a downstream beach, had completed his meal of Capricia and had slipped contentedly back into the water.
From the head of Herbert’s Cut, Liubagilds watched his brother Kinthila guiding the skiff upstream, carrying Retimer, Gabrielle and Edward to Retimer’s private airplane for their flight out.
From the Cut, Liubagilds hiked to place of the Left and Right Hands, which was a rusty metal teepee-shaped structure. From the orifice at the top of the structure flowed the guarding fog, which clung, with its sickening odor, to the teepee’s sides and filled the pit in which it sat. While the look and smell of the metal structure suggested that it must be the camp’s slow-burning incinerator, the Hands inside were saying to Liubagilds, “Come back to us with your brother Kinthila. We must prepare for a visitor who will lead us all to the great gathering of the Circle.” They cackled with delight, and added, “Do not look to see Gesalec’s garage.”
Liubagilds returned to the Cut to wait for Froggy’s return, and saw that the garage had been consumed by Refining Fire—the sign of which he knew well. He was thinking about the sense which he had experienced, of the Friend being near enough to speak to him. He knew that the Friend had been speaking to the Left and Right Hands; their cackling must have been caused by the Friend pleasing them by promising them new action.
Waiting on the lawn between Herbert’s Cut and the cubical cornerstone, Liubagilds saw Froggy coming down the Cut alone in the skiff, and waded out to greet him. He grasped the side of the skiff and said, “You have been promoted, Kinthila my brother. You will serve the Left and Right Hands with me. Consider this to be your promised court service with the Friend.”
“But what will happen if I just turn around and join the party on the docks?”
“I would have to kill you, my brother. Kinship does not trump rule.”
Froggy climbed out of the skiff, which Liubagilds then left drifting in the Cut. “I really do not trust that woman Gabrielle,” he said. “Call me Froggy, brother, not Kinthila. What happened to the garage?”
Froggy was looking at the parched earth where the garage had stood, when a sudden green glow cast the brothers’ shadows, for a second, against the side of the cornerstone. Froggy and Liubagilds turned to look at the sizzling green light nearby on the water, and after it had faded, they saw that the skiff was gone.
Liubagilds said, “It is a good thing that you were not aboard, Froggy. We are burning our bridges.”
The brothers Liubagilds and Kinthila descended into the pit filled with guarding fog, Liubagilds informing Froggy that the hideous claw-hands of the Hands would feel his body all over, but gently. “The Friend has told them, after ages of not speaking to them, that you are his new Page. He is very near to us now. Ah; here is the entrance. It moves about constantly.”
Froggy kept himself very near to his brother, being unable to see much at all in the dense, eye-stinging guarding fog to which Liubagilds was accustomed.
Suddenly he was standing with Liubagilds before the Left and Right Hands, who were saying in unison, “Our new Page, Kinthila,” as they approached him. Liubagilds moved several paces away from him, to a place near the two chairs which had been vacated by the Hands. The back of each chair was shaped in two curves meeting in a point at the top. The Hands frequently sat in them, rigid as statues, for days and weeks on end. Gesalec had explained to Liubagilds that at those times, only their essential presences were in the chairs, while their personal presences roamed as Denizens in and around the Wild Way, which was the Friend’s most secret and private road.
After the Hands had conducted their tactile inspection of Kinthila’s body, muttering in unison, “Kinthila, Kinthila, …,” many times, with varying intonations, they resumed their pointed-back chairs. “Now, Liubagilds,” they said, “retrieve the robe of greeting and give the honor to Page Kinthila—with whom we are pleased—of carrying it to our old Master. You will meet him in the usual place.”
Page Kinthila looked up and saw the robe high above his head. Liubagilds was beginning to lower it using the rope and pulley system which suspended the robe just below the orifice of the teepee. Kinthila saw then that the robe was the source of the guarding fog, and as Liubagilds lowered it, its smoldering ceased. After the robe had been draped over his arms, Kinthila looked more closely at it and saw that its fabric was an odd patchwork of small pieces of something like blackened leather. For the second time that day, he sensed the virtue of a Maker’s Device, and he felt himself to be, at last, Page Kinthila in the court of the Friend. Will my protection by Thersa wane?
The robe of greeting had been recast from the tectonic canopy over Witteric’s workbench, which had been fabricated from martens by Witteric and Ingundis the Fair.
After Gesalec had found the canopy in Swinthila’s temple, Swinthila had told him that he might have it—whatever it was—if he wished. Gesalec had recast it into a protective robe for himself, and had discovered that the Hands were more docilely obedient to his instructions when he was wearing it. For this reason he had thought that, at one time, the Hands had been assistants to a primitive Maker whose work had deprived them of their memories. In truth, they had not lost their memories, but they had now lost Gesalec, who—for all of his craft—had never known that the robe was the precursor of the Wild Way.
“Brother, who is the Master?”
“Well, Froggy, ‘Master’ used to mean either Swinthila or Gesalec, but the crocodile has taken Gesalec. To my knowledge, Swinthila—who is now called Mortimer Kane—is not at the Beach. If the Hands tell us that we are to go and meet the Master, we will do so. They are not to be crossed. We will soon see who is the Master of whom they speak. The meeting place is down the road from the place where supplies for our camp are regularly left for us.”
They walked for some time in silence through the swampy forest, which thinned as they approached its edge. Soon, after they had begun to hear the distant sound of waves against the shore, Liubagilds brought them to a halt. “For hundreds of years, Kinthila, the robe of greeting has produced a vast guarding fog to greet Swinthila—and, recently, Gesalec—on their visits. Wait here while I scout out the situation.”
