Chapter 7 — Crash of the Commons Crawler

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~ 1 ~ The insistent ringing would stop soonest if Howard answered the telephone himself, his room being the one nearest to the telephone in the Guild’s residence hall, where many of the Commons Crawler’s fabrication team were staying. He staggered out and snatched up the receiver, telling himself not to be surly, even though it was the middle of the night; the caller might not be a misdialing drunk. He glanced down the hall and saw that several rooms’ doors were open, the occupants peering out at him.

The caller was Master Benjamin, who had gone to Home Ranch, expecting to be there for a week. A number of the Crawler team members had also returned temporarily to their families there. The Commons Crawler was essentially complete, so Benjamin was seeking approval from the Makers’ Thing for the attempt to rescue Hector and the other Delvers marooned in the Wild Way. After giving their approval, the War Thing would review the rescue plan and modify it if necessary to coordinate it with the secret activity of the War Thing’s members. Clan people at the Ranch, with their attention focused on the rescue, were unaware that events in which the War Thing was engaged were rapidly coming to a head.

The very serious conversation between Benjamin and Howard took place while another very serious conversation was being carried on between Gabrielle, in Herbert Schooner’s quarters, and Esther, who was in the Keep.

All of the others in the residence hall had come out into the hallway to listen to Howard’s end of the conversation, the tension in his voice having communicated the existence of a grave situation.

“Hold it, Benjamin.” Howard nearly shouted to those in the hall, “Where are Second and Third Masen?”

One of them ran to the Masen brothers’ room and at once reported their absence.

Only at the last minute had Third revealed to Second that he had come into possession of Hector’s navigation Calipers. Third was confident that he, knowing something now about operating the Commons Crawler, would be able to guide it to Hector and the other marooned Delvers without following Herbert’s plan.

Late at night, no other person was in the Commons Crawler’s Workshop when the two brothers had stealthily rolled the Crawler into the Mellowing Anchor Workshop and up to the Entrance to its Inner Sanctum.

The Commons Crawler was designed for its pilot to occupy the rear seat and its navigator to occupy the front seat. The two seats were similarly equipped, because the Crawler turned around by reversing direction, its operators in the two seats simply switching roles.

On several nights, Second and Third had helped Herbert and Eugene slip into the Crawler’s Workspace, where they had secretly tested the Crawler. Herbert had fabricated two pairs of navigational Calipers which he and Eugene had used successfully on the Crawler’s practice track, and Herbert had been satisfied that his Calipers worked with the Crawler’s navigation Devices. He had explained, “We will be homing on Hector’s Beacon, which he has placed in the Wild Way. After Hector and his crew have boarded the Crawler, we will proceed to the Beacon that you, Second, have set in the Quinceañera Beach Gardenlands. There, we can rendezvous with the free Makers.”

Because they would have to pass secretly through the Back Gate of a Workshop, to enter the Commons, Herbert had told them that they must roll the Crawler into his Workshop, in which he and his assistants—Esther Rosen and Het Kerrigan—were fabricating the Miner, which was a commercial Device. Then Second and Third and their band of Hector loyalists would roll the Crawler out into the Commons from Herbert’s Workshop’s Back Gate.

Benjamin’s stay at Home Ranch, securing final authorization for the rescue, allowed the conspirators about a week within which to commandeer the Commons Crawler and rescue Hector in their own way.

After the Crawler had been rolled easily into the Mellowing Anchor Workshop, Second grew very worried about the risk of discovery. His brother said, “Second, don’t fret. I just want to find out if I can see the way through Rodger’s Inner Sanctum here. Rodger has given me leave to use this Workshop, so—like I told you—if Hector’s Calipers work with the Crawler’s navigational system, I should be able to see clear through Rodger’s Inner Sanctum to Hector’s Beacon. Herbert will be really pleased to know about it, especially if his Calipers don’t work as well as Hector’s.”

“Yes. You’ve told me. I understand. But I’m still worried that the hangar’s watch will catch us at it and put an end to our whole operation.”

“Second, it will take only five minutes to roll the Crawler back to its place, and the watchmen aren’t due for an hour yet. They haven’t even arrived at the hangar. I’ve learned their schedule from Rodger.”

“But if we’re caught with the Crawler here where we moved it for your experiment, everything will be ruined.”

“It will take me only a few minutes to see if Hector’s navigational Calipers integrate with the Crawler’s built-in navigational system. Now, just hold onto the rear of the Crawler and roll it back and forth a few times.”

Third climbed boldly into the end of the Crawler facing the Inner Sanctum’s entrance, which Second was unable to see.

Second asked, “Why do you want me to roll it back and forth?”

Third, opening the Calipers case which he had brought from Hector’s locker, replied, “Because I’m going to extend the Crawler’s antennae through the entrance to the Inner Sanctum here, so when you roll the Crawler forward a foot, the navigational system will be activated. Wearing these Calipers, I’ll be able to tell if it works, so that I’ll see the Beacon.” Standing in the open Crawler, Third finished donning Hector’s navigational Calipers.

The Commons Crawler was a lifeboat on wheels. It looked much like an enlarged Wheeled Dinghy—especially in its sharp-edged wooden wheels—and it was designed to expand in size for passengers climbing aboard. Its two operator’s seats were glass-enclosed. With the Crawler’s front and rear antennae retracted, the two men had experienced no difficulty in rolling it to its current location, because the machine felt nearly weightless when they pushed it. “Okay,” said Third, “I’m going to sit in the front and extend the front antennae a little way though the Inner Sanctum’s entrance. I know you can’t see the entrance, Second, but it’s there. The back antennae will extend as far as the front ones do, so make sure you’re exactly between their portals to avoid being run into. After you’ve seen them extend, push the Crawler slowly about a foot forward, to activate the navigational systems. Count to ten slowly, then pull the Crawler back. Can you do that?”

“Of course, stupid. Is that all?”

“That’s all we need to do in order for me to find out if I can see anything.”

“How did you learn this technique, Third?”

“It’s what Herbert plans to do with the Crawler in his Workshop, to test his navigational Calipers. He told me, ‘If I can’t see anything in five seconds, then we’ll have to figure out quickly how to get hold of Benjamin’s Calipers.’”

In that case, Second realized, they might need to use violence. Was he ready for that? “I sure hope you’ll see the way to Hector’s Beacon, Third.” Second’s new fear was greater than his fear of discovery.

“Right. I’m getting into the seat now. When the antennae come out, Second, remember to push the Crawler a foot, then count to ten and pull it back.”

The antennae did not extend slowly. They popped out instantly to their full extension, writhing for a moment then, like snakes. Third was shouting something when the antennae wrapped around Second and dragged him, screaming, after the moving Crawler.

Howard rushed into the Workshop, along with Second’s following among the Crawler’s Makers, just in time to hear Second’s scream and see him vanish with the Commons Crawler into the Inner Sanctum.

~ 2 ~ “Frankly, folks, there’s no certainty that any of us will see each other again, so let’s say our farewells before we go to our stations.” Leo was speaking to David and Evelyn, Walter and Praskovya, Yohanna, Hans and Everett.

Earlier in the day, Herbert Schooner, in the crocodile Anima, had been slain by Hans, who knew that the Anima had now passed far from the present moment. That’s for later—much later, I fear. The transfer of the atomic bombs was imminent.

Walter and Praskovya slipped away at once to the transfer site on the beach, where Praskovya readied the two antitank rocket launchers which Leo had stashed in a beach locker. Walter hiked slowly, in the moonlight, along the abandoned road where Leo thought it likely that an attempt would be made to seize the two Soviet bombs—A fuse capable of starting World War Three. Walter walked for several minutes, listening, before returning to Praskovya. She handed an automatic rifle to him, and they waited in silence. At last they heard a distant sound of slowly approaching vehicles.

To Yohanna, Hans, and Everett, Leo said, “I’m free now to tell you all that Diego and I were once taken by Ricardo on an expedition through the Commons to Thiuderieks’s Garth. Diego and I both have had nightmares about it ever since. That’s your turf tonight. I’ll take my chances with live fire on the beach. If we meet again, the drinks are on me.”

Breaking up the embrace between David and Evelyn, Leo said, “Time’s up, kids. David, you and I have to start up the front-loader. Evelyn, it’s time for you to be Laura Payne again and help keep the resort’s guests off the beach tonight, as we’ve planned. Keep an eye on the American spies, and if they make some kind of move, let Witteric know.”

After Leo and David had left, Hans said, “Yohanna, please lead us with your staff toward the Gate of Swinthila’s temple; Everett, you follow Yohanna, and I’ll bring up the rear with my flock of Minotaur birds.” They bound themselves together with Commons Cord.

Yohanna soon perceived that the main body of Retimer’s temple guard had not entered the Gardenland; they were making their way through the Commons. She said, “Hans, the Circle’s troops are not invading the Clan’s home territory! Their plans must have changed with Herbert Schooner’s death.” She felt that the troops were marching toward Thiuderieks’s Garth.

Glancing back for a moment, Yohanna smiled at Hans in his Anima guidance helmet. The helmet was fashioned from Winfred Wahl’s old leather aviator’s helmet and a pair of Sarxx goggles like the pair used by Rhoda. Rhoda had helped Hans to fabricate the helmet. He had said that with it, he was able to see all of the shorebird Animas at once, and the location to which he was guiding each one.

He looks a little silly to me, but I will not tell him so. …I think that he has not heard me, which may be just as well, as he might balk at following the Circle’s troops into the Commons.

Yohanna was leading them on their Commons Cord, between Hans on her left and Everett on her right. Returning her attention to studying the knot of Retimer’s troops ahead of them, she saw that the Commons’ Exscape had changed: It had become much more desert-like, and some of Hans's Minotaur flock had become enormous in size and were striding beside the troops, remaining as light on their feet as the little birds on the shore in Earth’s Province. The “desert” through which they were walking was like an endless sandy beach—which she kicked with her sandaled foot and felt its moistness on her toes. Had the Minotaur flock brought its own habitat with it? Recalling the result of letting her attention drift, on her first trek with Rhoda to Thiuderieks’s Garth—upon which she had discovered that she was walking on the backs of thousands of beetles—she refocused on the temple guards whom she was following. It was as Ricardo had said: She knew them by their absence from her Burden of Shades. The beach sand was moving with them.

The desert of wet beach sand was following and closing in on the temple guards like a living carpet. The last man in the line of temple guards looked back in their direction, and Yohanna saw that he was not looking at her or her two companions at all. So she knew that they were invisible, or just a speck in the landscape, to the temple guards. Because she recognized the man’s face as that of Captain Retimer, Yohanna wondered who was leading the guards. She looked along the line of them in order to find out, and found it hard work simply to move her eyes from one pair of marching men to the next. And her staff was growing heavier and heavier…

I have misled us! Our business is not with this band of men! Yohanna halted, and the carpet of beach sand fell away from the temple guard, who now appeared to be a great distance away. She looked around to gain her bearings, and saw, on a ridge above them—also at a great distance—a familiar landmark: Rhoda’s land-ship Workshop! Slowly, she looked away from it over the horizon, and saw the distant crater-like form of the Bleak Berm. Rising from it she heard now the dreadful cacophony of evil sounds. We do not have the legions of Powers to protect us, which Rhoda had mustered on the day on which she took me there.

The Bleak Berm had been beyond them, in the direction in which they had been following the band of the temple guard, when Yohanna had paused to gaze at Rhoda’s land-ship Workshop. As she turned back to look at it, she saw that the Bleak Berm, surrounded by the Grassy Steppes, was now off to their side, as if the ground of the Commons had rotated ninety degrees. This place! Trying, then, to communicate with Rhoda, Yohanna experienced no sense of her presence. Just when I need her advice!

Hans and Everett were unaware of their location. The two men knew only that they were following Yohanna on the line of Commons Cord, and that she was now standing still. They, too, halted, and the giant shorebirds milled around them on an island of beach sand.

Hans had been growing accustomed to operating his flock, in the real world, he thought ironically, looking around the Commons. This is not a Gardenland.

~ 3 ~ Everett shouted suddenly, “Look! The Commons Crawler! It’s coming right at us, with all of the Delvers on it! I see Hector! What is it doing here?”

Yohanna, too, saw the Crawler. It was careening wildly, but it was not coming toward them.

Hans saw the Commons Crawler rolling straight toward the Bleak Berm. “We’ve got to stop it,” he stated adamantly, “to keep them from running into the troops!”

“Everett, are you still seeing the Crawler coming toward us?”

“Yes, Yohanna. Of course.”

“Hans, is the Crawler going toward the temple guard?”

“That’s what I’m seeing.”

“Both of you, follow me!” Yohanna tugged hard on the Commons Cord. “Our Cord’s time is beginning to fall apart,” she said, pulling the two men in the direction in which she saw the Crawler heading. Hans and Everett, seeing now as Yohanna saw, each felt like a driver whose car has just missed a fatal collision. “What happened?” they asked in unison. Then Everett recalled, “I’ve been taught that time, in the Commons, is determined first by your purpose for being in the Commons; now I’ve experienced that.”

“Ja. That is so,” agreed Hans. “Now I, too, know it first-hand. That’s what you had realized, isn’t it, Yohanna?”

“Yes, Hans. We had followed the temple guard with the intention of defending the Gardenlands of the Clan from invasion. I think that, because of Herbert Schooner’s death, invasion of the Gardenlands is not now their plan, so our purpose in following them was lost and we were wavering.”

“The Foe has lost a general?” asked Everett.

“Yes, that is one way to express it.” Yohanna’s focus remained on the Commons Crawler. “I think that ‘General Schooner’ and his personal troops will not play the part which we had expected. Our business is now with the Commons Crawler.”

The three of them sensed now that the Crawler was moving toward the road behind them, along which they had followed the temple guard. Yohanna noticed then that there was a deep ditch—almost a ravine—along the side of the road. She glanced in the direction of Rhoda’s land ship, and saw instead—in a flash of lightning—the suddenly-near Commons Crawler plunging into the ravine, crashing over onto its side and spilling out its occupants. It rolled slowly to a final upside-down position, its wheels spinning wildly—looking to Yohanna like a beetle on its back, its legs flailing uselessly and its antennae writhing. She was reminded of her Wheeled Dingy ride with Rhoda on the causeway over the Darkling Deeps.

“Hans! Send your flock to surround the Crawler! There are two Denizen Shades among the people down there!”

Hans had done so already. “I can see the Crawler though my birds’ eyes,” he announced, glowing with a Maker’s satisfaction. “This Device is working well. Rather, I’m working well with it now.”

Yohanna looked at Hans and saw that he was looking at the crashed Crawler as though it were a hundred yards down the road. Everett was peering at it in the same way, while Yohanna saw the distance as less that a dozen feet. The two Shade Denizens were climbing out of the ravine toward her, but she felt certain that they did not see her. She heard one saying, “Well, Third, that was a little rough at first, but we got control of it after I was thrashed around by those damned antennae.”

“Control? Stupid! It’s upside-down in the ditch. But that’s nothing; we can fix it. Herbert’s got to be around here somewhere. We hit your Beacon in the ditch; that’s not where you said you left it.

“Herbert said the free Makers have a fortress.”

“I see it! Look!” Denizen Third pointed down the road.

“Third! The seeing-Elixir that Herbert gave us works!”

“Where are we?” Jason, the Maker who had once intended to drag Lucia with him into Hector’s Workshop in the Delvers’ Hold, had followed the Masens out of the ravine. “You two jerks took us on a fine ride. I think we’re still in the Commons; we’re not in your fancy beach resort.” Jason was nearly twice the age of his apprentice Third, and he did not like Third’s attitude. Jason had been an accomplice of Hector’s for many years, and Hector’s praise for Third—upon the Commons Crawler’s sudden appearance among the marooned Delvers—had kindled Jason’s jealousy. Second had been obsequious to him and to Hector; it was clear to Jason that he was no threat. But Third was cunning like himself. Young as he was, he would soon be Hectors’s master.

Second took Jason’s arm and pointed down the road. “Master Jason, what do you see?”

“It looks like a mountain in the mist.”

Second and Third clearly saw the Ziggurat.

Yohanna, too—standing invisibly in their midst—saw the Ziggurat. Suddenly, she was with Hans and Everett, seeing from some distance the party of Delvers beginning to emerge from the ravine and cluster around the wicked three in whose company she had been, an instant before. Gripping her staff more tightly, she said to it, “I have Rhoda’s power to move around in this place, have I not, my staff?”

“It is so, sweet sister.”

Rhoda’s voice spoke to Yohanna then: “Farewell. You are on your own now, Mistress of the Bleak Berm.”

“Did I hear Rhoda just now?” Hans was looking all around them.

Yohanna closed her eyes. Tears poured from beneath their dark lashes. “You have heard her, Hans—for the last time.”

Everett nodded solemnly. “I heard her, too.”

Hans deployed his Minotaur flock on an approach to the site of the Crawler crash, seeing through them the three men who had first crawled out of the crash site in the ravine. Everett, too, saw them, and he identified Second, Third and Jason to Hans and Yohanna.

Hans said, “Now, Yohanna, those three are aware of my flock, and some of my birds are descending into the ravine to the site of the crash.”

“Is the Crawler upside-down, Hans, with its wheels spinning and vibrating?”

“Yes; how do you know?”

“My personal presence has just now returned from being invisibly among them. That is the reason for which I was talking to my staff.”

Everett stared at her in wonder. “Yohanna! You are, then, Head of the War Thing!”

Hans pushed up his goggles and stared at his Yohanna, who cried, “Hans! Replace your goggles! Your flock is scattering!”

Yohanna replied, “Well, Everett, I am in charge of the Clan—at least down here.” She secretly feared that his statement was, in fact, entirely correct.

Hans asked, “How did my flock scatter so quickly?”

“Dear Hans, all kinds of times are mingled down here, and we are losing our focus again. …You and Everett must look down the road along which the temple guard has passed, searching with all of your attention until you see it.”

Hans asked, “It? …Mein Gott! It’s a Ziggurat!’

“The Ziggurat?” asked Everett.

Yohanna exhaled in relief. “It is very good that all of us are seeing it, for that means we three are all together in the same time. You should recall your scattered flock, Hans. We must regroup.”

”Yes,” agreed Hans.

Soon, moist beach sand began to reappear in nearby patches and under the feet of the giant birds striding toward them. The landscape itself began to change, and the Delvers around the upturned Commons Crawler receded from their view.

Yohanna found herself, with Hans and Everett, on a high mound encircled by Hans’s Minotaur flock. From between the birds’ tall legs, she surveyed the scene of the crashed Crawler below them. “Everett,” she said, “I am sorry to tell you that Second and Third Masen have become Shade Denizens. All of the other Delvers are living humans. I learned this while my personal presence was with them.”

“Are you saying that they have become Shades and they have died?”

“Yes. I heard them say that they had received the Elixir from the hand of Herbert Schooner—a final bitter fruit which he has planted.”

Hans asked, “If they are dead, how did the Crawler get to the marooned Delvers? Only Benjamin and Howard can operate it.”

Everett frowned. “Maybe Second and Third died in the act of stealing it.”

Yohanna stared at the now more-distant crash scene. “I heard them say that they had crashed into a Beacon made by Third and placed by Second at Quinceañera Beach.” From their position on the high mound, she saw the upside- down Crawler in the ravine, its wheels still spinning and vibrating as Delvers milled around it. “I sense the Beacon on which the Crawler is lying, and I recall now that I was sensing it subliminally during all of our time of following the temple guards.”

“So, it was carried from Quinceañera Beach,” said Hans. “Yohanna, will you bestow on me your Living Memory of following the Beacon?”

Yohanna was startled by Hans’s strange request. Everett stared at them. Yohanna lowered her eyes for a moment, having sensed something new in Hans: He possessed an iron will like Ricardo’s, but deeply hidden. Have you just now discovered yourself, my dear Hans? “Yes, Hans, I will. Please allow me a moment for recalling it fully.”

Hans pondered her Strand of Living Memory. The Secret which Ricardo has entrusted to me is at play! Witteric has handled the Beacon. Yohanna watched intently as Hans looked back along the road on which they had followed the temple guard. She was struck by a sense that Hans was searching the Commons in the manner in which Rhoda had searched before they had begun their descent from her land-ship Workshop, crossing the Grassy Steppes to the Bleak Berm. Ricardo has made you a Keen Maker, my Hans.

Hans abruptly pulled his goggles down over his eyes, and at once, most of his flock quickly descended the slope to the road and sprang over the ravine, flapping their wings. They stalked along slowly toward the Delvers, pecking their way along the edge of the road, which became moist beach sand under the feet of the giant shorebirds. The Delvers appeared to be attempting to right the Crawler while the beach sand was spreading into the ravine, and they seemed to notice the giant birds only as the sand extended to their feet. They paused, watching the birds hovering only a few bird-strides away, then returned to their work, knowing that the Commons were full of odd Denizens.

Hans’s arms and hands were a blur of constant motion as he operated his Anima with its many bird-Arms. Yohanna placed her hand lightly on his shoulder, and found herself seeing and hearing the scene around the Delvers through Hans and his birds. “I am seeing the things which you are seeing now, Hans,” she whispered.

Third and the several Delvers who were the best Makers in the crew, were trying to extract one of the antennae from under the Crawler, while dodging the spinning wheels. Yohanna saw Calipers and various other Makers’ equipment scattered about, which had fallen from the toppled Crawler. Third and his helpers were all using Calipers in an attempt to get a rope around a loop of one of the antennae which ran back under the Crawler. It seemed to Yohanna that the spinning wheels were fighting their attempt, preventing them from making much progress. Their curses filled her ears.

She turned her attention to the Delvers gathered on the rough road where the beach sand had spread under their feet and they had become aware of the giant birds stalking about like Denizens of the Commons. Some of these Delvers were looking down into the ravine and shouting useless advice to those who were wrangling with the Crawler. Hector was sitting on the edge of the road, with his feet over the edge of the ravine and the sand spreading under him. He turned his dispirited attention from the attempt below, to a group of Delvers talking with Second and Jason, who were standing near him. Yohanna sensed Hector’s dislike of Second’s communication.

Second was saying, “This is the secret way that Third and I recovered from our wounds right before your eyes, when the Crawler stopped among you.” He held up a small vial for them to see. Then he passed it to Jason. “Take only one drop, Jason. That’s all it took for Third and me to recover from what those booby traps did to us, that Benjamin set for us in our Crawler. The only cost for the Elixir’s protection is a term of service to the Keeper of the Wild Way, whom Herbert told us we would meet in the Commons once we had the Crawler. The Keeper of the Wild Way is an ally of all free Makers.”

“Hans, stop them!” cried Yohanna. “That is the Foe’s Elixir which they are attempting to give to our Delvers!”

Hans nodded. He had been observing through all of his shorebirds’ eyes, with his attention focused on the Crawler and the Beacon under it. Jason had taken a drop of Elixir and had passed the vial to the woman Maker who had once called Lucia a witch. She had swallowed a drop, and she was holding out the vial to pass it on when a long, curved beak knocked it from her hand and snapped it up from the moist beach sand where it had fallen. As the giant bird strode away with the vial, Jason, Second and the woman dashed after it.

After the beaks of other giant shorebirds had knocked down the three pursuers, the giant birds formed a line across the road and into the ravine. The fallen three picked themselves up as Third and his crew climbed out of the ravine looking for the cause of the commotion. Second ran to Third, explaining.

“So, there are four of us now.” Third looked around at the situation. Hector stood up and said loudly, “Makers, gather to me, not to my nephews! You have been unwise to follow me, but now I know that it will be greater folly for you to follow their counsels.”

Third turned and glared at him.

As tensions were building among the Delvers, a number of the birds leaped, with a few wingbeats, into the ravine. They stalked around the Crawler, their heads level with the road above, and the sand beneath their feet thickened until it had covered the Crawler up to its spinning wheels.

Third watched from above, holding his Calipers in his hand and muttering, “Damn those idiot birds! Whose pets are they?”

A breeze blew toward them on the road, carrying the Foes’s perfumed scent, and someone muttered, “What is that stench?” Jason and the woman breathed it in with delight, and Jason shouted, “Follow me! The Keeper of the Wild Way calls!” He and the woman sprinted toward the source of the scent, tearing off their clothes and rolling over each other in the haste caused by their wild lust. Dumbfounded, the others stared after the naked man and woman receding from sight down the road.

“Let’s follow!” cried Second, but he and Third turned away and looked out over the Grassy Steppes, their backs to the others, to the Crawler in the ravine, and (without knowing it) to Yohanna, who was watching them intently. Hearing Third say, in a mechanical-sounding voice, “I hear you, Friend; I am searching for them,” Yohanna shivered apprehensively.

Hans was mobilizing his giant shorebirds, intending to surround the remaining band of Delvers and herd them up the slope to the place where the three of them were standing. One giant bird came striding up the mound toward them, leaving a path of moist beach sand behind it for the others to follow.

Hans said, “Everett, you’re well known to the Delvers. The Crawler is no longer functional, but you can ride down to them—on the Anima that’s coming up to us now—to try to persuade the Delvers to join us. Hold onto the bird’s neck.”

“Is carrying people on its back in that thing’s Design, Hans?”

“It doesn’t contradict the Design. Everett, I can’t ride on one of them and control the Animas at the same time. So please trust me that this will work for you, because gathered together, we’ll all have a chance.”

“That is a good plan, Everett,” Yohanna remarked approvingly, without turning to look at him. She continued her visual scan for that which the Friend wished Third to see out on the Grassy Steppes. Being able now to see so much more than she had seen while watching Rhoda dismiss the Penultimate Shift, Yohanna was observing that the Steppes were crisscrossed by many barely discernible Pathways—when she was struck by Rhoda’s sudden absence from entwinement within her! Oh, God! Where is Rhoda? Raising her eyes to the Bleak Berm, Yohanna exclaimed, “I am the mistress of that thing! Am I not, O Staff of Thiuderieks?”

Yohanna’s vehement outburst drew the immediate attention of Hans and Everett. Hans had been getting the giant shorebird to kneel down like a camel for Everett’s attempt to mount the unlikely steed.

Yohanna gripped her staff and—looking out into the Grassy Steppes—explained to them that, “Rhoda is the first owner of the Bleak Berm and Thiuderieks’s Garth. I am the second owner, and as I sense Rhoda’s presence no more, its defense is now my responsibility.”

Everett cried out, “Look! What’s that, way down the road?” The sight was one that Benjamin and Rhoda had seen while flying in the Greased Lightning: The horizon Plenum of the Wild Way. It first appeared, as it had to Benjamin and Rhoda, to be many slowly writhing tentacles, all of them misshapen, with skin like boiling lava. The three of them watched as it was slowly transformed into a giant worm, inching toward the Delvers who were now herded closely together on the road by Hans’s Minotaur flock.

Yohanna tore her focus away from the Grassy Steppes to look at it, and cried at once, ”Hans! Everett! Do not look at it! All of the Netherworld’s power is coming toward us! We do not have the power to resist it; only Ricardo and Rhoda can do that. Now I understand Rhoda’s absence from me. We are each to take our own separate stands.” She looked back toward the Bleak Berm.

Everett looked at Hans. “What can we do?”

“My Minotaur flock down there is wavering! My ability to see and hear through them is declining!”

“Hans, can you call them off that road?”

“The ones in the ravine are responding best.”

“I see the others following them.” Everett was relieved, thinking that he might not have to ride one of the birds.

“They’re functioning normally here on our side of the ravine.” Hans was moving his hands as though he were playing an invisible keyboard. “But I’ve completely lost contact with those on the road. …No, the other Arms are popping into my hands. … All of my Minotaur Device is restored!”

Everett laughed. “They’re flocking, Hans. Look! Some of the Delvers are following your flock!”

“Yes! I see them coming into view, scrabbling over the edge of the ravine.” Hans was wearing his goggles and helmet, looking upward.

Everett understood that, because Hans was seeing everything through the eyes of his birds, looking into the Air gave him the best view. Everett saw Yohanna, who had remained silent during the conversation between him and Hans, again scanning the Grassy Steppes.

Everett himself looked back toward the road and saw a dense fog spreading out from it. At the fog’s roiling edge, the lead birds of the flock were coming toward them.

Softly, Yohanna said, “Everett, set your hand on Hans’s shoulder, and you will see more through the flock. Hans is deeply engaged. Tell him that we will meet again—perhaps soon—in the Commons, before the end. Now, he and I must separate.”

Yohanna ran swiftly down the sand trail which the lone oyster catcher had blazed up to the top of their mound. The oyster catcher was standing high, flapping its wings and piping at the others in the fog as Yohanna entered the fog bank, which ceased its advance. The birds stepped by twos and threes into clear air.

Then a man appeared out of the fog among the legs of the giant birds, and soon several other people appeared, staggering and dazed. Among them was Hector. Everett ran down to them, calling out greetings and encouragement.

~ 4 ~ Victor parked his Rover in the lean-to which he had recently built with Hans’s help, at the cottage in which he and Bridget lived downslope from the Cliff Rancho. Rain was pouring off its roof as he stepped out and looked around, pleased to see that the lean-to did not leak. Then he remembered that he had brought something for Bridget, which he had tossed onto the car’s floor when he had picked up Het in the deluge. Het’s wet feet had rested on it. It was Emil Ottokar’s Goth killing sword, which Bridget had used to prune the shrubbery around their cottage and to restore the old maze above the horse trail which she had discovered in the mountain vegetation up there.

Victor thought for a moment about his double parents. His heart mother Rebecca would always be his mother; he could not think of Judith as “Mother.” Bridget, however, regarded Judith as her mother-in-law, with whom she was on good terms. She seemed close to Emil as well. Victor realized that Judith and Emil were happy substitutes for Bridget’s own parents. It was this relationship, more than the marriage ceremony with the chuppah in the courtyard of the apartment complex in San Antonio, that made Victor realize that he was married.

“You are blessed, Bridget, with two Jewish mothers-in-law; you can name a daughter after each!” The marriage party had been happily drinking when Reyna had made the joking remark.

Even Victor’s mother, Rebecca, had laughed. Rebecca and Reyna knew each other, for it was Reyna and her sister Sophie who had arranged for Rebecca and Felix to care for newborn Victor before they had adopted him. At the marriage celebration, Victor’s heart father Felix had gotten along well with Judith’s brother Klaus and Judith’s husband, Emil, who was Victor’s biological father. Emil and Felix were both native Czechoslovakians.

When Victor had mentioned in a letter, two years earlier, that he and Het had met a woman pilot named Rhoda Knox, Rebecca had recalled all of the things told to her by Reyna and Sophie about the circumstances of Victor’s out-of-wedlock birth, and the inability of his mother, Judith, to care for him for the next month or so. Sophie had told her about the dramatic rescue of their Jewish relatives from the clutches of the Nazis by Martin Knox, in a strange aircraft much like the one described in Victor’s letter. Rebecca, feeling concern for Victor at this sign that his past was catching up with him, had called Margaret, a woman who nearly lived on the telephone, gossiping constantly with a large circle of other Jewish women. On an impulse, Margaret had called Winthy, who was not Jewish but whose son Het was a man of concern to Liz, whose daughter Esther might still be having an affair with him—even though she was living with Victor, who was a good Jew. Margaret shared Winthy’s story with Liz and Rebecca, about Winthy’s extraordinary flight with Rhoda Knox.

Victor retrieved the sword and saw mud left by Het’s shoes on its leather carrying case. He was rubbing the case against his jeans to clean it when Bridget, wearing a rain poncho, slipped into the lean-to, dripping wet. With a wet embrace and a kiss, she took the sword case from him.

“Don’t bother to dirty your pants even more by cleaning it, Victor. I was worried that you might forget the sword. We need it now.”

“Bridget, why have you been out in this rain?”

“I was searching for Esther.”

“But Esther…”

“Oh, Victor, you’ve lived with her for years. Surely you have some feeling for her. I can’t be jealous anymore.”

“How do you know she’s in trouble? I’m worried about her, too. I just gave Het, who was soaking wet, a ride back from the Eyrie. He’d been stranded because his car was stuck at a road washout above the Eyrie. He told me Esther was likely farther up that road, because he and she had been racing their cars. He had stopped his car and had gotten it stuck just in time to see the road give way. She might be beyond it, but he thinks it’s more likely that she eluded him by going straight at the tee.”

“Victor, I heard her scream of horror!”

“But that place is ten miles away.”

“Then her scream did not come from Earth’s Province.”

“Bridget, you’re talking like Hans. What do you mean?”

“Since our expedition through the Commons from my little maze, I’ve become a secret, part-time apprentice to Rhoda. On some days when nobody’s at the Cliff Rancho, she guides me from there to her Workshop along a Pathway of the Great Maze. She told me that she would re-fabricate my ‘pruning sword’ to be a Commons staff like the one Yohanna used to guide us on our expedition through the Commons.” Bridget looked at the sword’s leather sheath, running her fingers absently along the mud stain; then she looked at Victor.

“Then, why didn’t Rhoda bring it to you instead of leaving it at the Eyrie?” Victor was annoyed by Bridget’s growing involvement in the Clan’s business.

“I don’t know for sure, Victor, but maybe she did it in case things turned out as they have. Hold it for a moment, please.” Bridget placed the mud-stained leather sheath in Victor’s hands, then lay her hands on his. “Rhoda taught me this Net chant. It’s supposed to open a Partial Vision of recent events related to an object, and since Het’s feet touched my sword’s case, I think I might learn something about what he and Esther were doing and why. But I’m afraid. …Victor, for Esther’s sake, shall we do it?”

“We?”

“We’re married, but you have a deep relationship with Esther, so I think we’ll both be drawn into the Partial Vision to find her.”

Hans had told Victor about Partial Visions. “Your normal life is an archetypical Vision, so to speak, and a Partial Vision is drawn from what exists objectively in your subconscious, but is not bound to time and space as in normal vision. When you return from a Partial Vision to your normal life, you will have changed things in it.”

“So a Partial Vision is like a dream you discover is true,” Victor had said.

“It’s like that,” Hans had agreed.