Chapter 8 — The Minotaur Art

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~ 1 ~ When Rhoda and Yohanna arrived together at the Cliff Rancho, they were impatiently eager to see Hans’s Wildland. Hans, who had been waiting for them for nearly two weeks, had not been suffering from the growing impatience that might be expected. He had become deeply immersed in his practical study of the Makers’ art after having made his first Device. He was studying On Animas all the more intently, considering the possibility of fabricating Animas himself. Ricardo was the one who had been wondering why Rhoda and Yohanna were taking so long to get there.

The two young women went with Ricardo and Hans to the bottom of the veranda stairs and did as the men did, swinging by one hand around the post at the second step and up onto the veranda. Yohanna, dropping lightly onto the veranda’s wide planks, cried, “That was fun! I feel like a child again!”

Standing side-by-side, the four friends gazed into the wonderfully changed landscape. Hans had felt a little doubtful that his Wildland truly would reappear, but there it was! All of them felt the overwhelming strangeness of the place.

Rhoda had swung a bag up onto the veranda with her, and soon she tore her eyes from the fascinating view and carried the bag into the house. After a few minutes she emerged, wearing something sky-blue that looked like a diver’s dry suit. The suit fit tightly at her ankles and wrists, and she was prepared for action—her hair braided and her purse strap slung diagonally across her body. Rhoda chose a spot near the veranda’s edge and stood there, very still, for a long time, surveying the landscape.

Yohanna recognized her behavior. Rhoda had surveyed the Grassy Steppes in the same way, seeking to ascertain that it was safe enough for the two of them to venture into the Commons. Yohanna found herself scanning the horizon for a sign of the Bleak Berm which had been beyond the Grassy Steppes. She asked, “Rhoda, is the Bleak Berm out there?”

Without breaking her concentration on the landscape before her, Rhoda answered, “Hans’s Wildland is located in much higher Airs than is the Bleak Berm, but the Bleak Berm is out there somewhere, because all Provinces are connected in some way.”

Hans whispered, “Ricardo, what is the Bleak Berm?”

“It’s the boundary of the Netherworld—the ramparts of Thiuderieks’s Garth,” Ricardo answered softly. Hans looked questioningly at Yohanna then, but she was absorbed in watching Rhoda.

Rhoda turned suddenly. “Ricardo, when you looked at this place for the first time, was the vegetation the same vegetation that’s there now? That huge live oak tree, in particular.”

“The oak was there, sweetheart, but I’m not sure about the smaller trees and bushes. What do you think, Hans?”

“To me it all looks somehow different, but that big oak was out there, and so were those swirl-shaped ridges that seem to converge on it. Looking at it now for a second time, I see an odd, very old formal garden plan.”

“Maybe that’s what it is,” said Rhoda. “That’s consistent with what I suspected. You were wise not to enter the place, but I need to go out and examine that tree. It won’t take long." From her purse Rhoda removed an old-style leather aviator's cap and pulled it onto her head, tucking her braided hair into it. Smiling at Yohanna, she said, “This cap was Ottilie’s, so there’s hair-room.” Then she fit her spherical-vision Sarxx goggles over her eyes and surveyed the landscape again while pulling on a pair of simple, light, field Calipers.

“Is that special Makers’ gear?”

“Yes, Hans.” Rhoda turned toward him as she removed her sandals. “The suit, the helmet and the goggles are the three Arms of one Device of Ottilie’s which I’ve re-fabricated. This Device regulates mellowing into and out of Earth’s Province in extreme situations. Its use guarantees that I’ll return to you here in the least possible elapsed time. Otherwise, we might become separated by months.”

“Rhoda, does that mean we didn’t traverse a simple tectonic offset to get to the veranda?”

His eager apprentice’s intelligent question brought a smile to Ricardo’s face. He was glad that Hans had taken seriously his heartfelt advice not to explore the Wildland on his own.

Rhoda explained, “Hans, when we got onto the veranda by swinging around the post, we passed a relatively simple but sophisticated tectonic offset. But getting from the veranda into your Wildland is not so simple. I suspect that we are looking at an ancient bubble Province of Earth’s Province, in which the Wildland slowly swirls around that enormous oak. That may be the explanation for the pattern of the ridges.”

She looked inquiringly at her advanced apprentice—Ricardo—and Ricardo looked again at the live oak tree. “Rhoda, does that rotation maintain a consonance between the Wildland and Earth’s province?”

“Yes; I think the rotation balances the essential and physical tensions between Earth’s Province and its bubble out there. I’m almost certain that tree is the original Father of Phytas that we read of in the First Days poem in the Touchstone.”

Yohanna exclaimed, “Rhoda! How can that be? Surely it is only a myth. You told me once that all of the Makers agree that it is.”

“I did say that, but now I’ve learned that Thorismund claims he himself discovered the Father of Phytas. Anyway, that’s what I plan to find out, and I won’t be long. Watch me by keeping your eyes on my destination—the live oak that we’re talking about.”

Yohanna and Ricardo looked quickly at each other, amazed. Hans knew nothing about the Father of Phytas. Because his study of the Touchstone was only beginning, he had not read the First Days in one of the last chapters, which was a compendium of ancient myths.

Rhoda descended to the Wildland by a set of steps, very broad and semi-circular—and previously unnoticed by the others—at the far end of the veranda. As soon as both of her feet were on the ground, she “took off” running in long strides toward the tree. Hans watched her running…and running… and growing no closer to the tree…. Sharply, Ricardo said, “Hans, look at the oak tree! Otherwise you’ll watch Rhoda running all day and drift away from us in a mellowing disturbance.” Hans looked up at the live oak tree, shuddering with vertigo. Then he saw Rhoda arrive at the tree and leap onto a lower branch. His eyes now on Rhoda, Ricardo continued, “A Maker keeps his focus on the end of a task, Hans. Remember that one’s intention orders the timeline of a person as an agent in the Commons. Without your perceiving the goal to which Rhoda is running, her running is for you just Doing without Meaning, and so her task will not end for you; you might see her running more and more slowly, without ever reaching her goal.”

They watched Rhoda agilely climbing about in the tree. After a few minutes she was standing hands-free on a large nearly-horizontal branch, along which she ran toward the tree’s trunk—on which they all focused until she arrived, and vanished. Hans and Yohanna gasped. Ricardo smiled.

“It’s a Phyta, he said. She’ll come out of the trunk.”

“Ricardo, can it truly be the Father of Phytas?”

“I’m sure Rhoda will return to us with an opinion on that, Yohanna.”

A dozen questions leaped to Hans’s mind. Before he had even begun to ask one, Rhoda stepped out of the tree trunk’s base as easily as she might have walked through the veil of a waterfall. In fact, Hans saw the trunk become, for a moment, a waterfall spreading across the entire horizon.

Rhoda returned to them from the tree with the long, running strides of her departure. Standing before them, below the veranda, she opened her arms toward them and cried, ”Yes! Yes! Yes! This is the bubble Province of the Father of Phytas, as Thorismund has written.”

In an instant, Rhoda was standing next to them on the veranda. “The roots of this Phyta nourish and sustain all of our Gardenlands, she said. Look!” Opening her purse, she drew from it a large cluster of grapes. “I’ve just now gathered these from the Sage Gardenland at Home Ranch after chatting with Daddy and Elise Handke and helping them with some garden work. They were waiting for me!” She gave the grapes to Ricardo, who sampled one of them, offering the cluster to Yohanna.

“How can that be, Rhoda?” Yohanna plucked a grape from the cluster.

“Well, the reason you had to wait a few days for me to come here with you is because I was researching the Hidden Journals of the Chronicles of the Keen Makers with Daddy and Elise. Frederick Knox, who commissioned the Cliff Rancho Clan Hold, had searched for Thorismund’s contribution to the Hidden Journals, and recently Elise actually discovered Thorismund’s hidden journal. In it, Thorismund wrote about his discovery of this Wildland and his investigation of the ancient Phyta out there.”

“Sweetheart, what set you on that trail?”

“‘…and sun and her stars circle the Father of Phytas. …’. I shivered, Ricardo, struck by that line from the First Days, when you described Hans’s discovery and the swirled pattern of ridges extending from the lone giant oak. I telephoned Elise to consult with her about it, and while she and I were speaking, I remembered something Daddy had said when I was little. Yohanna, I think he said it when we were dining with your great grandmother Aretta. They were talking about a giant spinning tree that my ancestor Frederick saw once. It was some kind of Secret. I had never understood it until your telephone call, Ricardo. When I told Elise about my memory, she said, ‘Our Powers must be at work, Rhoda. I have very recently read about that spinning tree in one of the latest Hidden Journals to come to light. I will meet you and Martin at Home Ranch as quickly as I can, and we will discover what is inscribed in this journal. It is written in very old Old Goth, and I am sure that it is in Thorismund’s hand.”

Turning to Hans, Rhoda set her hands on his shoulders. “Hans, you now have your work cut out for you in the War Thing. It’s work that I think you’ll enjoy, and for which you’ve been preparing.”

Rhoda turned abruptly and went into the house. She returned in her ordinary clothes and gracefully arranged her long-limbed body in a veranda chair, motioning for the others to pull up chairs around her.

“This Wildland,” Rhoda told them, “was first discovered by Thorismund, who was the first apprentice of Thiuderieks. Thorismund was also the Garth Master of the Penultimate Shift.”

Hans spoke up: “Ricardo told me Thorismund devised the Delving art, and I’ve learned a little about the Delving art. It’s the reason for Benjamin’s concern when I told him at the Design Thing that I was studying Thorismund’s journal—although at the time I knew nothing about Delving. Now I know the Garth Delvers’ Thing regards Thorismund’s journal on Delving as their own private secret.”

“I can tell you now,” Rhoda said, looking around, “that Thorismund discovered the Delving art by learning the Phyta’s secrets. Yohanna, you and I have obtained Thorismund’s original journal on the Delving Art.” Ricardo and Yohanna both looked surprised by this announcement.

“When was that, Rhoda?”

“That was about three thousand chronological years ago, Yohanna, in the Niche of Thiuderieks’s Garth. You saw Thorismund there, and I was the last person to speak with him before he passed. Had I known then about his discovery of this Wildland, I would have had many questions to ask him.”

“Oh, yes! The Garth Master on the Bleak Berm! Rhoda, you told me his identity, but you said nothing about his journal.”

“Well, the journal that he left me in his satchel did not concern the discovery of the Wildland. And what it says about the Delving art is generally well-known today. After Benjamin studied it, he said it has no new Delvers’ secrets—just a lot of detail that’s interesting to a Delver.”

Hans asked eagerly, “Yohanna, did you really meet Thorismund?”

“Hans, dear, I have seen a man whom Rhoda identified as Thorismund. We were not introduced.”

“Can you tell me about the event?”

“Yes, Hans,” said Rhoda. “I’ve told part of the story to Ricardo, but Yohanna and I should share with both of you a complete account of the whole adventure in the course of which we met Thorismund. That will help put the Wildland in context for you. Yohanna, will you begin, please? It was a new and vivid experience for you.”

For the rest of the morning, the four of them sat in the shade of the veranda gazing out over Hans’s Wildland, Rhoda and Yohanna telling the entire story of their adventure. Over a year earlier, they revealed, they had trekked through the Commons from Rhoda’s Ontario Workshop to Thiuderieks’s Garth, in order to dismiss the Garth Delvers’ Penultimate Shift. Those Delvers had been recruited from throughout the first five thousand years of the Bleak Berm’s fabrication. All of them had labored at their delving tasks in the relative concurrency of the lowest Airs. There, the Niche of Thiuderieks’s Garth has an extremely wide chronological basin.

Rhoda had learned from the study of Thorismund’s journal that the Province of the Grassy Steppes had been cultivated during that First Shift. She and Yohanna described the conclusion of the Penultimate Shift, which was marked by the passing of Thorismund, the Garth Master.

Rhoda and Yohanna then told the story of their adventure in the Horn Room of the Bleak Berm, in the roles of the “goddess” Rhoda Ingundis, Slayer of the Wicked, and her goddess handmaid. (In the local legend known to the two horn blowers, Ingundis and her handmaid were regarded as two different faces of the one goddess.)

The “goddesses” then told their men about their sortie into the Netherworld on the Wheeled Dinghy, and their return by a different route, with the guidance of Thiuderieks’s staff.

After they had finished telling their tale, Hans asked Rhoda and Yohanna many questions. Ricardo simply commented, “Rhoda, you’ve measured the depth of the Abyss.”

“Strictly speaking, honey, we measured the tension of the abyssal Plenum.”

“We measured what?” asked Yohanna, frowning darkly.

“The geyser of putrid waters that lifted up our Rolling Dinghy served as the measuring rod, by exerting the greatest essential tension that the abyssal Plenum can support.”

Hans and Yohanna looked at Rhoda blankly.

“I believe that measurement gives us the most important parameter for the fabrication of the Soma,” said Ricardo.

“Actually, honey, the Abyssal tension needs to be known in order to set properly the foundation of the Keep for the Soma. Thiuderieks named the Soma’s Keep, which is a very special Device, the Spiral City. For now, we need to keep secret the fact that the Abyssal tension is even known. The fabrication of the Spiral City, after the Soma’s fabrication is complete, is my personal project, and it’s very secret. The Spiral City is the Place where the god Sunderer will become fully vested.”

Ricardo shook his head. “We shouldn’t talk any more about this matter.” Rhoda nodded.

To lighten the atmosphere, Rhoda offered to provide Hans with a Living Memory image of Yohanna’s physical appearance in the Horn Room. “Recently, Ricardo has observed my physical appearance there, by reading my Self Sign as Rhoda Ingundis, Slayer of the Wicked.”

Ricardo smiled encouragingly at Hans. “You will find it to be a memorable introduction to the Living Memory, Hans.”

Rhoda asked Yohanna, “Do I have your permission? It’s through my eyes that Hans will see you.”

Yohanna shrugged her shoulders.

Softly, Rhoda spoke a Goth chant, preparing a Vision, and bestowed upon Hans the sight of Yohanna as the goddess’s handmaid.

Hans was astonished by the nearly-naked beauty of his beloved, who was, with solemn dignity and grace, placing a pair of Goth battle swords into the hands of the guardsman horn-blower. The man was struggling heroically not to cast a sacrilegious glance at her overwhelmingly desirable body. Such a glance would have ended the ceremony abruptly, preventing him from receiving the priceless swords. Hans knew all this from the Vision.

Hans blushed. He was truly at a loss for words. Yohanna glanced at Rhoda’s Miss Innocence face, which told her that Rhoda had “edited” the Vision just for Hans, and she was torn between anger and pleasure.

Hans found words at last: “My jealousy would annihilate that man, if he hadn’t been dead for thousands of years.”

Ricardo grinned broadly. “I knew you’d find it worthwhile, Hans. Well, it’s past lunchtime; so, ladies, please let Hans and me prepare a late lunch for us. After eating, we can resume our conversation about Thorismund’s discovery, and about Hans’s work in the War Thing.”

While Hans and Ricardo were busy in the kitchen, Yohanna asked, “Rhoda, what sort of image of me did you cast to Hans? I am certain, dear sister, that it was not merely a Strand of your honest Living Memory.”

“Well, Yohanna, since Hans hasn’t yet learned how to interpret Living Memory, I fashioned for him a little True Vision of you in which you were, of course, more substantially present than you would have been in a mere Living Memory.”

“How near was he able to come to me?”

“Near enough to try to punch out the horn blower—hardly displaying a pacifist’s instincts. I observed his virtual intention through the lens of the True Vision.”

Yohanna’s face glowed with amusement and love.

~ 2 ~ Over egg salad sandwiches and iced tea, Rhoda re-opened their conversation about Delving and the Wildland. “As I’ve mentioned, among the contents of the satchel that Thorismund left to me was his journal of the Delving art—the art which he, with Thiuderieks and Ingundis the Fair, had devised and applied to the Design and making of Thiuderieks’s Garth. But this original journal is the second part of a longer journal, and the second part gives only a hint of the first part. The journal on the Delving art begins: ‘Now that I have recounted the mysteries of the original Phyta, I present the art learned from it to open the solidity of Earth’s Province.’ This line has always been translated as: ‘The Delving art was devised from a study of Phytas in ancient times.’ That translation doesn’t say that this study concerned ‘the Phyta’ or that it was Thorismund who did the study ‘in ancient times’.

“Phytas of plants, Hans, are like the Animas of animals. Phytas contain the Design intelligence for the growth of cells and the ordered growth of cells into plant bodies, and they were made use of in the original defensive Mazes of Goth holds and in cultivating the Grassy Steppes. It’s from the Phyta’s growth pattern for plants’ roots that the Delving art was developed by Thorismund.”

Yohanna asked, “Rhoda, who practices the Phyta art in these days?”

“It used to be the sole practice of the Makers known as the Garth Weavers and Garth Keepers.”

“Did Ingundis the Weaver practice the art?”

“Yes, Yohanna.” Rhoda looked at Hans and Ricardo. “Ingundis the Weaver was my ancestor Frederick’s wife; his name of endearment for her was ‘Rhoda’. So I was named after Ingundis the Weaver by being given her nickname. Yohanna’s family also had ties to Frederick Knox and Ingundis the Weaver, as we’ve recently learned.”

“Ah. I see that you and Ottilie Krüger have both used and developed the Phyta art in novel ways.” Ricardo had suddenly seen that to be the implication of Yohanna’s question—probably for Hans’s benefit. Until now, Ricardo himself had not made the connection.

Rhoda nodded at Ricardo. “Hans,” she said, “the Greased Lightning would not fly without advanced Phyta art. You might think of the Greased Lightning as a very fast-growing plant.”

Hans shook his head. “I see that there’s a lot I don’t yet know about the Makers’ art,” he said.

Rhoda continued, “Out there in the Wildland is the most ancient Phyta known to the Clan: The Father of Phytas. Thorismund had been wondering who had fabricated it, when one day he encountered an old Maker who knew about his discovery, even though Thorismund had told no one about it. The old man told Thorismund that the ancient Phyta was ‘ageless’, and he taught Thorismund the chant for extending its roots into another Province, the chant identifying the Phyta as the Father of Phytas. After teaching Thorismund the chant, the lore master at once turned a corner and vanished. Thorismund wrote of his suspicion that the man was the personal presence of a god who might be the Place-god of this Wildland Province. He told no one of the matter, and he used the chant to investigate the power of this Phyta. From the things that he learned by his investigations, he developed the Delvers’ art.”

Hans said, “I don’t comprehend all of the implications of what you’re saying, Rhoda. Didn’t you say that this is a bubble Province of Earth’s Province? Ricardo told me about bubble Provinces when he was telling me about Hector Masen’s rebellion in the Garth Delvers’ hold. My impression was that bubbles are unstable, so they can hardly be ‘ageless’.”

“Yes. That’s what makes this Wildland extremely interesting, Hans. It’s certainly dangerous. I’ve just demonstrated that this Province communicates with a Clan Gardenland. It’s most likely that it communicates with all of the Gardenlands, since a form of the founding Chant is used to establish them. I think, however—after considering my experience and what Daddy, Elise and I learned from Thorismund’s hidden journal, The Phyta—that, in order to enter this Province, one must be in the act of commuting to a Gardenland from here, as I was. But a person can’t get here from a Gardenland unless he or she came from here. In fact, I think now that access is impossible from any Commons Province other than Earth’s Province, and only through the Cliff Rancho Gate.”

“What is this place?” asked Yohanna. “I am sensing that it may be something awful—in the original sense of the word.”

“It is awful, Yohanna.” Rhoda touched Hans’s shoulder; looking seriously into his eyes she said, “Hans, by discovering its Gate, you have inherited the guardianship of this awful Province of the Father of Phytas, in the stead of Thorismund and Frederick Knox.” From her purse she brought out Thorismund’s journal, The Phyta. She offered it to Hans, who received it in his hands while Ricardo and Yohanna observed with amazement.

Rhoda said, “Understanding that this is an awful and dangerous place, Thorismund hid the Province of the Father of Phytas by hiding the Gate. The Gate remained hidden until Frederick found it. Frederick didn’t know what the Gate opened to, but he suspected that it opened to the original Clan Gardenland. He commissioned the construction of this Cliff Rancho Hold as a sort of testing ground for the Gate, but his investigation didn’t proceed beyond his first look at the Wildland Province from this Veranda. He and Ingundis the Weaver saw the landscape swirling rapidly like a whirlpool—which is what Thorismund had seen, only it was swirling even faster in his day.”

Hans had been listening, dazed and uncomprehending. At last he was able to ask, “Rhoda, I’m not certain of your meaning. How can I be the guardian of this place? I have so many questions...”

“Hans,” interrupted Ricardo, “we will learn together what The Phyta has to teach you.”

“Yes,” said Rhoda, “and there’s one more thing that I can tell you, Hans: The Province of the Father of Phytas has no Denizens other than other Phytas. To be an effective guardian, you must master the Anima art, which will be easier, following your learning of the Phyta art, because they’re related, as you will learn.”

“I understand what Rhoda is saying, Hans,” Ricardo informed him. “When you’ve mastered the Anima art of Thorismund, you can create a ‘gentle’ Minotaur to defend the Clan in the Commons without bloodshed. According to Makers’ tradition, Frederick Knox asserted that a Minotaur which was capable of devouring armies would someday defend the Clan. …that may be a rumor which has grown in the telling.”

Hans was looking thoughtful. “Rhoda, I've learned that Thorismund's study of Animas has to do mostly with his interest in animal biology. Animas were the means by which he was investigating how organisms are aware of the world. This has fascinated me, and I wonder: Has anyone actually fabricated Animas since then?"

“Very few have done it since Thorismund’s day, Hans. Most Makers have been far more interested in Personas, and both Ottilie and I have fabricated Personas such as Rhoda Ingundis, Slayer of the Wicked, and her handmaid. However, we know that Makers associated with the Circle have fabricated Animas which are used for guarding the Netherworld.”

Hans, wondering if Yohanna still had her handmaid's gown, asked, ”Wouldn't Animas be easier to make than Personas are?"

"No. They’re not easier to make, because we don't know from our own experience what the experience of an animal is actually like.

“So that’s why Animas must be anchored through living animals.”

“Yes, Hans, and I think we should add Persona fabrication to your curriculum, because it will prepare you for developing the practical Anima art—backward as that may seem.”

Yohanna asked, “Did Frederick know that this Wildland cannot be entered through a Gardenland?”

Rhoda answered, “No, because he did not possess The Phyta. But that was Thorismund’s speculation, and it’s mine, too, now that I’ve traversed it. Why did you ask?”

“It was an intuitive question.”

Ricardo asked, “Was Frederick worried about intruders entering our Gardenlands through the Wildland?”

“Well, not exactly. Daddy thinks Frederick feared that a force of Shades might capture one of our Gardenlands, invading it from the Commons. Frederick’s concern would have been that some of the Masens who had fallen under the influence of the Circle in those days might be deceived into providing inside help. That was his reason for moving the Delvers’ Thing to this continent, leaving the Masens behind. The Masens were to follow a few decades later, when the Clan’s politics had cooled.”

Hans speculated, “If that’s true, maybe Hector thought this place was the key to all Gardenlands, and he’s gotten lost in the Commons looking for this very Gate—thinking that possession of it would give him more influence in the Clan.”

The others were surprised by Hans’s conjecture. None of them had considered the possibility that Hector had been searching for the Gate into this Wildland.

~ 3 ~ Later on that day, Hans was preparing to begin learning how to care for the Cliff Rancho’s horses. The animals had been brought in the previous week from Home Ranch, and now Hans and Ricardo were ambling down the path to the recently rebuilt stables where Ricardo would begin Hans’s lessons. Their conversation, however, was not about the horses.

Rhoda and Yohanna were sitting on the veranda watching the men, and the hazy lights of the Los Angeles basin were beginning to appear in the distance. Hans said, “Ricardo, you were surprised—weren’t you—to learn about Rhoda’s Spiral City.”

“I was, Hans. I’ve been learning Secrets like On Animas that only other Keen Makers of War Things have known, and I had only recently discovered a reference to the Spiral City. I hadn’t yet spoken about it with Rhoda.”

“So, was it a surprise to you because it’s her project?”

“Yes, and it’s hers alone—her Secret.”

“As the Minotaur is mine. …Wasn’t the Minotaur a man with a bull's head, or something like that?”

“Yes, but your ‘Minotaur’ has to be an Anima of a real animal or animals, not a mythological creature.”

Hans grinned. “Maybe a herd of elephants. But, Ricardo, the Minotaur has to relate, in some way, to the Phyta.”

"Yes; I think so too, Hans. But how?"

"Maybe through some adaptation of the Phyta’s power, like Delving, which originates in the Phyta’s ‘intelligence for growing’?”

Ricardo’s glance at Hans was more than pleased. There was wonder in it.

~ ~ ~

“Yohanna, I think Hector hasn’t discovered the Wildland here. Maybe Hans was meant to find it.” Rhoda’s eyes were following the men’s slow progress along the path.

“Rhoda, you have practiced more of the Anima art than you have admitted to Hans.”

“Of course. Hans has to learn in his own way, starting with Personas. Were you thinking of the living fur and the body snakes of my ‘Rhoda Ingundis, Slayer of the Wicked’ costume, dear?”

“That is exactly my thinking, Rhoda. I have no doubt that in your True Vision of me for Hans, neither those creatures nor you as ‘Slayer of the Wicked’ were present. But Ricardo surely knows of your little animal friends. And I know well that animate Denizens are frightfully real.”

“Hans will quickly learn enough to fully appreciate my achievements in the art, which I’ll show to him then. You have some things to teach him, too, because of the aspects of the Anima art utilized in your family’s animal charming art.”

“Rhoda, I have given to him some hints already, upon his beginning the study of Animas. Also, I have told him some things about the Soma—your Anima for a god. I know that Ricardo, too, has told him about the Soma, because I have heard from Hans about your promise to Sunderer.”

“Are you angry with me, Yohanna, for not telling you? I was certain that you would learn from our entwinement, because it’s a War Thing matter.”

“I have recently recalled your own experience in the stone cabin, of your standoff with the god Sunderer which I had first experienced only from the outside. Therefore I am able to understand your silence about your promise to be the one who, as the Clan Head, will greet him personally when he is first vested in the Soma.”

“Well, it has been known that the completion of his vesting requires his demonstration of obedience to Clan authority, by using the Soma in accord with Thiuderieks's—or his successor’s—directive.”

“Rhoda, only you knew that, and in the hour of your standoff with Sunderer you were not the Head, as you claimed to be.”

“I was rash. Saying that to him was a confessable act; there's no doubt about that. Well, it was a lie. And Sunderer still thinks I'm a fool for saying I was Head. But, in a certain Makers’ way of looking at it, I was then the Head.” Rhoda dropped her eyes, then raised them, presenting to Yohanna her Miss Innocence face.

Yohanna frowned. After taking a couple of deep breaths, she asked, “Are you planning to involve Hans in the Soma—or in your Spiral City? (whatever that is, exactly).”

“No. We are not. It’s the Minotaur Anima which is to be his work in the War Thing.”

Miss Innocence vanished suddenly, Rhoda’s face taking on a focus so intense that she seemed to be looking right through Yohanna, who shivered. Never before had she seen such a look.

Rhoda said, “I foresee, dear sister, that you and Hans will be the first to see the Spiral City when Sunderer takes possession of it.”

Yohanna could no longer bear Rhoda’s intense stare. She turned her back. Then she recollected vividly the moment when Rhoda had tossed to her the staff of Thiuderieks, saying that it was a memento of Rhoda for Yohanna’s old age. Yohanna had carried the staff in her purse since then, and she knew now that the staff would be in her hand in the moment of her seeing the Spiral City. But the Spiral City was not visible to her in her share of Rhoda’s foreseeing. Instead, there was a confused vision of huge creatures prowling around her on giant stilt-like legs, their feet bearing long, evil-looking talons…