Sheri S. Tepper

How had Bossik gotten to know this one? A.nd how did one respond to such an introduction'?
She was spared the necessity of deciding when the man went on:
    "Whenever 1 see Bossik, he tells me something new and wonderful about you. He says you make the best venison stew in the world."
    Bossik Finch had indeed told him this, though it had taken a good deal of time and maneuver to get him to do so.
    Unaware of all this effort, Qualary flushed. "Oh, well," she murmured. "You can't believe everything Bossy says."
    "On the contrary." The stranger beamed. "He said you were the prettiest woman in the Place, and I'm inclined to agree with him." This was a lie, but not unwelcome.
    Her mouth dropped open as she considered what one might say to this. Pretty? She? He must be joking!
    He gave her no time for rebuttal. "My name's Tom Fuelry. No laughter, please. Ma was a jokester, and it really is my name. Are you on your way out to market? Me too. I'll walk with you."
    And she found herself walking, talking about nothing much, all at a loss what to say or do about this assault upon her daily routine. They went through the gates, which allowed free egress on market days--though no one could come back inside without a the proper permanent identification--and once outside strolled through the chatter and tumult of the market itself, full of hawkers and merchants and peddlers and traders, in addition to the local farmers with their produce and grains and meats.
    Under Fuelry's watchful eye, Qualary bought a rat's worth of sausage, a few mice worth of fresh vegetables, several packets of seeds, two potted flowering plants, a small bird in a cage, a jar of honey, a sack of crushed grain that she planned to cook with meat and raisins--so she said--and a freshly killed chicken. To Fuelry's astonishment, she asked if anyone had live little fish for sale and was distressed that no one had. Meanwhile, Tom Fuelry bought venison chops, potatoes, late sweet corn, and two bottles of wine transported all the way from the shores of the Faulty Sea.
    Both of them summoned Domer tote-boys to carry their baskets and strolled back to the walls together, where they waited in line with their tote-boys to be approved by the sensors.
When they were safely inside, Fuelry said:
    "You don't know me at all, but your brother does. If you consult him and he recommends me, and if you'd like to do so, would you join me for dinner in my quarters tonight? I can't drink all that wine alone. It would be a sin to try."
    Without quite knowing how it happened, she found herself agreeing. On her return to her own placid and lonely house, she didn't even call


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            115

Bossik to ask him about his friend. She told herself it wasn't necessary. In fact, she would have been embarrassed to do so, for Bossy would tease her as he always had when they were children, and she didn't think she could bear it. It wasn't anything she'd ordinarily do---have dinner with a Gaddir (she no more than any Domer making the distinction between Old Seoca and those who served him)--but since he was a friend of her brother's...
    All this consideration was to no point. Had she tried to reach her brother she would have found him gone. Fuelry had made quite sure that Bossik Finch would be elsewhere when he approached Qualary.
    She went to the Gaddi House gate at sundown, where Fuelry waited to escort her through the checkpoints to a labyrinth of halls and rooms and stairs and lifts inside.
    "I've never been in here before," she whispered. "None of us Domers have. I thought it would be... strange."
    "Nothing strange about it," he said offhandedly. "Just a big apartment house for people to live in."
    Elsewhere and below in Gaddi House, there were indeed strange places, some of which Tom shuddered to go into and most of which he had never even seen. He knew of them only because the old man had spoken of them as he spoke of many marvels in the place. Sometimes Tom thought the old man merely imagined what was behind certain huge doors or down certain winding corridors. Imaginary or not, Tom didn't mention them to Qualary. Tom was one of half a dozen people the old man talked to, but none of the half-dozen ever talked about what he said, not even to one another.
    Tom's own quarters were roomy and pleasant, facing on a sizable balcony that extended over an interior courtyard.
    "You have windows," she cried. "I didn't know Gaddi House had windows."
    "Oh, yes," he remarked. "All the living quarters are built around these atriums. It's really quite comfortable. Different from the separate houses most of you Domers live in, and I must say I envy you your gardens."
     She agreed that the gardens were enjoyable and went into some detail about her own small house, her own small garden.
     "I often think it would be nice if we could visit back and forth more," asserted Fuelry. "Domers and Gaddirs seem to be getting more and more isolated all the time. We share the Place, we ought to be friendlief."
     She hadn't thought about it. She did so now, trying to do so honestly. "There are fundamental differences in philosophy," she said seriously. "Ander says there are variations in the essentialities of our experience. Dissonant intellectual matrices."


116                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Fuelry gave her a long, level look, and she blushed again, wondering if he had understood her. Wondering if she had understood herself. She knew she had used the right words, and she thought she knew what she meant. Of course, the differences were philosophical, and Domers said Gaddirs couldn't understand philosophy. Gaddirs were unregenerate pragmatists. They cared only for what worked. They served no higher purpose. The Domers, on the other hand, cared for eternal verities. World order. A united mankind. A civilization of philosophers.
    Fuelry, who thought it interesting that she quoted Ander rather than Ellel, made no attempt to dig into what other things Ander might have said. Instead, he turned the conversation to gardening, a comfortably pragmatic subject that the Founders were not greatly interested in and had therefore never bothered to invent a jargon for. He chatted, and filled her glass, and asked a few questions as though the answers didn't matter, and when the wine had been drunk and the food eaten, he helped her into her jacket and escorted her to the gate, where he planted a chaste kiss upon her cheek and let her go back to her quarters, totally unscathed and thereby reassured.
    Reassuring her had been his intent. Qualary Finch was shy, diffident, defensive. She had every right to be. He thought he had a notion why she had wanted the fish, why she had bought the little bird. She had not told him specifically, but she had described Ellel's apartment, speaking of the caged birds, the bright fishes, and her hands had gone to her shoulders, like a child protecting a hurt place. Fuelry could put two and two together as well as the next man. Particularly inasmuch as he'd received substantiating information about Quince Ellel from a number of other sources.
    Qualary was a Domer only because she'd been born one. She had no reason to be loyal, but she had good reason to be discreet. She would have to know Tom Fuelry a good bit better before she would come right out and tell him what Quince Ellel was up to. If she knew.

    In the time of the current Ander's youth, a number of the older clan members, including Ander's parents, had built themselves a family rdtreat in a forested area near the back wall of the Place of Power. It was a fanciful pavilion, much gilded and ornamented with carved dragons. Craftsmen had been brought all the way from the Faulty Sea to do the work, and craftsmen were still summoned at intervals to repair the lacquer or regild the finials of the roof peaks, architectural conceits that did not stand up well to those violent changes in temperature and humidity that the locals called climate.
The pavilion was exclusively an Ander hideaway. Family members were


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            117

so excessively refined that prolonged contact with persons from other clans inevitably sent them retreating to the sound of tinkling waters, the feel of silk robes loosely belted, the sight of blossoms artfully arrayed, and the smell and taste of fine foods, elaborately prepared. All Ander servants were well schooled in artfulness and elaboration. The pavilion servants were especially so. The simple handing of a dish could take up to five minutes and require full orchestral accompaniment. Such lengthy conceits embodying mime, music, and ballet were encouraged. There was no hurry in the pa~'ition. There were never any voices raised there. No business was ever discussed. In the entire history of the structure, this latter rule had not been broken until now. The fact that it was being broken now, and by general consent, conveyed more than a little of the importance the Anders attached to Quince Ellel's imminent flight to the moon.
    Ander's uncle, one Forsmooth Ander, stood at the center of the gathering, pivoting gracefully and extending his arms to display his sleeves. The sleeves were pure silk, spun in the boat-towns of the Faulty Sea. Their elegant pattern of pine cones and siskins had been printed by a dyer near Whitherby in manland, one Wilfer Ponde.
    "We all know what she's like," Forsmooth said for perhaps the fifth time. "Every person in the Place knows what she's like. If she thought the air in Berkli's lungs carried a scent she needed, she'd put a clothespeg on his nose and suck his breath. She's not going to let him sidetrack her, not him nor Mitty. Quince Ellel is going to take power. She may think we haven't noticed, but she's already taken over for all intents and purposes."
     "We do know that, uncle," said Ander, with a graceful gesture. "You're
quite correct when you say we all know her.""Then you know what she wants?"
     Ander knew what Ellel said publicly. But he also knew what she hinted
to him privately, pretending she jested, just to see his reaction.He said, "She wants weapons. And the starship."
     "The starship?" gasped Forsmooth, amid a chorus of other gasps. "We
assumed she wanted weapons, but what starship?""The one that's up there."
    "Our records don't say anything about a starship," he said in amazement. "Not a word!"
    "Hers do. Or perhaps it's something she heard from her father. One of the Gaddirs told Jark the Third there's a starship there, and Ellel wants it.
If not this first trip, then sometime later."They glanced at one another, nodding.
    Forsmooth said, "We needn't concern ourselves with that now. She certainly doesn't intend to break it down for salvage!"


118                        Sheri S. Tepper

"That's true, uncle."
"So what she wants is weapons. What does she say she wants them for?"
    "Salvage. She says they have self-contained power sources we can use in the shops."
    "Power is one thing the Place doesn't need any more of, Artder. We're sitting on top of the world's last fusion plant, Why would we go flying to the moon to get self-contained power sources?"
    "Uncle, I wouldn't go flying to the moon to get a lifetime supply of tea and cakes. Don't ask me why Quince Ellel is going to do this or that. She does what she does, that's all. You've all studied her far more diligently than I!"
    Forsmooth Artder brought his brows together, "Fashimir, my boy, if Quince Ellel is going into space to get weapons, then you may be sure she has plans for them. Thus far, we four Domer Families have managed to keep things reasonably well balanced among ourselves. None of us has been preeminent; none of us has been at the bottom of the ladder. Life has been equitable. None of us has had an advantage over the others. But things are changing. We can feel it. Surely you can feel it. Look at the symbolism of the mask Ellel wears! She has hidden her face. What does that say to you'? She doesn't realize what the act betrays! She's planning secretly. And more and more, Ellel is at the root of events. More and more, when things happen, we find that Ellel has caused them to happen. And weapons are an advantage, my boy."
    "Indeed," said Aunt Bivina. "And if she's going after weapons, then in the interest of family equity, it should be with our help, with us as allies, share and share alike."
Ander sighed. "What makes you think I can convince her of that?"
    It was Aunt Bivina who answered. "She'll listen to you just now, Artder. You're right that we've been studying her. Analyzing her. Ellel believes Berkli is her enemy, and because Mitty gets on well with Berkli, she mistrusts him as well. That's two to one. She needs us to balance the equation, to keep it two against two. Without us, she feels isolated. She counts on us to be her ally, and she'll welcome our statement of support. She doesn't have all power gathered into her own hands yet. That's what she wants the space weapons for."
"I don't understand."
    "The Edges, Fashimir, the Edges. With the walkers, she could conquer any place on earth except the Edges. The Edges have technology of their own. So she needs weapons powerful enough to subdue the Edges. Trust us. Until she has them, she'll welcome our support. Before she has them, we have to assure that we don't become her next victims."
Forsmooth nodded agreement. "Talk to her, Ander. Convince her it should


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

119

be a two-family expedition. Some Ellels, some Anders. Share and share alike. Helping one another to keep Berkli and Mitty at bay."
    Ander spread his arms in a graceful gesture of acceptance, one that showed off his robe to advantage. There was just time for a murmur of appreciation from those assembled before the master of ceremonies announced dinner.


CHAPTER 6

~hen the sun edged the mountain crests to the west of Long Plain, Abasio stopped at the first farm he came to and dickered for some meat, salad stuff, and salt. He also asked for potatoes, though he couldn't remember whether it was late enough in the season for the farmers to have dug their root crops. Living in the city so long had put him out of touch with the soil. The Farmwife said of course she had potatoes, who wouldn't have potatoes by this time of year, smooth and brown and smelling of earth. He bought six of them and a sizable lump of butter in a gourd pot, and he filled his canteen at the farm well. A mile or two farther south, he made camp on a breezeswept height far enough from any stream to be free of mosquitoes, close enough to the north-south highway to be relatively safe from monsters, so he told himself, and beside a copse littered with fallen tree limbs and grown up with clumps of burdock.

    He gathered a handful of burdock leaves and a bundle of deadfall branches, shaving some of the latter into


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 121

paper-thin kindling. Once his fire was burning well, he tipped his canteen onto the clayey soil, stirred the resultant mud into a paste, wrapped his potatoes first in burdock leaves and then in an even layer of clay, and buried the sticky bundles in the coals of his fire. He ate the meat and lettuces while he waited for the sun to set, the stars to come out, the fire to bum down. When nothing was left of it but grayed embers, he dug out the blackened balls, cracked off the clay, and put all but two of the cooked potatoes in his saddlebags. Those two he buttered copiously and ate with salt and enjoyment before drowning the fire, rolling up in the blankets, and falling asleep.
    Deep in the night, he came awake to the sound of growling, like animals fighting. Huge animals. He sat up, stood up, went to the edge of the copse. and peered out at the night, suddenly aware that the wind was blowing from behind him toward the sound. His awareness was matched by something else's. The snarling stopped. A long silence, followed by a questing howl, then another, joined together and ct)ming toward him.
    Cursing under his breath, more than a little panicky, Abasio untied the horse and slapped it into motion, rolled his possessions inside a blanket, strapped the untidy bundle on his back, then climbed the tallest of the nearby pines, up the dea0~ and broken lower branches, stopping to kick off the stub of each dead branch behind him, then on up among the living branches, prickled by the needles and stained with resin. These were lessons learned in youth, drilled into him by Grandpa. "If what's chasing you doesn't have wings, go high, cut off your route behind you, get hid if you can." So he went high, so far up that the trunk diminished alarmingly, bending and swaying under his weight.
    The yammering howls came closer. He put his folded blanket on the best branch he could find, cushioning his seat so discomfort would not make him move, took several deep breaths, then concentrated on being absolutely silent.
    The howls broke off in midyell. From beneath him came shuffling, snarling, gulping noises. Stench rose around him, like smoke. The miasmic cheesy smell meant it was trolls. Ogres and manticores smelled like rotten meat, chimeras smelled like cats, minornuts like cows, but manticores, chimeras, and minotaurs didn't hunt at night--strictly speaking, minotaurs didn't "hunt" at all, though they were dangerous enough for all that. Trolls and ogres hunted at night. The tree shuddered as something huge hit it, perhaps only by accident, as the result of the scuffle going on. They could smell him, Lord only knew how, above their own stink. At least, they could smell where he had been, including the tree trunk.
    The trunk shuddered again, and again. Something trying to climb'? Mature trolls couldn't climb. Their legs bent the wrong way, and they were too heavy.
Abasio put his head on his bundle and concentrated on grayhess, noth-


122                              Sheri S. Tepper

ingness, nothing at all, at all. Grandpa had always said monsters could read people's thoughts. It was important, so he had always said, not to think.
    So he would not think. Despite the vibration of the trunk, despite their scratching at it, the deep rasp of their claws on wood, the stench, the howls, he would not think of them. He would think of something else. Horses. Horses away somewhere else. Delicious horses. Galloping, galloping, why weren't these trolls out hunting horse? Hmmm?
Silence below. Yammer-snarl-yammer. Moving away among the trees. Abasio didn't fall for it. Both trolls and ogres had been known to move away and sit silent for hours, waiting for prey to appear. Trolls were very patient. One of the Purple legends written in the Book of the Purples was of Ben the Wolf, who had gone into the wilderness, sought out a monster in its lair, pursued it underground, and slaughtered it. Abasio had always considered the story apocryphal. One of Grandpa' s words, apocryphal. Nothing in the present encounter had made him change his mind. He curled up on the blanket as best he could. Eventually he fell asleep.
    First light found him early awake. The grove beneath him was empty. Trolls were usually back in their lairs by dawn because sunlight immobilized them. They were blinded by bright light. Abasio climbed down stiffly, achingly, yelling a few times and bouncing on the branches, just to bring out anything that might be hiding. Finally he dropped from thirty feet up in the tree, falling and rolling, managing not to break anything.
    When he looked at the trunk of the tree he'd been in, he couldn't hold back a shudder. Claws had ripped it deep, shredded the bark so that it hung in tatters. And everywhere around was the splash and stench of monster, marking the territory.
    He left quickly, making time for a quick bath in the fiver, breakfast of cold meat and potato, tracking the horse--which had not gone as far as it should have for its own good--and continuing his journey. From the hill where he'd camped he could look east across the river to the highway, a shiny line where bug-size freight vehicles trundled along spouting smoke. A~ one ~ime, so Grandpa had told him, highways would have been full of vehicles, people going here and there, things being carried back and forth from the far edges of the world. Goods that could be manufactured next door, food people could have grown for themselves, both had been carried across whole countries! People had used fuel prodigiously in the old days, which left damned little for use now. Of course, most of the people had gone to the stars, so there wasn't so much need now.
    By midmorning, he could see the tops of the Wise Rocks, their flattish heads seeming to float above a ridge some distance to his right, up the Crystal River valley that wound westerly into the hills. As he rode higher, the lower parts of the red pillars came into view: tall, contorted, slightly hunched


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            123

figures, their heads together in eternal confabulation. Since he left the Patrol Post, he had not seen anyone except the Farmwife he'd bought food from. Now, hungry for the sound of voices, he found himself listening, as though he might hear the stones talking if he were only quiet enough.
    Though boiling with rampant, muddy fury in the spring when fed by the runoff from the western ranges, the Crystal River was clear and burbling this time of year. Along its flow, here on the valley floor, was where the refugee had been, Abasio thought. She'd been seen by hunters who, if they'd been hunting goats, must have been high upon the ridge, among the feathery new growth of forest. There were more goats all the time, and more deer, too, as the forests and meadows came back on the heights, replanted by Sisters to Trees. Abasio's ma's ma had been a Sister to Trees, according to Grandpa, and there were others of them among the Farmwives in the valley.
    The hunters would not have been the only ones to see the refugee. Someone on a farm would have seen her as well. Abasio would ask. If that failed, he would ride on to Whitherby, the nearest village down the Long Plain, a few hours ahead. But first--first he'd ask at the farms. Perhaps at Grandpa's farm.
    He pulled up the horse as though needing stillness to contemplate that idea. Grandpa's farm. Well, maybe he wouldn't go there. He took a deep breath. Maybe he'd ask about Grandpa, but he wouldn't go there. He was honest enough to admit the reason. He'd had certain dreams of himself when he was a child. He and Ma had sometimes talked about what he could do or be. They had talked of traveling west to join the Guardians. Grandpa had been full of tales of the Guardians. Or he would explore the lands to the south, where new towns were said to be growing out of the low jungles, maybe become an Animal Master or a Sea Shepherd.
    When he'd run away, he hadn't planned to be a ganger. That had just happened. The dreams, the plans, the visions he'd had of himself when he was a kid didn't match what he was now. He didn't want to deal with that difference. That dissonance.
    It was not a word Abasio would have said aloud in Fantis. The gangs were suspicious of polysyllabic talk, of meanings that were too precise. They used few and sharp words to serve aggressive use; few and hard words for threats; few and sodden words for everyday; flabby words with variable meaning, words that look their sense mostly from the tone and the rhythm of speech, that could equally well be endearment or deadly insult, depending on how things came out. The same words could be an invitation to a woman, a challenge to a ganger, an order to a slave, a greeting to a shop owner in the district, the repeated refrain of a song, or a final insult to a dying man.
    "Like apes," Grandpa had said, the one time Abasio had gone back, looking for Ma. "Like apes, Abasio. No oral tradition, rejecting literacy as


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 123

figures, their heads together in eternal confabulation. Since he left the Patrol Post, he had not seen anyone except the Farmwife he'd bought food from. Now, hungry for the sound of voices, he found himself listening, as though he might hear the stones talking if he were only quiet enough.
    Though boiling with rampant, muddy fury in the spring when fed by the ranoff from the western ranges, the Crystal River was clear and burbling this time of year. Along its flow, here on the valley floor, was where the refugee had been, Abasio thought. She'd been seen by hunters who, if they'd been hunting goats, must have been high upon the ridge, among the feathery new growth of forest. There were more goats all the time, and more deer, too, as the forests and meadows came back on the heights, replanted by Sisters to Trees. Abasio's ma's ma had been a Sister to Trees, according to Grandpa, and there were others of them among the Farmwives in the valley.
    The hunters would not have been the only ones to see the refugee. Someone on a farm would have seen her as well. Abasio would ask. If that failed, he would ride on to Whitherby, the nearest village down the Long Plain, a few hours ahead. But first--first he'd ask at the farms. Perhaps at Grandpa's farm.
    He pulled up the horse as though needing stillness to contemplate that idea. Grandpa's farm. Well, maybe he wouldn't go there. He took a deep breath. Maybe he'd ask about Grandpa, but he wouldn't go there. He was honest enough to admit the reason. He'd had certain dreams of himself when he was a child. He and Ma had sometimes talked about what he could do or be. They had talked of traveling west to join the Guardians. Grandpa had been full of tales of the Guardians. Or he would explore the lands to the south, where new towns were said to be growing out of the low jungles, maybe become an Animal Master or a Sea Shepherd.
    When he'd run away, he hadn't planned to be a ganger. That had just happened. The dreams, the plans, the visions he'd had of himself when he was a kid didn't match what he was now. He didn't want to deal with that difference. That dissonance.
    It was not a word Abasio would have said aloud in Fantis. The gangs were suspicious of polysyllabic talk, of meanings that were too precise. They used few and sharp words to serve aggressive use; few and hard words for threats; few and sodden words for everyday; flabby words with variable meaning, words that took their sense mostly from the tone and the rhythm of speech, that could equally well be endearment or deadly insult, depending on how things came out. The same words could be an invitation to a woman, a challenge to a ganger, an order to a slave, a greeting to a shop owner in the district, the repeated refrain of a song, or a final insult to a dying man.
    "Like apes," Grandpa had said, the one time Abasio had gone back, looking for Ma. "Like apes, Abasio. No oral tradition, rejecting literacy as


understanding is limited. but also ~xperience.

o~an~pa~s words. Like the word he had just thought of in reference to the unquiet jangling of his spirit and of the ~o~t~

  b~n named Suttle. The man had often Been away, so the t'arm had been man-
  aged by his wife along with a bunch of children and other people, including
  some female relative with a simpleton-son. Likely they were still there.
  So recalling, he turned in at the gate. A tributary brook ran beside the
  lane, bits of bark and leaves bobbing along beside him as he rode, losing
  themselves among the willows and sedges that lined the banks, washing
  ashore on grassy ledges. Rising around him was the fresh smell of we~ soil
  and leaves, the scent of moist growth, and he stooped to
   ,,,,a,,~-t ....- ............    ~ u~ intense and totally unexpected joy. Beside
him the small stream ran through a chain of shallow pools, where the silver water had been dammed with leaky lines of stones, constructions a chikl might have made.
     And there was the child, up to his or her thighs in water, hunting something. Frogs, perhaps. Or crayfish.
"Hello," said Abasio cheerfully.
The child looked up briefly, then went back to whatever it was doing.
     "I wonder if you could help me?" Abasio asked, getting down from his horse.
     "Doubt it," said the child. "Ma says I'm as unhelpful a whelp as any she's had."
     Abasio laughed dutifully. The child was looking at him mildly: unat?aid, cemainly, but with a proper wariness, nonetheless,
     "No big matter, young'un. I heard that a refugee was spotted hem in the valley two days ago. I'm looking for such a person, that's all. I thought perhaps you knew where the mhgee had gone."
     "That wasn't a mhgee," the child asse~ed, turning back to the bank and continuing its search. "That was my cousin Oily. She went too hr up the river, is all. She's never been here before, my cousin, so she went too far. Then she had to come back down, so maybe somebody thought she was a mhgee."
"Your cousin." His heart sank. He felt it thudding away in his boots. "From over near Longville. Oily Longaster.


She

124

Sheri S. Tepper

unmanly. It's a decadent tongue, Abasio, an impoverished tongue. As vocabulary is reduced, so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you can describe, the number of things you can identify! Not only understanding is limited, but also experience. Man grows by language. Whenever he limits language, he retrogresses!"
    Maybe Grandpa had been right. Certainly now Abasio needed some of Grandpa's words. Like the word he had just thought of in reference to the unquiet jangling of his spirit and of the world at large: a dissonance.
    It was noon before he arrived at Wise Rocks Farm. The people there had been named Suttle. The man had often been away, so the farm had been managed by his wife along with a bunch of children and other people, including some female relative with a simpleton-son. Likely they were still there.
    So recalling, he turned in at the gate. A tributary brook ran beside the lane, bits of bark and leaves bobbing along beside him as he rode, losing themselves among the willows and sedges that lined the banks, washing ashore on grassy ledges. Rising around him was the fresh smell of wet soil and leaves, the scent of moist growth, and he stopped to breathe deeply, suddenly alive with a feeling of intense and totally unexpected joy. Beside him the small stream ran through a chain of shallow pools, where the silver water had been dammed with leaky lines of stones, constructions a child might have made.
    And there was the child, up to his or her thighs in water, hunting something. Frogs, perhaps. Or crayfish.
"Hello," said Abasio cheerfully.
The child looked up briefly, then went back to whatever it was doing.
    "I wonder if you could help me?" Abasio asked, getting down from his horse.
    "Doubt it," said the child. "Ma says I'm as unhelpful a whelp as any she's had."
    Abasio laughed dutifully. The child was looking at him mildly: unafraid, certainly, but with a proper wariness, nonetheless.
    "No big matter, young'un. I heard that a refugee was spotted here in the valley two days ago. I'm looking for such a person, that's all. I thought perhaps you knew where the refugee had gone."
    "That wasn't a refugee," the child asserted, turning back to the bank and continuing its search. "That was my cousin Oily. She went too far up the river, is all. She's never been here before, my cousin, so she went too far. Then she had to come back down, so maybe somebody thought she was a refugee."
"Your cousin." His heart sank. He felt it thudding away in his boots. "From over near Longville. Oily Longaster."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            125

"Wandering around all alone?"
    "Well, she came in a freight wagon as far as our road," the child said. "She just walked right on past us." The child turned limpid eyes on Abasio and smiled at him.
    Abasio knew at once that the child was a girl and that she was lying to him. How many times had he seen that glance, all innocence? How many times seen that smile, all sweetness? Girls, girls, girls, and this one was lying through her teeth. Which meant it wasn't her cousin at all. Which meant...
    ~'I'11 ride on down and see your ma," he said with a smile. "She's Ori Suttle, isn't she?"
    "How'd you know that?" the child snapped, glowering at him suspiciously.
    "Oh, I was born and brought up over there," he said, pointing west and south, symbolizing the distance between thumb and forefinger, a little way only. "On a farm."
    "You're a cityman," the child challenged. "Citymen dress like you. Mudcolored. Hair all covered up. Bet you your hair's a funny color under that cap."
    "I'm a cityman now," Abasio agreed. "But I wasn't then. I remember your ma, Farmwife Suttle. And your aunt, what was her name? Upton? And her son. Is he still here?"
    "Most everybody who ever was here is still here," the girl said, dismissing him as she turned back to the muddy bank.
    Including the refugee, Abasio assured himself as he rode on down the lane. Certainly including the refugee.
    Ori Suttle sat just inside the open door of the dairy, skimming cream with the assistance of the Widow Upton. Abasio dismounted and carefully tied his horse, taking his time about it so they could get a good look at him, then went close enough to bow and introduce himself as a former neighbor, now a cityman, out looking for a refugee who had been reported in the neighborhood.
    "And what would you want with a refugee, cityman?" asked Farmwife Suttle, drawing her brows down in a scowl at him. "Some poor soul from some troubled place, already with enough worry on his poor head, driven out, no doubt, only to have you city hounds after him as well."
    "I've been helpful to refugees in my time," said Abasio mildly. "Sometimes I can offer a job, or some advice as to where one might be found."
    "I know your jobs," snorted the Widow. "Jobs for harlots and songhouse barkers and poor fools to be killed in the arena."
"I've never put anyone in the arena, fool or not," said Abasio stiffly.


126                              Sheri S. Tepper

"And I've never made a harlot of anyone, either. It's true, I've recruited concubines a time or two, and carnival folk--a magician, and a strong man. Why do you assume I'm a villain, Farmwife?"
    "Your hands are covered, boy, which means tattoos to me, and that means gangs--though you don't speak like them, or at least not when you're speaking to us, though I've no doubt you can and do, most times. Well, it's no matter what you are. There's no refugee here. Only my niece, Oily Longaster from Longville. She missed the turning and went too far up the valley, where she was seen by Farmer Chyne. And if you were born here and raised here, as you claim, you know about Farmer Chyne."
"He was never fond of strangers," said Abasio.
    "True. And what with these monsters breeding in the hills, more of them every year, he's got other things not to be fond of. Was his manner as much as anything that made my niece sure she'd gone too far, so she turned and came back again. And that's the whole story of that." She tapped her skimming spoon on the edge of the jar. "May I offer you some biscuits, cityman--"
"Abasio," he offered.
"Abasio." She nodded. "Then it was old Cermit was your grandpa." He got the name out with some difficulty. "Cermit. Yes."
    "Poor old man." The Widow gave him a sharp look. "All solitary up there in the woods. So you're the boy who ran off to the city and broke his ma's heart."
"Hush, sister," said the Farmwife. "Let old dung lie."
    "Do that," said Abasio stiffly. "I did no more than she had done in her own youth. And I've not regretted it."
    "You're young still," said the Widow with a sniff. "Your time for regret is yet to come."
    "I offered biscuits and fresh butter and cheese. The good cheese, boy. The stuff we keep for ourselves."
    Abasio found his mouth watering. The good cheese, the aged stuff that the farmers kept for themselves because there was no point wasting it on
cityfolk. He hadn't tasted ~hat crumbling yellow wonder in ),ears."Yes, ma'am," he told her fervently. "l'd be most grateful."
    He told himself later it was fate, certainly. Fate that the Farmwife mentioned the cheese, and that he accepted it, and that he had his mouth full of it when she walked in. She. Her hair a cloud of darkness and her eyes glowing at him. Her skin shiny.as a piece of handled wood, polished and gleaming. Her skirts pulled between her legs and hiked up into her belt as women did when they worked in the garden, the fabric damp around her knees, knees so softly rounded he could feel them in the palm of his hand, shapely calves, sweetly turned ankles, and feet that made him think of dancing


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            127

on meadows. Barefoot and laughing she was, coming in and catching sight of him and her brows going up like wings, saying, Who's this? Where've I seen this one before?
    And he, he caught his breath through that mouthful of bread and cheese, and choked like a fool, and almost strangled himself, gasping, so there was somebody pounding on him and the Farmwife clutching him around his middle, and when he caught his breath at last with a great whoop of air, she'd gone.
    "Smaller mouthfuls, boy," counseled the Farmwife. "Did your ma teach you no manners before you left her?"
"It wasn't that," he said, unthinkingly truthful.
    "No, I hardly thought it was," she said dryly. "That was Oily Longaster, my niece, as you've no doubt guessed."
    Which was a blatant lie, but he would not argue with her. "She's--she's a very lovely girl," he said.
    "She's a lovely young woman, yes. She'll make some lucky farmer a fine wife," said the Farmwife.
"What a waste," he blurted, still unthinking.
    "A waste!" Farmwife Suttle exclaimed. "Isn't that a cityman talking! How would you not waste her, boy'? Let's see, she could be a gang concubine, sold to a Chief, and passed on by him to his boys when he tired of her or when she caught one of the IDDIs or grew old. Or she could go to a brothel, where she'd fetch a good many silver rats for her owner until she sickened there. They don't last long in the brothels."
    "1 was thinking of the Edge," mumbled Abasio, redfaced. It wasn't true. He'd been thinking of himself.
    "Oh? And since when have the Edges been recruiting from outside'? You know as well as I do, boy, that the Edges are closed, them with their lawns and their trees and their tennis and their guard dogs. Them with their clean white clothes and their clean soft hands. Them with their patrols! You have to be born to one of their families, go to one of their schools, be confirmed in one of their faiths, and dress and talk as they do, and if you don't, out you go. No outside wives for them. Nossir."
    The Farmwife leaned forward to rap him on the knee with a hard knuckle. "Let be, boy. She'll make some farmer a fine wife, bear him several handsome children, and grow old no unhappier than most of us."
    Abasio had no desire to let be. He wanted to rage at her. He wanted to run after the girl. He would have done, except he'd seen her go, and the way she had gone bothered him. She'd fled. She'd taken one look at him and gone out like a cat spooked by a dog.
    He finished his bread and cheese, unashamedly begged a bit more for his homeward way, and went out the way he'd come, trying to decide how he'd


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manage to find the girl, or talk with her if she was so unwilling. As he rode back along the brook on his way to the gate, he saw the girl-child once again,
this time sitting on the branch of a gnarled tree, watching him closely. "011y says she saw you," said the child. "What's your name?" asked Abasio. "Seelie."
    "Seelie. Well, yes, she saw me and I saw her, but she didn't stick around. She came out here, did she?"
"That's her business. I'll be watching, so don't you try anything." What did she suppose he would try? Abduction.'? Here in farm country, where the tocsin would bring the farmers and their families swarming at him like bees? Rape? With the same consequence?
    Then all such worries departed him, for he saw her, standing as Seelie had stood, knee-deep in one of the pools, hunting something or other, a plumy creature on her shoulder that at first he thought was a bird, then thought was something else.
    He didn't speak until he was near her. "You're Oily," he said foolishly. So far as he knew, it was the only name she had.
    She looked up from the fat crayfish in her hand, then dropped it in~.o the sodden sack hanging from her belt. "And you're the man from the city," she said, carefully keeping her eyes away from his. He was just as she remembered him, though the cap and gloves he wore contributed nothing to his appearance. Dark, he was, like walnut wood, darker than she was, and she was dark. Eyes with fire in them. Hands that moved gracefully, as though of themselves.
    Handsome or not, she had been warned against citymen. Burned Man had warned her with every word he said. Oracle had warned her with some of the words she hadn't. Though it took all her resolve, she accused him.
    "You're a ganger," she said flatly. Her eyes told him she'd seen him before in ganger company, though she didn't say that. She knew he recognized her and knew she was not Ori Suttle's niece. Still, she would not admit it. Not to him. "A ganger," she repeated.
    He flushed. Just so had his grandpa used to say the word. A ganger. As though he had said, a cockroach. A poison snake. A rat in the granary.
    "Some here in the country don't approve of gangs, it's true," he said, trying to keep his voice flat and unchallenging. "But in the city, most men my age either belong to a gang or pay dues to one. As for me, I'm a member of the Purples."
    She gave no sign she had ever heard of Purples. The very fact she did not made him ache with doubt. Had she not felt anything, then? Had she merely looked at him as at any wandering ganger? Was this flaming heat in him all on his side, none on hers?


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            129

     It was much on hers, as well, but she was using all her strength to deny it. "That's all right." She waved her hand, dismissing the question and him along with it. "We've all a right to our own way of life. So I've been taught, at least."
     Oh, go away, she said to him silently. Before I throw myself at you, like some stupid Ingenue. Go, go, get you gone!
    He refused to be dismissed. He wanted to winkle her out of her deception. "What brought you here from Longville? I think I went there as a child, to market, probably. Isn't the Longville market famous?"
    She looked up at him briefly, her eyes opaque. "I suppose all markets are famous to those who buy and sell there. Here in the country, markets are our entertainment."
    "You found the village dull?" he persisted, purposely leaving the village unnamed.
    She shrugged. "It was home, but sometimes we... sometimes we need new surroundings. Else we stultify."
    Stultify. Another of Grandpa's many words. She too had been reared by a lover of words. "You find Wise Rocks less stultifying?"
    "It's too early yet to say," she said, stooping to the bank, eyes probing the ripples. It was easier to keep a proper attitude toward him if she did not look at him. The angel flew from her shoulder to his, landed there, much to his surprise, and pecked him sharply behind the ear.
    He clapped his hand to the spot, feeling blood. The winged creature went back to its mistress, who scolded it wordlessly. He looked at the blood on his hand, feeling inexplicably angry, more at her than at her pet. She was almost contemptuous, certainly disrespectful to him who'd grown accustomed to respect. Or what passed for it in the cities. He had no idea what it cost her to appear so.
    "Perhaps you'd find the city less stultifying," he challenged. "I'd be glad to escort you there, if you'd like to see it."
    It was the worst thing he could have said. Her face closed, like an ironbound door, shutting him out. "Do you think l'm a fool, cityman'? I've been told what sleazy life awaits women there." She gave him a contemptuous look, hating him for being what Oracle had said citymen were. Not her Prince Charming, but a serpent, his darting tongue laden with false words.
    He looked so shocked, so bereft, she almost regretted her decision to have no more to do with him. More gently she said, "There's only one thing you could do for me, cityman, and that's to let me pick your brain. I was recently told by a--fortune-teller that my fate is entwined with some mystery. In your travels about your exciting and no doubt wonderful city, have you by chance heard of three thrones that tower'.>"
He shook his head, baffled at this change of direction. "If it's a matter


130                              Sheri S. Tepper

of prophecies, half the city is hearing prophecies on any given day. Every carnival has fortune-tellers, the odds-shops have palm readers, there are astrological forecasts on the public amusement screens. Anytime a gang goes to war, it seeks some prophecy or other."
    "Would you have heard, perhaps, of five beings called champions or six who seek salvation?"
    He became sly. "I'll be honest with you, Olly. Yours is the kind of question that needs to be taken to a real soothsayer, an archetypal Oracle, perhaps. Even we citymen take some kinds of questions to Oracles. My Chief went to one not long ago, in a village near here, as a matter of fact."
    Slyness achieved nothing. Her face closed once more. "It's of no matter, cityman. Forget that I asked." She turned away, dismissing him once more, this time finally.
    Memory tugged at him, faint and illusory. He couldn't pin it down. He called after her, "I'11 ask when 1 get back. Perhaps someone there will know."
    She was splashing her way down the stream, ignoring him, wondering why she had even bothered with this spate of talk. Oracle had told her it was better to say nothing to such men, but there for a moment his face had been open and likable, not conniving at all. There for a moment she might almost have trusted him.
    He cried after her desperately, "You might consider the three thrones that remaineth !"
She turned and came back a little way. "Remaineth?"
    Now, where had that memory come from? He groped for more. "Something to do with the world," he said, astonishing himself. "Something about--after men went to the stars, the thrones that remaineth to... protect the world from upheavals."
    "Is there, then, some such protection?" she asked. "I've not heard of that."
    "It may not exist. Or perhaps it's fictional. It's simply something I heard of a long time ago." It was Ma, or maybe Grandpa who had mentioned the thrones, he remembered now.
    "Ah," she said. "Well. How interesting." She smiled an almost-real smile, and he felt himself melting. "Thank you for that."
    She went away again, downstream, where she was joined by Seelie. The two bent their heads over the sack of crayfish and then, evidently deciding they had enough, they went on to lose themselves among the willows.
    Abasio was left to stare after them, a foolish look on his face. So he had found her, and now what? He had come all this way, been almost eaten by trolls--and she would have none of him. This wasn't the city, where he could demand to see her pass and if she had none, take her for his own, or


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

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if she had one, kill the man who had issued it and take her anyway. This was not the city, where he could call out his gang to help him kidnap her
and keep her thereafter.What was he to do?
    What he did, after some little time, was to shut his mouth. After a moment more he cursed, almost silently. When he got onto his horse, he was amazed fo find his eyes wet and his body trembling.

"Farmwife Suttle?" Oily asked. "Have you heard of three thrones of remaineth? Or anything about three thrones?"
    The Farmwife, who had her cheek against a cow's flank as she stripped the last of the milk from the teats, drew back with a puzzled look. "Seems I've heard something like that. A story maybe'? Some kind of fairy tale?"
    "That man who was here, he said there were three thrones at remaineth or of remaineth. He said it had to do with the world, with upheavals."
    The Farmwife's expression cleared, and she smiled. "Well, of course. That's where I've heard it. That cityman was old Cermit's grandson, and Cermit is always going on about upheavals. He's a great reader, Cermit. Spends half the mice he gets for his crops buying books." She picked up her bucket, slapped the cow on the flank until it moved toward the barn door, then moved herself and her milking stool to the other cow.
    Outside the barn the guardian-angel whistled and chortled, then came fluttering in to seat itself on Olly's shoulder, where it pecked at her ear gently.
    "He said his name was Abasio," said Oily, ignoring the angel, who had been extremely active of late, coming and going all the time, even at night, taking off on little flights into the forest at the least provocation. She hadn't dared talk with the man, but since he left, she had very much wanted to talk about him.
    The Farmwife gave her a look from under her lashes, one that understood a good deal more than Oily knew. "Abasio Cermit. Cermit's daughter Elisa ran off when she was only a girl, Little more than a year later, she was back again--tattooed, hair dyed, pregnant, scared out of her wits those from the city would come after her. Nobody came, though, and in due time the babe was born. Abasio. Thirty-some-odd years ago, that was. I was only a child." "And he also ran off to the city?" queried Oily.
    "When he was about fourteen, fifteen. Poor Elisa had so feared he'd do it, she was always warning him against it. Which, in my opinion, practically guaranteed he'd do it, boys being contrary as they are. When he did leave, she went into a black fit, one nobody could lift her from. In the end, she killed herself, or as good as."


132                              Sheri S. Tepper

"As good as?"
    "Drowned herself. Old Cermit went frantic, set off a distress signal that brought a resurrection team from the Edge, and they brought her back. They' do that, you know, if you pay them. It took all Cermit's savings, and little good it did the poor man, or her, either. They should have left her dead."
    "Drowned Woman!" said Olly, trying to remember where Drowned Woman had been when the Purples came to the village. Not where Abasio could have seen her, obviously.
    The Farmwife misunderstood this for mere commentary. "Elisa was a drowned woman, indeed. She could not remember how to milk, how to plant or harvest, how to wash a dish or churn butter. Cermit tried to care for her, but she didn't remember him. All she wanted to do was dabble in the water and sing little songs and cuddle baby animals, as though they were children. Eventually, she went away. Old Cermit never told us where."
    Olly locked her lips. So. Abasio's momma was the Drowned Woman in the village. Now that Olly thought about it, she could even picture the resemblance between them.
    She found herself considering his appearance, his size, his build, the of his shoulders. She shook herself, embarrassed at her own thoughts. Oracle had spoken of men being attractive, of the feelings a woman might expect to feel. Certainly Abasio was attractive, but she didn't recognize however it was she felt. Interested, maybe? But he was a cityman. Oracle had been more than clear about what a woman could expect from citymen.
    Nonetheless, since Abasio's momma had also been Orphan's momma, in a manner of speaking, he might almost be her brother. That thought she could deal with. It would be good to have a brother. And one didn't need to worry about feelings with a brother. One simply felt... familial. As she did toward Oracle. And Drowned Woman. And the Farmwife herself, rather.
    "Would the old man, Cermit, tell me about these thrones if I asked him?" Oily asked the Farmwife.
    "If I took you over, he might well. In the morning we'll ride over, you and I."
"I've never ridden on a horse."
"It's like sitting in a chair. Nothing to it."
    It wasn't at all like sitting in a chair. Oily was so sore by the time they got to the Cermit Farm that she dreaded the thought of riding home again. Perhaps she'd let the Farmwife go on ahead and follow her afoot. Though come to that, she realized when she dismounted, it hurt almost as badly to walk. She gasped, and the angel on her shoulder made a troubled noise, as though in sympathy.
    The old man had come out onto his porch to stare dourly at them as they approached, his face breaking into a smile when he saw who it was.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 133

     "Ori," he called in a surprisingly firm voice. "Who's this you've got with you':"
"Oily," she rejoined. "A cousin of mine, from Longville."
     "Come in, come in," he invited them. "I've some rhubarb wine I've been saving for welcome visitors!"
     They went in. They ate muffins and drank wine. They talked. Oily looked around herself. This was a room he had occupied. That bed on the porch-he'd probably slept there in the summer heat. He'd drunk from that well ....
"Oily," said the Farmwife, "Cermit is showing you something."
     She flushed bright red and looked attentively at the two books Cermit had bought from a peddler who'd come through Whitherby. Old ones. Over a hundred years old, he whispered. They could even be books from before the last upheaval. Olly pricked up her ears at the word, and Originee took the opportunity to ask about the thrones.
    He said: "The thrones are a story my wife told me. She was from Artemisia, ran off from there because it didn't suit her, so she said, but she was full of stories that nobody else but Artemisians knew, about Coyote and Bear, about Talking God and Changing Woman, about things that happened long ago. Seems long ago, after most people left for the stars, the world was in upheaval."
"What sort of upheaval'?" Olly breathed.
    "Well, as to that, she wasn't specific. Could have been most anything: the climate heating up, or an ice age coming; chemicals getting in the oceans that killed the coral, killed the fish; too much ultraviolet getting through the atmosphere, burning everybody. Or it might have been one group fighting another. Who knows? I do know men went to the stars just in time, for if they hadn't gone then, there'd have been nothing left of the earth at all! So she told me.
    "Anyhow, in the midst of this upheaval--whatever kind it was--my wife said, 'In a place where power remaineth, three thrones were raised up to keep the world's peace.' I thought later, her talking about peace and all,
that's probably when they passed the half-century rule.""Half-century rule?" asked Oily.
    "The rule that says there's to be no history written going back more than fifty years. So's to allow changes to take place without too much grieving over old times, so's people don't dwell on old hatreds the way they used to. Oh, ladies, the wars they used to have! She told me! Old wrongs going back hundreds of years, and people still fighting over them! So they made the rule. Anybody had an old grudge more than fifty years old, it couldn't be written of anymore! Of course, you can make a rule about what's written down, and you can go through the libraries every year and take out any


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Sheri S. Tepper

histories that are fifty years old, but you can't keep people from telling tales,
now, can you'?" He nodded and sipped, then concluded: "I'll bet that's when the villages were set up too." "Why was that'?" Oily asked.
    "Well, according to my wife--Honey was what 1 called her--certain people come along from time to time who seem to cause upheavals. They just do it, maybe not even meaning to, for it's the type of people they are. So it was thought safest to put these kinds of people where they'd do the least damage, in little villages where they couldn't stir up much. They started out putting away all the Prophets and Preachers and like that, but once the villages were there, people started putting other folks there, special people, to keep the tranquillity and preserve the peace, you know, kind of like in zoos. You can't have tigers and artivorkes roaming around i~ town, but it'd be a pity to kill them all off too. So anybody troublesome but special enough to need preserving, that's where they go."
    Oily bridled at this as Originee put a cautionary hand on her shoulder, reminding her that Originee's niece Oily would have no reason to resent villages being called zoos.
    Still, she seethed. What possible trouble could an Orphan cause? A toddler so tiny she would fit into the pannier on a donkey?
    The Farmwife interrupted her agitations. "What were these thrones, then? A kind of government?"
    Cermit shook his head slowly. "My wife never said what they were. But she didn't speak of them as though they were a government."
"We don't have any government, do we'?" asked the Farmwife.
    "Not that I know of. There's certain--what would you say--powers we don't get in the way of. Like the teams that burn the books and the messengers who tell people they're archetypes and take them from their homes to the villages. But they don't add up to any government."
    "Do you think the story about the thrones is true?" asked the Farmwife. "Do you think they could still be there, be a kind of government, but nobody knows about them? A kind of secret'?"
"But why?" blurted Oily. "Why would it be secret?"
    "Oh, girl"--the old man chuckled--"l can tell you one real good reason. Nothing's so galling for us folk as to feel we're being managed. Lord, I've learned that from life. People don't take to being ordered about." He shook his head, looking off into the distance. "Us folk don't like laws, and we don't like rules, and we don't like people watching us to be sure we do right. Even when it's rules or laws we set up ourselves, we can't wait to change them or figure out some way to evade them entirely. My ma told me stories about the old times, when they had a whole army of men who did nothing


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            135

but make laws and change laws and figure out how to get around laws, year after year after year."
    "All men, I suppose," said Farmwife Suttle with a sniff. "That sounds like men, trying to make rules to cover everything. First thing little boys do when they get together is make up rules for their games. Somebody has to win, somebody has to lose. When they grow up, they do more of the same, then go fiddling with their laws and rules everlastingly because they don't work. Any woman knows rules have to give in to needs! There's things that're right and needful that no rule can be made to cover."
    Cermit nodded acceptance of this, unoffended. "I suppose it could have been mostly men, Originee, but since mankind went to the stars, them haven't been any rule-wrights that I know of."
    "Law-yers is what they were called," said the Farmwife. "And they all went, my ma told me. Every last one of them. They didn't think folks could get along without them, out there among the stars."
    All of which was interesting, but no help to Oily. "And you've no idea at all where this 'power remaineth' is?"
    The old man shook his head. "None at all. If ! had to go looking, I'd go to Artemisia--"
    "I've heard of Artemisia before," Oily interrupted. "They have a library there."
    "--where they've got the library." He laughed. "We've both heard the same, then. My wife told me there's books in that library go way back. Don't ask me how they manage to keep them. I don't know."
    He shook his head in wonder at this, which Olly barely noted, for the mention of Artemisia had set off rockets in her head. She should go. Now. She should... travel toward Artemisia! She should find out now, without a moment's delay.
    She fretted, controlling herself with difficulty as the talk moved on to other things, such as wine recipes, sourdough starter, and treatment for boggle fly on sheep.
    "What's the matter with your windmill, Cermit?" asked Farmwife Suttle. "I noticed when we came in it wasn't working."
    He leaned back in his chair, pointing upward. "Oh, it's nothing wrong. .lust my own gadget up there. See that heavy little wheel behind the big one? It takes a big wind to turn that heavy wheel, but when a big enough wind comes, that wheel turns and pushes down a latch, and that latch shuts it all down, automatic like, so the pump rod and the gaskets and all don't rip themselves up. Saves me getting up in the middle of the night because I l'orgot to shut her down. I call it my automatic shutdown system!"
"We haven't had a big wind."


136                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "Did two three days ago. Plenty of water in the cistern. I just haven't gotten around to turning it on again."
    Oily stared up at the windmill, thinking how sensible it was to have an automatic shutdown system. Bastard should have had one. Burned Man should have had one, when he got too upset. Fool should have had one, and Fool's mother, before she got IDDI.
Originee stood up and told old Cermit they had to be leaving.
    "Well, then," he said, "there's something I want to show you. Come on out back."
      They went out back, past the garden and to the corral, where three horses
stood head to tail, flicking each other's faces and necks with their tails. "Why, that's Big Blue!" cried the Farmwife. "I thought he died." "He did." Old Cermit nodded. "He died. This is his son or his grandson." "Big Blue was a gelding," the Farmwife objected.
    "Well, he wasn't a gelding all his life. Before he was a gelding, he was a stallion, and he lathered a whole string of foals over Whitherby way. Happen not long ago, I was talking about him, and this fellow told me he had a son or grandson of Big Blue that looked just like him."
    "He certainly does," said the Farmwife. "Just like him. Same color, same white feet and mane, everything." She patted Cermit on the shoulder. "I know you've missed Big Blue."
      Tears gathered in the old man's eyes, and he turned away quickly. "You
miss lots of things," he mumbled. "I guess that old horse was one of them." "What's this one's name?" asked Olly. "Big Blue Too," said Cermit.
    Olly sighed. "He looks like a very nice horse. But I'm so sore, even the most wonderful horse in the world wouldn't appeal to me at the moment."
    "Poor child." The old man shook his head. "Let her soak in a hot tub when she'gets home, Originee. By tomorrow, she'll be ready to ride over and see me again."
     Olly thought it unlikely, and nothing on the trip back served to change her opinion, even though Originee tried to distract her by asking why it was that Oily was so set on knowing about thrones. Shifting painfully, Oily told her of Oracle's foretelling, concluding with:
     "Cermit may think it's a zoo, but 1 was taught it's an archetypa! village, and all who live there are real. That certainly includes Oracle."
     "I'11 accept she's a real Oracle," said Originee. "Cermit didn't mean to hurt your feelings. But he had a point to make, you must admit. Having a real Oracle in an ordinary town, for example--that could cause some upheavals!"
     "Oracle herself said that was true," grunted Oily, standing up in the stirrups to ease her aching thighs as she told the Farmwife something of


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            137

Oracle's history. "She was sent to the village to keep her from causing upheavals at home. As were Bastard and Burned Man. Supposedly, that's why I ended up there, too, but I'd like to know what kind of upheaval an Orphan could cause!"
    Originee looked at her thoughtfully. "Wouldn't it depend on who the Orphan was, really? What was it your Oracle prophesied?"
Oily furrowed her brow and repeated:
"Ask one only child.
Ask two who made her.
Ask three thrones that tower, Gnawed by four to make them fall. Find five champions,
And six set upon salvation.
And answer seven questions in the place of power."
    She fell silent, considering what the Farmwife had said. Perhaps some Orphans could cause upheavals, depending on who they were. Certainly the Orphan who had been brought to take her place was somebody, though little about her own arrival in the village argued that she herself was... much. A little man with a donkey remarked in passing that she had a high destiny.
    Destinies could be high and still be quite horrible. Perhaps--perhaps she had been put there for some quite terrible purpose. As bait, perhaps, for those creatures that were hunting her. That thought had come to her more than once. It fit the situation as little else did.
    Originee interrupted her thoughts. "It's a mysterious prophecy, indeed. Were you intending to do something about it'?"
"Well, I should go to that library the old man mentioned," Oily said. Originee shook her head. "A sensible idea, child, but I wouldn't go rushing off' alone. It's a long way to the border, and women traveling alone have little chance of getting through the cities unmolested."
    "I know the roads go through cities, and Oracle herself suggested I go around. But going around means monsters, and I've seen monsters."
    "A person might go around, but two or more persons traveling together would bc better off." Originee nodded thoughtfully to herself, worrying the matter. "Are you feeling some sense of urgency'?" Young people had a habit of feeling urgent about all sorts of things, and in Originee's opinion, haste led to disaster, often as not.
    "Urgent! Yes. Half the time it's hard to stay still with all the ferment going on inside!"
    She didn't realize she'd shouted until she saw the Farmwife's face, shocked at the vehemence.
    Oily shook her head apologetically. "Farmwife, my friends Burned Man and Oracle often advised me to be honest with myself, and though it's hard


138                              Sheri S. Tepper

to do, I do try. I'm a grown woman, as Oracle often pointed out, but as Oracle also often told me, I've very little experience. l've always been just Orphan. I've got no sense of--of me-ness. I don't know what I'm like. I've never been in love--" She stopped, conscious that this might not be true. Or was it? "Or had a baby," she went on doggedly. "I've never been on a journey, or learned how to work at anything. There was nobody in the village 1 could look at and want to be like when I grew, for each of them was what he was, just as I was what I was. Each an archetype."
    She heard her voice rising and calmed herself. "None of us needed to do anything or accomplish anything, we just were. I hear Seelie talking about what she wants to do with her life, who she wants to be. She knows a horse doctor in Whitherby, and she intends to be a horse doctor herself. Or she says she'll become a Sister to Trees. I ask her if most young people have such plans, and she says they do, but I never had any ideas like that. No matter how I might have imagined being a Princess, a Pirate, a Heroine, I was still only Orphan. We don't grow out of our roles in the village. No one in the village had ever planned to be what they were or planned to be something else later on. They could not escape from what they were, and they would be that until they died."
     She rubbed at her cheeks, dismayed to find tears there. "But with me-with me, seemingly the role only lasts so long. Then, suddenly, I'm supposed to be someone else. I don't know who. I don't know why! Am I urgent about finding out? Yes! Yes, I am. My only problem has been, I haven't been sure where to go. But when old Cermit mentioned Artemisia--it was
 like my mind sat up and said, 'That's it!'""You sound angry," said the Farmwife.
     Olly shook her head, tears flying. "I--I am angry. It isn't right, not knowing where one's place is, not being someone!"
     "True," the Farmwife said, as though from personal experience. "We all like to imagine we are something mysterious and wonderful."
     Olly managed a wry chuckle, though it hurt her throat, which was tight and burning with tears. "Well, with me, Farmwife Suttle, I won't insist upon wonderful, though the prophecy does make me out to be mysterious."
     The Farmwife gave her a penetrating glance. "I should insist upon wonderful, if I were you."
"Why should I do that?"
     "Because, child, if you believe you are capable of wonders, then wonders you can do. At least, so has been my experience."

    Nelda, manager of the songhouse in Happy Street, had formerly been a hag working in the Renegade Headquarters. Before that she'd been nursemaid


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 139

to the Bloodrun tots, and well before that time (at age sixteen) had been concubine to the man now known as Old Chief Purple. She remembered him well. She had seen him in the interim, here and there, from behind the veils women wore on the street. She recognized him when he came to her songhouse to drink and listen to the music, though he showed no signs of recognizing her. It was not surprising. Women came and went in the gang houses. A few were treasured into middle age and beyond, but it was more common to get a tot or two out of them and then sell them while they would fetch a decent price. Why should Old Chief Purple remember her, who had been his bedmate for only a year or so7 Particularly inasmuch as she had changed even more than he.
    He had changed in several respects. Though he came now and then to hear the music and drink the wine, he did not partake of the women. He had acquired battle wounds that did not contribute to his appearance. He had spent some years in dissipation, which had disfigured him more than the wounds. Sometimes Nelda looked at him from her post near the door and grieved sadly for all the masculine beauty he had once possessed.
    Thus it was that very early on a Third-day morning, Nelda was astonished to see the Old Chief drinking at one of the small tables in a shadowed comer of the songhouse atrium. He looked almost as she remembered him from thirty years before. He was alone, which was unlike him, but in other respects he was completely himself.
    She had been on her feet for hours and was in such a state of troubled weariness that for a long moment she felt adrift, as though dreaming, believing she had somehow come loose from herself and her proper time to become young again. The illusion lasted until she had worked her way close enough to see that it wasn't actually Old Chief at all. The ears were different, and the set of the shoulders. Even with the differences, this young man was very like the Old Chief. He was not the Old Chief, but she would bet what was left of her life that he was the Old Chief's get!
    And what a pity that this one was not Chief of the Purples instead of the poor baby who had taken that office. If this one were Chief, then Sybbis would have nothing to complain of ....
The thought resonated: If this one were... then Sybbis would have nothing
to...
Well and well. How strange the workings of fate!
She stopped beside the shadowed table, putting on her motherly face. "Are you enjoying the entertainment'?"
    He looked up at her bleary-eyed. He was too drunk to be anything but truthful.
    "No," he said. "Not. Not ennertained. Came looking for a girl... a girl. A girl like another girl."


140

Sheri S. Tepper

    To anyone but a songhouse keeper, it would have been gibberish. To a songhouse keeper, it was one of the melodies of life. He was here looking for a girl who looked like another girl, a girl he could have in the place of one he could not. And what kind of girl could he not'? A girl who had been sold to someone else, perhaps? A girl caught dallying with the wrong man and disfigured by her rightful owner? A girl who had died'? Or even a girl he had loved as a boy and not seen since? Nelda was often amazed at the sentimentality of men. They gutted other men all day, then wept over their mothers. They took payment in silver mice to disfigure some poor wench who'd offended their Chief, then they spent the evening weeping over the fate of a sweetheart they had last seen in the roof garden when they were eleven.
    "What did she look like, your girl?" Nelda whispered, drawing out a chair and sitting near him. Not so near as to intrude upon him, just near enough to hear without being overheard.
    "Hair all cloudy," he said, nodding. "Like clouds at night, with the moon behind, you know."
"Black hair." Nelda smiled. "What else?"
"Legs all shiny." He sighed. "Pretty knees. Pretty feet. Rosy feet." Rosy feet. But of course. "What else?"
    "Doesn' talk like--like one of us. No. Talks like my granpa use to talk. Lots of words. Inneresing words..." His head sagged toward the table.
    Sybbis had a spoken vocabulary of a few hundred words, which were all she needed. Well, Sybbis would simply have to keep her mouth shut. The rest of it--the hair, the rosy feet, the shiny skin--was a simple matter of oils and lotions, of keeping the room mostly in darkness, of having her wear a mask.
"I know the girl," whispered Nelda. "She's a friend of mine."
    He looked up, wonder and delight chasing one another in his glance, too drunk to doubt her. "You know Olly?"
"Oh, I do know Oily, indeed. She's frpm--"
"Not from the city," he whispered. ~'From... somewhere else."
     "The farms," she suggested. Where else but among the farms and in the Edge did they use many interesting words'? Certainly this young man had not penetrated into the Edge to be fascinated by one of the women there.
 No, it had to be the farms."Farms," he agreed.
      "Oh, yes, 1 know Olly from the farms. She said she'd met you. She thinks
 you're very handsome, you know.""She... she thinks..."
"She'd like to know you better."
"She's... she's here?"


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            141

    "Close by. If you'd like to see her, I could arrange it. You'd have to meet her somewhere else. She wouldn't want to come here."
    "No," he agreed solemnly, looking past her at the bedraggled women writhing wearily on the dais. "No. Not her. Not here."
    Nelda raised a hand, summoning. Two of her stalwarts materialized beside her. "Take this young man to my house. See that he has some of my private stock to drink. He'll like that."
The man was struggling to his feet. "Where? Where's she'.>"
    "Get some sleep." Nelda smiled. "A little sleep. She'll meet you in my rooms, later this morning."
    The two stalwarts, silent as was their wont, took the young man away while Nelda summoned another man and sent him for the physician under contract to the house. "Tell him he's to meet me at my private house in an hour," she instructed. "Tell him I mean it. He's to be there."
      Three hours later, Nelda and the physician talked quietly in Nelda's private
sitting room while Abasio slept a drugged sleep in the bedroom nearby. "So he's got no diseases. You're sure'?"
    ~'i put his blood through the analyzer three times, and it says he has none of the diseases you're worried about, Nelda. What are you up to?"
    "Never mind. Better you don't know. You've got his hands bandaged, right?"
"His tattoos are covered. That's what you asked me to do."
"And his head."
"And his head. And pans of his face."
"And what was it you gave him'?"
    "A dose of something to keep him disoriented, out of touch with reality, as you asked. Since that could interfere with what you have in mind, I've also given him a new drug. It's called Starlight. It will assure... competence in the area you're most concerned with."
"So he's dreaming?" she asked. "But physiologically functional'?"
    "Madam, you have no idea how functional. The drug is expensive, however, and you'll have to pay extra."
     She put three silver rats on the table before him. "These are yours for today. There will be an equal number tomorrow, and perhaps the day after. By that time we should know whether your Starlight has worked well, and
 if it has, you'll be paid for that as well.""A sparrow," he murmured.
     "That expensive'? Well, even so. I hope you're wise enough to forget everything afterward, friend doctor. If you find yourself remembering, don't. It could bc very dangerous to remember."
     He gave her a tight4ipped smile and departed. Remembering too much and telling about it while drunk had gotten him kicked out of the Edge. The


142                              Sheri S. Tepper

Edge had its own rules, its own customs, just as the city did. Of course he wasn't going to remember too much!
    Left alone, Nelda went into the bedroom and examined the sleeping form there. A handsome but anonymous figure. The bandages would keep Sybbis from seeing who it was. He was healthy, which was all that mattered.
    Nelda put on the heavy black veils worn by women who went unescorted on the streets, hung her street pass on her belt, bundled a spare set of veils

    Sybbis had come to the baths that morning in no great mood of expectation. She thought it unlikely Nelda could have acted in the brief time since they'd talked. Her only expectation was to enjoy her bath and the usual massage. The moment she arrived, however, one of the bath-girls whispered in her ear and led her down the corridor to a private room.
"I hope you're in the mood for dalliance," purred Nelda.
"Now?"
"What better time, girl?"
"Who did you find?"
      "I found a healthy young man moping for a girl he can't have. If you're
clever, he'll think you're the girl.""He'll know--"
"He doesn't know his own name. He's drugged."
"Then what good will he do me!"
    "He'll be capable, never worry. Are you going to stay here and argue with me, or are you going to put on this blackie and come to my house, now, to spend a few hours?"
    "Hush," said Sybbis imperiously. "Wait a moment." She left the room and returned, after a time, with Posnia. There Posnia hung her red and green garb across a chair and dressed herself in Sybbis's purple veils while Sybbis put on the black garb of the street. When the corridor was momentarily empty, two black-clad women departed. Behind them Posnia did as she had been directed, moving to and fro restlessly behind the ornamental grill in the door, now in purple, now in green and red, murmuring as she went, now high, now low. The colors of the two dresses could be seen by those passing by, as could the restless movement. Voices could be heard. So far as the bath attendants knew, Sybbis and her sister were having a lengthy conversation. Though it was not unlike the games they had played as children, Posnia sweated, nonetheless. All would be well, Sybbis said. Posnia agreed that all would be well, only so long as they didn't get caught!
    In Nelda's living quarters, the brothel mistress stripped Sybbis to the skin and set about making her look like someone else. "Your name is Olly," Nelda instructed as she oiled and dyed, combed and fluffed. "Make up your own reason for wearing this little mask, but tell him your name is Olly and


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            143

you've been thinking about him since... ever since the last time you saw him."
"When was that?"
    "How in hell would ! know, girl'? Now, go on in there and wake him up. The doctor says he'll be most receptive. And remember, the fewest possible words! Don't talk!"
    "I don't see why," Sybbis whined. Now that the moment was at hand, she was having certain misgivings.
    "Because he knows her voice, stupid girl. A different voice might put him off. You've got a couple of hours before people start wondering where you are. Use the time as I taught you when you were a girl. I taught you
how to bed a man, how to delight him.""Fd need... and I've never..."
    Nelda stood back to check her handiwork. In the dimness of the adjacent room, Sybbis would pass. Cloudy hair, shiny skin, rosy feet and all. It was unfortunate the mask was necessary, but behind it, Sybbis was safely anonymous.
    "Everything you'll need is there, on the table by the bed," Nelda directed her. "And I know you've never, more's the pity. It may be a bit painful for you, but then, you knew that before you asked. So go! Exert yourself!"
    Neither Sybbis nor Nelda remembered the birthmark on Sybbis's inner thigh, a red mark like a tiny crescent moon.

    One of the lobbies of the Dome had been chosen long ago by the Founding Families as an appropriate site for a Founders' meeting room. The floor-toceiling glass had looked out then, as it did now, upon a dramatic panorama of the canyons. The carpets had been thick and sumptuous then and had been replaced with others almost as lavish. Furnishings, likewise, had been maintained to give an overall impression of age without senescence, stability without stuffiness, luxury without ostentation. At least, so thought the Ander Family, members of whom had invariably been in charge of renovation.
    The room still reflected, so the current Ander thought, his family's unfailing good taste, and it was to this room that he invited several elder members of the other Families on a late autumn afternoon, fluttering from guest to guest with relentless charm as they wandered in one by one, The Berkli, as usual, being the last.
    "What wonderful news do you have for us?" Berkli asked, looking around for Ellel, who was not present. He strolled to the table where their preferred refreshments had been set out by Domer staff. "I assume it is wonderful news. You'd hardly have bothered with all this otherwise."
"All this" included the produce of the greenhouses and the apiaries,


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Sheri S. Tepper

boughs in blossom and beeswax candles, as well as unusual munificence in the matter of food and drink. Berkli helped himself to both before finding a comfortable chair and arranging himself in it.
    Mitty was already at a nearby table, setting up the pieces for one of the imerminable games he played alone if no partner presented himself.
    "Aren't you eating?" Berkli inquired, biting into a succulent meat-filled pastry and licking the crumbs from his lips.
"Later,~' snorted Mitty. "After we see what Ander has to say."
    "What have you to say?" Berkli challenged his host. "What's it all about, Artder?"
    Artder seated himself near the laden table, snapping open his fan, fluttering it with a pretty air of having a secret to share. "You're so sure I've got something to tell."
    "Indeed. Certain sure." Berkli sipped at the wine, regarded his glass with amazement, and got up to look at the bottle once more. "Where did you get this?"
"Out of the cellars, Berkli. Where your father put it."
"You've raided my private stock?"
    "Ellel wanted the occasion to be perfect." Artder smiled sweetly. ~'So you'd have absolutely nothing to complain about."
    Mitty regarded him from deep-set eyes, his fingers making a repeated ta~ rum ta-rum on the ann of his chair. "You're toying with us, Artder. What is it?"
    "You're ready to listen, are you, Berkli? And you, Mitty?" He glanced around the room, receiving nods from the few others present, mostly his own family.
    "Oh, yes," Mitty said, turning his massive body slowly to and fro in the swiveling chair. "Yes, indeed. What is all this?"
    The fan fluttered for a moment longer before Ander clicked it closed and laid it on the arm of his chair. "Ellel wishes me to announce that she is only days away from having in her custody the Gaddir child--no, the Gaddir young woman."
Ander simmered delightedly under their incredulous stares.
    "You're fibbing," whispered Berkli. "At the very least, you're exaggerating !"
    "No, he's not," said Mitty, gravely. "Look at his face. Ellel is quite sure, or she wouldn't let him make the announcement."
    "Quite sure," Ander simpered. "Oh, quite sure, gentlemen. After all your doubts and jeers and sneers, you may be sure that she is sure. I don't know how he did it, or when he did it, but it seems old Werra begot himself a child. At least, the genetic structure matches!"
"He must have done it just before Ellel killed him," muttered Mitty.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            145

    Ander snarled at him. "Before she acted in our own best interests, to preserve our security," he hissed. "You yourself heard him utter threats against us!"
    "I heard him say it was dangerous for Jark the Third to bring all those walkers out of storage," said Berkli, tipping his glass to examine the lees of the wine. "I wouldn't have called that a threat. And he called finishing
the shuttle a foolish waste of resources, but that wasn't a threat, either!" "You say!" snarled Ander.
    Mitty glared. Berkli gritted his teeth, then made himself relax as he put out a calming hand toward Mitty. The Werra matter had caused a level of
enmity that it would not be wise to renew at this time."That's in the past," he said calmly. "Let it go."
    "How does Ellel know this person exists?" Mitty asked, forcing Ander to turn his outraged eyes from Berkli and onto himself. "How does she know?"
    Ander took a deep breath before answering. "The girl was in an archetypal village. A man left the village. For some reason, he disliked the girl. He had a notion that she was wanted, so he brought out with him a blanket that the girl had slept in. He gave it to a pair of walkers, and they returned it here. There were sufficient biological traces in it to identify the user as a Gaddir. Of that lineage, at least."
"Where's the girl?" Berkli asked.
"Ellel's walkers are looking for her now."
    Berkli could not keep himself from smiling. "So she doesn't actually have the girl."
    "No, she doesn't have the girl. But she damned well knows there is a girl! And she knows more or less where. The girl can't fly away! She has to walk about like any ordinary person. She could only have gotten so far
from that village, and Ellel's walkers are all around it!""So you think Ellel will find her?"
"I know she will. Probably within the next few days."
"And then what?" asked Mitty.
    Ander smiled. "We don't need her until the shuttle is finished, do we? A few days should be plenty of time to convince her of our cause."
    "She has to be willing," said Berkli. "Ellel can't drug her, or hypnotize her, or--"
    "I'm sure Ellel knows what Ellel can do," said Ander stiffly. "She probably knows better than you do."
    An uncomfortable silence fell. Mitty got up heavily and came to sit next to Berkli, while Ander rose, beckoned to several of his Family members, and began to select food from the table.
Mitty half turned his back on the Anders, stretched chubby fingers between


146                              Sheri S. Tepper

two buttons of his tunic, and scratched his hairy belly as he looked across at Berkli, who murmured:
    "Speaking of experience, Mitty, since she's just now found the right girl, what has she done with all the wrong ones? All those babies and girls the walkers have been bringing in over the years?"
    "Don't ask her," whispered Mitty, his face twisted in revulsion. "Really, Berkli. And don't ask Artder, either. He might tell you, and you don't want to know." He cast a glance at Ander's back, then focused once more on his scratching fingers. "I'11 tell you what I know, however. Almost twenty years ago, she had Dever, the engineer, build her a replica of the guidance helmet and the input and output consoles."
Berkli drew in his breath sharply.
    Mitty mused, "I'm not sure of anything, mind you. There's no obvious evidence to--confirm anything. Perhaps it's not something one really wants to confirm. And what would I do about it if I found out?"
    They shared a lon~ glance, both of them thinking of the thousands of walkers at Ellel's command. Berkli's fears were amorphous, based more on instinct than knowledge. Mitty, however, had a very good idea what similar mechanisms had once done, long ago, before men went to the stars.
    "What can the walkers do?" Berkli whispered, as though reading Mitty's mind.
"You mean in addition to destroying all life on the planet?"
"Surely that's exaggerating."
    "You yourself told Artder what they can do. So far, Ellel's kept most of them out in the world, searching, moving quickly from place to place. When they move fast enough, the damage they do is limited. But have you thought what will happen when they aren't needed to search any longer? When they gather all in one place?"
Berkli thought about it, feeling himself grow pale.
Artder had turned to watch them, his eyes narrowed.
    "We were just saying we hoped you'd keep us informed," Berkli said, forcing himself to look up with a kindly, civilized smile. "Please do, Fashimir. We can't wait to hear."


CHAPTER 7

~armwife Chyne, high up the valley of the ' Crystal, heard a commotion out by the pigpen one evening and went out to find a young troll breaking down the gate to get at the pigs. Luckily, as Farmer Chyne was later to say, it was a young one. Had it been an old one, or one more alert to her presence, likely his wife would not so easily have dispatched it with the splitting ax. When Farmer Chyne came home, he buried the troll and built a fire on the grave to confuse the scent if its kin came looking, then he repaired the pen.

    The following morning, Farmwife Chyne was struggling to get a reluctant sow into the newly repaired sty when the two strangers came. They approached so silently that the first she knew of them was when a huge hand reached over her shoulder to take hold of the gate. She turned in fright as the sow was catapulted past her with a terrified squeal; then the gate was shut and she was alone with her back to it, facing two tall, helmeted figures who regarded her with bleak, expressionless eyes.


148                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "Who--" she gasped, unable to breathe. They weren't menacing her. Some tiny part of her mind noted that, even as it also noted that she was icy with fear. The pig had weighed three or four times what she did, but it had flown through the air like a bird. And yet they weren't menacing her. No. No.
"Have you seen a girl... ?"
    The voice was soft but hot, like a searing wind coming under a door. Like the hot wind, it caressed insinuatingly, letting her know it could dry her to a shriveled twist of leather if it liked. The two looked almost exactly alike. One was a little bigger than the other. Except for that, they could be twins.
    She clutched her bulging stomach and leaned back against the fence, sagging onto a feedbox. One of them reached toward her, perhaps startled by her action. Her flesh shrank from his touch as from the touch of a serpent or a great hairy spider.
    She gripped herself, forcing calm, trying not to look at them, wondering who they were looking for. Who? Some slave escaped from the city'? Some
concubine? The first words the creature said made her believe she was right. "We're looking for a girl."
    She had a split second of vision: fire, burning irons, a scream shivering the air, the stench of burning flesh. She gulped down hard, trying to control herself. "A girl?" She shook her head. "There's no one here but me and my husband, when he's here. Just now he's down the valley a bit, cutting hay."
    "A girl who might have been passing through," said the other creature. He--it turned away from her, and she saw the naked blade at its belt. Such blades should be shiny. This one wasn't. It was stained, as though he disdained to clean it, preferring it to declare its purpose.
    "Who are you?" she asked without thinking, the words coming of themselves. She choked back, biting her tongue.
    Both of them regarded her with blank, impersonal stares. "Why do you ask?" whispered one.
    "You're not--not citymen," she said. "You don't look like citymen. I've seen them on the screen. You don't have any tattoos." Oh, heaven, heaven, help me stop talking! she thought. Help me be still!
    The taller of them said, "We're not citymen. Who we are is none of your concern. We're looking for a girl who might have been passing through. She's about twenty, slender, with black hair and dark eyes."
    She stared into their eyes and knew that death waited there. For her and the child she carried and the man down the valley. Unless they were convinced she was too frightened to dissimulate, unless they were convinced she was stupid and above all, truthful. Truthful!
"I saw such a girl," she said, gaping at them. "But it was a long time


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            149

ago. Weeks. She asked me the way to the nearest city." Truth, or almost truth, spontaneously uttered out of some spring of deception she had tapped in her panic. She did not want to die, but the girl had been mannerly and
kind. She didn't want the girl dead, either."What did you tell her?"
     "I said she'd find the city by turning north at the bottom of the valley,"
said the Farmwife. "She thanked me and went on." Almost truth. "Nothing else?"
    She screwed up her face, sorting through her memories. She had to give them something else, something... conclusive. "Ah--she asked when my baby was coming. I told her not to tell anyone she'd talked to me." She swallowed, trying to moisten her throat. "My husband doesn't like me talking to strangers."
    That brought a grimace, like a scythe edge, a drawing back of the lips before biting ....
"But we are not strangers," said one.
    They turned and strode away from her, out the gate and on down the road. She leaned back against the wall, heaving, her breath coming and going as from a bellows. Oh, she was sick. She had been touched by something venomous, and she could not say what. Beside her, on either side, the blackened ground smoked as though a fire had burned there, and all around the sty a bitter smell hung like a pall.
    After a long, long time she crept into the house and lay down in her bed, the covers pulled over her face, breathing her own warmth as though in that comforting dark she might be safe. So one shuddered when one heard the rattle and knew one had almost stepped on a snake. So one shuddered when one saw the smooth brown body of the spider, just in time. So one shuddered when one stopped, just at the edge of a hidden precipice, knowing death was only inches away, a breath away.
What were they? Oh, what were they?
    She clutched her belly again, realizing there had been no movement in there for some time. The baby had been kicking like a little mule, day in and day out, but now it was as quiet as she herself had been.
    When Farmer Chyne came back that evening, he said he had been accosted in the hayfield by two strangers who asked if he had seen anyone on the mad. He had seen a woman, he told them. Some time ago. He had told her to keep moving.
    When he had said this, he stared at her as though in the grip of some great doubt. "Did you see them?"
"They came here," she admitted. "They asked me what they asked you."
    "What did you tell them?" he demanded, anger burning at the back of his eyes. Anger and fear.


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Sheri S. Tepper

    She shook her head. "What could I tell them'? I see no one." Then, to distract him as much as anything, "But it is time I must."
He shook his head in turn, clamping his jaw shut. "We're better alone."
    "Husband, needs must. I need you to go down to Wise Rocks Farm and ask some help from Farmwife Suttle."
"We ask help from no one," he said stiffly.
    "lf you want a live child, you will go to Wise Rocks Farm and tell Farmwife Suttle I have need of her. There's something not right, not with me, not w'~t~ t~e efttiff. ~5 ~,rsa '~,~ ~, 6~4, o,.~i~, ~.,~4. ~. de~ w~fe~ then we will ask help of no one."
    He fumed. He cursed. He had been as disturbed by the two strangers as she, but he would not admit it. He would never admit to fear or to doubt. She persisted, calmly, saying the same words over and over.
"The ewes bear without help!" he cried. "What different are you?"
    "I am not young," she said. "And old ewes sometimes die lambing, as you well know. But it's up to you."
     He fumed; he said he might go; he did not say exactly when that might be.

Abasio returned to his home in Fantis.
    "Where the hell you been!" CummyNup cried from behind the protective wire barrier at the top of the stairs.leading to Abasio's rooftop shack.
    "Don't shout," begged Abasio, tottering on the rickety landing. "My head..."
"The testa you, too, from the looksa you. Where you been?"
      CummyNup unlocked the barrier and dropped the wires with a clangor of
bells and janglers, designed to wake the dead if disturbed in the night. Abasio shuddered. "What day is it'?" "Sixt'-day. So where the hell you been'?"
Abasio stared at him owl eyed. "I went riding in the country."
"For a week'?"
    He shook his head. No. Not a week. Not possibly. "Greens were going to fight the Survivors," he managed to dredge up from a memory not merely foggy but virtually opaque.
    "Last Sevent'-day. Right. lt'uz on the Big Show. Wally Skins was the firs' dead, and nobody Green was lef' standin'."
      "Oh," he said bleakly, unable to remember why he had cared about that.
"Well, it was two days before that.""Nex' to las Fift'-day."
    "Then. Right. Soniff told me to find Litt--Young Chief some kind of amusement, so I went riding. There was a refugee."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            151

    He'd found the refugee. Oily. And he'd been in bed with her. No, he couldn't have been in bed with Oily. That must have been a dream. What
would Olly have been doing in the city, in that place?"So where'd you go?" CummyNup demanded.
    He explored his memory, finding what he sought after some delay. "Out to farm country. South."
    "How long it take you?" CummyNup shook his head. The days didn't add up.
    Abasio grimaced. It had to have taken him at least three days to get there and get back. Which meant he'd returned on Seventh-day. Probably. He seemed to remember something about that.
"I musta got buzzed," he said, unhelpfully.
CummyNup shook his head. Abasio didn't drink. Not much. "Where?" he asked.
    Abasio shook his head. He couldn't remember. In fact, he couldn't remember much. The dream. If it had been a dream. He'd ridden out, gone to Wise Rocks, met the girl. Oily. Ridden back. He'd thought of her all the way back. He couldn't get her out of his head. No, she hadn't been in his head. She'd been in his body, in his bones. He'd actually hurt, wanting her. He'd been shaking. So he'd told himself, you want a woman, find a woman. So he went to a songhouse but none of the women... none of them. Then-then he'd gotten drunk and found her again. Or maybe not. But he'd been somewhere ....
"Where you wake up this mornin'?" CummyNup persisted.
    "Truckers' hostel," he admitted. It was the practice for songhouse keepers to have their better class of customers dumped at a truckers' stop when they became unruly or unconscious. Lesser folk were simply dragged into the street.
    "Well, Basio, I say this for yc~u," CummyNup said. "You don' usual go off like that, but when you do, you sure do it all! Baby Purp, he been lookin' for you five days. He bored all to hell."
    Abasio shuddered, saying, "I need sleep. You get word to the Young Chief I'm home but I'm sick. Tell one of the boys."
"I'11 tell Warlord, tha's who. He been lookin' for you too."
    Abasio merely gaped, unable to think of a reply. CummyNup gave him a look and stepped over the wires onto the stairs, waiting while Abasio rigged the alarm once more, fumbling the job badly before he turned and went into his shack. He was walking funny, as if he hurt somewhere.
    CummyNup stared after him. If Abasio got buzzed, he hadn' got buzzed where anybody could find him, not since late Second-day. Usual, a man went off and got buzzed, somebody fall over him, somebody see him somewhere, but Abasio, he jus' gone.


152                              Sheri S. Tepper

     Sighing, CummyNup clumped to the bottom of the stairs where Soniff
himself was waiting. "He back?" "Yeh."
"Where was he?"
"Don' think he know," CummyNup said.
"Well'?"
"He sick. He be comin' along, soon's he's feelin' better."
    Soniff growled, but he let it alone. If Abasio was really sick, he couldn't do anything useful anyhow.

    Abasio took a full day and a handful of stimulants to recover himself sufficiently to wait upon the Young Chief, who was disinclined to forgive Abasio's absence.
"I was worn out, so I overslept," Abasio said for the fifth or sixth time.
    "That's no reason," snapped his leader. "You could've slep' here at the House jus' as easy."
"I was out looking for something new and different for you, Chief."
    "Nobody could fin' you," growled the Young Chief, sounding like an angry puppy attacking a slipper.
    Abasio gritted his teeth and groveled. "I'm sorry, Young Chief. It won't happen again."
    Young Chief pouted. "I was waitin' and waitin' for what you foun' for me. What was it'?"
    Abasio thought frantically. What had he found, besides a girl he could not get out of his head? "l've found a new drug," he said. "Whistler's just down from the hills, and he's brought a new drug."
    "Where's it at'?" Young Chief asked with mild interest. He enjoyed drugs, though Soniff would not let him have them often.
    "Whistler should have it ready for me now," said Abasio. "I'd have had it for you earlier, but--"
"I know," sneered his master. "You overslep'."
    Abasio didn't move. He was suddenly overcome by a wave of futility and despair. What was he doing here? Why had he come back to the city? Why was he submitting himself to this petulant child-man whom most of his own men, including Abasio, despised? Why hadn't he stayed out there, gone on to visit his grandpa, maybe stayed with him? Why hadn't he stayed where Oily was!
"Well!" demanded his Chief. "How long 1 suppose' to wait?"
"I'11 get it," Abasio said. "Right now."
He backed out of the presence, out of prudence rather than respect. Young


154                              Sheri S. Tepper

"I got to ax you a question, Basio."
Abasio grunted.
    "You know out there where the Greens burn all those old folk? You know, whole 1otta those buildings out there got nobody in 'em. Howcome they don fix the old places, Basio?"
    "Nobody needs them fixed," Abasio replied. "Lots of people went to the stars or moved out to the Edge--the ones that had money enough--and that left lots of empty buildings, We won't need to fix them until all the tots grow up and we need more room."
"Tha's in the Book," agreed TeClar.
    Abasio nodded. Yes, it was in the Book of the Purples, along with a lot of stuff about how strong the Purples were getting to be, stronger every generation. Deep as space, said the Book. Something tantalizing about that thought, but Abasio couldn't identify what. He wasn't able to identify much this morning, and that was the truth!
    "Whistler, he in the back market yestaday," TeClar offered, leaving the cracked sidewalk to sidle down a narrow, trash-piled alleyway. "Down here."
    Abasio followed without comment, kicking the debris aside. The alley debouched onto a flat, open space where a highway had once run, now crowded with individual canvas-shaded booths and carts, its aisles already clotted with shuffling crowds. Though the concrete was cracked everywhere, it was still solid underfoot, all the way to their destination, a cavernous area sheltered among the pillars of a lofty overpass. Though the overpass had fallen in farther on, the space beneath was still accessible from the old onand off-ramps, and among this "back market" warren of wagons and ancient trucks, both Whistler and Sudden Stop had outlets for their wares.
    They had come to the outermost of the ancient concrete piers supporting the road above when Abasio came to a halt.
"Whatso?" grunted TeClar, bumping into him.
    "Shh," Abasio hissed. "Come on." And he pulled the boy with him behind the shelter of the thick pillar.
    Obediently, TeClar was quiet, peeking curiously from behind the pillar to see what Abasio bad noticed. Nothing much was happening. Just people in the market. And what was Abasio doing'?
    Abasio was staring at his feet, his mouth open, as though listening very intently.
    TeClar squirmed uncomfortably. There was something. Some little--what was it? A kind of stillness running down through the market'? People getting out of the way of something, very quietly, not talking or moving until whatever it was had passed them, then drifting off, leaving the stillness behind them.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            155

    Like a little tide of silence coming, Abasio thought. He had not seen tides, but he'd read about them. The rash of water, the glissade of foam, and the slow withdrawal before the next rush. And there, as at the edge of foamy silence, two striding walkers. Like those he'd most recently seen near Echinot. He must have noticed them, maybe out of the comer of his eye. Seen and responded, though he'd seen them only twice before. Them, or two just like them.
"Whatso, Basio?" whispered TeClar.
"Hush," he hissed so fiercely, the boy gaped at him.
    The walkers came along the marketplace, striding evenly over the slime of refuse and the broken slabs, not seeming to notice the cracks or tilted blocks that made others stumble, preternaturally smooth in gait, their sleek faces without expression. They were like the ones Abasio had seen on the
highway, the same skintight glisteny suits, the same shiny, close-fitted helms. Awful. Dreadful. Terrible.
    The words had come unbidden. Abasio concentrated on the pillar he was standing behind, stared at it, emptying his mind of anything else. The pocked and dingy surface an inch from his nose was scarred from collisions, stained by weather and birds, blotchily overpainted here and there where some kidG had painted his colors or his slogan in defiance of the neutrality treaty. Co~oq~~ ooe~m~"~ ,a~,t,'wc,-,d .iv ~h~,- .madco~ .&ha~ _c. ottcentrated on ~gray. No color. No color at all.
    The silence moved, coming nearer, stopping behind the very pillar where they stood. The walkers had cornered someone against the pillar and were asking questions, not loudly but clearly, with a peculiar quality of penetration.
    "We were told a dark-haired female person, one about twenty years old, asked directions to this city. Have you seen such a girl?" The words were like ice in the ear, or like fire, painful to hear.
    Abasio smelled terror, an acrid stench of sweat and urine. The man who was being interrogated had lost control of himself, but he was answering: He'd seen a girl here, a girl there, perhaps the girl they wanted. The stillness moved away while Abasio held his breath. When he peeked around the pillar he saw the man sagging against the pillar, trousers stained, tears leaking unheeded down his gray face.
    Why were the walkers still asking the question they had asked him so long ago in Echinot? Why were they seeking... a dark-haired girl about twenty? In Echinot it had been thirteen. That had been seven years ago. Had it been that long?
    Awareness trembled in him, making him afraid to move. He knew who they wanted. They mustn't question him. They mustn't even see him!
    As though reading his mind, TeClar sagged behind the pillar, holding his breath as the helmeted duo stalked through the back market, out of it, else-


156                              Sheri S. Tepper

o

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where. They could tell how far the walkers had gone by the silence that flowed after and around them, the sound resuming only as a subdued murmur.
    They moved from behind the pillar to find the gray-faced man collapsed against the far side, sucking in rasping, agonized breaths. The surfaces around him were blackened. Abasio grasped the man's shoulders and pulled him away from the darkened pave before he knelt beside him. There was a bitter smell, one he recognized.
"Whatso?" whispered TeClar.
    "He's dying," said Abasio, loosening the man's collar. "See if you can find someone who knows him!"
    TeClar moved off, returning within moments with a younger man, a young woman, son and son's wife to the fallen man, farmers come to town with a load of sweet corn.
"What happened?" demanded the young farmer.
"Walkers," said Abasio, laconically.
    "Aaah," the woman cried, putting her hand to her lips and looking around herself fearfully.
    "Papa, Papa," the boy murmured, lifting the unconscious man, carrying him away. "Oh, Papa, Papa."
    Abasio moved slowly away, trying to remember why he had come here. Before the walkers had killed the man, or as good as, they'd been asking after Oily. He knew it as a certainty. Oily was who they had always been looking for, a special person, a unique person. Who else but she? He had
to go back to the farm and warn her. Soon. As soon as he could."Who those men?" whispered TeClar.
    Abasio shrugged, trying desperately to make his voice sound casual. He knew what they were called. He knew what they could do. Maybe. He didn't know what they really were. "In Echinot, they call them walkers. If you're smart, you'll keep out of their way."
    � TeClar swallowed this with some difficulty. Both the Chingero brothers were naturally audacious without being bright enough to assess the risks they took. Still, he was accustomed to taking orders from Abasio. "We goin' to fin' Whistler, now, Basio?"
    Of course. That's why they had come. Abasio nodded absently as they moved into the crowd once more, a crowd that seemed unnaturally noisy now that the silence had passed.
    "There," whispered TeClar, his finger pointing before Abasio's nose. "There Whistler, Basio."
    Abasio thrust through the throng milling about Whistler's wagon. Whistler always brought a wagon, always had a high, stout counter between him and the customers, always had two or three hired Survivors standing by just in case. Sometimes people wanted stuff they couldn't pay for. Sometimes they


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

157

got so desperate they tried to take it without paying. They never got it from Whistler, not that way.
    Abasio had seen lots of druggies die since he'd seen the dying men at Purple House. He'd seen them unconscious in doorways, barely breathing. He'd seen them screaming and shaking and spouting from both ends, like poisoned dogs. He'd seen them throw themselves off roofs trying to fly and root in the gutter filth looking for gold. He'd seen them fade fast, seen them die slow. Ma had said it was bad; Abasio knew it to be true. Since that first sight of death, he'd bought few drugs, and those carefully. Nonetheless, he, like everyone else, knew Whistler, not only from the almost encounter on the road near the farm, long ago.
"Whatso, Whistler?" he greeted the merchant.
    "Abasio," the other rumbled, giving him a basilisk stare, cold as the walkers' glance but more personal.
    Abasio, remembering the fate of certain people who'd annoyed Whistler, talked only of business.
    "Man at the Patrol Post told me you have something new. Starlight, is it?"
"Starlight it is."
    Abasio put an elbow on the counter, attempting to appear sanguine, though being at ease around Whistler wasn't either simple or sensible. "What's the risk, Whistler? Tell me true, now. I'm not buying for me, but I'm the one to blame if it isn't good stuff."
    Whistler leaned forward and whispered, "You buyin' for the Purple Chief, the Young Chief, the sweet Baby Chief with his smoothy skin?"
    Abasio didn't answer. Any answer was dangerous. Someone might hear. Someone might quote him as having said. Someone might even quote him as having listened without objecting, which in itself could be dangerous.
    Whistler sniggered, an ominous sound, like the laugh of a crow settling to dinner on something not quite dead. "Let me tell you the truth. If you was buyin' for a child's hobbyhorse with no balls at all, Starlight would make a stallion of him. 'Starlight, starbright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might,' and the wish is granted, absolute! Starlight puts starch in ancient cocks, pours molten metal down droopy dicks, paralyzes pricks so they don't come down until six days later. Starlight makes maidens tremble in fear. Even tired old whores with cunts so loose they'd go round you twice, the mention of Starlight makes 'em stutter and run for cover. Starlight puts steel in a man's business, mainman. Starlight is what your Young Chief most needs."
    Abasio stared into Whistler's eyes, which showed nothing at all. No emotion. No fun. No hate, no love.
"Moreover," Whistler went on, "Starlight stirs up the eggs, mainman,


Sheri S. Tepper

stirs up the nuts, the balls, the jewels, makes them crank out the juice like so many little pumps. Childless men wish upon Starlight and are childless no longer. If they've got a capable woman, they're bein' called Daddy before they know it."
"How much?" asked Abasio from a dry mouth.
    "A golden sparrow the vial. Which is good for several nights' pleasure, mainman. And as many babies in the oven as the ladies involved can manage among 'era. A single golden sparrow guarantees a man his posterity."
Abasio's jaw dropped at the mention of the amount. "You're joking!" The eyes turned colder than before. Inhumanly cold. "Do I ever joke?"
    And of course he didn't. Whistler never joked, not even now, when his price was a quarter of what Abasio had managed to squirrel away over the past several years.
    "Pass the cost along, Abasio," whispered Whistler, leaning across his counter to get close to Abasio's ear. He pursed his lips and made music, a pure strain of melody that drifted over the marketplace, making a sudden hush.
    It was the same melody Abasio had heard long ago, long and long ago. Then it had intrigued him. Now it made him shiver, for he had until the song was over to make up his mind to buy. If he waited longer, the goods would no longer be available at the price mentioned. Such were Whistler's rules. He was not a patient man.
"I'm not carrying that much," said Abasio.
The melody stopped, cut off.
    "Your credit's good." Whistler turned up his lips at the comer, an uncharming smile with the effect of a snarl.
The marketplace noises resumed, almost in relief.
    Whistler reached beneath the counter and brought out the vial. "One drop on the skin," he murmured, opening the vial and waving it under Abasio's nose. "That's the smell of the real thing, mainman. One drop anywhere on the skin. No more."
    The smell was familiar. Abasio got a sudden flash, a cloud of dark hair, this smell coupled with the smell of sweat, a gleam of slender legs, a little moon shining...
    He shook his head, suddenly dizzy. "This stuff is new'.>" he asked, puzzled.
Whistler simply stared.
Abasio shrugged apologetically. "The smell seemed familiar, that's all." "You're not my only customer," Whistler said softly. "Between the physicians and the songhouse managers, my stock is much reduced. Of course, later on, when supplies are larger, the price will be reduced as well. Eventually, it will be cheap. Eventually, most things are." His smile was


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            159

bleak. He knew Abasio couldn't wait until then, not if he was buying for the Young Chief.
    Abasio reflected that there'd been several days he couldn't remember. He could have smelled it in a songhouse during that time. Perhaps he had mixed it up with memories of Olly, memories of people he'd seen while he was drunk. Probably.
Then who was the woman he remembered'? That wasn't Olly, was it?
     "It's my neck," he repeated softly. "Is there anything I should know
about it, Whis'/le~? ~� somebody gets hurt, I'll get chopped.""Couldn't hurt a baby."
"I'11 bring the money today," Abasio promised.
    "I know you will," said Whistler, smiling his cutthroat smile once more while his dead eyes looked past Abasio at nothing.
    It came to Abasio that Whistler looked a lot like Sudden Stop. Unlike Whistlet's guards, the Survivors, who stared into Abasio's face, storing it up in case they needed to come after him later, both Whistler and Sudden had ~yes that looked on past you at something only they could see.
Abasio put the vial in his breast pocket, placed his open hand across it, and turned to go back through the market, heari~% ~e[~ [x~\\%~ [.i%~ '~ nearby booth as he did.
"Whatso, Basio!" The words were like distant thunder.
"Sudden Stop." Just the man he'd been thinking of.
    "Heard your little dealings there. Happy to lend you a sparrow if you'd like to get Whistler paid."
    Abasio pulled his lips into a semblance of a smile. Sudden Stop was huge and bald and wondrous strong; he could handle weapons with one hand that other men struggled to carry with two. He was known to be a fair man, but his interest rates were high. Men who didn't pay were likely to find themselves being used as a demonstration in a weapons test.
    "I thank you kindly, Sudden Stop, but I've the money to pay him," murmured Abasio, thankful that CummyNup was standing guard over Aba-
sio's home, for there were ears all around the marketplace."Another time then," rumbled Sudden Stop.
Abasio put his head down and trudged homeward, TeClar at his side.
    "Me'n CummyNup, sometimes we wonder 'bout those two," said TeClar. "Whistler an' Sudden Stop."
    "Wonder what?" breathed Abasio, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Lord, he was tired!
    "Never see those two at a songhouse. Never see those two drinkin' beer. Never see those two hayin' any fun, you know?"
    "They spend a lot of time out of Fantis," murmured Abasio. "Maybe they have their fun somewhere else."


160

Sheri S. Tepper

    "Could be." TeClar nodded. He cast a sidewise glance at Abasio's pocket, where the drug reposed. "You gonna try it, Basio?"
    Abasio snarled, "I am not. It's for the Young Chief. All of it. So don't suggest I let you have a try, either."
    "Don' need stuff like that," asserted TeClar in a lofty tone. "Do fine all by my lone. You really got the money, Basio?"
    "Yeah," grunted Abasio, wondering how much of it he was going to be able to collect back from the Young Chief.
    "A whole sparrow. Tha's a lot," said TeClar sadly. "Tha's a real lot. Whistler, he charges plenty. And o1' Sudden Stop, he charges plenty too. I figure every man in Fantis buys from one of them or the other."
    Probably every man in Fantis had bought from both, Abasio reflected. And a golden sparrow was indeed a real lot. It was ten silver rats, one hundred silver mice. It was one-tenth of a golden crow. But there was enough in the vial for several... sessions. So, if he divided the stuff, put a little in a separate vial, then if the Young Chief liked it, Abasio could tell him he needed money to buy more. And if he didn't like it, Abasio could sell it elsewhere. Which was the only way to recoup he could think of at the moment.
    "You," he said, giving TeClar a hard look. "You don't talk about this, right? You don't say what I bought, what I paid, right?" He was suddenly desperately weary, so tired, he wanted to lie down and sleep.
"Right, Basio," agreed TeClar. "But we wasn' the only ones there."
    Which was true enough. Nothing that happened in the marketplace could be considered private.
    Weighing his commitments, Abasio decided he would deal with the Young Chief first, then with Whistler. Within limits, Whistler was patient. He knew Abasio would show up with the money because Abasio wasn't stupid. The Young Chief, on the other hand, was incapable of making such a judgment.
    Abasio dragged himself to his own place, where he picked up a sparrow from his most secure hiding place and divided the drug into two vials, hiding two-thirds of it with the remainder of his cache. He gulped a few more stimulants, something to keep him moving. He could not recall ever being so tired.
      Upstairs at Purple House, Abasio paused at the door of the Young Chief's
quarters. Young Chief and Soniff were inside, playing cards. "You got it?" the Young Chief asked, glaring at Abasio. Abasio nodded, glancing sidewise at the older man.
    "What'?" Soniff asked. He was over forty-five. Maybe even fifty. His hair was mostly gray. He'd been Warlord most of his life. "What you got, Abasio?"
"New stuff," Abasio said. "Whistler brought it down. Called Starlight."


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161

"Lemme have it," demanded the Young Chief.
    "Wait," demanded Soniff. "This stuff's new, you say'?" He got up and held out his hand.
      Abasio gave him the vial, lowering his voice. "1 figured you'd want to
ask about it, Soniff. There's only a little bit here.""What's it do?"
    Abasio felt himself flushing. It wasn't the kind of thing you could say out loud in front of the Young Chief. He leaned forward and whispered. Soniff's brows went up.
    "Well, well," he said. "Now that's interesting." He turned and gave the Young Chief a speculative glance. "Maybe this is what the prophecy meant .... Even so, if it's that new..."
    Abasio shrugged. "Soniff, I don't know, so 1 can't tell you. Whistler says it's safe. Whistler says it couldn't hurt a--a child. 'Course, there's always the possibility this stuff is so new, he doesn't really know."
    "Cut all the gabble," the Young Chief whined. "Soniff, what you messin' with?"
    "Calm down," Soniff soothed. "Old Chief said I was to keep you safe, and that's what I'm doin'. Not about to give you somethin' could kill you." He nudged Abasio toward the door. "You run on, Basio. I'll figure out how to test this."
    Abasio sighed with relief. It was no longer on his neck if something went wrong. Soniff had cut him out, and more power to him. He clattered down the stairs, furiously making plans. First, he'd go to the marketplace to settle his debt. Then he'd sleep. Then he'd start figuring how he could get away again, to go south, to warn Oily about the walkers.

    After the last of Sybbis's repeated visits to the baths, she had returned to the House in a mood of such fractious half-hysteria that it frightened her. Feeling the way she did, it would be all too easy to do'something stupid, and now was a time she couldn't afford any mistakes. She had to be careful!
    Part of her discomfort was simple pain. She was so sore, it hurt to move, but she could deal with that. She had pills for pain. Less easy to deal with was the desire to continue doing what she had been doing for the past three days, despite the pain. The desire was infuriating! Why should she have only the Young Chief to look forward to when--when there was this other kind of pleasure'?
    On the other hand, she also felt proft)und relief. No doubt she was pregnant. She had to be! If she assumed she was, that meant she had to entice the Young Chief into going through his tiresome, ineffectual act so he would be convinced he had caused her pregnancy. He didn't often visit her, and


162                              Sheri S. Tepper

she had never tried going to him, though she understood Elrick-Ann had done so all the time.
    Never mind. At the moment, she was incapable of enticing anyone. She was, finally and lastingly, exhausted. She had not slept except for tiny little naps during all that time. All she wanted to do was sleep forever.
    She was still drowsing a day or so later when she heard men's voices and glanced through the grillwork of her room to see the Young Chief and Soniff come in and seat themselves beside the fish tank, where water from the raintank was endlessly recirculated by a treadmill slave in a room below. The two hags who had been sewing in the arbor rose and bowed themselves away. The women who had been playing games gathered up the tots and went into their sleeping rooms. Within moments the roof garden was empty except for the two men who sat with their heads together for a few moments before the Warlord went off toward Carmina's room and the Young Chief rose and came purposefully toward Sybbis.
    She listlessly straightened the sheets, reminding herself to be seductive, only to find that seduction wasn't necessary. The Young Chief was in a state of some excitement, which became more frenzied over the next few hours. The fact that he was both unable to bring his own desires to a conclusion and quite unaware that Sybbis had any desires of her own made it more frustrating and painful for her than for him. He went on enjoying himself very single-mindedly until exhaustion set in.
    Much later, with the Young Chief lying across her body and gasping like a dying fish, she opened her eyes through a haze of fatigue to see Soniff leaning above her. Surely this was a dream. Soniff wouldn't dare come in here. Nobody could come in here but the Young Chief and the hag who cleaned up. Her eyes fell closed and she forgot it.
    Downstairs, shortly thereafter, Soniff happened upon Abasio, who was uncharacteristically asleep in a corner. He sat down beside him, out of earshot of the other Purples, and shook him awake.
"How much did you pay for that stuff?" he demanded.
    "A sparrow," Abasio yawned. He needed more sleep. He couldn't wake up.
"By the Purples' honor! A whole sparrow!"
Abasio nodded.
    "Well worth it." Soniff nodded with a sneaky grin. "You'll be repaid, Abasio. I've never seen anything like it."
    Abasio raised one eyebrow and said nothing. He'd come to Purple House looking for an excuse to get away.
    Soniff lowered his voice. "I tested it myself. That way if the Old Chief asks, I can say I didn't give the boy anything I didn't take myself. You don't


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            163

need to pretend you don't know, Basio. I know what people say. Old Chief knows what they say. But you know, the Young Chief is the only son he has left. Three sons who lived to grow up, the Old Chief had, two good ones and--this one."
Abasio nodded again. Under these particular circumstances, it was safe
to nod and say something factual. "They were brave, I know."
"Very brave. Too damned brave. They got killed, and he was left with
this one, Kerf. He wasn't promising, Basio. No. Not promising." Soniff shook his head, remembering. "But there was always the possibility he'd grow up into something, you know. And even if Kerr wasn't much, maybe he'd have a son who... well, so the Old Chief retired and left a few of us old-timers to watch out for the boy. I told Old Chief--well, never mind what ! told him, but he said give it time. Well, we've been giving it time. Didn't
seem like there was hope in that, either, until now."Abasio cleared his throat. "Now?"
"When things got quiet in there, I went in," Soniffconfessed in a whisper.
"There she was, all sprawled out. What a woman, Abasio. She's a wonder, that one. She's got..." He waxed eloquent about several of Sybbis's outstanding attributes, as eloquently as a ganget could, mostly expletives, shaking his head in wonderment the while. "And she's got this little kind of birthmark on her leg, like a skinny little moon."
"On her leg," Abasio said, unaware he had spoken at all.
"Up high, inside her leg. She shoulda been enough, all by herself," Soniff
said. "The shape of her. And that sexy little birthmark--"
"Birthmark," said Abasio from a dry mouth. The word had brought a
scene back to him vividly, in color. Himself and a dark-haired, masked girl with a crescent mark high inside her thigh. And wherever he had been at the time, that was where he'd smelled Starlight before he'd smelled it in the market !
"Right," said Soniff. "And I'll swear, boy, she'd been done. I've watched
other times. This was the first time I could swear--"
"Well, we'll hope she got pregnant, then," said Abasio, feeling the blood
drain from his face. "For the Old Chief's sake."
"If so, Old Chief'11 owe it to you, Abasio. You've been a faithful soldier.
I know he'd want me to offer. If there's anything you want, you tell me,
and it's yours."
Abasio tried to look modestly interested without showing his frantic con-
fusion. Old Chief might owe a good bit more to Abasio than Abasio cared to admit. One memory had triggered others, and all at once he had whole chunks of the lost time coming back to him: himself coming back into town and stopping off at the songhouse, himself drinking and talking about Oily.


!

01

hi

d~

164                              Sheri S. Tepper

He must have talked to anyone who would listen. So, so what? Well, someone had heard him babbling and set up an encounter. Him and Sybbis. Him because he was buzzed out of his head and available. Sybbis because--
    Well, that part was easy. Because Sybbis didn't plan to go the way of Elrick-Ann!
    Who had set it up? It could have been Sybbis herself. Or maybe someone from the Bloodruns, where she came from. Or--well, who knew who'd set it up? Who cared? It was a good idea, no harm done. At least no harm done if neither of them had known the other one. But if he had seen the birthmark and remembered it, what might Sybbis have seen that she remembered'? His tattoos? His crest? Maybe she hadn't needed to see! Maybe she'd known exactly who he was. Maybe she'd even arranged for it to be him specifically. She was a Chief's daughter, you had to remember that. Chief's daughters could sometimes arrange things.
    Why him? Because--because he was big and fairly good-looking, at least some said so, and because he was healthy. That was really it. No matter how big he was, how good-looking, the important thing was that he was healthy, because he knew she was, and if she had a baby with an IDDI, Little Purp would know it wasn't his. That was one thing about Little Pup-he didn't have an IDDI. No cuckle for him, no dirty drugs. Soniff took good care of him.
    But Abasio was healthy. Basio the Cat had kept his feet almost totally dry. So she might have set it up, naming him specifically, in which case-in which case, if she ever got high or buzzed or had one of her famous tantrums, she could throw it in the Young Chief's face, after which neither of their lives would be worth a black-penny. Not Sybbis's. Not Abasio's.
     And if she hadn't arranged it, then somebody else had! Somebody knew. What was to keep that somebody from talking?
"...anything at all you want," Soniff was saying yet again.
     Abasio felt as he had when he was a child and had done something totally forbidden while knowing, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that he was going to be caught and killed. Grandpa would never actually have killed him, but the Purples would, if Old Chief told thcm to.
"Yes," said Abasio. "There is something l'd like a lot."
"Name it!"
"I'd like to have a--a vacation."
     Soniff looked confused. Abasio tried to think of a different way to say it. Leave. Time off. Gangets didn't take vacations, but Grandpa used to talk about them. "Let's get this work done, boy, then we'll ask a neighbor to look after the animals and you and your ma 'n me, we'll take a vacation." Grandpa's vacations had usually involved going to the nearest lake and

~(


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

165

spending several days standing hip-deep in water in an effort to catch fish that Abasio had come to believe were entirely imaginary.
     Abasio swallowed deeply. "I've always thought I'd like to go traveling,"
he said. "I've this urge to see something of the world." '~Some of the other cities, you mean." "Right. Some other cities."
    "Well, why not?" asked Soniff, expansively. "The Purples have affiliates in a lot of the cities, and it's always good to see the way things get done other places. Why not? I'll see you get your sparrow back, and that should take you a good way. Take a few weeks."
"Thanks, Soniff. The Young Chief won't mind?"
    Soniff grinned. "I've got a feeling he's going to be busy for a while. He won't mind."

    Though Abasio wanted to leave immediately, as soon as he reached his own place he fell once again into exhausted sleep, full of strange and threatening dreams. When he dragged himself awake, he found Elrick-Ann was waiting on the firestairs, herself heavily veiled. He remembered now that he'd invited her to come, as soon as she was able.
"How you feel?" he murmured when he'd let her in.
     ' She answered in a throaty rasp, unlike the voice he knew. "Shoulda died,
Basio. You shoulda seen I did.""Elrick-Ann--"
    "It was you got me out, I know. Who else? And it was you got Wally Skins dead in the arena too. And my pa dead in the battle. And my brothers, two of 'em."
"I didn't know," he said helplessly.
"They'da died soon or later. Gangers die. That's what they do bes'." He could think of nothing to say to this. "I'm going away for a while, Elrick-Ann. I want you to live here while I'm gone." It had come to him all at once. Even though he felt it unlikely he'd ever come back, it was easier to say it that way: "Just while I'm gone, Elrick-Ann."
    "Why you really goin' away, Basio?" she asked from the bed where she had curled against the pillows.
"Young Chief gave me some time off so I could see the world." "Oh, sure. He so thoughtful. The Young Chief."
    She looked at the things Abasio had piled on the table. His canteen, a blanket roll, and weapons.
"You takin' weapons to see the world?"
"Last time I left the city, I got treed by monsters. I need somethin' to


166

Sheri S. Tepper

keep them off." There was a fire shooter in the pile. Fire was best against monsters. He'd need all his money, including the sparrow Soniffhad refunded him. He'd sent TeClar to the market for a few odds and ends, and no doubt TeClar had mentioned Abasio's journey northward. Abasio had talked at length about Vanders City at the big lake and how much he wanted to go there, counting on TeClar and CummyNup to spread the word.
     Meantime, Abasio would go the opposite direction. He had to warn Oily. Why did the walkers want her? What had she done? Or was she merely a victim? He visualized what would happen when he saw her again, what she would say to him, what she would do. The dreams were hampered by reality. She didn't respect gangers; he was indisputably a ganger. He might be more acceptable if he shaved his purple crest, but it would be safer to do that after he'd left the city. Slaves had shaved heads, and anybody with a bare scalp was suspect. If he was going to let his natural hair grow out, he'd have to be someplace else when he did it or they'd think he was a runaway.
"It must be nice," Elrick-Ann said wistfully. "Goin' somewhere.
     He gritted his teeth and didn't answer. The idea had actually crossed his mind of taking Elrick-Ann with him. But what would he do with her? She'd hate farm life.
     He could borrow a horse from the same Patrol Post where he'd borrowed the last one. If he did, though, the officer would know he'd gone south. Better not. Better go on foot. Or tired as he was, maybe steal the horse, making it look like the animal had broken away.
     That meant no saddle. Well, he didn't need a saddle. He'd never used a saddle when he was a boy.
     "What about when I have to go buy food and stuff?" she asked him. "Who goin' to guard your place then?"
     "The Chingeros will be here every day, turn and turn about. You can send them to market for you, or they'll stay here while you go. Whichever you like."
     "I goin' go myself. They didn' cut much on my legs. I can still walk. Got one ann I can't use, but I can still walk."
    She didn't mention what they'd done to her face and breast, but Abasio had seen that ~6r
He sat down at his table and wrote rapidly. "Here'~'~ a
saying you should live here. Just in case somebody asks."
    She took it and looked it over without comprehension. Watching her, he realized suddenly he had written it out, not printed it. Few people in the cities could read script. Mostly it was used by Edgers or farmers, taught at home or in their schools. Everyone else used printed letters. Cursing, he took the paper from her hand and tore it to shreds. It just showed how distracted he was.
"Wrong paper," he said, seating himself at his table and takin~ a clean


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            167

sheet from his small supply. This time he printed the few short sentences, affixing his official gang sign and name at the bottom.
    Elrick-Ann bounced gently on the bed. "This a good bed, Basio. I don' mind sleepin' hem." Her voice was more cheerful than it had been. The thought of something new in her life had pleased her.
    "Sleep hem. Live here. Cook your dinner here. When TeClar or CummyNup comes over, you use them for whatever you need. I told them to work for you just the way they'd work for me."
    Her veil dropped aside, and he saw her smile with half her mouth. Abasio turned away, hiding the tightness that had come around his eyes. When he'd first seen her at the Greens', tied to the chair in that room, blood everywhere, herself barely breathing, all he could think about was getting her out. But she was right. What he should have done was put her out of her misery. He'd had no right to bring her back the way she was. If it had been him, he'd have wanted somebody just to kill him quick, get it over. Much of the time she was in despair these days, in despair and misery, wanting to die. He knew it. He could tell it from her voice.
    All he wanted to do was give Elrick-Ann something that would make her feel better. He ought to be doing something for her, but there was nothing he could do! It confused him, making him angry at her, at himself. Sometimes them just wasn't any good solution to things. Sometimes nothing you could do was what you would do.
    Set that aside. He owned the rooftop shack; she had her pension; living here was better than her living in Purple House. Better than any other place she might find for herself. Unless the building burned down, she could stay here practically forever.
    She regarded him with narrowed eyes. "You want me to keep the place safe, that it?"
"Exactly. I want you to keep it safe."
      "When you want me to come?" she asked, folding the letter and tucking
it into the pouch that held her street pass."Tomorrow morning," he told her.
    "Okay, Basio," she said in a sad, faraway voice. "I'11 see you in the mornin'."
    She wouldn't. TeClar was going to sleep in the place overnight. Abasio intended to leave in the dark hours when he'd be least likely to be observed. If he could keep himself awake until then.
    TeClar turned up about dusk, with CummyNup. Abasio went over his instructions about Elrick-Ann until he knew they understood. He'd laid in a stock of the beer they favored. By the time Abasio had gulped down another half-dozen stimulants and left the rooftop, the brothers were barely able to hitch up the alarm and mutter garbled good-byes.


168                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Keeping quiet and largely out of sight, Abasio slipped through neutral territory to the slicks and slimes of the marketplace and through that to the no-man's-land of the burned-out area, where unclaimed bodies still lay about, awaiting eventual disposal by the crows and wild dogs that had thronged the area since the fire. Then he darted across the bridge to the Patrol Post, where he skulked silently, seeing who was around. Nobody much by the look of it. Anyone inside was asleep.
    He felt his way along the paddock, testing this pole and that until he found a loose one. It came down with the barest creak, still alarmingly loud in the quiet. The one above it was better fastened, but not by much. Repeated tugging got it loose, and he dropped the end on the ground as though it had been pushed there from inside. He'd brought enough belts and straps to buckle together a serviceable bridle, and he held it with one hand as he shoved his way among the horses, muttering to them, patting them, selecting the animal who seemed friendliest.
    He used the corral rail as a mounting block and got onto the horse's back, awkwardly unbalanced by his blanket roll. Several horses found the break in the corral before his mount did, and when he moved south at the center of this small herd, the rest of the animals came ghosting from the corral to trail along.
    He worried about the trail they were leaving, but the horses began to drop away, one here, one there, as succulent bits of browse presented themselves. Only half a dozen stayed with him until he reached the near side of the Edge, where he rode close to the wall, distancing himself from it only when he passed the lighted windows of the guard posts. In each of them uniformed men were awake, but none of them seemed to hear the grass-cushioned plopping of the hooves.
    Small dark shadows fled before him. He heard giggling from the grassy strip between the roads. Goblins, probably. Or gnomes. Some said they were the same thing. No ditches though. At least he didn't have that to contend with.
    By the time dawn leaked its way along the eastern horizon, he and his mount were alone and far from the city. He tried to dismount and succeeded by falling off the horse. He struggled erect, slapped his mount weakly into a tail-streaming canter back the way it had come, and dragged his pack into a nearby copse, where he fell at once into an exhausted sleep.

    Despite Abasio's worries, and even in the midst of her usual tantrums, Sybbis had sense enough not to talk. Even if she had talked, she didn't know who her partner had been. Raging curiosity had made her try to find out by peeling the bandages off his hands while he slept, but old Nelda had materialized out of the shadows with a stern command to leave off. Nelda


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            169

herself was too sensible to talk. Her stalwarts were mutes, which took care of their discretion. Posnia was afraid to say anything to anyone.
    The doctor, however, was another matter. He had the twin problems of drink and needing to appear more clever than he was. He could not resist sharing the story with a fellow roisterer, who had no reason not to repeat it. As such stories will, the tale gained in color what it lost in specificity. When, some time later, it came to the ears of Old Chief Purple, nothing remained except amusing generalities. The beautiful young conk. The impotent gang leader. The assignation. The doctor's extreme cleverness in drugging the anonymous donor.
    It was the doctor's misfortune that to the Old Chief, generalities were cnough.
    Old Chief sent for Soniff, who met him in a private room of a songhouse in which the Old Chief had a large financial interest.
    "I hear the Bloodrun girl's pregnant," the Old Chief said in clear Edger accents. He'd stopped talking ganger when he'd retired and bought himself a place in the Edge. Not that it had done him any good. Edgers took his money, all right, and they let him buy a big beautiful house and live there among the trees and grass, but he couldn't have conks there, or ganger visitors. Still, he was safe in the Edge. That was worth something. He could always come into the city to do business.
    Soniff nodded. "That's what the hags say." He held up a hand, tipping it this way and that. "Of course, it's real early yet."
"How did Kerf manage that?" the Old Chief asked in a mild tone.
    Soniff explained about Starlight, about Abasio, and about the reward Abasio had been given.
    The Old Chief ruminated, sipping his wine and staring into the candlelight. "Tell you a story," he said, and proceeded to relate the doctor's story as he had heard it.
Soniff felt himself growing pale. "You don't think... ?"
    The Old Chief shrugged. "Way 1 heard the story, the one the doctor drugged was from the same gang as the conk. A real joke, funny, so'? Suppose it's true. Who was away from the house about that time?"
    Soniff thought. Before Abasio had showed up with the drug, he'd come in to see the Young Chief. And Young Chief had been angry with him, because he'd been gone ....
"Abasio," he blurted.
"Mmm," mused the Old Chief. "Where is this Abasio?"
    "North," murmured Soniff. "Said he wanted to see the lakeshore country."
"Who is he?"
"Why, he's a Purple. Been one for eighteen years or so."
"Before that?"


170                              Sheri S. Tepper

Soniff didn't know.
"Who recruited him?"
    Soniff didn't remember for sure. Lippy-Long, maybe, but it had been a long time ago.
    "Find out," said the Old Chief. "And send somebody after him. Send some Survivors."
"You want him brought back, Chief?."
"No. No mason to do that. Tell them I want him dead."


CHAPTER 8

jn his workroom in the bowels of Gaddi House, Tom Fuelry put together the notes he had been accumulating for some days and sat regarding them thoughtfully for a time as he whistled tunelessly between his teeth. There was enough new information to warrant an interview with His Wisdom. He tapped the notes into a neat pile, folded them once, put them into his pocket, and stood up with a grimace. He'd been sitting too long. He needed more exercise.

    Despite this acknowledgment, he didn't work up a sweat making his way through the labyrinth of the house. He strolled, pausing now and then to speak to certain of his fellow workers, giving himself still more time to think before he reached His Wisdom's living quarters.
    Only to learn from Nimwes that the old man was not there.

"Where is he, Nimwes?"
    "Where he goes, Tom. You know better than I do." Nimwes bit her lip and looked elsewhere.


i:i~                      172                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "I didn't think he did much, not anymore," Fuelry said in a hushed voice that he struggled to keep from sounding either fearful or resentful.
    "Well, he does. Just because his friends are... gone, doesn't mean he's forgotten them. Every now and then, he goes there and spends a few hours remembering them."
     Tom thought there might be other reasons, but he couldn't have explained
them if he'd tried. "How long has he been gone this time'?""Maybe an hour."
"I don't like his being down there alone."
    "I don't either, but I can't go with him. I can't get through the security. I've asked him to arrange it so I can go with him, but he says he doesn't want me burdened with--with that."
    Tom tapped his front teeth with a tingeruail, sighed, muttered, "I can go. Prob'ly I'd better."
    He went back down the fairly well-traveled hall, nodding to this one and that one as he passed them, came to the end of the hall, unlocked a door, went through it, and locked it behind him. From where he stood now, he could hear distant voices, people talking quietly in some nearby laboratory or workroom, only these murmurs telling him he was still near inhabited space. The first secured checkpoint was a little way down the hall, and he negotiated two more after that before he was dropped into a dusty, utterly silent tunnel, deep beneath the labyrinth of Gaddi House proper.
    Tom had not come this way in a long time. He was one of only three or four persons who could come here at all. He had always felt it was like a tomb, and every year that passed made it seem more so. The air was dank, and the floor dust-laden. The tunnel was round, as though bored by some monstrous worm, though enough dust had fallen over the centuries to make a narrow, level floor. This slender walkway showed the tracks of wheels, some fresh, some half-covered, some virtually vanished under the coating. If he had not already known the automatics were shut down, the dust would have told him, or the air, which was chill and stale and smelled of something alive but old, some ancient awful thing that lurked and sensed and that might, if one attracted its attention, come heaving out into the light. At least, st) Tom always thought when he came here, even when he told himself he was being silly. The tunnels really hadn't been bored by a worm. His Wisdom had told him so.
    Though he was following wheel tracks that marked only one route, he still recited the code to himself as he twisted through the silent tunnels past great round doors with complicated locks: Two right, two left... It always surprised him to see wheel tracks leading up to doors that Tom himself had never seen opened. The tracks showed that His Wisdom had been into those


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            173

rooms, into some of them fairly recently, though he had said nothing about it to Tom.
    ... two left, one right, one left. The room ahead was the heart of the place. So far as Fuelry knew, it was impregnable. Or would have been, if the monstrously thick metal cylinder door had not been standing open, blocking further progress down the tunnel. One either stopped here or went in.
    Fuelry made a face, took a deep breath, and stepped through the circular opening. The space inside was as he remembered it, full of stone pillars made to resemble----or perhaps grown to resemble--a forest of ancient trees. Though not identical, they were all much the same size, not evenly set but spaced as though by chance. The pillars went up into darkness. One of the worst things about the room from Tom's point of view was the darkness up there, hiding whatever it hid, if anything. Spiders, perhaps. Bats.
    He knew this was foolish. Spiders and bats couldn't live down here. What little ashen light there was leaked from the pillars themselves, and as tree trunks hid distances in a forest, so the thick pillars hid distances here. The space they occupied might be as small as a room or as large as a county; it could be any shape at all, there was no way of knowing. Lichens spread patchily upon the pillars, and mosses grew on the floor in convoluted and oddly colored patterns that looked purposeful, like letters spelling something one could almost read.
    Tom had never felt that the pillars were quite rigid. He thought they squirmed somehow. To avoid looking at them, he focused on the winding tracks of the wheels, a long, twisting way that brought him, as always, almost to the verge of panic before be came to open space. He had dreams, sometimes, of following tracks that never ended, that just wound on and on and on forever. Eventually the tracks came to space, however; the dimness ended at a place of misty veils and lofty, crepuscular rays that moved slowly, like pale searchlights focused from above. The old man's chair sat in the open space in a puddle of light, only a few yards from the low dais.
    Tom risked a quick glance upward from the floor. It was one of the misty days, and he could hardly see the dais, which was fine by Tom. He didn't want to see the dais. He never wanted to see the dais, even though he assumed what was on the dais was mostly stone. Chairs, they were. Only three huge chairs, very tall, very old. Carved out of gray stone. Granite, maybe.
    He took a deep shuddering breath. The trouble was, things carved out of stone should not appear to be alive, and yet these did. Eyes carved out of stone shouldn't see. Ears carved out of stone shouldn't hear. But he knew damned well they did. Also, they moved. He couldn't catch them at it, but they did it, anyhow.
"Tom?"


174                              Sheri S. Tepper

    The old man's chair stood quite still, he in it unmoving, his slumped form showing no sign of life. Tom took another deep breath and went slowly forward, keeping his eyes fixed on the old man, not on anything else. He
was close to the chair before old Seoca raised his head."It's you, Tom. I wondered who it could be."
    Tom swallowed the hard, bitter lump in his throat and mumbled, "You know who it couldn't be, Your Wisdom."
"True. I suppose Nimwes told you I was here."
"She did, yes."
    "I know it upsets her, but I need to come here sometimes. To commune with Werra. And Hunagor. You never knew Hunagor."
    Tom flicked a sidewise glance at the dais, catching only a glimpse of the left-hand chair and who sat in it. The glimpse was enough. He pulled his eyes away. Sometimes they'd catch him looking, and then he couldn't look away. Couldn't unfix his eyes, which stayed glued there for--for a long time.
Tom said, "She was--ah..." "Transfigured?" offered the old man. "Transfigured before my time, sir."
    "She chose to be so. She was finished with her duties, Fuelry. She believed her task was done. Werra, now, I brought him down here well before his time. Otherwise, we'd have been too late."
    "Brought him to be, ah"--Tom swallowed painfully once more-"transfigured."
      "Right." The old man put his hands beneath his armpits and spoke with
slight surprise. "It's cold in here.""Can I take you back, sir?"
    "Might as well. It's getting harder all the time for them to... communicate. I miss having them to talk with. Sometimes I get confused. Sometimes I'm not sure I'm cleaving to the pattern, adhering to the philosophy, planning for everything. I come here hoping to be inspired, reassured, but today I'm not. Unless you bring me something reassuring?"
    "I'm afraid not, Your Wisdom. I have a few bits and pieces, none of them so urgent it won't wait until we get you back where it's warmer." He turned the old man's chair and moved along beside it, wishing desperately that when he had to come here, he could do it more casually, leaving the place behind him when he left it. The damned room or cavern or whatever it was wouldn't allow that! The feel of it followed him every time. The sense of being noticed by, watched by, known by the great chairs--it went with him, destroying his peace, disturbing his rest.
He sometimes felt he would be less troubled if he understood what was


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            175

going on here, but though His Wisdom had tried to make it easier, Tom only picked up scraps here and there.
    "It has to do with deities, Tom. All peoples have gods. Different people visualize them differently, and some people try not to visualize them at all because they know whatever they try to imagine, the truth is otherwise. The being who is seen in one way and called by one name in Artemisia may be
seen another way and called by another name by the Faulty Sea." "You're saying... Hunagor... Werra..."
    "I'm saying names are only labels, not identities. I'm saying reality goes beyond what we can see."
Which was damned little help, Tom thought.
    His Wisdom sighed. "I wish you were of Gaddir lineage. Gaddirs have a way of just--understanding these things."
    But he wasn't Gaddir. He was just Tom Fuelry, whose great-greatgrandfather had been a tribesman in the mountains, and whose grandfather had worked for Gaddi House, whose father had worked for Gaddi House. Faithfully, as the Fuelrys did all things. Sometimes His Wisdom patted Tom on the shoulder and said, "To the weak, succor; to the strong, burdens." He should be flattered, he supposed.
    "My own fault it's cold," the old man mumbled as they went through the great round door. "The heat and the filtered air come down from above. I turned them off. It didn't seem worth the expenditure of energy. The essential circuits go on running. There's no way to shut them off."
    Tom quelled a shiver. Among other disturbing dreams, he sometimes had visions of those mighty engines of the deep, eternally purring, that deep-set, incredible power that had given its name to the Place. Fusion power, the Domers said. Well, it might be, but Tom had a hunch it wasn't what Mitty meant when he said fusion power.
    His voice cracked as he said, "When you want to come here again, let one of us come with you, sir. And wear something warm." His voice had become strident on the last few words. He bit his lip. "I'm sorry, sir, I--"
    "Quite all right, Fuelry. I deserve to be scolded. Just wait until Nimwes gets hold of me. She'll let me have it!" He chuckled. "Well, what's your news?"
    "A moment." Fuelry went through his long-memorized and complicated ritual of setting locks. After a moment's pause, the door swung shut with a deep grinding hum that made the floor vibrate beneath them as Tom sent the chair briskly along the dusty corridor. "Some time ago, you suggested that
since I am not well known outside Gaddi House, 1 cultivate Qualary Finch." "That wasn't the reason 1 gave you, but yes."
"Right." Fuelry had been doing a bit more than merely cultivating her,


176                              Sheri S. Tepper

but he did not intend to discuss that. "When you get past her defenses, she's a very nice person." Comely, he thought. Comely and delightful, and-passionate.
    "I'm glad you've found the assignment pleasant." His Wisdom bent his mouth into a secretive smile. "What has she told you?"
    "She's not a chatterer, unlike most Domers. She doesn't talk about anything private, probably out of fear. However, she feels no constraint in discussing what everyone discusses. Such as the shuttle project."
     They had come to the security shafts, which Tom moved them through
rapidly, back into warmer and more inhabited space."She speaks of it as a salvage project?"
    "That, yes, but she also mentions weapons as among the things to be salvaged."
    "Weapons?" The old man sat up, his expression suddenly alert. "Well, now. Has she said what weapons?"
    "No. She only repeats what Ellel has said. I asked Qualary what the weapons were for, but the weapons, when discussed in front of her or other Domer servants, have been referred to only as a type of salvage, as parts, as material. Qualary doesn't think of them as armament."
    The old man laughed. "Because Ellel hasn't spoken of them in terms of armament. The omission's interesting, isn't it? With all the monsters them are about, Ellel certainly should be interested in weapons as armament." He laughed again, seeming quite pleased with himself.
    Fuelry said nothing more until they arrived at His Wisdom's quarters. Only after Nimwes had wrapped the old man with a blanket and plied them both with hot tea did Tom continue:
    "Another interesting bit: Qualary has remarked that when the shuttle is completed, only Ellel and Ander will go, together with some of their people. And some walkers, of course."
    The old man considered this. "I'm sure it was a problem for her. Can she leave behind anyone she does not trust? Would she dare take anyone along she did not trust? Including only Ellels and Anders is her solution to the problem."
    Tom scowled. "So off they go, these two sets of ambitious Domers who don't trust anyone, and back they come with weapons, and what happens then?"
    "One wonders." His Wisdom shook his head slowly back and forth. "If Ellel spoke openly of using them against monsters, I might believe her. Since she doesn't speak openly of using them at all, her motives are hidden. What motive would she hide'? World domination, of course. That's the formula that emerged with the dinosaurs. Megalomania plus weapons equals domi-


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            177

nation. Of course, the weapons then were fang and claw, and every creature was a me-firster.-
    "I don't know why in hell we don't just eliminate all of them," Fuelry snarled. "The whole bunch of them--and their families!"
    The old man shook his head in amused wonder. "When I suggested you cultivate Qualary Finch, didn't you question the ethics of that assignment'?"
    Fuelry flushed. He had, yes. Of course, he hadn't known Qualary at that point.
    "Now, here you are, forgetting Gaddir philosophy to become suddenly very bloodthirsty."
    "Sorry," the other said, then, feeling explanation was needed, "If you knew how that bitch had treated Qualary--" Though Qualary had been reticent to speak of it, Tom had seen the scars. He condemned all the Domers equally. If they hadn't done it, they hadn't prevented it, either!
    "I understand how you feel, but that's not the way Gaddi House operates, Tom. You know that. We do not impose our will on {)thers. All beings must be free to seek their own happiness. Only when one person's search becomes another person's slavery may we intervene, and even then, not with force. We pay a price for everything we do."
    Fuelry pursed his mouth, looking over His Wisdom's shoulder in ostentatious silence.
The old man grinned. "You think I'm maybe stretching a point'?" Fuelry flushed uncomfortably.
      "Listen, boy. If a man thinks it will make him happy to hit you, and you
duck st) he ends up breaking his hand against a brick wall, whose fault is that?" "I suppose the man doing the hitting," said Tom, unwillingly.
    "Of course. If people out there are aiming blows at one another, and if we teach some of them to duck, isn't that appropriate?" He sighed and stretched his hands toward the fire. "If we learned anything from history, wc learned you can't legislate how creatures ought to behave. We don't try."
    "You may not force them, but you do other things. You fool them. You entice them!"
    The old man chuckled. "If, as some believe, man is a fallen angel, he doesn't need to be enticed. He has only to remember what goodness is. If man is an ascending ape, however, he first has to figure out what goodness is, and before he can do that, he has to admit he doesn't know."
    "So admitting you don't know is equivalent to admitting you were an ape to begin with'?" Though he tried not to, Tom couldn't keep his mouth from quirking, just a little.
    "Exactly. Depend upon it. Any system that claims to know what goodness is will also claim descent from heaven. Or expulsion from paradise, which


178                              Sheri S. Tepper

is the same thing." The old man laughed until he choked, and Tom had to bring him a glass of water. "Do you have any other news for me'?" the old man asked.
    "Yes, though it was stale news when I got it. Qualary mentioned that Ellel's been very happy lately, so I played along and asked why. It seems a pair of her walkers brought in an old raggedy blanket that was turned over to their lab."
    The old man became very still. "What exactly did the lab say? Do you know?' '
    "None of my sources there were available. However, we have a few spies in the Domer catering section, and they tell me Ander threw a party to announce that Ellel had found a cellular trace."
    The old man licked his lips and took a deep, sighing breath. "What have the Domers done about it?"
"Ellel's done all the doing. She's intensified the search, is all. So far." "Where?"
    "Down there." Fuelry pointed to the east. "South manland, Artemisia." He turned back to stare at the old man curiously. "How did the Domers get Gaddir genetic material to compare in the first place'?"
    "Hunagor was as human as you or 1. She used to go out among people. So did Werra. So did I. And what does it take to get a sample? No more skill than picking your pocket. You get bumped in a crowd, a quick punch, a drop of blood. Some spy pilfers a glove, a scarf. What else?" He knotted his hands together. "What have you done about it'?"
    "If your assessment is correct, the Orphan is on her way south. We've done what we can to prevent harm coming to her. But there are a hell of a lot more walkers out there than there are allies of ours."
    The old man sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily. Walkers. Damn man and his lust for power, his fascination with technology! Damn men who could build such things! "Nimwes says she can hardly leave Gaddi House now without encountering them every few steps."
    Fuelry snorted. "They're like ants. First you see only one, but suddenly there's a whole line of them. And the damage they're doing! Half the gardens in the Place are dead. More than half the trees!"
      "They used to be mostly elsewhere. Why has Ellel turned so many loose
here in the Place'? What is she using them for?" "I think Ellel just likes looking at them." "Surely not! The smell alone--"
     "Truly, Your Wisdom. You should see her during her morning ceremony. She's almost orgasmic! And as Nimwes says, they've started annoying our people."
    The old man snarled. "S~rely Ellel doesn't wish to stir up Gaddi House just now? Not with success practically within her reach!"


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            179

    "1 think she mostly disregards Gaddi House. As we, for a long time, disregarded the walkers. Now, however, they're getting unpredictable."
    "Oh, Tom, they're perfectly predictable! Jark the Third was not a technician. He was an ambitious and impatient man with some superficial knowledge. Ellel is more ambitious, less impatient, so she's learned a good deal more than her father did, but even she knows far less than she thinks she does. The so-called reprogramming done by father or daughter simply cannot stand up to repeated stress, particularly inasmuch as the creatures aren't being properly maintained. Ellel has been so busy pulling power into her own
hands, she hasn't taken time to provide maintenance.""You think they're going slightly haywire."
    "More than slightly. The surface routines are eroding, and they are now beginning to act as they were designed to do!" He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Ah, well. It's the last of many worries."
    "The last, sir? If this is the last, I'm glad I wasn't around for the rest of them."
    "Oh, the rest of them were easy by comparison, my boy. Yes. Have you ever tried to clean out a water tank?"
    Astonished, Fuelry shook his head. "I don't believe so, sir. What kind of water tank?"
    "Oh, one used to water horses or cattle. If you have a filthy, muddy tank all grown up with algae that you have to clean out, you can get ninetymine percent of the filth out of it just by turning it over and dumping it. That's what Hunagor, Werra, and I did, over a century and a half ago. We had a problem, and we dumped it. Since then, we've spent all our effort cleaning up the final one percent."
"I didn't realize that, sir," said Tom, his mouth open.
    "Oh, yes indeed. I tell myself that whenever I get discouraged. I tell myself ninety-nine percent of cleaning up the world has been accomplished.
And it was true until Jark the Third discovered those damned walkers!" "Which made it a new problem."
    "Or restored the old one. For a while, I thought we should have foreseen it, but the chance of its happening was vanishingly small. It would have been easier to handle with all three of us, but when it happened, Hunagor was already gone. Werra went soon after.
    "At first I thought, well, Jark being as he was, pretty much of a dilettante, the chance of his doing anything much with them wasn't large. But he disappeared, and Ellel took over. Now who could have foreseen Ellel?" He sighed again. "Still, I tell myself the whole series of events is only a worry, only a last little glitch, one of those inevitable last-minute things one can't plan for until it happens."
"It doesn't seem like a little glitch to me," grumped Tom.


180                              Sheri S. Tepper

    His Wisdom flushed slightly, sitting silent for a moment before he responded, "You're right, Tom. It isn't. It's a return to the main line, to the inexorable process of destruction we thought we had stopped. But we do have a chance. And I will not dwell on how badly we may fail."
    "If we fail, all of us here in the Place will be Ellel's minions. Her servants. Those of us she doesn't kill outright."
     The old man shook his head. "That time will be brief, Tom. If we fail,
life on earth will be brief,""If I just knew more!"
    "Believe me, knowing more wouldn't make it any easier. You'll have to trust that I'm doing my best. Be patient."
    Tom, shamefaced, merely nodded. He always had trusted, always been patient, though sometimes it was very hard.

    Traveling afoot, and only at night, Abasio reached the Wise Rocks road in two days. He should have been quicker, he told himself, trying to be angry about it and succeeding only in becoming shamingly tearful. There was no reason to have taken so long except for the lassitude, the feeling of exhausted impotence that possessed him. It was not until his arrival within sight of the Wise Rocks themselves, however, that he fully realized what was going on. This same weary futility had been with him since he had waked in the truckers' hostel, Only the stimulants he had taken had allowed him to accomplish anything at all.
    He was certain somebody had given him Starlight. Why else would he have known the smell? Whistler had said Starlight wouldn't hurt a child, and Whistler was not known as a liar. Well, maybe he hadn't actually lied. Abasio wasn't hurt. He was simply unable to plan further ahead than the next few moments' travel. All he wanted to do was lie down and do nothing, think nothing, plan nothing. Only some deep life-loving core of himself made him go on, only his stubborn will pushed him on. Lying down would be equivalent to death. He had no more stimulants, no food, nothing to drink. If he stayed in one place, it would be only a matter of time before a hunger of ogres or a stink of trolls came upon him. If he wanted to go on living, he had to get home.
    The words were thought, not spoken, and it was some little time bcfi~re he realized the form his intention had taken. Home. When had he last thought of the farm as home? Not for years. Why now?
    He couldn't find an answer, at least not one that satisfied him. It took too much energy to think about it. He dragged himself past the Wise Rocks Farm lane and on up the rutted road that led up the valley. The Cermit place was


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            181

only a few miles farther on. The last mile he virtually crawled, taking five steps, then resting, then taking five steps again.
    He staggered into the farmyard at dawn, The old man was already up, strewing corn among the chickens. Abasio saw him as he neared the house, then saw Big Blue in the paddock, heard the familiar whicker, the sound con~ing to him as though from a great distance. The next thing he knew, he was lying across the back steps of the farmhouse, a blanket wrapped around
him and his grandpa spooning something hot between his lax lips."What happened'?" Abasio begged.
    "You'd know better than I, boy. What've you been up to, falling over your own feet that way'? Your breath stinks! You look like death warmed over. ' '
"1 do?"
    ~'You do. You look like an old ewe sheep: your eyes are yellow, your hcart's going ticky-ticky like you'd been chased by dogs, and your tongue is l'urred up like a dirty fleece. What ails you'?"
    "Just--just tired, I think, Grandpa. Somebody gave me something. I guess it's taking time to---to get it out of me."
    '~Drugs." The old man spat and struggled to his feet, letting Abasio's head roll onto the boards of the porch with a decided thump. "What would the city be without drugs, eh?"
"I didn't take it," Abasio protested. "Somebody gave it to me." ~'Always somebody. Well, you're here now, and there's no somebody to give you anything but hot soup and home-baked bread. Can you get yourself into the house'? If not, I'll have to put rollers on you. You're too big for me it) illeve. ' '
    He could get no farther than into the porch itself, where he collapsed onto the narrow bed against the back wall of the house. This felt like home, his own bed, where he'd slept in the summers, when the house was too hot.
    '~That's far enough, I suppose," his grandfather mumbled. "That's a place you're used to. Though the bed's too small for you now, it'll have to do."
    Abasio let his eyes close, let his lids glue themselves down. No point trying to keep alert, keep awake. Whatever was wrong with him was getting worse, not better. It had been steadily downhill since... whenever.
    The day brightened, but Abasio did not. He pulled the blanket over his head, sleeping heavily, almost comatose, as though he would never wake again.
    His grandfather roused him and fed him that night and again the following ~norning. Each time he got as far as the edge of the porch to pee. He slept through the noon hour, but awakened long enough to drink a cup of soup at dusk. The next morning, he awakened on his own, heaved himself onto the side of the bed, and sat there staring owlishly at the chickens in the yard. His


182                              Sheri S. Tepper

mouth tasted like the bottom of their coop. In the kitchen his grandfather stood at the sink washing vegetables, a slumped and yet familiar figure, no matter it
was unlike the tall, erect silhouette Abasio remembered from his youth. "Coming to, are you?" Cermit asked through the open door.
    "I guess," said Abasio, slurring the words. He wanted something. Very badly.
"How much of that drug did they give you?"
    "A lot, I guess," Abasio admitted. What was it he was wanting'? What did he need? Not food. Not drink.
"Too much, I'd say. What was this drug for?"
    Abasio didn't answer. He'd suddenly identified the sick hunger he felt. Though he'd had no personal experience with addiction, he'd heard others complain of it, and these were the symptoms. All he really wanted was more of what he'd already had too much of. Starlight. He shuddered and gagged, both glad and sorry he'd given what was left of the stuff to Soniff when he got his sparrow back. The three missing days would turn into a short lifetime if he had a supply available.
    Maudlin tears dribbled down his face. Poor Little Purp. Poor Soniff. Were they feeling like this? If they were, if Little Purp was habituated... still another reason for hunting Abasio down and cutting pieces off him.
    "Oh, shit," he groaned. "I'm sick." He struggled to his feet and managed to make it to the porch steps before he succumbed to the dry heaves.
    Cermit shook his head and retreated into the kitchen, reappearing in a moment with a steaming mug. He knelt beside Abasio, grunting in the effort, his old joints popping and snapping like dry twigs. "You probably won't keep this down, but drink it anyhow. It'll give your gut something to spew, and that'll be less painful than what you're doing."
    Three mugs later, Abasio managed to keep some of the broth down. He lay back on the narrow bed, letting the dizziness subside. Outside, the windmill whirled against the sky, and he shut his eyes so as not to see the twirling blades.
    "You're an advertisement for the city, you are," his grandfather observed. "Worse than your poor ma. She heaved it up, too, but that was because she was pregnant with you."
"I think I'll sleep awhile longer," mumbled Abasio.
"Good idea," the old man said in a dry voice. "You do that."
    He slept until midafternoon and awoke without the heaves. Beside him his grandfather sat in the old rocking chair, half-dozing.
"I saw Big Blue," murmured Abasio. "I must be having hallucinations."
    "No, you saw him. He's Big Blue's grandson, though. Looks just like the old horse. Acts like him too."
"Dreamed about him," said Abasio. "I really did."
The old man stared at the younger. "When was this?"


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            183

      "I don't know. A week ago, maybe. Dreamed I was here, at the farm,
 then dreamed I was going someplace on Big Blue." "Are you?" "Am I what?" "Going somewhere?"
    "I'd just as soon not. For a while. Unless they come after me." He sat up with some difficulty, plumped up the wadded pillow, and lay back down again with a sigh.
"Misery me, boy, what are they coming after you for? What did you do?" "! didn't do anything. Not of my own free will. I may have done something under--coercion, sort of. Not that the Purples will pay any attention to that.
If you're sensible, you're supposed to be able to avoid all that." "If you're sensible," said the old man heavily. "Which I wasn't," Abasio admitted.
    The old man frowned. "So now they're after you. Did you take some precautions'? Or did you just come straight home, trolling trouble behind you?"
    "l made them think I'd gone north," Abasio mumbled, trying to get angry. Grandpa always had made him furious, which was one reason he'd left, but just now he didn't seem to have the strength to argue, much less be angry.
    "You had some wits left, then. Well, no point wearying the day with things past, as the philosopher says. Looks to me like you'll be good for nothing for several days yet."
    Though Abasio hated to admit it, the old man was right. He toddled when he tried to walk; he fumbled when he tried to handle anything; he decided to shave his head but cut himself several times in the process. He had to warn Olly, but he couldn't manage it, not yet.
    It was her voice that awoke him from a nap several afternoons later, her voice coming from outside somewhere. He struggled awake, got himself to his feet and into the kitchen where he made shift to wash the crustiness from around lips and eyes and make a turban for his bald head. There was nothing he could do about the tattoos. No point in trying to hide them.
    "Abasio, come greet our visitors," the old man said when Abasio staggered from the house into the shaded yard where they sat. Grandpa. Farmwife $uttle. And her, Oily.
    "We met a few days back," said the Farmwife. "It was he who told Oily you knew of the thrones, as a matter of fact."
    "You didn't mention he'd been at your place," Cermit said stiffly. "What was he doing at Wise Rocks Farm?"
    "I quite forgot," Originee lied gently. "He was passing through, and he had time for only a few words with us, on the fly, so to speak."
"I was not very nice to him," said Oily, her voice sounding weak and


184                              Sheri S. Tepper

wounded, even to her own ears. He looked sick! He looked sick unto death! All his lovely sparkle dimmed, like embers, hidden under ashes. What had happened to him'? She reached up a finger to tickle the neck of the angel on her shoulder, discarding one comment and another. "I took him for a cityman," she said at last.
    "Which he is," said the old man heavily. "As his hands will tell you. A ganger. A street brawler. Possibly a killer of innocent bystanders. A slaughterer of children."
    "No," said Abasio, too weak to be really angry. ~'I never did. There's no rep--honor in that!"
"There's no honor in any of it," the old man said wearily.
    "Hush," Originee rebuked him, leaning forward to pat his shoulder. "Hush, Cermit. The boy was young. He ran away. Now he's back. Shall we drive him away again, blaming him for what he's been?"
    Cermit shook his head. "I know. I know, Originee. I'm not angry at him, not really. But if there's a chance somebody hunting him can find out where he is, if there's a chance they'll even come looking, then he'll have to go away again, no matter what I want. Otherwise the whole valley could be wiped clean."
    ~'Farmers are taboo," muttered Abasio. "Gangets don't bother farmers. Or water-men. Or power-men." The providers of life's necessities were not interfered with, so the doctrine ran.
    His grandfather turned on him in irritation. "They say they don't bother farmers, that's true. But if they're looking for escapees, then they bother farmers, and farmwives, and the children and the animals as well! Men on the hunt don't care who they kill."
"Killers, dillers!" cried the guardian-angel. "Watch out."
    "Hush, my angel," said Olly, scratching its neck as she considered Abasio's dilemma. "Why are they after you?"
    "I don't know that they are!" Abasio cried. "1 got into a situation that could be trouble, that's all. I left before anyone found out about it. If I'd stayed until someone found out, it would have been too late."
    The Farmwife inspected him closely. "Your grandpa's right in one respect, boy. Those hands betray you." She took his hands in her own, tracing with her thumb the symbols on the backs of his hands. "If you go to the village,
someone will notice. If you wear gloves, someone will notice that.""I didn't plan to go into the village."
"You plan to hide out forever?" the Farmwife asked.
    "I didn't plan!" he yelped, tired of all of them, of himself. "I haven't had time!"
    "He's not well," said Olly, trying to keep her voice impersonal, as though noticing the condition of some farm animal. "Look at his yellow eyes."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS

185

They worried her, those eyes. Was it possible he could have something fatal'? Abasio. Surely not. It wouldn't be fair.
But when, Oracle had asked, had life ever been fair?
Abasio felt himself growing red.
    The Farmwife patted him. "There, boy. We're trying to help, really. Trying to think of ways to protect you. You remember us farm folk, plainspoken and meddlesome. Some might say, rude. But if you remember that, you'll remember there's little harm in us. I'll send over some of my good cheese. Olly will bring it. Meantime, I'll put my mind to what might be done about those hands."
"I'm not the only one being looked for," he mumbled.
"Who else?" asked the Farmwife, suddenly alert.
    'q think they're looking for her," he said, nodding at Oily. "Walkers were asking about her. In Fantis."
    Oily nodded soberly and said in a level voice, "Oddmen. That's what I call them. I know no reason they should be looking for me, but I know they are."
    She refused to panic. She had been driven from her home in the village, but she would not be driven from this haven. Not yet, at any rate. Not with him here, so sick, so in need of---~f what'?
    Abasio subsided. If she didn't regard the matter as immediately threatening, perhaps it wasn't. In any case, he felt as impotent to help her as he had been to help Elrick-Ann. What could he do'? He could barely stagger on his own!
    When Originee and Oily were homeward bound, they rode for a time silently, each of them thinking her own thoughts.
    "He could be a dyer," said Originee at last. "Indigo to the elbows. You could be a dyer as well. Nobody looks beyond the splotches, and it does wear off in time."
"What are you talking about'?" asked Olly.
    "Your thrones, of course." The Farmwife gave her a sharp look. "You want to find your thrones, and if my experience teaches me anything, it is that both you and Abasio should get out of the area as soon as possible."
      "Surely you don't think of him as protection!" she cried through teary
merriment. "He may not recover! He looks like a soggy dishrag!"The guardian-angel cried, "A soggy-doggy. He does!"
    The Farmwife thought about it. "1 don't think of him as protection at this moment, no, but he will recover. He's already much improved from when he came home. Cermit says he has appetite, his lassitude is passing. When he's well, and he will be well, he'll be strong once more. He's probably well schooled in survival. Few gang members live to reach his age. One in four, perhaps."


186                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "You're eager to have me gone," accused Oily, somewhat illogically, her mind on Abasio's recovery.
    "No. I'm not. I'd as lief have you stay, if you would, but I'm not such a fool as to think you can hide here in the valley without being found eventually. People watch, people notice, people talk. Sooner or later, someone will say
something to bring the hunters down on us, if they haven't already.""You sound very sure."
    "I don't know about your oddmen, but gangers have come before, looking for runaway slaves, fugitive conks. Abasio was right to say that normally we're immune from their riots, but if they're looking for someone in particular, they begin going from farm to farm, working their way out into the countryside, beating on people to make them talk. I know one farm now vacant where a couple tried to hide their own son. He'd run off to the city, been a ganget, got captured in a war, been enslaved, then run away. When the hunters came, they raped the woman and her daughter, then killed her husband when he tried to interfere. The daughter died, as did the slave boy. The woman lived."
"Farmwife Chyne?" whispered Oily.
    Farmwife Suttle nodded. "And three graves on the hill above the old deserted farm. Cermit may be angry at Abasio, but he doesn't want the boy dead."
"He'd rather miss him than mourn him," said Olly, quoting the Oracle. "Indeed," said the Farmwife. "As I would you."

    Oily found herself apprenticed to the dyer before she had time to think about it. On the third day after their meeting with Abasio and Cermit, Farmwife Suttle had seized her up and taken her into Whitherby without so much as a by-your-leave. That night she found herself and her belongings in a loft behind the dyer's yard with the guardian-angel shifting from foot to foot on an unfamiliar bedpost.
    "Learn," Originee had said, after introducing her to the dyer, Wilfer Ponde. "This man is my friend, and we've spoken together about your needs. Learn as quickly as you may. You will have to teach Abasio, so learn well."
    What Abasio thought about it, Oily had no idea, and she was too bemused by the Farmwife's decisiveness to object on her own behalf. Why not learn dyeing, after all? According to the Farmwife, dyers were among the craftsmen and skilled workers who could cross borders with little difficulty.
    Though Wilfer Ponde showed no signs of ever having crossed a border. He was a taciturn individual, bent from long hours stooped over his kettles; his sheds and yard were a lifelong accumulation of vats, sacks, boxes, and smelly pools of this or that. He worked in indigo and safflower and cochineal,


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            187

as well as in a host of less penetrating colors distilled from barks and roots and the skins or husks of both familiar and unfamiliar plants. His arms were colored halfway to the shoulder, as was his neck, where he habitually put up a wet hand to scratch away his puzzlement at the oddities of life.
    Oily was one such, and he abused his neck mightily as he took her around the place, beginning with the fabric shed. "Cotton," he told her. "That comes from southern Artemisia. Linen from the flax fields northeast of manland. Wool from the sheep raised around here on the farms. Silk, imported from the western people, those by the Faulty Sea, and little enough of it, for it takes a lot of hand labor to make. That's the basic four fabrics, plus leather: cow, sheep, goat, pig, horse, each of which has its own problems.
This is all fabric in here. Thread and yarn are in the shed across the yard." "You don't travel?"
    His fingers went to his neck as he considered this. "I couldn't carry a tenth of this with me, and it takes all of it to turn out proper products. Each fiber responds differently to dye. Different dyes take different mordants-that's the rinse you use to set the color--to give varying hues. The herbs and barks and roots come to me from all around. Not like in the old days, when dyestuff came from around the world--across the oceans, even--but still, some of it comes from a considerable distance. How would my suppliers find me if I traveled?" He shook his head slowly. "No, the only dyers who travel are those who do custom work, perhaps coloring thread for local weavers or printing patterns on fabric. It's the patterning that Originee thinks may be of value to you. I'll teach you some simple things: one or two kinds of fabric, a handful of colors. The rest is called art."
"Art?" Oily laughed. "I have no claim to being an artist."
    Scratch, scratch once more. "Well, as to that, we can fake it. Care and copy can pretend at inspiration." He gave her a penetrating look.
    "Why're you doing this?" Olly asked. "Why're you spending this time on me?"
    Scratch, scratch. "Originee and I, as I've said, are old friends. We were close in childhood." Scratch again. "People working together, it's part of the pattern of all life." He knotted his hands before him and gave her a frank, determined look. "Why not?"
"And this specially patterned fabric? There's a market for it?" "Wherever folks want their names or symbols put on the stuff they wear or the banners they wave. In Artemisia, men dress according to society and women according to clan. There's a town west of there that orders a lot of printed silk for fancy silk sleeves and pays me bonuses for it! East of there, men dress according to tribe. South of there, things get festive and ornamental.
'I'11 teach    to make     of local stuff, safflower and indigo, walnut


188                              Sheri S. Tepper

im

:~d

in

h

cl

hull and onion skin and juniper berry. All that grows around here or near enough. If you travel south, you'll find rabbit bush and snake bush for yellow, and cactus fruits to make a rosy red. Farther still, and you'll come to the place cochineal bugs grow, feeding on other cactuses. I'll teach you how to make dye of them as well, and how to print on cloth with pattern blocks." He scratched and beckoned. "Come."
    They went back across the yard and into another building, this one more solid, with a tight roof and screens on the windows, most of the floor taken up with a long, low table spread with a length of creamy cloth bordered with blue figures, half the center decorated in flowers and leaves in yellow and red and green, the other half still blank.
    "The pattern," he said, indicating a series of blocks lying on a side table. "Sixteen blocks in all. One for the border corner, three for the border sides. One for the center panel corners, three for the center panel sides. Eight more for the panel itself. Three dyes. And a week's work!"
    "I'd be afraid to touch it!" she cried. It was true, she would, and yet her eyes followed the pattern eagerly, seeming to understand it before her mind did. This block went there, and that one there, and this one was turned so to make the pattern match. It was rather like poetry! Interesting!
    "The money I'm getting from an Edger family for this tablecloth, I'd be a fool to let you touch it." He laughed. "And don't let that angel of yours poop on it, either. No, you'll start as any apprentice does, on handkerchiefs and neckpieces, and you'll make the blocks yourself."
    The blocks were of wood with a tightly glue&on layer of hard felt that Wilfer said was made of hammered wool. The felt had to be cut cleanly, with a very sharp straight knife, and the parts that were not in the pattern carved out with a sharp, scoopy little chisel. Orphan copied a pattern Wilfer gave her, a blossom and bad with leaves, a pattern in which a leaf or stem intersected each side of the square at its center. No matter which way the print block was turned, the pattern went on into the next block, and the next. The felt absorbed the dye when dipped into it; pressure on the wooden block forced it into the slightly dampened fabric.
    "It looks so easy!" she cried in frustration, regarding her fifteenth attempt to make the pattern line up cleanly, the dye to be evenly dark or light. "I'm just not artistic," And yet her mind saw how it should look. How it could look, if only her hands would do it rightly.
    Wilfer took the block from her hand, dipped it, slapped it onto the dampened fabric, pulled it away, repeated the motion eight times more, three rows of three. A solid block of pattern glowed up from the center of the fabric square. "Practice," he said. "That part has nothing to do with inspiration or art or any of that. Simple practice."
She practiced with the blocks in the morning. In the afternoons, she ground


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            189

roots or berries or fruits, she mixed dyes or prepared fabric. Merely getting a piece of fabric evenly damp but not wet required endless care. Came Sixthday evening, Farmwife Suttle came for her and took her and her angel home,
the angel talking all the way, Oily silent and weary."Are you learning, Olly?"
    Oily took a folded square from her pocket and presented it. Unfolded, it was a kerchief of two colors, rosy flowers among green leaves.
    "I did the pattern myself, but it needs to be hemmed," Olly said. "I'11 do that tomorrow."
    "No." The Farmwife shook her head firmly. "It's a lovely gift, but ! can hem it myself. Tomorrow you must teach Abasio everything you've learned this week."
    Olly kicked the bag at her feet where several uncut dye blocks rested, along with cotton squares and little sacks of dyestuff. "He'll hate it," she
said. "Nothing but the same thing, over and over. He'll think it's dull." "Do you think it's dull?"
"Now, maybe a little. I think--I think after a while it won't be dull
anymore because I'll be able to do things ....              I have all these ideas for
patterns! The way things fit together!"
She did not realize how eager her voice sounded.
The Farmwife smiled to herself.
    Abasio, now clear of eye and reasonably clear of mind, did think dyeing was dull, but no duller than other things essential to his survival. Also, it was an excuse to be with Oily. He found her no less enchanting now than the first time he had seen her. He could not be with her enough. Though he now knew very well that he had been with Sybbis during his lost days, his intention had been to make love to Olly, and that was how he remembered it. What he had done, he had done with her. They two had been lovers. He remembered them as lovers, even though he knew it wasn't factual. The worst part was being unable to talk with her about it. He wanted to say, "Remember? Remember when I did this, when you did that." All of this consisted of far more emotion than good sense, but he found the irrationality of it comforting, one of few comforting things in his life at the moment.
    So he copied the designs she gave him and cut his blocks neatly--for he had always been good with his hands--and figured out his own system for lining them up to make a continuous pattern, all the time watching Oily, listening to her, touching her fingers with his as though accidentally, soaking her up. When she recited the recipes for the dyes and mordants, he dutifully wrote them down and memorized them. He mixed the indigo she brought, obediently dipped his hands and wrists into the stuff, and watched as his skin turned blue, hiding the gang tattoos.
He considered asking Oily to go walking out in the woods with him. The


190

Sheri S. Tepper

woods called to him in a way they never had when he was a boy. Their misty distances summoned him; the feathery growth of new trees seemed to touch him with intimate joy; the gaiety of flowers enlivened him, making him smile. These were new emotions, ones he could not remember feeling before. He spoke of them to Oily, and she responded in kind.
    "The village .... "she murmured, her voice laden with the memory of joy. "The waterfall in winter, laden with ice. The crowded golden bloom at the edge. of the meadow. Oracle and I used to sit and look at it for hours."
    "I don't remember feeling this way before," he complained. "I don't remember even noticing some of the stuff that grows around here."
    "You took it for granted," she said. "It was just there. But you've been in the city for years, where there is nothing like it. I had a friend who told me about the city, about the history of cities. He said before men went to the stars, more and more people moved into cities, and they lost connection with the earth. They didn't understand where their food came from, what kept their air and water clean. They didn't understand how plants and animals and funguses and insects and everything are all connected. They disrespected nature; they held it in contempt. Now, because you've been away, you can see what is here and imagine losing it. Love and grief mixed, that makes a passion!" She knew this last was true because Oracle had told her so. And because she felt it, looking at him, looking at the world around them both. Love and grief mixed, to make a passion. Or perhaps, love alone...
    He wanted to make other kinds of passion. He wanted to take her deep into that natural world she obviously loved. He thought of having her on a mossy bed, looking at her breasts spangled with sunlight, bathing with her in a shallow pool of silver water. He longed to touch her skin, there at her throat where it changed color inside the neck of her shirt. He longed to lie beside her, holding her. He went over and over these desires in his mind, finding the pictures endlessly attractive. His body, however, could not make the effort. He still slept long and heavily at night and sometimes napped in the daytime, overcome by that same lassitude he had felt since leaving Fantis. Sometimes he wondered briefly if this effect was to be permanent, but there wasn't enough energy left over to worry about it.
    "You do look better," Olly told him tenderly. "Your eyes and skin aren't yellow anymore. And your hair's growing out."
    "I know. It feels funny. I've worn the crest for--fifteen, sixteen years." He rubbed the bristles with his wet and darkened hands, dyeing his hair tips blue in the process.
     She smiled at the blue-tipped hair, considering it totally suitable for a
dyer. "Has Originee talked to you'?""About what?"
"About your going away with me? Or me with you, whichever?"


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            191

    A brief surge of pure joy was quickly supplanted by his more usual ennui. He shook his head, at once suspicious and confused. "She's told me to learn this dyeing business, for it will hide the tattoos and give both of us other identities, but she hasn't mentioned going away. What do you mean, away'?"
    "Originee says if gangers come looking for you, they could kill a lot of people, especially if people try to hide you. She says the best thing is for people to admit you were here but say you've gone. It has to be true, though. tf gangets find they've been lied to... well. You know gangets."
    He did know gangers. "That's reason for me to go," he said heavily. "Not you."
    "If you're right about those walker things, I've got reason enough. I don't know why they want me, but it can't be for anything good or they wouldn't frighten me so. Besides, I cannot fulfill my prophecy here, and I will have no peace until I do!"
    He set the dye pot to one side and cocked his head. "You've never told me exactly what the prophecy says."
    She thought a moment. "Well, to start with, I'm not Farmwife Suttle's niece."
"! know that." He smiled. "I've known that all along."
    She stared at her feet, somewhat disconcerted. Well, what difference did it make? If they were going away together, it was probably best he knew about her.
He disconcerted her further by saying:
    "A long time ago you were brought here by an old man and a donkey. He took you over the hill to the archetypal village. The one over the hill, back there." He pointed back up the valley, toward the crest she had come over. "! met him the day I left home, met you then, too, and before that I used to climb up the trail over the mountains and look down at the village. What were you there? A Princess'?"
    "I was Orphan," she said, trying to remember him from that long-ago time. She'd been too little. She hadn't had enough words to remember him with. "Just Orphan."
    He found it hard to believe, even though the walkers had asked for a parentless child, for she looked nothing like an Orphan. "Tell me your prophecy," he begged.
    Oily quoted the prophecy expressionlessly, as though it held no meaning for her.
    "'Ask one only child,' "he quoted softly when she had finished." 'Ask two who made her.' When I went off to the city, that's the question I had. Who made me? Who was my father? Ma would never tell me; she said I was safer so. So my father was a mystery to me, just as your folks are to you."


192                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Abasio took up his dye pot once more. "If we went, we'd need a wagon, wouldn't we? I have a few golden sparrows."
    "I have some money. Oracle gave me some before I left. We'd need a table for spreading fabric. Pots for the dyes. A stock of cotton or linen. Wilfer has extra copies of some of his recipe books. He said he'd sell them to me."
"We'd need a horse," said Abasio, stretching his shoulders. "A horse," she agreed solemnly. "But not yet?"
    "No." She turned up her hands. "We don't know nearly enough yet to be believable as dyers. We'd be caught in a minute." She looked him squarely in the face, seeking something there, she wasn't sure what. "Besides. I haven't I haven't decided I want to go with you. I haven't decided to go at all."

    The three Survivors hired by Soniff to find Abasio were called Masher, Thrasher, and Crusher. Though originally from various gang backgrounds, they'd had many years as Survivors to give them experience at working together. Their habit of work was to have Thrasher do the thinking and planning while the other two provided the muscle.
    "So which way did he go?" Masher asked, twirling the long hammer he customarily carried.
    "Warlord says he headed north," Thrasher muttered in reply. He was a wiry individual with a long pigtail wound into a knot atop his otherwise bare head. He wore two whips at his belt, which he constantly patted, as though they were pets. "He may have gone north, and he may not. Best for you two to spend a day or two hunting him there while I make a few inquiries closer to home."
    "What scars does he have?" asked Crusher, the largest and hairiest of them, who looked like a bear and up close smelled like one.
    "The Warlord said one large knife scar on the left shoulder and a bullet pucker in the right calf." "Tha's good enough," rumbled Crusher. "If he's there, we'll find him." "Warlord says he'll take the hands as proof," muttered Thrasher. "We'll meet in two nights at Zelby tavern."
    Zelby was one day's foot travel north of Fantis. Thrasher himself intended to make certain inquiries in the city. If Abasio had indeed gone on to the north, the delay of a few days in pursuing him would be of little importance. If, on the other hand, he had gone some other way, they would waste the least possible time looking in the wrong direction.
Thrasher soon learned of Abasio's association with Elrick-Ann. He waylaid


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            193

her outside the baths and invited her to share a meal with a Survivor who had just won a bout and was celebrating. If Elrick-Ann had not been so lonely, she would probably have refused him, but the little lift she'd had from being given Abasio's place had leaked away. She missed him as her best and only friend, she missed the chatter and activities of Purple House. The offer of wine and talk and music was enough to draw her alongside Thrasher into a nearby songhouse.
    Besides, she was wearing street veils, with only the good part of her face showing, and it had been a long time since anyone had asked for her company. This man didn't know what she really looked like, and she didn't intend he should find out.
    They ate, and drank, and eventually she became garrulous, talking at great length about her friend Abasio.
    "Where's he from?" asked Thrasher in a silky voice, sounding only interested, not at all threatening.
      Elrick-Ann remembered her promise. "I don't know," she lied. "But
he's smart, Basio is. Real smart. He knows all kinna things.""What kind of things?"
    "Oh, he knows--he knows how to do the writin' they do in the Edges." This was harmless enough, she thought. Besides, she had had a great deal of wine.
    Thrasher thought deeply. There was a kind of writing done in the Edge that he himself could not read. If Abasio knew it, then perhaps he had come from there. If he had come from the Edge and had gone back there, the three Survivors hadn't a chance in hell of getting at him. It wouldn't even be worth trying.
It would be necessary to find out.
"Who recruited Abasio?" he asked Elrick-Ann.
    "Bashy," she replied after a moment. "I remember it was old Bash. And o1' Lippy-Long."
    Thrasher paid for the meal and the wine and left, leaving Elrick-Ann once more alone. He went to the Purple House and asked for Soniff, who was some time getting awake enough to talk. Soniff had been remarkably weary lately, and nasty-tempered when he was awake.
Thrashcr asked, "You know that kind of writing they do in the Edge?"
    "Script writing? Handwriting?" Soniff yawned, puzzled. He could read script. Old Chief could read it.
"They do that writing in farm country too'?"
    Sonill nodded. "They do handwriting mostly where they don't have screens. Us, we got the amusement screens, and they use printed words, like our tots learn."
"You have two men, Bashy and Lippy-Long?" Thrasher asked.


194                              Sheri S. Tepper

"Used to have," Soniff said. "Bashy's dead. Lippy-Long lives over near the North Bridge. He's an old man now."
    Thrasher smiled his particularly deadly smile and went away again, not bothering to mention where he was going.
    Lippy-Long was an old man, willing to tell anything he knew for a few mice. Yes, he remembered picking up Abasio as a stripling youth at a battery and weapons warehouse. Yes, he'd actually seen Abasio get out of the truck. "Where had Abasio come from?"
    Lippy-Long pulled his pendulous lower lip as he thought, tug, tug, tug, the eponymous feature bobbing and popping under these attentions. He didn't know, but it had been Barefoot Golly's truck. Everybody knew Golly! He could be found at a particular truckers' hostel, when he was in Fantis.
    Which is where Thrasher found him. "We're trying to find a man named Abasio," he said. "You brought him to town. Where'd you pick the boy up?"
    Barefoot had been drinking for some hours. He remembered Abasio vaguely, but then, over the years he'd picked up a lot of boys and it had been a long time ago. "I dunno," he confessed. "Somewhere out there, in the farms. I remember, he helped me get over a goblin trench."
    Thrasher drank with him, trying to elicit something more, but Barefoot had told all he could remember.
    When Thrasher met the other two Survivors, he heard their reports without surprise: No one north of Fantis had seen a solitary traveler meeting Abasio's description. No such traveler had stopped at any of the hostels. No such traveler had been seen by any of the truckers. Thrasher nodded to all this, smiling the while, then returned with his colleagues through the city and across the bridge, to begin again.
    They would start their search in the farm country east of Fantis, where goblin depredations were most numerous, and if that bore no fruit, they would turn then to the south

    Wilfer Ponde, the dyer, had an order for severat do~a silk neckpieces and several yards of printed silk. Oily was delegated to make the dye and print them. The printed silk she might design as she would. The neckpieces were to have a single soft green border line with a design of green leaves and purple thistles in one comer.
    "Who bought these?" she asked as she crushed handfuls of juniper berries with a pestle.
    "The Clan of Wide Mountain in Artemisia," he said, nodding approval at her work. "The thistle is their crest. Make plenty of dye so the color will stay consistent. Take your time with the printing. Be patient."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            195

"What is the Clan of Wide Mountain?" she asked.
    "I believe it's their ruling house," he replied. "That's why they wear distinctive neckpieces, to identify people in authority."
    "Is there a lot of trade across the borders?" she asked as she ground the pulp with warm water and strained the resultant liquid into another vessel.
    He scratched his neck and thought about it. "Well, there's more than you might suspect. In the Edges they make amusement tapes and what they call components and different kinds of parts for all kinds of things. They print books there, too, and make some wonderful expensive kinds of machines. In Artemisia they raise sheep for meat, skins, and wool, and they raise food as well. The tribes of the east trade in lumber and charcoal, which is why they're called Timber Tribes, and the Ore Tribes bring in ores and coal and salvaged metals from the old cities. The people along the Faulty Sea are craftsmen and silk weavers, as well as traders in fish and other ocean produce. Around here the farms grow meat and vegetables and grain. Fruit comes from Low Mesiko, all year round. The truckers, they carry it all back and
forth. What doesn't come by camel caravan from the west.""And the cities?"
    "These around here are the last few left. How they've kept going, I don't know. All they have to trade is slaves, and drugs, entertainments, and stolen stuff, and it mostly goes back and forth among themselves. The drugs and weapons have to come from somewhere, but 1 don't know where that is!"
    Oily went back to her task. The picture did not add up properly. Something in Wilfer Ponde's account did not satisfy her. Where did the cities earn the money to buy food and fuel and clothing and the other necessities of life'? There they sat, like great pools of honey, pulling in young folk like foolish flies from all the farms around, but what kept the cities going'.>
    She had no time to worry over it. She was busy. She memorized formulae. She learned to recognize certain plants by the leaf and blossom, by stem and root, whether dried or fresh, and by the smell and taste of the powdered stuff as well. She filled a little notebook with the names of suppliers of fabrics and dyestuffs, who they were, how they could be found, what the materials cost. In olden times, so said Wilfer Ponde, there had been wonderful dyes made from chemicals that weren't available now. Red that glowed like gems. Greens as bright as meadows after rain. Pure blues, like the sky. There were no more such chemicals. Most colors now were paler, quieter, more earthy.
She learned all this. She taught it all to Abasio.

Cermit the farmer had words to say to his grandson.
"You think I'm a savage," Abasio shouted, when he'd heard them.
"I think you're a cityman," his grandfather retorted. "What I'm saying


196                              Sheri S. Tepper

to you is simple. Oily is about twenty years old, a woman grown, but she has no experience of the world. Sometimes people think they know things because their minds know about them. They think they know sickness, they think they know danger, they think they know death. But they don't know it. In their gut they don't know it. Look back, boy! Did you know, when you ran off? Your head thought it knew, but inside you didn't know!"
    Abasio couldn't deny it. It was true. He would have sworn he knew about IDDIs, but until he saw...
    "It would be wrong for you to use her in the way you do women in the city, and Originee wants me to make sure you know that before she lets Olly go off with you."
    "Olly isn't that sure she wants to go," asserted Abasio, moved by some devil of perversity. "Besides, we take care of our women in the city!"
    His grandfather laughed harshly. "Your ma told me all about the city, Abasio! You think she didn't know what goes on there?"
    Abasio didn't answer. Lately it had been uncomfortable to think of his ma as a ganger's woman. It was impossible to think of Oily in that way.
    The old man said softly, "You're to pretend Oily is your sister. You're not to get her with child. And since you cannot be sure you are not infected with something, don't make her a gift of an IDDI, either."
    "I didn't intend to," Abasio said sulkily. It wasn't a lie. He hadn't intended, didn't intend to. Hell, he'd done virtually without for most of eighteen years, just so he didn't catch an IDDI himself! But he didn't like being told not to, either. As if he were still some kid, some brat at home, with Grandpa making the rules.
    "It would be dishonorable," his grandpa said, not even looking at him. "Not only dishonorable, but uncivilized."
    The old man hobbled out the door, leaving Abasio to steam alone. Gangers counted coup on women. How many cuckles in one hour, in one night, in one week. It had been a thing Abasio had had to avoid, getting into any coup rivalry of that kind. He himself had known it was silly and damned dangerous, but he'd never thought of it as dishonorable.
    He complained to Oily about Grandpa's attitude, finding too late that she agreed with the old man.
     "Burned Man told me that women are treated dishonorably in the cities," she said unequivocally. "Everyone in my village would consider it so except Bastard, and Bastard could be one of you citymen himself."
     "But in the gangs, getting a woman pregnant is a good thing!" asserted Abasio. "To make the gang stronger. To make it grow."
"Is that a fact?" she said. "They must be very strong, then."
Possibly they were numerous, she thought, though according to Burned


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            197

Man they died young. She did not think of them as strong. Burned Man had not spoken of them as strong, merely as willful.
    Except with his ma, who had mostly talked at him, Abasio had never conversed with a woman except as gangers did, to tease or to give them orders. Actual conversation was troubling, and he wouldn't have done it with anyone but Olly. Even with her, he tried the more familiar patterns of teasing and flirting and bragging, only to find that phrases meant to sound seductive came across as ugly and unenticing, the meaning muddy and uncertain, even to him.
    "You're talking and talking," said Oily, angrily. "Words come out of your mouth like water out of a pump, all gush and splash, but you're not really thinking about me and you."
"How can you say that?" he'd demanded.
    How could she say it? She simply knew it. It was part of the pattern of his life, and she could see that pattern as clearly as she was beginning to see the patterns dye blocks would make, one thing leading to another, certain as sunrise. Things she had been told. Things she had seen. And this man saying words he knew too well.
      She spoke softly. "Listen, Abasio. I don't know who I am. I don't know
anything about me. Do you know anything about me that I don't know?" He didn't.
    "What I'm saying is this: You see two frogs mating, do you think they love each other?"
He stared, not answering.
    She went on doggedly. "Or if it was two people, but one of them was drugged unconscious? Seems to me, the only way people can make love with each other is if they both know who they are and who the other one is! Otherwise it's just the bodies coupling, like two frogs! And I can't respond to your words, because I don't know who I am yet, even if you do know who you are, which I doubt!"
"Suppose I do know you better than you do'?"
    Oracle had told her about that one. ~'You know more about sex than I do. According to Oracle all women have a hen-crouch part, so you know ~ore about that part than I do. Burned Man told me how ganger men make ~~p these struts and crows, and cock-a-doodle back and forth, just like a rooster showing off his feathers to get the hens to crouch for him. Doesn't ~atter to the rooster which hen he jumps! Hens are interchangeable, like ~ocks: Wear out one, put on another. If she won't crouch, peck her until she's bloody. Rooster doesn't care what the chicken thinks! Rooster doesn't care if the chicken thinks.
"Sure, I've got a hen-crouch part, just like any other female, but that's


198                              Sheri S. Tepper

biology, not brains. Which is why you gangers are breeding down and breeding down. Burned Man says you men have a saying about quick cuckle: When a man's in a hurry, there's nothing like quick cuckle. So you take the women who spread their legs quickest, they're the ones with the least brains, and every generation of you is dumber than the last!" Burned Man would never have used those words to her, but then, he had never been as angry as she was now! She yearned toward this stupid, stupid man, and all he did was cock-a-doodle!
    "I'm not just crowing! I mean what I say to you," he said, matching her anger with heat of his own.
    She turned her back on him, tears in her eyes. "Well if you do, the more shame you, for it's nothing but cock-crow, Abasio. Nothing but habit. You're not talking to me any different than you'd talk to any other chicken!"
    She left him there and went back to Wise Rocks Farm. He didn't see her again for days.
    And she was right. His talk had been only habit. Now. But when he had seen her first, he'd been on fire, wanting her, Oily, separate and distinct from all other women. He wanted... he wanted... he didn't know what he wanted!
    He lay abed, summoning sexual fantasies that plodded flaccidly to no perceivable conclusion. He snorted and bellowed around the house, trying to stir himself.
    "What's the matter with you?" old Cermit asked. "You're acting like a ramqamb with a burr up his tail."
    "I'm afraid that drug has... altered me," Abasio said, using the phrase his grandpa had used when he spoke of gilts and steers. "I can't--that is, 1 don't--"
    "Wouldn't that be interesting," said the old man reflectively, without the least tone of sympathy.
"Damn it, Grandpa!"
    "Shh. I doubt you're permanently altered. That would be too much to hope for!"
"You'd like that, wouldn't you!"
"It would be one way of keeping you out of trouble and alive. Possibly." The old man looked after him with a troubled frown when Abasio turned and stalked away. Some men, in this age of IDDIs, took a knife to themselves to stay out of trouble and alive. Others said they would rather die, and did. Among the farms, betrothal of infants was coming back, with marriage taking place as soon as boy and girl were sexually mature, or even before. Cermit had no idea how Abasio had avoided infection all those years in the city. Or if he had. Because he didn't know, and because Abasio wouldn't tell him, he gave the boy less credit than he deserved.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            199

    Came a morning there was ice on the horse trough, ice in the chickens' watering can, and over the hoarfrost on the lane came Originee on hurried horseback, looking distraught as she called to Cermit and Abasio.
    "I've just come down from the Chyne Farm. Farmwife Chyne was weeks late about it, and the child was born dead."
"Ah, that's sad news," said Cermit, brow furrowed at her expression. "It was those walkers that did it. They touched her. She says the baby stopped moving the moment they touched her and never moved again." Farmwife Suttle wiped her eyes. "And Farmwife Chyne was not unscathed. She shivers and cries and worries over Olly, for the walkers were seeking
the girl. Farmwife Chyne knew who they were after, even at the time." "Ah," grunted Cermit, distressed but unsurprised.
    "They asked for a certain girl. Farmwife Chyne told them she'd seen such a girl and had directed her toward the city. Abasio said they were seeking in the city, and that was sometime ago. Now we know they are not looking at random. They are following a particular trail. When they don't find Olly in the city, they may well backtrack here. They'll return, I fear, and it could be soon."
    "Time then," said the old man heavily. He had grown accustomed to having Abasio about the place, and even though they argued constantly, he did not want his grandson to go.
    "Time for Oily," she agreed. "Which means time for them both. I should get back to Chyne Farm, but someone must go to Whitherby to fetch the girl."
"I'11 go," said Cermit, and he turned purposefully toward the barn.
    So Olly was fetched, she and the angel, with barely time to say good-bye to the dyer and pick up the books and supplies she had bought from him. She fretted, sure of her decision to go, but troubled by this haste, barely able to keep herself from howling. Now that the time had come she felt as much fear as anticipation.
    "Take these," Wilfer told her, offering a neat bundle. "It's the neckcloths for the women of Wide Mountain in Artemisia, also the printed silk you did. It's for a Fashimir Ander, and he ordered through the Artemisians. He's ordered from us before. In case you need one, the bundle gives you a reason for traveling south."
    She took the bundle, put herself together enough to remember to thank him, and perched herself on the wagon seat next to old Cermit, forcing herself to breathe calmly and not show her agitation. They started down the village street toward the outskirts but had scarcely arrived there when three men came striding from behind a fence to catch the horse's harness and stop


,           200                        Sheri S. Tepper

the wagon. The man who held the horse was huge; the other two were fierce; and Olly's heart rose into her throat in fear that these were the ones looking for her!
    But no. They were not dressed as Abasio had described the walkers, or as she had seen the oddmen in the village. She made herself stop trembling.
    "A moment," said one, a man with a hammer at his belt. "We're looking for a man!"
    "Ayeh?" said Cermit, letting his jaw drop open. "What you want with me?"
    "Not you, old socks," laughed the smallest of the three, a man with whips at his belt. "A young man. Black brows, dark skin, purple tattoos on both hands. A knife scar on one shoulder, a bullet pucker in one calf. Seen him or anybody could be him?"
    "I hardly ever come to town," old Cermit whined. "I hardly see anybody. Most folks travelin' through, they don't even come into Whitherby. They stay over 'long the highway."
    "How 'bout you, girly?" the man asked, laying a heavy hand on Olly's thigh.
    They were not looking for her, but she felt no relief. How could she distract them from Abasio? Could they know old Cermit was Abasio's kin? "There were some strange young men in the village yesterday," she said
in a frightened voice. "I saw them down by the tavern.""Up close?"
    She shook her head, mumbling from a dry mouth. "I was in the loft at the dyer's when I saw them."
"We'll ask around," said the whip carrier, stepping back.
Olly sat as though paralyzed. Cermit nodded and clucked to the horse.
    "It's Abasio they're after!" she cried, when they had gone far enough not to be overheard. "Cermit, they're after Abasio!"
    Cermit nodded heavily. The three were gangers, pure and simple, and there was no doubt at all they wanted Abasio. He put his hand on the girl's hand and drove for a time in silence, letting Olly swallow her fright and breathe normally once more.
    Then he murmured: "Doesn't really matter whether it's you or him they're after. You've both got to go quickly." He gave her a look intended to be comforting, though he could not keep his distress from showing. "Abasio and I haven't been idle. We've made a house-wagon ready, such as itinerant craftsmen travel in. We've worked on it in the barn, secretlike, where no one would hear or see and wonder. Originee's used your coin to buy all the stuff you need, here and there, a bit at a time, so as to start no talk."
    "We'll need dye pots," mumbled Oily, as full of panic at the idea of leaving as she was full of fear at staying.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 201

    Cermit went on implacably. "She got you pots, both tbr dyeing and for cooking. She laid in a stock of woven cloth. I've added some bits and pieces I think you'll need." He patted her clumsily.
    Orphan nodded, her teeth clenched. She wanted to go but she wasn't ready ~o go. Nonetheless, the threat was imminent and she was not a fool, to balk at necessity. She could spare no time questioning who or what the oddmen were, or why she was being hunted. Or why Abasio was being hunted, for that matter. He who had talked about everything else had been strangely reluctant to share this with her.
"Where will we get a horse?" she asked.
    "You have a horse. Big Blue. Abasio says he dreamed of riding away on Big Blue. Seems like it was meant to be."
    It was late afternoon when they arrived back at the farm. The little time before dusk was spent in packing and collecting things together, and when dark came, Big Blue was hitched to the new wagon and driven out of the barn. They were ready except for filling the water barrel mounted on the back.
    At the last moment, Originee came riding down from the Chyne place to say farewell. She muttered her dismay when she learned there were searchers hunting Abasio as well, but she spent no time lamenting. Instead, she made a final tally of what the wagon carried, assuring herself the two young people could live in reasonable comfort. Olly's belongings were few, and during his struggle to get home, Abasio had lost everything he'd brought from Fantis except his weapons and his money. The wagon held everything they had and all that had been provided for them; nothing was to be left behind.
    "It was meant to be," Ori whispered to old Cermit as she closed the wagon door and folded the steps against the side for the last time. "Meant for them to go together."
"Could be." The old man sighed. "But I fear for them both."
    Oily did not hear this exchange, which was just as well, for she was quite fearful enough already and was holding herself carefully quiet for fear she would start crying. Despite her fear, what troubled her most was her feeling of leaving friends, of being uprooted and lost.
    As she turned from the well with a last bucketful of water for the water barrel on the back of the wagon, she saw on Abasio's face the same expression ~hc could feel on her own.
    "You don't feel ready to go, either," she whispered to him, tears running fi'cely from her eyes.
    He shook his head. "If it weren't for them--for the danger to them, to you--"
    She nodded. "At least you know why somebody's after you. I haven't any idea why they're coming after me. Or who."


202

Sheri S. Tepper

    He tried a fairly successful grin. "If it makes you feel any better, Olly, I can swear it's no comfort to know why."
"What am I to call you?" she cried. "You can't go on being Abasio."
    He hadn't thought about it. He turned to the Farmwife, asking, "What's my name, Farmwife Suttle? You named Olly, now you should name me."
    "Samson," she said without a moment's pause. !'He was in an old story my ma told me. All I remember about him was he got strong when his hair grew out. So you'll need to do."
    Cermit stopped in his tracks. He knew the tale. Destruction had followed debasement in that story, and he did not consider it a good omen.
    Unwitting of this, Abasio ran his blue fingers across the bristles on his head. Perhaps he would grow strong. Perhaps he would even be strong enough to keep them both safe.
"Samson," he said, with a wry twist to his lips. "Sammy?"
    "No, Sonny," said Oily with a fairly successful chuckle. "Sonny Longaster. Burned Man told me the kind of names gangers favor. No gang member would ever be called Sonny Longaster."
    They made their farewells, then Olly crawled across the wagon seat to hide herself and the angel inside the lower box bed in the wagon while Abasio drove them away. Cermit's instructions had been clear as to which back roads would keep the wagon well away from Whitherby. The lurching and rocking of the house-wagon lulled Olly to sleep almost before they reached the bottom of the valley, though the angel sat wakeful upon the slowly swinging door of the box bed, talking quietly to itself.

    In Fantis the Old Chief, his thirst for vengeance only whetted by sending assassins after Abasio, had put certain other inquiries into motion. All rumors had branches and twigs that had to be followed back to the main trunk, and it took some days before his people found the doctor. Once they had the doctor, however, they had Nelda within the hour.
    "You can tell me now," the Old Chief whispered to her. "Or you can tell me when you're half-dead. I don't care either way."
    Nelda, on her knees before the Old Chief, held by two strong men and driven by absolute terror, shouted the first thing that came into her head.
    "He was your son! Just as much as that other one is! More. More your son!"
    Silence. The two men who were holding Nelda looked at each other in confusion. The Old Chief sat back, his mouth fallen slightly open.
    "He is your son," Nelda asserted again. "You think I don't recognize your get when I see it? Abasio's just like you were at his age. He's got your


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 203

forehead, ),our eyes, everything like you. Bigger and handsomer than either of your sons who died, and he's yours!"
"How old'?" asked the Old Chief after a long silence.
    "Over thirty," she said. "And it was that long ago you sold me, Old Chief, because all my babies miscarried, and you found you a new concubine you liked better. Remember her? The tall, slender one? From somewhere else, she was. You told me she'd never used drugs. You told me she'd never been sick, so she'd have healthy babies. And didn't I hear she ran off first time she was pregnant?"
    The Old Chief's mouth shut with an almost audible snap. There had indeed been a conk who'd run off from him. He'd never forgotten her. Elisa. Young~nly fifteen or so. Strong and healthy. She'd been hysterical when he'd first taken possession of her, but after he'd disciplined her a few times, she'd turned quiet. She got pregnant and after a time seemed reconciled. He thought she'd settled down. She went to the clothiers one day and was not seen again. Somehow lost herself and was never found, was presumed dead.
    "She died," he sneered. "Otherwise I'da found her. She had noplace in this town to go!"
    "Not if she got clean away from this town. Not if she was a farm girl, with someplace else to go. And she was, Old Chief. She was. When that Abasio was all drugged up, he talked about the farm country. Talked about his ma. Talked about riding, riding, going somewhere in the country."
    Silence again. Greatly daring, Nelda decided to press her momentary advantage. "So when that Sybbis comes to me, I think, what the Old Chief wants is a good grandson. And here's his own son, his own blood, his own lineage, even his own gang to pass it on. To do what maybe--somebody else can't do."
    "Take her away," said the Old Chief. "Put her somewhere. Put her with the doctor. Don't hurt her yet."
It was a reprieve, for the moment.
    The Old Chief sent for Sonill. Soniff, who reported eagerly that the assassins were on their way.
"Get them back," the Old Chief commanded. Soniff gulped. "Back?" "This Abasio. He's my boy."


CHAPTER 9

~?

~~hasio and Oily drove southward

e eastern edge of the mountains, the undulating flatness of Long Plain to their left and the promise of Artemisia somewhere ahead them. Grandpa Cermit had told them if they followed ruts they were on, avoiding all side roads, they would eventually come to a wooded pass through the mountains. Then would come desert, and finally Artemisia and the library. Grandpa hadn't been there himself, but so he had been told, so he had read. All they had to do was follow the trail they were on.

    They had not done so for half a day before Abasio gave Oily a nickname: Whazzat.

    "What's that?" she would ask, staring from the wagon seat at some marvel she had never seen before.

    "A bird," he would answer wearily, for the dozenth time.

    "But what kind of bird?" she cried, wanting to know its name and antecedents and whether it nested here or merely visited on its way somewhere else.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            205

    Abasio had to confess he did not know, "It isn't a bird I ever saw when I was a boy," he told her, no matter what bird it was. Truth to tell, unlike Olly, he had not paid that much attention to animals or birds. He had been more interested in stories, in tales of adventure, in epics and sagas and heroics. Though he was now becoming interested in them, at the time animals and birds had not seemed adventuresome.
    He said, "There are no birds much in the cities except crows on the garbage, and pigeons, and little brown sparrows. I've never seen that little gray and yellow' '--or black and white, or red and brown--' 'one before,"
    Nor had she. Crows she knew, and magpies and jays, and several kinds of ducks that had visited the pool in the village. Herons she knew, for they had waded among the reeds, hunting frogs and talking together in guttural voices. Owls she had heard but seldom seen, and hawks she had both seen and heard, crying from the top of the sky. But she had never seen all these other birds before.
    The farther from the cities they went, with even the farms becoming more and more lonely and scattered, the more birds there were. Olly gave up asking what they were and went to naming them instead, this and that kind of warbler, this and that kind of long-legs, this and that kind of duck or owl or hawk. She was up to forty kinds before she realized some were the females and some the males of the same kinds but quite different colors and patterns. She tore up her list and started over again, making little drawings of them in the book Farmwife Suttle had given her. Later, she might use them in designs. Her head was full of ideas for designs. She was beginning to think of herself not only as a dyer but as a designer as well.
    From across a valley they spied a large furriness shaking the oak brush and rearing up on its hind legs to pull the ripe fruit from an old apple tree on an abandoned farm. At first they thought it was a monster, an ogre or a young troll, but such monsters didn't eat apples. "Bear, I think," said Abasio, remembering stories his grandfather had told.
    "I thought bear were mostly gone," whispered Oily, awed by the size and shape of the distant creature, like a fat man wearing a fur coat, walking on its hind legs almost like a person, like the three bears in her childhood story, like Bear in Oracle's stories, vehement and fearsome.
    "1 thought they were gone too," Abasio agreed. "Still, I think that thing is a bear."
    They saw creatures like deer but as big as cows, with wide racks of antler, standing at the edge of meadows in the morning mist, bugling their challenges into the forests. They saw speckled fish that flickered into visibility along the bottoms of clear streams, then vanished as though made of smoke. Abasio grunted when he saw them, remembering certain lessons Grandpa had taught


206                              Sheri S. Tepper

him. The next day, he manufactured a rod and line and caught several silvery flappers for their supper.
    Hills appeared on the horizon east of them, growing nearer and taller day by day. The ground began to rise. The leaves of the shivering white-tmnked trees upon the heights gleamed palely gold among the dark pines. The nights were chill. One morning snow covered the high blue peaks, and that day the rots went around a rocky comer and lost themselves among trees. From that time on they were traveling in the forest instead of alongside it, seeing only pale slits of bright sky among the branches. The ground went on rising, more steeply now. To save Big Blue, they got out and walked, plodding up each slope and down into each little glade, each rise taking them higher than the last.
    More than once they saw small eldritch shapes moving among the roots and heard gnomish laughter in the night. At Abasio's suggestion, they set out pan bread and found it gone each morning, though they could not tell whether it had been taken by gnomes or goblins or raccoons. Oily met raccoons, with mixed laughter and curses, when a tribe of them invaded the wagon. Abasio knew raccoons from his childhood, and he chased them out with the broom.
    Returning from this chase he collided with Oily in the doorway of the wagon and found his arms tight around her. He did not move, and for a wonder, nor did she. Her body rested against him like a young willow, supple yet strong, and for a long moment they stood together, thinking nothing, deciding nothing, merely letting themselves be together. Had the mother coon not returned, intent upon finding supper for her brood, they might have remained lost in their wondrous contentment forever, but the mood was broken. Scarlet-faced, Olly returned to her usual arm's-length behavior.
    As they moved higher, a leaping streamlet came down from the heights to meet them, growing narrower the farther up they went. At last its waning trickle disappeared westward, toward higher ground yet, and an hour later they were upon the promised pass, looking out over distant, misty horizons. Now they went down through the trees.
    Two days later, the tall pines became scattered, then sparse, and they came out onto a short-grassed, arid prairie, its rounded hills and squareedged mesas dotted with stout little cone-bearing trees and blue-green plumes of sage. Even though the forests they had come through could have hidden whole tribes of monsters in their shady depths, Abasio and Oily had felt more secure there than they did on these brushlands. In the forest there had been fringed branches and gnarled trunks reflecting the warm glow of their fire, making a roomlike space with a comforting illusion of walls. Here was only the empty darkness going all the way to the stars in every direction, soaking up their little puddle of firelight like a thirsty black sponge.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 207

    Also, the forest had been populated with sounds of bird and beast and wind, a comforting mixture of natural and animal noises, but the desert was quiet, so quiet that sometimes Abasio brought the wagon to a halt and cocked his head, listening for whatever it was that had put an end to all other sound. Several times in the night they awoke to a distant clamor, confused and indistinct, only loud enough to ruin their rest without coming close enough to be truly threatening.
    The farther they went into the desert country, the more apprehensive they became. Abasio said several times he wished they had a dog to scent danger and warn them of it. And eventually it was dogs of the coyote persuasion who did warn them with a frenzy of yipping and howling back along their trail.
    They had stopped the wagon at the top of a rise where they had a good view of the surrounding country. It was shortly before sunset. Abasio, who had just unharnessed Big Blue, stood with the harness over his shoulder, peering back the way they had come. "I don't like the sound of that," he said.
    Olly, busy lighting the evening cookfire, didn't like it, either. There was s(~mething almost hysterical about the noise, a wild, uncontrolled howling and yipping.
    Abasio hung the harness across the seat and climbed atop the wagon. Oily went up beside him like a squirrel up a tree, and the two of them stared northward. Of the two of them, Olly's eyes were sharpest, and she saw movement first.
"There," she breathed, pointing.
    Abasio at first saw nothing, then saw entirely too much. Two shambling forms. Larger than men, walking not on all fours but more or less erect. Long arms. Heads that seemed to jut directly from the shoulders, with no necks. Around them, leaping shapes that kept just out of reach of those arms. Coyotes, teasing.
    The monsters were following the two ruts the wagon had traveled, following those ruts, or the tracks of the wheels, or the scent of the horse, or the smell of the two humans. The fact that Abasio could see them at all meant they were too close for safety.
"What shall we do'?" Oily whispered.
    Abasio made a quick turn, looking in all directions. The wagon wouldn't offer much protection. Ogre talons could rip through a two-inch board in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, the wagon might keep the monsters t)ccupied for a while. Concealment would be an appropriate action, but this open ground offered no hiding place.
    "Close up the wagon," he directed, leaping down from the wagon roof. "Leave the fire to attract them here. I see hills east of us, and we may be able to hide there. We'll ride Big Blue."


208                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Abasio rode as he had when he was a boy, bareback, clutching the horse's mane; Oily, with the angel on her shoulder, clung to him from behind. The sun set behind them as Big Blue plodded quietly off into the dusk. The first stars gleamed in the eastern sky, and Abasio took note of those on the broken horizon. It would be dark soon. They might need something to steer by.
    Behind them, the howling and yipping came nearer, moving along the ruts they had traveled in the wagon. Ogres hunted by sight, scent, and sound, so much everyone knew. Country people knew ogres were attracted to fire, though they could not make fires of their own and had to steal it when they could, sometimes setting forests or grasslands alight as a result. They habitually hunted in the dark. They had huge, night-seeing eyes and did not come from their lairs until near dusk.
    Before darkness settled completely, Abasio urged Big Blue into a clumsy canter, clinging for dear life, finally slowing to a walk again when it became too dark to see. Abasio stroked the horse's neck with a peculiar sense of having lived this scene before. Then he realized he had dreamed it. This was the dark, the quiet progress, the same horse. He lay quietly along Big Blue's back, feeling Olly's body tight against his, willing the monsters to content themselves with the wagon, with the fire.
    The sounds behind them continued unabated, becoming even more tumultuous, as though a whole pack of coyotes were following or chasing or being chased by the creatures. Abasio felt for his weapons, finding them both hooked securely to his belt. He doubted they'd be very useful. He was short on ammunition for both the missile gun and the flame shooter. He could cause some damage up close and as a last resort, but if an ogre got that close, it would be a last resort. For him and Oily both.
    As they came to the slope of the nearest hill, they heard a screaming roar, a huge and furious sound as of a creature hurt past endurance.
    "Our fire burned down, and something stepped on it," muttered Abasio. "I'11 bet you anything."
    The deafening sound came again. Big Blue swerved to the left, to avoid something only he could see. Abasio got down to examine the terrain as best he could in the darkness. There was only deep blackness and deeper blacknesses, with little to tell which was traversable, which might be safe and which not.
"This way," piped the guardian-angel. "This way."
    Big Blue stepped forward as though in response to this invitation. Startled, Oily clung to his back and Abasio to his tail.
    "Does your angel know what it's saying?" Abasio asked in a baffled mutter.
    "Sometimes it seems to," she admitted. "It found a path for me when I left the village."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            209

    If their progress was any indication, the angel had found a way again, for they were moving steadily, curving to the south, as Big Blue picked his way
among tumbled stones along some invisible but rising path."Through here," called the angel. "Here, here!"
    They bumped between stony prominences, the path narrowing, then opening once more.
"Here," whispered the guardian-angel. "Stay here."
    Big Blue dropped his head and stood absolutely still, only his skin quivering as though bitten by invisible flies. Oily slid from his back, whispering, "Where are we?"
    "I don't know," Abasio answered. "Just a sort of stony place. Look. The moon's rising."
    The moon, almost full, shouldered its way above a line of cloud, illuminating the place they stood. They had come from the north, up a winding and hidden path, into an east-facing hollow scooped from a rocky hillside. At either side of the hollow, stony pillars cast ebon shadows; at its lip a scatter of boulders hid them from the moonlit place below; and there, ominous figures stood silently black against the silvered soil.
    At the sight of them, Abasio and Oily instinctively leaned toward each other before freezing into immobility. Even in the inadequate light the figures were unmistakable: the stance, the curled helmets, the uncanny silence--all spelled walkers. Their motionless figures were turned slightly northward, toward the wild cacophony that flowed past the hill.
     The tumult grew louder, finally surging around the foot of the slope Oily
and Abasio had climbed, and onto the plain where the walkers stood. "Shhh," hissed the guardian-angel, almost soundlessly.
    Hunchbacked and hairy, the ogres shambled into the open, huge hands curled, knuckles resting on the ground, heads lowered between those hands, long torsos bent forward on short legs as they sniffed the earth. It was Big Blue's trail they had been trackingot trying to--for the ring of coyotes that circled them had disturbed the scent.
    Oily let herself sag against Abasio, gripping his arm in panic. "What?" she whispered, a mere breath. "What are they?"
    "Ogres," he murmured in return, pulling her tight against him, his mouth next to her ear. "Big ones!" Oh, yes, they were big ones. The kind that had populated his nightmares as a child. He had seen young ones before, though rarely, but never any this size or this close. If they could stand erect, they would be twice the height of a man. They would be taller yet if their heads did not thrust so necklessly forward from their woolly chests.
    They roared in frustration, clutching at the circling coyotes with their taloned hands. Abasio knew that no weapon he carried, nothing he could do would cause either the ogres or the walkers any but the slightest discomfort


210                              Sheri S. Tepper

or delay. Only something as fleet-footed as the present tormentors would even try.
    The coyotes did more than merely try. They leaped and scuttered, twenty or more of them, nipping a hairy ankle, jumping away, coming teasingly close, then darting away, tempting the enormous creatures farther from the scent trail.
    Where the whole cacophonous coyote-ogre circus froze into silence, suddenly aware it was not alone.
    Abasio and Oily heard the icy walker voice as clearly as if it had spoken only an arm's length away.
"Go away. We are not your prey. Go away."
      The ogres roared, pounded their chests with clenched fists, waved their
great paws aloft, and roared again."Go away."
    The ogres did not go away. They plunged forward, huge arms grappling, closing the distance.
    Olly buried her head in Abasio's chest. He saw a spurt of flame, heard a burst of horrid sound. One of the coyotes yipped in pain and scrambled away from the conflict along with the other doggy forms, all leaping and tumbling, head over tails, leaving behind them a towering cloud of dust, silver and gray and black, rising and roiling in the moonlight, growing into a wide pillar that hid the monstrous struggle that had been joined.
    Abasio pulled Oily with him as he edged farther into shadow. He couldn't see what was happening. The dust was so thick, he could see only the tumbling cloud, silvered by the moon. The hideous sounds went on: roarings, howlings, shrieks that sounded more mechanical than fleshy; great poundings that made the earth shudder beneath them. Abasio and Oily clung together, both of them terrified at the certainty that, when the battle was over, any surviving monster would find them and finish what the ogres had set out to do.
    The sound did not stop all at once. It faded very slowly into a stillness punctuated by occasional howls and roars by a single voice. Out of the dust, one of the ogres emerged to bellow at the moon. Araungh.t Then again: Araungh.t As the echoes died, it stared up the hill, its piggish snout moving as it sniffed.
    Abasio threw his head back, trying not to breathe. It did no good. The wind was from behind them! The monster was coming in their direction, lifting one hand to strike itself on the chest with every other step: thwomp, then a step, then thwomp, like the slow beat of a drum.
    Abasio fumbled for his weapons. Oily caught at his arm, stopping him. She was looking up, listening, hearing what he had heard without realizing it was not part of the continuing struggle, a huge hawk cry, a shriek, a


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            211

descending scream that ended on the edge of the hollow before them in a great flurry of widely ~pread wings that extended before them like a ribbed screen. Beyond those wings the ogre made a sound of baffled fury.
    The wings beat down, lifted, dived toward the shambling figure, which turned with its huge hands over its head and ran away toward the east, uttering a guttural cough that could have been a summons to others of its kind or the cry of a creature wounded. The wings rose and dropped again. The ogre increased its speed.
      Abasio and Oily stayed quiet. Words came from the sky above them, each
distinct, falling on their ears like separate blows, soft but clear:"I remember!"
"Who?" whispered Abasio. "Who remembers what?"
    "I don't know," said Oily, staring into the sky. "Or~r maybe I do. I met a griffin once. I think. Though up until now, I'd thought maybe I'd dreamed it." She gazed, mouth open. Had her encounter with the griffin been true? Well, why not? Other, equally unlikely things had been true. Were true.
    The ogre's cough receded into the east. The dust settled. Whatever had flown to their rescue was now gone. They moved to the edge of their hollow, far enough to see several dark blotches on the battleground below. Bodies, perhaps. Or body parts. They watched long enough to be sure there was no movement. Neither of them wanted to go any closer.
    As though in agreement with this sentiment, the coyotes began to yip and howl once more, emerging from folds in the ground and gathering in a dance of leaping, tumbling forms that flowed back toward the west, taking their yip-yowl music with them. The last member of this departing troupe stopped in its tracks, turned toward them, nose in air, and howled a farewell that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
    "They knew we were here," said Oily, wonderingly. "The coyotes. But did the others know? Before that last one smelled us?"
    "They knew," whispered Abasio, certain of it. "One set was waiting for us, the other set was following us. They just didn't get a chance to do anything about it."
    The angel whistled softly and flew to the pillars at their left, where Big Blue remained hidden in shadow. Abasio and Olly scrambled atop the horse and went back the way they had come, down the twisting path to the north, then around the hill and westward once more, lit by the moon. When they arrived at the wagon, they circled it once from a distance, seeing it was as they had left it except for deep parallel grooves down the wagon door. The assault on the wagon had evidently been interrupted when at least one of the monsters had trodden upon the fire, for there were ashy footprints on every side together with a lingering ogre-stink of rot and filth.


212                              Sheri S. Topper

    Without even discussing it, Abasio harnessed Big Blue to the wagon, and they drove on southward until they had put a good distance between them and their previous campsite. They had no illusions of safety. If another ogre was looking for them, if the surviving one came back, they could be found by their smell, by the impressions left by the wheels, even by the sound of the wagon as it creaked through the darkness. None of that mattered as much as getting away from where those tracks were, where that stench was, where the terrible monsters had been.

    The border of Artemisia, when the wagon reached it at last, was marked by signs printed in several languages, a widely spaced line of them stretching into the distance on either side. The signs forbade unauthorized entry. The highway, which they had not seen for a while, now appeared east of them, gleaming under the late-day sun of autumn, and they could make out a considerable gate standing athwart the pavement with a line of vehicles inching past it, smoking mechanical trucks and vans as well as horse-drawn wagons.
    No barrier prevented their crossing in the same two ruts they had followed for days, ruts that ran past the signs and thence southward across endless vistas of dried tufty grass interrupted by thorny growths and feathery yellow puffs of rabbit brush. Olly had been in and out of the wagon all day, gathering the blooms for the golden-yellow dye they produced.
    "Now what?" she asked over the armful of flowers she was tucking into a knotted string bag. "What do we do now, Sonny?"
    He had said the name pinched him like new boots, so she used it every now and then, getting it broken in, she told him, against a time of need, often watching him as she did now to see his reaction.
    There was no reaction. He merely braked the wagon and sat silently as he examined the surroundings. South of them was mostly flat, pinkish desert, dotted with dark balloons of pition and juniper, gray brushes of sage and chamisa. Dropping the reins, Abasio climbed to the roof of the wagon, where he turned to make a full-circle examination of their surroundings. West were carved buttes and long rock-rimmed, tree-splotched diagonals thrusting toward towering clouds scudding along on their flat gray bottoms. Beyond the crenellated tablelands, indigo mountains lay in rumpled heaps, like dropped laundry, in some places rising into snow-capped peaks. Eastward was desert, and highway, and gate. In that direction the view had changed slightly, and
he pointed with an outstretched arm."Somebody," he said.
    "Somebody coming, galope, galope," murmured the guardian-angel from its customary position at the front of the wagon. Cermit had indulged himself


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            213

with ~ bit of fancy work on the shutters behind the wagon seat, and the angel
l~und the carved oak leaves an ideal perch. Oily looked up, startled. "Where'.>" she demanded.
    Her companion pointed again toward the east, where a wobbly blot could be discerned moving toward them. At this distance, all they could really see was the scurrying motion of multiple legs and a minuscule increase in size. The rider appeared to be a large bird.
    "Whoever it is, they're coming from the direction of the guard post," said Abasio. "Probably someone official. We might as well wait." He draped the reins over the wagon seat and climbed down to join Oily on the ground. Big Blue heaved a sigh that made the harness creak and dragged the braked wheels forward until he was within reach of the tuff of green he'd been eyeing.
    Oily stuffed the last of her clipped blossoms into the bag and hung it among othcrs on the wagon's side as she climbed into the wagon through the side door.
    The rear of the inside space was taken up with the two box beds, set at right angles, one above the foot of the other, with drawers beneath for clothing and blankets. On either side of the box beds, capacious cupboards held their equipment and supplies, and at the front of the wagon was a comfortably padded bench with shutters opening behind the driver's seat, allowing them to drive the wagon from inside when the weather was bad. Reefed tight to the wagon side was an awning with side curtains that could be drawn out to make a shelter for Big Blue or an open-sided tent for cooking in wet weather, and hung on the same side was the fire grill, made to order by the smith in Whitherby, its legs folded flat. A rack on the roof held more bulky items including tim dye table and the large dye pots, nested one inside another.
    At Olly's suggestion, Abasio had hung a stout basket on the wagon side, :~nd any chunks of firewood encountered along the way were tossed into it. Now Oily got out the teakettle, filled it from the water barrel at the back of the wagon, unhooked the grill from the door, and set about building a fire l'rom the contents of her woodbasket, all with much practiced economy of motion. If they were to receive a civilized visitor, they should at least offer tea, and by this time they both knew that her fires were better than Abasio's. Itc seemed incapable of building one that didn't smoke.
    The kettle was steaming by the time the rider came near enough for them ~o identify him as a much-befeathered person. The horse slowed as it approached, ears forward, looking with interest at Big Blue. The rider pulled it t�> a halt and leaped from his large, much-ornamented saddle to stride praccfully toward them, a tasseled and bell-dangled lance in one hand, tall headdress and plumed shoulders nodding with every step.


214                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Abasio stood up politely from where he'd been sitting beside the fire and held out his hands, palms up. Olly remained seated while duplicating the gesture. Though the fancy being before them merited more than a casual glance, they were careful not to stare.
    He said something in a deep orator's voice, raising the lance and shaking it so the bells rang wildly.
    They shook their heads gently, hands out and empty, indicating that they could catch no meaning from what he said.
"Would you share tea?" asked Oily, holding up a cup.
    The visitor heaved a dramatic sigh, shook his lance into a frenzied jangle once more, and asked, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
    Olly bowed from where she sat by the tire. "We are Olly and Sonny Longaster, dyers, hoping to travel through Artemisia."
    "What business have you there?" he demanded, scowling with unbelievable ferocity, an expression no doubt chosen to accord with the painted frown lines on his face.
    "An order of printed silk neckcloths to deliver to the Clan of Wide Mountain," said Oily, trying not to smile. His dreadful expression was so formalized that it conveyed no menace at all. "Also, we would be glad of any work your people might give us while we are here."
      At the mention of their business, he seemed to relax. The scowl departed.
"Are you taken care of?" he asked in a more pleasant voice. Oily looked at Abasio and he at her. "Taken care of?" Abasio asked.
    The man frowned again. "Cut. Fixed. Neutered. Altered. Do you have a certificate issued by the Mankind Management Group saying you are permitted to enter our country?"
Mutely, Oily shook her head.
"Are we supposed to be?" Abasio gaped.
    "Must be," said the man. He made the hideous face once more, then said calmly, "I will have tea."
    He sat down cross-legged beside the fire and held out his hand. Olly put a mug of tea into it, her own minty brew of monarda, catnip, and wild rose hips. He sipped once, twice, then smiled. "Good," he said, setting down the cup. He burrowed into his loincloth, coming up with a small notebook. He drew a pencil from among the feathers behind one ear.
    "Now. First things first. Have you seen any monsters? Where, when, and how many?"
    Oily shuddered as she replied. "We saw two big ogres. About--what was it, Sonny? Three days back?"
"Three nights," he verified. "The moon was almost full. They fought


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            215

with some... walkers. We're not positive, but we think one ogre and two walkers got killed."
    "They didn't threaten you?" the leathered warrior asked, putting down the pencil to pick up the tea once more.
      "We hid," said Abasio. "I don't think they saw us .... "He was going
to go on with the story, but his feathered interrogator gave him no opportunity. "What animals have you seen'?" he asked.
    "We saw bear," Abasio offered. "I think. Fish in the streams. Raccoon. Squirrels, different kinds. Little stripey ones, mostly. Rabbit. All kinds birds. And a number of big deer, big as a cow."
    "Elk," said the leathered person with a pleased expression, making notes before tucking away pencil and notebook and settling hilnself as though to stay awhile. "Now, it's clear you haven't been here before."
    They nodded agreement as they sipped their own mugs, glad of the warmth, for the sun had sunk below the buttes and chill shadow flowed over the valley, leaving light only on the silver-pink lines of rimrock high above them.
     The visitor said, "Then I'll enlighten you. It is the ruling of the Mankind
Management Group that there be no obscenity in our land.""In Artemisia?" asked Olly.
    He laughed. "You say Artemisia. That name is a kind of joke, for our country is called Land of the Sages, meaning land of the wise, but another name for a kind of sage, which is a plant that grows throughout our land, is artemisia. You see? A joke. In my own old language, the country is called the Sacred Land in words you cannot pronounce. No matter. In Sages' Land we have no nonsense, no children without proper preparation and care. No sexual diseases passed about to kill us or our children."
    "We have to be--neutered in order to enter'?" Oily asked, remembering certain things Oracle had told her.
     "Examined, certainly. Then neutered, or implanted, or properly outfitted.
Surely you have heard of this! Our customs are well known.""l've heard of it," Olly admitted. Oracle had told her. �
    "No one may impregnate or become impregnated in the Sacred Land without a certificate from the Mankind Management Group. No one may spread disease." He nodded to himself in approval of this arrangement. "We have none of your IDDIs in our land, and none of your little misborns, either."
"That's remarkable," murmured Oily.
    He bowed slightly, accepting this as praise. "My name, by the way, is Black Owl."
"How do you do," said Oily.
Abasio merely nodded, trying to keep from showing on his face what he


~heri

scol~ ativel

216                              Sheri S. Tepper

felt. In his own case it was absolutely unnecessary to do anything at all. No cutting, neutering, implanting necessary. He was no threat. He could hardly remember, in fact, if he had ever been a threat.
"How is this matter to be accomplished'?" Oily was asking.
    Black Owl hunkered down. "Since you have no certificate, you must come to the gate where someone will examine your health and discuss your choices. There are various ways of assuring you do no harm. There is a belt thing to be locked on. Most uncomfortable and unsanitary, in my opinion, though
some who are only traveling through prefer them.""I would not like that," grated Abasio.
    Black Owl interrupted, one hand held out as though to silence him. "Or, members of the Clan of Wide Mountain may travel with you to certify no indecency is done. This is a very expensive alternative! The Wide Mountain women do not work cheap."
    Abasio made a face and looked as though about to protest. Olly shook her head at him warningly.
    "Some people are distressed," said Black Owl impassively, leaning forward to catch Abasio's eyes. "The people from the west who call themselves holy, they always hire escorts, for it is against the faith of the Guardians to be altered. They spend their lives resisting their appetites. A great waste of effort, to my mind. Also, very stressful." He drank more tea. "We in Artemisia control stress and also our numbers, but we do not interfere with our enjoyments."      ~
"Ha," snorted Abasio.
    "Truly." Black Owl patted him on the knee, then pointed to his own shoulder. "See, I have an implant. Most men choose to be cut, but me, I am a sissy. I do not like the knife." He laughed silently. "Still, I enjoy
making p'nash very much.""P'nash?" asked Olly.
      "Crotch music," he said, smiling at her. "You know!" He made a graphic
motion with both hands. "P'nash."Olly reddened.
    "We're--we're man and wife," said Abasio in a gravelly voice. "We shouldn't have to have--"
    "In your own land, wherever that is, no, of course. I understand. There you pretend to be as the wolf, as the goose, mated for your whole life. It is a pretty pretense to be faithful as these creatures are faithful, but we men are more like the lion, the dolphin, or the promiscuous apes, our closest kin, are we not? Sex would be less troublesome had we descended from geese or wolves, but it was not so."
    He sighed dramatically. "Our Sages know man cannot legislate behavior, so we must accomplish by good sense and custom what nature and law will


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            217

not do for us! In our country there are no mans and wiles. Only protected ~~~~men, too young yet for childbearing; readying women, who will have one t~~- two very soon, while they are young and strong; new martins, altered ~mcn, altered men, and the Quab-dus, the men who have been selected to l':~lher babies." He shook his head. "Such a burden for them. Though they t~,~) are young, with the appetites of youth, they may not overeat. They may n{)t drink cider. They have supervised exercise, much sleep. No staying up l~tte at the dances. No preference among partners." He rolled his eyes in exaggerated horror at this regimen. "Often I give thanks I am no longer a Quab-dus."
"How do they get chosen?" asked Abasio, openmouthed.
    Black Owl shrugged. "It is up to the Management Group, the Wide Mountain women. Since women must bear, women must choose!" He nodded at them firmly. "So, do you come to the gate?"
~'1 need the library that's inside Artemisia," murmured Oily to Abasio.
  '~I know," he growled in return. "And I need to--go with you." Re                                                                                                                                         ~ gardlcss of his other problems, he still wanted to be w~th her. He hated the
idea of someone fiddling about with his sex, but the more he thought about it. the more it seemed this matter of altering or neutering might actually increase their safety! Surely no ganget sent by the Old Chief would consent to this business! They would stop at the border, presuming they ever tracked him this far.
    "I guess we'll go with you to the gate," he said. "Though we'd like to have supper first."
    "No, no. Take your time," said Black Owl with an open-handed gesture o1' permission. "The gate closes at sunset, so you would have to stay outside until morning regardless. We have you on our border viewer. So long as you come toward us at the gate, no one will bother you. You go any other
where, we will find you!" He made an explosive gesture with both arms. "Border viewer?" Olly asked.
    "A thing we have, made in an Edge, I am told. We trade food and wool to the Edges, in manland. We trade also with the Place of Power."
    Place of Power! Olly cast a quick look in Abasio's direction, but he had paid no attention to the reference. She opened her mouth and shut it again. Perhaps now was not the best time to ask questions.
    Black Owl was continuing, "It protects us well. We lock it on you, it l'ollows you, we follow it, so best you stay put!" He laughed immoderately.
    "We'll stay here tonight, then," said Olly in a carefully neutral tone. ~That'11 give us a little time to get used to the idea."
    "You will get used to it. I understand. Many people feel so." Black Owl put down his mug with a little bow, leaped upon his horse, made it rear up dramatically, and rode off in a great jangle of bells.


o~
aF

C~

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218                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "Well," Abasio remarked uncomfortably. "I suppose we have no alternative."
    He sounded so forlorn that she got up and hugged him. "It's only temporary."
"! wish you wouldn't do that," he growled, stepping away from her. She looked up at him, confused.
    He cried, "You don't mean anything by it! You treat me as you would �.. a brother."
    "Of course I mean something by it! I mean you are my friend!" She came close to him again, touching his face, his shoulder. "Abasio---Sonny. Isn't all this complicated enough without your being--like that!"
    He gritted his teeth. Here she was, looking at him tenderly, one hand on his shoulder, smelling like... woman, sweaty from the sun, her hard little hand feeling like another sun, spreading warmth throughout his body. He had been conscious of her breasts when she hugged him, totally aware of that yielding and entrancing softness. Associations had engulfed him, other such softnesses, more or less yielding, and yet nothing had stirred. In his mind he desired her constantly. In his body he could not. And it had been weeks that he'd been this way!
    She, meantime, spent half her waking hours lusting after him, in a formless kind of way. She had resolved not to mention this to him, for her prophecy spoke of an only child; her current status was a child's status; until that part of her life had been discovered, she must not do anything that would change her status from that of child to something else. Lover, perhaps. Or adult. Or mother. It was one of those patterns that she recognized without understanding.
Still, she reached out to him, unable to stop herself.
    He didn't see the gesture but growled as he moved away from her. "It isn't your fault. I haven't felt right since they gave me that--that drug in Fantis. I feel like a eunuch! And whatever they do to me at the gate will probably just make it worse." Though how it could be worse, he could scarcely imagine.
    She regarded him for a long moment. How could she help him now? "Whatever they do at the gate, it's something these people do all the time," she offered tentatively. "They probably know a lot about it. If they say it would make the matter worse, I'll go on alone. You can find someplace safe to wait until I get back."
    This did not remove his anxiety, but it distracted him momentarily. "You'd do that? Go alone?"
    "Possibly. Depending on how far the city with the library is. Depending on whether they say it's safe or not."
    "They who? More like Black Owl and his crotch music?" he snarled. "Him and his p'nash."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            219

    She shook her head at him chidingly. "Don't be that way, Sonny. Black Owl is no rapist."
    "You know so damned much!" he shouted, irritated beyond control. "Too damned much for a virgin!"
    She flushed angrily. "It's true, I know a lot. Oracle told me all about sex and rape and men and diseases and everything, over and over again! And there was Bastard, a perfect object lesson. Lately, I've wondered if Oracle prevented my having any joy of discovery about it, telling me as much as she did. But she was trying to keep me alive, Abasio. She didn't want me to die of an 1DDI. Or get slaughtered by some sex-mad, druggedup bunch."
    Abasio glowered and stirred the fire. He knew what she was talking about; he had seen tally groups in Fantis who started out drinking and yelling war cries, working themselves up into a howling mob that ended up pursuing some hapless songhouse woman with such mindless violence, she ended up dead, or as good as. Which had nothing to do with him!
    Oily tried to ignore him. She had gone to the wagon to rummage among the foodstuffs. "What will you have for supper?" she called. "We have grain left, and dried meat, and six eggs. We have potatoes and a head of cabbage from the last farm we passed .... "
    Abasio stepped away from the fire, without answering. He had quit listening. He'd wanted to shake her, but if he did, she'd think he was one of the men Oracle had warned her against! He wanted to kiss her, but if he did that, she'd think something else, equally unpleasant. Most of all, he wanted to love her.
    He could do nothing about it. Instead he breathed deeply as he brushed the dust from his clothing and from the inch-long ringlets that covered his head and jaw. He had never had a beard before. The new Abasio he saw reflected in the water barrel might confuse those who knew the old Abasio. Perhaps it would confuse those who were hunting him.
    His bemusement was broken by a soprano yipping that came from the darkness before him. Even Big Blue stopped his nose-down shuffle, raised his head, and whickered softly.
    "Coyote," Abasio said half-aloud as he turned his head, trying to locate lhc sound. Ever since the episode with ogres, he had paid close attention to coyotes.
"Close," she agreed, assembling foodstuffs from the wagon.
    The yipping continued, first here, then there, intermittent, gradually growing in volume until it sounded as though it came from a hollow behind a nearby clump of thorny choya where a pool of darkness dwindled and welled as the fire leaped and fell.
Abasio took a stick from the fire and walked toward the clump. As he


220                              Sheri S. Tepper

approached it, a coyote came out of the darkness, trotting toward them
confidently, laughing sidewise at Abasio as he trotted past.Olly stood very still.
    "Mangy, rangy, yipper, yeller!" cried the guardian-angel from its perch on the wagon. "See, here comes a tricksy feller."
    "Good evening," said the Coyote. "I see you've decided to stay the night."
    Abasio stayed frozen in midstep. Someone was playing a trick, perhaps a dangerous trick. His immediate reaction was to kill the animal, but he couldn't reach his weapon.
    Oily seemed to be better able to deal with the situation. She cleared her throat, gesturing aimlessly with the stewpot she held. "What are... ?"
    The Coyote trotted over to the fire and sat down facing her, wrapping its bushy tail around its feet. "Hardly flattering to be called a what. Why not a who?"
    "Who are you, then?" she asked, coughing to clear her throat of the hard lump that had come from nowhere.
"Coyote," he replied. "One of many." "Do coyotes still... talk, then'?" "Still?"
"Changing Woman taught you to talk. In one of Oracle's stories."
    "I've heard that story," he said. "I think that kind of tale is called a fable. It is true that coyotes talk, but not all of us talk human."
    Abasio turned and came back to the fire, dropping the firebrand into it as inconspicuously as possible. "But you do, obviously. How did--I mean--' '
    "You mean, why is it I can talk? Well, as to that, it has been suggested to me that certain of my ancestors may have been part of an experiment humans made before they went to the stars. Perhaps something to do with changing the sequences of DNA that control the shape of the skull, the development of the vocal cords and tongue, as well as certain centers in the brain. No doub~ yo~ understand all that better than I."
      "I'm afraid we don't understand at all," said Olly. "I've never heard of
such things. Have you---Sonny?"He shook his head. "Never."
    Coyote shrugged, an almost human shrug. "It was only suggested; it may not be the case. Perhaps I'm a mutation. Perhaps I'm a throwback to that fabulous time you speak of. In any case, the talent does not breed true. Only about half my pups can do human talk, and not many of my colleagues. Sometimes I get hungry for conversation."
"How do you learn it? Talk, I mean," Abasio asked.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            221

    The coyote scratched behind one ear with a hind foot. "I was found on the desert by a hermit, a man of considerable intelligence and vocabulary. I was only a pup at the time, but 1 was making noises that interested him. It was he who speculated as to the origins of my forecoyotes." He laughed silently, his tongue dripping. "I would have said forebears, but that's obviously the wrong genus. At any rate, my human taught me language. He was old when he found me. Eventually, he died. My kindred and I howled him away while the buzzards ate him."
    "Poor thing," said Olly feelingly, not specifying whether it was the Coyote or the hermit she pitied. "We're--we're happy to talk with you. As a matter of fact, you can join us for supper. I was just putting on some stew."
    "Thank you, but I had a rabbit along about sundown. Generally, 1 prefer raw meat. Biologically, it suits me. I am not at all civilized, only talkative. At least, so my mentor assured me." He smiled, again 1olloping his dripping tongue at them while showing long, slightly yellow teeth.
    "You don't mind if we go on with our cooking?" asked Abasio, seating himself once more.
    ~'Not at all. As a matter of fact, if you'd like a fresh rabbit, I'll catch one for you. They're quite fat. We had a good bit of rain sometime back, and the grass is unusually plentiful for this season."
~'Why would you do that for us'?" asked Oily, curiously.
    "Tit for tat." The Coyote grinned. "1 want to go into Artemisia. The people there are experimenting. They say they are trying to structure a society that includes nature rather than destroys it, a society that controls technology instead of being controlled by it. I want to see what they're doing. Perhaps they're succeeding, but it may be only talk!"
    He shook himself. "Now, supposing it's only talk, I'd be unwise to go there without some form of protection. Whether they're attempting to live with nature or not, the men of Artemisia hunt with bows and arrows, with lances, with snares and traps. They deck themselves in feathers and fur, including the skins of my brethren. They like our tails for their dance bustles. They say they're preservationists, that they're careful not to kill too many
of us, but what a pity if one they killed was me!""But surely, if you talk to them--"
    "Hah!" Coyote barked. "According to my hermit, though intelligence is a continuum that does not begin and end with man, most men have traditionally believed themselves to be the only intelligent living things. When our supporters have suggested otherwise, they have been accused of anthropomorphizing animals." He sighed, a very human-sounding sigh. "Of course, it's worked both ways. Man has been reluctant to animalize humans, too, even though he'll never get society to work until he does!" He scratched


,                 222                              Sheri S. Tepper

his ear once more, two wrinkles in his furry forehead. "Man expects far too much from his kind and does too little to help himself achieve it. Artemisians know this. Or so they say. I need to see if they speak the truth."
    He reached out with his front paws, stretched himself hugely, rear end in the air, then sat back down again. "Also, Artemisia has its mercantile side. If they didn't kill me, they might sell me! There are men in this world who would pay much for a talking animal.
    "No, if I am to see Artemisia, I must belong to someone. Someone like you: an unremarkable couple, just traveling through, no threat to anyone.
You put a collar on me, attach it to a leash--whatso, I'm a pet dog." "You don't look quite like a dog," objected Abasio.
    "I'll grovel. I'll slink." He turned to Oily, his eyes glittering. "I'11 let you beat me. I'll lick your feet."
"I wouldn't want you to do that," Oily said.
    He laughed at them again. "Our relationship wouldn't be one-sided. There are things I can do for you. I can warn you of danger, as I think you already
know. I can help you avoid danger, as I have already done.""You were--"
    "I led the group who teased the ogres away from you and into harm's way, yes. I can tell you, woman, that some who are looking for you have moved much faster than you have. They are there"--he nodded to the east-"moving among the truckers. They will go through the gate in the morning."
    "I had hoped they were the ones who--who got killed," she cried. "What do they want with me?"
    "They have not said," Coyote admitted. "I can understand speech, but I cannot read minds. I can smell fear and excitement and lust, but the walkers stink of nothing I've ever smelled before. Nonetheless, they are looking for you here and there, by twos--inquiring for an orphan female of some twenty years."
    He turned toward Abasio. "You're being hunted, too, but your hunters are behind you. I lay outside the light of their fire one night while they talked about you, congratulating themselves on how clever they had been to learn where you were born. They had been to your home; they had questioned your ancestor. He had told them yes, you had come there some time ago, but you had gone away. They have not yet picked up your trail. They do not know you are traveling with someone else."
"Did they hurt him'?" Abasio asked. "Grandpa? Did they'?"
    "| think not. From what they said, he whined and groveled and said he had driven you off, so you'd not endanger him or his neighbors."
    "If they've sent gangets after me, they won't go into Artemisia," Abasio asserted. "No ganger would accept being neutered."
"Oh, a professional hunter won't be balked of his prey or his pay by a


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            223

little thing like a chastity belt! You may be right in saying most gangers would not, but these men do not need to make children to boost their selfrespect!" Coyote nodded to himself.
"How do you know all this?" cried Oily.
      "I run. I slink. I listen. I think. Though my talent is still quite rare, I am far from the only coyote who speaks human. I ask others to help me, and wc lie beyond the light of camprites, outside open windows, hearing what men and women sa~v to one another. Information has value. and I offer it to
  you as value, so you will return my gift with one of your own.""Just so you can look around?"
"So I can study Arleraisia, yes. Will you do it?"
     "What exactly is our bargain?" asked Abasio. "That you travel with us, warn us of danger, keep us out of trouble, and we pretend you are our pet? For how long?"
"Until we tire of the arrangement."
Man and woman looked at one another in surmise.
    'q see no harm in it," said Abasio, half to Oily, half to the animal, "unless you are playing some game with us."
"1 have heard that Coyote is a trickster," Oily said softly. Oracle had

and man over the centuries they had lived in the same world.
    The Coyote nodded. "It's true. I am a trickster. We all are, we coyotes. Those animals who have survived mankind tend to be, one way or another."
    "I'm willing to make the bargain," said Abasio. "But don't play false with us if you value your hide."
    "My word is my word," Coyote said, rising. "Better than most contracts. 1'11 be here in the morning by the time you're awake."
    And he strolled behind the thorny bush from which he had emerged, leaving them both staring after him.
Abasio stood silent for so long that Oily asked, "What are you thinking'.)"
    He was surprised into an answer. "Just that the color on my hands is wearing off." He hadn't been conscious of the thought until he spoke it.
    She came to him and took one of his hands in her own. The purple tattoos were faintly visible through the fading dye.
     'TII mix up some indigo," she said, then whispered, "and just in case someone is watching, we'll get out the table and do a few neckerchiefs as an excuse. Maybe we can bribe the gate guards with them."
     She went to bustle around the fire, and Abasio, heaving a great sigh, began the evening chores. By the time he was finished, the stew was done, the dye table was down, and a few squares of blank cloth were laid out in the light of the lantern.
She offered him the dye pot. He sat down with it between his feet and