A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            367

Gaddir child. Bred for this purpose. Well, the Gaddir child was meeting her destiny, and a high destiny it was.
"What do we do now'?" called Ander, interrupting her train of thought. Ellel caught at a handhold and answered absentmindedly. "We don't do anything until we get to the station. According to Dever, that will be two days from now. Even when we arrive, we don't have to do much. Our documents say the station has air, warmth, gravity, all supplied by solar power, so we don't need to worry about that. Our families will occupy the station while we inventory what's there and make decisions on what we'll bring back, but the walkers will do all the work." She moved herself about, enjoying the feel of it. She'd rehearsed this in her mind so many times, this floating, this flying.
     Ander, watching her obvious enjoyment from the corner of his eye, thought it best not to mention the fact that his family had already studied the inventory and decided what to bring back. Every Artder on board was agreed about it.
     "The workers will load the shuttle for us, will they? Before we go on to the moon'?"
     "Exactly. The moon lander is removed when we get to the station. That gives us room in the shuttle for the--material from the station, and while some of the walkers are loading it, the others go down to the moon in the lander."
"How will you control them, Ellel? How will you give them commands'?" She shrugged. "There's a control box back in my cubicle. Mitty told me how to do it from the station. Then, later..." Her voice trailed off. Later she would do it from the moon itself. Later--after the earth was conquered! After the cities were brought under sway, and the forest tribes, and the people of Artemisia.
"How long until we get back'?"
"A few days," said Ellel. "Only a few."
     "I hope those we left behind don't get into any mischief back there," Ander muttered. "I hope they don't make problems while we're gone."
    Ellel stared through him. "They won't. They can't. I've set the walkers co box them in. Nobody in, nobody out. Aside from the fact they may be a bit hungry, everything will be just as we left it when we return "She yawned, unabl~ to control herself. "I told her, in there. I told her we had to get back safe, or her friends would be forfeit."
    She turned and maneuvered her way back to the seat she had left, pausing en route to stare warily at Oily once more. Still nothing. Motionless. Like a machine.
    She strapped herself into her chair. It would have been fun to bring Berkli along, but Oracle had confirmed Ellel's own instincts. This way would guarantee a better result. The Place was shut up behind her, and no one was


368

Sheri S. Tepper

able to do anything about it. There were only Ellels and Anders on the shuttle, including all those from either family who might have been likely to seize power in her absence. Virtually all. Forsmooth Ander had been too ill to come along, the old snake! The Anders were up to no good, obviously, but the walkers on the ship would control the Anders. The walkers on the ship were completely dependable. She'd been saving them for decades, just for this trip. They'd never been used for anything at all. The walkers back on earth would control the situation until she returned, and once she had the weapons from the space station in the hands of her own family, she'd put the Mittys where they belonged! In the shops, maintaining her walkers and her weapons! They were hers. Her imperial army. Just as she'd planned. In time, her family would learn to manufacture more of them.
    She took from her pocket a slender booklet, its lined pages annotated in her own hand. The weapons that had been left behind in the space station when men went to the stars, noted from the inventory sheets in order of priority. Some massive, some small. It might take more than one trip to get them all. She read down the list again, the smudged lines as clear to her as though they were newly written. She knew them. In her mind she had held them, worked with them, used them against her enemies. The great laser cannons. The fusion guns. The sonic disrupters. The biologicals and chemicals, array after array of them. And all the lesser stuff, eyes to see with and ears to hear with and tiny devices that could kill leaving no trace...
    She put the book away with an expression of slight distaste. All was going precisely as she had planned. Why then this feeling of vague disappointment? Perhaps because there was nothing to see except the dark. Like a night sky. There were stars, of course. And the sun, if you looked toward it, which would be unwise, or so Dever had said. They couldn't see the moon yet. Dever had explained that their journey was a long outward spiral. They wouldn't be able to see the moon until they got much farther out. Right now they were headed away from it, being pulled by the gravity of earth into the proper path. So Dever had said.
    "How are our people back there?" asked Ander. "In'their cosy little cubicles?"
    "Sleeping," she replied. "Except for the two of us, they'll sleep until we get there. It's what our doctors recommended. If they sleep, they'll avoid any unpleasant effects of this weightlessness, and there'll be one-half earth gravity at the station." This too had been planned, though she had felt no effects of weightiessness, and Ander seemed to have adjusted well.
    "Shouldn't we see the station?" he asked, leaning forward to peer sidewise through the portal. "Where we're going'?"
She shook her head. "Dever said not until we're almost there."
She relaxed, letting the belt hold her, feeling her vague discontent fade


rs on the en likely been too ~viously, s on the !es, just ~rs back had the ~'d put ;rs and ~ed. In

ted in
tat ion
er of
o get
~r as
held
aser

A PLAGUE OF ANGELs

                                                                                          369 away into a hazy euphoria. ,4 kind øf sweetness. She Could not recall feeling
                  Such SWeetness lbr a long, long time.
                  "I'm going to sleep, too, `4rider. I didn
                  "Of COUrse,,, he said.                              't sleep all last night.',
                    They had                     "Of COUrse. Neither did 1.,,
pills for sleep, and ills        .
pills for any of the Family who P~' - for the nausea of .... :~~
might get Unso~ ~_ ~    ""~gntlessness
anything else that might go Wrong. Pills and a sip tube for Water, and behind
her, in the cubicle, in her own space...    ~-, ~L u~ hysterical and ill's and
               ú Drowsily she conside               .                                      '      P ú for
               long time ago Dad '~ red what Was behind her, in her OWn Space. All that
                                   ú dy had said it WaSh
             He Was Wrong. She'd         't a daughter's business to go along.
             gerber ....                 told him they should stay together. '41ways Stay lo-

               Ander kept his eyes on her face as she SWallowed the pills, as she shut
            her eyes and squirmed briefly against the restraints that held her. Something
obscene in that movement. Like the Cuddling of a ghoul. The COupling
monsters. What Was she thinking? What was she planning?            of
          that featureless mask? Being this near her made him Uncomfortable.
          from the revulsion he felt at her physical presence h-                 . What Was Under
                                               '4side
         a stab in the back or, at the very least, a iab~,^-~ '. e was always expecting
         Was, all relaxed, beginning to breathe softly, steadily.                       ú Here she
                                                            ~ ~,cu msult. Nothing
       He waited until she Was quite asleep, then Unfastened his own belt and
       dril~ed, as he'd Wanted to do ever since
       Exhilarating! He tugged himself here    they had Started. It was WOnderful!
       What fun !                                  and there, actually giggling like
         He stopped, his eyes                                                            a child.
....
     dOWnY She had looked at his sleeves, reached' Just before the helmet Zn~
            ú                             nacl said to him ú ø ~ ,u me t~Ooth, sto,~,e~,
     "1 dyy~! t,~at fabric. In Wiltbr Ponde's shop in Whitherby.,,
    "         ,.,,ht~,ClthadS%~s~                            outto touch them, andsaid,
    Were       d                  ddenly aghast. "Not ú ou ~'
       "In  Wilfer Ponde's shop, in Whitherby, she'd said again as the helmet
   had COme down.                 ,. If she~if this ,one Y. . ' Craftsmen~-craftsmen
     It was the last thing she'd said. There had been no time for him to do
anything. The helmet Was down, and she Was silent. It Was too late. Done,
and too late.
Resolutely, he put it out of his mind. She Could have been lying. She must

ú
have been. Though how she knew the name of the dyer's shop Where his
thbrics Came from, he could not imagine. What Would a craftsman be doing
here, in this place?
He shook his head. He had to attend to business. Several Family members


370                              Sheri S. Tepper

had seen Ellel's servants bring something odd aboard. Something that might be--well, a weapon perhaps'? Something the Andors needed to know about. No,~ that Ellel was asleep, drugged, unlikely to wake, it would be a good time to \ook \n~.o the matter.
     He pulled himself back past the guidance system, without a glance at Oily, through the door, past the toilets and galley, into the long circular space with the cubicles all around it, each one with its sliding door, its own little window into space. The first door was Ellel's. The only one Wifh a lock. Ander smiled. He had thought there might be some locked compartments on the space station, so he'd had Mitty's people make him a gadget that could unlock them.
     Which it did, in time. The lock beepod, the cubicle door opened. The long bundle he had seen brought aboard lay on the bunk, held down by straps. He unfastened the top one in order to untie the cords and fold back the blankets...
    And then felt himself yelling, felt the vibration of his own vocal cords, the rawness of his own throat rasping with no one at all to hear him, no one to understand what he saw, no one but himself to see this thing lying on the bunk, this walker lying on the bunk with someone's cut-off face sewn to its head, a Ihce he knew, Jark IIl's lhce, and someone's cut-off chest laced around its torso, and someone's--someone's organ prominently displayed below, all dried, dried like leather, shriveled like old gloves, old shoes, all tied around a walker who looked up at him from dead eyes with its red, red glare and said in its dry voice, "Yes, yes, daughter, yes, princess, yes, yes, yes ....

    On old Seoca's terrace above the canyon, the group remained unchanged. Mitty had not come to join them. None of them had found reason to go elsewhere. Oracle looked from face to face, wondering if the others found their minds wandering as she did, wishing to be in another place, another time. She caught old Seoca's eyes and flushed. He knew' what she was thinking.
It was Nimwes who broke the silence.
"What can we do'? Will the walkers let us buy food in the marketplace?"
    "I think not," said Tom. "In fact, the traders are leaving now. The walkers are blocking the gates."
"Are any of the walkers inside the Place of Power?" His Wisdom asked. Tom went away and came back again to say there were none in the Place, which didn't mean they couldn't come inside anytime they decided to do so. Nothing prevented their doing so, so far as Tom could see.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            371

     "Are there provisions here?" asked Oracle. "Such a large place should have provisions for a siege."
       "That's the word I was reaching for," the old man agreed, nodding at
 her. "A siege. Ellel's bottled us up, hasn't she? We are under siege." "Like rats in a trap," said Arakny. "Until she gets back, at least."
      "What's going to happen?" Cermit demanded of Oracle. "You're the
 soothsayer. Can we last until she returns?" Oracle mused, "I can't see her return." Abasio asked, "What do you mean?"
      "I mean what I said. I can't always see the future, I can't always prophesy.
 This is one of the times I can't. I don't know what's going to happen!" The group was silent, staring at one another.
     "They could be delayed, up there in space," mused the old man. "There are provisions up there that would allow them to stay a long time, if they chose to do so. Lo.ng enough for us to become very hungry. If you choose to act, it might be wise to do so while you still have the strength."
     "Weapons," said Abasio. "Surely there are weapons we can use against the walkers!"
     "Some we can adapt," admitted Tom. "We have some on the roof, but they'd have to be moved to the outside walls. Mostly they guard against attack from above. Dragons. Wiverns once, a long time ago."
     "I wish Mitty were here!" cried Berkli. He turned to Qualary, asking, "Do you know where Ellel controls the walkers from?"
     "From a closet, in a room in her quarters. It's locked, and she told me not to trifle with it, for if I do, something dreadful will happen."
    "Perhaps that is why Oily went," Abasio said to Arakny. "Perhaps she knew it made no difference whether she stayed here or went there, that death waited in either place."
"Must it'?" demanded Farmwife Suttle. "Can't men kill those things?"
    "I saw three men kill one," whispered Qualary. "In the marketplace, with little more than their bare hands."
    "Which is about the odds we'd need," said Berkli in a deadly, matterof-fact voice. "Three to one might manage. As it happens, the numbers go the other way. There are approximately three of them to each able-bodied, adult one of us, if we included Anders and Ellels."
    "It seems we could drag matters out for some time," said Burned Man. "But | have some experience of stretched-out dying, and I do not recommend it."
    All during the long day that followed, during which they came and went, taking inventory of what were obviously totally inadequate foodstores, his words came back to torment them.


372                              Sheri S. Tepper

    CummyNup and Sybbis had added an additional dozen or so ex-gangers, townsmen, truckers, and who-knows-whats during their journey to what had come to be called the Mountain of Revelation, all of these persons willing to fall in with the larger group and each of them soon well versed in the many marvels attributed to Abasio the Cat. The stories had come to be called collectively the Adventures of Abasio the Cat or sometimes simply Cat-tales. Some of them had a fragment of truth at the heart of them, some of them had none, and some of them were stories originally told about other heroes, now foisted onto Abasio. It didn't matter to the hearers, and as they were told and retold, it mattered less and less to CummyNup and Sybbis.
    As they approached the Mountain of Revelation, anticipation mounted that they would soon find the Cat himself, who had gone on a courageous quest, disguised as an ordinary human and escorting an archetypal Orphan in the fulfillment of a prophecy. CummyNup said the words without thinking what they meant. Sybbis visualized the Orphan as a dirty-faced waif of some five or six years, with gap teeth and scabby knees, and she visualized the prophecy as something like a highly ritualized tally, after which Abasio would return to her triumphant.
     Though a few of those who joined the mob had subsequently died of one thing or another, most often of fighting among themselves, the rest seemed reasonably amicable and immune to the disease that had wiped the cities clean. Among them they counted a respectable armamentarium, and during their progress west they acquired a number of vehicles and a considerable store of fuel. All together, they constituted a larger gang with greater mobility and firepower than any seen in the cities for some generations.
     They had established certain habits and customs on the journey west, their own chain of command, their own ways of laying out their camp and setting guards for the watches of the night. Orders were issued by Captain CummyNup to his lieutenants and from them to the troops. Despite being Captain, CummyNup often followed his old practice of wanglering around in the dark, and it was during one of these midnight peregrinations that he encountered Coyote for the second time.
"Whatso, CummyNup," greeted Coyote.
"Whatso," replied CummyNup.
     "You still lookin' for Basio?" asked Coyote, in a good imitation of ganget talk.
     "Still lookin'," said CummyNup. "Got more men than before too. Whatever Basio need, we got it."
Coyote scratched as close to his rump as he could get with a contorted


                            A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            373

hind leg and thought about this. "You see that canyon over there'?" he asked,
 pointing to a pocket of dark in a landscape largely made up of such pockets. CummyNup said he did.
     "Basio needs you to be down that canyon, cross the bottom, ready to go up the far side by mornin'."
     CummyNup sucked his teeth and thought about this. "How far from here?" he asked finally.
    "Far enough you should leave pretty quick now," replied Coyote. "And don't make any noise!"
    CummyNup agreed absentmindedly. When gangers went off on a tally, they never made any noise. Not until the battle started. He could get the men starled and have them where Abasio needed them by morning.
    Later, the thought crossed CummyNup's mind that if Abasio came back, CummyNup might no longer be Captain. He worried at it only momentarily before setting the thought aside. Basio, he told himself, was his friend.

     In the woods along the Big River, Wide Mountain Mother camped in the midst of the warriors of Artemisia. Though the night had turned chili, the campfires had been allowed to burn down except for those few at the perimeter of the camp, where members of the Owl and Weasel societies stood sentry.
 It was one of these, Black Owl, who heard the voice in the night. "Not eating you," it said in a softly furry voice. "Halt!" cried Black Owl. "Who goes there?"
"Not eating you," repeated the voice. "Not throwing spear."
     Black Owl thought this over. After a time, he swallowed, lowered his arm, and said, "Very well. Not throwing spear."
     He held it, however, at the ready, as a bulky form came out of the darkness and into the farther edge of the firelight. It took considerable self-control to
 hold it then, for what sat in the firelight was unmistakably a bear."Chief woman," said Bear. "Go get."
    "Wide Mountain Mother?" asked Black Owl. "You want her to come here?"
"I go, spears," said Bear. "She come. No spears."
    Black Owl jiggled from foot to foot, wondering what to do next. "You're going to wait for me'/" he asked at last, rather plaintively.
    Bear grunted what sounded like an assent, and Black Owl took off at top speed for the tent at the center of the camp, the one occupied by Wide Mountain Mother and half a dozen of her eldest daughters.
    Considering that she had been asleep when he arrived, Mother returned with him in an extremely short time. With her came a group of daughters,


374                              Sheri S. Tepper

each of them armed and all of them suspecting a trick. When Bear greeted them with "Not eating you," they immediately took off in several directions to find out who was pulling the strings.
    Wide Mountain Mother herself merely sat down and stared at him. "You talk," she said at last.
"So do you," said Bear in a grumpy voice. "You're the one Arakny wrote about," she said. "Possible," said Bear. ~'I know her." "You bring me word of her'?"
      "I bring word. Move now. Go that way." He pointed with a large paw.
"Up road. Sneaky, like coyotes. Morning, you fight!""Fight whom? For what reason'?"
"Fight dead things. For the sake of living things."
A long silence.
"Is that all?" she called. "Is my daughter well?"
    She received only a retreating grunt in answer. In a few moments, the daughters returned to say no person had been found. The Bear had been talking on his own. Wide Mountain Mother had already figured that out.

    North of the Place of Power, a certain being sat upon a crag and considered themes of life and death, legend and history, good and evil. Beneath and around the large being, others of its kind and related kinds assembled to await the morning.
    "This affair reminds me of long ago," said the large being upon the crag to a smaller being nearby. "When men carried swords of bronze and lived short but mythy lives."
    The smaller being scratched a mosquito bite and did not answer. Its own memory did not extend that far.

    West of the Place of Power, Hero leaned upon his lance and peered toward the wall. Around him burned the campfires of his fellow Heroes. There were a good many of them, more than he had thought there would be.
"We've been talking," said another Hero, coming up behind him. "Of what?"
    "Of proper ways to kill these things. We agree we aren't likely to survive the attack, but we feel we should make some effort to do as much damage
as possible.""Surely."
"One of the things we've come up with is earplugs."


PLAGUE OF ANGELS

375

"Earplugs."
    "The walkers have this sound they make. It's crippling. But with earplugs, one can stand it."
"Earplugs and a pure heart," said Hero.
"Of course," said his colleague. "And a pure heart."

South of the Place of Power, Coyote and Bear met by appointment.
    "One thing you can say for humans," commented Coyote, "they lead complicated lives. Very interesting."
    "You say," said Bear, breathing heavily. It had been a long run up the canyon, and he was winded. "Did you see her?"
    Coyote made an affirmative sound in which a great deal of sadness was mixed. "She left a message with me. For him. If he's still alive when this is over."
"Ah," said Bear.
    Coyote started to speak again, then hushed himself, head cocked, listening. There were sounds all around them in the night. Foliage moving. Branches creaking. The sound of movement and assembly.
"Did you talk to the Artemisians?" Coyote asked.
"Umph," came the answer.
    Coyote sighed. "We've been scouting, as you suggested. I think the caverns we've come up with will do the job."
Bear scratched his nose, wordlessly. "Big enough?" "I think so. Big enough for moose." "Moose?"
"We found several. Big enough for them."
"Big enough, then."
    Coyote nodded. "Think I'll catch a little sleep," he said, curling up and burying his nose in his furry tail. He was not really asleep. He was thinking about his feelings. Before he had language, a time he could remember, he had had a sensory lexicon. There was not only count-smell but also feelfeel, in which grief was a winter's night without warmth or hope of spring, love for one's mate and cubs and kindred was the smell of new grass, hot mouse-flesh, and shared warmth in the den. These things were remembered, even now that he had language, which was not an unmixed blessing. He had words for things most of his kindred did not. Apprehension. Fear. Knowledge of mortality. It was possible he would not live through tomorrow. He might die. He wondered, as men had done for thousands of years, what lay beyond that barrier. "Tired," he murmured, surprised that it came out aloud.
"You say," grumped Bear, throwing himself on the ground. He had no


Sheri S. Tepper
3'76
furry tail long enough to bury his nose in, but his front paws did well enough. iHeaving a deep sigh, which was echoed from all around him in the night, he slept. He had fewer words than Coyote and was thankful for it.

    Abasio moved restlessly on his bed, like Coyote, not really awake, not really asleep, and for much the same reason. He had fallen into a light doze when Arakny pulled at his shoulder, telling him to come at once with her
and Tom and Qualary, for something was about to happen. "What time is it'?" he demanded. "Not yet midnight," she replied.
     He struggled awake and into the warm clothing Arakny insisted hc put on, then followed her out into the hall where Tom waited to guide thorn through the labyrinth of Gaddi House to the roof. The night was dark, stars hidden behind cloud. Beyond the crags to the north, sheet lighming flashed now and again to the low mutter of approaching thunder.
     Tom pointed westward, where they could see a flicker of scattered yellow lights.
"Campfires," said Tom. "The sensors picked them up. And there arc
beings gathering to the north and south. I don't even know what--who they are.
"Who'? Where'?" asked Abasio.
      "Creatures. People. Animals. I don't know. There seem to be five bunches, altogether. Two coming from the east, one up the road, one across the canyon. One bunch north, one west, one south. Something Ellel dreamed up, perhaps. I didn't wake the others. No point getting them all upset, but Qualar5 said I had to wake you."
"Where north?" Abasio asked.
      "Up on that precipice, and all down both sides of it. It's the only place that actually overlooks the Place of Power. The ones to the south an~l west are in the edges of the forest."
"What are the walkers doing'?" asked Qualary.
       Tom frowned. "Waiting. littering. A few of them have fallen ox'cr attacked one another. Four Domer men tried to go out last night. Foolish the .
"Were they--?"
       "Three were killed outright. One of them was badly wounded, but he got back in. I think the men killing that one in the marketplace that time was only a fluke. The walker was already broken. If they aren't broken, I don't know if we can kill them at all."
"What's that'?" asked Arakny, head up.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            377

      They all heard it, a yammering squeal that ran in both directions along
 the wall, like a herd of pigs being driven at great speed. "Walkers," said Tom. "They see in the infrared." "lnfra what'?"
    "They can see warmth, think of it like that. Maybe they've seen something."
      It was not long before they all saw it, the silhouette of a winged form
high upon the precipice, huge and fell against repeated flashes of lightning. "Griffin," whispered Abasio, dumbfounded.
    The griffin opened its beak and cried out, a brazen cry that awoke the sky with echoes, sending them back into the canyons, where they crashed from wall to pillar to wall in an avalanche of sound.
Then from the west, an answering cry, the clatter of swords on shields. And from the south, the howl of animal voices.
    And from the east, the vrooming of engines and the shout of ganger battle cries. Abasio exclaimed when he heard that.
And from the road below the gate, the ululations of warriors.
    "Five," said Arakny in wonder. "Five groups! Olly's prophecy spoke of five champions! It's five whole armies!"
"You're sure all of them are on our side?" asked Tom.
    "Those war cries came from warriors of Artemisia," she said. "I believe those to the west are likely Heroes from archetypal villages. As for the animals, they are more likely to be on our side than on the side of the walkers, are they not?"
"And the monsters?"
She shrugged. She didn't know. "They're here! That's something!" Tom nodded slowly, wondering what had brought the groups here at this time. It seemed almost contrived, but he had not been part of any contrivance! Perhaps His Wisdom was right. When the means were correct, the end was inevitable.
    "What good are champions when Oily is already gone?" muttered Abasio. "Why couldn't they have come here yesterday!"
    Tom laid his hand on Abasio's shoulder and shook him. "Even today, they may save the rest of us. Remember what she told me to tell you, Abasio."
    Abasio shook off his hand. "The mere presence of five champions is meaningless. I hear gangers down there, and I know from personal experience they have no idea how to fight these things."
    "My people are there as well," said Arakny. "And they have no more idea than gangers do."
    Abasio nodded grimly. "The same will be true of the others, I should imagine. We need something more than mere fighters. We need a strategy."


378                              Sheri S. Tepper

He put his head into his hands, thinking furiously. He had been unable to save Oily. Perhaps he could save those who had been important to her. All those years in Fantis, watching battles, trying to stay out of them as much as possible, talking them over at the barber's afterward. If the Greens had done this. If the Blues had done that. Surely he knew something about fighting after all this time!
    He stood tall and demanded of Tom, "Is my horse still in that cavern down below'?"
Tom shrugged. "I imagine so."
"The entrance is well beyond the walker lines, is it not?"
Tom nodded.
"Take me there," demanded Abasio.
"And I," said Arakny. "I will carry your word to my people." Though it was Tom's instinctive response to ask His Wisdom before he did anything, Abasio would not allow him the time. They went at once, down through the bowels of Gaddi House, toward the door behind the haystack. When they passed the tunnel where the bit-pan players were stored,
 Abasio made an abrupt noise, as though he had been kicked."What?" demanded Tom.
"Nothing," grunted Abasio. "I stumbled over a rock."
     They went through the final door into the tunnel where Big Blue stood half-asleep in his pen.
     With a pang of guilt, Abasio saw that someone had given him fresh hay and water.
"Now," said Arakny, "what do you want me to tell my people?"
     Abasio had been thinking about it all the way down. He told her, tersely, answering both Tom's questions and hers as best he might.
     "Wish me well," he said to Tom, as he climbed onto Big Blue's back. "I should be able to get all the way around by dawn, starting with the .animals to the south."
"Remember where you left your wagon'?" asked Tom.
Abasio nodded.
     "If you go up that canyon, it will lead you onto flat land south o1' the Place. You can drop Arakny off on your way."
      Arakny peered out the tunnel entrance, seeing fires in the canyon bottom. "We can ride along the slope, here," she told him. "My people arc on the road."
      Abasio leaned down to pull Arakny up behind him, then took Tom's hand in his own. "We will do what we can," he said.


CHAPTER

  ~c       baSio and Arakny rode southeasterly across the slope toward the road. They
                      ould hear the yamreefing of the walkers a few hundred yards above them, a repeated squealing
that moved in ripples along the wall, going and returning, a peculiarly bestial and mindless sound.
     "What the hell are they doing?" whispered Arakny in Abasio's ear, her voice shaking.
     "Counting off," Abasio said. "Keeping track of one another; a kind of roll call."
       "How do you know?" she grated, wiping her forehead
 on her sleeve. Her sweat was cold, and it stank of fear. "I don't," he muttered. "I'm guessing."
"Have you come up with any more good ideas?" He shook his head. "Just what we've already talked about. We've got to base our strategy on some assumptions, though I dislike assuming anything where they're concerned. First assumption: They've been ordered to guard the wall. That means they won't leave the wall en masse, though some of them can probably be tempted


380                              Sheri S. Tepper

away. They're not unintelligent. Tom was very helpful about the psychology of the damned things, if you can call it that. We're forewarned about the deadly sound they make, so we can protect against that. When it comes right down to it, however, they're stronger than we are, and there are more of them than there are of us, though the arrival of all these allies has evened the odds a little."
"$o my people are to fight a war of attrition."
     "We should kill as many walkers as possible from the greatest possible distance--we've talked about that. If we all try to achieve that, eschewing any heroics, we may have some success.
     She sighed. "We could refuse to fight. We could wait them out, bring in food through the tunnel--"
     "We can't 'wait them out.' When Ellel gets back with the space weapons. matters will be worse. Our only chance is to dispose of them while she's gone and be ready for her when she returns! The shuttle can go from the silo, but not return to it. She'll have to land outside the walls. Mitty and Tom think we can do something about that, maybe!
       "Besides, two people sneaking around on a horse is one thing. Bringing
 in supply wagons would be something else again." "You sound much more yourself, suddenly." He laughed, sounding almost joyous. "What'?" she demanded.
      "I figured it out," he said, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder. "The tunnel. The bit-part players. It wasn't Oily who went at all! It was one of them. Dressed in her clothes. Looking like her. She was Werra's kindred. The old man wouldn't just let her go off like that! He'd have sent one of those things instead!"
Arakny stared at him in the starlight. "Why didn't they tell us?" "Couldn't. For fear we wouldn't react right. Everyone's told us how suspicious Ellel is. If we hadn't grieved, fussed, cried--Ellel would have known. It was important for her to go. They couldn't risk telling us."
      "Do you really think so'?" Arakny whispered. "I could have sworn it was Oily who went out to the shuttle." It had been, she was sure. But... what if Abasio was right?
      Abasio turned to face forward, rejecting all doubt. "It wasn't her," hc said firmly. "That's what her message meant: be resolute. She was... she was telling me she'd see me again."
       Arakny's question stayed on her tongue, for the way steepened as thcy neared the road, and she had to hold on to keep from falling. Big Blue dug in his hooves to lunge upward, once, twice, again, and they were on the road, going toward the hidden canyon where they'd left the wagon.
Once there, Arakny slipped from Big Blue's back, intending to continue


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                 381

the conversation about Oily. One look at Abasio's face dissuaded her. Now wasn't the time. She reached up to touch his arm in farewell, then trotted off down the road toward the ArtemisJan lines. Behind her, Big Blue stepped carefully around the buttress of stone and past the wagon itself, headed up the wandering trail to the top of the mesa. Intermittent flashes of lightning came more frequently as the storm moved closer, each flash silvering the narrow way before them. Several brilliant flashes came simultaneously with a crash of thunder as the storm moved past, and then they were upon the
mesa top, the walls of the Place looming blackly off to their right. A voice came from somewhere around Big Blue's feet. "Whatso, Basio?" "Coyote?" "Who else?"
    Abasio slid from the horse's back and crouched. In the next lightning flash he saw Coyote's face inches from his own, tongue lolling. "Who've you got out here?" Abasio asked.
"Bears. Big ones. And moose."
"What's moose?"
"Like elk. Only bigger." "Can they kill walkers?" Coyote shrugged. "Not likely." "So? What are you planning?"
    Coyote's plan had to do with deep caverns and underground rivers and walkers being enticed to become lost or drowned therein by this stratagem or that artifice.
    "We thought of some of that stuff, but not all," Abasio remarked. "You're clever."
    "We like to think so," said Coyote modestly. "My hermit always told me to take advantage of the terrain. What are you doing out here?"
    "We thought coordinating our strategy might help our cause. At least that way we'll all know what the others are doing."
    Coyote scratched his ear. "You don't need to worry about the monsters. The Artemisians are disciplined and accustomed to taking orders. The ones you need to convince are the Heroes and the gangers. They're both a bunch of rugged individualists."
    "I don't know what the hell gangers are even doing here," puzzled Abasio. "Where did they come from?"
"CummyNup brought them."
"CummyNup! How'd he--"
Coyote told him how, in the fewest possible words.
"Sybbis is down there?"
Coyote laughed at him without answering.


382                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Sybbis here! Abasio fought down an urge to howl, to scream, to throw himself off some convenient precipice. Ironic, wasn't it! The one he wanted with all his heart hidden from him; the one he didn't want not only present but searching for him. He couldn't deal with it now!
      "If you'll help me get around to the west," he managed to say, "I'11 try
to talk some sense into the Heroes.""Don't tell them about Oily!"
"What... what about Oily? What do you know about Oily?"
    Coyote examined him narrowly, cocking his head. "Why nothing, Abasio. Nothing you don't know."
"What am I not supposed to tell the Heroes?" he shouted.
     Coyote nodded slowly to himself. "Shhh. I'm reminding you that rescuing maidens is what Heroes do. That's why they're here. Don't... confuse them about their mission."
     Abasio shook his head, swallowing the lump in his throat. All right. So he wouldn't say anything to the Heroes about Oily being... being all right. Besides, she did need rescuing. She had to be somewhere in Gaddi House, and Gaddi House needed rescuing. "If you say so," he told Coyote. "You'd know best."
     Coyote trotted off to the west. Abasio patted Big Blue and urged him in the same direction. They went steadily among the low trees of the mesa top, slowing only when they saw the glimmer of scattered campfires.
"Who goes there?" came a voice from the darkness.
     "A friend of the maiden," called Coyote, flashing his teeth at Abasio before he went back the way he had come.
     A bronzed and muscular form with a crested helm stood into the firelight and beckoned Abasio forward.
     "Are you Orphan's Hero?" asked Abasio, when he came close enou[2h to be heard.
     "We are all at the service of purity," replied the Hero. "We are all Orphans' Heroes."
     "I'm the one from her village," said another Hero, who looked much like the first, "if that's what you meant."
     "That's what I meant," Abasio acknowledged. "I've come under the wall, around the walkers' lines, to see if we can coordinate our strategy."
     "Strategy!" cried Orphan's Hero, outraged. "Since when have Heroes stooped to strategy?"
     Abasio considered this, taking his time. "It's unworthy of you, I know. If you were facing men or monsters, it would be inappropriate for me to suggest it. If we weren't so badly outnumbered, we'd not think of it. But we're not facing men or monsters, we're facing machines, and what might


                               A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            383

be unworthy of us in one case may be only sensible in the other. If you want
  to save your Orphan--""Of course I do!"
      "Then we need to think carefully about the coming battle. Call it planning, if that is more acceptable."
      The first Hero remarked thoughtfully, "Several of the younger Heroes have come up with some ideas."
      "Younger Heroes," said Orphan's Hero, puckering his mouth as though to spit, "who have scarcely left their mothers' skirts."
      "Do they need to'?" Abasio asked, surprising himself with the question. Hadn't he himself been all too eager to leave his mother's skirts?
      Orphan's Hero said flatly, "Of course they must! No man may be a Hero until he repudiates the female influence and joins the great company of puissant men! We must strip ourselves of female sensibility, of female constraints-"
     "Then why are you here, saving some female?" Abasio asked in exasperation.
     "It's what we do," asserted Orphan's Hero in a kindly though commanding voice. "If the females are worthy and pure. My Orphan is worthy and pure. She is a virgin, brave and kind and sensible. I taught her to fight when she was little--not that a woman could ever be very good at it!"
     His colleague stared into the distance. "Lately," he said, "some of us have been discussing our relations with women, our rescuing maidens and all that. Nothing we can follow up on now, of course, for we've no time, but in the future, perhaps--"
Orphan's Hero snorted. "What have you to suggest, Orphan's friend?" Abasio told them some of the ideas that he and Tom and Arakny had come up with. A group of other Heroes gathered around during the discussion that fi~llowed, several of the younger ones offering ideas of their own. Though Orphan's Hero sniffed at the ihought of anything except ritual declamations followed by direct hand-to-hand combat, many of the others seemed able to accommodate the idea of evasion or even outright deception.
     "If this is to work, someone must speak to the monsters," said one of the younger Heroes.
    "True," agreed Abasio. "And if you know them, you'd be better at it than I."
    "I could go under a flag of truce," said Orphan's Hero. "That is an honorable approach."
    "However you like," said Abasio. "But whatever you do must be done soon. There'll be no time for conferring come morning."
    "Will the monsters even consider helping us'?" asked an older Hero in a doubtful voice.


384                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Abasio said, "I saw a fight between monsters and walkers once. I've a feeling the monsters hate the walkers as much or more than any of us do. I know if that fight was a fair example, monsters can dispose of walkers far better than we can. If we can make our request in a way they will think proper--"
"Humnph," said Orphan's Hero.
    Abasio could take no more time. "I need to get to the gangets before light, however. They're massed in the canyon below the eastern wall."
    "I'll guide you," the young Hero said enthusiastically. "I know this country well, and I can lead you north of the Place of Power, between the
walkers and the monsters, without either of them knowing you are there." "Sneaking!" challenged Orphan's Hero.
"Just getting the job done," replied the young Hero in an offended voice. He was as good as his word, though after they had spent most of an hour in slow, silent travel, Abasio thought there might be something to be said for ritual declamations and a full gallop.

    Some time after Abasio and his escort had departed, Orphan's Hero put on his helm, threw a cloak around his shoulders, readied a white scarf to use as a flag of truce, and mounted his war-horse.
    "The others should be a mile or so ahead by now," he announced. "I will speak to the monsters."
    The other Heroes raised their swords in salute, then returned to their assigned duties, most of which would require backbreaking and difficult work through what remained of the night hours.
    Hero rode in a long, obvious arc that took him north of the Place of Power and kept him a good distance from the walkers and the walls. Once there, he kneed his horse into a canter and went boldly toward the rocky canyons that led upward toward the crags. The ground was not heavily forested. When the lightning flashed, he looked over his shoulder and saw that both wall and walkers were clearly visible. During a period of prolonged darkness, he could actually see the gleam of their red eyes, which meant they were looking in his direction. He told himself they did not frighten him, but he hurried
his horse directly toward the canyons, nonetheless.Came a yammering from behind him.
    He turned the horse and kneed it into a sidling gait that let him keep his eyes on the wall while moving toward his destination. Three of the walkers seemed to have decided to come after him. They were moving forward slowly, like prowling cats, stalking him. The others along the wall had fallen dead silent, but they were watching.
Hero swallowed deeply.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            385

"Who?" said a huge voice from the rock beside him.
    He turned his head briefly, just long enough to see a giant half-hidden behind a pillar, its huge and craggy face lit from below by a glow:,ng cookfire, over which something skewered spat fat into the coals. Either the cooking meat or the giant himself had a rank and musty smell.
    Hero kept his eyes on the approaching walkers as he spoke. "I am an archetypal Hero come to ask a boon from the--the great legendary creatures assembled here at the Place of Power."
The walkers stopped prowling. One of them. began a rush.
    "Mine," growled Hero, as he put his lance beneath his arm and turned the horse to face his enemy. "Mine."
"You are mine," said the walker in an icy voice as he increased his speed.
    "Mine," asserted the giant disagreeably, taking several steps forward and pounding the walker into the ground with his fist, like a nail into a board.
    Though the other two walkers had stayed where they were, the monster took two more giant steps and nailed them into the ground as well.
    Hero, much annoyed, dismounted and leaned on his lance, staring up at the giant as he tallied certain scars and traits against others remembered from the past. "I fought you once," he said conversationally, barely able to be heard above the yammering of the walkers along the wall, "at the siege of Bitter Mountain."
    "You did," grunted the giant. "Not today, though. Griffin says not today."
"Griffin is your commander?"
A grunt in reply.
"Would you convey our request for a boon to your commander?" Another grunt.
    Hero outlined his request, trying to follow Abasio's suggestion of being as complimentary and as nonheroic as possible, though he found it exceedingly difficult.
    When he had finished, the giant nodded and began trampling out the fire with his bare feet. "I'11 tell'm," he mumbled. "You go on back. I'll telI'm."

    Mitty and Berkli were roused from sleep by a messenger from Gaddi House who stuttered and waved his arms while trying to tell them what was happening. They wakened others of their people, some of whom they sent to the Domer laboratories and shops, some of whom they sent to the aid of the Gaddirs who were dismantling and moving weapons. The rest were told to hold themselves in readiness while Berkli and Mitty themselves went to Gaddi House to see what help they could provide.
Tom met them at the gates. "Council of war inside," he muttered. "The


386                              Sheri S. Tepper

old man says we'll have to do what we can on our own. He's all of a sudden claiming to be no tactician."
    "Not his kind of tactics," muttered Berkli. "I have a hunch that old one of yours usually takes a few decades to plan things and work them out, and that's when he's in a hurry."
    "Tr~e," said Tom, unable to repress a smile. "Though once I saw him do something rather important in slightly over a year." He led them inside and introduced them to several Gaddirs who were rummaging through files and stacks of plans.
    "You've no doubt worked with the walkers! What do you have in your shops that might be useful?" one of these persons demanded of Mitty, the moment he caught sight of him. "At the moment, we're thinking in terms of a field disrupter."
    Mitty ran a hand through his hair as he did a rapid mental inventory. "I might have something," he said. "Can you send a few men back with me?"
    Tom delegated this one and that one, who went off behind Mitty looking somewhat bemused. Berkli, who was left behind, got tired of twiddling his thumbs and went with Tom to the roof to see how the crew moving weapons was coming along, remaining there when Tom went down again to join Mitty and his group. Berkli was of help to no one, so far as he could tell. Since he could find nothing useful to do and it was impossible to sleep, he decided he might as well stay here where he'd have a good view of whatever happened, come morning.

    Abasio had begun to fume with impatience long before the young Hero brought him to the canyon where the campfires of the gangers glowed palely beneath the lightening sky. The eastern horizon made a broken line against the sky by the time the Hero stopped, saluted Abasio with his sword, and pointed downward.
"A guard there," he whispered.
    Abasio slitted his eyes, eventually spotting the sentry beside a giant fir tree. He started to express his thanks, but the young Hero was already gone, back the way he had come.
Abasio kneed Big Blue toward the tree.
    "Give the password!" challenged the sentry in a voice so loud that it provoked a squeal among the walkers up the hill.
    "I need to talk to CummyNup," growled Abasio. "Tell him Abasio is here."
Silence. "Abasio the Cat?" asked the sentry in an awestruck voice.
    Abasio grimaced. "I suppose," he muttered. "Just tell him Abasio. And don't tell anyone else.t"


A PLAGUE OF ANGELs
                                                                                     387 The sentry departed. Abasio dismounted stiffly and crouched on his heels
        beside the tree.
 ~      "Bas/o?" came a whisper from behind him.
 ~      "CummyNup!,,
 i      They embraced, pounding and insulting one another after the manner of
 ~      men.
        Where s TeClar?" demanded Abasio.
        CummyNup looked at his feet. "He dead, Abasio. You know that Starlight
        stuff you got from Whistler'? TeClar, he knew where you put it. While
         over at the house, he took a bitsy drop, jus' to try."                                  you
~           "Oh, no, CummyNup!,,
        "It make him real horny, Basio. So he go to the songhouse, and then he feel bad, so he take some other stuff. On the trip, I see him gettin' worse
    and worse. One night he jus' die."Abasio could find no Words.
"You gonna fight with us?" asked CummyNup, changing the subject.
            you gonna get us all away from here 'fore the fightin' starts?"
    "?'rI think this time I have to fight," said Abasio with a wry shake of his
    head. "That's why I came."
    "Figured so," sighed CummyNup. "Men think they're here rescuin' you
    from up in there, behind those walls, so maybe you better not let 'era know
    who you are. I role that sentry you'uz just a messenger. You know Sybbis
    with us here? She say she carryin' your baby." There was something quite
    wistful in CummyNup's tone.
    Abasio dug his toe into the dirt and tried to think of SOmething sensible
    to say.
    "Old Chief, he thought that was a good thing, said CummyNup. "Way
    I hear."                                                    ,,
       "Old Chief sent Survivors to kill me!"
"Yeah, but he send more later to bring you back. He figure out you his
son. ' '
"Old Chief Purple's son!"
"He think so. He want you back bad."
  go back to now, though. Cities're all gone. CummyNup sighed. "Notbin' to
  brightened. "Could go to the Edge. Old Chief Purple, he live in the Edge.
 Maybe he glad to see you, anyhow."     "He thought for a moment, then
    Abasio sighed. "That's the last thing on my mind right now. Right now
we got to figure out how to make this fight count. Those things up there get
loose, start wanderin' around the world, we'll all be as gone as the cities"
"How we gonna fight those walkers, Basio~ Way I hear, they hard to
kill!"                                                         .
.
"Fire," he said. "That's what I came to tell you. Don't get up close to


388                              Sheri S. Tepper

them, and use fire as much as you can. They're hard to wound, hard to kill, but
they'll burn. They can still work even after their outsides are burnt off, but
the lenses in their eyes crack and their guidance systems act up. Still, even
then they'll move faster than anything, CummyNup. Faster than you'd think
anything alive can move ....       "His voice trailed away as he saw CummyNup
staring along the hill where something moved darkly in the grayhess of dawn.
"Abasio?" someone called. "Abasio? Is that you?"
"Tom?" Abasio returned the call. "What're you doing here?"
     Tom's stocky figure emerged from the dimness, loaded down with one pack on his back and one in each hand.
     "Mitty and I put this thing together," he said, indicating the packs and panting with the effort of carrying them. "Mitty thinks it will stop the walkers, if I can find the right frequency. I brought it out because everyone else is busy, and Mitty's got some new weapons he's putting up top of Gaddi
 House so they can fire down into the canyon.""Do you need help setting it up?"
     "Yes. Someplace where we won't be attacked. If it works, we can maybe put it on a horse and move around the walls. Mitty thinks it has to be l'airly close or it won't work at all."
     Abasio and CummyNup helped him carry the packs into cover under the trees. By now, it was light enough to see the wall above them with the walkers arrayed along it. Tom began unpacking the parts, most ol' which seemed to have been put together with tape.
     "I better go tell folks what to do," said CummyNup. "See you later. Basio."
     Abasio raised a hand in farewell, before stooping to the mechani~m t~ offer whatever assistance he could.

    Berkli remained on the Gaddi House roof, watching Mitty come ~~nd occasionally lending a hand with this or that piece of weaponry. Tom. Arakny, and Abasio were gone. Presumably they were busy. Berkli wished hc had enough knowledge to be busy. He had never felt so helpless and t'utile.
    Dawn brooded gray between the black horizon and a line of dark cloud when a group of workers on the roof stopped short, all of them peering toward the north. As they moved slowly toward the northern parapet, Bcrkli joined them, and together they stared up at the crag where the Griffin was perched, now almost fully visible. The great beast was moving restlessly, its great face turned toward the east, as though waiting.
     A rim of white fire rose above the horizon. The line of cloud turned t~ flame. The sky seemed to run with blood. The Griffin waited no l~*ngc~


, but
but
wen
~ink
~up
of

A PLAGUE OF ANGELs
                                                                             389 cried out, a huge, brazen cry, and stooped from the crag where it had been
perched, wings trailing, beak screaming like a bugle in the dawn. From the shadows at either side of the precipice came answering cries, followed by the emergence of giants, huge feet thudding earthshakingly, fists like mighty boulders swinging, jaws like the prows of buttes, mighty-thewed, as twin trees that had grown for a thOUsand years. So Berkli thought.
      Behind the first giants came others, and others yet. And after the giants came ogres and trolls, from large to larger to largest, shaggy head behind shaggy head, shambling figure behind shambling figure. And behind them dragons and more griffins, chimeras and Wiverns, minotaurs and manticores, rank on rank, file on file, twisting tails and shining scales, hooked wing behind hooked wing, fanged jaws and clever claws, monster after monster, pouring from the crevasses to do battle with the walkers of Ellel: creatures of legend to do battle with the soldiers of a forgotten time.
     So Berkli thought, Undecided whether to be elated or frightened. If the monsters conquered the walkers, would they then turn their attention to the Place of Power? Other men seemed untroubled by this idea. They were .manning the machines at the eastern edge of the parapet, firing dOWnward ~nto the line of walkers against the wall.
    Berkli stood alone, peering into the west, where he could see men on horseback coming from the forest, shields held high before them as they slowly cantered toward the wall of the Place of Power. He heard howling and yipping and bellowing from the south. From the east came battle cries, some voiced by Anemisians, the others, presumably, by the ganger army he had been told was there, warbling war cries, inexplicably howling something about a cat.

     The walkers along the western wall saw the Heroes as they came from the forest, shining in the ensanguined dawn like creatures carved from ruby, their SWords and shields polished to a uniform glitter, their helms gleaming, the brightly caparisoned horses no less effulgent than themselves, the whole enhanced by the lowering cloud to the north that lent a dramatic and threatening quality to the scene.
    Walkers knew beauty When they saw it. When they had been built, the destruction of beauty had been built into them. Many men were comforted by beauty: preserving it was natural to them. Such men were enemies of those who built the walkers. Such men were to be debased, humiliated, and stripped of anything they loved. In order to destroy beauty, the walkers had a subprogram that recognized it.
    The sight of these perfect Heroes, therefore, brought the subprogram erupting through the fragile glosses, as the smell of a tethered goat brings saliva


390                              Sheri S. Tepper

into a tiger's mouth. All the work done by Jark II1 and Ellel fell away as the subprogram took over the direction of a number of walkers who moved from the wall, following the glorious images as they deliberately withdrew.
    Too slowly, as it happened. Two of the Heroes could not quite mitigate their practiced heroism to meet the current threat. The walkers moved like lightning. Like ~ghm~g ~hei~ ~'~', s~o4,c, ~b,~ b.~d.~ tb, mst, a.n.d the_ Heroes fell, one of them surprised by that final inexorable thrust into a high, incredulous shriek of ultimate loss. A murmur ran through the ranks of the other Heroes, a tightening, and faces already grim grew strained in their concentration. Horses walked backward slightly more quickly, keeping just out of reach, step by step into the shadow of the trees and thence more deeply into the forests. The walkers continued in pursuit.
     Not all the walkers followed after. In some, the glosses wer~ more plete. In some the deep programming was better overlaid with more recent strictures. They had been ordered to protect the wall, to prevent anyone coming in or going out, so while roughly half their number followed the Heroes into the trees, the others stayed where they were, immobile, their red eyes gleaming.
     After a considerable time, a new group of Heroes moved from cover to form a single rank along the forest edge and pose themselves there as their fellows had done before. These men were, if anything, more glorious than the first group, more magnificently muscled, more marvelously armed, and they increased the power of their attraction by dismounting and striking poses, arms extended, arms akimbo, kneeling with back muscles bunched and throbbing, posed as though to support the weight of the world.
     Not only beauty, but power. The walkers had been built to destroy both. Some among those remaining could not resist. An additional number ot' them left the wall and followed the glorious bodies into the woods, leaving behind only a quarter of the original walkers. This was still a sufficient number to stop anyone who might attempt to enter or leave the Place of Power.
     And yet again Heroes came forth, another group, this time arrayed in small ensembles standing against the trees as they sang their battle hymns, declaiming the baseness and villainy of the walkers between verses. Not only beauty and power but also flagrant opposition! Again some of the walkers pursued them, and again they withdrew. This was the last time. No further Heroes emerged from the shadows of the trees.
      The walkers who were left were not concerned. Sooner or later their fellows would catch up to those who had tempted them into the woods. Walkers did not need sleep, did not need rest. Sooner or later they would come up to the horses and riders, and when they did, neither horses nor riders would go t~n living.
To the south, a similar effort at attrition was taking place, though here,


A PLAGUE OF ANGELs
                                                                                    391 since the original creators of the walkers had seen nothing beautiful in ani-
mals, or indeed in any facet of nature, the animals bad to use strength as walker bait. Though walkers had no emotions, they had SOmething that resembled pride, as the animals had COme to know. A direct challenge on the basis of strength could not be ignored.
      Thus, when a huge bear came from the Woods and challenged them in speech, saying that it was stronger than they, the nearest walkers smiled bleak, scythe-edged smiles and went implacably after it into the canyons. When a bull moose or elk made a similar suggestion, it was similarly pursued. Walkers had no humor or sense of the ridiculous. It did not seem odd to them that large animals kept appearing with similar announcements,
   walkers who had departed in pursuit did not reappear.                                or that
Coyote, watching from behind a stump, knew very well that these were
only early maneuvers in a battle that could be slightly delayed but never
won with such methods. The furry bodies that lay on the open ground
between the canyons and the walls spoke eloquently of that. Some of them
were his own kin. Some of them were Bear's kin. Some had been speaking
beasts. There were not enough speaking beasts in the world to trade for
these walkers.
Coyote found his sight Wavering, ducked his head to paw at his eyes. Was
this what men knew as weeping? Such foolishness. Now, when he needed
clear sight above everything.

      Arakny had found Wide Mountain Mother awake and alert, and had conveyed to her the essence of what was known about walkers. Helmets must be padded around the ears, she said, for walkers were capable of a Sound that killed. Also, it was important to stay away from them, out o~' their grip. They would not be enticed from the wall by rage, which was a good thing. Many of them could be killed where they stood, if the Artemis/an warriors stayed far enough back.
"And how do we do that?" Wide Mountain Mother asked.
     Arakny went down the list Abasio had given her. "Their eyes are vulnerable to a direct hit by an arrow or spear, provided there's considerable force in the blow. They'll burn, if they can be bit with SOmething clinging and inflammable. They can be SOmewhat crippled by removal of their limbs with an ax, though their hands and arms are independently motivated and they can walk on them as well as upon their legs. To cripple them Completely, all four limbs need to be removed.',
    "In short," said Wide Mountain Mother, "they are extremely difficult to kill. What would happen if we merely left them to their carnage and departed this place'?"


392                              Sheri S. Tepper

Arakny spoke of weapons and Ellel and an earth enslaved under a tyrant once more, just now when all tyrants were gone.
    "I hope there'll be enough humans left alive to celebrate our funerals," said Mother. ~'I had hoped to live yet awhile."
    By dawn, most of the warriors were equipped with helmets with padding over the ears, and the best marksmen were arrayed nearest the walker lines. The ax was not a traditional ArtemisJan weapon, but every man and woman in the country knew how to fell trees and split wood, so there were axes aplenty in the Artemisian host. The battle began with a slow practice of marksmanship, during which the warriors of Artemisia discovered how difficult it was to hit the eyes of something that could move as fast as the walkers did. It was not long before the doctors of the Artemisians had many wounded to treat, and many who were past treating.
    The gangers, meantime, had come up the canyon wall to the slope beneath the Place of Power. All the fire weapons the gangers had were distributed among the front rank, and as soon as it was light enough, the assault began.
    Deep in the forest to the west a dozen walkers moved in swift pursuit of three Heroes. At the mouth of a vertically walled arroyo, the Heroes turned tail and fled, using the full speed of their horses to take them out of reach of the walkers. By this time, the only motivation the walkers retained was to destroy the prey before them. Guarding the wall was a distant duty to which they would return when this task was over. Looking neither right nor left, the walkers ran down the arroyo, keeping the Heroes in sight.
    At a narrow turn in the canyon, the Heroes vanished. At that same turn, a sound from above brought the walkers' eyes up too late. Behind a fragile barricade of logs, stones had been piled, and now the ropes holding the barricade had been chopped through. The stones came down, knocking others loose on the slope below them to create an avalanche that buried the walkers beneath it. One of them struggled at the edge, like an ant, buried to its chest but with its arms still free. With incredible strength, it began to pull itself from beneath the stones.
    A Hero rode back to the stone pile, cut off the arms, then cut off the head. The walker still lived. Its red eyes still gleamed, the arms still moved {ff themselves, scrabbling.
    "They're still alive under there," the Hero called up the hill. "Eventually, they're going to get out!"
    "I know," said the giant at the top of the hill. "But the rocks will hold them for a while."
    Methodically, he began piling stones behind another cradle, to await the arrival of the next victims.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            393

    To the south, walkers followed bears into deep, dark, much-ramified caves from which the Bears emerged by other exits, leaving the walkers lost in darkness below, their infrared vision useless where all was chill stone. Others followed moose, who decoyed them far up into high meadows beside marshy lakes where they sank deep into the ooze, unable to extricate themselves. Walkers, the animals told one another eagerly, delighted at the knowledge, could not swim.
    Still, there were bears who did not return, moose who did not return. Their numbers fell faster than the number of walkers. Animals had only their natural fleetness as protection. They were as overmatched by the walkers as they always had been by weapon-bearing men. It was not a fair fight. Those who had designed the walkers had not thought in terms of fair fights.
    Below the southern wall, a frantic Coyote leaped and darted on three legs, one dangling uselessly, barely keeping out of a persistent walker's hands. He tripped and rolled, coming to rest with an uncontrollable yelp of pain when the shattered bone encountered an outcropping.
    "About time," he mumbled to himself dazedly, catching sight of a troll form looming over the walker's shoulder. "Someone mentioned our getting helps"
    "Talk!" grunted Bear, as he punished the walkers with great blows of his claws before turning to flee. "Fight more. Talk less."
    Coyote did not reply. His fighting days were past. His talking days as well, it seemed. The walker was getting up again. They seemed always to get up again. The troll was too far away to be of immediate help. He put his head between his paws and waited for the walker to deliver the final blow.
    On his way past, Bear scooped him up with one huge and bleeding paw and thundered down the slope into a canyon, where he lcd the pursuing walker into the jaws of a waiting wivem.
    "Thanks," muttered Coyote to Bear, his vision blurring in and out, like fog.
"Anytime," said the wivern, munching.

    North of the walls, the monsters fought with claw and jaw, with whipping tail and biting talon. Fire belched from dragon maws; huge clubs thudded to the earth with monstrous regularity, each blow signifying another walker crushed. Though they seemed for a time imperi, ious to the walkers' bonebreaking blows and untroubled by wounds that would kill ordinary creatures, slowly they, too, began to weaken.
    Not soon enough for the walkers, who began to keen, a sound their creators would have recognized as one of frustration. Walkers had been built to deal


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with creatures more powerful than these! They had programs and weapons they had not yet used, programs that had been glossed and covered with others, inhibitions and taboos that both Jark III and Ellel had inflicted upon them. Now, faced with the possibility, however remote, of losing a battle, those inhibitions began to flake away, a bit at a time, gradually revealing what lay beneath.

    While in Fantis, Abasio had managed to avoid real fighting for some years, and he found himself woefully out of practice, praying to someone or something that the walkers confronting him wouldn't make what he thought of as The Noise until he, Abasio, could get Tom out of reach. So long as the walkers confined themselves to using their hands, feet, and bodies only, he might manage to stay alive. This thought had no sooner occurred to him than one of the walkers kicked Abasio's legs from under him and then raised its armored foot to crush Abasio's skull. One of the gangers flung himself at the walker, knocking him aside. Before the thing could retaliate, a beam from the top of Gaddi House decapitated it, as well as several other walkers who were fortuitously grouped just behind it. The bodies went on moving, however, striking out blindly in every direction, and several desperate moments went by before Abasio got Tom free of them, somewhat battered and bloodied in the fray.
     Tom set up his device on an outcropping of rock, and while he twiddled with it, Abasio and a dozen gangers surrounded him. One of the men handed Abasio a power lance he'd picked up from some fallen ganger, and he faced outward, wishing Tom would accomplish something better than he had managed thus far. Every now and then Tom would hit a frequency that made one or more walkers explode with a loud noise, a stink, and a gout of fire. The explosions seemed to occur at random, some nearby, some farther away. Some walkers exploded while they were attacking, but some that were uninvolved exploded as well. It wasn't good enough. The humans were tiring even as the walkers seemed to be getting better and better at killing them!

    From the Gaddi House roof, Mitty supervised the use of the weapons he had brought there, jumping about from one to another, advising, experimenting, cursing, and pulling circuits apart, only to reconnect them and try again.
Berkli watched him.
"Mitty," he said tentatively.
Mitty waved a hand and went back to his weapons.
"Mitty," said Berkli again.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            395

Mitty put down the tool he had been using and came over. "What'?"
      "I've been watching over the north wall. Some of the walkers are acting
differently. I think that thing has happened you were afraid of.""Oh, for the love of--"
"Well, you can look for yourself."
    Mitty did so, hanging over the parapet at the northeastern corner of Gaddi House. The walkers were no longer stretched in a thin line along the wall. Here and there, they were forming up in military fashion. Here and there, two or more of the creatures opened parts of their bodies and joined them to the bodies of others, becoming something larger and obviously more deadly. Mitty didn't need to have the matter explained. He knew that not even the monsters would be able to stand against them once they had reverted.
    "Qualary told me Ellel controls the things from a closet in her quarters," said Berkli from close behind him. "I've been thinking, that's really where we ought to be."
"We can't reprogram--"
"Surely there's some way to turn them off!"
    Mitty gave him a look of combined surprise and respect. He himself had not thought of that!

    Before leaving, Ellel had called together several young Family members who were known zealots and faithful followers. She had given them weapons and a key to her quarters, with instructions to go there at the first sign of any revolt and hold the rooms against invasion.
    Shortly after hostilities had begun at dawn, some Ellels and Anders had taken up whatever weapons were at hand and had gone to fight the Artemisians and gangers, plunging through the gates with a fine disregard for the reality of the situation. They were surprised and dismayed when they came under fire from the walkers and were pinned down outside the gates. While these Domers were putting themselves at risk, Ellel's zealots had barricaded themselves in Ellel's apartment to await whatever happened. Strangely enough, nothing happened for some little time, and they were growing weary of their duty and hungry for news by the time the guard they had left at the end of the corridor dived through the door to announce the approach of Berkli, Mitty, and a half-dozen other men.
    Two Ellel adolescents had been stationed at either side of the door. "Are they going to attack us?" one of them asked the other. "Should we attack them?"
    The youngster he queried answered the question by firing an indiscriminate burst down the corridor.


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Sheri S. Tepper

    "We could have asked them first," said the other, plaintively. "We don't even know what's happening."
    The Berkli-Mitty group fetched makeshift barriers and, pushing these ahead of them, came far enough down the corridor to be heard.
    "When the walkers come in, they're going to kill us all," shouted Mitty. "I don't care what Ellel told you. The walker programming is breaking down! Remember how the children were killed in the marketplace? They're all behaving that way now, and they'll kill you just as dead as they'll kill us!"
     There was a momentary lull in the firing from inside before the youth who
had shot first shouted an obscene reply and let loose a fusillade. Those in the corridor waited for the firing to die down. "Idiots," muttered Mitty.
    "He's telling you the truth!" Berkli cried. "If one of you would like to go look over the eastern wall, we'll give you safe passage."
    This time a considerable pause, during which those in the corridor could hear voices raised, some angry, some plaintive. A pale young face thrust itself around the doorframe. "I'11 go look," said the young man in a voice that squeaked.
"Fine," said Mitty. "But hurry up about it."
    He scuttled past, so intent upon glaring at them that he came hlmost to a stop.
    Berkli said, "You're Varis Ellel, aren't you'? Well, hurry. Ellel won't want to come back and find her whole Family dead!"
The youngster's eyes widened, and he scampered off.
"Varis?" asked Mitty.
    "I get him mixed up with his brother," sighed Berkli. "Twins, about fourteen. Ellel's best followers are about that age. They have good minds and no experience. I was that age once. 1, too, thought I could remedy the world with a little direct action."
"What's keeping him!" demanded Mitty.
A few long moments passed. "Here he comes," said Berkli.
    The youngster came at top speed. "They are!" he cried. "They're killing Ellels and Anders outside the gate!"
    He went on, and again they heard voices raised from inside. Shortly an arm emerged, waving a towel, and the youngsters trailed out, half a dozen of them.
    "We didn't know," they said apologetically. "Honestly. Ellel just told us to keep you out of here. We didn't know."
    Mitty had no time for recriminations. He found the locked door to the closet Qualary had spoken of, then he and three of his technicians began arguing how to get into it without setting off anything irreparable.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            397

    Deep in the woods to the west, the stones piled high upon the walkers began to shake and tumble. The earth vibrated, as though a volcano were erupting, and a tower of dust rose from the rock pile. A walker arm emerged, then a walker head, then a walker entire, who began dismantling the rock pile and letting the buried soldiers loose once more.
    Above them on the wall of the canyon, weary Heroes glanced at one another in what would have been called despair among men less brave. They turned their horses and rode back toward the city. Perhaps someone there had thought of something else to try.
    So close to the wall that he was unseen from above, Abasio brandished his power lance and muttered every filthy word known to gangers as he parried and thrust and dodged and leaped. Tom's device would have been very useful if the man could just aim the damned thing. Eventually, the number of walkers destroyed might add up to something. No doubt they had already disposed of several dozen, but meantime, all he, Abasio, could do was try to keep them at a distance while Tom kept yelling, "Give me a minute, just a minute, I ought to get a bunch with this, a bunch, just give me a minute..."
    A new sound obtruded on the cacophony of battle, a high voice that cut through the clangor, the grunting, and the shouting with crystalline clarity:
    "Abasio, Abasio, Abasio the Cat!" the voice shrilled, a cry taken up by a hundred other voices.
    Abasio glanced up. Across the heads of the walkers he saw a waving banner and a high chair carried on the shoulders of heaving men. CummyNup was carrying the banner, and Sybbis was standing in the chair, pointing toward him. She shouted again, and her bearers turned in his direction bellowing, "Abasio, Abasio the Cat!"
    The momentary distraction had been all the walkers needed. Abasio was struck from one side and felt himself falling endlessly down into a scarletblack maelstrom.
    In the forest, Bear turned on his hind legs, growling a futile challenge, as three of the walkers worked their way closer and closer.
    Coyote lay stunned behind a rock while other animals and monsters ranged across him and around him.
    Black Owl, recumbent, stabbed with his lance at the walker above him. He was lying in a pool of his own blood and did not think he would rise from this place again.
    Wide Mountain Mother watched and cursed while her daughters worked among the bodies of the wounded and slain. At the gate, a clot of Ellels and Anders tried to flee back through the gate


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Sheri S. Tepper

and were pursued by walkers who then began attacking every person they saw inside the Place.
    And in Ellel's closet, Mitty sweated, cursed, and said over his shoulder to Berkli, "I wish you'd thought of this earlier, Berkli. I wish it hadn't taken so long to get into the closet. I wish I'd been quicker figuring out what this
thing is set for. Really, you should have thought of this first.""I know," growled Berkli. "Will you hurry!"
    "I have hurried. Well, as they say, do or die. This is it, or we're all dead!"
He punched in a signal, then another, and another yet.
    Inside and outside the wall the walkers staggered. They moaned. They stopped. They gazed sightless, at nothing. They cried out, a vast inhuman cry of loss or despair or some totally indecipherable feeling, perhaps only an enormous severance, and fell. Row on row. Rank on rank. Black helmets and red and gold, like beads from a necklace, dropping like wheat from the scythe, eyes going blank, voices going mute, falling down in their hordes.
    From the top of the sky the Griffin stooped, screaming, dropping in a great flurry of scaled wings at the foot of the wall near where Tom Fuelry still crouched over his device. Any view of those fallen there was lost under the flailing of great wings and a tangle of Gaddirs and gangers, struggling to rise.
      The Griffin rose again, half seen through a cloud of dust. It arrowed away
to the north.Silence.
Silence utter. As though the world held its breath.

    Sybbis leaped to the ground and ran to the place Abasio had been, pulling and tugging as she searched among the bodies, crying Abasio's name. Where was he? Who could tell if he was there or not? There were bodies in the pile who might be Abasio. Faces were disfigured, torsos and limbs were mangled.
    "Abasio!" she screamed. The gangers took up the cry, making the canyon ring with the sound.
    "He not here," said CummyNup, as he sadly rummaged among the fallen. "He dead, Sybbis."
    She had tears on her face. Over the past days, she had built him into something more than merely mortal, something that could not be allowed to die. "Not!" she cried, whirling to face her followers. "Gone, not dead. Basio the Cat, he got nine lives. Basio, he can't die."
    "Gone," they cried obediently, exalted by the moment., "Gone, not dead." Above them on the road the feathered warriors caught their breaths and


n they

)u/der taken I this

A PLAGUE OF ANGELs
                                                                                   399 raised their own war cry. From beyond them, away south, Came a howling
and yelping of animal packs, and from farther yet Came the bell-like noise at' SWord hilts striking shields.
As they turned about and Worked their slow Way northward
  Wilderness and forest lairs, even the monsters sang                        into the rocky
    l~erkli clapped Mitty on the                              an
wept Unashamedly.               back, Wordlessly, then hugged the man and
Deep in Gaddi House,            awful paean of victory.
to and fro.                     the old man bowed his head and shook it slowly
  "Pity," he said. "Always, Such a pity."


~ate afternoon, wearing on to the close of a sunless day. Sparse snow, whirling, refusing to settle. Blood turning to dark ice; the wounded cursing or crying out as they are lifted and carried away to warmer places beside hastily built fires, where skilled Gaddirs or Artemisians are gathered to offer succor. Bodies chilling into death as other Artemisians and gangers move sadly among the slain. Everywhere the slink of walkers, their rigid forms, their staring eyes. They are not dead or dying. They are merely inactivated. Merely quiescent. Firelight reflects from their red orbs, giving an appearance of life, and rescuers shudder, looking hastily elsewhere.

    In the Place of Power, Ellels mutter in their homes, speaking of their leader's rage when she returns to find what has happened. They are impotent. Every Ellel with any capacity for leadership is on the shuttle. Anders huddle in their pavilion, speaking worriedly of the strange alliance the day has brought forth. Forsmdoth Ander is among them. Though he should have gone, a last-moment


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            401

indisposition (so he said) prevented it. Now he moves restlessly among his kindred, trying to draw the severed lines of power into his own hands.
    Only certain Mittys and Berklis are out, working methodically from fallen walker to fallen walker, each of them armed with a small, hastily built device that will, so says The Mitty, do more than merely deactivate. The walkers, wherever they are, must be located one by one and once and forever killed, their bodies dragged to a rocky pit, and in that place, burned.

    In the control section of the shuttle, Ellel awakes from a days-long sleep. Ander is no longer beside her. He has gone to his own space to rest; at least, the telltale before her says that space number two is occupied, so she assumes he is resting.
    She yawns, leaning forward to look out the windows onto the universe. There before her something sparkles, something glitters, something not natural, a created thing, a gem against the darkness of heaven. Beyond it is the luminous slice of the moon, a slender arc, rimming the earth's shadow.
    Tiny explosions of joy erupt inside her, like the explosions of firecrackers, one after another, little poplets of happiness. Herself, here, as she planned to be. The station there, growing visibly larger as she watches. The moon, lovely in its pearly splendor. Soon she will be there, she and her walkers, and her people. The weapons will be dismantled and stowed aboard. Perhaps some walkers and people will stay on the station. There have been'discussions of that possibility. And there will be walkers on the moon!
    The station is closer. It looks much as she has envisioned it, much as the plans describe it. A huge wheel spinning in space, attached by four spokes to an unmoving hub where the shuttle will dock. And there, protruding from the unmoving hub, are the particular things she is most interested in. The mighty sun cannons that will make her invincible upon earth, their lenses glittering, almost as though in greeting.
    "Oh, Daddy!" she murmurs in her delight. "Look at them! Will you look at them!"
    To her eyes they have an elegance, a simplicity that she finds lovely. According to the accounts she has seen, they were tested on earth before they were installed here, so she knows they will work on earth as they do here. With considerably less efficiency, true, but they will work. Of all possible earthly opponents, only the Edgers have worried her until now. The Edgers are enigmatic. They are self-contained and self-satisfied. But when the Edgers know she has these, they will not dare stand against her. Not for long, at any rate.
    And there, nearby--the unfinished starship! Just as she has been told. Actually, it is less finished than she hoped, but still--nothing that can't be


402                              Sheri S. Tepper

managed. Later. What a pity Ander didn't stay here in the control section. He won't be able to see from where he is! She thinks of waking him and discards the notion. This time is too precious. She thinks of arousing Daddy and letting him watch the approach, discarding this notion as well. Recreating him was an indulgence. It was a kind of madness. She has known that all along, but when she could not let the world see the reality of Empress Evel, she needed that secret source of support and confirmation. What happened to her face, her body, had not dissuaded her. But now she laughs abruptly at revelation. Here, now, she doesn't need him anymore!
    Slowly, slowly, the station comes closer, the great wheel growing until it occupies the entire window, until she can see only part of it: the hub, to her left, its bay gaping.
    She shifts uncomfortably. The shuttle should be coming directly into that bay, but instead it seems aimed at the empty space between hub and wheel. A spoke of that wheel slides across her vision. Space. Space. Another spoke slides by, closer. Space. Space. And a spoke yet again, almost touching the shuttle! Barely clearing before the shuttle moves past it!
     The shuttle has gone past! Past the station! It has slid between two spokes of the wheel with contemptuous ease. Leaving the station behind.
     Frantically, Ellel brings the rear viewers onto the screen, verifying what she already knows. The station is behind them. They have not stopped at the station.
     Has the fool girl misunderstood? Does she believe they intended to go to the moon first'? Surely not!
     Ellel releases her belt, flinging herself up with such force, she bumps her head on the panel above herself. She pulls her way toward the guidance booth. The girl still sits, as unmoving as before. Did Ander give her some other instruction'? Is this his fault'? Breathing hard, Ellel goes on by, back past the toilets and the galley into the living space, stopping aghast at the sight of her own door open. Unlocked and open. And inside, exposed to the
 view of anyone, everyone, what has been her own secret.Ander! Who else but Ander'?
     Raging, she goes past, to the second cubicle, stops at the open door, storms in, then catches herself with a scream of half-fury, half-surprise as floating red globules stir in the air she has disturbed by her entry, wobble and bump against her, to break stickily against her clothing, against her skin, staining her with blood.
     Blood. Ander's blood. And he, bobbing around the space like an unwieldy balloon. And the door beyond his open, and the next. All of them, open.
     Raging, screaming, she goes down the long tubelike corridor, seeing in every cubicle the same, bodies still strapped into bunks with great globules


(Continued from lront llap)

                              A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            403
of blood floating everywhere. Dead. All of them dead. Anders and Ellels
both!
Howling, she catapults back to the guidance booth. Her hand on the girl's
wrist. No pulse. Her hand on the girl's neck. No pulse. Her hand on the
breast. No breath. The girl is no longer living. Despite the hostages, the girl
has brought them this far and then died. Died!
And there, behind her ear, a small wound. A tiny, precise wound. Unlike
the other carnage, this wound has bled hardly at all.
Was it Artder who did this? Ander who did all this?
A chuckling sound. She looks up to see the bird, the strange bird, the bird
with the rapier beak sitting upon a pipe that runs along the central corridor.
There is blood upon its beak, and it is watching her.
Ander did not do this.
Stunned into utter quiet, El/el looks out the glassy panes once more in the
direction of their flight, seeing all too clearly where they are going. Their
impetus will take them past the moon, beyond the moon, and on toward the
silent mockery of the oh-so-distant stars.
Behind her, the guardian-angel chuckles sadly once more.

      The former hostages had assembled on the terrace above the canyons, to lean upon the parapet while Nimwes and Qualary set out tea and hot soup, and Tom, with bandaged head and arm, fumbled with the controls of the air screen that warmed the place. His Wisdom was there, and a scatter of Gaddirs.
      "Did your Hero survive?" His Wisdom asked Oracle and Drowned Woman, who were huddled together over their teacups.
     "We don't know," said Oracle. "Someone said they're tending their own wounded, but no one has come to say who lived and who died."
     "Ah," said His Wisdom. "And what of Bear and Coyote and our other talkative friends, Tom?"
     Tom shrugged and replied wearily, "I don't know, sir. Give me a minute, and I'll go find out."
     In a bleak voice Arakny said, "When the battle ended, I went down to speak with Wide Mountain Mother, and she told me Black Owl is dead. Oily and Abasio knew him." She did not speak of the other wounded or dead, many of whom she herself knew well.
    At her mention of Oily and Abasio, a tiny ripple of movement ran through the group: pained shifts and glances, compressed lips, a wiping of sudden tears. Oily was gone, and Abasio had been killed at the foot of the wall.
    "I was amazed to see giants fighting on our side," murmured Oracle to no one in particular. "I had not foreseen such a thing."


404                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "I don't think they were fighting on our side out of any sense of conviction or alliance," said Tom, half-angrily. "I think they were just doing what Griffin told them to do."
    "Orphan told me a little story about a griffin, a long time ago," mused Burned Man. "Remember, Oracle?"
    She shook her head, unable or unwilling to remember, stubbornly going on with her train of thought. '~I had not thought there were so many monsters abroad upon the earth."
    "There were caverns full of them in the deep," said Tom. "Werra's creatures from the time of legend. His Wisdom tells me such things are not allowed to die or become extinct. The pattern for them remains. Werra had freed some of them before he died, to build their numbers upon earth, but
before Olly left, she must have decided to turn them all loose.""You say they were Werra's creatures?"
    "Werra's," confirmed old Seoca. "All the legendary creatures, part beast, part demon, part divine. Designed to illustrate the unity of life and destiny. And man started with them well enough. He had man stories and women stories and animal stories, man gods and woman gods and beast gods. But~ over time, only the rutting rooster gods survived."
"Cock-a-doodle," whispered Oracle sadly. "Crouch, you hens." "Speaking of creatures," said Drowned Woman in a surprised voice, think one of them is coming here." She pointed out across the parapet, over the canyons, where a great winged thing, so distant it looked no larger than an eagle, was approaching them from the east.
     "Griffin," said Tom needlessly, for there was no mistaking that lionlegged, heavily maned form.
     They watched silently as it flew toward them, as it rose above them and folded its wings to drop down upon the parapet, holding its wings high, the long ribs vertically together behind its head so all they could see of it was its head, mane, and frontquarters, like some great heraldic escutcheon. It regarded them severally, then individually, peering at them one by one as though taking roll. Only His Wisdom seemed totally at ease before this scrutiny.
     "Not eating you," said the Griffin at last, as it had said to Oily in the long ago, when she was only a child.
     "I know," said the old man. ~'You have fought a good fight today, great one."
     "A forced alliance, but necessary," said the Griffin, leaning sidewise to whet its beak against the parapet, one edge, then the other, with a sound like steel on a grindstone. "There will be other battles in future times, me and my kin, both close and distant. Now is our time come again."
"Yes," intoned the old man, as though it were ritual. "Now are scttt


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            405

monsters and heroes abroad upon the earth; now are sent the inhabitants of faery and the beings qffable; now a new age of legends is ushered in."
    "Now have the thrones brought balance once more," said Griffin, as in response. "Now they may rest."
    The old man gave the Griffin a thoughtful look. "I wonder if perhaps you have brought us a gift?"
    "A gift, yes," said the Griffin. "In part payment for one little gift returned to me long ago." Slowly, it lowered its wings to disclose the man who sat dazedly within the glistening mane. Drowned Woman cried out, and Farmwife Suttle. Burned Man and old Cermit added to the babble, along with Qualary and Tom. Only the old man and Oracle were quiet as Abasio slid from the Griffin's shoulders onto the parapet.
"I saw you slain!" cried Tom to Abasio. "Struck down!"
"They said you were dead, boy!" cried Cermit.
    "I got pulled out," muttered Abasio, looking around him with searching eyes. "At the last possible moment." He stared into old Seoca's face, fixing him with his gaze. "Where's Oily?"
     The old man shook his head, said softly, "You know where she is, Abasio Cermit."
     "No!" He denied it. "No, that was just a bit-part player. Dressed in Olly's clothes. Saying Olly's words in her voice. Oily didn't~idn't--you wouldn't have let her go!"
Silence. All of them still, waiting for the reply.
     The old man sighed. "Abasio. If the price of a gem is a golden crow, can you buy it for a black-penny? Is all life upon this world so shoddy a thing that it may be bought for a worthless automaton?"
     "She didn't!" Abasio cried. "She wouldn't have left me! She couldn't have!" And then, seeing the old man's face, "But she's coming back!"
     No answer. Abasio backed up until he was pressed tight against the parapet, feeling his knees buckle. He huddled against the parapet wall, his head moving from side to side in constant negation, saying over and over again, "No. No. No."

    Arakny went to Abasio, put her arms around him, and held him. Drowned Woman looked at him sorrowfully, thinking how familiar he looked. Was he indeed her son, as some said?
    "Where did they go?" demanded Originee Suttle, tears of anger and pity in the corners of her eyes. "Really?"
    Oracle answered, "I prophesied for them. I always tell the truth. Those who hear must interpret, of course." She looked down, her mouth twisting. "People always believe what they want to believe."


406                              Sheri S. Tepper

     Arakny held out her hand, invoking silence. "But what of that prophecy? Olly's seven questions. Did she answer them?"
    It was Tom who spoke. "She said you would want to know, Arakny. She told me to tell you. Yes, she answered the questions Hunagor and Werra asked her. Who she was, and who they two were. What the three thrones are, and who the four families are who chewed at them. She foresaw the five armies of champions; she knew of the six set upon salvation, and from
both champions and earth-menders she took her hope and her resolution." "And the seventh question?" Oracle demanded.
Abasio raised his head, his face haggard and drained of all emotion.
      Tom paused, his voice doubtful, "She said--the thrones wanted to know
 ú.. if she considered her life well spent. She told them yes, she did." From Abasio, a wordless howl of rejection.
    "We spoke of that once," the Farmwife mused, tears in her eyes. "We spoke of people finding out who they are. And was she only for this, then? What was the purpose of it all?"
    The old man said softly, "The purpose of it all was to reverse the chain of events that began when Jark the Third uncovered a cavern full of bionic warriors, made by man during the Age of Great Wars. With that discovery, a chain of probability was rejoined, a chain we Gaddirs were seeking to disrupt, a chain begun by man that would have ended all life on earth."
    "We are only just saving it from the time before," Arakny said. "We're just getting it growing again!"
"Ellel was that dangerous?" asked the Farmwife. "One woman?"
    His Wisdom nodded slowly. "Had she returned from her voyage with weapons from the space station, yes. Had she sent someone else to get them, yes. Had she remained here even without them, yes. To interrupt the chain of events, she had to leave her army and take with her all the Ellels who
might rise up in her place. Yes, she was very dangerous.""Why didn't you just kill her!" cried Abasio.
    The old man sighed. "Natural law, my boy. When a tyrant is simply killed, another rises up. The very act of violence causes them to copse, like trees. Quietly, quietly, one has to dig out the root."
"Did you know all this?" Qualary asked Tom. "Did you'?"
    "Only bits and pieces of it," he said, with a flush and a shrug. "His Wisdom knew all of it."
"Is that why we were friends? Just so~"
    "Just so nothing," said His Wisdom, firmly. "Tom was assigned to get to know you, yes. He was not assigned to lie to you or mislead you. His feelings for you, whatever they may be, are his own, and I know him to be a sincere and honest man."
Qualary flushed in turn.            ~


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            407

"And now?" asked the Griffin.
"And now what?" Abasio cried in an anguished voice. "What's left!"
      "And now, I have an errand down below," said His Wisdom. "Because
you are a collector of information, Arakny, you should come." Slowly, unwillingly, she nodded. "I, too," said the Griffin.
"Yes," said His Wisdom. "And you, Abasio."
    Abasio shook his head. He wanted nothing more to do with these people who had let Oily go, or this place that had swallowed her up.
    "Oily asked me to take you," said the old man, his eyes fixed on Abasio's huddled form. "Come, now."
    Abasio rose, unable to resist the adamantine will in the old man's voice, unwilling to resist any request Oily had made.
    Tom rose to accompany them, but His Wisdom smiled. "No, Tom. You don't need to come along. You and Qualary see to our other guests. We won't be long."
    The old man's chair whirred out into the corridor, and then went swiftly, by ways wide enough and ramps easy enough for the Griffin's wings and claws, to an enormous lift that Abasio knew he had never seen before, thence downward, arriving in mere moments near to the vaultlike door Abasio so well remembered.
    The old man opened it, taking far less time than Tom had done. The pillars stood as they had stood before. The tracks leading among them showed faintly in the dust, winding as before. When they came at last to the open space before the dais, Abasio and Arakny saw that the light was dimmer than it had been. The thrones should have been harder to see, except that they glowed with a pale light of their own. The woman who sat on the lefthand throne smiled a slow welcome as they arrived, as did the man on the center throne.
    "Hunagor," said the old man, nodding to the left-hand figure. "Werra," as he nodded to the center figure. "Some friends have come to see me off."
    "Librarian," the thrones said, a word that took forever, nodding in their turn, a nod that took even longer. "Great One," and a nod to the Griffin. And then, while both of them looked at Abasio, Hunagor spoke alone: "Great-grandson."
    Abasio shuddered, started to speak, stopped, unable to form words. He stood paralyzed as all the creatures on the stone, in the stone, making up the stone, seemed to greet him, to nod and smile or speak, though Abasio could not tell whether they had actually done so or merely intimated it in some fashion.
"Well," sighed the old man. "It's done."
"Old friend," they said. "Welcome."


408                              Sheri S. Tepper

All the creatures on the thrones echoed welcome.
     Seoca leaned forward, struggling to get his legs under him and rise from the chair that had carried him so long. Arakny came to help him, and at a commanding glance from her, Abasio supported his other side. There was sweat on her forehead, and her hands were clammy when he touched them. They half-lifted the old man onto the low dais and helped him walk to the right-hand throne, where he sat down with a sigh that seemed to breathe throughout the hall for long moments after it was done, a little wind, a dying wind.
     "Look at us," the old man whispered. "Don't turn your head away. Hunagor is your great-grandmother. Werra is Olly's father. She wanted you to know about us. Look at us!"
    Reluctantly, backing away slow step by slow step, Abasio forced himself to look at them. From the backs and arms and bases of the thrones, the carved creatures returned his gaze. Tentacled creatures and winged ones. Creatures with many legs. Bloblike things with no discernible features. Lizardlike beings. All of them watching him as he watched them, each of them seeming to say, "Look at me. See me. Understand me. You are of our
kindred. She you loved understood me. Now you too.""So you begin again," chanted His Wisdom softly.
    The Griffin quoted: "'Now are sent monsters and heroes abroad upon the earth; now are sent the inhabitants of faery and the beings of fable; now a new age of legends is ushered in. Now may the thrones depart.'"
    Abasio barely heard, for the creatures on the thrones still held his eyes, willing him to understand. Understand what'?
    He met Hunagor's eyes. She looked up, lifting his gaze to the back of the throne, above her head, where her name was carved. Hunagor. And above the man's, Werra. And above the old man's, Seoca.
    Hunagor. Werra. Seoca. The words writhed and twisted like snakes, reforming before his eyes.
Hunagor. Werra. Seoca.
    Visions came to him, rising out of those words: Forests become deserts, the bloated bellies of starvation, the scorched earth of bombed cities, thc hideous faces of IDDIs. Famine. Death. Plague. Earth itself endangered by man. Man himself a plague, to be attacked like a plague, to be killed by
whatever means the thrones could find. Hunagor. Werra. Seoca. Hunger! War! Sickness!
His breath caught in his throat. He felt himself grow cold.
    "Go, now," said the old man, looking from Abasio to Arakny and the Griffin and back again to Abasio. "Go, my boy."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS
409
Abasio's breath left him explosively.
        Arakny took him by the shoulder and drew him back toward the pillars. Before them, the Griffin was bent into a profound obeisance. The thrones hummed. The Griffin turned and came after them, a wild amber light burning in its eyes. A wavering effulgence gathered around the thrones, and those sitting there began to melt into the stone, joining that throng of others who had melted into those thrones throughout aeons of time.
       Abasio was chill and rigid with protest. He did not believe. He would not believe. He was not thinking. He had willfully turned his mind off. He did not wish to think of anything, particularly not of this.
       They fled, following the Griffin out among the pillars, out into the corridor. Behind them the low humming intensified, a sound growing slowly and steadily in volume. The Griffin thrust the great door closed with one push of a mighty wing.
"We are friends, Abasio Cermit," said the Griffin. "For her ake. Abasio choked on the words. "For her sake."              s    " "Go that way, swiftly! I have my own way out." The Griffin pointed with one wingtip, then went away itself, down the long corridor to the right, striding like a lion, wings folded behind it.
      The great engine noise had abated, though not the vibration they could feel through the soles of their feet. They ran in the direction the Griffin had indicated, coming to the open lift they had used to descend. They leaped inside it, felt it lunge upward, fidgeted impatiently as it rose up and up and
  up into the more familiar purlieus of Gaddi House."What's happening?" mumbled Abasio.
     "I'm not certain," Arakny muttered as the engine noise from below increased, grew to a steady mutter, then to a subdued roar that made the walls shake. "But the librarian in me says we've probably reached the end of one book and the beginning of another."
The doors opened, and they staggered together along the familiar corridor
to His Wisdom's quarters, where they found the others crouched along walls or clinging to doorframes, trying to stand or sit while the entire structure shuddered around them. The tremors went on and on, a constant vibration that made their teeth chatter and their muscles rebel, ripping them away from their holdfasts and tumbling them about on the floor like rocks in an avalanche among a clutter of furniture and broken crockery.
    Until all at once, without diminution or aftershock, the noise and shaking simply stopped, absolutely and utterly. They lay in an enormous silence, for a moment without even the sound of breathing, then gasped as they realized they'd been holding their breaths.
    Tom Fuelry heaved air into his lungs and demanded, 'Where is His Wisdom?"                                         ,


410                              Sheri S. Tepper

    "Where?" cried Nimwes, sounding both angry and afraid, her question echoed by others of the Gaddirs.
"Below," said Abasio. "With his friends."
"I'll go," said Tom, rushing out. "You shouldn't have left him." Nimwes ran after him. Arakny started to follow, but Oracle caught at her shoulder, shaking her head. "Let them see. They'll need to see for themselves."
Arakny turned, patting her pockets, muttering.
"What is it?" Oracle asked.
    "I just remembered! Oily took my library. I forgot to get it back from her. i wanted to record, to make note~ to~"
    Outside the room, Tom ran toward one of the secret lifts, one he had used a thousand times. He bumped himself against an unfamiliar panel and stood back, rubbing his head. Where the self-opening door should have been was only blank wall. He shook his head, baffled, angry, frightened, while Nimwes cried from behind him. Well, there was another one not far away, where this corridor crossed another beside a ramp.
    He ran. She ran. The crossing was there. The ramp was there. The door wasn't. The lift wasn't.
    There was a door, one of the big doors, down two levels! He flung himself at the ramp, Nimwes still pursuing, stumbling two levels down, almost falling in his haste. The door was gone. The whole door, the entire, huge, complicated door. Where it had stood was only blank wall! Wall! Everywhere walls !
    All the ways were closed. All the routes he had used all the years of his life were gone. The ways his father had shown him. Portals he had opened time after time were gone, nothing remaining to show where they had been. Lifts he had ridden in were gone. Corridors he had traversed to get from this point to that ended now in different places, against different barriers. Gaddi House was no longer as it had been.
     When they returned, there was blood upon their fingertips where they had pressed again and again at unyielding stone. From the adjacent room, the others heard their voices raised in a long, confused lament, while Nimwes cried heartbrokenly. "He didn't tell me good-bye!"
     Qualary, not understanding anything that had happened, cried, "When Ellel gets back--when she gets back, she'll lind all her walkers gone. She'll find things changed. She hates that. She'll be so angry."
     Oracle put her arm around the woman. "Don't worry about that, Qualary. Really, you don't have to worry about that."
     Qualary sniffed, dried her eyes. "She told me you said the stars were Ellel's. Two Families, you said."


A PLAGUE OF ANGELs

                                                                             411 Oracle only patted her shoulder and did not reply. Her eyes were fixed
upon Berkli's, and his Upon hers with dawning awareness.
         Tom's sorrow had reminded Abasio of his own. "I think of her out there," he cried to Oracle. "Going on and on, forever. Hungry. Tired. Maybe in pain."                                                        .
         "No," said Oracle. el~eve me, Abasio, my Orphan's not in pain. She'll never be hungry, or tired, or in pain." She lOOked away from him, her face set and grim.
         He would not let the subject alone. "Do you think Olly's life well spent'?" he demanded angrily. "You sent her here. Was it right'?"
        "You're referring to her so-called seventh question?" Oracle asked fiercely, returning his glare.
"What do you mean, so-called?',
        Oracle snorted. "You didn't believe what Tom said, did you? I mean, he repeated what Oily told him, but she didn't tell him the truth. Those weren't the seven questions she was asked. And those sure as hell weren't the answers she gave."

Abasio merely stared at her, openmouthed.
        eheve me," she snapped. "I know her. Knew her. But with all my oracular powers, I do not yet know the truth about her. Or about you."

The group held too much emotion for it to stay together. Every person in
it felt the need of surcease, quiet, pr/vacy, whether for thought or grief or merely sleep. All of them soon went off in different directions, to homes or rooms or newly offered spaces in the great silence that had come over the Place.
     Abasio went out into this silence, thinking vaguely that he would find a tavern somewhere. In Fantis he had usually sought out a similar sort of place when deeply distressed, but here none seemed to be open. He was near the gate in the great wall when he saw Captain CummyNup Chingero, jeweled and bedecked, accosting this one and that one to ask if anyone there had seen Abasio the Cat or found his body. Abasio darted out, drew CummyNup into the gatehouse, and told him to keep his voice down.
      "You alive!" crowed CummyNup, delighted past measure. "Wait till I
tell that Sybbis!"
   Abasio shuddered. "No, CummyNup! No."
   "You don' wan' I should tell her?"
   "You--look ~,~      .
be       ... ' .......   going to have to go off on a long, long journey.
   gone     years, maybe. You tell Sybb~s that, it would hurt her feelings.
Right?"


412                              Sheri S. Tepper

    CummyNup nodded dismally. It would hurt her feelings, and Sybbis wasn't that easy to get along with even when she was feeling good about things!
    Abasio went on, "But she probably thinks I'm dead, fallen in battle, and that's honorable, right? So she's proud of me. And you can... go on, just the way you are. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" He nodded forcefully, making CummyNup nod along with him.
Nonetheless, CummyNup was doubtful. "She carryin' your baby, Basio."
      "Well..." Abasio made an equivocal gesture. "Maybe. Then again,
 maybe not. I'd be proud to have you be daddy, either way.""I s'pose to say you--'?"
"Dead," said Abasio. "Killed in battle. A hero."
     "No!" CummyNup said stubbornly. "Gone, not dead. Like--well, jus' gone."
     "Just gone," agreed Abasio, thinking of Olly. Why not? If one, why not both? He would be just gone!
     Torn between grief and elation, CummyNup went back to Sybbis and the army. Soon they broke camp and moved away toward the northeast, where they would find an ideal place to settle--so said their resident seer, whom they had requested from an archetypal village, along with an archetypal Lady's Maid for Sybbis and an archetypal Nanny for the child soon to be born. The villages were being sprinkled outward into the world, and archetypes were needed once more.
     Sybbis declared the new settlement would be called Abasiostown, to be ruled by herself and CummyNup until her child, Abasio's child, came of age. It was at her direction that much of the gangets' armamentarium was left behind.
     "We not goin' to fight," she told CummyNup. "Got nobody to fight but us, and we not goin' to. I been talkin' to these Artemisian women. They got things to say that make sense, CummyNup!"
      During recent days, Sybbis had acquired an almost regal dignity, which surprised her only a little less than it did anyone else. She had intended to be Queen of Abasiostown. Now she thought she might call herself Mothermost. Maternally, she extended to CummyNup her invitation that he continue as her consort and her permission for him to fetch Mama Chingero as well as Billibee and Crunch, if they wanted to come live in Abasiostown.

    Berkli and Mitty went up in the Dome to check walker locations on the console. They wanted to be quite sure all had been destroyed. As they were leaving, they were confronted by Forsmooth Ander.
"Berkli," he said in his oleaginous voice. "Mitty."


i,'asll ' t

ags!
, and
jus~
ally,

                                              A PLAGUE OF ANGELs
                      "Forsmooth, ,, they acknowleo~e~.                                                    413
                      "The Anders have been
                  Happening?,,                       talking this OVer. This~what might one say'?
                 "Have you now,', grunted Mitty.
                 "Since none of the other mature Ellels
                 it appropriate lbr me, as temporary                seem to be available, we Consider
                things in general until Ellel and Artder get back.',
                                                          Family head, to take OVer the control of
                 "What things Would those be?" asked Berkli, with dangerous calm.
                 "Why, the shops. The~the ceremonies. You know. ',
                 "Since there are no more Walkers and old Seoca has departed,
              possible reason can there be for continuing the Ceremonies?,,                 what
              "Also, we have turned the orbital telescope                                   Said Mitty.
             see that the shuttle seems                             Onto the
                "Misfired?,,                 to have mistired.,,               Space station, and we
          "Mistired. Or been misdirected. Or SOmething. At any rate, it never reached the station. It seems to be on its Way to Betelgeuse,
           reach in a few hundred or thousand years,              which it will
           shops, they can be managed                             give or take. Now, as for the
          them, and that doesn't, so far Only by pc.opic who know , me ú
          the Family members who Want to enroll in the tec~hn'~i~cUa~rS at all. Any of
          Welcome there, of COUrse.,, as I know, include an-, a~~, so thing about
            Berkli hid a grin behind his                           school will be
                         hand.
            "I don't like Your tone!" Said Forsmooth "I'm
        be able to turn the shuttle around. After all, they have the guidance system!
                                                              ú       SUre Ellel and Artder will
        When they return, we will take the matter up with them.',
          At the mention of the guidance system, Berkli's face had hardened. ,, You
       do that," he said. "While you're waiting, however~and it will be a lengthy
      wait~yøu might get your Family together to decide how they're going to
      make a living in the future, for I'm afraid the
     of the shops is hereby broken.,,                       Domer monopoly on the Output
       ,,Forsmooth stalked away with many flutters of his silken sleevesú
            at Was '~ui'- '                                          .,~ ~v~tty
   ú ~ ,c a pronouncement. About the shops ,,
   "So Was Yours," said Berkli. "But it's high time, even though it means
   the Berklis Will also have to go to Work. We ve lived off the Power of the
Place far too long.',                      ,

The second morning after the battle, Oracle announced a premonition:
All the residents of the Place of Power must leave immediately and go
west, up toward the forests. Gaddirs Went from door to door, advising the


414

Sheri S. Tepper

populace, most of whom took heed, though some Ellels thought it a trick, and some Anders refused to leave their pavilion. Within the hour, people straggled out of the western gates, some of them laden with food and drink and blankets, though Oracle had said they would not need to stay away long.
    The last of them had barely come away from the wall before the earth shook and the Place of Power was obscured behind a wallowing yellow cloud that rose straight up, a citywide pillar, like the trunk of a monstrous tree. The people turned and gaped at the dust cloud as a shifting wind from the west frayed the column into long, drooping branches extending eastward, branches that sagged like spruce boughs as the heavier dust fell out of the wind. Below the earth the tremors continued, to the sound of cataclysmic grindings and quakings.
     Some farsighted few who had climbed trees to get a view cried out that a chasm had opened down the center of the eastern canyon, where it swallowed boulders and trees down its cavernous maw before it closed again like a pair of huge jaws.
     When at last the tremors diminished and stopped, people ran back through the gates, wanting to see what had happened to their homes. Within the walls, the Place remained much as before, except that Gaddi House was gone. Where it had been was only a great heap of yellow-gold rubble that, even as they watched it, flattened and sifted itself into a mere stretch of ochreous dust. Not long afterward, when people went to their homes seeking light and heat, they found that the Power for which the Place had been named was gone also. There were no lights, no machinery moving, no warm rooms. That night the people slept in darkness, except for candles and lanterns and the baleful glow of makeshift braziers.
     Nimwes went off to console her family, and be consoled, as did other of the Gaddir folk.
     "All the shops," grieved Tom to Mitty. "All the machines. I had equipment in there you wouldn't believe! The things I could make! The things 1 could do!"
     "All the power," grieved Mitty to Tom. "All the things I could make! The things I could do!"
     In nowise comforted, they wandered off together, Tom pausing to collect Qualary, all of them looking for somewhere to sit down while they considered options for their futures, beginning with designing some kind of power plant. Hydroelectric, suggested Mitty. Thermoelectric, urged Tom, who knew where there were hot springs. Or perhaps solar.
      Or perhaps, Mitty said, they should consult the Edges. The Edges, as everyone knew, still had power.


A PLAGUE OF ANGELs
Perhaps, Qualary Said, the Edges Would even Welcome new residents of
                 a proper kind.                                                                          415
                   Tom and Mitty grew thoughtful at this SUggestion.

           Abasio, who had been Wandering around trying not to think of anything at all, encountered Arakny near the gate of the Place.

                   own to join Wide M - ú
u aoout my losing m,, ~:~Ountam Mother,', she s-,-' ....
             probably more than a fair trade. ,, She put her              , ~, vc~ everything, it wasg,
                                                    2 ~orary. Though o; ....       , a~u. She's goin
             him. "Besides, I'm dying to tell her all about the thrones and the Griffin
and Olly's prophecy. Not that I           arms around Abasio and hugged "What do you mean,        believe what Oily said to Tom about it."
                                         you don't believe?,,
           ha,d,;aid the same thing!                         . he asked, SUddenly alert. Oracle
                 don't believe that's what the questions were,', she said quietly. ,,/
         believe what she told Tom was just a Story, SOmething to pacify us."
         "Why?', he blurted.
         "Why? Because she didn't want the truth widely told, obviously. Like
         those book-burning teams, altering the past, changing reality. She's not
         telling us what really happened. She knew I'd put it in the library, and she
        didn't want it there. I assume you don't want it there,     .
           "/don't know what you mean."                eitherg',
           "Oh, I think you do. Why not share your impressions of the thrones with
me? I have the Very definite notion that you saw
       I didn't. Heard SOmething                't                 SOmething down there that
      didn't she?"                      I didn hear. HUnagor said SOmething to you,
         Abasio shook his head. "You're Wrong. We
     them, heard them, just as I did."                           were both there. You saw
   She stared at him, tapping her teeth with a thumbnail. "You know, l told
   Oily once that thrones is a name for an order of angels. When one thinks
   of angels, one gets sidetracked with old piciures, feathery wings, trumpets
   and harps, all that. But if you COnsider what an angel really might be, you
   get a different idea. A creature dreadfully powerful and aWesomely old, for
   example. A creature
  perhaps. ,,                 not necessarily at all manlike. A terrible creature,
     Abasio pulled himself together
 know. I wish you'd                        with a shudder. "Look, Arakny, I don't
 repugnant.,,               just drop it. I find the whole thing extremely ..
"That's an odd choice of word."                               '
"Well, it's my choice. Talk about SOmething else. What are you going
to do when you get home, for instance?,,


416                              Sheri S. Tepper

    She refused to be diverted. "As a librarian, there's only one thing I can do. Make a record of what's happened, of course. Write an Olly Longaster song, and have the men's societies create a three-thrones dance. And have a sandpainting designed, with a story to go with it. And refer the question of who and what they were to our philosophical society. All ways of remembering. Why else was a librarian present?"
    Abasio stood watching while she went down the winding road to join her people.
    Later that day the Artemisians broke camp and began their trek eastward, the last of the armies to depart. Orphan's Hero, who had survived along with about half of his colleagues, had learned of a maiden who was to be sacrificed to a giant sea creature in a seaside town far to the west, and he had ridden off posthaste to take care of the matter. He had taken Oracle with him, for the people needed an Oracle where he was going. Before she left, Oracle explained that the villages were breaking up everywhere, and all the archetypes were going off to find their proper places. Princesses to kingdoms or towers. Misers to greasy old houses along slimy waterfronts. Ingenues into troupes of traveling players. This one here and that one there, as needed.
    "What are you going to do?" Qualary asked Abasio when she found him still wandering disconsolately about the Place. "Go back to the farm with your grandpa'?"
    "I don't think so," he said reluctantly. He didn't know what he did want to do, though he was certain of what he didn't. He didn't want to live in Artemisia, though Arakny had invited him. He didn't want to return to the farm. He wasn't going to Abasiostown to steal CummyNup's thunder. If there had been another shuttle, he'd have gone off in it in a moment, on Olly's trail, hopeless though that no doubt was.
    He tried to explain himself to Qualary. "I don't know who she was," he said. "I loved her, but I never knew who she was. The whole world turned on her, but to me she was just the person I loved."
    "None of us knows who other people really are," said Qualary, plaintively. "I think there must be some part of all of us that others never get to. Sometimes we don't get to that part ourselves. Sometimes the feelings I get make me know I have such a part in me: a dreadful strangeness, one that goes back, way back."
Abasio did not find this comforting.
    It was during this time of confusion that Coyote limped three-legged in through the open gate in the late afternoon, sniffed his way about the Place, until he came upon Abasio's trail and eventually Abasio himself.
    "Big Blue's wondering what happened to you. If it wasn't for Bear and me, he'd have starved to death."
Abasio wiped his face with his sleeve and tried to think of a reply. "Who


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS
                                                                                     417 bandaged your leg?" he asked. "I thought you were dead! I thought Bear
was dead!"
        "Well, we're not. No thanks to you. My leg's broken. The Artemisians set it. Besides, I was talking about your horse!"
"I heard," mumbled Abasio. "Is he all right'?"
        "He's all right," drawled Coyote. "Bear and I took him up where the wagon is before that last batch of earthquakes happened. Nice grass ther ."
Abasio considered the              ú
wagon. With Olly's things in it. He didn't know if he could bear to see them
                     wagon. It was h~s and Olly's wagon. Their dy~[s'
again.
       Farmwife Suttle, who had been listening to Coyote with amazed interest, interrupted Abasio's cogitations. "The mention of Big Blue reminds me that Cermit and I should be getting back to our farms. Winter has set in, no doubt, and the folk there will have need of us. Burned Man and Drowned Woman will go with us."
       "You're not paying attention," Coyote yapped, nosing Abasio sharply. "Do you have anything here you need to retrieve?"
      Abasio had nothing he needed to retrieve. When he came to this place, he had carried only a few things. The important ones were all in the pack on his back or in his pockets. Enough to go... where? The only thing he could decide was not to decide.
      He bade his grandpa farewell. "Was your wife's name Hunagor?" he asked.
     "Odd you should mention that," Grandpa replied. "I always called her Honey. But since being here, hearing that other name, it's sounded familiar to me and I've wondered if she was related to this Hunagor I keep hearing about. Why do you ask?"
"Just interested," .said Abasio. "I wondered the same thing."
And finally, having worn out all his delays, he stumbled through the gates
and down the road behind Coyote's limping form. Behind him he heard the industrious babble of people unsettling themselves, the shouts and orders and grumbling of a people cleaning up one mess and moving out to start another. Perhaps not. Maybe not this time.
On the roadway, Abasio's shadow stretched eastward before him, so slen-
der and attenuated that its head fell off the road and bounced along the trees below, a black dot against the yellowish dust that blanketed the forest. As he shuffled along, slowly, so Coyote could keep up, a little wind gusted up to fling the dust along, like clouds of blowing gold, letting it settle again, farther down.
   "It'll take rain to settle that," he said to Coyote.
  "One w'        '
             toter s snow," muttered Coyote. "Most things settle with one
toter s snow.


Sheri S. Tepper

"I guess," said Abasio.
    "So Oily fulfilled her prophecy," commented Coyote. "Five whole armies of champions."
    Abasio stopped still in the middle of the road. "I just thought of something! What happened to her guardian-angel?"
    "It went with the ship. To help her when the job was done," said the Coyote.
    "I don't know where she is," gasped Abasio, feeling the words as pain. "I don't know where she went."
    "You do," said Bear, joining them from among the trees along the canyon side. "She went to the sky. She became a star. She will be there always. We will sing songs about her!"
    Bear had wounds upon his shoulders and painful-looking lacerations on his back. Withal, there was an air of contentment about him.
    As the sun fell below the hills behind them, they reached the gravel run that led from the road back behind the bulwark of stone, the place they had left the wagon hidden. It stood now in full view with Big Blue between the shafts, his harness gleaming, even his hooves oiled and shining as he pawed the ground in welcome. The animals couldn't have done it. Someone with hands had been busy here.
      "Your mother," said Coyote, reading his mind. "She doesn't remember
you, but she remembers Olly, and she knows Oily loved you very much." Abasio swallowed deeply. "You all seem determined to go somewhere."
    "No point in staying here," said Coyote. "Everything's done and over with. As prophesied."
    "Not as prophesied!" Abasio blurted. "Oracle says not. Arakny says not. Both of them say the story Tom told about Olly's seven questions was a-a--"
"A fable?" suggested Bear.
    "A lie!" snarled Abasio. "A lie, a damned lie, and why would she lie to me?"
    "Well, as to that," said Coyote, "she never intended to. That last night, before she left, she sent for me. She gave me something to give you, when you asked for it."
Abasio merely gaped at him.
"Why you?" he whispered at last.
    Coyote shrugged. "Because she couldn't tell you then. She didn't want to spoil what had happened between you. She wanted to take that with her,
she said. She needed it unsullied and perfect.""Perfect," he cried. "So little time--"
    "One perfect thing that would last forever, so she said. But she always meant for you to know what no one else knows. No one but me, that is."


                               A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                                            419

       Abasio slumped against the wagon.
      Coyote sat down gingerly, easing his splinted leg. "She said she had to live in your memory, Abasio. She said her whole life had to be lived through you. All the years you might have had together. She said you had to know everything about her."
       "Tell me, then!" he cried.
      "No. It isn't for me to tell, it's for her to tell." Coyote stood up and tried unsuccessfully to get into the wagon. Bear came to give him a boost. Abasio heard him nosing around, and in a moment he came to the front and dropped
  something at Abasio's feet."What's that?"
     "It was Arakny's library," said Coyote. "But Oily and the old man changed it. Now it's Olly's library."
"Put it on," grunted the Bear. "Turn it on."
       Abasio sat beside the wheel, emptied the silvery chains into his lap, and
 saw them assume the cap shape."On your head!" said Bear.
     He put it on his head. Bear pointed to the button on the packet, and Abasio pushed it.
She came around the corner of the wagon, smiling into his eyes.
     "Abasio.t" she cried. She came close. He smelled her scent, felt the warmth of her body.
"Oily," he said, reaching out for her. "You went away.t"
"1 did, yes. I had to go, Abasio. But I've left my love behind. For you." "Why?" he cried. "Why did you do it?"
     "For loving you, Abasio. For loving the life we had. For loving it enough to want others to have it too."
"If you went away, how can you be here?"
      "Old Seoca helped me put myself here for you. My dreams, Abasio. My
 memories. Everything I am, or was."                                  ' "Not real.t Not the real Olly.t"
    Olly laughed, somewhat ruefully. "Which Olly did you make p'nash with ?"
He only gaped at her, so she answered the question for him.
"Whatever Oily she was, 1 am that one.t"
    She laughed herself into his arms, and he held her while chasing stubborn, half-angry notions around in his head, none of them sufficiently strong to move him to let go of her. She felt real. Oh, by heaven, she f~lt real. As real as he himself. As all the monsters stalking the earth probably were, and Coyote and Bear.
"Oracle said you lied to Tom."
"Not really. I just didn't tell the whole truth."


Sheri S. Tepper

"Will you tell me?"
"I always meant you to know."
    "What happened when you u'ent before the thrones, that time that Arakny and I waited outside?"
Oily stood away.from him, still holding him, looking deep into his eyes. "Hunagor spoke to me. She said she had some questions she wanted ans~,ered by an ordinary person. I told her I was ordinary enough, and she laughed at that. She said that in all the history of the thrones, they have seldom had to go so Jbr as they went with man, and they were interested in understanding why I thought this was so.
      "Hunagor asked me why man did not learn from the recurrent famines
she had sent upon the earth.""What did you say?"
    "1 told Hunagor what others had told me: that children are proofs of virility, and solutions that leave virility in doubt were not acceptable; that children are a way of controlling women, and losing control over women was not acceptable; that children grew up to make money or armies, and that not having money or armies was not acceptable. I said that men will not solve a problem unless they can find an 'acceptable' solution, and there are no acceptable solutions.[br some problems.
    "Hunagor said yes, but even when men saw their own children dying, still they did not limit their numbers. And I told them what Oracle had taught me: that man believes what man wants to believe, and he always wants to believe the next time will be different.
    "Then Hunagor asked why man, who claimed to be proud of his intelligence, preferred such easy belief to the hard choices intelligence requires. And I quoted Oracle again: The end is in the beginning. If children are taught to ignore their minds and merely believe, grown men will never do otherwise."
She fell silent, snuggling into his arms.
"That's only three questions," he said wonderingly.
    "Those are the three Hunagor asked. Then Werra asked why man had not been warned b3, the wars he had created; why men did not change when Seoca first sent IDDIs among them; why it was necessary, finally, for the plague of man to be controlled by the plague of angels, in order to save the earth."
"And you gave the same three answers," said Abasio, sure of it.
    "I gave the same three answers. Man believes what he wants to believe, and he chose to believe war was merely local or temporary or justifiable. Man could have made the hard choices that would have stopped the immune deficiency diseases in the same way Artemisia controls them now, but those afflicted demanded other choices, their friends demanded other choices, their


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS                 421

kin./blk demanded other choices, no government would take a stand that might lose it support, ever), faction found some part of the solution unacceptable. And finally, man wottM not stop destroying the earth until he was forced to do so, for he was reared in the belief h~ was more important than
   the earth itself, and the end is in the beginning." "What was the seventh question?" "It will be hard for you, Abasio.t" "Tell me.~" He shook her. Only gently.
      Oily sighed, an echo of the sigh the old man Seoca had made when he sat down upon his mighty chair. "The last thing they asked me was this..
  Since man was so intransigent, why was he allowed to go to the stars?" "What was your answer to that?" he demanded.
"I should have figured it out long ago, Abasio. So should you." "To save the earth? To conserve the earth? Why?" "Man never went to the stars." He merely stared, disbelieving.
      She pursed her mouth, as though she tasted something bitter. ' 'Men never went anywhere but here." She stamped her foot, looking down at the ground beneath them. "His star journey was only a myth. Another in an endless series of man's heroic myths of his own past. Glorious stories to make man the hero, for man always has to be the hero. 'Cock-a-doodle. Crouch, you hens. Here comes the rooster.'"
     He could not answer. He thrust her away in his mind, her and the knowledge she had brought him.
     "You are of Gaddir kindred, too, Abasio, " she whispered. "Your children will be, and your many-times-great-grandchildren. You will live long. You will see many things--do many things." She leanedJbrward and kissed him. "There is an archetype we never had in any of our villages, Abasio. The Mysterious Stranger. The one who comes and goes, who sees everything,
 learns everything. He is needed in this new worM."He could think of nothing to say.
"Farewell, Abasio," she whispered. "I'll be here if you need me." Abasio found the cap between his hands. He had taken it off himself. Bear said, "Poor man. So proud."
Abasio made a warding gesture. Bear merely grunted.
"You've both---experienced this?" Abasio snarled.
    "Just me," Coyote whispered. "Oily promised me. She was my friend too. I know man never went to the stars."
    "It's not true!" Abasio denied it. Men had gone. Men like himself had gone, taking possession of the universe for mankind!
Bear growled. "Little shuttle. Many men! But man believes what he wants
to believe."


422                              Sheri S. Tepper

    Coyote yawned. "She said you would see the size of the shuttle, when it went. And she said Tom talked all the time about how many men there had been once. She said reason alone should have told you."
"But there was a space station! There were moon settlements."
    "But they were never finished. Oily said men could have gone to the stars if they hadn't been so prick-proud. But they were. So they didn't. They just stayed here and bred!"
"Then why didn't the thrones kill us all?"
"Because you belong here," said Bear.
    "That's true," Coyote agreed. "Though some of our people think we'd be better off without you, you do belong here." His voice trailed off, and he put his head upon his paws. His leg hurt mightily. He was weary. Though he had never thought it would happen, he was tired of talk.
    Abasio cried, "They ate us up! All our glory! They ate up our stars!" He heard echoes of his voice return from the rocks around them, the sound of
a child in tantrum, hating all the world. "They ate us all up." "That's the point. Someone had to," snarled Coyote. Bear whuffed with laughter.
    "Now hush," said Coyote wearily. "It's over. They don't meddle until they must, and once they're done, they're done. They've gone."
    "Tiring, this talk!" grumbled Bear, rearing up and sticking his hairy face in Abasio's to give him a close looking-over.
      Big Blue stamped his foot, shaking the reins, whinnying a question that
Abasio heard clearly as, "Are we going to sit here all day?""Where?" asked Bear, staring into Abasio's eyes.
    Abasio closed his eyes, not caring where they went. Big Blue heaved a sigh and pulled the wagon out onto the downward road, settled himself between the shafts, looked questioningly out over the canyon, farted loudly, and shook his head to make the harness jingle. Then he plodded down the road at an unhurried pace while Bear shambled purposefully along behind.
    Abasio stared up at the star-pricked darkness, the shining vault of heaven that he had thought was his, if only by proxy, finding his own star. Abasio's star. His own private glory. His own Book of the Purples. His own legend of past marvels, making him more than he was.
    "That's why they started the story," said her voice in his mind. "What man has already done, he need not plunder his worm to do again."
    Which was true. He could be less... heroic. He could be more deliberate. Careful. Careful not only of himself...
    Something within him shuddered and sat up straight, substituting one vision for another. Instead of glory and power, instead of a gleaming shuttle pushed by its tail of fire, this slow creaking wagon behind this flatulent horse. How


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS
                                                                           423 long to reach the moon once more, behind a farting horse'? How far to Rigel,
or to Betelgeuse? Or did one aspire to a different destination?
     He stared out over the trees, beyond the canyon. Artemisia. Low Mesiko. The forests of the east. And room, perhaps for... a Mysterious Stranger. A storyteller, perhaps. Someone to immortalize the name of Oily Longaster, daughter of the stars. Someone who
 time...                                 was destined to live a long, long
   "What now?" he asked.
   "You're asking me?" she said in his mind.
"Who else would I ask?"
    "The ones in charge," she replied. "It's not just men this time around, Abasio. "
He looked into the wagon to catch Coyote's calculating eye. "Are you the trail boss on this journey?" he asked. "Us," said Big Blue, keeping his eyes on the road. "Us," said Bear, whuffing with laughter. "Us all."