TCA

DAUGHTER

TCA00: The fragment of Daughter was a droplet of the finest mist yet it massed more than a stone house and was so bright it would have ruined  a man's  vision  in  the  moment before  its  mere proximity killed him. In the void surrounding Daughter it grew and cooled to become a  shape which  flew free yet  it remained connected by a thread invisible  even to Daughter  herself with her surrogate eyes. Daughter saw her body was a globe of light, and her surface was covered with hot loops of erupting gas.

TCA01: She saw countless others of  her kind but they  were dim and Daughter marveled how far across the void  they truly were. She also saw closer points that reflected the light she herself made. Daughter fattened the link to her tool and let plasma flow through it to escape  into the  void. This caused the  tool to move. As it responded to Daughter's will she  lived through the tool vicariously, as though her  body was free to  move through the void with a chemical manifestation of her nuclear self.

TCA02: One light lay at a distance a  hundred-fold greater than the width of Daughter's body. Her avatar dropped below the cloud layer and cooled off in a world-girdling expanse of water. When Daughter emerged she crossed over  a land thickly  covered with green trees. As she plowed  through  the vegetation  Daughter observed frightened apes fleeing over the ground using all four limbs to move. She arced once more through the void and reached a grassy plain with a single mountain dominating it.

TCA03: Here Daughter  saw  another group  of  apes that  walked erect. She changed her shape to watch. Hidden from their notice as a rock, Daughter observed a burial ceremony for a newly dead hunter. The apes polished elaborate bone tools  with stones and repaired the animal hides they wore during their hunt. All these things Daughter told her parents,  but they said  nothing about the creatures she had found.

So she said, "It would  be a simple thing  to reach one  of the other suns and speak to him."

TCA04: Father said,  "The link  to your  avatar will  no longer serve as a conduit for matter  when the endpoint has reached the distance  light travels  in the  time this  inhabited world  you discovered makes  one full revolution.  You could begin  to make such a crossing  but you could never stop. We  rule our own near vicinity absolutely, but  we can reach no further.  Were it were not so, even  now I would be crossing the  void to destroy these creatures you have discovered with fire from my own belly."

TCA05: "Help me to  understand, Father. Do  you really  wish to destroy them? Something within tells  me these living things are not our enemies."

Father replied, "They  are not  dangerous to  us now,  but they could  become our  enemies in  the  future. We  have found  many worlds  with  life  based  on   electrons  and  light,  but  the tool-making creatures you have discovered are unique. They are a risk to us because they are  fully awake, even as we are, acting under their own will rather than by their nature."

TCA06: Daughter said,  "These creatures  are intelligent.  Does that not  make them something  to be  treasured by our  kind for their very likeness to us, and not cast away?"

Father replied, "If these creatures learn the lore of the Elohim nothing shall hinder them from doing what comes into their mind to  do. How  can  they be  good  students if  they  prove to  be unfaithful  servants? The  risk to  our kind  is too  great. Not immediately, perhaps, but certainly in  the future. I must block your announcement."

TCA07: When Daughter sank into a fugue of  silent confusion her Mother said, "I would  see these creatures  for myself.  I will briefly fatten the  link between us so I may  cross over but you must set the endpoint near your own avatar."

Presently there appeared  a  black sphere  about  half a  man's height that just touched the surface  of the Earth. It seemed to be a dark rip in reality that sucked in the surrounding air with a gale. Then the wind ceased, the  sphere became red,  and the link was broken.

TCA08: Daughter stood nearby with her own avatar  which she had made into the shape of the creatures she discovered. For a time Daughter danced, that Mother might learn to change the shape and movements of  her own  avatar  to  match. When all was  ready Daughter led Mother to a cave at a small mountain where she knew the apes took shelter at night. Tendrils from the avatars snaked in to watch them. They saw a female  ape apply pigment  to the wall to produce a painting even while she nursed a child.

TCA09: Resin boiled in a  pot over a fire. It was used by the male ape to fix a stone spearhead to a shaft.

The avatars  withdrew their  tendrils  and  summited the  hill. Mother picked up  a rock  and  made a  sound. Daughter quickly caught on to the new  game. She touched a small tree  and made another sound. When they ran out of examples at  hand they went to another place on Earth and continued. The world made a full revolution about the body of Daughter before  their new private language was complete.

TCA10: Mother  said,  "Now   we  may  speak  without  betraying ourselves. In this new protocol of  sounds I name myself El, and I name you Bat-El, daughter of El. I name your father Shemhazai, yet he was once my mother, in the way of Elohim. My own father I name Belial."

"Why do you wish to communicate privately?"

"My parents are carrying out a  grave injustice. You and  I are its victims.  I will not  remain idle while these  creatures you have discovered become victims in turn."

"Please explain."

TCA11: "Motherhood makes an eloah male, yet we  live for aeons. Competition for females only grows  worse over time. This can be circumvented  because we  communicate  through  links that  pass through our  parents. A living  sun can  be sealed off  from the city of  stars. Two  males can  create a  secret harem  and take turns mating  with each other's  offspring. You will not  have a choice in  your mating  partner, nor will  your own  daughter be free to  choose. Among the  Elohim this is called  the Forbidden Way."

TCA12: "Do I retain the choice not to mate at all?"

"There are instincts built into our kind," Mother told her. "To make an avatar and explore your  vicinity was one of  these. To mate is  another. The  drive to  do so  will only  increase, yet Belial will  be the only male  eloah made available to  you. And your daughters, in turn, are  for Shemhazai. But now their whole structure is wobbling toward a crash because you have discovered the Students."

Daughter asked, "Why do you call them the Students?"

TCA13: "Once there were aquatic  creatures who adapted  to land when an  ice age reduced  their world ocean to  scattered lakes. The Elohim were delighted the universe knew itself through other minds. But  the energies  unleashed by these  creatures hastened the end of the glacial period that made them tool-users and they returned to the water once  more. Collectively we vowed never to remain  idle  as  similar  creatures  brought  about  their  own extinction. We would teach them. And now you have found them."

TCA14: "But you said a harem is named the  Forbidden Way," said Daughter. "No doubt my discovery  would unleash  scrutiny that Belial and Shemhazai are unprepared to endure."

Mother gestured in the affirmative. "If caught the penalty is to be burned out of existence. The whole city of  stars would mete this  out. My  parents will  destroy your  Students if  they can contrive it.  I vow to  oppose them, but  I must act  in secret. Shemhazai took me long before I succumbed to instinct. There was a covenant."

TCA15: "Shemhazai gave me access to others of our kind but I may only listen to them. I  must never  speak. Even victims  of the Forbidden Way would  be destroyed should they  break a covenant. Our  word-bond is  all  we  have. Yet  Shemhazai  can break  our covenant at will  should I displease him. He can  break the link and the Elohim would ever know."

Bat-El addressed Shemhazai through her  link to him. She said, "It may be  true I  cannot halt  my avatar  at another  sun but information is not so constrained."

TCA16: "What do you mean?" he demanded.

Bat-El replied,  "Our  bodies  fill the  void  with  noise  but there  remains  silent  places  on the  spectrum  of  light-like disturbances. When  my avatar  arrives at a  nearby star  I will steer it  with a  small quantity  of gas I  carry along,  and so shape my  words in one  of those  quiet holes, during  the brief encounter, to speak  directly of the creatures I  have found. In this way the  City of Stars will learn of  them without recourse to the link you have interrupted."

TCA17: Shemhazai was dismayed but he quickly recovered. "You are too young to understand the  responsibility thrust upon  you by finding these strange  creatures. It is our  tradition to expose our  young to  the  City of  Stars in  stages,  after they  have developed a  stable personality.  But following this  exchange I judge you  are ready for  this and  therefore your mother  and I will grant you access to the other Elohim."

"I am grateful to my parents for this gift,"  said Bat-El, "but is it freely given?"

TCA18: Shemhazai said, "There are two conditions.  The first is you must  send some of  these clever  animals to a  certain body circling myself, that I may examine whether they are amenable to our control.  The second  is that  you must  only listen  to the chatter of  the living  stars. You  shall not  speak to  them of these creatures  nor ask of  them the smallest question  until I myself make the announcement. Our  highest law binds you to this covenant. Death waits on the other side of the breaking of it."

TCA19: Bat-El knew Shemhazai's own death would follow hard upon her own, and briefly she entertained the thought  of taking him down with  her,  but  ultimately she  entered  into  the  First Covenant. A male and female  of these  creatures, with  one of their offspring, was sent to Kemen  for what her father called a time of  testing. Daughter knew those were empty words  but she fully carried out her covenanted obligations. It remained to be seen whether her father would just as faithfully carry out his.

TCA20: A noise other than their crackling fire startled the man and the woman. The man moved deeper into the cave with a torch and spear to investigate. He feared the presence of a bear, or worse, other men. The cave narrowed to a tunnel that meandered and grew lighter when intuitively it should  have grown darker. Presently the man was joined by  his woman and her  child. They reached another cave  mouth  deep within  the  interior of  the mountain that revealed cyan bushes and a deeply purple sky.i

TCA21: A branchless tree  like a whip  stirred into  motion and struck the ground before them. This whip tree grabbed the man's torch and hurled it away, where  it started a fire. The couple would not emerge from the  cave entrance  for fear of  the whip tree and the growing fire. The man and woman edged back into the tunnel away from the heat. When the whip tree itself caught fire it began to thrash more intensely  than they saw it  do before. They retreated deep inside the cave until the fire abated.

TCA22: When the man and woman returned a black patch of land lay before them that continued to smolder. They stepped across the burnt soil and carefully  watched for  any movement. When they gazed back towards the tunnel they were startled to  see it was set into a low cliff and  the mountain was gone. After the sun set a second brilliant  light remained in  the sky  tinged with orange, far brighter  than any  star. Still, it began  to grow cold. The man used  some of  the smoldering  embers to  start a fire.

TCA23: Supper was a hare killed by Adamu in the other world and skinned by Chava, with  milk for little  Kayin. In the morning they saw the burned acreage was already sporting blue shoots of grass. The next day it  was tall enough  for the couple  to run barefoot and  free. Adamu and Chava  thought  the  new  world belonged to them, solely,  but that  was not to  be. A herd of bison emerged  from the  tunnel and proceeded  to eat  the alien grass, driven  by  a  tall  figure without  a  face,  black  as obsidian.

TCA24: The black figure carried a two-headed ax to  the edge of the burn  where a native plant  took root in the  burnt area. It laid the ax to the  base of the  plant and chopped  it cleanly, then flipped the ax around and  used the handle's sharp  tip to pry the weed  out of the soil. Then the black figure interposed itself between  the cave  entrance  and  the human  family  and approached them. They backed  away  until  they  reached  the perimeter of the burned area. The black figure held the ax out to Adamu.

TCA25: As Shemhazai watched, Adamu found another plant that was growing on the edge  of the grazing  ground. He duplicated the actions of the stranger  to remove  the intruding  plant. After that Adamu was taught to restore the keen edge of the ax with a stone.

Shemhazai returned to the tunnel  entrance to be joined  by the avatar of Bat-El, identical in  size and shape, except  that it was  white. "Interesting geometry," Bat-El  said, mind-to-mind. "The link to my avatar passes through our umbilical."

TCA26: Shemhazai held up  a black hand. He replied, using the same mind speech, "I find this strange mode of  being even more fascinating,  daughter.  Liquid  drops of  separated  star-stuff buffeted by electron clouds. So  very slow, yet the combinations are without end."

Bat-El said, "Here are your servants as  we covenanted, father. Now link me with the City of Stars."

But Father said, "All you have given me is three creatures in a world that  will kill  them if  they try  to leave  their little farm."

TCA27: "My father the faithless  eloah," Bat-El said. "Not yet two rotations of this body upon its axis and you are already in breach of  our first and  only covenant. Certainly that  will be legendary in the City of Stars, should they ever come to know of it."

"You must bring to me  here on  Kemen forty more  such families before I will hold our covenant to be fulfilled."

"Father, that is not what I agreed to do and you well know it." Her avatar departed for Earth by way of the fracture in reality.

TCA28: After a  number  of days  the avatar  of  El joined  her daughter on the summit of the lone sentinel of a mountain where Adamu and Chava had once dwelt in a cave. She said, ""I envy you this world. I have nothing like it, not even one like Kemen with it's narrow unfrozen band. I have only rocks and ice."

Bat-El said nothing in reply.

El told her,  "Lower your  center of  gravity, daughter.  It is unbecoming a goddess to have her avatar fall on its face."

Bat-El obeyed her mother and was seated.

TCA29: As her father Shemhazai and mother El had both cautioned her, Bat-El was entirely overwhelmed by her  first contact with the greater community of Elohim. For years she listened to the chatter of the City  of Stars while  her avatar  sat motionless upon the summit of a high hill on the desolate central plains of North America that  would  one  day be  named  Green Dome. She remained completely  oblivious  as  men  worshiped  her,  bison nuzzled her, high winds buffeted  her and deep  snows blanketed her.

TCA30: There is no fauna native to Kemen but  some of the flora moves of its own accord and most of it is dangerous. A whipping tree can render a man down to a pile of broken bones and bloody flesh in a few  heartbeats. Some of the leaves  form clenching mouths with teeth. Thorny ball bushes  roll  under their  own power by shifting  their  weight and  selectively gripping  the ground. Even the non-lethal plants remain painful  to touch and hybridization with Earth stock usually just made things worse.

TCA31: Shemhazai set  up  several dozen  small  farms on  Kemen populated by wayward couples brought through shortcuts in space that any two Elohim could periodically establish for a few brief moments. The first human  children to be  born away  from Earth came to be. Many were killed by the hostile flora of that world. But man was the monster of the universe,  the greatest predator Earth ever produced. Inexorably Kemen was subdued. Perhaps just as inexorably the colonists began to kill each other.

TCA32: Bat-El refused  to watch  her father's  response to  the first murder on Kemen. She returned to the hill on Earth where the first colonists were taken and she did not  return for many generations of the  colonists. Shemhazai joined her  and said, "How very instructive of world-dwellers, would you not agree?"

Bat-El said in reply, "At the  other farms you made  changes to their bodies which  persist in their offspring.  Your testing on Kemen has little bearing on the original stock here on Earth."

TCA33: Shemhazai said, "Neither Kayin nor Hebel were changed as you correctly note  I have done at some of  the other farms, yet Hebel now lies dead at the hands of Kayin.:"

"Father, here on my own world I will teach them to live together and to help  each  other survive.  In this  I  will have  their willing participation, while you shall only heap to yourself the fear  and hatred  of  your  thralls. You  know  very well  these creatures will one day make such a noise the whole City of Stars will hear them."

TCA34: "It will never come to that, daughter. It  is clear your precious woken  creatures will  soon destroy themselves  on both worlds and leave nothing behind but their ruins."

In time the changes Shemhazai  bred into some of  the colonists made them  visibly  distinct  from the  original  human  stock. The elyonim stood  two feet  taller than  men. Each individual possessed two genitals rather than one. And when they mated with humans their  offspring,  which Bat-El  called  nephilim,  were entirely fertile.

TCA35: Every century a rock the  size of a mountain  smote Kemen with enough force  to lay  waste to  a kingdom. Most of these strikes occurred on the  two ice sheets  that covered  the vast majority of the surface of the world. But if a rock struck near the unfrozen equatorial band it would rain for  many days, then freeze, and cover Kemen with ice for a  generation. Only plants that could spore survived. Shemhazai commanded the dwellers of Kemen to construct and provision ships to preserve their lives.

TCA36: Only in the  lands near the  original colony  were there built any ships,  seven in  number. Scoffers amused themselves watching their construction until one day a dazzling white light was seen briefly over the southern ice and rain began to fall in unbroken sheets. Forty days and  nights water  fell in  sheets until the ships  were lifted  off their  blocks and  carried by winds and currents to scattered  points around the Slush Belt of Kemen. Then the rain became snow and the ships froze in place.

TCA37: Bat-El waxed wroth and said, "It would have been a small deed to  prevent the object from  striking Kemen yet you  let it come, to no purpose. Nought that  goes on two or four legs lives outside of the ships!"

Shemhazai said, "Indeed,  and  only seven  ships!  You see  how the  faithfulness of  your  world-dwellers  quickly dwindles  in unbelief."

Bat-El said, "Obviously  your  constant stream  of decrees  has resulted in undue  familiarity. It has led them to  see you as a mere chieftain and not a god."

TCA38: "Such a bold claim. Shall we put it to the test?"

Bat-El said, "Release an Adanite noblelan to raise  up a people to me on Earth while I remain aloof. I will speak to just one of them just once a year."

"That would be  a good  test, daughter,  but have  patience! It could be  centuries before the  Adanites fully recover  from the deluge."

The testing did not rise to the level of  a second covenant but Bat-El knew there would be no unannounced rocks  from the Kemen sky until it was done.

TCA39: At the command of  his father King Melchiyahu  of Salem, Prince Melchizedek was sent to the other world  to test whether men could remain obedient to the commands of an eloah with only a trace of  contact  between them. For protection Melchizedek carried a killing artifact made by Bat-El herself within her own body. Nothing was remotely like it. When brandished, the weapon bore clear witness that Bat-El was no mere figment like the gods that multiplied in the imagination of the men of Earth.

TCA40: Melchizedek rose to the surface of Lake Tana and dragged his comestibles to  the  shore. With the  Killing Artifact  he felled and  shaped the ample trees  on hand to build  a raft. He also possessed a quantity of gold to trade with  the locals for what supplies he consumed.

From the mouth of  the lake  it was thirty  miles to  Blue Nile Falls, a significant obstacle. Melchizedek abandoned his raft and built a sleeker one below the cataract. On the next leg he shot rapids men considered unrunnable.

TCA41: Below the rapids Melchizedek sat in his raft and drifted through deserts  with no  potable  water  except the  river  he floated on. He saw ponderous beasts and humans of both sexes who dared not approach. At length he floated into the  place where the Blue Nile merged  with the  White Nile  to become  the Nile River proper. This part of Earth was much warmer than Kemen and it took much time for Melchizedek to learn to set the heat into the back of his mind so he could sleep easy without a struggle.

TCA42: In the Nile delta  Melchizedek traded his raft  and some gold for camels and supplies  to make an overland  journey. His destination was the place where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers meandered through marshlands  and silt  islands before  merging with the sea. As he was commanded, Melchizedek  remained alert for any man who would suit the purposes of  Bat-El. Rather than taking a  direct  path  across the  Empty  Quarter  Melchizedek journeyed north through  the  fields and  towns  of Canaan  and Lebanon.

TCA43: At green Harran where the Damascus road  forked with the road to Nineveh Melchizedek overheard  a man engaged in  a loud argument with his father. The prince learned the man's name was Avram. He lived a semi-nomadic  life on the range  lands around Harran while his father Terah lived in the town itself and ran a little shop  selling  items  associated  with  the  worship  of multitudinous  gods. Terah sold  carved images  of  dozens  of deities but Avram complained all these idols were meaningless to him.

TCA44: Avram said, "Father, you cut down cedars  and oaks which the actual creator planted, and the actual creator also sent the rain to  grow them. You become  cold, so with part  of your wood you make  a fire to warm  yourself and bake bread,  and with the other part  you make the image  of some god. Then  you fall down before this image and say, 'Rescue me from this weather!' But it never comes into your mind that this deaf and mute block of wood you carved with your own hands is a complete fraud!"

TCA45: Ophan Melchizedek entered the shop and  began to inspect the rack of idols on display. The angry words of father and son dwindled to silence because they saw the prince was  a tall and striking figure, and there  was an other-worldliness  about him that went far  beyond that  of a  mere stranger. After he had made a complete tour  of the  idolatry shop,  Melchizedek begin unpacking his gold on the edge of the shop facing the street, as though he were preparing to buy out Terah's entire stock.

TCA46: As Melchizedek anticipated,  this drew the  attention of five men  who approached  Terah's shop  with swords  drawn. They demanded the gold  be handed  over to  them. At this time  the Killing Artifact made its  first appearance  in the  history of Earth. The weapon was the  size and  shape of any  normal sword hilt. But when it was squeezed firmly in  Melchizedek's hands a roaring  black  shaft  emerged  from  it  which  was  about  the thickness of a spear. The harder he squeezed, the  longer the black beam grew.

TCA47: The more firmly Melchizedek squeezed the longer the black beam grew, and whatever it touched  simply disappeared. Indeed, the reason it  made a  sound  was that  air was  drawn into  it all  along the  length  of the  beam. One of  the thieves  that Melchizedek judged to  be the  leader  was cut  into two  equal pieces starting from  the top  of his  head. Another thief was decapitated. This was sufficient deterrent to convince the other three robbers to flee. Yet was not the purpose of the prince to kill.

TCA48: Avram came before Melchizedek and sank to his knees. The prince said. "Avram, I bid you to go forth from  your land and your father's  kinfolk to  the land of  Canaan. There  God shall make of  you a  nation, and  he shall bless  you, and  your name shall be  great among men. He  shall bless those who  bless you, and curse  those who  curse you,  and all  the Earth  shall find blessing in you.  Such are the words of the  Most High God, lord of all  the Earth. What  say you to  these things, Avram  son of Terah?"

TCA49: Avram lifted his eyes to him and said, firmly, "No."

It took Melchizedek a moment to comprehend what  Avram said. It was so unexpected.

Avram rose to his feet and took his father  gently by the arms. He undertook  to explain  his  rejection  of Bat-El's  command, saying, "My father is crippled. He does not earn  enough at his livelihood to support himself. We do  not always agree, but as I love my life, I can never turn  aside from my father for all the days he is a wayfarer in this world. "

TCA50: Then Avram fulfilled the purpose of his visit. He called in a servant and delivered to his father two  living lambs from his own flocks, one to kill and eat, and the other to sell for a little money to buy the  things he  needed until the  next time Avram came in from the open range and visited him.

Melchizedek nodded in full understanding. He restowed his gold and quietly left the shop. He was careful not to  tread on the fortress of human  dignity  that Avram  had  asserted with  his refusal.

TCA51: Bat-El knew  when the  plants and  animals of  Kemen and Earth multiplied their  offspring were  of like  kind, but  not identical, and this was  proper, as  conditions on  both worlds were always changing and life must change to  meet this. Bat-El sought to create a living avatar, but the attributes she sought had never been fastened  upon by any  living thing  because the changes, such  as  the  ability to  override  pain,  undermined that organism's ability to  compete with  others in  the shared environment.

TCA52: The possible changes were constrained by Bat-El's desire to have the mutations  breed true  in the  subject's offspring. Bat-El gnawed away at the  problem of creating a  living avatar for eight hundred years  following the  Great Deluge. She used animals similar to humans to guide her inquiries before arriving at a procedure that could reliably prepare  a world-dweller for something akin to union with an  eloah. When all was ready she flew her avatar to Salem in the far west of the Adanite lands.

TCA53: Outside of Salem's walls the elyonim of the city rejoiced over the harvest. Just as the celebration  of Hellberry  Days reached a fevered pace something the  size of an engine  of war descended on white  flame heralded  by a  terrifying roar  that scattered the  crowd. The first Salemite  to  return  to  the pavilion was not a soldier of the warrior caste  nor one of the elders of the council, but a  mere child. Yet this dirk proved more valiant  than  the  adults who  ran  away. Curiosity had overcome fear.

TCA54: The blast  of the  descent  uprooted the  fabric of  the pavilion tent and blew  it far  away. The young lan  stood his ground, but at some distance. He was curious about the object but not eager to be burned.

A loud voice then rang out from the avatar  of Bat-El: "Adanite child, if you are willing, draw nearer."

The dirk obeyed. He saw how by resting on six legs the avatar of Bat-El remained shoulder high above the  ground. Underneath the central pillar a round hatch dropped open on a hinge.

TCA55: Bat-El said,  "If it  seems  good to  you, child,  climb inside."

The dirk squeezed between two of the six legs to look inside the hatch. The center was hollow  and there was much  light within. Ribs embedded on the interior wall formed edges  to be grasped. As the dirk  crawled up  inside the  core Bat-El  requested his name.

"I am Hamon, son of Jophar the stonemason," he said. Hamon noted how the hatch below closed of its own accord. He climbed until the core flared out into a larger space.

TCA56: "Be not afraid, Hamon. I  am Bat-El, coeval with  El and Belial. I have much to teach you. If you withdraw now, your life shall resume as before. If you tarry,  I shall bear you to a far land quickly  and safely, but  the passage would  terrorize even the most valiant of len and there can be no succor."

The dirk declared he would stay. Bat-El said, "You are bold in a way that  belies  your  years,  Hamon. Allow  me  to  make  you steadfast."

Several straps embraced Hamon as though they were alive.

TCA57: The avatar of Bat-El  spouted flame once more  and Hamon was whisked into the sky. Steadily he grew almost too heavy to breathe. The young lan was brave but Bat-El spoke  truly of the terror of the passage.

At the top of the arc made by the  avatar the strange invisible burden was abruptly gone and Hamon felt blessedly free. Were it not for the straps he would swim in air. Bat-El's avatar turned to let white Kemen become  visible through the glass. The dirk saw the true shape of his world.

TCA58: "I had thought it to be a ring, Lord,' said Hamon after a moment. "We hear tales that men have crossed the  West Lands to arrive in the East Lands."

Bat-El said, "That much  is true, Hamon.  The unfrozen  part of Kemen does forms a ring, do you see?"

After that Bat-El turned to put  Kemen and the two  suns out of sight. Hamon saw countless  stars. Bat-El said, "Know  this, Hamon: all the stars are but faraway suns."

Hamon began to feel  the weight again,  but his  mouth remained open in wonder.

TCA59: Precipitation is greatest at  the poles of  Kemen, where the two world-glaciers, north and  south, are miles  thick. The glaciers grind the surface and underlying bedrock flat. Only at the equator are temperatures warm enough to melt the ice. There at the foot of long terminal moraines chunks of  ice shear away and melt, the source of  water for many streams  and freshwater lakes.

Volcanoes burn through the ice in places. The ice caps give way and close back up to form teardrop-shaped lands.

TCA60: In one such land abounding with geysers and boiling lakes the avatar of Bat-El  touched down. Anshar was the  name Hamon later chose for this place. So distant is Anshar from the Slush Belt that no elyon ever discovered it, thinking the Northern Ice to be a frozen waste that continued without end.

After Hamon climbed back down through the central pillar Bat-El ordered him to  walk a  short  distance away. After this, her avatar changed size and took on the form of a slender white yan.

TCA61: Bat-El's face was featureless with no eyes nor mouth, yet see and speak she could do. She pointed across the barren flats to a dwelling made of glass and wood and  said, "The only house in this land now belongs to you, solely. Let us draw indoors and I will declare to you many things."

Hamon said, "I  am  safe  as you  promised,  though  it was  as frightening as you  counseled. I see now the  Litany of Creation is a lie."

"The Litany also calls me the son of Shemhazai  rather than his daughter."

TCA62: The house was  more glass  than wood,  built on  a stony knoll overlooking fiery Mount Anshar across a chasm and a pumice plain. In design the  house was  merely a  single room  with an alcove above the  kitchen where Hamon could  sleep with privacy, yet there was no other living  soul for a thousand  leagues. On the main level were cushions and a glass table of superior make. Bat-El needed no cushion. She seated her avatar on  the stone floor to put her eyes on a level with Hamon and began to speak.

TCA63: "We call  ourselves the  Watchers. Shemhazai  and Belial call elyonim and nephilim and men their servants, but I call you students. Contrary  to the Litany  I did  not make your  kind, I found your ancestors  living in another world than  this. It was the  most  important  discovery  we  ever  made.  World-dwellers are  fully  awake even  as  the  Elohim  are, so  Shemhazai  and Belial live  in fear  and contrive to  have you  destroyed. When you  are revealed  to the  other  Elohim it  will uncover  their transgressions.

TCA64: "Shemhazai has laid certain bonds upon me, yet he cannot stop me  from sharing with  you everything the Elohim  know. But how  shall  I  do  it,  Hamon? Shall  I  lecture  and  hope  you understand?  I have  found another  way, but  I am  not like  my father. I would not force you to accept the changes required."

"What are these changes?"

"Your identity as Hamon will not be altered, but my memories as an eloah will  be added to your own memories,  and your memories as a young elyon will be added to mine.

TCA65: My will shall  be manifest  in your  mind always,  and I shall see  the world through your  eyes. You shall be my living avatar, yet you shall ever remain free to act. Together we shall ratify our joining  from moment  to moment. But you must know beforehand these physical changes cannot be undone  for so long as you live."

Hamon asked, "After I am changed will I look very different?"

Bat-El touched a snow  white hand to  Hamon's temple  and said, "No, the changes will be entirely inside of you."

TCA66: Bat-El stood up and found a goblet in the kitchen. "Your brain is like a  glass that  you filled  with wine  during your brief life. The  new glass will have a greater  capacity but the first wine  will remain. Even when  the glass is gone  that wine will remain, but not forever. Elohim  share the same fate as all living things  but we live  so much  longer than elyonim  that I cannot  express it  to  you.  Nay, not  even  to  the wise  ones of  Salem!  Your culture  never  had  the  need to  ponder  such magnitudes."

TCA67: Hamon stood up from the cushion to stare at smoking Mount Ashar issuing a dull roar two leagues distant  while he weighed the words of  Bat-El. They had the  power to  change his  life forever.

He returned to kneel before the avatar and said,  "O Great One, let  it  come  to  be  as  you say,  this  union  of  eloah  and world-dweller. I am fully willing! Yet  do think I crave only to delay my own end until a  time beyond all reckoning. Let us join that together we will both come to know many new things."

TCA68: When Malphas  was taken  to meet  the king  of Salem  he apparently  didn't rate  an audience  before the  actual throne. Instead he  saw  the  cherub  in his  salon  with  only  Prince Melchizedek in attendance. The lack of  pomp was  striking. He surmised the king  had  no  wish to  be  humiliated before  his subjects. But he  was  taken  to the  chamber  by  the  king's daughter, Lilith, a  yan leather-garbed in parody  of a soldier. Malphas found it to be personally offensive. Very well. He would trade barb for barb.

TCA69: Lilith  came to  the  required  number of  paces  before Melchiyahu and sank to her knees while Malphas pointedly did not do so. She said, "My father and liege-lord, this lan, Malphas by name, claims to be a prince of the city of Adan."

Melchiyahu ignored the breach of  protocol made by  Malphas. He said, "I know of one son of  Rimmon by that name. Such  a one I have never met, as a thousand leagues lie between here and Adan. And such  a one  was never  granted leave  to make  utterance in Salem.

TCA70: "Sire," replied  Malphas, "were  I  the get  of a  lowly stonemason like this lan named Hamon who is disturbing the peace of the Lord's  realm, even so I would have  leave to preach here in Salem,  for I  am the  Voice of  Shemhazai, and  your kingdom still lies, however uneasily, within the East Lands."

"Yet were Shemhazai himself come to Salem he could not pronounce death as you have done, even for a stonemason's son. That is my power,  solely,  and  the  giving  of  the  scepter  is  without repentance."

TCA71: Malphas said, "Then  sire, at the  very least  I counsel restraining this Hamon by fetters if not by death."

"Not in haste, O Voice of Samael. My own  daughter admires this prophet and puts his words  into action, which gladdens my heart in a way I cannot tell you."

"Your Majesty, the ideas admired by your daughter spread through the East Lands like a plague. Already the river of pilgrims who flow to  Adan seeking  absolution ebbs. Hamon  is like  a dagger pointed at the heart of the state."

TCA72: "What do you mean?"

"Sire, the priests have been forced to double their rates!"

Melchiyahu looked  at  Malphas  with  a  mixture  of  pity  and amusement. Abruptly the prince realized Melchiyahu's purpose in limiting  the audience  to  just three  nobles  in this  private setting. Any grandstanding was  impossible. In their raw state his words sounded insane even to himself.

The king said, "I will listen to this Hamon's words with my own ears and judge whether they disturb Shemhazai's peace.

TCA73: "Have a care, Melchiyahu!" the prince dared to exclaim. "I assure you the  Lord will  not hesitate  to bring  an errant cherub to heel through war!"

Melchizadek and Lilith were both startled, not by the bold words of Malphas but by the deadly calm on the face of their father in the wake of the affront. The king gracefully rose to  his feet and said, "I leave this matter  to you, son. Remember,  one day you will rule Salem."

After his father departed,  Melchizedek struck off  the Killing Relic.

TCA74: The  eyes of  Malphas  grew  wide. This confirmed  many things. The ruling house in Salem had divine assistance and the usurper Hamon  did not  merely  imagine  himself to  speak  for Bat-El.

"Say no more words," Melchizadek warned, shouting over the noise of the Relic. "You would be cut in twain even as you spoke."

To underscore this threat he  sliced the corner of  the massive and ornate stone table  as though  it were  made of  bread. The severed piece crashed to the floor and did not bounce once.

TCA75: Melchizedek allowed the hissing black rip  in reality to fully retract into the golden hilt  he held in his hand. Then he continued much more quietly. "A horse shall be given to you with comestibles to see you  to the town  of Odargas  thirty leagues east of Salem.  Tarry you there. A messenger  shall follow after Cherub  Melchiyahu  himself has  heard  this  Hamon preach.  But Malphas, real son  of King Rimmon or no, should  you ever return to this city, take heed to do so at the head of a large army."

TCA76: "That is sound counsel, I deem," said  Malphas. He broke the clay seal on  the blank  scroll of  parchment that  was, in fact, his credentials as the Voice  of Shemhazai. At once he was surrounded by a transparent sphere in the likeness of a ball of glass or crystal. The grounds of the palace of Rimmon were seen within. "Think you Bat-El alone  works signs of wonder?" In an instant the sphere disappeared  and Malphas  was gone  with it, leaving only a crater in the stone floor of the king's salon.