TCA

Muskets fell like two waves of dominoes atop stone walls on the blue and gray sides of the quiet creek. When the rifled barrels reached the horizontal they fired, burning eyes with the pungent smoke of spent powder.

Downstream the walls became the rails of a stone bridge. Union and rebel soldiers converged on foot, shouting as they merged. The fighting deteriorated to bayonet thrusts and even fisticuffs. The federals had the greater initial momentum and nearly reached the other side of the bridge before a rebel rally bounced them back.

The boys in blue trod in reverse over a layer of bodies one deep. Some were dead, others writhed with broken bones or lead balls lodged in their innards. A few of the fallen had survived the battle of Shiloh where the war attained a high but stable plateau of savagery. A tube loaded with canister shot was lined up on the long axis of the bridge and mowed down counterattacking rebels like grass to form a second layer of bodies. Some of the fallen boys in gray had survived the artillery hell at Malvern Hill during the Seven Days.

Two guns were set up on the Confederate side of the creek upstream. One fired bursting shells that maimed the Union gunners and another fired several rounds of solid shot. The Union gun became a pile of splinters and dented steel. Then followed another Rebel attack. The men in gray gained most of the bridge, which had become an abattoir.

A colonel on the Union side was shot, but to the wonder of his men he stood up again with a lead ball lodged in his Bible. With this apparent divine sanction the colonel led yet another attack. But the only effect was to make the hill of twisting bodies on the bridge that much higher. Men standing on the pile swapped empty muskets for loaded ones handed up to them like water in a fire bucket brigade.

But inevitably the Confederates ran low on gunpowder. They saw the bridge was lost, so they switched to saving their two pieces of artillery, with fresh troops firing in a rearguard action to cover the retreat. The federal general commanding the attack on the bridge saw the retreating gray backs and ordered a lieutenant to report to McClellan that the bridgehead had been secured.

But the junior officer saw the bridge was stacked with bodies and refused to desecrate the dead. Instead the messenger dropped to the creek bed and splashed across on foot, bypassing all the carnage on the bridge. In so doing the officer suffered little hardship. After all, as the local farmers well knew, the water in the creek was only knee deep.

At the end of the day the Army of Northern Virginia was bottled up against a bend of the Potomac River with only one safe crossing point. All that night and all the next day McClellan watched from the long slope rising north of the river and refused to advance, even with a two-to-one numerical advantage. Were the numbers ten-to-one he would yet wire Washington to say he didn't have enough men.

The meetinghouse of the Brethren had been pressed into service as a field hospital for the Union army. Dried blood stained the interior walls, only to be overlaid with sprays of new blood. One doctor sedated men with chloroform while another doctor sawed off their limbs and threw them into a pile. A messenger arrived by horse and ordered the doctors to get the wounded out by wagon. The pile of amputated limbs was set ablaze. Horse-drawn ambulances carted the wounded away with every bump in the road eliciting screams from the men inside. No one who witnessed the convoy of pain and the carnage that was left behind would again say they craved the glories of war. Certainly none of the Christian Brethren did.

Three days prior, when they first heard the sound of artillery on South Mountain the Brethren had thought it prudent to move their work horses by circuitous routes to a place far away from the men of either army who might like to "borrow" them. Upon their poor leftover mules they rode out, when it seemed safe, to bury the dead. For this task the United States paid a dollar for every man they laid to rest. There was heard a rumor that one fellow, who was not of the Brethren, took the money and dropped sixty dead men into a dry well.

Many hundreds of bodies lay near the house of prayer of the Brethren. They found their labors to be a hateful thing that, but more bitter was seeing their beloved meetinghouse riddled with holes made by bullets and even solid cannon shot, and how the interior had come to resemble a slaughterhouse. The structure was still sound, but some prayed for it to collapse, deeming that to be a mercy.

The Long Table was covered with blood, and both the east door, where the menfolk entered, and the south door, where the womenfolk entered, had been removed from the hinges and converted into operating tables. The large and expensive Bible gifted to the congregation by Daniel Miller was missing.

Chief elder David Long, forty-two years of age, inspected the meetinghouse thoroughly and said, "Do not grieve overmuch, my friends. We shall bury the dead and make our meetinghouse like new. If God is willing, soon all this will be but an unhappy memory."

To this Deacon Mark Lange objected, saying, "Nothing will stop the same thing from happening once more, Brother David. Virginia lies just over yonder river and last month there was a second battle of Manassas. This is an easy spot for the rebel army to get across the water. We should build anew at my uncle's farm north in Pennsylvania. By his leave our horses have already been moved there to guard against thieves.”

Elder Jacob Reichard said, "For a decision of this import we must let the Lord make his will known. So let us pray on it, each one of us. And there is no prayer better than work.”

After the Brethren finished burying the dead soldiers where they fell it grew apparent the flock was divided on the issue of whether to move. Elder Long insisted he would stay, as did the Sherrich family. Also Samuel Mumma, the farmer who had donated the land on which to build the meetinghouse, was intent on staying behind to restore his farm the armies had demolished. The deacons who were originally deeded the plot for the Mumma meetinghouse also chose to stay. But Daniel Miller sold his corn field for pennies on the dollar, as it was now really just a battlefield cemetery. In all, eleven families joined Mark Lange in seeking a quiet new life far from the threat of war, in Pennsylvania.

Before the battle in Maryland the horses of the Brethren had been taken there by five male cousins from Lange's father's side. As the families prepared to move the horses were returned. It was Mark's cousin Joanna who brought them all back, and this she did entirely by herself. Joanna's own horse was groomed better than she was, yet Mark fell stone in love with her at first sight. But he persistently had four-legged competition.

On the way north when the weather turned bad Joanna let her horse have the tent while she slept outside. Joanna spent more time cleaning her horse than helping her mother clean the house. Mark thought the house was a pigsty but the barn was as neat as a pin. Her mother said Joanna needed a male companion to quiet some of the rumors going around, so she got a stallion. Joanna's father looked askance when Mark began courting her, but his wife was overjoyed at Joanna's new interest in something other than equines. One time he grew jealous at finding a strange hair on her coat but Joanna was easily able to produce the horse to match. At her bridal shower Joanna received a large number of gifts. Most of these were actual bridles.

When the happy day finally arrived and it was time to show up for her wedding Joanna came in late because she took too long cleaning the stalls. Mark married her anyway.

The following summer the Army of Northern Virginia rolled the dice and moved North once again, bringing on the biggest battle of the war. On the third day of the conflagration Mark Lange walked to the meetinghouse and found all the pews scattered outside. Union officers were seated upon them idly smoking cigars and playing tic tac toe on them with pocket knives. Inside the meetinghouse the Army of the Potomac's commander poured over maps laid on the Long Table and concluded the next hammer blow would land on the center. He turned to go outside and bumped into Mark, which prompted him to angry demand who he was. Mark told him he was the pastor of that church.

General Meade replied, "The hell you say, sir! Church? This is the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac! Now get out of my sight, parson, or I'll put a musket in your hand and stand you up on yonder stone--"

The general was interrupted by a crash as the church filled with flying wood splinters. Confederate artillery had opened a furious barrage. He ran out of the meetinghouse picking splinters out of his skin and barking orders. His officers on the pews began to scatter as shells burst nearby.

Union artillery was brought up to answer Confederate guns but Lange remained inside. Perhaps he thought his presence would move God to spare the building, but solid shot made gaping holes in the walls. Mark clasped his hands and prayed, "Lord, forgive your stiff-necked servant. Your will was that we move west, not north!"

Two shells from the main battery of the Army of Northern Virginia burst just over the roof of the church. It was dark and Mark felt enormous pain wracking his entire body.

A male voice said, "Take great care, Anael. There is a man alive in this pile of wood and he is injured."

Another voice acknowledged him. With each painful motion of debris the light seemed to increase. A last huge pine beam was removed and Mark saw this Anael was not a woman as he first thought from the sound of the voice, but perhaps a very tall boy. Anael moved the wood as though it weighed very little.

Then Mark saw who was speaking in the more masculine voice. He was much shorter than Anael, with a face filled with compassion and dark eyes that glittered in the green light filtering through trees that surrounded him.

He said, "Do not be afraid, Mark Lange. A large splinter of wood has pierced your kidney."

All Mark could manage to utter in reply was a grunt of pain.

The short man went on to say, "You also have a broken leg you cannot feel because wood is pinching it. We must lift the beam, and you will most certainly feel that, but we can do nothing else."

Mark could only manage to gasp for help. The short man told Anael to lift the beam. To Mark, everything seemed to turn red. His face was frozen in astonishment at the pain, greater than any he had ever felt, and he fainted from the overbrimming flow of it.

--

The Kuwapi people were more significant than a mere band of nomads scratching out their existence on the Great Plains of North America, yet they did not have the blood ties to mark them as a tribe or even a clan. They began as outcasts from among the Oglala Sioux. In Lakhota, kuwapi means "they follow". The outcasts wandered the tribe's hunting grounds as a kind of punishment detail for religious offenses, with the level of Oglala displeasure permanently tallied by the number of whip scars each one bore on their back.

To the north the Kuwapi were beset by the Dakotas who held the entire Black Hills and the plains around them. The Kuwapi named them the northern raiders and if the mainline Oglalas helped fend them off from time to time it was more to ensure the hunt than to do favors. In the richer grasslands eastward the Kuwapi had the fierce Pawnees to contend with. To the south along the Oregon Trail the Kuwapi were buffeted by the Arapahoes and also ran the risk of encountering white settlers and US Army troops who protected them. In the scrubby furrowed lands westward they had the Cheyennes to fear. The whole northwest was put out of their minds by dread of the Crow and Blackfeet. But in the ever-moving sliver of meager grasslands left in the wake of the Oglala the Kuwapi hunters rode.

Wanica led them downwind of a herd of bison drinking water at a ford in a large creek named Squaw River by the whites. When he signaled a halt, they tied their horses off to the roots of sun-bleached stumps and crept unseen through brush to approach the herd.

Some of the animal grew nervous though they could not see any of the men. As Wanica and his hunters crept through the riparian zone to watch the herd they cast no shadows. The day was darker than most, with a low overcast. It was cold, but it did not rain.

The bull stopped drinking and stared downstream, sensing danger. Judging the moment to be right, Wanica stood from behind a shrub and loosed an arrow. The bolt struck a cow in a flank but it was not a lethal shot. All the bison heard the cry of the victim and panicked. A rapid series of shots were made by other hunters but all of their arrows missed or made non-lethal wounds.

The bison fled to a slope north and west and made for the cover of the low cloud bank, although they were too stupid to have planned such a move. The hunters returned to their horses and followed the herd away from the river.

The cloud bank enveloped them as a thick fog. They their bows at the ready, turning left and right, but none of the bison were visible to the men in the complete whiteout. Further uphill the fog cleared, patches of blue sky were seen. Three of the bison were isolated and exposed. Arrows were loosed and struck home, dropping one of the animals. The two surviving bison ran back down off the hill into the fog, seeking the safety of numbers.

Wanica ordered braves to carve up the body of the fallen animal. Meat was loaded on skids made of wooden staves and animal skin to be dragged away. Nothing of the bison was wasted. Satisfied with the progress of the young men, Wanica turned away with the other hunters. They rode up the slope until they could go no higher.

The summit of the high hill stood alone over a sea of clouds that reached the horizon. It was a rare and beautiful moment. Wanica was deeply moved by the sight. He said, "I name this place the Island in the Sky."

The herd of bison slowly wandered back out of the fog, grazing warily on the mountaintop even with the hunters close at hand. The animals sensed that the humans had done their worst and would leave the rest of them alone. But what followed scattered even the humans.

Something taller than a tree emerged from the sea of clouds on six pillars of flame. Only Wanica and his fearless steed remained to watch it touch down on the summit of the hill. At first he thought it was just white men doing one better than their smoking horse of iron. But the object grew much smaller in size and changed shape to resemble a faceless white man. Not like a European, but white as snow, with no eyes, ears, nor mouth. It shifted postion on the hilltop, and the very ground thundered and shook under its feet. Wanica nudged his horse a bit closer as the white man-shape sat on the ground. Its head opened in six petals to reveal a gold object that rose as though it were being offered to Wanica.

He dismounted to take a closer look, approaching the shape cautiously on foot. Tentatively, respectfully, he withdrew the golden object from the splayed head while the limbs of the man-shape remained motionless at its side. The object fit neatly in Wanica's palm like the hilt of a knife. The head of the white man closed.

Wanica squeezed the gift to produce a hissing opaque black beam. When he swept the beam around it carved trenches in the stony ground of the hilltop entirely without effort. He watched the white man change again to become a dome on the summit, like a smooth igloo.

Wanica discovered that when he no longer actively squeezed the Golden Gift the immaterial black shaft retracted and disappeared. He squeezed it again briefly to be sure it still worked, and tested how long he could make the beam. He found it could also make a shield.

The curiosity of Wanica's companions overcame their fear. They slowly returned to the summit, together with some of the bison. There the hunters saw the white dome on the very summit of the hill, and they also saw Wanica standing next to it with his horse. Wanica lifted a large stone and set it down near the white dome. The companions of Wanica joined him stacking stones around the dome as though they were building a second igloo out of rock. When the men finished they stood back to look. The shape was concealed by a cairn.

None of the Kuwapi hunters understood what happened on the summit of the Island in the Sky, but they all believed it was fitting to build a hallowed lodge for Wakan Tanka after his manifestation to them, which they understood to be his divine blessing for the hunt.

By the time the People were feasting on bison the animal's horns had been fastened to leather thongs. One of Chief Tatanka's women pinned the horns to his shoulder as though he had actually departed the tipi where he roiled in womanflesh and killed the animal himself. Briefly Tatanka and Wanica eyed each other, but there was with no mutual respect whatsoever.

The chief said, "There are five stories how this animal was taken."

Wanica looked away and blew a ring of smoke.

"About the hunt, then. What say you, Squaw Who Hunts?"

Wanica's gaze returned to the Chief sharply as though he had been slapped, but he controlled his rage and answered. "We followed the herd into a low cloud. I could not see the other hunters. Each man ascended alone. When the clouds parted we took the animal."

"And the Great Spirit appeared out of the cloud to bless our hunt!" blurted Plenty Lice out of turn.

"You have taught your hunters to lie so easily, Squaw Who Hunts," said Tatanka. "I should give you another name."

Even Wanica was annoyed by the outburst of Plenty Lice, but he said, "Wakan Tanka was white like snow. He sat on the top of the mountain. His head and arms and legs shrank until he became an egg.

The hunters who had been with Wanica nodded their assent and grunted.

"And what did you do after you saw this egg, liar?"

"We built a lodge of stones for the Great Spirit to honor him for his blessing."

Tatanka pulled out his knife and drew near to Wanica.

"You built a lodge of lies. There is no white egg!"

He flicked just the tip of his blade across Wanica's face. Tatanka was satisfied to draw only a little blood. Maiming his best hunter wouldn't do. He said, "I name you Hole In Cheek!"

Wanica put his hand to his face to staunch the bleeding and walked with dignity out of the range of the fire's light. Chief Tatanka laughed but nobody else did.

Wanica's wife Yuha left the circle of light as well and followed her man to their tipi.

While she dressed Wanica's wound his son Shy Bear said, "Father, did you truly see the Great Spirit, or did you just want to annoy Bad Heart Bull?"

Wanica shifted his eyes to the boy and appraised his son but did not answer until Yuha finished staunching the cut. At length he said, "Yuha, what we spoke about before, now it is time."

Yuha nodded that she understood and retrieved a leather pouch. The pouch contained many pigments and the implements to apply them. Using what she had stored in the pouch, Yuha began to paint the face of Shy Bear.

For his part Wanica retrieved a ceremonial dress made of bison skins and feathers and many beads.

Shy Bear turned his head to look at what his father held, which smeared some of the paint caused his mother to grow annoyed. She said, "Stand and be still, son."

Wanica laid the ceremonial dress on Shy Bear and fastened it as his wife continued to work. he aid, "You will get no answers from me." He put the boy's own bow in his hands and said, "I will give you no morsel of food."

Yuha finished painting her son's face and stood apart from him.

His father said, "To this day I only lent you the name Shy Bear." Wanica opened the flap door. "Go now, into the night, nameless one. Kill your own food, if you can. And if you cannot?" Wanica shrugged. "Perhaps in your hunger Wakan Tanka will give you a vision."

Astonishment marked Shy Bear's face at all these words. Shy Bear glanced from his fathers face and traced along his arm to the finger pointing outdoors and he nodded, understanding at last. But he could also see his mother did not understand, not really. She was doing this under duress. This was a ritual, with a strict form.

As was required of her, she said, "The boy will go out from us. The man will return."

Shy Bear sincerely hoped the worry on his mother's face was not rooted in another one of her well-known premonitions. He obeyed his father and stepped out into the night.

In the moonless dark Shy Bear stumbled across the prairie until the fires of the Kuwapi people were like flickering orange stars far behind him. By midnight he reached the first slopes of the Island in the Sky and ascended slowly, reaching the summit just before sunrise. In the light of dawn the boy sat to let his shadow fall upon his father's stone cairn. He watched all morning until his shadow no longer touched the rocky mound. Then the shadow of the cairn began to touch him.

By dusk he had not received a vision from the Great Spirit. There was a strong breeze. When the sun sank below the horizon the boy grew cold. He gathered woody brush growing on the summit and cut it with the edge of a flint scraper, which he also used to spark a fire to burn them. But the flame and smoke kept changing direction. The boy took the changing winds to be an invitation to spend the night with Wakan Tanka within the lodge that his father built. He removed stones from one side to create a door.

When he crawled inside he saw the white egg that Wanica spoke about to Bad Heart Bull. The boy was hungry but it was too dark to try to kill a hare. No heat came from his fire outside but least he was shielded from the wind. There was no room to lie down straight, but he could sleep on his side if he curled around the white egg, careful not to touch it.

But sometime in the middle of the night while he was asleep he touched the white artifact anyway and was awakened by the sting of a needle pricking his hand. Taking even more care not to touch the manifestation of Wakan Tanka the boy stood up and went outside.

Shy Bear saw that his fire had become glowing coals, but that earlier the wind must have carried embers halfway down the slope and kindled a brush fire that threatened to form a ring around the whole small mountain. He knew that if he stayed on the summit he was dead. Small game was running up and over the summit to flee the fire and the boy could have shot his dinner then, but with every wasted moment he risked being roasted himself.

He moved toward the fire to have enough light to see, then moved west to get around the flames. But the boy could go no further. A chasm of the Squaw River lay before him. He could hear it flowing over rocks far below as wrapped around the entire southern half of the mountain. He needed light to try to cross it. The fire spread to cut off any escape north.

The boy looked down into the canyon of the Squaw and saw a tiny light of purest white, like the brightest star he had ever seen, bobbing along the west slope as though it were walking. Sometimes it would move north, then at times south, but it always rose higher. At length the light reached the rim on a level with the boy and he saw it was actually worn on the head of a human figure even taller than he. The prairie fire behind it outlined an hourglass shape.

A female voice speaking his tongue said, "Follow me and you will live." Sha turned and went back the way sha came, and the boy did follow, if anything to reach the creek where he could stand a chance of surviving when the wildfire reached the canyon.

The path was free of obstructions, but the female turned now and again to check the boy. When sha resumed walking the boy admired the patterned skintight leather sha wore, even in the dim light of the fire, which made har ass look like nothing so much as a big ripe plum. But the sound of the water grew quieter the closer they approached, which was strange.

By the time they reached the creek the water wasn't flowing at all. It had become a wet staircase of puddles that led up to a low cave entrance in a wall of dark shale. The femaler crouched to splash har way inside the cave with har tall boots, and the boy followed.

Inside the cave the boy saw a pool of water with a narrow stone ledge all around it. The light from the stranger's headband filled the space and he saw that she looked very much like a young Kuwapi woman but much taller, and sha was not much older than he. Sha laid har hand on har chest and said, "Leliel."

Sha expected him to give his own name and he did not want har to think him addled, so he said, "My father once named me Shy Bear, but now he has cast me out of his tipi with no name." He clearly saw that sha did not understand his words so he laid his hand on his own chest and said, simply, "Shy Bear."

The sound of that name seemed to please har. She removed her headband light and dropped it into the water. It faded as it sank. Shy Bear saw the water began to glow with a dim green light.

Leliel knew that Shy Bear could not understand har words, but sha tried to make him understand with simple hand gestures to follow har. She made this imperative, as there was danger if he did not follow.

Leliel jumped into the cistern, turned turtle, and disappeared from view. The boy waited for her to come back up for air as he knew she must, but she did not. The water then began to stir and overflow its bounds. Shy Bear took a leap into the unknown and followed her.

When Shy Bear reached air again there was much more light than the alcove at the source of the Squaw River. Many hands reached down offering to pull him from the water, as his ceremonial dress was soaked and weighted him down greatly. Two of the hands were those of Leliel.

Shy Bear saw that he was standing next to a large pool of water surrounded by a surface of polished planks of wood, and beyond this, a circle of small hut, Behind the huts was a lush forest. Shy Bear could see the sky through branches in these trees, and it was purple. But it was also rather cool, and Shy Bear, being soaked, began to shudder with a chill. Leliel was just as wet as he. Sha took his hand and led him into one of the huts on the perimeter of the pool.

Shutting the door, she disrobed both Shy Bear and harself. This sha did one garment at a time, first his, then har own. Leliel opened the door once to pass through his ceremonial dress to waiting hands.

Shy Bear saw that har legs were sculpted far more than he would expect a woman's legs to be. She was obviously a runner.

Leliel in turn took in the sight of Jashen as sha thoroughly dried both harself and him with linens. Sha held a ribbon with strange markings against Jashen's body, here and there, then opened the door to speak some words to those were waiting outside. There were dry clothes folded neatly inside the hut, specked with green and dark purple, which Leliel donned. By the time sha was fully dressed, the servants outside passed another set of identical clothing through the door of the hut, but they were cut smaller, selected to fit Jashen perfectly.

Taking mute encouragement from Leliel, he slipped into the new clothing. And Shy Bear saw there was wisdom in the color and pattern of the clothing. With face and hands painted, a warrior would be almost invisible in the forest. He wondered if women in this strange place were accepted as warriors.

Outside of the hut, seated near the water, a man said to hym, "Welcome, Shy Bear. I am called Yeshua, and I am also called Teacher by some. You may call me Chief Yeshua, if you wish. Everything you see around you is the lodge of my father, who is known to your people as Wakan Tanka."

The man fell silent and Shy Bear felt he was invited to speak. He said, "Chief Yeshua, you speak strange words, yet somehow I know what they mean. How can this be?"

Yeshua replied, "It happened after you were pierced by the white egg. It has already changed your mind, but there are also changes to your body which will come. Now you can speak and understand many tongues. The changes to your body that can be seen will not be great. Perhaps even now you can feel a hard lump behind your head."

Shy Bear touched the back of his head to confirm this, and said, "I did not want to be changed in these ways, Chief Yeshua."

"It is a consequence of touching the Artifact. Those changes are not a matter of your choice. Yet you are free to choose to return to your People. I would ask you to teach the Kuwapi the language of the whites that you now know."

Shy Bear said, "But they will grow afraid, and flog me, or try to put me to death, thinking I am Coyote come in a human shape." Yeshua replied, "Do not fear those things, Shy Bear. Your father Wanica will protect you. After you return he will become chief of the People."

"All of these things, Chief Yeshua, the changes to me, what is the purpose? Is there a purpose to them?"

Yeshua said "A group of whites will meet the People in three years. They will be led by a man who has already been brought here even as you were. Wakan Tanka would that these white settlers and your people live together in peace."

Shy Bear said, "You spoke of a choice, Chief Yeshua. What then will become of me if I do not return to my father and my mother and my people?"

Yeshua said, "If you do not return, Shy Bear, you may stay here for the rest of your life, and you will be treated well, but your parents and your people are very far away. If you do not choose to return to the lands of your birth they will never see you again."

Already Shy Bear had seen wondrous things beyond any of his dreams, and he longed to stay in that place and experience even more wonders, and here he stole a quick glance at Leliel. But his desire to see his father Wanica and mother Yuha again proved the greater. Hy said, "I will return, Chief Yeshua, and teach the People the tongue of the Whites as you bid."

"I am very pleased," said Yeshua with a smile. "No more shall you be called Shy Bear. Now you shall be called Jashen. When you go home Jashen shall be your name of manhood. Yet do not think I will send you home very soon, Jashen. The one you have met named Leliel has written many words upon a white scroll in the words of har tongue. I would have you copy these words in the tongue of the whites."

"Are there many words on this scroll, Chief Yeshua?"

"A great number of them, Jashen. It will take perhaps ten or twelve moons to complete this task."

"But if I do not return home soon, Chief Yeshua my father mother will think me to be dead."

"Take no thought of that, Jashen," said Yeshua. "No matter how long you remain here, when you return to the land of your people it will seem to Wanica and Yuha that you have been gone for less than a single moon. One day you will know how this is not even magic." "Such a thing would always be strong magic to me, Chief Yeshua."

"Others have been changed like you, some were Begotten, and some were Made. They call me Teacher. And when I teach, great magic becomes small, and small magic becomes a known thing, not even magic at all."

--

After he was healed Mark Lange lay in a bed cared for by attendants who bade him to remain in repose long after he felt sufficiently revived to stand once more. But at length a young man introduced himself as Jashen. He invited Mark to meet the one who had healed him.

Mark thought Jashen had the appearance of the people who preceded the Europeans to North America. Glad to be permitted to move about at last, Mark saw the short man who helped him when he was injured. He was seated outdoors near a small table on a deck of dark wood near a pool of water. Sitting with him was one even taller than Anael had been and more obviously female.

As he drew near Mark felt only a very small residue of pain in his back and his leg, and he was entirely able to walk. The short man invited Mark and Jashen to be seated. Jashen sat next to the woman and Mark sat close to the healer.. The short man greeted Mark and told him, “This is Leliel, who was sent to bring Jashen to us. But Mark Lange, whom say ye that I am?'

Lange recognized the question from scripture and he said in reply, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."

Then he stood up because it didn't seem fitting to recline in the presence of his Lord, but he gestured for Mark to be seated once more. He looked over at Jashen and Leliel, and Jashen assured Yeshua, in English, that he never mentioned the name.

Yeshua turned back to look at Mark and said, "You do well to say so, Mark, on so few cues. There was a Pope who foisted upon the faithful the face of his bastard son as me, and ever since then most people expect to see a taller Italian fellow with a beard and long hair."

Mark said in reply, "Your Father emphatically told us not to create such images, but we never seem to obey, though we dare to call him our God."

He said, "Some do still obey God, Mark. A small remnant are faithful, both here in Kemen and on Earth. It is enough. You spoke truth in your prayer when you understood I wanted your flock to go west. Indeed, to go as far as you can go by river or rail, and even farther on foot."

Mark followed Yeshua's finger as he traced out a course on a map down the Ohio River to lands in the west. The map had no political boundaries, only cities and rivers and uplands. His finger stopped at one mountain. Mark saw that the feature was marked with words he could read: Green Dome.

Yeshua said, "Here is the home of Jashen's people. I would have you travel to this place, Mark, with your own wife and any others from your congregation who would freely choose to go. You will take with you this map and also a book you will copy yourself from Leliel’s White Scroll."

"A book I will write, Lord?"

"This is the great task I have set before you, Mark, before you return home. But the three of you must toil together to let it come to be. Jashen can understand Leliel's speech but he cannot read her letters nor your own, while Leliel cannot understand your speech nor your letters."

Then Leliel set upon the map an oven-fired clay pot and removed a cylinder of parchment that seemed to be bleached white, inscribed by dark letters that Mark could not dicipher. Jashen reached into a leather sachel and produced a fat codex with blank pages bound between two green covers. Yeshua himself provided pens of a type that Mark had never seen before. They could be used immediately and did not need to be dipped in ink.

“Mark, as you copy out this book you will find that it argues against your Bible on many points. That will be difficult for you to accept, even after being brought here. And when you return to Earth some of the families in your flock will think you to be apostate and have nothing further to do with you, but others will believe. I cast you in the role of Yohanan the baptizer who prepared my way, though he himself did not live to see it come to pass."

--

1 The Watchers are born with a hunger to know. Even the children of angels and men annoy their parents with endless questions pondering their own origin. To silence Daughter, Father said, “Your beginning was the result of my physical joining with Mother.”

2 When Daughter asked further of origin of her parents, and whether there lived others of their kind, Mother said, “We elohim are a multitude beyond your ability to reckon. 3 But it is our law and tradition to isolate a newborn eloah for a time before immersing her in the song of the City of Stars, lest your identity be lost in the cacophony of the many voices.”

4 Daughter could see the purpose of that precaution. She had known only Thaumiel, the Two, and only as soundless voices. Daughter ceased her questions and set about to discover her own answers.

4 There was a thing she knew how to do, although she did not know how she was able to know it. Daughter could send pieces of herself out of her body. These fragments were like tiny hot drops of liquid, yet ach one was as heavy as a stone temple.

5 These drops were hurled into a void surrounding Daughter where they expanded and cooled, becoming large frozen shapes. They flew free of Daughter’s body, yet each shape remained connected to her by a thread which none could see. Not even Daughter herself with her own surrogate eyes in the shapes could see the thread.

6 Daughter saw her body was a globe of light, and her surface was made of flames which erupted into the void. When she beheld the stars, she knew that she was seeing countless others of her kind, but they were so dim that Daughter, who saw how her own light faded with distance, marveled how far across the void they truly were.

7 Daughter also saw other points of light that looked like stars, yet they only reflected the light that the One herself made, and they were much closer than the elohim. She fattened the link to one of her tools and let hot gas flow through. This gas then escaped into the void and caused the tool to move.

8 As it responded to Daughter’s will and offered her the sense of sight, she lived through the tool vicariously, as though her body was free to move through the void.

9 One of the objects lay at a distance a hundred-fold greater than the width of the body of Daughter. Her avatar dropped below the cloud layer and cooled off in a world-girdling expanse of water.

10 When Daughter’s avatar emerged from the ocean it 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.

11 She arced through the void to another place and reached a grassy plain with a single mountain dominating it. Here Daughter saw another group of apes that walked erect. She changed her shape to watch.

12 Hidden from their notice as a white rock, Daughter observed a burial ceremony for a newly dead hunter. Afterwards the apes polished elaborate bone tools with stone tools and repaired the animal hides they slept within during the hunt. At night they entered a cave and a tendril from the avatar of Daughter snaked in to watch them. A female applied pigment to the wall to produce a beautiful painting. Daughter saw resin boiling in a pot over a fire. The resin was then used to fix a stone spearhead to a shaft for hunting.

13 Daughter spoke of all these things to the Two. Here lived creatures who were awake in the manner of the Watchers, yet were unutterably different. But for a long time neither Father nor Mother said a word to her in reply about the living things she had seen.

14 Daughter wondered if her parents had revealed them to the other elohim. Perhaps they were of small import and suchlike world-dwellers filled the void. But her parent’s silence did make her curious. She said to her parents, “It would be a small thing for me to reach one of the other suns and speak to him.”

15 Father said, “No, Daughter, the link to your avatar will grow too thin to be useful as a conduit for matter when it has reached the distance light travels in the time this inhabited world you discovered makes one full revolution. You could begin such a crossing but you could never stop. We rule our own near vicinity absolutely, but we can reach no further. If it were not so, even now I would be preparing to cross the void and destroy all of these living creatures you have discovered with fire from my own belly.”

16 Daughter said, “Help me to understand, Father. Do you really wish to destroy them? Something within me says these strange living things are not our enemies.”

17 Father replied, “Even if they are not dangerous to the Watchers now, perhaps they would become our mortal enemies in the future. We have found many worlds with life of like kind, but the tool-making creatures you have discovered are unique. They are potentially dangerous to us because they are fully awake, even as we are, guided by their own will rather than by their nature. Given time, nothing would restrain such ones. ”

18 Daughter said, “Certainly their very uniqueness as intelligent beings makes them something to be treasured by the elohim, and not merely cast away. ”

19 Father replied, “They are unruly like all the other beasts you have found. If these creatures learn the lore of the Elohim nothing shall hinder them from doing whatsoever 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. I can do nothing but block your announcement. Mother is in full agreement. But this does not give us pleasure, Daughter.”

20 Daughter said, “It may be true that I cannot halt my avatar at another star, but certainly information is not so constrained. After all, I can speak freely with yourself and Mother. When my avatar reaches a nearby star I can speak to him in a quiet place of the creatures I found circling me.”

21 Father was dismayed how Daughter, entirely without recourse to the lore of the Watchers, knew a sun’s own body filled the void with noise, yet there remained silent regions where creatures such as the ones she had found could make themselves heard.

22 Father said, “You are too young to understand the responsibility that has been thrust upon you by your misfortune of finding these creatures. You have not been granted access to the city of stars. It is the way of the elohim to introduce our young to the other elohim in stages, after they have developed a stable personality. After this exchange I judge you are now ready for this and therefore I will announce your birth to the city of stars."

23 Father went on to say, “But you must be willing to accept two conditions before I allow you to converse with the rest of the elohim. The first is you must send some of these clever animals you have found to a world circling myself, that I may examine whether they are amenable to our control.

24 "The second condition is that you shall only listen to the idle chatter of the elohim. You shall not ask of them the smallest question. You shall not speak to them of these creatures nor any other thing. Our highest law will bind you to this Covenant.”

24 So Daughter made covenant with Father to bring a man and a woman to Kemen for a time of testing with the Elohim as their masters before allowing them to set aside their servitude and embrace the Elohim as teachers.

--

Leliel felt no urgency to rush her recital. Yeshua had told her when she was finished she would be sent to Earth and leave all that she had known far behind.

For his part Jashen, too, did not feel rushed, though he longed to return home. He believed that Yeshua would return him to his parents after only a single moon passed for them, no matter how long he tarried here in this place he called Kemen. Yet he felt no urge to speak of this promise to Mark Lange.

So it fell to Mark to drive them along in their task of translating the scroll, as he wished to be reunited with his wife, and was filled with rue for every day that she thought him to be missing or dead. And at times the labor grew tedious, yet it was Jashen who seemed to be most easily annoyed.

When he translated the passage of the refugees trodding west from Rumbek he asked Leliel, as though in unbelief, “Were you really this running girl?”

She told him to fetch his bow in one hand, took his other hand, and led him through the woods to a large flat clearing. The place served as a kind of parade ground in Nyduly. There Leliel stood twenty paces from Jashen.

“Fire an arrow at me,” she said, and when Jashen howled in dismay that she was wasting his time she said, “I am serious. Do your very best to try to kill me.”

He released the dart. Leliel’s muscles seemed to explode into motion. She ran backwards across the grass of the clearing faster than the arrow could follow. Then she turned and disappeared into the thick wall of trees at the far side of the open space.

In short order Leliel came to Yeshua by woodland paths well-known to herr. He was alone, and when he saw Leliel he made a gesture of welcome and bade her to sit.

Sha said, “Teacher, you have said you have put Jashen in close proximity to me that nature will take its course. But I have already recited the White Scroll up to the war of the dragon and Jashen has shown not the slightest interest in me."

Yeshua asked Leliel, “But what are your own feelings on this matter? Do you not find young Jashen to be pleasing to your eye             ?

“He is a vision to drink in,” sha replied. “I could imagine spending more than a lifetime with him. Yet I do not think he feels the same way about me.”

Yeshua replied, “Jashen feels as though he is swimming in water over his head. He’s felt that way ever since he jumped in after you at Green Dome. I’ve given him a new name to acknowledge his manhood, but he lacks the full confidence of a man. Jashen was whisked from the land he knows to this place, which is surpassingly strange to him, just as I imagine Earth would seem strange to you. He has been given new abilities that he never dreamed of.”

Leliel told Yeshua that most of all she just missed her mother.

“Take heart, child,” he said. “Things are rushing to the point when my parent will bring Lilith back to the world of the living again, although she will return as a human woman, not as an angel. But you will both rejoice to see each other once more.”

--

25 A fierce storm hurled lightning, rain, and hail. Clad in animal skins, Adamu picked his way to the base of a mountain that stood aloof on a grassy plain. His woman Chava carried a child as she followed him

26 Adamu found a cave in the mountainside to shelter them from the storm. Chava sat on a boulder and breastfed her child as her mate started a fire. A noise other than the crackling fire startled both of them. Adamu moved deeper into the cave with a torch to investigate

27 Adamu passed a wall that was covered with images of animals and hunters, evidence the cave had been used long before. But there was also much dry firewood, which spoke of more recent habitation. He thought perhaps the ones who lived there were caught out in the storm

28 The cave narrowed to a tunnel that meandered and grew lighter when intuitively it should have grown darker. Adamu was joined by his woman and child. They reached another cave mouth deep within the interior of the mountain that re- vealed cyan bushes and a purple sky

29 A branchless tree resembling a whip stirred into motion and struck the ground before them. The whip tree grabbed Adamu’s torch and hurled it away, where it started a fire. The couple could not emerge from the cave entrance by reason of the whip tree and the growing fire

30 Adamu and Chava edged back into the tunnel away from the heat. When the whip tree caught fire it began to thrash more intensely than they saw it do before. They retreated deep inside the cave until the tree burned to a lifeless crisp, and returned when the fire abated.

31 A black patch of land lay before Adamu and Chava and continued to smolder. They stepped across the hot burnt soil and carefully watched for any movement. When they gazed back towards the tunnel they were startled to see it was set it a low ridge. The mountain was gonei.

32 When the sun set a second brilliant light remained in the sky, tinged with orange, brighter than any star. Still, it began to grow cold. Adamu used some of the smoldering embers to rekindle a fire in the tunnel entrance and returned to the other world to hunt game

33 Supper was two hares caught by Adamu and skinned by Chava. In the morning they saw the burned acreage was already sporting shoots of blue grass. The next day the grass was tall enough for Adamu and Chava couple to run barefoot and free.

34 Adamu and Chava thought the new world belonged to them, solely, but that was not to be. A small herd of bison emerged from the tunnel and proceeded to eat the grass. They were driven by a theophany of Father, whom Daughter named The Accuser. He was a tall figure in the shape of a man but without a face and as black as obsidian.

35 The Accuser carried a twin-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 off, then flipped the ax    around and used the handle's sharp tip to pry the weed out of the soil.

36 After that the Accuser interposed himself between the cave entrance and the human family and approached them. They backed away until they reached the perimeter of the burned area. The Accuser held out the tool and motioned for Adamu to take it until he did as he was bid.

37 As The Accuser watched, Adamu found another plant that was growing on the edge of the grazing ground for the bison. He duplicated the actions he had seen to kill the intruding plant. Then The Accuser taught him how to restore the keen edge of the ax with a stone.

38 The theophany of Daughter, who named herself Elyon, was identical in form to that of The Accuser but white instead of black. The Accuser joined Elyon as she looked down upon the new garden. And Elyon said, “Here are the servants, as I vowed, brought within reach of your avatar to do with them as you will.”

39 But the Accuser said, ‘All you have given me is three creatures in a world that will kill them if they try to leave their small garden. You must bring to Kemen forty more such families before I will hold our covenant to be fulfilled.”

40 There is no native fauna in Kemen but some of the flora moved of its own accord and most of it was 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 formed clenching mouths with teeth.

41 Thorny ball bushes rolled under their own power by shifting their weight and selectively gripping the ground. Most plants were deadly to touch. For centuries the death rate of the colonists in Kemen exceeded the birth rate, mandating a steady stream of new volunteers.

42 So Elyon and The Accuser toiled together to plan several dozen gardens in Kemen. The first children to be born away from Earth came to be. But many of the men and women brought to Kemen died before the span of years nature alloted to them by reason of the hostile flora. o

43 In the first garden when the eldest sons of Adamu and Chava were of an age to have wives of their own the theophany of Elyon emerged from the tunnel escorting a woman from Earth. The Accuser observed from a ledge overhead as Elyon and the woman approached Kayin, who had been born on Earth.

44 Kayin was harvesting vegetables. He bowed to Elyon and offered the woman his best ones. The woman turned up her nose at the food. So Elyon ignored Kayin's sacrifice and took the woman to see the younger son instead, Hebel, the firstborn of Kemen. He was cooking bison.

45 Hebel bowed and offered a stick with meat cubes to the woman, who ate the meat greedily. Elyon placed the hand of the woman in the hand of Hebel as Kayin looked on with growing resentment, then departed. ived soon after this. With the rope still in his hand, Kayin glared at all of them with contempt.

46 Kayin began to braid native vines for a long rope. Near the time of the setting of the white sun Kayin paused to watch the woman preening outside and he looked upon her with lust. Hebel emerged to gather his woman back inside his hut with a haughty glance at his brother.

47 In the morning Adamu and Chava brought clothes they made for their younger son's wife, but they ignored Kayin, who continued to make his rope. All day Hebel and his wife pawed at each other in full view of Kayin, who smiled calmly until he finished his rope, then he departed.

48 Only one safe path led away from the Garden. Along this trail was a whip tree which had not yet been cut down. It was bent away from the path and secured by a clever knot to a stump. The rope ended in the hand of Kayin, who hid in a bush and meditated upon a new thing in Kemen.

49 Near dusk Hebel and his wife walked the path away from the Garden. Hebel saw the whip tree was bent away from the tree and held fast by a rope, and it came into his mind that his brother or father had prepared it in the usual way to be chopped off at the base.

50 Kayin tugged on the rope, freeing the whip tree as his victims approached. The tree beat them into the ground. It broke their bones and bruised their organs. Blood flew from their mouths as they cried out.

51 The whip tree only stopped thrashing when Hebel and his bride were not recognizable as once-living humans. Adamu and Chava ran up to investigate their screams and were horror-struck. Chokhmah and Keter arrived soon after. Rope in hand, Kayin glared at them with defiance.

52 Elyon refused to watch The Accuser’s response to the first murder in Kemen. He returned to the tunnel in the Garden wall, and thence to the hillside cave on Earth. Elyon did not return within the lifetimes of Adamu, Chava, Kayin, nor any of their children.

53 The Accuser soon joined Elyon atop the high hill and said, “How very instructive of world-dwellers, would you not agree?”

54 Elyon said in reply, “You have made subtle changes to their bodies which persist in their offspring. Your testing in Kemen is no longer pure. It has little bearing on the original stock here on Earth."

55 The Accuser said, “Yet after the killing today it is clear to me your precious woken creatures will destroy themselves and leave nothing but ruins, both on Kemen and on Earth. Hebel was not changed as you rightly note I have done in the other gardens.”

56 Elyon said, “You would raise up thralls who hasten their own extinction, but here I will teach them to live together and survive. In this I will have their willing participation, while in Kemen I foretell you will only heap to yourself the resentment of your slaves.”

57 The Accuser said, “I have given thought to their survival in Kemen, notwithstanding your own accusation. The changes will over the course of time make the males mighty of frame and sinew, and the females far more fertile and desirous to the eye.

58 "Now lower your center of gravity, daughter, it is unbecoming a goddess to have her avatar fall on its face. And do not forget you will never be able to make targeted queries of the Elohim as I have done."

59 Elyon did as her father suggested and seated her avatar upon the summit of Green Dome. The Accuser seated himself next to Elyon and for a moment they took in the view. "I envy you this world," he told her. "How very much unlike Kemen with its narrow unfrozen band."

60 But Eluyon made no answer, for she was already in contact with the City of Stars. As The Accuser had cautioned her, it was overwhelming. For many years her silent white avatar sat motionless atop the Island in the Sky as the seasons changed, as winds buffeted her and snows blanketed her.

--

When the translation of the White Scroll of Leliel was complete Jashen placed the codex, which Mark Lange would call the Printer's Manuscript, into the leather satchel where once the blank codex had been concealed.

Yeshua said, “Mark, as you well know this book argues with your Bible on many points. While you were writing you no doubt found it difficult to accept, even after being brought up here."

"Some of the families in my flock will read this and think me to be  apostate," Mark said. "They will have nothing further to do with me."

"Yet the book is entirely true," said Yeshua, "and others will believe. Do you remember how I said you and your followers must leave your homes and travel to the west?"

Mark said, "Yes Lord, but my flock has already been uprooted once before and most of us are worse than destitute. We've gone into debt to pay for homes we built on land we don't even own. None of us have the means to leave again."

Yeshua said, "It will be burden enough to believe the Green Book and to have the courage to make the journey. But do you think I, intending to build this tower, have not first counted the cost?"

Mark watched Jashen fill the satchel with much money. Greenbacks lined the interior and formed a cushion for the green book. The Lord said, "Be a good steward of this currency, Mark, for there are some among the Brethren who would only feign to follow you for the love of money."

Mark said, "I beg the Lord to choose more worthy people to make his will come to pass!"

"Not so, Mark, for I deem the German Brethren to be most like those who first loved and followed me when I was in the world. Have no fear! This money will be sufficient to take you and the families who are willing to follow west to the place where the rail ends. There some of my other students shall do much to prepare your flock to continue, as your journey will then be only half complete."

"It will be as you say, Lord."

"There is, however, one astonishing thing that will become evident to you when you return. Neither Jashen nor Leliel have spoken of it to you, for they are B'nei Elohim and have an inhibition against speaking of it, since it is a thing neither Keter nor Da'at must not know until it is too late for them. Yet you are not B'nei Elohim and have no such inhibition. I can only command you to keep it secret and trust that you remain faithful."

"What is this secret thing, Lord? Tell me, I beg you, that I may not reveal it out of my ignorance."

"It will become abundantly clear to you soon after you return home, Mark. It is sufficient to say that although the B'nei Elohim who appear in the Green Book have been present at key moments in the history of Keman and Earth, we are not immortal, as might be inferred by reading what is written, but we grow old and die in due course, even as do those who are not Begotten or Made.

--

61 From old the creatures discovered by Elyon looked into the night sky and saw a faint white band. They called it the Backbone of the Night. Elyon knew one day humans would fashioned certain instruments and they would see the mist was really innumerable stars.

62 Two-thirds of these stars are much more cool and dim than yellow- ish Elyon and Keter, or even than yellow-orange Daat. They contained no stable layer within for a sen- tient eloah to form, yet they could host one of two species of life more primitive than the elohim.

63 A distant ancestor of the Elohim diverged into three species. One adapted to the much cooler red stars and even colonized the ubiquitous warm brown stars that burn, ever so dimly, under a different principle than do the visible stars that shine much more brightly.

64 A second species became adapted for the brighter types of red stars. By necessity they reproduced prodigiously, since a large flare would kill them on the time scale of a few decades. A third species adapted to claim the more stable habitats of the hotter suns.

65 With much longer lifespans, this third species developed full sentience and ultimately a community. These are the Elohim and the oldest surviving member, named Yefefiah, is over 980,000 years of age. They guess some among them will live for tens of billions of years.

66 Other suns were blue giants which were as much as a hundred times more massive than Elyon, far too hot to be quickened as one of the elohim. Once or twice in a century these stars died in a vast explosion that for a short span of time outshone even Ein Sof.

67 From the way Keter had spoken of this Ein Sof before she was granted access to the greater community of her kind Elyon assumed he was a powerful lawgiver among the elohim, or perhaps even a deity. Now she knew Ein Sof was nothing more than all the Elohim in aggregate.

68 Early in the existence of Ein Sof, long before Elyon encountered Earth, another world with sentient life was known to the Elohim. They were aquatic creatures who adapted to cross land when an ice age reduced their shallow world ocean to scattered lakes.

69 Ein Sof took delight to find the universe looking at itself through different eyes, but the energies unleashed by the creatures hastened the end of the glacial period that made them tool-users. The Elohim watched them slowly revert to silent ocean-dwellers once more.

70 On ten occasions the Elohim detected evidence coming from civilizations somewhere beyond the reach of Ein Sof. In every case the evidence faded in a few centuries, sometimes as a gradual change to more efficient forms of communication, other times far more abruptly.

71 More frequently a young eloah exploring her own neighborhood ran across the ruins of an extinct culture which had attained sufficient knowledge to reach beyond the world of their birth.

72 It was inevitable that the Elohim must cross paths with a similar kind of life once more, but the next time, it was collectively vowed, the Elohim would not sit idly by as the creatures brought about their own extinction. They would be made aware of the dangers.

73 For Ein Sof knew how truly rare was life, and therefore dear, even life which was so different from themselves. The Watchers looked ahead to the coming of the Students, and Elyon had found them, yet the father of Elyon, who named himself Keter, and the mother of Elyon, named Da'at, worked to ensure they would remain hidden.

74 Da'at could reach the city of stars through the eloah named Hod. Elyon's discovery would unleash scrutiny that Keter was unprepared to endure. Keter knew he must immediately tempt Da'at into the same transgression as his own to ensure his silence. And Elyon, now with access to elohim lore, guessed the nature of that offense.

75 The act of giving birth changed an eloah from female to male. This normally happened within a span of time similar to a single human lifetime, yet few Watchers have died a natural death. For every female among the Elohim there were countless males vying for them.

76 As the ages rolled on this only grew worse, and courting among the Watchers became ripe for abuse. The only way for an eloah to speak with others was through two umbilical cords that always connected a Watcher to his parents, and through them to their parents, and so on.

77 Individual living suns could be entirely sealed off from the greater community of elohim, simply by never announcing their conception. Two male elohim could conspire to set up a secret harem. They could take turns mating with each other’s offspring. This was considered a great crime by a majority of the Watchers.

78 Da'at’s own mother (who would one day be called Hod by the world-dwellers) had been one of those trapped females. She was allowed back to full contact with the city of stars in return for mating with Father, but there was a covenant of silence in force. Hod was enjoined from speaking of his captivity up the chain. But nothing stopped him from complaining of this state of affairs down the chain to Da'at and thus also to her daughter.

79 Nothing would forbid Hod of speaking of the Students, if he knew of them. Elyon longed to speak to Hod of them, but access to the city of stars impressed upon her that breaking a covenant, no matter how trifling, was considered the greatest crime by all of the elohim.

80 Da'at did not yet speak of the Students to Hod, by Keter’s request, but there was no binding covenant in place ensuring Da'at must remain permanently silent about them, and Keter had nothing to offer that might bring Da'at into such a covenant.

81 Keter knew Hod would quite enjoy announcing the discovery of the Students to the other elohim as a certain way to bring about the judgment and unnatural death the elohim who had imprisoned him without simultaneously violating the pact that still existed between them.

82 With time pressing, Keter found the sole path out of his trap. Da'at was an orange sun very near to the Earth, as the gaps between suns go. Chesed was another such orange sun, somewhat further away. Keter arranged their liaison and Da'at mated with her fully aware that he was guilty of breaking the second-highest law of the elohi.

83 In the mating of elohim eight ripples fly out into the void. It took over four years for the first ripple from Chesed to reach a wild but cool orange-red sun and quicken into a living and conscious being. The second ripple from Chesed arrived a month later. But Netzach was already well along in becoming the newest female member of the Watchers, so the ripple did not tarry. Instead, four months later, it reached a very small red sun and began to quicken life there.

84 This sun and two others beyond it were too cool. The three red suns formed a trap for the six remaining generative waves. They repeatedly quickened into newborn elohim, only to result in a stillbirth soon after. At the end of the mating Chesed, the mother of Netzach, had become forever male.

85 And Elyon, noting the appearance of a newborn half-sister, thought to herself, “My own parents have become enemies not only of myself, but enemies of our whole kind. They have fallen into the Forbidden Way, and now they will strive to hide the Students, or even to destroy them if they can contrive it.”

86 Elyon had been overwhelmed by sudden access to the chatter of Ein Sof, even as her father had warned, but over time she learned to separate her identity from the truly endless stream of information. Atop the mountain her avatar stirred to action once more.

87 When Elyon returned to full awareness she saw Keter waiting for her on the summit. "You are a liar, Father. This is not a research project, merely part of your harem!" Keter did not deny that, he only restated there was a covenant and Elyon must abide by the terms.

88 Elyon said, "Have no fear that I will break our covenant, for I will do what my own parents could not, and obey every law and custom of Ein Sof. But one day these creatures will make such a noise that every Watcher will hear them. That is what you should fear."

89 "It will never come to that, daughter. While you were immersed in the lore of Ein Sof this world made two circles around yourself, and there was another killing. It is clear your precious woken creatures will destroy themselves and leave nothing but ruins." 90 Elyon replied that Keter's colony would raise up thralls who worked to hasten their own extinction, but she would teach her own students to survive. Keter said, "You can do nothing but fail, since you can only listen to Ein Sof as an outsider while I make queries."

91 But Elyon did not despair. Vowing to preserve the sentient creatures she found, Elyon knew she would have the willing participation of those she called the Students, while Keter and Da'at would only heap to themselves the resentment of their slaves.

--

In her tipi Yuha had been sobbing quietly for days. Wanica tried his best to comfort her, but there was really nothing he could do. She said, "Nearly a full moon has passed since we have seen our son. Has the Vision Quest ever taken this long?"

Wanica replied, "I will not lie to my own wife. Ten nights the test was for me, and no more."Hearing this, Yuha let the full force of her grief wash over her, and all Wanica could do was hope she didn't blame him personally for going through with the ritual.

Yet there had been no choice, really. The Kuwapi were already the outcast dregs of the Oglala Sioux. If Wanica had denied the boy his test of manhood, he would be outcast even from the Kuwapi, forever a boy. And he would have never forgiven his father.

When she recovered a bit she said, "Shy Bear's last memory of us was that even his mother had a stony heart."Wanica said, "A heart of stone is part of the ceremony. There must be a...cutting off. There is no way around it. This as always been the way of our People."

He remembered how Shy Bear always called the leader of the People "Bad Heart Bull" and how even he had to agree. Tatanka piled upon Wanica daily indignities, until even his great inborn patience had been tested nearly to the breaking point. This day was no exception.

Chief Tatanka barged into the tipi unannounced and pointed a finger at Wanica. "You have brought no food into this camp for a moon, Hole in Cheek!""It is the fire," Wanica said. "It still burns the grasslands to the south. The animals are on the other side of it."

"Then take your hunters and go around the fire or you will be Hole in Neck.""It will take two days' ride to find the animals," Wanica replied. "Then a day to kill and field-dress them, then two days' ride to bring the carcass back. The meat will go bad."

"The nights are cold now. The meat will keep. I grow tired of eating jerky. Go!"Before the Chief left the tipi he let his eyes wander over Yuha's legs. She saw his gaze and tucked her legs under a bison-hair blanket.

When Tatanka departed, Wanica retrieved the Golden Gift from the place he had hidden it. He had shown no one the weapon he received from Wakan Tanka, not even his wife Yuha. He knew that while he was hunting, nothing might restrain Tatanka from pillaging his tipi.

Wanica and his hunters prepared their horses for the journey, and packed their share of the People's dwindling supply of dried meat. Wanica mounted his own horse, Kaleetan, and for the first time he pondered that his horse had a right name but his own son did not.

The fires were burning far away, even from the vantage of the Island in the Sky, but Wanica led the hunting party away south toward that small mountain to better survey the devastation and to see if the cairn they built to Wakan Tanka was in need of repair.

The party crossed over an abrupt line to the grasslands that were burned and ascended the Island in the Sky, which was entirely seared black. When they reached the summit Wanica saw that his son Shy Bear was restoring the stone he had once removed to take shelter.

He was still dressed in the ceremonial dress that Yuha had made for him, but it was altered in a curious way to fit better, and had been covered in a riot of colored beads that was clearly no artifice of the Kuwapi, though it echoed the craftsmanship of the People.

Leliel stood next to him. Wanica and the hunters found har to be striking. Although sha appeared to be a young woman of the People sha was a full head taller than the tallest of any of them. Sha, too, was attired in something much like Jashen's raiment, but more simple.

Before Jashen sealed the cairn, Wanica saw that the white dome was still contained within. A tame bison was also trodding slowly on the summit of the Island in the Sky amid the blackened ground, wondering perhaps if there was any green thing lying around to eat.

Wanica searched his son's face and saw that he seemed a little taller himself, and a little older. He was so overjoyed to see him that he forgot he took away his name and turned him out into the night. "Shy Bear!" he exclaimed, and ran toward the boy to embrace him.

But Jashen was having none of that. His body language halted his father at a single pace. He extended his hand and gripped his father by the lower arm near his elbow. "You forget yourself, Father. No more am I to be called Shy Bear. My name of manhood is Jashen. I have brought my wife Princess Leliel, who is the daughter of Wakan Tanka and Queen Lilith. Her father has commanded us to return to the People and live among them for a season, but there will be much coming and going between here and his lodge in the sky."

Leliel bowed to Wanica with respect and said, haltingly, using the tongue of the People that Jashen had instructed har over the course of a year, "I greet you, Wanica, and convey the command of my father that the Kuwapi people should ever dwell near this place."

Wanica was rendered speechless by the words of Jashen and Leliel at first. He was not displeased. Yet immediately he saw that was a problem. "Chief Tatanka will never believe that a stranger, a woman no less, communicates to him the will of Wakan Tanka."

Jashen longed to tell his father Bad Heart Bull would not be an obstacle for much longer, but he had been urged by Chief Yeshua to say nothing of the matter, lest events were diverted to a path that sealed the Chief in place rather than rushed him to his fate.

Wanica realized there was another problem with what Leliel claimed. He said, "The People must always go where the animals go, lest we starve. The People will never believe the will of Wakan Tanka is to dig our own graves in this place and lie down in them."

Jashen answered for Leliel. "The holy one whom the Sioux have named Wakan Tanka has sworn to make the Kuwapi thrive. He has many servants, as even I now am, and Father, do I not speak truth to say he has already shown his favor to you in a way you alone know?"

Then all doubt fled from Wanica, as he realized Jashen was speaking of the Golden Gift in a way that revealed he had met the one who gave it. Wanica said, "My heart leaps to see you again, son, if you can forgive me for thrusting you out of the presence of Yuha."

Jashen replied, "And it is good to see you again Father. I bear no ill feelings toward you for sending me out from your tipi, as I would never have found Leliel otherwise, nor been given the name of manhood, and many other gifts that would be long in the telling."

"Your mother will be as joyful as I am to see you again, son, all the more so that you bring her a beautiful daughter. We had both thought you to be dead. The moon has made a full cirle in the sky since you left. And she will wonder about your new breastplate."

Jashen said nothing of the year he spent in Kemen, time enough to come to love Leliel and make har his wife. He saw that the eyes of Wanica's hunters drifted to the animal that came with him said, "This is the gift of Chief Yeshua, the son of the Sky Father."

Wanica's hunters drew back their bows to kill the animal Jashen described as a gift, but Wanica said, "Hold!" and the men lowered their aim. "If we kill this animal and take its meat back to camp, Chief Bad Heart Bull will disfigure this gift of the Great Spirit.

Tatanka will add the horns of this animal to all his other false trophies of stolen merit. But there is another way." Wanica reached into his raiment close to his heart and withdrew the Golden Gift. The black shaft licked the whole head of the bison to nothing.

His hunters were stunned at the sight. Jashen, who knew the whole history of the Golden Gift, already knew it had been given into the hands of his father. Leliel's eyes brimmed with moisture at a memory of har mother Lilith, who had also possessed it once.

In the camp of the People word spread that the hunting party was arriving days before they were expected, and it was feared they would bring news that it was impossible to reach the roaming herds by reason of the fire. Yuha was among the women who went to greet them.

What she saw brought her joy beyond measure, such that she, too, forgot herself and cried out the boyhood name of her son, "Shy Bear!" which she repeated many times as both mother and son embraced. "Jashen, mother," he told her gently. "I am to be called Jashen."

Yuha's hands roamed over her son as she tried to assure herself he was not a spirit. When they stopped at something hard at the back of Jashen's neck he gently took his mother's hands in his own and stood apart, so that she could see what had been added to her beadwork.

Her eyes then turned to Leliel, who stood over even the tallest men in the camp, wearing something like a ceremonial dress of har own but skillfully fitted for har curves. "Mother," said Jashen, "this is my wife, Leliel, who is a princess among har people."

"I greet Yuha, mother of my husband," Leliel said. "In the lodge of my father not a day passed that Jashen did not speak of both you and Wanica with a love that could not be hidden. It was not long before his love for me could not be hidden, much though he tried!"