Of the ambiguous, ever-changing Teress of myth, only Benadek's suspicions remain. Teress, their new companion, metamorphoses from an autochthonous demon to genuine humanity, masked first by subterranean darkness and then by a homespun veil.
From dirt rose ta-Rossa,
Dust in her eye,
Dust in her mouth;
Keth-Harum, first star of evening,
Beckoned her hence;
Enas-of-Sky's-delight
Brushed soil from her face;
Bhena-d'kha'a of the Circle of Light
Brought her forth with his hand.
From dirt rose ta-Rossa
To light. *
Skirting the issue of human emergence from separate planetary wombs which Teress's legend is usually associated with, the biocybes give no satisfaction to rational scientists or to popularizers of the one-world "theory" (which of course is only a myth unacceptable to thinking minds.) Herein, Benadek's celestial mating with Teress, considered to symbolize formal acceptance into the Community of Worlds, is replaced with an adolescent spat.
A note of caution: conclusions are premature. The biocybes' programming demands only consistency. Though the narrative thus far unfolded is more consistent than the scattered myths from which it derives, truth must be determined by different criteria.
Teress's reaction to Benadek's overtures is puzzling, nonetheless, as is her clear distinction between herself and Sylfie. Contrasted with the warm and lovely poot, Teress is prickly at best, and even Benadek's attraction to her seems autoerotic, while his liaison with Sylfie does not. Too, Sylfie seems human enough, within her particular constraints. On what grounds does Teress consider herself superior?
(Kaledrin, Senior Editor.)
"Aren't you the one skirting the issue?" Abrovid asked Kaledrin, his eyestalks and polyps twisting quizzically.
"What do you mean? I thought I was pretty clear about the `one-world' thing. I'll probably be blacklisted by the fundamentalists for what I wrote," Kaledrin said with a trace of a whine, "and I'm not even a paleontologist or a historian."
"You're not a believer, either," Abrovid responded dryly, "so what do you care?"
"I don't! Damn it all, Ab, this is a literary experiment. I'm a mythographer, not a public relations hack. My commentary on the biocybes' text isn't the place for all this stuff. That's why the journals have letter columns. Besides, it's Saphooth's job to deal with the public."
"And he's hardly going to deal with them as you wish, is he? As for journal letters, maybe I can help you come up with something. Where do we start?"
"How about explaining why your damn pets aren't following instructions?"
"You mean, taking into account relevant data, like fossils? Are you sure they aren't?"
"Some help you're going to be."
"Now wait a minute. Lets take a long look at what they're telling us. . . ."
AN OPEN LETTER TO THEMYTHIC PROJECT'SSIMULCAST SUBSCRIBERS
Popularizers and theologians have raised the possibility that MYTHIC's biocybernetic compilation of the Achibol myths represents actual historic documentation of a single planet of origin for all humanity. Planetologists, archaeologists, and paleontologists have reacted angrily to these unwarranted conclusions.
With utmost dismay, I find myself in the middle of a controversy that should not even exist. MYTHIC does not purport to be historic or archaeological research. It is no moreand no lessthan an experiment in the interpretation of myths, legends and outright fairy tales. And it is unfinished. The novel idea of publishing each chapter directly and selling subscriptions did not come from the project's research staff but from our public relations and financial advisors. While an effective fund-raising device, I am deeply concerned with its effect upon our research. I do not expect all MYTHIC's subscribers to be scientists, but I do hope that all will cultivate scientific reserve, and avoid speculation until the biocybes' complete document is in hand.
Much has been made of the biocybes' apparent disregard for the third of their four directivesto contradict no firmly established evidence. Abrovid Legum, Assistant Programmer at the Biocybernetic Institute, the man most familiar with the biocybes' thought processes, is querying them about the anomaly. We hope that their response will clarify the situation.
I contend that they have not gone against their programming. Because Benadek, Achibol, and Teress are archetypic ancestors in our traditional myths, some of us have assumed that they are so in MYTHIC's production as well. But at no time have the biocybes specifically stated that the fixed-form bipeds in their narrative are ancestral humans. To the contrary, honches, poots, boffins, and cozies are "simplified" and not regarded as fully human even by their contemporaries. Possibly, even probably, these "pure-humans" may turn out to be ancestral to one particular line of simianoid humans. Less probably, the biocybes will reveal the entire tale to be a construct without any real historic connections. It is, after all, derived from sources which few of us would accept, in their original forms, as factual. We at MYTHIC limit our speculations to literary ones, and sincerely hope that our subscribers will do the same.
Kaledrin, MYTHIC Project Senior Editor
Department of Galactic Literature,
The Great School, Midicor IV
The croaking water creatures of the forested swamp sounded loud amid the stony crags of ancient buildings. No matter how hard Benadek looked, he had never caught a glimpse of the animals making the sounds, nor had he seen much other lifeonly stinging flies, and land-leeches that had to be salted from their legs; the dwellers in mossy ground, trees, and green, weed-covered ponds were as elusive as the pure-humans who called the morass home.
For days now he had followed his master's unsure steps among ancient ruins that thrust up from the soggy peat, hunting the pure-human camp. They lived, Achibol said, in "caves," gutted interiors of long-abandoned towers of steel and artificial stone. Miles of ancient streets spread about them, straight paths between pockmarked cliffs higher than the oldest trees, paths now clogged and overgrown, or flooded and impassible. The pure-humans could be a hundred yards away and they'd never be found unless they wanted to be. Why was Achibol so worried that honches would have found the village, if he himself could not, even knowing that it was here?
Young noses were better than old, and the faint, acrid stink that pervaded the lowland mist was the best clue they had to follow. The fire-scent meant either that the pure-humans were near, or that there had been a fire of unusual size. Benadek observed the waxing and waning of the odor as they moved about, and carefully noted the direction of breezes that swept down the ancient streets.
The burning had occurred north and west of them, and there were no diagonal avenues directly to his goal, but before the sun moved two fingers' breadth, the odor was overpowering, and there was no doubt that a disaster of some magnitude had occurred. The old man advanced hesitantly, postponing the moment he dreaded.
"It's not your fault, Master," the boy said as he grasped the sorcerer's skinny arm. "The honches have burned other villages, too. You couldn't have prevented it."
"Perhaps you're right," Achibol said.
"Should we leave the mules with Sylfie?" Benadek asked. "Their harnesses rattle and their hoofs suck and slop in this watery soil."
"If the camp's inhabitants are dead, it won't matter if we're noisy. If not, they'll welcome us. Many in this camp knew me, once."
A sound! Not the croak of tree-fish or the rattle of stiff leaves against scaly hide, but a jingle. Metal-sound. And the rhythmic suck-and-pop of large feet. The listener's pale eyes darted from the still-empty trail below to the cave-mouth surmounting the rubble slope. A tactical dilemma. He must hide until the intruders were in full sight, then decide whether to attack or remain in hiding. Or, he could enter the dark cave and confront his quarry, the most recent pure-human survivor to return and fall into his hands.
The thinker did not shape such thoughts vocally, as might Achibol or his apprentice; rather, the mental pictures of alternative actions presented themselves simultaneously, as if he viewed a separate image with each mental "eye."
Left: the sound of metal-shod hoofs striking rubble evoked an image of a mule climbing the rise toward his position. Vaguely human shapes accompanying the beast were smoke-wraiths, faint positional images with little informational content or detail. The watcher did not speculate; the densities of the images signified probability, determined by that organic computer that was his analogue of imagination.
Right: a gray silhouette made a dash from the black cave-mouth and slipped away into the wet woods. The image shifted again: a pure-human lurked just inside the cave, a jagged rock in hand, waiting for him. He saw himself darting quickly into the cave, throwing himself forward and rolling before coming erect and knocking the frail mutant over, its stone falling harmlessly.
Left: mules approached. Smoke-wraith figures with clearly defined ears heard the sounds of his motion and paused cautiously. Faint images of unspecified weapons formed in their misty hands.
The images faded. A decision had been made. The flesh-and-blood honch made his dash into the open cave-mouth.
"I heard something," Benadek whispered, raising his hand. The mules, edgy from the stink of dead fires and the thick odor of rotted flesh, skittered as he halted suddenly.
They all heard it then: a muted, muffled shriek, the growls of a forest predator, the clash of metal on stone. Benadek pointed. "It came from that cave." A deep moan confirmed his statement, overlaid with echoes as if the cave were large and open inside.
Achibol's hand on his arm restrained him. "Let us see who emerges before we show ourselves."
"Master, if someone is dying in there . . . Let's make a light."
"Wait. If something dies, something may have killed it. Didn't you hear the beast-sounds?" Benadek had heard the growling and snarling, and subsequently the shrieks. He squatted next to Achibol, and watched, and waited.
The sun continued its slow course above them: one finger, two, three. Then the clack of rubble alerted them. With a scrape and the jingle of metal on stone, a pale hand groped outside the cave, a hand extending from a black leather sleeve.
"Honch!" Achibol breathed. An arm appeared, bare white flesh dark with blood, shredded as if by great claws. A blond head followed, matted with leaves and blood, asymmetrical where an ear had been torn away, dark where an eye socket gaped empty.
"Why doesn't it die?" Benadek whispered.
"That would be poor design in a soldier. Let's see how far it gets."
Such callousness surprised Benadek. He would have succored the honch, or put it out of its misery.
"Let's go," Achibol said getting to his feet. "I have some questions to ask before it dies." Still astounded by his master's unseemly objectiveness, Benadek followed. The honch lay on its side, breathing in shallow pants, stopped by a coil of its own spilled intestine snagged on a stone. The dirt-encrusted organ was stretched tight and thin. The stink of peritoneal gasses was unbearable. Benadek bent to one side and let the contents of his gut fly, spattering his boot toes.
"Report!" Achibol snapped. Honch breeding demonstrated itself: to Benadek's renewed horror, the honch attempted to rise. "As you were!" Achibol snapped. "Report!"
"Sir!" it replied in a surprisingly clear voice. "Observed mutant camp as ordered. Killed three who returned. A fourth went in the cave."
"What unit? What orders?"
"Garvig's platoon, sir. Standing orders from Jorssh: all platoons to leave guards on mutant nests destroyed. Captives to be tortured for knowledge of Ahh . . . Aachu . . . to be . . ." The honch's breath became a wet burble. It raised its head and slammed it down on the rough rock. Heels drummed on the ground and stones rattled beneath them.
"Achibol," said the sorcerer. "It was trying to say my name. And Jorssh . . . that was hundreds of years ago. Could he still live? That's not programmed into the genes of his kind. Did the planners have tricks my own people didn't discover?"
"Master? What does this mean?"
"I'm sorry, boy. I merely thought out loud. Jorssh was . . . or apparently still is, a pattum, an un-simple `simple' of a special kind."
With lightly veiled sarcasm he never would have dreamed of using before his new accommodation with his master, Benadek said, "Good. A pattum is a jorssh, a jorssh is a pattum, both thus are simples, but neither is simple. I understand fully."
Achibol granted him a thin, penitent grin. "Pattums are honches, of a sortspecial-purpose military tools. Technically `simples,' they are in actuality complex, and more dangerous than ordinary honches."
"I have a hard time imagining anything more dangerous."
"Honches are guards, policemen, or soldiers. They're punctiliously obedient, and capable of concerted action in small groups, but no honch can control more than a squad of his fellows, a safety factor in the designers' plan. Honches can protect and regulate, but cannot make war.
"Honches couldn't be mobilized in organizations large enough to exterminate pure-humans completely. With powerful pheromones, pattums can command a hundred or a thousand.
"Jorssh is a pattum I encountered several hundred years ago. I nullified his campaign against pure-humans, and thought him long since dead. If this Jorssh is one and the same, he may have found immortality of a kind, though not like my own. But whatever he is, not only our mission is at stake, but our very survival. We must hurry ahead, and hope our destination provides us with the solutions we require."
Benadek gestured with his thumb. "The honch said a pure-human went in there. The beast we heard must have killed him too."
"We don't know the pure-human is dead, or if the beast has another exit."
The sun was only a hand above the taller ruins. "I'll help Sylfie set up campnot too near any of these cave-holes."
The young people found a dry stretch of ancient paving, and erected the tent. Benadek made fire while Sylfie prepared food. He gathered wood for the night, never venturing out of sight of Achibol on the rubble talus, or Sylfie in front of the tent. He did not like the black cave-eyes peering down, hiding unknown death.
Sylfie took a pot of root-and-squirrel stew to Achibol, and a tall mug of tea. As soon as she'd set down her burden, the mage motioned her away.
"How can he stand it up there?" she asked Benadek. "There are bugs all over that honch's eyes."
"He thinks there's a pure-human in the cave. But wouldn't he have come out by now? Even now some beast could be sneaking . . ."
"Don't say that!" Sylfie exclaimed. "I hope there is a pure-human there."
"Then what clawed up the honch?"
She had no answer. They sat by the fire. Every swamp-sound seemed magnified in the still dusk. The croakers fell silent as they did every evening, and the night-creatures had not yet begun wailing and grunting. Benadek's eyes widened at every crackle of small feet, at the fluttering rush of each falling leaf, the rattle and splash of every nut falling into the green water.
When the cave-mouth's blackness became for a moment less dark, a reddish glow, neither noticed; but on the next sweep of Benadek's patrolling eyes, he saw a dark figure standing by Achibol. A human, not a beast, wearing a full-length cape with a hood that kept its face in shadow. The shadowy figures bent over the corpse, dragged it to the cave-mouth, and rolled it within. Together they came down the slight slope toward the fire. What had happened to the beast? Perhaps the pure-human would explain.
The pure-human answered no questions. "This is Teress," Achibol told them. "She'll accompany us to Sufawlz. Consider her in mourning, and ask her no questions." Benadek peered into the shadows that hid the pure-human's face. His imagination supplied him what his eyes could not: great yellow cat-eyes in a face not human at all. The pure-human turned its head away, as if ashamed.
Achibol took food from their pot, and then led the shrouded figure away from the fire's light. The newcomer would not speak to him or Sylfie, Benadek noted with unease, but conversed with Achibol. No words could be made out. Benadek could not get rid of the impression that the hooded face kept turning to look at him.
When Benadek's head was nodding, Achibol returned silently to the tent, and took a packet from his trunk. He returned to their new traveling companion and shook out a fluffy blanket. The pure-human wrapped itself in the cloth. Benadek saw nothing that proved it was human, or female. He conceded only that it walked upright.
* * *
In the morning, the apprentice's curiosity was still not assuaged. Each time Benadek pumped himself up to question Teress, Achibol silenced him with a stern look, a shake of his head. When camp was broken, his master walked ahead with the newcomer, leaving Benadek with Sylfie and the mules.
That night, while Benadek and Sylfie arranged their camp, Achibol and Teress still remained apart. When dinner was prepared she joined them, neither speaking nor removing her hood. Try as he might, Benadek got no more than a vague glimpse of her face. Her skin was light and her hair probably dark.
After their meal, the pure-human went down a faint game trail to a creek. She returned within an hour, saying nothing, with nothing to show for her trip.
"She went to bathe," Sylfie stated.
"Or to mate with another monster, a demon or catamount," Benadek replied.
"Don't be silly. What makes you think that?"
"If she's really human, why doesn't she take off her hood?"
"Perhaps that's how pure-humans show grief."
"I'm a pure-human, I grieve, and I don't even own a hood. The beast that rended the honch . . . was her."
"That's stupid," she said without much conviction. She pulled him closer.
The next day passed similarly, and the one after that. They emerged from the swamp into high-ground woods. The distance between trees was greater, and their feet stayed dry except when they crossed streams. The last ancient building was a day behind. Achibol walked with Benadek and Sylfie for a while, letting Teress lead them. "Wait," was all he would say. "In her own time, another day or two . . ."
Benadek was not satisfied. "Tonight, when she goes to bathe, or whatever, I'm going to find out what she looks like," he told Sylfie.
"I don't think you should. What will you do?"
"We'll camp near water. I'll hide, and see what she does."
"And if she only bathes?"
"Then I'll know if she's human, won't I?"
"Achibol told us to wait. I won't go with you."
"I didn't ask you to, did I?"
Sylfie refused to speak with him after that. Benadek passed up the evening meal, pretending to be ill from berries eaten along the trail. He walked north of their camp, then circled back south, where a small river flowed briskly. A deep pool had formed upstream of an uprooted tree. The impoundment was glass-smooth and barely cool to the touch, an ideal bathing spot. "If she really bathes," Benadek muttered to himself as he settled himself among stream-side willows. He had a view of the entire pond. Teress would have to pass within yards of him, but would never see him. The willows in front were undisturbed, because he'd entered from the other side.
Teress approached the water at about her usual time, pausing frequently to check her back trail and the woodland shadows, as if she had anticipated Benadek's intentions. At the water's edge, she waited again, scanning the far side of the pond almost as if expecting someoneor something. Benadek waited motionless.
Finally, when he thought the cramps in his legs and the stinging bugs sampling the blood of his ankles and face would drive him mad, she threw back her hood, and draped her cape over a low limb.
Benadek stared. She was very human, very female. Her back was to him, so he still had no glimpse of her face, but her waist was slender, her hips sleek. Her hair, when she shook it out, was silky, almost as dark as his own. When she removed her light cotton shift, Benadek unashamedly admired her graceful back and trim, round buttocks, and became uncomfortably aroused.
She stepped gingerly into the water, found it to her liking, and waded deeper, splashing her arms and shoulders. She was lithe where Sylfie was soft, dark where Sylfie was light. Much as he was, he realized with a start. A pure-human. His own kind. For a moment he viewed her as if she were not only his kind but himself, a female version distorted as if reflected in rippling water. His groin ached as he imagined himself joining with her, black hair against black, her slender body against his.
She turned, then launched herself on her back. Benadek glimpsed small, conical breasts. Seeing them rise out of the water, he considered relieving himself right there, something he had not done since Sylfie had come into his life, but the contemplation of slinking back to camp afterward, self-embarrassed and smelling of half-sex, dissuaded him.
His next idea was crazier, but moment by moment seemed more reasonable. She was human and female. She was already naked, alone, and probably feeling the need of comforting. Besides, if he sat on her clothes, what could she do? Run back to camp naked?
Her back was toward him as she swam toward shore. He tossed her shift and cape on the grass, and sat on them.
When her feet dragged in the shallows, she turned, and her darting eyes took in the situation immediately. Cat-eyes, Benadek saw, golden yellow in the late evening light, much like the eyes he'd fantasized, but human-sized and humanly luminous. They were lovely eyes. Her face was prettier than he had imagined, though lit by an angry flush.
"You're sitting on my clothes," she said in a smooth voice as low as his own. "Go away! You don't belong here. Go back to your poot." She spat the word "poot" as if she were disgusted with Sylfie and, by extension, with him.
"You don't own the pond. I'll take off my clothes and join you."
"Don't bother removing your clothes. Just jump in over there . . ." she indicated a spot several yards to one side of her ". . . and cool off. Now get off my clothes!"
"You'll have to come get them," he said slyly, eying ripples that concealed the lower half of her body.
"Very well then, I will," she said with a determined nod. Benadek continued to grin as she strode up to him, his eyes level with glistening droplets that adorned the tight curls at the base of her belly. "Now get off my clothes," she repeated sternly.
Benadek raised his arms to grasp the firm buttocks he could no longer see. He was still grinning when she jerked her knee up into his chin, and barely changed his expression when he came to rest flat on his back. He tasted blood. A pale human whirlwind, she spun full circle, her hard, bare foot catching him first alongside his head, stunning him, then again in his ribs, knocking the wind from him. Demoralized and in pain, he made it to his hands and knees before her deadly foot landed across his buttocks and sent him sprawling again.
"Now will you go away, you disgusting child?"
Speechless, humiliated, Benadek stumbled toward camp. He heard her say "Oh, damn! Now I'm all dirty again," and heard the splash as she dove back into the water.
He did not go straight to camp, but lurked in the woods nearby nursing bitten tongue, bruised ribs, and shattered ego.
Full darkness fell. Achibol waited by the fire. Teress was a dark lump beneath her blanket.
Sylfie was not asleep. "Well?"
"She's human," Benadek replied.
"I know that. Pretty, too. She wasn't wearing her cloak when she came back. She seemed angry. What did you do?"
"Me? What do you mean?"
Sylfie shook her head, but did not press him further. She could hear the thickness of his speech, and when she helped him undress, she saw his bruises.
Benadek took her then. He grabbed her roughly, without preliminaries, without even noticing her grimace of pain or the tears that welled up in her eyes. The coupling was brutally quick, and he fell asleep immediately after. Sylfie did not sleep for a long time, if at all.
In the morning Teress, hoodless, joined them for breakfast, bright-eyed, cheery and voluble. She conversed lightly with Achibol, whom she treated like her indulgent uncle, and with Sylfie, to whom she was almost too attentive and sweet. For Benadek, she had not even a glare or a self-satisfied smirk.
Sylfie's eyes were red and puffy, and she avoided Benadek's. Only Achibol noticed him, and the apprentice would gladly have waived that attention. The mage's gaze was as cold as a snake's. He sat between the two females, first squeezing one's knee, then wrapping an arm around the other in a fatherly manner. Benadek was glad to break camp by himself.
That day was, he told himself, the worst of his life. Later, when the pain, embarrassment, and ostracism faded, he would reconsider that, but there was no question he was miserable. He led the mules, and when Sylfie dropped back to walk with him, he sent her away with a wordless shake of his head, and averted eyes.
By noon, Achibol found words for him. They were, the boy was surprised to find out, still heading north to Sufawlsidak. He had assumed that his fall from favor would have caused their route to be changed, that all question of his worthiness for the "school" had been settled, and was dully relieved to discover he still figured in Achibol's plans.
At nightfall, when he sank onto his blanket alone, Sylfie brought her bedding where he lay and refused to move away. She stroked his hair but, getting no response from him, she soon dozed, leaving him wide awake and alone.
In the days that ensued they progressed from timberland to open grass and then into scabbed, rocky hills. Teress still pointedly ignored Benadek, and Achibol walked with her on the narrow, dusty trails. Sylfie lagged behind with the boy, but in spite of their proximity he sensed an expanding void between them. The magical writing-tablet that had given her pleasure, though little gain, remained packed away even in the evenings when she had time on her hands, and she seldom stopped to admire windflowers growing in clefts in the rock, or iridescent flying lizards overhead. She was always red-eyed and haggard in the mornings.