The Serpent and The Eagle

The Descendents of Ushafra

The bell rang three times for awakening before any light painted the sky. Quickly and quietly my nest mates and I got into the morning line for grain and water. We stretched out our wings, shook off sleep and said the daily prayer in unison while making our way to the main hall.

            “We love the Hidden Masters. They provide us with grain

     and water daily. Obedience to them brings rightness and               order.”

Bowls of grain and water awaited us on the tables and we sat in silent meditation for the allotted period until the second bell rang. We ate in silence and had sat in the same groups for as far back as I could remember. The older slaves served us all, clearing the little bowls and cups when we were done. A servant or slave always sat at our table with us. There was no pattern to where they sat. The same person rarely sat at the same table twice. They never spoke unless one of us spoke out of turn or dropped a bowl or cup. Even that was unusual.

Every morning I would sit in the same seat and look up at the same large rectangular windows high above us. The light would appear every morning, no doubt because of our prayers and obedience. Some days it was a gray light that made the air cool. I would pray for the light to become yellow again and the next day, or the next, it would. My world was simple, peaceful and ordered.

One day something unusual happened as we ate. We heard a loud sound through the stone walls of the monastery. It was deep, powerful and rumbled through my bones. This went on for a long time, becoming louder and louder each time it happened. My legs and chest became tight with fear. The loud sound was scaring us all. My nestlings and I ruffled our feathers and became more frightened. I was looking at the upper windows when I saw the sky crack with a blinding brilliance. I screamed. My tablemates slid underneath the heavy metal table with their wings wrapped around one another, huddled together and shaking. The slave who was sitting at our table knelt down and put her arms around the younglings, calming them and telling them to come out.

     I stood up on the table to see if the sky would break open again. It did, and this time I did not scream. The crack I the sky was as bright at the first one. It was pretty too. I waited for another but nothing happened. Later, when we were at work in the fields, I made up a little song about the sound and the light in the sky. A priest who had led the prayers with us that morning came over to my row.

“How is your row growing?” She asked.

I looked at her for a moment, at her knees actually for I wasn’t yet fully grown. I was shocked that a priest would speak directly to me. I bowed down and tried to cover my face with my wings. They were barely long enough to reach around my body.

She said to me, “You are permitted to speak to me if I ask you a question. How is your row growing? I see that you have not one weed among your wheat.” She bent down a little and moved my wings away from my face with her long fingers. My curiosity overcame my fear and I stood up straighter and looked at her face to face. She was ordinary.

I thought about her questions and said, “My row is growing according to the schedule. The food is growing to the size for collecting. Four different kinds of creatures have attempted to eat our food but the incantations of the priests made them die.”

The answer was the correct one. I knew that from our lessons.

The priest motioned for me to follow her and I walked with her along my row. She asked me what each of the plants were, how they were to be cared for and their uses. She asked about the seasons and the times and many things that we had been learning about. She even asked me about the rituals and incantations that were always part of our daily lessons. I gave her all correct answers and asked her if she had ever tended a row before. The question must have been difficult because she took a long time to answer.

“Yes”, she said, “When I was a youngling I tended a row just as you do.”

She asked me more questions about my row and its growth but also questioned me about the teachings of the Hidden Masters. She did not comment on my answers but I thought they were the correct ones. She ended our encounter by blessing me. I gave her worship and she went back to the priests’ house. I completed my work for the day and thought about everything she had asked me, wondering about the reason for her questions.

For a time nothing unusual happened. We awoke, prayed, ate, worked and were taught the ways of the Hidden Masters. The sky cracked several more times on different occasions but no one hid under the table. I was interested in how it worked asked a priest about it one day, during a lesson about proper worship of the Masters. The rest of the class was silentHe said nothing. He only looked at me for a long time while grooming his wings. It made me uncomfortable. Had I sinned?

With the collecting season upon us we spent all day in the rows, gathering, sorting and processing the foodstuffs. I liked using the idols and wondered how the Hidden Masters made them work. The priests and acolytes said that our crops were all healthy and worthy of use in the temples. We only ate grain and grew all the other things for the Hidden Masters. No one tried to eat the fruit of the Hidden Masters. I wondered what they tasted like. One afternoon, two of us were pulling the food away from the stalk and feeding it into the idol that made them holy for the Hidden Masters. The idol began to make a loud noise then stopped working. Had we broken the idol somehow? I was afraid. This had never happened before and I did not know what the consequences would be. We motioned to one of the priests. She came over and made supplication with the idol but it did not work. Another priest came over and she also made supplication to the idol with greater reverence.

Nothing happened.

The priests and acolytes instructed all the rest of us to bow down and pray. One of the priests made an incantation I had never heard before and instructed us again to keep our faces in prayer toward the ground. After a few minutes there was a humming sound. It was like the sound my nest mates made when they were deeply sleeping, only louder. The priests told us all to stand up but not to move from the places where we were.

Then, for the first time in my life, I saw the Spirit of the Hidden Masters. I had heard of it from the priests and some acolytes, but had never seen one. A wizard was delivered to us from inside of it. Without greeting or comment he came over to the idol that was broken and prayed to it. I watched him with awe from my place as he made supplication, consulted an oracle then performed a ritual with beautiful, sacred objects. The idol came back to life. After a few words with one of the priests, the Wizard went back to the Spirit. The priests told us to bow down and pray again. We heard the Spirit take the Wizard away. I wanted to go with him but that would never be allowed.

At the evening meal, three of us were told to stop talking about the unique visit we had had that day. After the meal a priest took the three of us aside to a room in part of the monastery we were not usually allowed in. The priest asked us what we thought of the Wizard and the Spirit. There was no correct response for these questions. No priest had ever asked us what we thought. Why should they? They knew our minds already. The other two nestlings repeated the Morning Prayer and some incantations. When the priest looked at me I did not want to say the prayer or any incantations so I asked, “Why did the idol stop working, was it the will of the Hidden Masters?” The priest did not answer and ruffled his feathers a little. For a moment I thought I had sinned and was about to make supplication when he quickly dismissed the other two with a blessing and told me to sit down in front of an oracle.

My heart was pounding. I had never gone near the oracles and did not want to be there with one now, even in the presence of the priest. He told me to be calm, put his hands on my shoulders and blessed me. I was a little calmer and the oracle came to life in front of my eyes. It asked me questions about everything I knew, and many things I did not. The questioning went on well after evening prayers and the bell for sleep. The priest did not say anything the entire time. He only watched and listened. My legs and wings were becoming uncomfortable. It was hard to concentrate on the questions. Finally the oracle stopped asking questions and went to sleep. I craned my head around. My neck was so stiff. I had never sat still for so long. The priest told me to go for a walk three times around the building, then come back. The cool evening air felt wonderful. As I walked I saw the last of the reddish light leaving the sky. Tiny white lights appeared, stars, we had learned their names the other day. An unbidden thought appeared in my mind.

“I am being tested for a special purpose.”

I knew it was true although I could not say how I knew.

Back in the monastery room there was a different priest and an acolyte waiting for me. I was given tasks to do by the priest. The acolyte put colored blocks with different patterns in front of me, mixed them up and told me to recreate the previous pattern. I did this correctly four times, but the fifth time I could not because there was a block missing from my set. I left a space where the colored block should be and told her so. She looked back at the priest who simply nodded. Another set of blocks was set before me but these were of all different shapes. The acolyte took them and put them together to create a model of the monastery. It took her a long time and I wondered where she had learned to do this. She knocked it down with her hands spilling blocks everywhere, and told me to recreate the monastery as she had.

For a moment I did not know where to begin, but then I reviewed what she had done and my model came out the same way. The priest told me to go to the nesting room. I was the only one awake and I moved to the edge of the nest where it was not as hot and fell asleep.

The next day was the same as all the others, but the day after that something wonderful happened. Instead of going to the workhouse to make sacred objects, or to the learning room to memorize the long lists of prayers and incantations, I was sent to the acolyte’s building. It was the first time I had ever been to their building and I was expecting it to be special. It was just like the servant’s and slave’s building, only bigger. A priest met me at the front door and told me to wait in front of the warder’s room. In a few moments the warder came and said to me, “You are now an acolyte. You will live, eat and work in the acolyte building where you will be in training for the priesthood. Your tests suggest that you will make a good priest in a teaching capacity. You will continue to tend your row, though it will be in this field instead of the one at the youngling house. The other acolytes will help you so that you are familiar with your role and the rules here. Do you understand?”

I did.

Being an acolyte was no more difficult than being a youngling except that there were many more incantations, prayers, rituals and rules to learn every day. It was not difficult for me, but sometimes after going through a particularly long incantation, I sometimes forgot when I had started it. It was if my body went through the incantation while my mind was elsewhere. Would the incantation still work if our minds were elsewhere?

The daily ritual of prayers, grain, work and study became a pattern I never imagined would end. During my time as an acolyte my wings grew long and my side claws began coming out. I learned more incantations than I thought possible. I learned that my plants grew no faster than at the novice house. Only the weeds seemed to grow faster. I learned that some priests were kinder than others were. Most of all I learned about the Hidden Masters who had made us.

Everything we did was done in love and devotion to the Hidden Masters. I was sure that I would serve them as a priest someday, and maybe, if my devotion and worship were perfect, I would see their faces. They would give me my hidden name and their eyes would see though me. They would reach into my mind and tell me the name no one else could hear. Such were the lives and desires of the acolytes at the Monastery of Service. That all changed the day Vrool came in the Spirit and took me away from everything I knew, loved and wanted.

It was an ordinary day during the early growth season. We were tending to the small seedlings, watering, weeding and reciting our prayers as we worked. The priests had instructed us to continue with our rows three days earlier and we had not heard from them or seen them since. This was very strange. They usually gave us daily assignments and looked in on us regularly. Some of us were done with our work and helped the others with their rows. Then that work was done and we were wondering what the priests were going to have us do next. I suggested we go to the priests’ house and ask them for instructions. No one wanted to go and they all looked at me with questions in their eyes. I thought it might be a special kind of test. I was about go to the priests’ house when the sky fell.

The humming of a Spirit came from over the tree grove. We all bowed down. A Wizard must have come on some errand for the Hidden Masters. Now the priests would have to come out and greet the Wizard. They would no doubt give us our new instructions and I would be spared having to disturb them. The Spirit landed in the road between the acolyte building and the hall of idols. The humming sound stopped. I heard a noise, then heard the Wizard making the incantation of protection over the Spirit. I heard the sound of footsteps on the path leading to the rows, to my row. 

     His shadow fell on me and before I could make the required greeting. He took me up by the arm and asked me to recite the incantation of safe travel. Startled, I recited it at once. Then he asked me if I knew the ritual for bringing up traveling directions with the Oracle. I told him I did but had never used it. He said, “Come with Me.” and began walking away.

Everything happened so fast that I had no time to wonder why a Wizard was testing me, or for what purpose. We walked very quickly back towards the Spirit along the path at back of the priests’ house.

For a moment I thought we were going to look for a priest but he was walking directly towards the Spirit. It dawned on me that I had never seen a Wizard bring anyone into or even near a Spirit. It was forbidden! Yet he strode towards it with his hand on my arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. My heart began pounding and a quiver ran through my wings. This Wizard was strong and tall, his feathers were black and his side claws, though sheathed, were long.

Off in the distance I heard priests calling to us to stop. Where had they been? The Wizard kept moving and I was becoming frightened. My arm was sore from where he was holding me and we were walking as fast as I could go. Looking up at him I realized that he was not listening to the priests. They were catching up to us, telling him to stop and for me to stop him! How could I stop him? The Wizard turned around and saw that the Priests were almost upon us. I was about to ask him why he didn’t stop and speak with them when he scooped me up in his arms and ran fast to the open door of the Spirit. He was so much faster than the others that I wondered if he was using some kind of a spell. I thought I heard a priest begin the Incantation of Cessation. It was forbidden to use against other people, only against animals if they attacked you. I shrieked involuntarily, put my hands over my ear holes and was carried into the Spirit. My last view of the only world I had ever known was of a running Priest reaching out to grab me and my fellow acolytes bowing down in the brown dirt far behind her, praying in front of the small, green seedlings.

In the Spirit everything was strange. There was light coming from many oracles of different sizes. There were idols all over, some of which I had never seen before. The Wizard was making supplication at the altar and I felt a vibration under my feet.

Without looking at me, he said, “Go sit on the chair in front of the altar there. Do not touch anything and do not move until I tell you.”

I obeyed. I was good at that.

I sat, held my eyes shut tight and prayed through all the youngling prayers, then all of the acolyte ones. I was in a place forbidden by the Hidden Masters yet I was still alive. There had never been instructions on going anywhere in the Spirit with a Wizard. I recited the incantations of travel and safety to myself. The Wizard told me to open my eyes and follow him. Caught up in my prayers, I did not notice that more lights had come on. Their brightness stung my eyes. I followed the Wizard down a hallway to a room in the Spirit where a small table and bench sat. He motioned for me to sit down.

“What is your name?” He asked me.

“I am an acolyte. My naming ceremony and ascension to the priesthood has not been completed.”

He asked. “How long have you been an acolyte?”

I told him and he walked over to look at the claws on the sides of my feet. “Your side claws have not yet fully come out. You are not much older than a youngling yet you are working in the acolyte’s area. Why is that?”

“I am an acolyte. I serve the Hidden Masters...” I began the litany but he cut me off.

“Yes, so do we all. But don’t think it’s unusual for a youngling to be doing the work and studies of an acolyte?”

I told him the story of the Wizard coming to fix the idol and my tests.

“Oh, I see” He said.

I did not see anything. Was it unusual for me to be an acolyte? Wasn’t that the way things were done, had always been done? He looked at the oracle on the table in front of us and spoke an incantation I had never heard. That was not unusual because the Wizards knew thousands of incantations that no one else did. They had to. The Hidden Masters had given them a unique role of service in caring for the idols, oracles and spirits.

He spoke to me while looking at the oracle. “I was the Wizard who visited your monastery that day the idol broke. I have kept my eye on you, young one, and the others. I am on a mission for the Hidden Masters and you are to accompany me to aid me in my work. There are many incantations you will need to learn and little time to learn them. You will sit here and use this oracle to learn as many as you can before we begin our journey.” He moved the oracle in front of me and stood up to go.

Without thinking, I asked him, “What is our mission?”

He said, “An illness has broken out among our people. The Hidden Masters are also very sick. We are to visit all the cities and render what aid we are able.”  With that he went back to the altar down the hallway and left me to my studies. I understood sickness and death among people, but the Hidden Masters could not get sick or die. How could they?

The oracle taught me variations of incantations of travel and safety, as well as others that dealt with new words I had never heard before. The Wizard looked in on me twice and showed me where to get grain and water. The unnatural light of the Spirit made it difficult to know what part of the day it was. After a while my eyes grew tired and I lay my head on the table, resting, just for a moment.

The next thing I knew the Wizard was carrying me into a nest. He lay me down and said a prayer of peaceful sleep over me. No one had ever prayed for me before. Not even the priests prayed for each other that way. We prayed only to and for the Hidden Masters.

When I awoke something was wrong. There was no bell, no acolyte next to me in the nest and no skylight giving the sun’s warmth. I cried out. My confusion lasted only a moment. The Wizard looked over the edge of the nest and told me to come to the table and eat.

In addition to grain and water there was a bowl of fruit. I thought it was for the Wizard alone but he told me to try it. I had never eaten anything but grain and water. We grew other things for the Hidden Masters, as was our service to them. I had seen animals and creatures eat other things, but why would I want to try it? I ate my grain and drank the water.

The Wizard took one of the fruits and with a small idol cut it into eight even pieces. He took one and put it into his beak. Some of the red juice dribbled down his chin and onto his feathers. He did not seem to notice and I thought that Wizards must spend a lot of time cleaning their feathers. After eating he told me to go to the oracle and continue with my lessons. My head was swimming with information. It was difficult to keep all the rituals and incantations from merging into one large clump. After what seemed like a long time, everything fell into place. The information settled down into neat compartments in my mind. It was a joyous moment and I wished that one of the other acolytes were there to share it with me.

After eight more days of study the Wizard sat across from me, testing me on all that I had learned so far. He did not say anything when I answered. He had me perform several incantations and rituals on the idols as well. They were strange to me, so much more refined and detailed than those I knew from the monastery. The Wizard told me that I was competent to operate most of the idols in the Spirit. He also pronounced me able to command the Spirit of the Hidden Masters. I could make it go where I wanted it to. This was shocking.

“How can that be?” I asked. “The Wizard’s training takes so much longer. Didn’t it take you a long time to learn all of the incantations, prayers and rituals?”

His feathers shook and he put a hand on my arm. “Little one, you have so much to learn about this world. Had I known you were so young I might not have taken you, but your youth is actually a benefit to us. You come to life with an openness that is wrung out of the older ones.” He looked at me and his brow wrinkled. “I am not really a wizard, priest, acolyte, servant or slave, yet I am all these things.” He stood up and motioned for me to follow him to the altar as he spoke. “One of the Hidden Masters took me when I was a youngling and taught me everything I would need to serve him.” 

I remembered what he said about the Hidden Masters being ill and questioned him about it.

He said, “For now all you need to know is that the Hidden Masters are in trouble and they need our help. Our mission is to go to the cities and bring them whatever they need.  I need someone to help me recite the incantations and perform the rituals in the Spirit. It takes too long for me to do it alone. The Hidden Masters are in trouble little one, and so are we.” He showed me a map, I had learned the word that morning along with “wrench”, diode”, stairs”, “flight plan” and “tomato”, of the settled cities. Only priests, wizards and slaves and servants were allowed within the city perimeters. Only priests and wizards were allowed inside the temples of the Hidden Masters. The Wizard traced a route with his finger across the map and showed me where we would go. He said, “We will probably end up here, at the city of refuge, where we will find whoever survived inside that city’s temple. They will tell us how to help them and we will serve them all our days.” 

I spoke the prayer of health and safety for the Hidden Masters.

“Health and blessing to the Hidden Masters all their days. Perfection for the ones we serve.”

 “Yes, may it be so.” The Wizard replied, covering his face with his wings.

Then he showed me an image of the first city we were going to. It was frightening. Things were much too large and there were structures that were higher than the highest hills near the monastery. Its size was beyond anything I could have imagined. My understanding of the world was growing faster than my ability to absorb it. Yet, my love for the Hidden Masters and their ability to create life and good things only grew. As the Wizard spoke I observed the images in all their terrible detail.

     The image was taken from high above, probably from a Spirit. There were people, too many to number, going about tasks for the Hidden Masters. They were moving things and setting up idols on the wide streets. Hundreds of oracles dotted the area around the temple. People were consulting them and performing tasks for which I had no words. The city was like an insect city. The people were the insects. The Wizard pointed out the temple to me. It was not larger than the other buildings. It was covered by a special curtain, which protected the holiness of the Hidden Masters. I wished that they could live among us, see our rows and take water and grain with us. Their holiness needed to be protected. Even the priests with their knowledge and special blessings needed to put on sacred vestments when entering the holy places inside the temple. As acolytes, we had all performed the ritual of vestments in preparation for service as priests. It was the only ritual that felt unnatural to me. None of us enjoyed it. Anything covering my feathers felt suffocating and it took an extra effort not to shred them with my side claws the first time I put them on. I secretly hoped I would never have to put them on again.

More images of the city appeared. There were strange signs and symbols I had never seen before. The markings were not like real language, so haphazard and crudely created. I wondered where they came from. The strangest characteristic of the city was its lack of dirt, grass and rows of plants. Where did they grow their food? How did they collect the grain and fruit without the proper idols? The entire city had that characteristic, especially around the temple area where a special holy area was covered with metal covering. There was a word for what I was seeing. We used the word for things prepared especially for the Hidden Masters that had been blessed by the priests. The whole inner temple was holy like that. Anything going into or out of it had to be that way. I asked the Wizard to tell me it.

“Sterile.” He said.

“Yes, Sterile, the holiness that came from perfect service to our perfect Hidden Masters.” I said. “Something not sterile got into the city. Is that why they are sick?” I asked. 

“Yes, maybe, I am not sure. Something terrible has happened to them and they do not know what the cause is. Our task is to serve them, no matter what they ask.” He told the oracle to sleep then laid a hand on my shoulder and spoke.

“When we come to the cities you will see people behaving in strange ways. I want you to be prepared for it.”

He performed an incantation and the oracle showed me a large room with a group of people inside it. The oracle gave sounds as well as visions. The people were all making strange noises, not language but animal sounds. Three of them were slamming their wings together as hard as they could behind their backs. This would have caused excruciating pain had I tried it. In the jumble of bodies I could see broken bone jutting out from beneath someone’s black feathers. There was a beak nearly shorn off someone’s face and other images too horrible to describe. In the corner of the room one of them was tearing out her own feathers with her hands. There was blood everywhere. I saw two men were locked in an awful embrace. Their side claws had punctured each other’s thighs with their wings and fists they pummeled each other. In the midst of this terrible dance one of them got hold of a handful of pinion feathers and ripped them out, causing the other to fall to the floor in a broken heap. In the middle of the room a woman had driven her own side claws through her upper thighs and was bouncing up and down, driving them through an ever widening, bleeding holes. She was holding her hands over her ears screeching at the top of her lungs.

My head was buzzing. I thought I would faint.

The Wizard looked at me and said, “That is the worst of it. I am sorry to make you look at those images, but when we come to the city there will be people there in this state and I needed you to see it before we arrive.”

My head was clearing and I asked, “What happened to them?”

He said, “It is called ‘Vanave’. A sickness of the mind for which there is no cure. If you come across anyone affected with vanave I order you to use the Incantation of Cessation on them.”

“But they will die!” I protested.

“They are dead already young one. Vanave is incurable and it has spread faster and wider than the Hidden Masters could have ever imagined. It sends the people into a crazed animal like state. They destroy whatever is in their midst. In the end they are killed, take their own lives or fall dead from a lack of food and water.”

We watched the oracle as it showed the people in the room destroying themselves. The Wizard took a deep breath and blew a long puff of air out of his nostrils.

“Do not even try and talk to them, they will not understand. Language is gone from them. When you say the incantation they will fall dead immediately. Do not be distraught about it, you are giving them a blessing. Death by water starvation is very painful.” It did not seem like much of a blessing to me. I felt light-headed again and my eyes fluttered. The Wizard sat me down, got me some grain and water then said, “There is much information in your mind, more than your tender years should have to handle, but handle them you must, for it is the will of the Hidden Masters. ”

I drank the water and took a nibble at the grain. After a little while we made our way to the altar and he told me to perform the rituals of safety and travel. It was my first time ministering directly to a Spirit by myself, but there was no ceremony or celebration for this occasion. Instead, I simply performed the functions while the Wizard observed me. Close to our destination, the Wizard informed me the Hidden Masters had named it the “Beautiful Golden City”. I thought it should be known as the City of Death.

The Wizard and I stepped out of the Spirit and into the city. The buildings were so large that they cast shadows larger than the entire monastery and its grounds. It was immense and frightening. The buildings of the Hidden Master’s city were unlike those of the monastery. I had trouble understanding them at first. Everything seemed to be based on large squares and rectangles. There were neither domes nor arches to be seen anywhere. Everything came to a sharp angle or a point. Circles and spheres appeared to be forbidden. The buildings were faced with the clear metal Spirits were made of but the colors were like the shapes, black, gray and silver. Were the colors green and blue forbidden as well?

The streets were lined with nest sized, metal houses that were more like the idols we used to transport our crops at the monastery than any house I had seen. I looked into one of the tiny houses. There were only couches and chairs inside, not like real nests or resting rooms. An altar of some kind was inside but the sacred marks on its idols were not in the language of the Hidden Masters. 

As we walked I noticed the scent of decay in the air, pungent and sweet. It disturbed me and my mind flashed back to the images of the people taken by vanave. The Wizard led me along a wide path that seemed to run straight forever. After a long time walking we finally arrived at our destination. The face of the building was metal and there were many, many doors. I saw a person behind one of the doors and was startled. Her hand went to her chest and I realized it was only my reflection.

“Easy does it.” Said the Wizard.

We stepped inside. At first I thought we were still outside because it was so open and bright. Huge windows high above let in unfiltered sunlight. There were altars and idols all over and some oracles sleeping on tables. The Wizard went over to one of the oracles and performed a ritual I had never seen before. It did not give him the information he wanted so he went to ask another one. This one did and he said, “We are going to the temple. It is only a short walk from here. The Master told me he would be inside.”

I asked him, “Are all the people near the temple? We have yet to meet anyone. Are they all waiting there for us?”

The Wizard shook his head. “I do not know. The Hidden Master told me this city was most likely to be untouched by the illness but he could not be sure.” We walked toward the exit. “Remember, if anyone approaches us and they do not recite the ritual blessing in response to you, you can be sure they are sick with vanave. Use the incantation on them. Do not hesitate or try and speak with them.”

The temple itself was further away than I thought it would be. My legs were aching and my stomach growling with hunger when we finally arrived. The Wizard gave me a container of water and some grain from his pack. We ate standing up in front of the temple. It was not the largest building in the city but certainly big enough to house hundreds of people. I wondered how old the building was. The Wizard took an idol from his pack and performed a ritual with it.

He said, “It is time to go inside. You have worn the priestly vestments before?”

“Yes.” I said, and we went into the temple.

There was an area set-aside for vestments and we found the proper ones. As I put each item on it dawned on me that I was going to meet the Hidden Masters for the first time in my life. My hands shook as I did the fasteners. I repeated the vestment prayer over and over with an urgency I had not felt before then. I looked at myself in a mirror to make sure everything was properly fastened. The vestments were so tight I thought I would suffocate.

The Wizard and I recited the incantation of temple entry and the guardian idol approved us for entrance into the holy place. Crossing the threshold together, we entered.

There was not a soul in sight. The Wizard made a noise in his throat. As an acolyte I had been told that there should have been dozens of priests tending to the affairs of the Hidden Masters. Where were they all?

The Wizard went to several of the idols and oracles, looking for answers but finding none. We searched through every room of the holy place and found no sign of life. Neither did we find signs of death nor people taken by Vanave. There was one altar that took up almost the entire room. There were benches in front of it and some vestments lying near it on the floor, but no people.

The Wizard said, “The oracle told me that there is a Hidden Master inside the most holy place, pray with me now, that we will be accepted into his presence.”

This was the moment I had been waiting for. We prayed and then performed the incantation and ritual for entrance into the most holy place. I feared rejection, but the way opened for us and we stepped over the threshold.

     The first thing I noticed was the heat. It was warm enough to cause my wings to unfold of their own to prevent overheating. The vestments restricted my wings from opening and I almost panicked. The Wizard noticed my distress and loosened a tie on my outer garment, which allowed my wings more space. My panic abated and I thanked him silently.

The second thing I noticed was that my secondary eyelids had slid over my eyes, also of their own accord. There must have been something in the air harmful to our eye flesh. My vision was blurry for a moment then cleared as my eyes adjusted.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.” I said. My heart was pounding in my chest. We turned a corner and there he was. The Hidden Master was sitting on his throne holding an idol. I will not describe him. He was too beautiful for words and our language could not convey his perfection as I saw him there. The Wizard and I covered our faces with our wings and knelt in silent worship before him for a long time. The Hidden Master spoke to us in the holy language; the idol gave us his words in our own language. We listened with awe and wonder.

“Welcome my beloved's. Rise Vrool, and speak now.” Said the voice.

The Wizard, Vrool, spoke. “Oh great one, I have come you to as ordered. Grant your servant the gift of your wisdom and lead us into perfection.”

The Hidden Master tilted his head and looked at me. My eyes rose of their own volition, against my will and into the eyes of the Hidden Master. My beak opened soundlessly in awe and I rose to my feet without thinking. I heard his magnificent voice inside my head.

“I am not so hidden now, am I?”

The voice inside my head was like clear, cold water. The Hidden Master’s eyes drew me inside of him. ”You are Vrool's helper. He has chosen well.” 

His voice flowed through me in gentle waves, and I was dizzy for a moment. The Wizard took my arm and we again knelt together before him.

The Hidden Master shifted on his throne and moved an oracle in front of him, hiding his face. I relaxed a little. We waited with patience. The Hidden Master moved his hand to the idol and continued speaking.

“Your mission is to go to the other cities and enter the temples. I have lost contact with the others. Priests and wizards taken by vanave have disabled our communications. The damage is severe and cannot be undone without a large labor force. I can communicate with you through our private prayer language, my Wizard, but you cannot give me useful information when I do this. In any case the farther you are away from me the more difficult it is to communicate with you that way. I will remain here until I have the proper information from the others to set a right course of action. If there are any of us left alive they may be very sick. Minister to them as I taught you. If you find no one left in any of the cities, you are to go to the city of refuge. It was to be used only as a last resort but there are those who would seek out such a sanctuary first. There are more than enough provisions there for many of us. Perhaps the others made their way there after communication was disrupted?” He shifted on his throne again. “Vrool, I have groomed you for this moment. Have you trained your assistant so she can help you in every way?”

“Yes,” the Wizard answered. “She knows all that she needs to, Master.”

“Good, then come here little one and I will give you my blessing and your name.”

My legs somehow lifted me off the ground and I stood before the Hidden Master. His voice spoke in my head again.

“Little one, you are very young for such a mission and you may be old when it is completed. Vrool has told me that you are intelligent and adept at all the incantations, prayers and rituals associated with travel. Obey Vrool in all things and assist him as you would me. He knows more about your people than anyone, learn from him.”

He spoke aloud words that the idol did not translate. My body relaxed and there was a strange sensation in my lower belly, not unpleasant, but unfamiliar. I began to shake but I felt no threat, only peace. I looked again into the eyes of the Hidden Master and became lost in them. Time seemed to stop and my mind was full of strange pictures and scenes. How long this lasted I do not know, but I remained in a state of quiet peace the entire time.

He spoke aloud and the idol began translating into our language again. He said,  “You are strong little one. Let your name be ‘Greta’, it is a name from this world but also a name from somewhere else. In the fullness of time will learn its meaning.” The Hidden Master placed his hands on my face and spoke the words of the first prayer the younglings learn. I had never heard anything more beautiful in all my life. He motioned for me to bow down before him again.

He spoke to Vrool the Wizard for a long time. Vrool asked him many questions and the Hidden Master answered them all. I listened carefully but did not know some of the words. In any case I was too caught up in rapture to think clearly. I was someone now!

Greta.

I felt the Wizard’s hands around my arm. Vrool was helping me stand up. The Hidden Master said “I am giving Vrool something valuable and have instructed him to use it.” He took a circle of thin, round metal and put it around Vrool’s neck. “I bid you peace, Greta and Vrool.” The Hidden Master put out his hands in dismissal and we again covered our faces with our wings, walking backwards out of the holy of holies.

We stepped over the threshold and back into the holy place. After the heat of the holy of holies, we were cold. For a moment I was grateful for the vestments. Out in the main hall we removed them then walked out into the sunlight. It had been like a dream and now it was over. Things were so much the same, yet so different. I had my name.

“I am Greta,”

I also knew the Wizards name and he knew mine. A name, we were taught, is something no one can ever take from you if it is given to you by a Hidden Master. Even in death the name remains yours. I do not remember the walk back to the Spirit, or making the nest or eating. I only remembered the look on the face of the Hidden Master and the sound of his voice. We went to sleep without speaking to one another. It was a long time before I fell asleep. No dreams disturbed my rest.

When we awoke it was time to begin our mission.

We traveled the next day and all through the night. We arrived at the city the next morning. I said previously that the Beautiful Golden City was the city of death. I was wrong. As we stepped out of the Spirit into the light of morning, carnage, not just death, met us. Where there had been an absence of people in Golden City, multitudes lay. They were all dead and rotting.

Vrool said, “This was the first city to be affected. That is why it is so bad Greta.”

I hoped I would never see anything like it, ever.

Thousands of people lay dead. The streets were thick with them. Wings and arms were mixed together creating a horrific beast. A large idol had been used to push the dead bodies into neat piles on the streets. The idol, now silent, held its brown head in the air, with more bodies hanging out if its maw, as if it were only resting between mouthfuls.

We walked around a corner and saw that one of the piles was burning. I shrieked almost fled in terror. Few things could terrify us. Fire was one of them. Even the Wizards, who had used heat and fire in their ministry to the idols, hated to use it. Vrool comforted me. We walked away from the burning pile of people. I covered my nostrils with a cloth from our bag. The stench was strong even though we were downwind of it. Fortunately, it was the only burning pile of bodies we came across.

     Whatever had happened had been recent. The bodies were not completely consumed by the fire, or so said Vrool. I did not have experience with burning dead people. It took us a long time to make our way to the temple. As we walked we saw several people screaming to themselves or trying to kill each other.

“Vanave” said Vrool. He performed the incantation over them and they slid to the ground, silent as stones. We arrived at the temple and made our way inside to the holy place and the holy of holies.

The carnage had not been limited to the outside. Bodies of the Hidden Masters littered the inside of the most holy place. There were thirty-six of them slumped over various idols and oracles. Foodstuffs lay all around them. Some were on the floor with food still in their mouths. There was no violence, but seeing them like that was a blow to me.

I wept.

The worst part was their eyes. They turned white in death like ours did. It was almost too much for me. Vrool was shaken. He kept closing his eyes and muttering a youngling prayer. The idols were all silent. The oracles were not simply asleep but broken. Some of their faces were smashed in with larger idols. Broken metal shards lay under our feet. They made a crunching sound under our feet as we walked. We could not find an oracle that was awake and ready for work.

Vrool stopped praying to himself and said, “We have a mission to perform for the Hidden Masters who might still be alive. We need to think of them.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Look for any message they might have left us.”

After a thorough search we found nothing, but there was a strange white powder around the Hidden Master’s mouths and nostrils. I reached out reverently to clean if off one of our beloved’s face.

“Do not touch It.,” he said. “We do not know if it is harmful to us, and we do not yet what killed them.”

I obeyed but wondered what could have killed them all so quickly. “Vrool,” I said quietly. We were both speaking very softly. “All the Hidden Masters died in the midst of normal activities. They must have perished suddenly because they are all sitting at altars and thrones doing work, or at tables eating.”

Vrool looked around and said, “You are right. It was very sudden.”

I said, “Look at where some of them are. They are bunched up around that strange idol. I do not know what its function is, I have never seen one like it.”

The idol they were piled around was a long, wide tube coming down from the ceiling. It was cracked in two places and lights went on and off in three wide bands around it. There was a mist coming out of the opening.

I said, “It might be some kind of shower, like the priests use during the dry season to water plants.”

Vrool looked at the idol and made an incantation but the idol did not respond. He tried other incantations and rituals. None of them worked.

He said, “Let us move the bodies of the Masters and lay them out properly on the floor.”

I hesitated.

“Do not be afraid Greta, it is what they would want. We should honor them in death.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. Their bodies were heavy, four times as heavy as one of us. I had trouble lifting them, even with Vrool’s help. We moved them with reverence, in silence and sadness. We placed some vestments carefully over their faces. There were no prayers for the death of the Hidden Masters. How could there be? They had never died before. When we were done Vrool and I said the prayer of life while we held hands. I felt a little better. We left the temple with our minds full of troubling questions.

On the way back to the Spirit we encountered several people who were swept away by vanave. I performed the incantation on them. They fell silent.

Vrool said, “At least in death they look peaceful.”

“If you don’t look into their eyes.” I thought.

In the Spirit, high above the city, we made a closer inspection. The bodies further away from the temple were not put into neat piles. They were scattered everywhere, flung like fallen leaves where they lay. Many were locked together by their side claws in death. Vrool turned off the oracle and told me, “There will be some living people to help and we will find them.”

I believed him, a little.

It was time for sleep. We were both tired. Doing simple chores like making the nests and eating grain helped shake off the gloom of the day. Vrool and I performed all the incantations and rituals for safe travel, then we slept.

The next morning we arrived at the city whose name meant “Haven of Grain Fields”.

I will not describe the kinds of death we saw. It is sufficient to say that it was worse than before. It took us a long time to get to the temple there were so many bodies blocking the streets. We had to backtrack twice. When we finally got to the temple we saw that our efforts were wasted.

The holy place and the holy of holies had been destroyed by fire. The metal walls of the temple blackened. A foul stench filled the air. The metal walls must have kept the fire inside the temple area because the building itself did not burn down. On the outside of the temple there were holes in the walls and all of the windows were broken. Inside, we looked for clues as to what happened. The fire must have been very, very hot because the idols and oracles were not just burnt; they were melted. If I hadn’t seen the idols and oracles in their proper condition I would never have known what they were. Of the Hidden Masters, we found only skeletons and ash.

I found a slender, metal wire, just like the one Vrool had been given by the Master. It was sitting by itself on the floor. I pointed it out to Vrool.

“Greta, you said this was right here when you came in, you did not move it at all, correct?” he asked.

“Yes.” I said, “It was right there where you picked it up. Is something wrong?” He looked at a pile of ash and then walked away from it.

“Back up.” he said.

I did and saw that he was actually looking at the floor. At just the right angle I could see them clearly in the ash and soot.

“Footprints,” I said.

“Yes, footprints. They are not ours. Someone else was here first, after the fire. They must have laid the wire where it was, on top of the ash.”

We bent down to look at the odd prints.

“It was not a person.” I said. I bent down as close as I could to look at the strange footprints. They were not at all like ours. The toes were like large pads and they had strange ridges on them where the joints and nails should be.

“They could be a covering of some kind, like we are wearing. Some of our people may have come here.” I said.

“No,” said Vrool. “Look at our tracks. They are not alike in any way. Our kind would never come in here with anything but the proper vestments.”

“Perhaps it was one of the Hidden Masters.” I realized how foolish that sounded even as I said it.

Vrool stood up. “Look where they go. Assuming the point is the front of their feet, they go out this way.” He pointed along the path of the strange tracks. They led to what used to be an inner door, now open because it had been torn off of its frame. We followed the tracks and were surprised to see sunlight pouring through a person-sized hole in an outer-wall. The prints led directly to the edge of the room where they stopped abruptly.

Vrool said, “I have never seen a holy of holies with a door going to the outside. It would not be safe for them. Someone must have torn down this part of the wall near the door to gain entrance, but why?” He asked.

We went through it to the outside. It was sunny and the bright light made our vestments look gray, not blue.

Vrool said, “They must have gone in there after the fire was out to look for something.”

“Who, a Hidden Master, one of us, or someone else?” I asked.

Vrool gave no answer and I wondered why he was not more forthcoming with information.

We took off our vestments and left them on the ground where we stood. The gentle breeze felt wonderful against my face. I went back inside and picked up the little metal wire. It was the only thing that was not burned to ash or melted to the floor. It was getting dark out. With the long, dark shadows, the city looked even more desolate.

When we got back to the Spirit we had trouble gaining entrance. We both said the proper incantation but no access was granted. Over and over again we said the incantations and performed the rituals we knew should work. Vrool tried one he learned from the Hidden Master himself, it was supposed to work on any door.

It did not work.

A knot formed in my stomach. I felt cold and a little dizzy. Without the Spirit we would be trapped here among the dead bodies until we could walk to, where? All we had known and lived for was serving the Hidden Masters. All that we ate and drank came from them. If we got sick we looked to them for health. If we had a question we asked them through the priests. They were our all in all, and right now the Spirit was the only way to reach the only one we knew was alive.

Images of dying here filled my mind. I pushed them away and focused on the practical. We could survive if there were enough water and grain. An entire city was available to us, there must be stores of grain somewhere. Without the Spirit we were stuck here, but we would not die. What if Vrool and I were the last of our kind? Could an entire people be wiped out so quickly? Were the Hidden Masters all knowing and all wise? My unquestioned belief of the Hidden Masters’ wisdom and power was flaking away. I wanted to go back to the Hidden Master and ask him why all this was happening. Why all the death and carnage if they were all knowing, all good and all wise? Maybe they were not all knowing, after all, they couldn’t prevent the illness that...

“I did it!” shouted Vrool. The Spirit opened and my entire body sagged with relief.

We were both tired and decided not to travel that night. Vrool got out the grain, water and fruit so we could eat. I was happy to be inside the Spirit, eating and drinking, away from death and sorrow. I was so elated not to be stranded in the city I tried one of the fruits Vrool had cut. It was dark purple on the outside and red on the inside. The scent was pungent, but not disagreeable. The sensation on my tongue was overwhelming. It made my mouth burn. Vrool wrinkled his brow as I spat it out into an empty bowl. I used a cloth to clean off the juice from my beak. I drank many cups of water until the intensity faded. Vrool ate another piece of fruit and I watched him as juice dribbled down his chin and onto his chest feathers. 

Inside the comfort of the Spirit, I was ashamed of my faithless thoughts and unbelief. Perhaps it had simply been a test of our faith and I had failed? How could I not believe that the Hidden Masters would take care of us?

Still, images of the dead people filled my mind. They were just like us, like me, yet they died horrible deaths. I could not put together the goodness of the Hidden Masters and the images of death next to each other.

Vrool asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. I was wondering how early we should awaken for travel tomorrow.” I said.

“I was thinking about the dead Greta.” He said. It was the first time he had called me by my true name. I sat up a little straighter.

“The Hidden Masters are very wise and very powerful.” I said.

He said, “Yes they are, yet thousands of people have died. Does that bother you?”

“The images of death are disturbing. That is all.” I said, picking up the bowls and cups and cleaning off the tool Vrool used to cut his fruit. He took hold of my wrist with his very large hand.

“It is alright to question Greta. It is not a sign of weakness or lack of faith in the Masters.” He said.

“Your hands are very strong.” I said.

He looked down and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” He let go and I finished cleaning. “I will check the Spirit for our flight tomorrow. Go to sleep when you are done here.”

He started walking away and I said, “Vrool?”

“Yes little one?”

“Thank you.” I bowed to him.

“You are welcome Greta.” He returned my bow and left.

I decided that I did not like my own thoughts. Something was happening to my beliefs. I could not deny what my eyes had seen of the world.

“How could the Hidden Masters, so wise and kind, who had given us our lives and our names, be anything other than perfect?”

We decided not leave the next day because we wanted to minister to the Spirit. There were dozens of incantations and prayers to speak. There were idols to attend and rituals to perform. The incident with the faulty incantation prompted Vrool to go over and over the various incantations and rituals for entry into the Spirit. He showed me a way into the Spirit, any Spirit actually, by ritual alone. This was to be used if all else failed. He showed me more about the altar than I could grasp at one sitting. I had assumed that because I could command the Spirit in flight that I had mastery over it. There were more things you could make the Spirit do than I was aware of. Vrool taught me more words and incantations that I added to my store.

At last, everything in the Spirit was perfect. We left on the morning of the third day. The next city was a half-day’s travel. When we arrived in this city we had to stay in the Spirit because an oracle told us there was poison in the air. I did not need the oracle to tell me that because there were not only dead people lying everywhere but dead animals as well. I did not know their various names, but there were three distinct forms. The things that flew, who had feathers like us, were sprinkled throughout the masses of dead bodies. The things that crawled were more abundant and looked as though they were eating the flesh of the people when they died. I recognized one of the four-legged kind that used to come near the monastery.

The third group was almost too strange to describe. They were like people but their discolored skin was falling off in great sheets, flapping whenever the wind blew hard. Some of their eyes were open, white in death. I had to avert my eyes.

Vrool said, “The poison must have killed the animals that were feeding on the people.”

“What are the big ones called, the ones that are like us?” I asked.

Vrool shrugged, “I do not know. Well, I have seen images of them before but I never asked what they were, scavengers of some kind I think.” Vrool shifted on his feet. “Their vestments are strange, almost like bald skin.”

I looked harder. “I thought it was their skin falling off. Are they really vestments?”

“Yes.” He said, but would not elaborate. The longer we looked at them the sadder I became. We prayed the prayer of over them.

Vrool said, “We can not go into the city without the special ritual holy vestments, but they are inside the temple which we can not get to without going outside. The oracle says that the poison in the air and on the ground will remain for a long time.” He looked at me and shook his feathers. “What is the correct answer to this problem little one?”

I said, “There is none. The Spirit does not carry the proper vestments.” I was glad of this. They were worse than the normal ones. They were hard, like a shell, with special idols that let us breathe without dying from the poison. Vrool attempted to communicate with the temple through an idol but there was either no one left alive or they were not responding to us or communication had not yet been re-established. In the end we simply flew off to the next destination. I thought it strange that the animals that looked like us and wore vestments would try to feed on us.

“Are they conscious like us Vrool?” I asked.

“Animals are not unintelligent. They saw an easy meal. If they can get foodstuff without hunting it, they will.” He sat back in his chair and began grooming his feathers.

I said, “It still does not explain who poisoned all the people. We need to find that out.”

Vrool did not say anything and I watched him, waiting for a response. He was a careful groomer, not  quick and sloppy like some of the males I knew. I enjoyed looking at his black feathers after he cleaned them, so perfect in their dark shininess.

I asked, “Could the strange animals have poisoned them, or infected them somehow, you know, the ones with the strange vestments that were falling off?”

Vrool stopped grooming and said, “No, those animals did not poison them.” How he knew this I did not understand.

“We should consult the oracle about it.” I suggested.

“No Greta, do not waste your time. Trust me, they are only animals with vestments and they could not have poisoned the air.”

I did not want to ask him again how he knew this but the question bothered me.

It took us only a few hours get to the next city. The oracle said there was no poison there. Vrool packed some idols and gave them to me in a carry-pack. It was no heavier than carrying grain sacks into the storage units back at the monastery. I had grown stronger in the last weeks because the idols of the Spirit were heavier than what we worked with at the monastery. Vrool carried the food and water, which was very heavy, but he was a male and stronger than me. We set out expecting trouble.

People who were sick with vanave came after us as soon as we left the Spirit. Three attacked us with their side claws extended, ready to kill. We spoke the incantation and they fell dead at our feet. This was repeated many times along the way to the temple. I became tired of saying the incantation, of the people dropping dead at our feet and the whiteness of their dead eyes. I became angry with them for making me have to kill them, even though their minds were gone.

After walking for a long time Vrool opened one of the little houses on the side of the road. We went in and rested for a while. My legs ached and the house was too small for us to sit in any real comfort. It did hide us from the people. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and thought of the amazing cities the Hidden Masters had built. Would they ever be filled with people again, the priests going about their tasks and the Hidden Masters directing us?

“Us,” I thought. I was a priest now, was I not? I had done all that the priests did. There were even things a wizard could do that I had done. Would I take my place among them when all was right in the world again?

Vrool whispered to me as a group of people went by, “Look Greta, they do not see us.”

The people either did not see us or were so taken by vanave that they did not care. We saw one group chasing another while attacking each other with their claws. One of them had blue speckled feathers, like me.

After they were out of sight I said, “Vrool, if I ever succumb to vanave...” I began.

“You will not.”

“But if I do...”

“You will not.”

“I want you to perform the incantation at the first sign of it.” I looked into his eyes.

“You will never succumb to vanave little one, ever. I say that as a promise on the life of the Hidden Masters.” Vrool looked into my eyes and made the sign of promise.

We got out of the cramped, metal nest and continued on our way. It was getting dark when the temple came into view.

It was enormous. I had never seen anything so large. I almost fell backwards while looking for the top of it. The sun was moving downward and the temple cast a shadow longer than the entire monastery, longer than six monasteries.

Upon the white stone stairs of the temple the entire population of the city was waiting for us. They were bowed down in supplication to the Hidden Masters. Wings of black, blue, orange, red and green made a tapestry of wild hues set against the pure white stones of the temple. They had died in prayer to the Hidden Masters. They looked so peaceful compared to people in the other cities. Unlike the ones we encountered wandering the city, vanave had not touched them.

“They are so peaceful Vrool. How did they die?” I asked.

“When the Masters saw the end was near for them I think that they had them come here and said the incantation over them. Their deaths were peaceful.” He said.

I looked up the steps ahead of us. It would take us hours to move all the bodies to make a clear path to the top.

Vrool had other ideas.

“I know it seems cruel, but they are already dead. It will not hurt them.” He said.

I cringed as he took three long strides on top of the silent dead.

“Vrool! We cannot do this it is,” I protested. Even as the words left my mouth I knew he was right. There was no way for us to begin clearing all the dead, never mind burying or burning their bodies. We needed to get up there to see if there was anyone inside whom we could help.

We adjusted our packs and gingerly made our way up the steps. Vrool led the way. At first every footfall was hideous. I was terrified of falling over and into the sea of bodies. After a few minutes I learned that stepping on the shoulder just above the wing joint was the most stable place to stand. Halfway up I stopped thinking about the people and concentrated on putting my foot on exactly the right spot. After what seemed like an eternity, we made it to the top. Vrool handed me a water container and I drank, thankful of simple blessings.

I did not realize how high up we were, and this was only the base of the temple. The actual building loomed large above us. The top of the stairs did not look that high from below, but from here we could see the entire city. Everything was massive in scale. I wondered why the Hidden Masters needed so much space. We turned our attention to the task at hand.

The temple was locked shut. Its brown metal doors were closed tightly and some of the people’s fists were clenched tight in a vain attempt to pound their way in. We had to move a dozen bodies aside to gain access to the door, and when we finally got to the idol of entrance we saw it was smashed in. Vrool ministered to it but some of the parts were damaged beyond repair. Vrool said that a specially trained Wizard could fix it, but his knowledge and training did not extend that far. We walked back down the stairs talking about ways to fix the idol. I no longer felt anything about the people we walked on, only a sorrow that I would never meet them in life.

We were standing at the bottom of the steps getting ready to go back to the Spirit for some special idols Vrool thought might open the door when an explosion blew the temple doors off of their hinges.

Vrool covered me with his wings and small pebbles of debris rained down on us, nothing large of course or we would have died. When I saw white smoke I feared that we were in danger. Vrool swept me up and carried me away from the stairs but there was no need. No fire was evident; instead, the cold liquid that we used for storing grain was making clouds of white vapor on the ground. I had used it with an idol before and the scent was unmistakable. Was the temple a grain storage site as well? Where were the Hidden Masters, dead inside? The steps were now shrouded in the white ground fog. For the first time that day I thought the building looked pretty. After an initial burst, the vapor stopped coming out. The sun and wind made short work of the fog and it soon drifted away to nothing. We waited at the foot of the temple steps, unsure of how to proceed.

“Was the explosion an accident or part of the Hidden Master’s plan to get out of the temple?” Vrool asked. No one had left the temple, at least through the front doors.

I said, “The people could not gain access to the temple, they were piled up outside and dying or dead. I do not think it was an accident, someone did this on purpose.” I wanted to go in and minister to any of the injured but Vrool stood there thinking. I began walking up the steps but he held my arm.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Serving the Hidden Masters.” I said.

“We do not know what is in there. You can not serve them by dying Greta.”

“Yes, I can.” I said, and made my way up yet again. He followed.

At the top we stood back from the door, out of breath. I was less sure I wanted to die now that we had reached the top. Vrool took out an idol and it told him there was no poison in the air. Apart from the damage to the doorframe, there was nothing broken inside. “Should there not be more damage?” I asked. I did not know anything about explosions, the only other one I had seen was when an idol was blown up by a wizard because he told the priest it was broken and in the way of other idols back in the monastery. He blew it up and we all watched from a safe distance.

Vrool said, “I do not know if there should be more damage. There is not and I’m glad of it. Let’s go in”

The outer courts of this temple were empty. There were no bodies of any kind anywhere on the inside and we were confused. We did not see anyone come in or go out. Where were the people, the Hidden Masters?  We put on the sacred vestments but there was no one in the holy place or the holy of holies. Stranger still, the idols, oracles and even the throne was missing. The larger idols were torn from their spots. There were signs of some kind of fire around the medium sized ones and the small ones must have been carried off, but by whom?

Vrool tried some incantations and rituals that would reveal concealed messages Hidden Masters might have left us. There were none and the trip seemed wasted. We did hear a strange sound at one point. It was like the idols of preparation back at the monastery. It got louder, then it got softer again.. We looked outside but saw nothing. It got louder then softer again, then disappeared. Vrool was taking out the grain and water from his pack.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I am hungry now. We are going to eat while there is still light in here.” He put out two bowls and two cups and poured out portions for us both. “You do not want to walk back to the Spirit in the dark do you?” He asked.

“No, I do not. Are we going to build a nest here for the night?” I asked.

“Yes. We will be safe here.”

After eating and picking up, Vrool and I explored the rest of the temple complex. Most of the building was full of rooms with tables and chairs. There were many idols, oracles and altars. The Hidden Masters kept thousands of records of...what...incantations, prayers? They were recorded in a language I did not recognize and stored on sheets of metal so thin that light came through it. There were other rooms taken up entirely by oracles, quiet ones. There was something wrong with the rooms. Oracles were not supposed to be that quiet. Here and there were idols that Vrool took and put into a sack he had brought.

"What are they for, Vrool?” I asked.

“They are useful.” He said.

After a while the rooms started to all look the same. It was getting dark out. We went back to the holy place to make a nest.

Before we fell asleep I asked Vrool about what he did as a youngling.

“I was like you Greta, until the Hidden Master took me to be trained. I took care of my row as a youngling, served grain as a servant, learned as an acolyte and taught as a priest. I was a priest for three years.”

“Who is three years?” I asked.

“Oh, I forgot!” he said, “They do not teach you how to measure time or use a regular calendar as an acolyte. I will teach you.” He moved closer to me and looked into my eyes so that the information would not get lost.

“An hour,“ He explained, “is the section of a day equal to one twenty-fourth of the whole day.” He explained what one twenty-fourth was and the division of a large thing into smaller things. “So you see what a day is now?”

“Does that include the time we sleep or only the time we are awake?” I asked.

“It includes the time we sleep. One day is the time from one morning-prayer to the next.” He said.

I said, “That is a long time!”

He looked at me with a creased brow. “When you told me you had not completed your acolyte year, you did not understand what a year was, did you?”

“No.” I replied. “I thought it meant until I learned all they expected me to, perfectly.” 

Now that I understood what an hour really was I counted how many of them fit into a year. Vrool went over the ordinary calendar that the priests used to determine when to start seeds and collect rows. There was another calendar and he knew the names of the periods of time, but not their purpose. I lay there with a head full of new ideas. I almost drifted off to sleep when another question came into my mind. 

“Vrool?” I asked.

“Yes little one?” he said with a sigh.

“How old am I?” I asked.

I heard his feathers ruffle and he shifted in the nest. “If you count your time as an acolyte, you are four years old.”

Four years old!

It was almost like getting my name from the Hidden Master. I was four years old! What did it mean? How old could I become?

“Vrool?” I asked.

“Yes little one.”

“How old are you?”

“I am seven years old.”

I listened to him breath for a few minutes. “You don’t sound seven years old.” I said, but he was asleep. I thought of many more questions for him, but could not remember them in the morning.

We awoke with the sun, ate and prepared to leave. We were putting on our packs when the people taken by vanave came for us.

They burst through the hole where the doors had been, claws extended and death in their eyes. The three in the front had blood on their claws and were making animal noises as they approached. Vrool picked up an idol from the floor and did something to it, white smoke and powder came out in a great gush. It startled the people and they stopped in their tracks. Vrool and I said the incantation and they died. Then more came in behind them.

I said, “There’s no way we can speak the ceasing incantation to all of them. We are going to be overwhelmed.”

He pulled me in the direction of the holy of holies and we ran into it. More people were coming through the entrance.

I said. “Vrool! We will be trapped in here, there is no way out!”

The people were coming after us were uninhibited and fierce. My heart was pounding. Vrool spoke into an idol on the wall. A door handle with some kind of light built into it began going on and off rapidly. We ran to it and he pulled. Nothing happened. The light kept blinking.

“Vrool!” I said, panicking.

He pulled again.

Nothing happened again.

The people were almost upon us. A woman in the front was flexing her claws and hissing at me. Vrool pulled harder at the door.

Nothing happened.

“Vrool, we really need to be away from here.” I said the incantation and one of them fell dead. The others stepped over her.

“Greta, pull with me!” said Vrool.

I turned and pulled hard with him and the door moved a fraction. I noticed a small bump on the door handle and pushed it, the door flew open and we flew straight back into our attackers. They were knocked backwards off their feet by us. A side claw cut into my arm. Vrool pulled me up and we vaulted through the door, pulling it shut it behind us just as the mob on the other side regained their senses. We put a thin metal bar hanging by a chain through a hole in the handle. It held the door shut. The people on the other side of the door were screaming and pounding on it with their wings and fists. We waited anxiously for a moment then we heard them fighting amongst one another. We heard screams and shrieks as they turned on and tore one of their own, limb from limb.

We climbed up several sets of stairs then rested for a moment while Vrool put a bandage on my arm to stop the bleeding.

“We will have to perform the ritual of health when we get back to the Spirit.” He said.

“It is not a big cut. The bleeding has almost stopped.” I was glad it had not cut deeper. The side claw could have gone right through me. 

“We need to get out of this city.” Vrool said.

“How?” I asked “That was the only exit and now it is blocked. Do we wait here until they all die, or use the incantation as quickly as we can?”

“No, there may be too many of them and we do not have enough grain and water to last them out.” He said. “Are you ready to walk?”

“I am.” I really wasn’t but did not want to appear weak.

We went through several doors until we found a set of stairs that led up, and up, and up. Vrool put his pack on and carried mine. He checked my bandage and said the prayer of health over me. It was strangely pleasant to be prayed for. I only wished it did have to happen when we were in danger.

He looked up the staircase and said, “We will climb the stairs to the roof, then we will have to do something else to get down. It is a long way up. Tell me if you get tired or your arm starts to hurt.”

My arm was beginning to ache and the stairs looked as though they went on forever, landing after landing, but it was the only way to go.

“Yes, Let’s go.” I said, with more strength than I felt.

So up we went. Eight steps, a landing then eight more steps. I stopped counting at the twenty-fifth landing. It was monotonous. I actually became dizzy several times from turning the corners so often. Vrool seemed energized, almost happy to be climbing. I hoped the climb back down was going to be easier than the way up.

“Vrool, why are we going to the roof? We are just going to have to climb back down again?” I asked, out of breath.

“Don’t worry Greta, it will be worth it. Trust me.” He said.

We stopped three times on the way up. My arms and legs ached. When we got to the top there was a door like the one below but we knew its secret button and did not have to try breaking it down. Although my legs, chest and arms ached, getting to the top was worth it. I would have climbed twice that height get there.

The view was incredible. A thousand times more amazing than the view from the temple steps, far below. I felt as though I were among the clouds. I could see a long, long way into the distance. Snow covered mountain tops were visible in the direction of the setting sun. A large body of water, larger than I had ever seen before, could be seen clearly from the other side of the building. My head felt funny as we stood on the edge and looked down at the city below. People looked tiny, not real at all, almost like insects. The houses in the distance seemed unreal. All the dead on the stairs far below blended into a colored blur.

I remembered they were once people and was sad for their souls.

“Impressive, is it not?” Vrool asked. He was striding from one edge to the other, looking down. He took off my pack and then his. We ate and drank without speaking, simply enjoying the view. I lay my head down on the pack and closed my eyes. The ache in my arm and legs was coming on again and I wondered if we were going to spend the night here before going back down. I turned my head to ask Vrool and got the shock of my life. He was spreading his wings and was lifted off of his feet into the air like a bird. He fell back to the roof and said, “I haven’t done that for a long time.” He must have saw me looking at him with wide eyes because he said, “Do not worry Greta, we are not going anywhere until you are ready.”

I was appalled. One of the first things you learn as a youngling, is to always keep your wings folded, unless you were grooming or using them to cover your face before a priest. Some of the younglings would experiment with holding their wings out and catching the wind, but the priests did not tolerate it. They would withhold water if they caught you doing it twice.

I looked back in the direction of the set of stairs we had climbed and said, “Vrool, we are going back down the stairs, are we not?”

He just shook his head, spread his wings again and this time went up even higher. I screamed but he did not fold and come down. He flexed the muscles in his wings and I saw how well developed his chest was. You could not tell when we had our wings folded, but now that he was floating there in the sky, it was beautiful. It was as if he, we, were made for flying. I was thrilled, watching him float like that. A thousand questions entered my mind, the foremost of them was “why?”. I pushed them away in annoyance and marveled at Vrool. He was flying, sort of, more like floating. He landed and then came over to me.

”Your turn.” He said and grabbed me by the waist. Before I could protest he threw me as high as he could into the air above him. I screamed and then my wings shot out automatically, letting me glide, not as graceful as he did, but gently down to the roof. It was exhilarating. A rush of excitement overcame my anger towards him and for the next several hours I learned how to use my wings to float in the air and glide. It was not hard but there was some skill involved that could only be learned by practice. Vrool held me by the waist at first, sometimes just touching me to ensure I did not float off the edge of the building. I learned how my body’s subtle movements worked to keep and steer me in the air.

My chest ached and my wings had never felt so stretched, but I felt something missing in my life had come back to me. Vrool was a patient and careful teacher. He had me perform certain moves over and over again until they were perfect. After a two hours I was becoming exhausted and my arm was bleeding a little. We ate the rest of the grain, drank the rest of the water and sat down on the warm roof. The sun was getting low on the horizon.

“We are going to fly down Greta.” said Vrool.

“Down to where?” I knew what he meant.

“Down to the ground” He said.

I did not want to do it. The thought of stepping off the edge of that tall temple building was beyond horror.

“Vrool, we are only like the birds. We can not fly.” I protested.

“No, that is true. We cannot achieved real flight, but we can glide, quite well in fact.” He seemed so sure of himself. Did he really know what he was talking about?

“Have you done this before?” I was as curious as I was terrified.

“Yes, at the temple two years ago. The Hidden Master told me what to do and showed me something that proved we could do it.” He was looking over the roof edge in the direction of the Spirit.

“I am not doing it.” I said.

Deep inside I knew we had to, it was inevitable. He made no reply, walked around the roof to the other side and looked down. I stretched my wings and caught the air again, then fell back to the ground.

Vrool said, “When you step off, remember to glide away from the building or you will smash into it and hurt yourself. If you flip over in the air, do not panic, just extend your wings legs and arms as far as they can go. You will automatically be gliding upright again. We were made this way!”

I had never heard him sound so excited before. He put the idols from his bag on the ground and sorted them into two groups. One group he left on the ground, the other he put back in the bag. Then he stretched out his wings and was taken up while still holding it. He landed and put one more idol into the bag and went up again. He landed and secured the bag to his arm with a length of cord.

“You will not have any problem landing, but do not pull your wings in before you put all your weight on your feet or you may injure your legs. Greta, are you listening?”

“I am not going.” I said in a quivering voice. I folded my arms and turned away from him. There was a tightness in my chest and my breath quickened.

He groomed his feathers and said, “You should groom for a minute.”

“I will, but I’m not gliding over the city with you. I will take the stairs later.” I said.

Vrool checked me over with extra attentiveness, put a hand on my shoulder and said, “I will go first and lead the way. You can steer well enough. It is the same as catching the air up here.” He took my hand and led me to the edge. “Remember,” he said. “Step off, wings folded, push out hard with your legs then open when you start falling. Do not panic and keep your eyes on my wings. All you have to do is follow.”

He walked over to the edge and pointed. ”The Spirit is over there. I will land as close to it as I can. If there are people taken by vanave near it I will say the incantation. Go inside the Spirit as soon as you land.” He put his hand on my face and said the prayer of protection for travel.

I was not convinced it would work.

I made one last protest but in the end there was only one choice. Vrool went first and looked so beautiful that I wanted to say the prayer of glory and love, but there was no time. I pushed off the building believing I would glide down safely, and not die.

I took a breath, pushed off with all my might, and was over the edge, falling. My wings shot out, fully extended. I hung suspended in the sky for a heartbeat. I curved my wings and forward motion began in earnest. The buildings beside me sped past. I slowed myself a little with a slight alteration of my wings. I saw my blurry reflection in the metal windows of the buildings. I was a streak of blue. Although I could go up for short periods of the glide, gravity always brought me lower. Vrool was right. We could not really fly, but gliding was natural for us. Why had the Masters denied us this pleasure?

The air path Vrool set out before me was well away from any buildings. I tested my steering abilities several times, making lazy circles in the sky as we glided down. The pace that seemed fast to me at first became slower as I got closer to the ground. An unexpected gust of wind threatened to turn me over, but I folded wings and instantly began dropping. I opened them and again caught the wind.

There was a drastic change in temperature as we got lower. I did not notice it on the roof because the Sun must have been warming its black surface. Our feathers keep us warm all the time, but up in the sky I was much more comfortable than on the ground. When we were half way down I began to relax a little and notice the surroundings. The tops of the buildings had idols of one kind or another. I wondered how long it had taken the Hidden Masters to build their magnificent cities. It must have taken them a long time because some of them were massive. There was one building that was round rather than square and I thought it was the most, well, not beautiful, but not as severe as the other.

We were coming within sight of the Spirit’s landing place when I saw two animals on the rooftop of a small building. Their eyes were like mine but larger. They had coats of smooth, black fur or skin. I did not know for sure. Their faces were shrouded in something white. I could not tell if it were part of their bodies or a covering of some kind. The creatures were on all four legs. They looked up at me and pointed! I wondered how they got up there. Then I realized they were the animals we had seen before, the ones who’s skins were like vestments. I took all this in, descending below them and out of their sight.

The ground was coming up to meet me now and I picked a spot to land. I let my feet touch the ground and remembered to put my weight on them before folding my wings. The sudden weight of my body upon my legs disoriented me. I almost fell over. I got my bearings and saw Vrool. We were only a short walk from the entrance to the Spirit. There was no in the area but us. I ran up to Vrool and enveloped him with my wings and arms.

He held me and stroked my head, saying, “You are very brave Greta. Good job.”

He was warm and smelled nice. I did not want to ruffle his feathers so I let go but held his hands.

“Vrool” I said, “I want to do it again, right now, can we?”

Nothing was the same after that day. The joy of flying had brought possibilities to my previously unknown. Something, once dormant, was awakened in me without my approval or consent. I would not let it go. It would not leave me alone.

The desire to glide again, to fly, was intense. If it had not been for the instructions of the Hidden Master and my devotion to them, I would have climbed those stairs again and again, gliding for the rest of my life. Concentration was difficult when ministering to the Spirit with incantations and rituals. I had to force myself say the daily prayers. Vrool was patient with me and allowed me to settle down in my own time. After several days had passed I was feeling normal again, although I still thought often and longingly about gliding.

No one came near the Spirit. Perhaps they were all dead? We spent a week ministering to it. Vrool was concerned because our next trip was going to take a long time. There were special rituals to perform. Vrool spent a long time consulting an oracle and working with one particular idol. One task he gave me was to learn a special language that the oracles used. It was frustrating because the oracle would not respond properly unless the correct incantation was performed precisely. He kept checking my work but I did it properly.

When I was not helping him I spent time grooming and looking at my wings in a reflection. I saw them with new eyes. How is it possible to have your own body, live in it, and yet not really see it? 

I decided to describe myself to an imaginary friend. I did not know if we would ever encounter others of our kind not taken by vanave. This bothered me. Who would know of my existence, besides the Hidden Masters, if Vrool and I died? I said to myself quietly, “My feathers are colored dark blue with many small spots of black and yellow on the tips of my wings and the ends of my feet and hands. My skin on my face is blue, with the white, downy feathers only females have. My body is long and thin with feathers covering all of my skin that thin out to almost nothing at my joints. My side claws, which I never have used to harm anyone, are black with one side toothed and the other side sharp enough to cut through a sapling. My fingers ended in little claws, which could be retracted into my fingertips. They were very useful for moving tiny wires inside idols or changing the settings of the Spirits altar.”

After I said this I felt better and decided to describe Vrool in the same manner. I said, ” Vrool hs tiny, smooth black feathers on his face, a shade lighter than his body feathers. My wing feathers have a pattern of dark and light that is visible only when my wings are fully extended. The pattern goes against the flow of my feathers and I wondered how the Hidden Masters had created it. Vrool’s pattern is harder to see because his feathers are so dark. The most beautiful feature of my body is my crown. Six long feathers of red, poke out of the bony circle at the top of my head at regular intervals. Between those are shorter feathers of gold and yellow, which will become almost as long as the red ones, as I get older.

Vrool, like all the males, has a crest of feathers, orange, that sprout just a little from the top of his head. They form a “V” that point forward and come to a point just above his eye ridges. It is clearly visible when Vrool bends over, but is almost invisible if you look at him straight on.” I stopped speaking to myself when I saw Vrool looking at me looking at myself in the reflection. I was startled at the look on his face. I looked away and pretended to stare at my hand until I heard him move away.

I helped Vrool prepare for travel and we left. It was the first city I was sorry to leave, despite the thousands of dead and the dangers we faced. I decided to call it “Flying City”, but only to myself. The Hidden Masters would not approve of us re-naming their sacred cities.

We arrived at the next city four days later. The trip was uneventful. After long hours ministering to the Spirit, oracles and idols left me ready for a walk, or better yet a glide. We were only a little surprised that there were no people in or near the city. I had been dreading meeting people caught in vanave and seeing more dead bodies littering the streets. I hoped that we could find living Hidden Masters here. The oracle told us there was no poison in the air so we left the Spirit more hopeful than ever.

This city was much smaller than all the others. We could have walked its entire perimeter in an afternoon. There were no tall buildings. Vrool said they all were under seven levels in height because of a problem with the ground shaking.

There was a natural quality to the buildings that was comforting to me. Instead of hard edges and metal, the buildings and houses were made of curved stone that had a rough, but pleasant, texture. There were trees, shrubs and flowers were growing wild all over the walls of the buildings, making it look like a garden city.

I said, “It is as if the buildings of this place grew out of the ground rather than being pushed down and imposed upon it from above.

“It is very peaceful here. I would like to come back and live here someday.” He said, a little sadness in his voice.

“Vrool,” I asked, “Did the Hidden Masters build many cities like this?”

“No, I do not think they did.” He wrinkled his brow was about to say something else, but he just sighed and would not say any more.

The temple was on the perimeter of the city, not in its center as the others’ were. We had no trouble getting into it. It was small like the rest of the buildings and made of metal like the other temples were. It was obvious to me that this temple did not belong with the rest of the buildings.

I asked Vrool, “Had it been built long after the rest of the city and dropped where it now sits?”

“I don’t know. This is my first visit too.” He said.

There was no one on the inside of the temple complex, but everything was in order and nothing was broken. No one had been there for a long time. Dust covered the altars and oracles. Idols here seemed different than in the other cities. They were cruder but served the same functions. I thought more about the strange discontinuity between the temple and the rest of the city. There was a vague nagging thought at the back of my mind trying to coalesce.

“Vrool, why would the Hidden Master send us here?”

He said, “Why don’t you check some of the idols for information.”

We checked the oracles and the idols but they told us nothing about where the people were. The building was so small compared to the others that we were able to explore all of it in one half-hour. The thick dust revealed no footprints but ours. We walked out disappointed. As I observed the back of the temple I realized what had been troubling my mind. The temple was shaped almost exactly like a smaller version of the Spirit and it had no foundation, only thick legs it sat upon, again like the Spirit.

“Vrool! This is a traveling temple of some kind, A Spirit Temple.” I said.

“Do not be fooled by the shape Greta. It only looked like a spirit. There are no engines or devices to for achieving orbit.” He said.

“What is orbit?” I asked.

“I’ll explain it to you later.” He said. I had the impression that he did not really want to tell me.

There was a dirt path all around the perimeter of the city and we walked and talked as we strode.

Vrool said, “I don’t know where all the people and the Masters are. They should have left a message of some kind. I do not know why the Master who sent us on this mission has not been able to give me more information. Maybe we should go back to him and report on what we have seen? It has been a long time since we saw him.”

“No, we should continue on until all the cities are investigated.” I said.

“Are you saying that because you want to find tall buildings and go gliding?” He asked.

“No, that is not the reason. We should be thorough, like when we took away weeds in our rows. Every little weed taken away brings the Masters life and health.” I was a little angry because he was right about my wanting to glide again, but that wasn’t my reason for wanting to continue with our investigation.

Vrool thought it over for a moment and said, “I’m going to go back to the Spirit and do some work. We will decide our course of action later.”

We walked back toward the Spirit. Vrool said, “I need to consult the oracles again Greta. Why do you not take some time and explore the city while I am busy?”

We had been in the Spirit for four days.

I said, “I would not mind some more time outside in the sunlight and fresh air. Are you certain I can’t help you?”

“No, you are young and need to get out and play in the sun. There will always be work to do. Take this time and enjoy it.” With warnings to avoid people taken with vanave, getting lost and prayers for health and safety, we parted.

The city’s buildings were closer in size to the monastery complex than anything I had seen. After a half-hour the empty buildings became so much the same that I decided to walk around the dirt path again. It was nice to be out in the sun and not have people chasing me with their claws extended, ready to shred me. I was grateful for the silence and the peace. I opened my wings several times, hoping to catch the air, but the air was still.

My mind drifted away from thoughts of our mission and went where they would. I saw some birds flying off in the distance, turning as one in the air according to laws I could only guess at. I envied them a little. What would it be like to have no Hidden Masters, to be able to do whatever I wanted? This thought was sinful. I said a prayer and vowed not to let such thoughts enter my mind ever again.

Further on down the path a voice in my head began to talk of its own accord.

“Why did the Hidden Masters make us with feathers and wings? Were they all dead or hiding somewhere? Why could they not protect the people from vanave? How is it that Vrool has been  given so much knowledge by the Hidden Master who named me? Why were we not allowed to glide when it was so natural to us? Why were there so few Hidden Masters and so many of us? Why did the Hidden Masters never come out of the temple to walk around and enjoy the sun? Why was I thinking these thoughts? Is there something wrong with me? Am I being taken by vanave?

More thoughts flew through my mind unbidden. I considered what I had seen, what the Hidden Master had told us, and what Vrool had told me. There was information I was not given and I wondered what it could be. I trusted Vrool to tell me what I needed to know, but I may not need to know everything he did. Would he tell me everything he knew if I asked him?

My foot struck a rock and I was brought back to reality with a sore foot. I took a deep breath and thought, ”The questions are too many and too difficult for me to sort out right now. I won’t forget them though.

I thought back to my glide in the Flying City as I walked along the soft path. Images came to my mind, my figure in the shiny metal of the building, the way Vrool looked ahead of me, so perfect, the way the city’s buildings, so tall from below, became simple shapes underneath us, their roofs just squares and rectangles.

Then I remembered and said aloud, “Did I tell Vrool about the animals on the roof near the idol?”

I did not. I was so excited after I landed, I never mentioned it to him. I had a feeling that it was important. I decided to return to the Spirit immediately and tell him what I saw. 

I was about to turn around when a small creature, startled by my sudden appearance coming around a bend in the path, stopped dead in its tracks.

For a moment neither of us moved. Its mouth was full of long green grass. Its eyes were solid, glistening, black, and its fur a rich dark brown. Long blades of grass stuck out from the sides of its mouth. Its tiny black nostrils opened and closed very fast in time with its breathing. One long white tooth stuck out from under a pink lip, like a tiny needle. It had wide feet with black claws, and a wide flat tail.

My left wing jerked and the creature darted off into the brush. I tried to see where it went. A glint of light caught my eye. It came from behind a hedge of tall bushes off to my right. I found a break in the hedge, stepped through and came upon a pond of water. It was protected almost the entire way around by the hedge. There were trees with long yellow tendrils making a natural shelter along one side of the pond. There was a little forest of tall spiky green reeds growing near the shore. I walked into the sheltered area. Swarms of tiny black insects flew through and around the plants and trees. I went to the edge of the pond and looked through the water to the sandy tan bottom.

The water was clean and warm. An insect was floating across the water on its tiny legs, not breaking through but gliding across it in smooth motions. I was impressed. Light sparkled merrily on the surface of the water. I decided to go in, Vrool could wait a little longer.

None of us could swim. Our inner feathers became too heavy with water. Our outer feathers protected us quite well from the rain though. However, going into water below our knees was very enjoyable on a hot day and we did this often at the monastery.

I waded around the small pond and watched the tiny fishes swim in the shallows. They were translucent to the point of invisibility and moved with surprising speed. I caught one in my hand and held it cupped there in water until it jumped out into the pond to rejoin its flock.

A larger creature came upon them and the little fish swam away. It was round, dark green, and slower moving than the fishes. It propelled itself with two front legs, flat with little claws on the ends. The back feet were small and stout, also with claws. Like me it had a beak, although its protruded from its face, not flush against it like mine was. I remembered a youngling song about how we were all related. I wondered if this creature was in some way like us. I spoke to it but it only plopped its head down into the water and swam off. The Hidden Masters had only given language to us and I felt foolish for trying.

I was about to get out of the water and start back to Vrool with my information when I heard an awful sound. It was the same strange sound we had heard in the city, only much, much louder. I was deafened and terrified as a giant bird/idol/creature fell from the sky and onto the ground beside the hedge a little ways from the path in the meadow. My heart was pounding as I pulled myself into a crouch behind the hedge in a stand of tall grasses.

The bird/idol/creature’s wings were flapping faster than I thought possible. Pebbles, leaves, and dirt were being blown by the tremendous wind it created.I heard little pebbles bounce against a rock near my head.

My first thought was of staying hidden. Might my blue feathers give away my position? I was in the shadow of a tall tree and the grasses I hid behind were thicker taller than I was. I tore out handfuls of grass and put them over my head and body. My crown was partially hidden under a thin layer of green. I remained quiet. My body was as still as a rock.

The bird/idol/creature had quieted down almost to nothing. Its wings were moving in a lazy circle above its head. I slowly moved my left wing to cover my white face; the only part of me I thought might be visible. I did not know if the bird/idol/creature was looking in my direction. I watched it through a slit in my wing feather.

Minutes passed.

The thing was not moving at all now. It was unnaturally still.

“It is an idol then, not a creature.” I said to myself.

Looking at it carefulyI realized that it was made of metal. Its manner of flight caused me to think it was some kind of creature. How did those tiny wings get it off the ground? Its overall shape was more like an insect than an animal or bird. There were strange markings all over it. I wondered if Vrool had seen or heard it come down. It was loud enough but if he were inside the Spirit with the portal closed he would not have heard anything. He usually kept the portal closed. Would he leave me here alone with it if he had heard it? I was not even sure if he knew where I was. More minutes passed and I saw movement through the metal of its skin. I waited. My knees began to stiffen and I longed to stand up. All of a sudden the side of the idol opened and an animal came out. It looked like one of the things we had seen in the city, like the dead animals who looked like us. This one was alive, although its eyes were as white as death. It was disturbing to look at an animal with dead eyes, walking around, alive. It had no wings, no feathers, no side claws and no crest on its head. The animal’s skin was dark and shiny, a coat of smooth fur or, No! it was not fur or skin. It was wearing vestments of some kind. Where did animals get vestments? Where did animals get bird/idol/creatures? 

I could not see its face clearly because that was also covered with a vestment of some kind. It was like the gossamer of my own face, but much longer and black in color. It had no beak to cover its mouth and I saw white teeth when it stretched and yawned. It was disgusting. Some disruption of the ordered world must have allowed things like it to live. Maybe the Hidden Masters had us keep them under control and now that we were dead or dying the order of the world was tipped in their favor.

Another creature stepped out of the idol. This one was a little smaller than the first and its vestments were of wild colors and strange patterns. It wore a red and green head covering of loose material that blew in the wind. This one had no face covering and its skin was strange. It was colored like the sand of the pond, smooth and free of feathers. Its eyes were the horrible color of death except for the very centers, which were blue, the color of my lightest blue feathers. My heart was racing and I wanted to fly away, or at least run. I closed my eyes and repeated a few silent prayers that always calmed me down.

I could hear the sounds they made, but if it were language it was beyond my comprehension. The sounds were long and moaning, like trees creaking in a strong wind. Sometimes I saw one make a sound then keep its mouth open after the sound had stopped. These sounds were much lower in pitch and slower than anything I knew as language. The smaller one took off one of its vestments and I could see its smooth bald arms. They were like ours but missing a joint. Was its entire body like that, no feathers or fur? It reached into the idol and with its bald arms took out what might have been a youngling. This one was a third the size of the colored ones and wore vestments like the black one, including a covering like the black one had on its head. It jumped out of the colored one’s arms and ran around making noises. For a moment I wondered if it were some kind of animal, it was running in random configurations and making awful sounds.

It ran right in my direction.

I was sure it would not see me.

It went through the hedge where I had come.

It was not going to see me. I was too well hidden.

It walked around the small pond and looked at the creatures in it. It was sixty paces away from my hiding place. It would not see me.

With an effort, it turned over a log and looked underneath. Its tiny, youngling legs were bending the same way ours did, almost in the same place. It walked around the pond and made noises to itself. It would not find me. I was too well hidden.

The black one made noises to which the youngling responded to. They went back and forth with their strange sounds. I turned my head, very slowly, and looked again in the idol’s direction. I was surprised to see that it was the colored one, not the black one, making the noises. There was no way to tell them apart by their sounds. Were they male and female? Did the vestments signify anything? There were more of them now. They must have come out of the bird/idol/creature when I was watching the youngling in the pond area. It was hard to keep track of them all. There were four of the little ones with the two large ones. Two of them were like the colored and two were wearing the black vestments, although I now saw that there was an outer and inner portion to their vestments. Were they bald underneath all that? Were they animals who had some kind of relationship with the Masters? No, this was too strange. I needed to get back to Vrool.

The colored younglings were pulling flowers out of the ground and collecting them, for food I wondered? The black younglings had peeled off the outer portion of their vestments to reveal another vestment of white. How could their bodies live with all that stuff covering them? I was beginning to wonder how intelligent they were when I remembered the youngling who was in my vicinity.

Too late.

It was an arm's length behind me. I did not hear it approach. I must have been concentrating on the others. Dead white eyes looked at me with an unfathomable expression on its awful face. She was frozen in place with her mouth open. A pink tongue wriggling around in a cave of wet, soft flesh. Her eyes were bright white, with circles of blue color in the center and a tiny black dot within that. I almost screamed.

Tiny slivers of fur came out of the eyelids, which opened in the wrong direction. Up close I could see that her beak was malformed, almost invisible, so small it was. The holes were on the bottom where they could do no good for breathing. The exposed mouth was like a wound that ought to be covered. There was a space in her mouth where another tooth might have gone. Was that where its fangs would come in? Its chin was just like ours, but bald. At the side of its head were strange wrinkled bowls with holes in them. If they were what we had at the sides of our heads then this creature was to be pitied, for they were utterly deformed. The least repellent feature was the fur on its head. Two long slivers of curly fur dangled down to her neck from either side of her head. The fur on the top of her head was short and thick, almost like Vrool’s crown, but much shorter. It was black like Vrool’s feathers and eyes were. I could hear her breath.

As I took this in, all in the time of two eye blinks, the creature was also looking at me. It was not afraid, as far as I could tell, but curious. It was staring at my beak, then my crown. It made a noise and its mouth moved in a curious manner. It made this sound again, this time taking its bald finger, of which there were only four on each hand, and pointed to itself.

My eyes widened with surprise. Until this moment I was convinced they must be animals of some kind. It made the noise and the pointing motion again. The creature made the noise and sign a third time. This time I noticed that the noise repeated a pattern, was it language? There was no way I could make the noises it made. It made the noise and gesture a fourth time. This time I realized that if it were trying to communicate with me it might interpret my own silence as un-intelligence.

Without thinking I said aloud, “My name is Greta. I am here to serve the Hidden Masters.” The thing had fur strips above her eyes that shot up when I said this. She repeated the noise and gesture. I pointed my own finger at myself and said “Greta”. It was the lowest sound I could make and I thanked the Hidden Masters for giving me a name that this creature might be able to hear. Again, it repeated the noise and gesture. I was about to attempt making its noise when it pointed to my chest and shot air out of its contorted mouth.

There was nothing more shocking than realizing that the creature you thought was nothing more than an animal says your own name to you. It repeated my name three times. It made the strange noise again and pointed to itself. I attempted to make the sound but realized it was beyond the range of my voice, too far below for me to repeat. It said my name again and I realized that she was not using her beak and tongue, she was pushing air through her mouth and throat to say my name. I repeated my name slowly and she mimicked me almost perfectly.

Ever so slowly I stretched out my arm, she looked at me and did the same. Her bald hand with too few fingers barely touched my outstretched palm. She stroked my palm with her bald finger and I touched her open palm with my fingers. My heart was pounding and my crown feathers were standing on end. The creature looked directly into my eyes and spoke my name again in that curious way. She reached out with the back of her hand and touched my face. Her touch was so delicate I might have imagined it. My finger went out and touched her bald face. It said my name again then began making a new noise that I did not understand. Our eyes were locked together and I wondered what it was thinking. And then chaos arrived.

The tallest colored one was walking through the hedge, making different sounds and saw us. It made a loud sound and the youngling jumped up and away from me. I retreated to the edge of the hedge and the black one with the other younglings behind it ran into the pond area. The youngling said my name again, this time not so well, then reached out and grabbed a small feather at the end of my right wing. It may have been trying to capture me or only calm me. I will never know because I cried out as I felt a feather pull from my flesh when I reflexively jerked back my wing. 

The black one was now running forward to grab the youngling by the waist and pulled her back. The colored one pushed the other younglings towards an opening in the hedge and out towards their idol. The black one carried the youngling, still clutching my feather, out the same way behind the colored one. They were all making loud sounds now. Mixed in was the youngling’s voice, making very loud sounds. She still held my feather. She was saying my name over and over again.

I wasted no time in getting back to the Spirit. Exiting the hedge through a hole of my own making, I ran as fast as I could along the path back to Vrool. Every fifty paces I stretched out my wings in a vain effort to glide. The wind was weak and I only got off the ground once. My mind was telling me that the awful idol was alive again and making its terrible sound.

I felt it before I heard it. A shadow passed over me and as I looked up behind me I saw it flying over me. I was sure my moment of death was at hand. I fell to the ground in a terror I had never known before and expected the idol/bird/creature to swoop down on me and rip me apart with its claws. Dirt and gravel was blown into my face by the thing. Then it was gone, its tiny wings beating with awful regularity into the distance and away from the city.

I lay there with dirt covering my wings for a long moment before I looked up and saw Vrool running towards me. He came and lifted me up ran back to the Spirit. He dumped me on the floor before going to the altar and saying the incantation of flight and fast escape. He did not stop to say the prayer of safe travel.

I stood up and shook my feathers. A lot of dirt and grit fell on the floor. I was going to have to groom tonight. I needed medicine as well. My knees were scraped where I had fallen, the feathers there mangled, blood and dirt mixed together in a scabby mess on my legs. I went to the place in the spirit where medicine and health idols were kept. The love of the Hidden Masters stung as I applied it to my knees. Vrool called over to me. “Are you all right? I have to consult the oracle.”

I called back to him “Yes, I’m fine.I have a lot to tell you. You will not believe what happened to me!”  I winced as my knee stung from the medicine. I said, “There are talking animals here! I gave one of them a feather.” 

My knees were going to ache for a few days and my feathers needed a complete going over. There would be time for that later. I went to the altar and sat next to Vrool who was in front of an oracle. I wanted to ask him where we were going but the ritual he was performing was complex and I did not want to disturb him. I sat down in the chair next to the altar and closed my eyes.

It was so strange, like a dream in its surreal quality. What were the animal creatures? How did they get the idol? Did they know how to use it or was someone taking them somewhere in it? Did the Hidden Masters create them, like us? 

Did they have souls?

That was the most important question. If they did they were created by the Hidden Masters with the ability to speak and relate to them and us. If not they were simply animals that could mimic the sounds we made without real understanding. But why would the Hidden Masters keep from us the information that we were not the only people with souls? Something about their use of the bird/idol/creature disturbed me.

Why would they, animals, have been given an idol?  Only people could use idols, animals had no use for them. On some occasion I had seen animals drag an idol around, like a toy. Some of them got into the food sheds and had to be dealt with, but they did not know how to use the idols, much less the spirits. In fact, they usually avoided idols that made loud noises. Vrool snapped me out of my thoughts with a question.

“What happened Greta?” He sat down across from me and poured us both cups of water. I told him everything that occurred after we parted. For the next two hours he questioned me on every detail of every minute of my encounter with the strange animals. After hearing the same question a third time I became irritated.

“Vrool,” I said, “You must know what is going on. Did the Master not tell you about these animals, if that is what they are?”

Vrool was quiet. He looked everywhere but at me.

“There are some things you do not need to know Greta. Some information is a burden and the Hidden Masters do not want you to carry more than you can bear.”

His fingers tapped a rhythm on the table and he looked at my hands. “I think that it would be best for us to not talk about this anymore.” He said it with the tone of voice that left no room for argument.

“Vrool! What kind of an answer is that? I just met strange creatures who might have souls! Their strange idol flew like an obscene, lumbering spirit over my head. One of them has a feather of mine. We have seen these animals in the cities of the dead among our bodies. You said they were eating them, but maybe they were not. Maybe they are not animals but another kind of person.”

Vrool looked at me when I said that and gave me a stern look.

“You do not need to know about this Greta. You are barely an acolyte who...”

“I am an acolyte who is on a mission to save the lives of the Hidden Masters! I am an acolyte who has gone to the cities like a priest and into the holy of holies. I have a name. The Hidden Master spoke to me and commissioned me to help you. I have been obedient to you in everything and never questioned your orders. I am not a youngling anymore Vrool. If you wanted someone to help you who would not ask questions you should have chosen someone else.”

I was standing although I do not remember doing it. I do not remember my side claws jutting out in threat. I do not remember my wings coming out around me in the protective stance. It was as if I were another person standing there, talking back to my superior and protector.

Vrool sat there with his chin in his hands, eyes closed, for a long while. I sat down and composed myself, wondering if he were going to discipline me, but not caring if he did.

He opened his eyes and spoke. “Greta, there is something you need to know. I do not know how to tell you this without it upsetting you. Greta, the Hidden Masters are more complex than you have been told.”

I said, “Of course they are. They have access to great power and knowledge. They understand the mysteries of life itself. They are our creators and the sustainers of our world.”

Vrool stood up and spoke again.

“Greta, do you remember when you were first taught about the sun and the moon and the stars?”

“That is an odd question. What does it have to do with any of this?” I thought back to my first days as an acolyte. We learned the name of the Sun and were taught that the moon was blocked by the earth’s shadow, causing it to appear in divisions that grew larger then smaller, in an endless cycle. We learned that the stars were suns, but very far away. There was a word for this kind of learning but I did not know it yet.

“Yes,” I answered. “I was the one holding the idol representing the moon when we performed the ritual of the sun/moon/planet dancing. It seems like a thousand years ago. Was I ever really that young? Why is this important now?”

Vrool said, “Greta there are other places in the sky, out there,” he gestured with his hand to the ceiling, “Where other planets and other suns dance with one other. The Hidden Masters came from one of those stars with a planet dancing around it.” He looked at me, waiting for a reaction I suppose.

“Yes Vrool, I understand. The Hidden Masters have other worlds. That is wonderful, they are full of mystery and power.”

He spoke again. “No Greta, the Hidden Masters came to this planet only ten years ago.”

“Yes Vrool, the Hidden Masters have great powers and created this world with their power and wisdom preparing this world for...”

He cut me off. “No Greta, all the other creatures, besides us, were not made by the Hidden Masters. They were already here when they came to this planet. The creatures were here for a long, long time, perhaps thousands and thousands of years. The Hidden Masters are not the creators of this world’s creatures.”

My heart began pounding and my mind raced in several directions at once.

“What are you telling me Vrool? That the Hidden Masters came here and settled from their other planets? But they made us! They made everything: us, the animals, the things I saw, the cities...”

He interrupted again. “Yes Greta, they came from another world and settled on this one. They came because they wanted the resources this world had to offer. They wanted room to grow and they found it here. It is a big planet with many resources. The Hidden Masters told us only what we each needed to know to do our job, to serve them.”

He stopped talking and I sat there with my eyes closed. My mind was drowning in this sea of contradictions. Things that once looked wonderful seemed ordinary. I did not want to believe him but there was a kind of relief in believing. It was refreshing and terrifying at the same time, like gliding. Vrool let me think for a few minutes.

Then he continued, “Greta, the Hidden Masters did not create the other creatures. They were here when the Hidden Masters arrived ten years ago. The giant buildings in the cities were not built by the Hidden Masters, Neither were the plants and animals. The creatures you tried to talk to, they were not created by the Hidden Masters. Someone else made them.

We are not from here Greta. This is not our world. The Hidden Masters did not bring us from their world with them either. They found us on another world, one that was on the way from their planet to this one. They stopped there and took some of us with them. They did not create us Greta. We were not created in the womb of the holy of holies by their mighty words and powers. The Hidden Masters took us from our world against our will. They killed all the creatures here. The creatures you met.”          

He could not go on and I did not want him to. I wanted him stop talking. I wanted to stuff food into his beak to prevent him from saying another word. I wanted to run back to the Golden City and lay at the feet of the Hidden Master and have him purge my head of the words Vrool had spoken. My chest was tight and my whole body shook. My fingers were balled up in fists and my finger claws had punctured the palms of both hands.

I heard the sound of screaming and thought that Vrool must have made it. Then he looked up at me with alarm and spoke to me. How could he speak and make the sound of screaming at the same time?

“Oh!” I realized. “It was me!”

I was out of my head and screaming now, standing up and trying to thrust my side claws though my chest. Vrool grabbed both my claws and tossed me over on my back, then he lay on me as I screamed and screamed. The truthfulness of the truth was making the lies of the untruth all the more vile. I could not stop screaming and I could not slow my mind down. I was going to die in a kind of vanave brought on by words of truth.

“How strange.” I thought. A little part of me heard Vrool say it would be over in a few hours.

“Good! I do not want to live another day” I do not know if I said this aloud or not.

At some point the screaming stopped but I felt my beak and tongue trying to make sound. Vrool kept speaking to me in calm, assuring words, holding me on the floor so that I would not kill myself.

My mind changed again. I wanted to go to the Golden City and destroy the Hidden Master. I wanted to say the incantation of ceasing and watch the Hidden Master fall dead at my feet. I wanted to burn the planet with fire and watch as the cities, animals and people became consumed in flames, screaming in their deaths.

My heart was pounding too fast for my own good and my breathing was coming in sharp rasps. My body heat rose too fast, I could not cool down. Through the fog of my distress I heard Vrool say “You will be all right when you wake up.” The last thing I remember were his fingers covering my nostrils and his face pushing my beak shut. A tunnel of darkness enveloped, then closed around me as all went dark.

The bell rang for awakening before any light painted the sky. My nest mates and I got into the morning line for grain and water. Wings stretched, feathers shook off sleep, and we said the daily prayer in unison while making our way to the hall.

“We hate the Hidden Masters. They provide us with death and disorder daily. Obedience to them brings vanave.”

In the main hall, rotting corpses were being eaten by animals. A Hidden Master was sitting on a throne in the middle of the eating hall.

“What are you doing outside of the temple?” I asked him.

He pointed at me and said the incantation of ceasing. I fell dead. Then I was alive again.

“Why did you just do that, I have served you faithfully!” I said.

He spoke and killed me again. Again, I arose.

“Why are you trying to kill me?” I asked.

He pointed at me and said the incantation, but this time he held his head and fell backwards off the throne. Another Hidden Master came over and pulled the throne upright then sat down in it. He spoke the incantation of travel and we were suddenly inside the temple.

Mist swirled around us and I had trouble breathing. He spoke, and in his hand he held a small idol that looked just like Vrool. The Vrool/idol spoke in our language.

“You are ‘Greta’, my little one. It means nothing in any language. It is meaningless, like your entire life.”

The Vrool/idol suddenly grew to the size of a person and it spoke. “Do not talk to her like that! She is only an acolyte and has not had the experience of being a priest and serving you in love and honor...”

The Hidden Master spoke the incantation of ceasing. The Vrool/idol became just an idol and fell to the floor. The Hidden Master spoke in our language.

“Greta, we do not need him.” The scene changed and we were flying above a city. “I can talk to you freely up here, away from the others and that traitor Vrool.”

We were flying side by side and enjoying the cool air. “Do not let Vrool lie to you. Of course we created the world and everything in it. We created you and gave you a wonderful purpose, serving us!”

He turned and I followed him higher. We circled past the sun and then shot out into space. He said “Look here Greta, those are just little lights in the sky mounted on a sheet of black metal.” He pulled a seam in the metal and the sky opened to another sky, this one was bright red. I helped him open a hole in the sky of outer space and we flew through it into the red sky. “You see,” he said, “everything is all right. You do not have to listen to Vrool. You can stay with me and serve me all the days of your life.”

I looked down from the red sky and saw the monastery far below us. “I will leave you here, all right? Do not listen to Vrool. Serve the Hidden Masters and everything will be perfect.”

I was in the monastery compound again. A row of grain stretched out before me. It was so long that it went all the way around the world. A voice in my head said, “You must work this row until you fall dead. Your body will settle into the ground and fertilize the plants. In this way, you will have served the Hidden Masters in life and death.”

I asked the voice in my mind, “What will happen to me then?”

The voice in my mind said “You will die, over and over again, serving us in every life.” I screamed and the voice in my head screamed with me.

A tug on my wing made me look down. One of the small talking creatures was motioning to me with his hand. He said my name in that strange way, “Gre-ta”, then he pointed to his chest. There was a seam there and he pulled my hand to his chest where the seam was. I used my nails to open his chest and saw another sky inside of it, this one was blue.

I looked up in our sky and saw that it was red and burning. It was going to burn me with fire! The youngling creature pulled his own chest open more and kept saying my name, “Gre-ta”. As the red sky crashed in on me, burning me with fire. I jumped through his chest into another world.

The creature appeared beside me as we fell. There was a city below us with dead corpses everywhere. The corpses were not my people but the strange creatures like the youngling. Next to me she was falling, holding one red feather in her hand and trying to fly by flapping it up and down.

My body felt very cold now. I was bald. All my feathers were gone but one. It was bleeding at the place where it joined the flesh. As the ground came up to meet us the youngling let go of the red feather and pulled open another seam in its chest. It pulled me inside of itself and I was back inside the temple again.

The Hidden Master who had given me my name was sitting on the throne. He had side claws like us and was bouncing up and down on his thighs pushing the claws through them. He spoke to me but I did not understand because there was no idol to translate. He reached beside his throne and pulled out the head of the youngling. I tried to scream but nothing came out.

The Master tried using the head like an idol of translation. The mouth moved but no matter what the he said the youngling kept repeating my name in its strange way.

”Gre-ta, Gre-ta, Gre-ta.” It said.

Vrool came out of the youngling's mouth and the Hidden Master stepped on him, crushing him under his feet. He pulled his foot up but Vrool’s body was not there, just a broken blue egg with black blood on the inside.

The Master said, “That is all you are to us.”

He scraped the blood off of his shoe and flung it towards me with his fingers. I screamed and sound came out.

The scene changed and I was knee deep in a little pond. I bent over and saw tiny fishes with heads like ours being devoured by a tiny Hidden Master. The little us/fishes did not even try to swim away.

The youngling and the other creatures like it appeared on the edge of the pond. They were saying the prayer of safe travel for Vrool, who was hovering above them. Then the large male with the black coat reached up and pulled one of Vrool's feathers and Vrool began to unravel like an old vestment until there was nothing left of him.

The creature walked over to me with the black string that had been Vrool and wove it into a long, black coat like its own, and held it out to me. It said “Gre-ta.” The youngling across the pond began making a keening sound.

The large one helped me put on the coat he had made and he pulled a black feather from inside of its own vestment, holding it above its head. It walked back to the group and dipped the feather in the pond. It came out with blood on its tip. The creature shook the feather over the others and splattered them with the blood.

Vrool was suddenly next to me holding two colored balls. I took them and held them for him. Vrool pulled off his beak and exposed his inner mouth, it was just like the other creature’s mouths. He spoke the language of the creatures and then handed me his beak. I took it and put the two colored balls into it. Then Vrool shot up into the sky and was gone.

The creatures were suddenly around me in a circle saying something in their language I could not understand. The youngling who had taken my feather at the pond showed it to me then brushed it across her face. White feathers appeared where she touched it to herself. She moved my feather across her entire body and she turned into a smaller version of myself. She was beautiful.

I knelt down and spoke a name to her, but I could not hear what the name was. The little version of me put her arms around another youngling creature who appeared beside it. They worshiped each other. The creature fed the little me grain from a sack. The little me fed it some of the fruit Vrool liked. Juice ran down its chin and onto its black coat.

Birds were making

Noise.

Something was poking into my back. Light was pushing through my closed eyelids. My mouth was dry. I was very thirsty. My knees hurt as I straightened them. I took a deep breath, opened my eyes and sat up. I was in a nest, outside somewhere. I could see the blue sky through green leaves above me.

“Vrool?” I asked. No response. “Vrool!” I said it louder.

I looked out over the edge of the nest and saw that it was built on a high platform of some kind. The nest was made of sticks and twigs. A blanket lined its bottom. Another was bunched up near my feet. Above me, a canopy of green leaves provided a natural shade from the sun. Bright light filtered through. The Spirit was sitting across from me with the portal open. I heard footsteps from somewhere below, then Vrool’s voice called out.

”Are you awake Greta?” I heard him climbing up something below me. Vrool’s head appeared over the edge of the nest. “Did you sleep all right Greta?” He asked.

“Yes, fine. I am so thirsty.” I said.

He held out his hand and we half jumped, half glided to the ground. Vrool handed me a cup of water and I drank it, then another, finally a third.

“I had to give you the love of the Hidden Masters to help you sleep. It is very salty. That is why you are so thirsty.” He explained. 

At a bench there were bowls of grain and more water. We sat down and Vrool ate a little. I watched for a few minutes, straightening my feathers. I ate some of the grain.

“Not hungry yet?” He asked.

“I had strange dreams.” I said.

“The love does that to you. It makes everything seem strange. Your dreams, if you remember them, were probably mixed images of reality and unreality.” He said.

“When did you take the love?” I asked.

“When the Hidden Master told me what I told you yesterday.” He said.

“Yesterday? Have I been asleep that long?” I asked.

“No. Well...yes, you were in and out of consciousness for eight hours. I gave you the love and you slept for twelve more.”

Vrool took my hand. “You were in a state of great agitation. Do not worry, you did not do anything wrong. You would have calmed down eventually but I had to make you sleep or you might have hurt yourself, or me.”

“Who told you Vrool?” I asked.

“About the planet?”

I nodded my head.

“The Hidden Master who gave you your name. He told me everything a few years ago. I had been serving him for three years before that.” He took a sip of water.

I asked, “Did you go into vanave too, when he told you?”

“Well, it was not vanave Greta. If it were you would be dead. But yes, I reacted just as you did. The Hidden Master took care of me until I was calm again.”

“So it is all true.” I said.

“Yes, and there is more you need to know.” He said. “It is worse than you know.”

“I do not see how it could be any worse Vrool.” I stood up and walked around the wooded area we were in. The smell of the trees was strong, but not unpleasant. They had long green leaves like the slivers of my feathers.

“These were not created by the Hidden Masters. Who made them?” I asked no one.

I looked over at the Spirit and compared it to the Spirit thing the creatures traveled in.

 “Did the Hidden Masters did make the Spirits Vrool?”

He said, “Yes they did. They have Spirits that are as large as the largest buildings we saw. There is one in orbit around the planet.” He explained more about it. More Hidden Masters lived in the Spirit, which orbited this world. I was only half listening. Vrool was describing in detail parts of the Spirit he had worked on. I walked around and listened until my knees started to hurt again. We went back to the nest and I said, “I am going back to sleep.”

Vrool said nothing but helped me climb the stairs to the nest.

When I awoke several hours later it was from a deep, dreamless sleep. I was refreshed and my mind was clear. The strong emotions which had accompanied my strange dreams were lost to me. Aside from the fact that everything I had been told since I was born was an untruth, I felt normal. The sun was traveling down from the sky and Vrool had set out grain and water for us. We ate without speaking then cleaned up. Vrool went into the Spirit and did some work with one of the idols at the altar. I sat and watched him.

I noticed a large cut on his left hand.

“Did you hurt yourself working on the idol?” I asked.

“You were trying to get me off of you and you almost succeeded.”

I was ashamed. “I am sorry if I hurt you Vrool. I did not mean to.” Tears sprung from my eyes. He looked up from behind the altar and cocked his head to the side.

“Do not feel bad Greta. I actually got my side claws into the Hidden Master’s arm before he knocked me out.” He held up the wounded hand. “See? It is only a scratch.” He went back under the altar. I composed myself and thought for a while.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked.

“I do not know. What do you want to do?” He asked. I thought he was making some kind of pun. His head popped up again and he said, ”It is not a trick question Greta. We are in this together and from now on together is how we will make decisions. You know the truth and can determine for yourself what the right path is. Hand me that please.” He motioned for me to hand him a long idol. He used the idol to reach inside the altar and move something, just a tiny bit. He was very skilled at such things.

I said. “I think we should go back to the Hidden Master and tell him we want to go back to the planet we came from. If we are not from here I want to go home, to our real home. Can we glide there?” I asked.

Vrool said nothing. He looked at me and shook his head. A sinking feeling came over me.

“How far away is our home planet, Vrool?” 

He stood up and opened his wing then pointed to a single feather on his wing. “Do you see this here?” He stretched his wing and with a finger claw gently separated a big feather. “You see this little fiber of my feather?” It was tiny, the smallest part of a feather that you could see well.

“Yes.“ I said.

“This one fiber represents an acolyte year.”

My heart sank. “The trip home would take one feather’s worth of years? “ I asked.

Vrool said, “No, it would take more than an entire body of feathers worth of years.” He stretched out his wings to their widest span. I realized that we would never see our home planet again.

Vrool said, “When they came to our planet, they took nests and nests of eggs. Enough to begin a large population here. They were kept in a special room in the giant Spirit where they would not hatch until they wanted them to.” I had a vague knowledge that we came from eggs but I always thought the Hidden Masters created them in an idol. “When they got here, they allowed the eggs to hatch and had an instant workforce to shape to their purpose.”

“What was their purpose Vrool, why did they need us?” I helped him put away the little idols as we spoke.

“They were told to come here and make the planet into a safe world for other Hidden Masters to live on. You have to remember Greta that this is what one of the Masters told me. I do not know if it is all true or not. I only have his words and, as you have learned, their words are sometimes false. So they arrived here and realized that there were thousands and thousands of animals. There were no problems with that. They could co-exist with animals well enough. There were other beings though, thinking and talking creatures who were like us. They would not want to give up large parts of their world. A disagreement broke out among the Hidden Masters. Some thought the creatures should be left alone, they would find another world. Others thought they should be eliminated. The Hidden Masters could not ask the ones who sent them what to do because the message and reply would take too long.

They decided to wipe out the talking animals who already lived here. Some of the Hidden Masters thought this was wrong but they were few. Killing them all was ordered.”

Vrool gave me time to absorb this and more questions came into my mind. I told myself to remember them for later.

“Go on.” I said.

“A sickness was created that would kill all of the talking creatures very quickly, leaving the other living things as they were. They sent this down into the air and after a few weeks, almost all of them were dead. There were a few pockets of life here and there, but not enough to make the Hidden Masters go after them.

They began hatching us in earnest. They taught those first ones everything they needed to know about using the Spirits and sent them down to the planet. The first of our kind arrived where the monastery is and built a base of operations there. For a year our people went out and got rid of the millions of bodies.”

“Vrool, what’s a million?” I interrupted

He did not answer for a moment, then stood up and spread his wings open. Again he used the fibers of his feathers to represent the people who died. Then he told me to multiply it by three hundred. He let the number sink in. I shut my eyes and sighed, wrung dry of emotion. At last I now understood the magnitude of what the Hidden Masters had done.

I said, “I understand, please continue.” He sat down and spoke again.

“It was taking us a long time to clear out the first city of corpses. The Hidden Masters allowed more of us to hatch, and then we had double the people to help clean out the next city. This went on until all the cities were cleared of bodies. We made one of the buildings from each city into a temple. The Masters would live there when they came down.

Many of our kind became sick, or injured, or died during this time. Almost no one from the first landing is still alive. The Hidden Masters had us clear eight cities of bodies and it was strenuous work, not the kind we were really made for. After two and a half years almost all of the cities were cleansed. Many other cities had corpses that were eaten down to bone by wild animals. Things that die on this planet do not last long. The talking animals are like fish, they have no real fur or feathers, their skin is thin and it breaks down quickly after death. The Hidden Masters came from the Spirits into the cities and began hatching more and more of us to make the cities’ buildings habitable for them. They had us clean everything with special idols. They could breathe the air here but not for long, it made them weak. There is a compound in this air that is not on their home world. Our kind can breath the air with no problems. As far as I know we can live here indefinitely.

Everything was going according to their plan. Almost all of the Hidden Masters were on the planet now, only a few were left to minister to the giant Spirit. Now, this is important to understand, when we are first hatched it is very important for us to see our parents first.”

I looked at him and asked, “What are parents Vrool?”

Vrool spent the next twenty minutes explaining the facts of our biology and reproduction. He had to constantly define new words for me. Even the word, “Biology”, was new to me.

At one point I said with alarm, “The male does what?” Vrool told me the rest. I understood where the younglings came from, and how we were born.

Vrool continued. “So, the first person a hatchling sees is vital to its development. It bonds with them until they are grown and able to reproduce themselves. Something happens that causes us to obey whoever we first set eyes on. A special bond is created at that moment. The Hidden Masters used this to their advantage without understanding the consequences. Our eggs were taken from containers and allowed to hatch. They made themselves the first people we saw when we hatched. In giant hatcheries aboard the Great Spirit, Hidden Masters presented themselves to us in those first crucial moments after we broke free from our eggs. We had no memories of other parents and they became our parents and masters.” 

I asked, “Vrool, what about the younglings who come from the Monastery and work in the cities, where do they come from?” I asked.

“After the cities were cleaned out, they started letting many of the females on the Great Spirit breed and lay eggs. They took their eggs from them, brought them down to the planet and hatched them in the temples. The younglings were sent to monasteries to be looked after by the priests and slaves. We were ignorant of our true beginnings and would have remained so forever. The Hidden Masters only gave us information and learning that furthered their purposes.”

In light of what he was saying, many of the things we did made sense. The rituals and prayers to the Hidden Masters were all designed to bond us to them. Our needs are simple. They provided us with food and water and we were content with our place in life.

“But something went wrong.” I said.

“Yes, indeed.” Vrool continued. “What the Hidden Masters did not know was that they created an unnatural bond they were never supposed to have with us. Back on our world if a parent died, the other parents would take care of the youngling, until it was ready to go off and start a nest of its own. But when a Hidden Master died, they took part of our minds with them. They do have the power to reach inside our minds to a limited degree. You must have felt the Master speak to your mind when you got your name.”

I wondered about my strange dream the previous night. Had the Master been speaking to me through the dream? I did not tell Vrool but said, “Yes. I remember that. It gave him power over me a little.”

“It was power for them and death for us. They did not know this because none of them had died for hundreds of years. Their life spans are hundreds of times longer than ours, thousands of times longer than the talking creatures who live here. Their mistake was fatal for them and for us. In the Golden City, a Master was going to inspect a large building that had been cleansed and made ready for the sanctification ritual. This Hidden Master was looking over one of the altars when the Spirit, which had landed on the roof of the building, came crashing down into it. It was a horrible accident. The Hidden Master was crushed to death beneath a mountain of rubble, along with one thousand of us. Then the real problems started. One Hidden Master could bond with hundreds, even thousands of hatchlings. When that one Hidden Master died he took the minds of hundreds of others he had bonded with who were not there with him.” 

“Vanave.” I said. All was becoming clear. Vrool paused and drank some water.

“Yes, Vanave.” He continued. “Never seen on our world, now common on this one. Our minds leave us, or maybe our souls.” He shuddered when he said this. “The hatchlings that Hidden Master had bonded with when they first hatched were now adults. They were working in the various cities they had been assigned to as priests, slaves, servants, wizards and acolytes. As soon as he died, the ones he imprinted at birth began acting irrationally. The slaves and servants began to put unsanctified foodstuffs in the Hidden Masters’ meals. They did not know what they were doing. They probably did not even know that their Hidden Master was dead.

Hidden Masters began getting sick, and then dying from the unsanctified food. By the time they figured out what happened it was too late. The Hidden Masters died by the tens, we died by the thousands. They died by the hundreds, we died by the hundreds of thousands. Their own bondservants began destroying the temples.

The temples which were furthest away from the center of the chaos closed themselves off from the outside. They hoped to wait out the death of all the people. They were running out of food though. The deaths of more Masters caused the entire structure of their society to crumble. The Masters at one temple decided to return to the Spirit above the planet, leaving everything behind. They thought they could start again after the vanave had run its course. What they did not know was that some of the ritual work performed on the Spirit was done by a wizard succumbing to vanave. It crashed into the large spirit just above the planet's atmosphere, damaging the Great Spirit and killing those attempting to escape from the chaos here. One temple in one city was left intact. The Hidden Masters left on the planet decided to retreat there, regroup and make a plan. They then took a Spirit and went to the damaged Spirit above. They sent a message to the home planet for directions. Then they put themselves into deep sleep to await an answer. What they did not know was that one of their kind was left behind in the temple.”

“The one who gave me my name. He knows, or thinks he is the only one left alive on the planet.” I interjected.

“Yes, him. He stayed behind because he knew something the other Masters did not know. All of the people at your monastery, except for the priests, were allowed to bond with people of our kind, not the Hidden Masters. He had done this in secret. Any rational person would assume they are all dead by now, but they are not. They are all immune from vanave, except the priests who are dead by now. There are only three of them there and three hundred other servants, slaves and acolytes. The Hidden Master left instructions with the oldest acolytes what to do when the priests succumbed to vanave. Our Hidden Master believed that bonding with us was a bad idea. Things at the monastery should be all right though.”

“They performed the incantation of cessation on those priests.” I said.

Vrool nodded.

I said, “I hope they’re all right.”

“There is enough food and water there to last several years. They should be safe Greta, for a time.”

“Why are we going from city to city since the Masters are all dead? This doesn’t make sense.” I asked.

Vrool said, “The Master we serve wonders if another of his kind had the same idea and is in hiding, biding his time. They are a suspicious race Greta. I don’t understand their motivations and they are not all alike. Even being bonded to them doesn’t give us insight into their minds.”

“What about you Vrool, you are bonded to our Hidden Master?” I asked.

“I am bonded to the Master who gave you your name. If he dies and I lose my soul, you must kill me.”

I could not say anything to that. “How did he get an entire monastery full of chicks bonded with one another?” I asked.

Vrool said “It was his idea to raise me as his personal servant. I was in charge of setting up the monastery. Unknown to the other Masters, our Master brought eggs there from the Great Spirit. When you hatched you were all bonded to me.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me to him for a long time. I was safe. Vanave would never touch me. Vrool was warm and I wanted his embrace to last forever. Vrool let go and we walked outside. The air was calm and cool. It was comfortable for us here. Stars were strewn across the sky in a giant band. The moon was a sliver of light, like Vrool’s silver wire against his black feathers. Parts of my dream came back to me and I wondered if there was any real meaning to them. “Not likely,” I thought. “just the love’s effects.”

We walked through the woods, staying in sight of the Spirit.

Vrool said, “I think that the Master wanted us all to be free of the bonding with his kind. He spoke to me about the disagreements they had with each other. Some thought that taking us from our home world was wrong.”

I thought about the talking creatures who had lived here before the Hidden Masters arrived. How awful it was for them to die, not even knowing why. Did they even know a Great Spirit moved above them in the sky? Did they feel horror as their nestmates died? Did they even ask “Why?”

“Why?”

That was the question that haunted me. The Hidden Masters could have come here and asked the talking creatures if they could live here in peace with them. The planet was large. Even though the cities had been full of people, the countryside we traveled over held vast, undeveloped tracts of land. The Hidden Masters were few in number compared to the talking creatures who lived here. I did not trust the Hidden Masters anymore. Their words were lies and truth mixed together, like poison and water in the same cup.

     “The Hidden Masters are Good. They are full of Love and               Perfection. Obedience to them brings rightness and order to        the world.”

It was the first prayer we learned. It was a lie mixed with truth, of a sort. I knew that I did not yet have the words, the vocabulary, as Vrool said, to express the truth of the hidden masters. In time they would come. 

What I did know was that killing a being with a soul was wrong. I do not know where this information had come from, it just was.

If the talking creatures here had souls, and the Hidden Masters had killed them all, they could not be “good”. But were they entirely other than good? My mind was not able to put together the two pictures I had of the Hidden Masters, good yet not good.

Vrool held my hand as we walked. My fingers were a lot shorter than his were. Vrool’s hands were double thumbed. He could encircle my upper arm with one hand and have room to spare. His large palms were warm and rough, it felt good and I chirped at him like a bird animal. We did this on occasion.

“I know what you are thinking Greta.” He said.

“What am I thinking Vrool?”

“You are wondering how the Hidden Masters can be good if they killed all of the talking animals here.” 

“I was thinking of that. How did you know?” I asked.

He said, “Because it is what I thought when I learned of the talking animals”

“Maybe we should call them people?” I said.

Vrool said, “I do not know a lot about them. The Hidden Master told me to stay away from the ones that were left and not be concerned with their doings. They are sentient, but they may not have souls.” Vrool then had to explain the word “sentient” to me.

I said, “I prefer to think of them as people, they are less frightening that way. How can they be people without souls?”

He said, “How do you think we appear to them Greta? They must think we are responsible for killing everyone on the planet. None of the Hidden Masters has ever come out of the temple in their presence. In their minds we are the ones who have killed off their kind. This of course is assuming that they have thoughts as complex as that.”

I said, “They made the spirit I saw. Creating their cities must have taken a great deal of intelligence. They have their own language. They must have idols and oracles.”

Vrool said, “The cities were indeed created by them. It does not mean they have souls.”

“Vrool, one of them spoke to me. I heard her say my name.” I countered.

“You are sure they are not just clever mimics?” Vrool asked.

“I am almost sure. The only way to find out is to visit them and…”

He interrupted again, “We must go to the Hidden Master and ask him what we should do.”

“No!” I shouted. “We should go to the talking animals and try communicating with them. We should tell that we did not mean for them to die. We should tell them everything.”

Vrool let go of my hand. “Are you serious? How do we even know they will listen to us? You said their language was made almost entirely of sounds we cannot reproduce. When you came back from your encounter with them you were not sure if they were sentient beings or if the youngling you saw was just mimicking the sound of your voice.”

“If we could only talk to them.” I thought.

I said. “The Hidden Master had an idol that allowed us to hear his voice in our own language. We can go to him and borrow it.”

“Greta, he would never let us have it. He is the last person who wishes to have contact with them. He is responsible for their deaths. How do you think they would treat him, or us?” We walked in silence for a few minutes.

“Vrool, what if we are the only ones left? You and I and the people left at the monastery, assuming they are still alive and well. What are we going to do? The Hidden Masters are asleep up in their Spirit, it will be a long, long time before they awaken to hear the response to the message they sent. There is only one Hidden Master left and he has no power over anyone, except you. I do not want to live on this world but we are stranded here. If we are going to stay here we may as well introduce ourselves to the people who live here. And I am sure that they are sentient beings, with souls, like us.” I thought about my short encounter with the residents of this world. “Vrool, I looked into her eyes, the youngling, and saw understanding and intelligence. She was not just mimicking my sounds, she was trying to talk to me. She was reaching out.”

Vrool spoke as I took a breath. “Yes Greta, but what happened when the others saw you, the adults. They ran away in terror! They might have killed you with their Spirit thing if you did not run away.”

I said, “But Vrool, they did not! They did not attack me. They did not attack us. Their concern was for their younglings. I am sure of it. And besides, what do you suggest we do? We cannot keep traveling around from city to city, looking for a hidden, Hidden Master. There is no point. All the people are dead and the only Hidden Master is left in Golden City. We should go to him and ask him for the idol so we can communicate with the people here. We can still serve him and help him live, but I am not going to spend the rest of my life traveling around the planet on a hopeless task for an evil Master.”

I was spent. I had never argued so much in my entire life. I didn’t like it at all. Vrool was silent as we walked back to the Spirit. We left one another alone with our thoughts. I climbed up into the nest and pulled the blanket over me, more for comfort than for warmth. Vrool slept in the Spirit.

In the morning we ate without speaking. Vrool worked on the Spirit because there was nothing else to do and I walked around the woods and thought more about things. I found some pretty black rocks smoothed by the gentle water of a nearby stream and brought them back to the nest. They were delicious to touch and the sun glinted off them as if they were wet. I arranged them in a pleasing pattern along the side of the nest.

Vrool stuck his head over the side. “Are you hungry

“Yes.” I said.

We ate another meal and talked about the strange animals that lurked along the edge of a stream nearby. Birds came to rest on the table where we ate, pecking at bits of grain we had spilled from our bowls.

It was strange to see an animal so like ourselves, yet so different. I said, “Is this how the people here see us, as strange birds? Do any of the birds here have arms and hands like us?” I asked Vrool.

He thought for a while and said, “T might be some but I have never seen any. There are birds that eat other small animals. They use their claws and beaks to tear them apart. They have very sharp beaks that stick out from their faces. I flew into one when I was traveling once. It was pressed up against the outer hatch. I had to land to get it off.”

“Did it live?” I asked.

“Yes, it had a cut on its leg. I put some of the love of the Hidden Masters on it. After a few hours it flew away.”

We ate in silence. I thought about Vrool healing a bird. He went back to the spirit to do more work.

We continued this pattern of living, working, sleeping, and talking, for the next six days. Neither of us would talk about what we should do next. Vrool took many of the idols out of the Spirit and left them sitting in the woods. I went inside to get grain one morning and saw that the altar was missing some idols. New ones were attached. Our nest outside was becoming more elaborate with decoration. Time seemed to move faster when I was making things with my hands. I had woven a circle of flowers and grasses into an appealing pattern and put several of these in the nest. Vrool asked me where I learned how to do it.

“I do not know, I just made them.” I said.

Vrool asked, “Could I sleep in the nest tonight?”

I said, “Of course, you do not have to ask Vrool. It is your nest too.” Did he think I did not want to be close to him?

We slept with our wings covering each other that night. I awoke several times when Vrool made sounds in his sleep. I heard an animal creeping around the Spirit and sniffing the air. It knew we were around but it did not look up, or could not. In the morning there were footprints around the platform.

That next afternoon Vrool asked me to come inside in the Spirit. I helped him move some of the larger idols outside. The Spirit could hold a hundred of us now. I wondered why Vrool was making so much room. After I had helped him I worked on the nest a little more. By the end of that day, it seemed complete in a way it did not before. Vrool agreed, “I like it. I wish we could stay here and live. We have some decisions to make.”

“So Vrool, what are we going to do? You know my thoughts. I need to hear yours.”

He sat in the nest and adjusted his wings to lean back. “We need to aid the Hidden Master. We should bring him the supplies he needs. He is a sentient being despite what he did to the creatures here. I don’t really have a choice either. When he calls, I must go. He can manipulate me so that, against my will, I perform duties for him. I agree with you that we should go to the monastery and have a life with the others.” He stopped.

“And the talking creatures, the people of this world?” I asked.

“I do not know. But I will do whatever the Hidden Master tells me. I cannot do otherwise Greta.” He did not meet my eyes. I understood that it might be difficult for him to break away from the Master’s orders. Now, I knew it would be impossible. And if the Hidden Master died, Vrool would die, or I would have to kill him. Keeping the master alive was in Vrool’s interest.

He said, “There is one thing I think we can do that will help you determine whether or not you want to try and contact the creatures.” He would not bring himself to say people.

“There is a place I know of where the creatures, when they were alive, used to congregate. It is in one of the places outside a city where the Hidden Masters decided not to settle. I was sent over it once and my Master told me about it. He never told me plainly that I could not go there. There will probably be information that will help you and the others decide what to do.”

This was appealing to me for many reasons. It would give us time to learn about the people. It would help Vrool get used to the idea that they were beings with souls, and it would delay our meeting with the Hidden Master for a few more days. 

I did not want to see the Hidden Master but we could not avoid him indefinitely. At least for Vrool’s sake we had to make sure he was all right. Facing him again would be difficult. I put those thoughts out of my head.

“I agree with your plan Vrool. First, we travel to the place you mentioned to gather information, then the monastery, then the Hidden Master.” I said.

“No, we see the Hidden Master first, then the others.”

I thought about his priorities and said, “First, the place you know, then the Hidden Master, then the Monastery?”

Vrool ran a finger along the edge of his crest and said. “All right, I agree. But we will not spend more than a day at the place I told you of.”

Vrool had bent for me. I should bend for him.

“I agree.” I said.

“Good.” he said.

“Good.” I said.

We stayed in the nest resting there talking about everything but our future. It was pleasant when order reigned in our little world. Later in the day Vrool gave me a different kind of fruit to try. This one was dry, almost like the grain, and its taste was mild compared to the other one I had tried. It was good and I had two more of them. It was a pleasant addition to the grain. We prepared the spirit for departure and slept in the nest one last night. I placed one of my weavings in a new place. It looked better. “I wondered if we will ever come back to this place.” I said before we slept.

The next morning we awoke, ate and prepared to leave. I took the black stones I had found in the stream out of the nest with me in the Spirit. I liked touching them. We made the incantations, prayers and rituals for travel, then left.

That afternoon we stepped out of the Spirit and into the pounding sunlight. It was hot here, wherever we were. Vrool had a map of the planet but I never looked at it. I felt my feathers loosen all over my body and my beak opened of its own accord in response to the heat. We drank cupfuls of water before going into the giant building. I brought three extra containers of food and grain along with us.

“Vrool, who lives in those metal nests?” They were arranged in rows. There were hundreds, if not thousand, of them. I had wondered why they did not live in larger buildings.

“I believe they serve a different purpose.” He said.

There was no ritual of going in like there was at the temple. We passed through metal doors and walked into a large, no, enormous indoor courtyard. There was a fountain with a giant sculpture of some kind of fish in it. There was only a finger-breadth of water left on the bottom of the fountain’s pool. The water was green and malodorous. There were long passageways covered by metal skylights and rooms off of the halls, which were storage units of some kind. Many of them had metal doors covering their entrances. There were huge doors and we could not find a way to open them. We walked through the central passage and came upon a room that was open.

There were hundreds of vestments hanging on person shaped idols all over the place. Some of them were tiny and thin. Others were so bulky I got nervous thinking about having them on my body. Vrool found several oracles and spoke many incantations and performed some rituals on them. They did not respond.

“Is there were a way to take one back to the Spirit so we could examine it with our own idols?” I asked.

“No. There is something missing from them and our idols will not fit in the slots.”

There were many visual representations of the talking creatures on the walls of the store room. The talking creatures, the people, were hideous, but I was getting used to them. It did not shock me to see an image of one of their kind now. Vrool avoided looking at them for any reason.

They wore elaborate vestments over their bodies. The color and types were vast. Did they spend all their time creating them? This was interesting information but not the kind that would help me to communicate with them. We moved on.

Further on down the passage we entered a store room whose door had been torn off of its frame and it lay flat against the floor. The storeroom contained metal cases full of a thing we did not know the purpose of. It was soft and furry, pliant like metal but not as heavy. The metal cases were broken and pieces of it littered the floor and the inside of the boxes. In the back of the store room were idols and benches where the people must have ministered to them. The room was very dirty and several of the idols had a thick coat of grit on them. We left that room and went further on.

The next room looked promising. There were oracles all over the place. They were stacked row upon row on large shelves. We tried to wake each of them but none of them was working. Either that or we did not have the proper incantation for making them come alive. It was very frustrating. They were so simple looking yet we could not make them answer us. Vrool said that we should take one of the smaller ones back with us when we leave. “Maybe the Hidden Master will know how to use it.” He said.

I did not think so but kept my thoughts to myself. We walked to a central point in the hub of hallways and found death.

There were bodies all over the room, lying on the floor, on tables and benches, even in a fountain. It was less disturbing than seeing our kind in death, but disturbing nonetheless. We walked with care thought the bodies. Most of them were only dried skeletons, their dry skin stretched over their thick, heavy bones. They looked a little like us if we had no feathers.

The thought made me wince.

All around the edges of the room were storerooms full of idols. The people had been at some activity, sitting at benches when they died. Were they eating? Most of them had only the lightest vestments on their bodies. Did they go almost naked inside their large buildings? I wondered. It was curious that I did not see any wearing the vestments like the ones I had encountered. I was going to ask Vrool but he was covering his face as he walked to block out the sight of their dead corpses.

“Vrool, are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes, I am fine.” He bumped into a pole and I held his hand and led him away from all this and into another hallway.

I said, “You can look now. It is behind us.”

Vrool uncovered his face and said “Thank you. I have seen hundreds of bodies of our kind. These other creatures disturb me for some reason.”

I said, “They are like us, yet wrong in the most important ways. I feel it too.”

I squeezed his hand and let go. The rooms further on were all open. Each one held a collection of vestments and oracles that did not work. Vrool was apologizing for taking us here when we came upon a room that gave us both questions and answers.

It was full of light metal bricks that opened in sections, some large, some small. The metal was so thin and light that it was like the leaves of trees. Understanding bloomed in my mind. It was not metal it was something else entirely. Were they made of the vestment material?

“How did they make these?” I asked aloud.

Vrool was looking through one of the bricks, carefully going over each section. “I do not know.” He said. “That is a good question though.” Unspoken between us was the knowledge that the Hidden Masters had nothing like these things. More understanding bloomed in my mind. The Hidden Masters were people, the talking creatures were people, we were people. I did not know if our kind made things. I had made decorations in the nest without being told how. Did these people have more knowledge like the Hidden Masters did?

Vrool called me over to him. “Look at the markings on the sections.” He pointed to tiny marks on the metal sections, all at the same place on each one. “There is a pattern here. It repeats at regular intervals but I do not know how to define the intervals.”

I was looking where his fingers pointed but did not see what he was seeing. “I believe you, I do not see it yet.” He tried to show me again but I could not see the pattern.

He sat down on a bench and looked at the brick’s sections with care. “I am going to look in the back.” I said.

“Fine Greta,” he said without looking up.

I was surprised that Vrool saw any patterns at all in anything on the bricks. It all looked like swirls to me, pleasant swirls, but swirls nonetheless.

Pattern creation. Like my making decorations for the nest. Did it mean the people were as intelligent as the Hidden Masters, as us? Something was bubbling in my mind, a concept, or word for what the swirls were. I looked around.

The rest of the room was the same, full of metal, or whatever they were made of, bricks. In one section the bricks were large. I took one and opened one of the sections. To my surprise it was full of images of the creatures, not just any creatures, but the ones I saw at the pond! I could not believe it. I ran to Vrool and showed it to him. The sections of the plates held strange markings and images of the talking creatures. They were doing things I did not recognize but the people were certainly the same ones I had seen. Vrool told me to take the brick back to the Spirit with us.

Vrool looked out in the hallway. It was getting dark. Light would be gone soon. “We will go back to the Spirit. We can come tomorrow morning for a while, then we will go to the Hidden Master.” he said.

I was pleased that he was willing to come back again in the morning. We found another way out of the building that did not go by the room full of dead people. The air had cooled a lot since we had gone in. It felt refreshing.

An outdoor fountain was sitting in a large courtyard. I wished it were full of water, wading in it would be refreshing right now.

Back in the Spirit we ate and drank, did some incantations for safety, then retired to the nest with our bricks and the oracle we had taken. Vrool showed me what he said were patterns on the sections of the brick he had taken. Now that I knew what to look for I understood what he saw. There was a kind of repetition in the marks.

“Perhaps it is just a pattern that looks pretty, how do you know it has meaning?” I asked.

“You are the one who thinks they are people.”

He looked for more instances of repetition. The large brick I had taken gave me some ideas about the talking creatures. I was almost sure that the images I saw were of the people I had met. If they were people they had younglings like us. Many of the images showed the creatures together in groups, sometimes doing the same activity. In one image, they were all facing in the same direction and holding little bricks with their hands. With their vestments all the same, they almost looked like a flock of the black birds that nested among the trees at the monastery. In one image the ones with colored vestments were preparing foodstuffs. I knew this because I recognized one of the kinds we used to make for the hidden masters. There were many bowls and cups set at a large table that was decorated with flowers and lights that looked like fire. I did not like the fire but the flowers were pretty. In the images they showed their teeth a lot. It was disturbing, however, I did not notice any fangs. Were they going to attack each other? Baring their teeth is what animals did when they wanted to warn another away from them.

The younglings in the images wore the same kinds of vestments the older ones did and I wondered what they looked like underneath. How many eggs did their females lay at a time?

In another of the images a large creature, the larger ones I thought to be female, was working with an idol, using it to minister to a long rolled up sheet of metal. He was making marks on it but they were so blurry and indistinct that I could not tell if they were decoration or held meaning. In another image the same dark one was holding the metal roll. The others were all around him showing their teeth, ready to attack again? I did not know what the meaning of the image was. I did not understand how they were able to put the images, which were disturbingly realistic, on to the metal. The hidden masters had images but they were of a different sort than these.

“So many mysteries.” I said to myself.

Many of the large dark creatures had black idols attached to their heads, but not in all of the images. The most interesting image was of the creatures locking their arms together, one group of the colored ones and one of the dark ones.

“Males and females exercising next to one another?” I wondered aloud.

They had made two large circles and they were caught in motion when the image had been created. What was a word for the emotion I saw on their faces? Anger? Love? Fear? Their faces were so different than ours that I could not discern the meaning behind their expressions.

Before I put the brick away my thumb caught the edge of the sections and I made them spring from it in a great rush of sound and air. It sounded like a frightened bird taking flight. It was so pleasurable to my ears that I kept doing it until Vrool said, “Greta, that sound is distracting me.”

I said “One more time.” and made the little sheets flap again. I was looking down I saw the very edge of the brick’s markings move in a curious way. A pattern repeated itself in the markings! I did it again and looked more carefully this time.

“Greta...” Vrool said.

“Look Vrool!” I showed the brick to him and pointed to the part of the section where the strange movement was. He looked and I made the image dance for him.

He said, “That is fantastic! Do it again!”

I did it until my fingers got tired. We tried to understand the meaning of the pattern.

“Is it some kind of code they use? Or maybe it is the way they pray?” I said.

“Or maybe it is nothing, only clever patterns they make to amuse themselves.” Said Vrool.

I did not like it when he did not agree with me. I thought they were sentient creatures with souls. He thought otherwise. We could not come up with a good explanation for the strange repeated pattern. Neither could we account for why they would have hidden the pattern in such an odd place? Vrool and I said the prayer of safe sleeping, more out of habit than anything else, and lay down. My last thought before sleep was that the fluttering sound of the brick sections were indeed like the sound of a bird’s wings fluttering in wild abandon, or terror.

We awoke early and ate, ready to go back to the building and look for more information. I was interested in finding more bricks of images. We left the spirit and Vrool shut the portal behind us, but before he could say the incantation of protection and perform the ritual, awful things happened.

I was walking and noticed three shadows that could have only come from the top of the Spirit behind me.

“They were not there last night.” I thought, too late.

In the blink of an eye the creatures were upon us. I saw Vrool go down under a large piece of black material. Two of the strange creatures were holding him down while the third used an idol of some kind on his leg.

Three more creatures ran out from behind one of the little houses and I was enveloped in a shroud and plunged into darkness. I felt hands grabbing my arms and legs, pulling me to the ground. I shot my side claws out and felt one hit something. Then a sharp pain jolted my upper thigh and I was asleep in the time it took my body to hit the ground.

Part 2

Among the Hasidim

I awoke in total darkness. My head ached and I was lying on my back on something soft. My ankles and wrists were bound by something strong to whatever I was lying on. I could only move them a few inches. I was scared. I called out to Vrool but got no reply. I called out again and heard feet shuffle, then a low sound, more feet coming near, then blinding light.

A dark bag had been taken off my head and I was able to see. Around me were a group of the talking creatures, the dark vested ones. They were making noises and pointing at various parts of my body. One of them pulled my left wing open and looked at it, pointing and making strange sounds. I was terrified but tried to control my reactions to them.

One of them put a round idol attached to wires on my chest and examined me with it. Another looked into my eyes with an idol that had a brilliant light attached to it. There was an oracle just to the right of my head and three other idols with oracles of some kind at my feet. A long piece of metal was strapped to my arm. Where it attached ached.

“What have they done to me?” I wondered, the fear growing by the minute.

One of them put a vestment on its hand and probed my body. I struggled against it while others held me down. It was uncomfortable and I made a squawk when I felt something move into me. The creatures made noises to each other then left the room. A few minutes later one of them came back and put the bag back over my head. It laid a hand on my head and stroked it for a moment. I was horrified. What were they going to do to me?

I heard someone moving around and asked, “Where is Vrool?”.

The creature did not respond. I heard it doing something to one of the idols and against my will I fell asleep again.

When I awoke this time I was starving. We cannot go without food or water for longer than two days. After three, we are too weak to feed ourselves and can die unless we are helped. In the dark I said the prayer of hope but lost focus towards the middle. The bag was taken off my head. I was in a different place. This room was larger and bright with outside light from windows in the ceiling. The creatures were around me looking down at me. They began taking off metal things from my wrists and ankles. Another pushed over a table on wheels, like the wizards used. It held a bowl of water and one of grain. I dove for it and ate as if it were my last meal. The creatures watched me eat but I did not care about their stares. I was ravenous and ate all they had given me. When I was done I sat back on the thing they had tied me to and rested. When they did not tie me up again I became curious.

They were not exactly like the ones I had met. Their face coverings were different. The black vestments they put on were tighter against their bodies. They also wore all kinds of idols attached to their vestments. They looked like the idols wizards used and I wondered if they were wizards of some kind.

I had not noticed it before, but the entire time I was sitting there, they were making noises. Some of the sounds were just below my threshold of detection. I realized that if I held my breath and listened very carefully I could hear their sounds with a greater clarity. I sat up and looked at them in the eyes. My fear was gone, replaced by curiosity. If they wanted to kill me they could have done so any time. If they were waiting to see if I was sentient and able to communicate with them I had better make the effort.

I pointed to the idol one of them wore high on its chest and said “Idol”.

It did not respond.

I pointed to another of them wearing the same thing and said “Is that your Idol?”

It did not respond but it did take the idol and hold it in its bald hand. It pointed to it and made a sound.

I pointed to it and said “Idol”.

The creatures jumped when I said that. One of them ran out of the room making a sound that was almost like our language. Another went to a large storage locker, like the one in the Spirit and took out more idols. I hoped they were not going to make me name all of their idols. The other one went over to an oracle and began ministering to it in a complex ritual that reminded me of Vrool working at the altar.

“Where is Vrool?” I asked. They either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer my question.

The creatures were making all kinds of sounds now and I prayed hard for them to be able to understand me.

“Where am I? Am I going to be here long? Where is Vrool? My name is Greta.” I said. They went about their tasks, glancing over me once in a while.

The one who left came back with three more. Two of them were like the others but one was just like the one I encountered at the pond. It was not the exact same one, but it had the same vestments and reminded me of something I had seen recently, I could not place what it was. All the others in the room made space for this one and I saw some of them dip their heads slightly when he walked by them. Was he some kind of priest?

It walked up to me and made noises while showing its teeth at me. I realized it might be greeting me.

I said, “Hello talking creature.”

It made a sound and showed its teeth again. I moved towards it and three of the others held their hands out to stop me. “Communication at last.” I thought.

The creature made more sounds to me. Some were too low for me to mimic.

I said, “I have language, I wish I could understand you.” It made more noises and shook its head.

With a small motion of its hand the others sprang into action. They brought over the oracle one of them had been ministering to and placed it in front of the creature. The creature manipulated an idol and an image appeared on the oracle’s face.

The image was of Vrool and I entering the Spirit. The creature pointed to the image of me, then traced a circle around me with its finger and put his other hand over Vrool’s image.

Did they kill him?  My heart sank. The creature pointed again to me and to my utter astonishment said my name.

“Gre-ta.” The creature’s speech was distorted but I knew the sound as my name. It pointed again at my image. “Gre-ta.” It said again.

I wanted to screech! It knew my name and said it, not well but well enough to understand.

I said “My name is Greta, do you have a name?” The others in the room were standing still as stones. With another motion of its hand, the creature made an image of one of them appear. It made a noise and pointed to itself. There was no way I could make that sound, I tried and all that came out was a hissing noise that made my beak hurt. The creature made noises to the others and they all made noises back to him. He stroked the fur on his chin which was long and white.

The creature did something with its mouth that I could not do with my beak, pointed to my image and said my name again in that strange halting manner, “Gre-ta”.

I pointed to my chest and said my name again. “Greta”.

The creature pointed to its own chest and made a noise I had no chance of making. I tried anyway. What came out was a clicking sound. The creature made more sounds to the others. They must have had a conversation.

How could I not believe they were sentient beings? I wondered at my own ignorance. The creature pointed to its chest and this time “said” something in our language. It was not any word or phrase I knew, but I was able to repeat it. He pointed to his chest and did it again. I pointed to his chest and said the word. Then I walked over to the other ones and pointed at them. The leader came over and pointed at the first one and said another word, this one actually sounded like the word for “left claw”. I repeated it. The one he called left claw repeated the word imperfectly, then the leader said it again and Left Claw said the word with no problem. 

From then on it was like the games we used to play as hatchlings and younglings. We ran from object to object and named things. The names bore no resemblance to what they would be called in real language, even if I knew what the things were. But we were communicating.

Then it was over. The leader left the room and the others began putting away their idols. Two of them led me to the table I had been lying on and put a metal band around my ankle. It was attached to a long metal chain that was sunk into the floor.

My heart sank.

I said, “Did I do something wrong? Why are you all going? Can we talk more?”

All but one were gone, the one named “Fog” I think. He went to a cabinet and took out a large case of grain. They must have gotten inside the Spirit, but the Spirit was locked wasn’t it? How did they get it? He poured a large amount of grain into the bowl, then filled the other bowl with water and left me alone again.

“Thank you. That was very kind. Do you know where Vrool is?” I said.

The creature made some sounds, showed its teeth and ignored me.

I wanted to scream.

What was happening?

“Maybe they were not sentient after all.” I thought.

That scared me. I had been assuming that if they were sentient I could reason with them. What if they really were animals?

The leader and one of the others came back in. Hope rose in my chest again. Hope soared when I saw who was behind them. It was the youngling. The one who first tried to speak my name at the pond. I stood up and looked at her. She was standing next to the leader. His hand was on her shoulder. The leader put his face to the youngling’s head and made some sounds. The youngling took a tentative step towards me and stopped.

On impulse I knelt down so that my face was at her level. She took another step forward then stopped. I put my wings out and covered my face with them. The youngling made a sound with her mouth wide open and closed the distance between us. She pulled my wings down, very gently with her little hands, looked in my eyes and said my name, “Greta”. She bared her teeth and I realized it was a sign of... friendship?

I said, “Hello Youngling Blackcoat.”

From inside of its black coat the youngling removed the feather that she had taken from me. In a day of surprises this was the greatest. She held it out to me and said something in her language, motioning me to take it back. I did and she bared her teeth again. The leader said something to the youngling and she responded by taking my hand and leading me to an oracle. She performed a ritual with it. The others were standing behind us watching. Images came up in tiny boxes all over the face of the idol. They were of different things, some were of idols, some were of creatures, and some were of their people.

I could not think of them as anything but people now. Did they think that of me?

The youngling showed me how to use the oracle. It was so simple I wondered why we never saw it before. Then I realized that the people had a completely different way of thinking that we did. My perspective shifted and I thought, “Of course they did, we were the strangers here not them. Why should they think as we did, it was their planet!”

As the youngling showed me how to minister to the oracle I understood what it was they wanted me to do. One of the rituals brought up an image of me, the youngling pointed to me and said my name. The youngling motioned for me to perform the same ritual. I did and she motioned for me to perform the ritual with a slight difference, I did. An image of a bowl of grain appeared and he pointed to his mouth and made a sound. She wanted me to say what it was

“Grain.” I said.

The youngling touched the oracle in a certain way and my voice spoke the word ‘grain’ from it. I was surprised, shocked and delighted. I understood what they wanted me to do. They wanted a word oracle! They wanted it in my language so I could talk to them and they could understand me. Who would have thought of using an oracle that way?

The leader said something to the youngling and she performed another ritual. The image of grain changed slightly and a sound came from the oracle. I performed the same ritual and the sound happened again. The third time I realized that the sound was their word for grain but altered so that I could hear it clearly. Their words were so long. How did they get anything done if their words for things took so long to say?  

The oracle would teach me the names of the things in their language. Even if I could not speak them I could hear them and understand them. For the next hour the youngling showed me more images and I became, if not proficient, at least capable of using the oracle to communicate all the words I knew and matching them to the images the oracle showed me. The creature favored its right hand and I wondered if its left hand were injured.

The sky was getting dark when the youngling and the leader left. They made some noises to me and I said, “Good night. It has been good communicating with you. Do you know where Vrool is?” I knew they could not answer but I had to ask again. One of the ones who had captured me stayed behind and showed me how to get grain and water for myself. He watched me as I slept. He was standing in the same position when the sunlight woke me the next morning.

Morning light broke into the windows of the building I was in. It moved in large rectangular panels across the walls as the day progressed. It reminded me of the monastery and I wondered how the people there were doing. After eating I set to work on the oracle. Having something to do was better than lying there. I also thought about Vrool. Where was he? Was he safe? In the back of my mind I made it a point to remember the symbols needed to ask them, “Where is Vrool?”

The person watching me left as a new one came to take his place. When the light had moved halfway down the wall the youngling and the leader came in. I realized something I should have before. The youngling was probably a male. “He” was wearing the same vestments as the older leader. Neither of them had bulges in their vestments where breasts should be. He was probably closer in age to an acolyte or priest rather than a youngling. There was something about the way he held his body that made me think this.

They spoke a greeting to me.

“Greta”, they both said. I replied with the sounds we had used when we were first naming things last night. I only remembered their two names and one of the watchers. The others I had forgotten. After ministering to the oracle with some idols, the youngling showed me how to access even more images. This time the images moved and made noises. I had seen the same kind of images on oracles in the Spirit, these were like it but of course the subjects were different.

There were short, moving images of the creatures doing ordinary things. Eating, drinking, walking, running, and using an idol to mark a piece of metal. There were more complex images that lasted longer and took me several viewings to understand.

One of those images was of them grooming with falling water.

I understood now that their bodies were bald in their natural state.

“How horrible for you! Utterly bald, like a fish.” I said aloud when I saw the image.

The vestments were something they had to create and put on. I should have understood this sooner. There was another section of images that was composed of multiple objects that served the same function. They had six images of Spirits, from the giant one above the sky (I have no idea where they got the image) to the small Spirit attached to the underside of the one Vrool and I had been traveling in. I understood that they wanted me to name these things as a group, then name the individual ones. When I grasped this I groaned inside. How many words did they need? It would take me a long time to give names to all the objects. I also realized that for some of what they wanted I had no words for the groups. There was something about our language that did not require that kind of detail.

Then my perspective changed again and I thought, “Did I really know what our language was capable of? I was an alien here and to my own world. The Hidden Masters had taken us away from our homeworld. What did I know of how our language was supposed to work or what level of detail we were capable of.” It was another reason for me to be angry with the Master, but I could not hate him.

The leader said something to the youngling and then to me, ending with, ”Greta”. I said his “name” and he left. The youngling, whose name I had decided was “Gave me my blue feather” (For the purpose of this record I will shorten the name to ‘Blue’) stayed and ministered to me. He was very helpful and intelligent. He could minister to the oracle as well as any wizard and was diligent about his work.

“You would make a wonderful acolyte.” I said to him.

He stared at my body. I kept sneaking glances at his as well and we enjoyed mutual curiosity. For the rest of the day and the next, we ministered together, creating a bank of words and images. He left me for short periods several times each day. I took the time to work on my own, eat, or groom. Blue ate once in my presence and I found it disturbing. The way they could make their slimy tongues move in any direction in their mouths was awful to see. Their food became an unsightly paste in their mouths. Blue took a yellow thing, not fruit, not a grain, and put it in his mouth. He sucked in and saw me watching him. He pulled one out of his vestment and gave it to me. It was yellow but wrapped in a clear metal sheath. I undid the sheath and held it in my fingers. It smelled stronger than anything I would ever put in my beak.

I said, “How could you eat this?”

I put it in my beak, hoping it was not poison to me, and tasted it.

It was harsh.

I spit it out into my hand. Blue took it from me with a piece of metal and put it in a round container on the floor. He crushed his in his mouth with his teeth.

“Their jaws must be strong.” I thought. “Could they crush bone with them?” 

It was not a pleasant image. The days went on and I had strung words together to ask a question through the oracle. It was very strange hearing my own voice, disjointed and small, coming from its mouth. Some of the words were not there for me to use so the question came out missing some.

“Vrool is Spirit?”. The oracle asked for me.

Blue did not understand. I asked another version of the question.

“Vrool is eating?” I asked.

There was no response.

I tried more questions.

“Vrool is flying. Vrool is ministering. Vrool is digging. Vrool is inside the nest.”

Blue made no response to any of these. I wondered if he knew where Vrool was and ignoring my questions on someone else’s orders?

“I wonder if he even knows where Vrool is?” I thought. 

I had not thought of that before. I had always assumed that Vrool was in the same building as me. I made more phrases with the pictures.

“Vrool is in the monastery. Vrool is in the storeroom. Vrool is in the fountain. Vrool is in the woods.”

Blue did not respond to any of these questions or statements. I made the oracle show an image of Vrool, the one of the two of us I was first shown, and pointed to him, blocking my image with my hand.

“Vrool.” I said, while pointing to it.

Blue shook his head. What did that mean? There was still so much communication I had to learn.

I asked again, saying “Vrool” and pointing to the image.

Blue put the images of several people, my kind, together on the oracle’s face and said “Vrool”.

Ah, so he thought we as a people were called “Vrool”. I moved the images and the image of Vrool was alone on the screen.

I pointed and said “Vrool”. Then I pointed to myself and said my name, “Greta”. I then to him and said, “Blue”.

He jumped up and down and made noises. I took it to mean he understood. He pointed to Vrool’s image and said his own name then he put the images of the others back with Vrool and made a noise, pointing at me.

I pointed to the group and said, “ We are people. Servants of the Hidden Masters”. I had no better word for my kind yet and made a note to ask Vrool just what we did call ourselves as a people.

For a long time Blue and I worked around the question of Vrool. I came to find out that Blue did not know where Vrool was. This was concerning. But if they treated Vrool the way they had treated me he would be all right.

It was after this that we ran in real trouble.

Everything had been going well. There were now hundreds of words, some actions, many objects or people, a few places, the basic colors, and a few specific parts of our bodies.

Images of the metal bricks appeared and I named them. Then Blue brought a brick and pointed to the images of some of the things in it. It was a brick of images and most of the images were made in a simple way, with no color and little detail. There were marks under each image and Blue pointed to these.

I did not understand what they were. He pointed to an image of a bowl and made a noise, then he pointed to the marks under it and said, in their language, “bowl”. I still did not understand. How could the marks be a bowl? I looked closely at the marks and tried to see if it could be the image of a bowl, only smaller. It was not. I understood what writing was. We used it. But I did not understand what he was doing with the images and the writing.

We did this with many objects in the brick. He got another brick and opened its section to activities of his people. Again, they were simple, plain representations. I said the names of the things I had words for. Blue said the names in his language. Again, he pointed to the marks underneath each and said the name of the object above it. I did not understand. How could both be the thing? Was there another language alongside the image? This went on for several hours and by the end of the day, neither of us had made any progress communicating the meaning to the other.

That night, laying on my table, I thought about the patterns that Vrool said were there in the bricks. Then I thought about saying things, naming things and talking. Vrool and I understood each other. We spoke the same language. We made the same sounds and knew that the sounds meant something.

We knew the sounds meant something. The sounds we made were not the things themselves. Sounds were lost in the wind. They did not take on existence. The marks under the images were not the images themselves. What were they?

The word for “tree” meant “tree”. That did not change. The names of things did not change. If they did we would never be able to have a meaningful conversation. Blue and his kind talked also had words for things that did not change. They had many of them.

Then I remembered that Blue’s people used more than one name for things, even if they were the exact same object. This did not explain why the marks under the images of the objects we had been looking at had the same sound.

I was missing something important about the marks.

“The marks under the object were the object” I thought.

No, they were not.

“The marks under the object shared the name of the object.” I thought.

What good was that? Why not just use the image of the object? I understood that the marks were like the objects somehow. Were they another kind of language? Did they have two languages for all of their objects and people? I let my mind wander for a while and remembered the image in the brick I took from the storeroom of bricks at the place we visited before we were captured.

The image was of a person, one of Blue’s, making marks on a brick with an idol. There were no images where he was writing, only marks, just like in the brick that Vrool found patterns in.

It was a language represented by marks, not images.

“How utterly bizarre.” I thought. “It could not be real. How would it work, how would you know what you were looking at?”

Blue was always having me make finer and finer distinctions between things, even when it seemed irrelevant.

“Who cared if idols used for eating had different names?” I said aloud.

They did.

Blue’s people cared about the detail of words. They wanted to have the name for the smallest part of everything. I could understand why this was important for things like the idols in a Spirit, but why was it important for everyday items? I let my mind wander through all these ideas.

Sleep came and I dreamed of the person making the marks on the metal roll. The marks were indistinct. They were not images. How could they know what they were?

I dreamt of the person making the marks and understanding the marks. Another language, I understood that. How did the marks and the images of the marks relate to each other? I fell asleep again and had a dream about flying. In the dream Vrool was holding my hand as we flew. I reached up to touch his face and he let go. I fell away from him and…

I awoke and sat up. The watcher looked at me and made a noise.

I said “Get Blue.”

The watcher listened to me then pulled the oracle over to me. I brought up the image of myself and Blue, pointing. The watcher went over to another idol on the wall and did something. The leader came in after a while. I did not recognize him at first. He was wearing something other that the black vestments. It was the middle of the night. I had awoken him. I stared at him for a few seconds until I realized he was saying my name.

“Gre-ta.” He said.

He used the oracle to tell me in my own voice. “Blue is asleep. Sleeping Blue. Night Blue.”

I understood. I took the brick with the images and opened it to the section where “grain” and “eat” were. I pointed to the image and said the word. The leader looked over at my bowls, they were full. I pointed to a different image, a ball, and said the word “Ball”. The leader just looked at me.

I pointed to the marks under the image of the ball and said the word again. The leader looked at me and said nothing.

I went to the oracle and found the image of the metal roll. It was not with all the others. It was alone with some other idols I did not know the purpose of.

I said the word “metal roll of markings” and pointed to it. The leader made a sound and pointed to the roll. I made the image of the metal roll bigger on the face of the oracle and pointed to one of the marks.

The leader said a word, pointing to the marks. Then I pointed to one of the smallest marks I could, I made a little window with my fingers and isolated the mark. The leader looked at me and touched the fur on its chin with its fingers. It made a sound and pointed to the image of the mark. I tried to remember what the mark looked like as I took my finger off the face of the oracle and went to the brick lying on a bench. I went through the sections of the brick, one by one, until I found a mark that looked just like the one on the face of the oracle. I isolated it with my fingers and looked at the leader. I did not remember the sound he made before but he made a sound and I assumed it was the same.

I found three of the same marks on the section of the brick and repeated the ritual. All three times the leader made the same sound. The leader pointed to them with his hand and made the same sound for each mark. Then he did the same thing with another mark, different than the first one and I understood at last that the marks were telling him what sounds to make and the sounds put together made their language.

It was incredible. I felt as though I had grown another head inside my own. The people of Blue’s world used marks to tell them what sounds to make. The sounds were the same sounds as the images they represented. I almost fainted from excitement. The leader was using the oracle and making a ritual. He brought up images of the marks that were big enough for me to see the differences. He made the oracle say the name of the image or the “sound” of the image and showed me how to make it talk.

For the rest of the night I did nothing but make the oracle repeat the sounds over and over, until I understood and memorized the image that went with each sound. The images were not as infinite as my feathers, there were only a couple of handfuls of them. I could memorize them without much trouble tonight. As the sun traced its daily path across the sky I memorized the sound symbols of Blue’s people. Real communication would begin now.

Later in the day Blue came with the leader and someone else, one of the brightly colored ones who I now understood was a female. Their vestments were different than the males. Their vestments were like the crowns and crests of our kind.

The female said my name and went over to the oracle and performed rituals on it. She brought up the strange marks and created words and phrases out of them. The oracle spoke the words in their language. I did not understand it of course. Then she did something else and the images I had put words to appeared above the marks. She put some of these together and in my own language I heard my voice say “Good Morning Greta, eat?”

I saw the marks she used to make the sounds and using the images I made the phrase “I will eat water.” appear on the face of the oracle. The female did something else and the sound of their language came out of the oracle.

“I eat water”. Said the oracle with its small, rasping voice.

All the words and phrases we made sounded doubly strange coming in their language from the oracle.

However, we now had a system where I could put words in my language to images we both recognized. She made the oracle put the marks under the image and at a specific ritual, the oracle would speak the words in their language. Now that I understood what the marks were for I could learn their words and communicate more abstract and nuanced thoughts with them through the oracle.

Even though I had not slept since the night before, but my mind and body were vibrant and alert. All day the female and I worked on putting hundreds of words together as marks, images, and in the sounds of two languages. Blue worked at another oracle compiling the many words into some kind of order that I did not understand, but he obviously did. As the afternoon went on I became tired. It was past the time Blue usually left and I wanted to lay down on the bench to close my eyes.

“Greta at rest” I said through the oracle.

“Good rest Greta.” They said.

I fell asleep.

When I awoke it was dark. I took food and water as the watcher stood there, as usual. The oracles were still awake and I consulted them. Much work had been done while I was sleeping. There were three hundred words we could use to communicate with each other. I looked forward to finding words for more things in the morning. I worked for a while then slept again.

I awoke refreshed and excited, but no one came that day. The watcher was there but I did not know if he knew where Blue and the female were. I ate and then groomed for a while. The watcher looked at me and I wondered what he thought of my ministrations to my feathers. Did he think it odd? Did they clean their bald skins in public or was it something for the alone time?

After I was done I decided to ask him. I pulled the oracle towards him and motioned for him to come over. At first he would not, but I continued to make the motion and he came over and looked. I marked out “Greta washing” and the oracle made the proper sound in their language. An image of me grooming came up. I wondered absently when they captured the image.

I made the oracle say “You wash outside how?” 

He looked at me and nodded his head. Then he used the oracle and made a moving image appear of one of them naked. It was startling.

The person, a male I thought, was using some kind of idol to push water across its body then step under an indoor fountain to wash. Its bald body had tufts of dark fur in odd places.

The watcher made the marks that said “Greta want wash water?” and I replied “No, question wash only.” He nodded and walked back to his place by the door. 

I wish I could have said, “Greta would rather have her feathers pulled out than stand under that much water.”

The watcher walked back to his place and I continued to put words and sounds together. Blue and the female still had not come yet but if they had worked into the night they might have been tired. I missed their presence, strange as they were. I missed Vrool.

“Vrool, where are you?” I spoke in my head. Could he hear me as the Master could? No, it did not work that way.

“Vrool, I hope you are well, my nestmate and friend.” I said again in my mind, almost as a prayer. To whom would I pray now that the truth of the Hidden Masters was revealed? I lay the question aside for now.

As I learned words I realized how much I would have to learn if I were to communicate in any meaningful way with the people of this world. They had so many more words for things than we did. They were also limited to expressing concepts one sound at a time, one after another in a sequence that seemed laborious to me. It was a well structured way of communicating, but very slow.

‘How did they get anything done?’ became a common refrain in my thoughts.

After hearing the way the marks and sounds went together, then seeing the way they went in groups, it was apparent that my language could communicate entire concepts, words and thoughts in a fraction of the time it took them to express the same things. Communicating one simple thought in their language like, “I need to minister to the oracle for an hour so we will not be able to use it.” Took six times as long as it did in our language.

It came down to biology. They had ways of making sounds entirely different than us. The female took my hand and put it on her throat as she spoke. I felt the muted vibrations through my hands. Then I placed her hand on my beak as I spoke and we tried to understand how each other made sounds. They had something in their throats that I did not have. It allowed them to make very low sounds with their chests. I had something inside my head behind my beak that they did not have. This was where I made the words and sounds they had difficulty making. Unfortunately this was where most of the abstract, Blue showed me that word, concepts were voiced for us. We knew when another of our kind was speaking of something abstract or highly complex when the sounds were spoken with that part of our bodies. I had never thought about it. I never had to. Blue’s people used the same set of sounds no matter what they were talking about. They also could manipulate sounds with their mouths to a degree we never could. Their tongues, so loose and wet in their soft pink mouths, helped to make sounds in a way mine could never manage. My tongue was harder, larger, and moved to create vibrations that were often beyond the range of their hearing. Blue could stretch out his word sounds over a long period of time, which I could not. To them, our language must sound like short bursts of high pitched sound, with clicks and whistles in between. When I thought about it this way I realized that we really must appear like birds to them. From my perspective, their language sounded like... the wind blowing through tall trees, a long moan, parts of which dropped out at random points. It was amazing we could communicate at all.

I worked hard at learning to read their marks, which they called ‘letters’. They were patient teachers. Our daily routine did not vary much. We met in the mornings, worked until the afternoon, ate, then worked until just before dark. I would work alone until I was tired. Most of the work was not difficult just time consuming. I had a very hard time making my eyes move in the proper direction for their letters. Our glyphs were all self-contained, “pattern oriented” as Blue told me. Blue called them “pictograms”. Days went by quickly and my vocabulary was becoming large. I realized that my time spent as an acolyte served me well in patience and fortitude. Most of what I had to do was memorize the words and some rules. This was what I had done as an acolyte, at least until Vrool kidnapped me. “Kidnap” was a word the female gave me. The most difficult part of learning their written language was sentence structure. I could not put all the words of a sentence together in any order I wished, even if it made the sounds come out faster. I had to learn the complex rules of syntax and the myriad exceptions. When I began learning these rules I realized that my language had rules as well. I had never noticed them before or had a reason to define parts of a “sentence” in our language. Blue showed me how to use the computer, which was their word for this kind of oracle, to store information about my spoken language.

I thought Vrool would find this interesting if we were ever together again.

Blue told me that Vrool was alive and well but had been taken by another group of people in another location. He did not know where it was and I asked the leader about it later that day.

“Where is Vrool?” I asked the kind leader.

He said, “Vrool is with others of our kind in another location. He is well fed and watered and you will see him in about a month. He asks about you constantly and we hope to set up communication with the others by next week. We are having difficulty communicating with him. He is not interested in learning how to speak with us and we have had to restrain him several times. He is alive and well and our hope is that you may be reunited with him in a month.” The leader put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you, If I could talk to Vrool maybe he would be more co-operative with you.” I asked.

The leader shook his head in the way they signified affirmation and left. Vrool was alive and well but they had to restrain him. I prayed it was not vanave. My thoughts also went to the people at the monastery, how were they getting along? A month was not a long time but it was an eternity to my heart.

In addition to the language skills I was acquiring there were other things we learned about each other. The most basic of those were their proper names. Blue’s proper name was Benjamin. The female’s name was Sarah. In private I continued to call her “Yellow” for her bright fur which she always kept covered up with a scarf. All the females did this here. When it was only the three of us I called them Blue and Yellow. If someone else were joining in the conversation I used their proper names. They always called me Greta. The leader had a long name that combined his title as well. I had learned that he was the head of this community and had been so for over forty years. He allowed me to call him Kind Leader and said it was appropriate for any occasion, for he was kind. With everyone I saw him interact with he was patient and listened well. I do not know if this was normal for all of their leaders. I hoped so. He had a quality the priests back home should have had. I learned to appreciate the time he took to answer my questions about all kinds of things.

There were surprises in our learning as well. For instance, Benjamin learned that when I groomed myself I used oil from a special gland on my chest that secreted it when needed. I wanted to give him some but he told me he had to ask Kind Leader, who said it would make him unclean. That was interesting! One of their many rules I was beginning to learn about.

Sarah told me she and Benjamin were brother and sister. When I asked how that could be so since their ages were so far apart She told me that her parents did not plan their children.

“Mama and Papa let nature and time decide.” She told me.

When I asked if her mother still lay eggs she laughed and showed me a moving image of one of their kind giving birth. She explained to me how they mated and hatched their young. I could not believe it took them nine months to hatch a single baby! One of our females lay from four to six eggs and they hatched in six weeks!

Another day I asked for some clippers for my side and finger claws. As I clipped them they watched with delight as my leg extended fully. If I extended my leg with both joints I could reach out with it to almost the length of my body. It kept me off balance but was something neither of them could do. Blue threw a soft fruit to me and I speared it with my extended sideclaw. He thought this was amazing.

I was impressed by how well they used their hands and fingers. They only had eight fingers and a thumb on each hand yet their dexterity was well developed. One afternoon, Sarah and Benjamin brought in two idols they called a violin and a clarinet. They used these to make sounds, one buy pushing it in his mouth and blowing air through it, the other by sliding a stick with fur across its metal strings. I was not impressed with the violin but the clarinet was amazing. It sometimes made sounds so much like our language that at times that I looked behind me to see who was talking! Benjamin took to playing music for me every day after dinner. It was something I treasured.

There were misunderstandings as well. Sometimes a concept was so foreign to one of us that we became frustrated because the other did not understand. At these times we put them in a special file for work on our own. Another series of misunderstandings came because I failed to understand the very specific and nuanced rules of their male and female relationships. It was acceptable for me to touch another female, but not another male. I learned this when I saw Benjamin hug Sarah as he left for sleep that night. I reached around and held him to myself as well, thinking the rules of touching were suspended for some reason. I later learned that it was because Sarah was a relative that it was all right. Because of this Benjamin had to stay away from me for a day. I felt badly but Kind Leader spent some time to explain the rules in detail to me. Through the day in and day out I became adept at following their rules and enjoying their companionship. I was allowed to eat in their presence but not allowed to share a table with them. They brought me books, they were not bricks as I learned, and made music for me. I was not allowed into their temple.

In this way I became more than a stranger, not quite a member of their flock. I did feel a special friendship with Benjamin, Sarah, and even the Kind Leader, but over and over again I was reminded of my status as an outsider. The chain around my ankle was gone, I could move about the complex of buildings without a watcher. They still kept a watcher for me at night. There were some buildings I was not allowed into at all, others I could only go into certain rooms. There were buildings I wanted to glide off of but they forbade me to and I obeyed. It frustrated me.

Benjamin and Sarah did the best they could to keep me from being isolated. They taught me some of their games, which were challenging and complex. I loved chess, with its endless combinations of moves and the goal of protecting the weakest piece, the king.

One day, exactly a month as promised, the Kind Leader told me we would go to see Vrool the next day. I was excited and nervous. That night I had a dream that scared me into waking. In it, the Hidden Master was playing chess with me. The pieces on the board were all in the form of the people of this world.

The Hidden Master said, “If you want to win you have sacrifice some pieces.”

“I know.” I said, and let one of my pawns be taken to open the way for my bishop.

“We should have killed them all Greta. They are not worthy of this world.” He said this and smashed the board with his fist. Pieces flew everywhere. “I am going to end it all.” He picked up a new  piece, it looked like Vrool. He set Vrool on fire and let him run wild, setting the entire complex of buildings alight. It was horrifying because Vrool did not burn up, he just burned and burned without dying, destroying everything in his path.

I awoke and worked on a computer until I felt better. It was a long time before I could go back to sleep.

Our journey to see Vrool took two days. Sarah and Benjamin traveled with me. Kind Leader and a dozen of his students came as well. The watchers, who Benjamin called soldiers, did the actual flying of the giant craft. It was one-eight the size of the Spirit Vrool and I had traveled in. Its shape was like a bird with frozen outstretched wings. Unlike the Spirit, their airplane was loud. It made strange sounds at different times and there were special rules we had to obey. We stopped once after flying over one of the planet’s giant oceans. I stared out a window and watched the waves far below. I never imagined anything could be so vast, it scared me. The soldiers who flew us over went to sleep and fresh ones took their place. We had plenty of room to sleep, although I could not build a proper nest.

When we arrived at the place called Tel Aviv the emotions in the airplane were a seeming contradiction. Tears mingled freely with laughter and both seemed to come and go for no reason I could discern. Our portable computers were put away so I could not ask what was going on. I am not sure I would have even if I could. Many of the Kind Leader’s students were holding little books and praying, or weeping. They would sway back and forth as they prayed in a movement that was elegant, even for them. Everyone, including the soldiers, seemed to be having some kind of emotional experience that was related to where we were going. Maybe it was their homeland? I still did not know enough about their world to venture a good guess. I filed the questions away for a later time.

The craft landed with a dull thud. My wings had been bent into unnatural positions for too long and I wished to get out and let them catch the wind. We got our packs and made our way to the door. The Kind Leader left first, then his students, then the soldiers, then Sarah and Benjamin, then me. As I walked through the door there was a blast of heat. Was the world on fire? It was hotter here than anywhere I had ever been. My body reacted to the heat. My feathers loosened all over my body.

A sea of black coats stretched out before me as I made my way down the stairs. They all looked like the Kind Leader. Many of them held banners in languages I did not know yet. Others held banners with various geometric symbols. There was a tent set up on a platform with a small table and chairs facing the crowd. A smaller canopy was set up on the ground next it, also with chairs and a table. I nearly fell into a chair I was led to. The heat had sapped the vitality from my bones.

Sarah and I were given a cup and bowl of water served by little girls wearing the most colorful vestments, dresses, as Sarah called them, I had ever seen. The little girls stared at me and smiled. I knew they wanted to touch my feathers. I felt a sudden urge to wrap my wings around them and hold them. Sarah pulled two portable computers from her bag and gave one to me. There ensued a long ceremony filled with almost nothing I could comprehend.

I knew there were prayers and several rituals, as well as speeches by the leader of Tel Aviv and his students. The Kind Leader stood up last and spoke for almost an hour. Sarah translated for me. Although I understood the words she translated the nuance of their meanings was lost on me. I did not know enough about the history of these people to know what had led them to say these things or behave the way they did. History was vital for them. That I knew. The Kind Leader was always referring to people in their distant past as if they were alive today. If there was ever a time I wanted to know and understand what their priests of the past had said to them. There was a portion of the Kind Leader’s speech that I asked Sarah to save for me as she translated it. He said,

     “...so it has always been with us. Until now! The wealth of the wicked has been stored up for the righteous and we must make every effort to maintain that righteousness. How easy it would be for our children’s children to forget, as the generations following the Exodus forgot. They became arrogant and lost their country. May we never lose Israel again! We will be obedient to the creator. We will keep the law. Our children will live in a world Mosiach has given to us. How else but by his hand could all of this come to pass? How else but by his wisdom and might could we be given dominion over the whole earth. Now is the time for us to fill the earth and subdue it! But we must be very careful to keep all of his laws now that we have the land. For the first time in three thousand years we are able to live out the covenant handed down to us by our fathers. We are able to live it out in a fullness not known to any generation since the Kingdom of David was split in two. I am compelled to speak, but even as I say the words I realize how inadequate they are to express the elation I feel over finally coming to the land of my fathers.

As you all know we have an alien among us. What does the Torah tell us about treating aliens in our land with kindness and respect? It tells us to not exploit them. Now, we have an alien group, brought here against their will, made slaves of a stronger race far from their home planet. We thought thousands of miles a long trip, how about light years! I won’t make you wait for my vote. I believe we should allow them to stay here. (many people clapped their hands at this point, but not all) I also think we should aid them where we are able and help them learn Torah if they’re willing. (more clapping but also silence from one portion of the crowd) These are my beliefs after much meditation and prayer.”

The Kind Leader went on to pray for a while then it was over. We were escorted into the cars, which I once thought were little houses, and taken to a large hotel. Sarah and I shared a room and Benjamin stayed with one of his relatives at their home. The air inside was cool to the point of being cold for Sarah’s bald arms. There was water and grain for me and cooked food for Sarah. I thought cooking food was the oddest thing the people here did. We ate in contented silence then Sarah read one of the books she always seemed to have with her.

I read the text of the speeches that were made that day. Even with my limited vocabulary I understood most of what was being said. Most of the speeches were about taking back the land and the people’s attachment to it. They spoke often of their dead ancestors who had been promised the land by a Hidden Master with an unspeakable name. When it came to comprehending their rituals and relationship with their Hidden Master I was lost. How could you worship and serve a Hidden Master you never saw?

There were concepts and events that my mind could not wrap itself around, no matter how hard I tried. Sarah was very patient with my questions. In any case the speeches were all cautious regarding my people. I understood their caution. The speeches were strangely silent when it came to the last living Hidden Master and the ones in the ship above. This was surprising to me. These creatures seemed to be very direct in their communication. It was strange for them to speak of me but not of the ones who had wiped out the rest of their race.

I put it out of my mind and thought of Vrool. I wanted to see him tonight but we had to wait until tomorrow morning. Sarah finished reading and made some of the hot drink she enjoyed then motioned for me to come join her at a table. I pulled up my chair to the computer and she linked them and we spoke.

“It was a very busy day Greta. Are you tired?” She asked.

“No, I am excited about seeing Vrool. Is this part of the world always so hot?”

“Well, it has seasons of cooler weather, rain and sometimes even snow. The average temperature is hot though. You have to have access to water all the time.” She paused and looked at me with a smile. “I wanted to talk to you about Vrool.”

“All right, we will talk about Vrool.” I said.

“Vrool was taken here after we... captured you outside your ship. You did not know that did you?” She asked.

“No, I did not know that.”

“I think I need to explain the situation to you before you see him tomorrow. It is complicated and involves various factions of our people. If you do not understand a word or concept please ask.” She said.

“You are good at explaining. I will ask.”

She nodded, then began.

“We have been watching you since your first ships landed. At first we thought that we were all going to die. But the plague did not touch us and our doctors told us that a factor in our blood makes us immune. For a long time we did nothing but pray and work, expecting you to come after us. After a while we got brave and sent out people to spy on you. Whatever you were doing it was not taking over the planet in any way we had imagined. You only took over eight large cities and cleaned out the dead. After a couple of years your Masters came down and made their homes in the buildings of the American and European Federal Reserve System.”

I asked what the Federal Reserve System was and she explained it to me as best she could. I still do not understand how it all works. I was further confused about what American and European was.

She continued. “I guess they thought they were some kind of fortresses. Anyway we realized that all the food you grew and all the work you did was not for your own benefit, it was for them.

There was no way we could get inside one of the buildings to see what was going on. It was always full of your people and we were afraid of their technology. For a while we did nothing, only observed from a distance. We knew from our large telescopes that you had a big ship in orbit. It seemed dormant after the first landing. We gathered information, prayed and worked. Another year passed. Then you started dying.

It was awful to see, Greta. Even the soldiers had a little pity for you, such violent deaths for what I now see are a peaceful race of beings.”

She took a sip of her hot drink and resumed. “After most of you had died we thought it was over. We were tracking the movements of yours and Vrool’s ship. We followed you after you came and visited each city. At one of the cities we got there first and did a little investigating of our own. Our soldiers almost blew you up, by accident. They left a charge on one of the doors and did not disarm it before they left.”

I stopped her and asked what ‘charge’ and ‘disarm’ meant. She explained and went on.

“So now we had an idea that your master, or masters, were alive in the Federal building, we still could not get in and we did not want to kill him trying to. Our best plan was to get you and find out if you or he were a still threat to us. One of our communities said you had landed near them and we sent the soldiers to watch you.

When you went back in your ship after your trip to the shopping center we did not know if you would be leaving or not. We took a chance, or rather the soldiers did, and captured you when you came out again.” She took another sip of her drink. Her hand trembled as she held the cup. “So we had you. It was a joint operation between two large communities. One of the leaders wanted to kill you both and the other wanted to study you. Reason prevailed and it was decided that we would try and learn if you were fully sentient beings or not, before any final decisions were made.

Our community succeeded in establishing meaningful communication with you, beyond our wildest dreams in fact. You should know that all of our conversations and interactions, from the day you were taken by us have been recorded and studied. We have had linguists and biologists, psychiatrists and engineers looking at you and what you have been telling us.”

I had to ask what all of those people were and I understood them to be different kinds of wizards. I never suspected that we were being watched or recorded, but it made sense that they would do that.

“I am sorry for not telling you before Greta, but we wanted to examine you without your being aware of it. We needed to make sure you were not lying to us about anything. There is a faction among us who believe that it is you who caused the plague and you who are in charge of the invasion.”

I looked up the word ‘faction’ on my own and understood what was going on. I had come close to death and did not know it. Vrool was right about them, and wrong.

I said, “I understand, Sarah. You have done nothing but ensure your own safety.”

She went on. “After living with you and observing you in close detail for the last five months we have decided that you pose no threat to us and that if you are indeed representative of your species then we will let you live. The ones who are alive at your compound in Italy will be allowed to live as they please, with certain limits.”

I jumped in my chair. I never told them about the monastery or where it was. I never knew they were even considering killing us. All this time among them and they were constantly observing me, using me as an example by which to judge our entire race. I was overwhelmed

“What happened with Vrool?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

“Vrool was not co-operative at all. We thought that he might be going crazy like the other’s did and starting to die. He was restrained and given food and water. Several linguists attempted to speak with him using the same techniques and tools we have been using with you. Every time we came near him he would put out his claws and maintain a defensive position. He spoke almost constantly in your language but it was the same words over and over again. After we compiled a database of words we began translating what he said. Do you want to see it?”

I did. On the screen a transcript of what he said appeared and my heart sank.

     “Give me Vrool!  Let him free ! He must come to me and serve me. If you do not comply I will (untranslatable) with the (untranslatable) and your world will be a (untranslatable). Give me Vrool Let him free...”

Sarah let me absorb it while she brought up an audio recording of the words he said. I listened and did not understand some of the words they could not translate.

I said, “Those words are not part of our normal vocabulary Sarah. I do not know what they are, in fact, they sound like noise to me.”

Sarah stopped the recording and said “We were hoping you could tell us, but after listening to the kinds of sounds you make I believe you. It is not a sound you have ever made in our time together.” Sshe brought up a picture of the temple where the last Hidden Master was. It was taken from a camera high above its entrance. There was nothing unusual about it. It looked as it always had.

Sarah said, “Greta, we think your master is still alive in there. We think he is calling to Vrool to come to him and threatening us through him. Does the master have some kind of psychic bond with you all?”

I asked her what psychic meant. She told me and I explained about how we were hatched and bonded to the Hidden Masters. I explained how the death of the Hidden Masters started a cascade of death through the cities they had taken over. I explained about vanave and how the Hidden Masters had been so very wrong in bonding to hundreds and thousands of us. I also explained how the monastery had only people who would not be affected since they were bonded to priests, not the Hidden Masters.

All of this took time. I was asked many questions and had to repeat things several times. Sarah said, “Ok, we will stop for tonight. Get some sleep. In the morning we will go to see Vrool.”  Before she shut down the computer I asked her,“Are we being watched now Sarah?”

She undid one of her long, fur braids with her hand, took a deep breath and said, “We are always watched Greta. Since have been with us there has not been a minute of your life that has not been recorded. There are cameras here watching us now and when we sleep tonight they will record your every toss and turn.”

I was less surprised and a little sad because of it.

Sarah continued. “In fact, our entire conversation tonight has been broadcast over the network of computers here. Every person has been able to watch and hear and see us talking to each other. There are people who will study what you have said and check to see if you have been lying or not.”

“All this because of me?” I asked.

“No, all this because many of us are frightened of being exterminated. The masters came here and killed seven billion people Greta. You may have been their slaves but you still participated in their work. The memory of wrongs done to us as a people is strong. We have a saying Greta, ‘Never Again’. It means that we will take whatever steps necessary to preserve ourselves as a people. Even if it means wiping out your Italian monastery. Even if it means wiping out you.”

Sarah looked me in the eyes and for the first time I was afraid of her. There was such goodness there, but a goodness that was fierce and burning. It would not allow the presence of something dangerous in its midst. Her goodness was a fire that burned away lies and deceit. Her goodness would mourn for me, even as she watched me die. It was not a paradox. It was a concept I did not understand until that very moment. It was true holiness.

Sarah and her people wanted to be holy. They strove in every word, deed, and thought to attain holiness amongst themselves through their behavior and prayers. Every aspect of their lives was dictated by some law, rule, or stricture, which enabled them to maintain their holiness. And here I was. Twice removed from my world. Lost among a sea of people who thought me alien at best, evil at worst. I was alive only because of their methodical and questioning nature.

I did not have the words for what I felt but I felt it keenly. A cavern opened in my chest and I wanted to die. I was an alien. In a moment I had gone from thinking myself a person in their eyes to being an object, like an idol, or maybe a pair of shears. These people were not my friends. They were studying me. How could I have been so wrong? Maybe I just wanted to belong, somewhere, anywhere. How could they have lied to me?

No, not lied. If anyone lied it was me who lied to myself. Of course they would not trust any of us. We had killed most of their population. “Seven billion souls.”  The Kind Leader had used that phrase in his speech that morning.

Did it come down to souls? I believed I had one. They were not sure I did. Another vista opened in my mind. Their rituals and beliefs were both concrete and abstract. They came together in their language, in their memory. It was something passed down to them by previous generations. There was a line of continuity they maintained. That was how they had survived the plague. They had kept themselves holy all that time. They were faithful to... something. Their faithfulness had saved them. It was truth they had. Not like the words the Hidden Masters had given us to repeat every morning. Theirs was truth uncorrupted and codified for anyone who wanted it.

My mind was spinning in several directions. I sat there and allowed my thoughts to roam where they would. Music came to my mind. Benjamin playing his clarinet for me, bringing me pleasuring with its voice. Sarah playing chess with me and probably letting me win a few times. The Kind Leader taking time to explain what the purpose of killing a sheep and spilling its blood was for. Real truth, real kindness.

These things were not what the Hidden Masters had given us. Although Sarah’s purpose had been to determine whether or not our people were a threat, her motivation had been love; love for her people, her family, and her world. She even had room to love me. There was something about these people that I wanted to emulate. But I was an alien and that would never change. I went to Sarah and looked at her. She was wrapped around a pillow, sleeping. I covered her with a blanket and turned out the light.

It was still dark when we left to see Vrool the next morning. Soldiers accompanied us in the back of the car. More soldiers drove behind and ahead of us in cars with pretty red lights flashing on their tops. Sarah looked refreshed for one who had gotten so little sleep. I looked like I always did.

At the hospital where they were keeping Vrool there were many more soldiers, students, and leaders. We went up an elevator, my first trip on one, and emerged into a hallway lit with bright lights and white walls. It reminded me of the Hidden Master’s Holy of Holies with its clean floors and chemical smells.

The Kind Leader met one of the leaders of this community and was talking with him when we arrived. The other leader looked me over but what he thought of me was not apparent. Sarah responded to something he said and smiled. Benjamin held up a book to him and the leader put his hand on Benjamin's head and gave him a blessing (Sarah told me what this was later).

It was time.

A door was unlocked and opened by the soldiers. We went through. Our soldiers entered first, then the Kind Leader with Benjamin, then Sarah, and finally me.

Vrool looked awful. His once beautiful coat of feathers was dull looking and patches of feathers were ripped out in random places. I could see places where he had rubbed his bald skin raw. The tip of he beak was broken off and his side claws were extended at odd angles, bent or broken. His hands and feet were tied with padded restraints and his wings were held together with padded black straps. I took a step forward and almost fell over, but not out of shock. The floor was thickly padded, as were the walls and most of the ceiling. Vrool was making a hissing sound until he saw me.

“Ah, Greta” he said. “You must come and serve me now. All will be well for you if you come to me right now.” His voice sounded strange.

Vrool's eyes had a slight red tint to them. I held his eyes with mine. “Vrool, are you there?” I asked.

“Vrool is here.” The voice said.

“What have you done with him?” I asked, anger building in me.

“He is where he has always been, under my control. You did a very bad thing by disobeying me and not going to all the cities Greta. If you had listened you would have not been captured and you and Vrool could have stayed at the monastery with the others now. You would have been breeding and populating the planet with your kind. Instead you chose to betray us and work with the animals.” He stopped and for a few seconds I saw Vrool through the fog of the Hidden Masters control. Then he was gone again.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Vrool’s voice said, “I want you to come to the temple and take me back to the Spirit above. You will serve me there and we will await an answer from the home world.”  Vrool's head rolled to the side then snapped back. “You will do this or I will kill Vrool.”

I said, “I thought you wanted us to be free of your control? You allowed the people at the monastery to bond with our own kind, did you not?”

The voice replied, “Oh yes, indeed I did. But that has all passed now. What I wanted was for you to be loyal to me, freely, out of true love for me. I wanted you to worship me of your own free will, not like the others, who had no real choice. I wanted you to be my own people. I would have given you everything Greta. I would have allowed you to breed and breed until you had taken the planet over.”

I said to him, “This planet was never yours to give us. You killed all the sentient life forms here and lied to us, to me, about who we really were, where we really came from.”

Vrool knelt where he was and the master said though him “Ah my little one, I did not lie to you, you did come from us, from the temples. We do love you and wish only to bring order and rightness to your world.”

I thought for a moment and said, “But there was never a real choice. From our hatching you only sought to make us slaves. You never revealed our true origin, our true home planet. All of that is lost to us.”

He interrupted. “Ah my beloved, not true, not true... I have all the knowledge you need to re-create your culture here on this world. And what a rich culture it is. Do you know that your people can weave the most complex and beautiful tapestries? You are so wonderful with those hands of yours. And the poetry... for a race who never wrote anything down you have an oral tradition of poetry and story that even I envy. All this I will give to you my little Greta. This world can be yours if you obey me.”

“I will not obey you.” I said.

“Then I will kill Vrool and then kill the rest of the animals. I will even kill the ones at the monastery. Your life will be rendered meaningless and I will leave you to kill yourself or obey me. You see, I have nothing to lose, and you have everything.”

I had nothing to say to that.

I asked “Let me speak with Vrool.”

“No.” He said.

“How do I know he is all right?” I asked.

Vrool’s body slumped down against the restraints. Two of the guards took them off and laid him down on the soft floor. Sarah typed something on her portable and the words came up on an oracle mounted in the wall. “He will come around in a few minutes. He only can stay free of his master for an hour or so. Ask him what he wants us to do and find out if the master can really do the things he’s threatening.”

I nodded at her and wondered how they knew what he was saying. Didn’t they know he could wipe us all out? Vrool was regaining consciousness.

“I am so thirsty.” He said. A bowl of water was brought over and Vrool moved his face into it, slurping up the water with his poor broken beak. Half of it spilled on his chest.

“Vrool, what have they done to you?” I asked.

“It was not them Greta. The Hidden Master wanted to make sure I knew he could kill me if he wanted to. He could have had me tear my own beak off if he wanted to. We do not have much time. I can only be free of him for a few hours each day. Most of the time I sleep because he does not let me rest. I didn’t know he was so strong in my mind.”

I stroked his face and touched the crest on his head. It was the only place with intact feathers. Vrool bent his head to my chest and I held him for a while.

“Vrool, can he do everything he said? Can he kill you, the ones at the monastery and the rest of the people?”

“Yes, he can. The ship has weapons that are worse than the plague. He can use a poison that no one is immune to. It will wipe out all life in a few days. They are in the Great Spirit orbiting in space and he can call it down into the planet’s air. He can kill the ones at the monastery with a device he had me plant in the main hall under the floor. If he sets it off there will be nothing left for miles around. He has oracles that can see the people there, if they try and leave he will set it off.”

“There is nothing we can do?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Nothing Greta. I am sorry, I did not know his true plans. He needs to get back to the Spirit. He is dying and unless he gets back there he will kill us all. Maybe it is better that way.” He lay there spent. I let him rest.

Sarah asked me questions and I gave her the answers. She smiled at me and put her head to my cheek. What could she possibly be happy about? There was constant motion around us as people came in and out, checking Vrool, talking to Sarah. The Kind Leader was sitting at a table someone had brought in for him. He was typing at a computer.

Vrool stirred. “Greta!” It was still Vrool, not the master, I hoped.

“Yes, I am here.” I held his hand as he sat up.

“Listen, the Hidden Master is coming into my mind again. He can speak through me but I do not think he can know my mind at the same time. I put the answers somewhere important to you, a place of first things. I am going to have to go now. You are a good person Greta. Take the silver band from around my neck.”

I took the silver thing and held it.

“Do not lose it. Keep it and think of me, little one. Tell your children about me. The answers are all there, in the place of beginnings, solid as rocks.” Vrool's eyes turned deep red before my eyes and I jumped back in terror. Four guards held him down then they put his hands and feet into the restraints again. He stood up, looking less tired but but worse as he had before.

“So, my Greta. What have you decided?” The Hidden Master asked.

An oracle screen I had not seen before came to life behind his head on a wall with writing that said, “This is Kind Leader, do not look at me, just say these words as if they were yours.”

Hidden Master said “Are you going to let Vrool live or should I have him tear his own arms off with his claws?” One of his claws extended and his hand shot down towards it, slicing his hand open to the bone.

On the screen I saw these words. “We will never bow down to you. You are evil and we will resist you with every last breath of our bodies. We have aircraft that will destroy your city with nuclear bombs. You know what those are. You will release Vrool and then we will talk. Otherwise we will destroy you.”

Hidden Master said, “Well, what will it be? Do you want to live or die?”

My mind was spinning but ideas were coming together quickly. For what felt like eternity I said nothing. Then I knew the answer.

“I will come to you my Hidden Master. Vrool and I will come to you and minister to you and do your bidding.”

 “No NO NO!!” Appeared on the screen. I heard the Kind Leader hammering the keys of his computer.

The Hidden Master said. “Come tomorrow Greta, or everyone dies.”

Chaos erupted at that point.

Vrool’s eyes turned black and he slipped to the floor, blood gushing out of the wound in his hand. The doctors rushed in and ministered to his wound. I was pushed out of the way and into the arms of the Kind Leader who was shouting at me something I did not want to hear. Sarah was stooped over her keyboard typing out questions that were appearing on the monitor in the wall. The other leader came in with his soldiers and pointed the idols of death, guns, at me.

“No! No!” I said, but no one could understand me.

I reached out to grab the hand of the other leader, who was screaming at Kind Leader, and one of his guards slammed my arm away with his weapon. I felt white hot pain blossom in my wrist and let out a loud screech. One of “our” soldiers brought up his weapon and the tension in the room rose to a new level. For a moment I was sure that both sets of soldiers were going to unleash death into the room. My injured arm was momentarily forgotten.

Both leaders looked at each other, said something quickly, and shook their heads. They gave quiet words to their soldiers and they all lowered their weapons. One of the students said something and they all began leaving the room. The other leader said something and his soldiers left. Then ours left. The doctors had gotten Vrool on a rolling table and were moving him out of the room. They left. It was suddenly quiet in the room. My arm throbbed.

Sarah read something on her computer and came over to the Kind Leader and spoke a few words into his ear. The Kind Leader said something to the other one and they spoke to one another for several minutes. They looked at me ever few moments as they spoke. The Kind Leader said something to me and walked out with the other one. Sarah and I were left in the room. A large puddle of blood had started to harden where Vrool had been. I went over to the computer and asked Sarah “What did he say to me?”

She typed and I read.

“He said ‘Choose life.’”

All through the night we flew. The oceans passed beneath us but I could not see them because there were clouds in the way. The Kind Leader and his students, along with Benjamin, had stayed in their ancestral homeland. Only six of the soldiers, Sarah, Vrool and I were on the plane. We were going back to the Spirit, where we had been captured four months ago.

Vrool was not himself. His ugly red eyes proved that the Hidden Master still controlled him, but he did not talk to us. Sarah helped me tie him up alone in the back of the craft. His arm was wrapped in a dressing that we changed twice on the long trip. We left him food and water but he was either sleeping or the Hidden Master was lurking there just below the surface of his mind. My own arm ached from where the soldier almost broke my bone. Sarah and I brought food and drinks for the pilots and crew mid-way through the trip. Sarah spoke with one of them for a while then came back to sit with me. We spoke through the computers again.

She said, “The ship has not been touched by anyone since you left it there. Will it still work when you get there? It has been almost five months.”

I said, “Vrool said it could stay idle for years, as long as its inside is closed off it can last indefinitely. I thought you had been inside of the ship?” I asked, curious.

“No, we got your grain and other things from one of the cities. There are tons and tons of it in storage rooms. It was determined to be too dangerous to try and enter the craft.”

I said, “He will be expecting you. Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“I’m sure. He’s never met one of us face to face. He must know we are sentient, I do not understand why he is behaving as if we were not. He has the opportunity to perform a great good work. My prayer is that he will see me and reconsider his plans.”

I said, “You are placing a great deal of trust in his ability and desire to see you as an equal.”

“Yes, that is true. But I am one of the only ones who thinks this way. If I am wrong and he kills me, I am only one person. If I am right, and he can be reasoned with, then a great many people will be saved. They can still nuke the place from a distance if they want to. But I think that the master is going to think twice once he sees me.”

“Sarah, I think you are being...” I did not have the word.

“Naive.” She defined the word for me.

I said, “Yes, naive. He is bent on killing everyone. I believe he can do it. You choose to try to reason with him. Why?”

“I have already told you Greta. It is a change to do a...”

I cut her off. “Sarah... really... why?” She stopped typing and looked up at me. She sat there thinking with her chin resting against her folded hands. It was several minutes before I got an answer.

She said, “All I ever wanted to do was get married and have lots and lots of babies. I wanted to use my training in linguistics to teach my children all the major languages so that they could read the great sages. I am old for someone in our community not to be married. My father and mother saw how much I loved school and since my five older sisters were already married and starting families there was not as much pressure for me to jump in and start too. After I got my Ph.D., that is something you get when you have gone completely mad, I asked my father to help find me a suitable mate. The person I was going to marry was living in France and I was looking forward to making a life with him there.

Then everyone started dying.

My plans for marriage were put on indefinite hold. In the division of labor, our community was given the task of trying to communicate with you. They chose me when it was discovered you were female. It would ease some difficulties with our laws. Now your language has become my life’s work.” She smiled, a little sadly, I thought. “In answer to your question, there are many other women like me who want nothing else than to get married and have babies. They did not have my linguistic skills though. By the time we met, captured you and Vrool, I was beginning to feel that this was the creator’s purpose for my life.

There is good and there is evil in this world and, who knows, maybe in other worlds as well. The Torah and the great sages teach us that we are to resist evil and embrace goodness. That sometimes means more than obeying the law, it means going out of the normal path and bringing goodness and light to a place it struggles to be.” She stopped then said. “It is just the right thing to do Greta. It is right and I know it.”

“Thank you” I said. We ate then rested in silence for a while.

Later I asked her “What will you tell the Hidden Master when you meet him?”

She said, “Only the truth Greta, only the truth.”

At the ship we had work to do. There were debris piled up around one side of it from what must have been a flood of some kind. The soldiers helped us move large logs and piles of dirt from in front of the opening. I performed the incantation and ritual of entrance and went inside. The ship was in perfect condition. Sarah gave me a tool that would measure the atmosphere inside the ship because we still were not sure if what we breathed in the ship was safe for humans. After checking the air and seeing nothing wrong I motioned for them to come in.

The soldiers were excited. They walked around pointing and looking. One of them had a camera and was no doubt recording images to be sent back to their communities. I had gotten over the shock of being under constant scrutiny. If they wanted to watch me while I worked, ate, slept and defecated, so be it. I showed Sarah the various parts of the ship, she typed questions for me on her little computer and I answered them the best I could. The soldiers wanted to know about the propulsion system but I only knew how to pilot it. One of the soldiers asked me why so much equipment had been ripped out of the ship’s interior. I told him that Vrool had done it before we went to the shopping place. I still did not understand why.

Sarah asked two of the soldiers something and they set to work taking samples of all the places mine and Vrool’s hands had touched idols. They also took samples using fiber tipped sticks of the Hidden Master’s space at the altar. After they had done this I demonstrated how our hands would fit into the indentations of the altar and in that way, using certain patterns of pulses from my fingers, we commanded the ship to go where we wanted it to go. Sarah laughed as one of the soldiers tried it and got his hand stuck inside. He had too few and too wide fingers to make it work anyway. Sarah was especially surprised by the nest area.

“I thought it would be made of the same stuff the ship was made of.” She said.

“No, we have always made our nests out of whatever we could find outside. As long as the Masters were not going to be using the ship it was all right with them. Vrool said that before he met me the nests were not made as well.”  I pointed out several places where I had used my claws to cut off sticks that were poking me.

I would rather sleep outside of course. Even as a youngling I felt that sleeping indoors was unnatural. I showed her a few of my black rocks, smooth and lovely.

She said, “Building nests must be one of the first chores you learn. Like us making our beds.”

It was hard to remember that far back, but I did have one memory of a group of us picking up sticks and leaves outside, making a little nest and being told by an acolyte to stop wasting time.

“Yes, it was one of the first things we did. We were not taught it though, it was something else.” I asked her for the word.

“Instinctual?” She offered.

“Yes, instinctual, we did it without knowing we could do it and without having to be taught.” One of the soldiers came and asked Sarah something.

“Should we bring Vrool in now, if they do, is he to be kept tied up?” She asked.

This was the moment I had been dreading. The Hidden Master still was inside Vrool’s mind, inside his eyes. There was no choice though. As soon as they brought Vrool inside the Hidden Master inside of his mind came alive.

“Take off these bindings now!” He screeched through Vrool’s beak.

I told them to remove his restraints. The soldiers pointed their guns at him. Vrool pushed his way to the altar and began making the incantations for travel. Sarah and the soldiers stood by and watched, unsure of what to do. Vrool said, “Get the animals off of the ship Greta and help me prepare for travel.”

I said, “Sarah wishes to come with us to meet you. She wants to speak with you on behalf of the humans and talk about living together in peace.”

Vrool lashed out at Sarah with his extended leg and claw. She barely missed being impaled by it as a soldier pulled her out of reach of the lethal appendage. She prevented the soldiers from killing Vrool with a loud command. I pushed Sarah and the others away from the altar and towards the door. Sarah pushed the little computer under my beak.

“I want to go!!!” She had typed.

I kept pushing them until they were halfway out the inner door.

“Listen to me Sarah.” I typed, “You have to leave, he will kill you if you try and come near him.”

She typed rapidly. “But he may kill us all Greta. Do you want that on your conscience?” She had those little drops of water on her cheeks that had leaked from her eyes.

I said, “I will not let him kill anyone Sarah. I promise you.” I wanted to hug her but I could not do that and type at the same time, so I settled for putting my wings around her little body.

She typed, “At least take this message to him.” She handed me a memory disk. “It has a message from the Rebbe on it. We only want to live in peace Greta, you must know that!” She was frantic now; tears running hot and fast. “Please tell him that we mean him no harm.” Her typing became erratic and I folded the computer lid closed as she hid her face in her hands and wept.

It must have been terrifying to see their world stripped of life. The number of people who died was nearly incomprehensible to me. Seeing piles of bodies of our own kind was bad enough, but to see an entire civilization nearly wiped out was a horror beyond words. I did not understand everything about her people’s culture, but from what I did see they were a creative and industrious people. She said something in her own tongue, which I recognized as a prayer that she said every morning. I stroked her head for a moment, turned my back on her and gathered my courage for what was ahead. Walking further into the ship and without turning I said, “Goodbye Sarah.” I opened the outer hatch again and listened for her footsteps. A minute later I closed the door and walked back to the altar.

Vrool told me to make the Spirit ready for travel. I went through the incantations and rituals wondering why he did not do it himself. Then I saw his hands. They were shaking, just a little, but enough to wreck any commands he might have tried putting into the altar. I had to start from the beginning. It took a long time by myself. As I worked the Hidden Master spoke through Vrool.

“You have come to your senses at last little one. I was afraid I would have to kill you. That would have been a shame. I wanted to mate you with Vrool. You would make good, strong hatchlings. Now I do not know if I will let you breed or not.”

I said, “I do not want to bring chicks into a world with you in it Master. You are not what you claimed to be and....”

A blow from his fist hit my skull. For a few moments I heard a ringing sound and saw nothing. My eyes cleared and I saw the base of the altar. After the ringing in my head stopped I pulled myself up.

The Master said through Vrool, “Do not cross me little one. I am still your Master and Vrool is still strong enough for me to kill you through him.” Vrool's eyes were deep red now. I felt, as much as saw, the Master’s presence there. I had underestimated him. I would not do it again.

We spoke no more until I was finished with the rituals of travel.

The master, it really was not Vrool anymore, said “I am hungry and thirsty, get me food and water.” I went to the store- room and brought out what he wanted. It was almost humorous watching the master eat through Vrool’s body. Instead of using his beak to catch up little scoops of grain, the Master was using his hands to try and shovel it into Vrool’s beak. Most of the grain fell out before he could get it between his tongue and the serrated part of the inner beak. I did not want Vrool to die of starvation so I showed him how to use his beak to pick up scoops of food.

“Always the teacher Greta. You would have made a good priest, even a wizard. Perhaps I will let you and Vrool run the monastery together, if he lives.” He said.

I made no reply. The master drank and then got up and walked around the Spirit. I was cleaning up his mess when I heard the screech.

He screamed,“What have you done?  Where are the idols of protection! You have removed the shielding idols and the oracles that control them!”

He burst into the altar space and pulled my wings back with his arms. I let out a screech as my back blossomed with pain. Sharp knives of fire were surging into my back and wings at every point where feathers came out. I screeched until my tongue clove to my beak. I saw my own death.

He let me fall to the floor. Every little movement was agony. It was the one thing we could do to each other that we never, ever did, even in play as younglings. He was talking so loudly I could hear his beak clacking. “What have you done? We cannot achieve orbit without those idols. What were you going to do, build a giant nest here? Take the others from the monastery to the great spirit?”

He pulled his leg back and I remember thinking, but not saying, “No”. His leg smashed into the small of my back and all kinds of new pain shot through me. My eyes twitched for a moment and then blessed darkness came.

I awoke some time later. The agony was still there but confined to where my feathers met my wings. My back was aching but I could still walk. Every breath I drew caused a sharp pain in my back and sides. Vrool was in worse shape. The Master must have used his own claws to cut his wings. They hung in tatters across his back. There was blood matted everywhere. I saw little pieces of delicate cartilage sticking out here and there. One of Vrool’s eyes was swollen shut and his hand was bleeding again.

“I guess he did not like me redecorating the ship.” The master was gone for now. It was Vrool’s voice and Vrool’s eyes, or eye that I was looking into. I went to him and held his hand.

“Did I hurt you badly?” He was barely able to talk.

“No, I am fine.” I saw that his hands had stopped shaking. I put his one good hand to my face and held it there while he spoke.

“When we were in that place where I removed all the idols, I was pretending that we were making a life for ourselves. I knew the Master could reach into my mind and make me do things, but he was busy and did not notice what was going on. I thought we could stay away from him forever. I was wrong.” He stroked my shoulder with his other hand and I folded my wings around him, not touching lest he feel pain.

Vrool said, “He made me hurt myself and then left to think for a while. I do not know how long it will be until he comes back. I do not know how long I can live like this Greta. Our kind was never meant to take this kind of abuse. I saw recordings he made of our home world Greta. He showed them to me several times. It is a beautiful place. The trees are huge and old. They are full of places to build nests. Whole families of us live in just one tree. We all take care of each other, especially the hatchlings and the old ones. When the old ones are too feeble to fly to the grain fields or gather fruit, the young ones carry it to them in woven sacks. Did I tell you that we are great weavers? Not just the decorations you made in the nest, but giant tapestries of great color and complexity. We also say poetry. Do you know that there are poems and stories that are passed down from generation to generation that take an entire week for us to say? Stories that are rich and full of ideas.” Vrool stopped talking and closed his good eye. I thought he was asleep. I heard him whisper “In the nest you decorated, all the answers lie, in a field of stars, the crescent moon against the black sky.”

I fell asleep for a short time then was awakened by the voice.

“Get up little one, you must serve me now.” I wanted to put my claw through Vrool’s neck and end his slavery but Sarah’s world might pay for my haste. “Little one, it is no time for sleeping. You have work to do.”

Vrool was slumped over the bench, his one eye red and swollen. “You must take us to the place where Vrool so foolishly tore out the idols. You must put them back in. Not all of them of course, just the ones we need to get back to the Great Spirit. You must do this quickly. If I die I have set an idol to send a signal to the Great Spirit. It will send a little spirit down to poison the planet. Eventually, the others of my kind will come and be upset that we killed all the life here. But there are still vast mineral resources, much of which has been mined and processed by the animals. Now, Greta, make the Spirit go to the place where the idols are.”

I got up and made my way to the altar again. Vrool had not erased the information I needed to get to the place he called “Tree Land”. In less than an hour we were traveling. I could not think of what we did as flying for some reason. Maybe because there was no real physical action to accompany the movement, or sound. There was only a box moving through the air, constantly tilting at odd angles to adjust for something I had no words for. I did not even know the proper name for the propulsion system. The Master bade me to get him food and water again. Vrool's body was a wrack of clotted blood, twisted feathers and bruises. The Master got some medicine and applied it to the worst of the wounds. I helped him put it on, but only for Vrool’s sake. It was, after all, still his body.

I left the Master to go get some grain and water and eat for myself. I was hungry and the pain was still in my back, my wings still ached. I spent some time grooming as well. It felt wonderful to have my feathers in perfect alignment again. It would be several hours before we arrived at Tree Land so I made my way to the nest to sleep. Piles of vestments had been shoved into one side of the nest in an untidy pile. They hadn’t been there before and I wondered why the mast put them there.

I missed sleeping in a real nest. It was comforting and gave me the illusion, at least, that everything was all right. As I slept dreams came to me, mostly of gliding from tall buildings. In one dream I was holding Benjamin in my arms as we went down swiftly between buildings. Benjamin said to me in our language, “Thank you Auntie Greta! This is the best present ever!” In another part of the dream I was at the edge of a cliff in a place with a landscape that was waterless. “Come my beloved, we will soar all day.” Vrool said to me. We flew over rocks that were brown and red, with towers of rocks that were sculpted out of the landscape.

It was the final part of the dream that held the message. In it, Sarah was sitting in my nest, the one we were going towards at Tree Land. She was speaking in our language and had a beak! It looked so good on her that I said to myself in my dreaming “I should tell her to get one! She looks so much better with it!”

She said to me, “I have got a secret to tell you.”

Then she said something in her tongue that I could not understand.

I said “Sarah I don’t understand your language.”

She said, “None of you do, not even the Hidden Masters. They only know their own language and parts of yours. They do not know the secret language, the one of first things and beginnings. The one where you have to learn to make your nest.” She was trying to weave something with her bald fingers. I took it from her and showed her how to weave properly.

She said, “Our hands are not the right shape to do it, you have to do it for us.” Then she took the silver metal that Vrool wore around his neck, the gift from the Hidden Master, and pushed it into the side of the nest.

I awoke with a new understanding. The ship had landed and the Master was standing over me. I thought,  “He is going to drop dead right in front of me.”

He said “Get up and serve me.” I got out of the nest and walked with him to the door. It was raining outside. The drops of water pelted my crown and my feathers pulled in all over my body to keep the warmth in and the water out.

“Get these idols I tell you to Greta.” The Master stumbled to the place where Vrool had put the idols. They were scattered all over the place and it took three trips to get them. Vrool’s body was shaking with cold. The damage to his feathers was causing him to lose body heat faster than he could generate it.

I said, “You should get inside the ship and put blankets on.”

The master said, “Why, I am not cold.”

I said, “Vrool can die if he gets too cold.”

The Master said, “I will do it just for you little one. Get to work, I have left you the instructions on the oracle at the altar.” He walked back to the ship, his body jerking and shuddering with the cold.

It took me several hours to get the idols back to their proper places. The oracle gave images of where to connect all the wires. One of them had over a hundred that had been shorn off by something sharp. I got all of the tools I needed and set to work. By the end of the day I had completed installing two of them and the third was connected but not alive. The Master had wrapped several blankets around himself and came in to watch. His one good eye was staring at me.

He said, “We will leave tomorrow. You will come to the temple and get me. We will go to the Great Spirit and hatch more workers. I will bond with them and you will bring them to the monastery to grow and learn. There will be no more of you who are not under my control. I will let the talking animals live as long as you obey me. Letting you be free was an error. I see that now. The others were right in saying that none of you should ever be free.” I said nothing to this and completed my work.

The master sat down and watched me well into the night. When I was done he said, “I am impressed Greta. I expected you to kill me, or at least kill Vrool’s body. You have shown great restraint. For this I will reward you. You may have Vrool for one evening and morning. Perhaps you wish to breed with him before he dies.”

My heart sank. He said, “You do realize he is going to die? His wounds are much too grievous for him to survive longer than a day or so. I will also let you release him with the incantation of cessation if you like. After tomorrow I will not need his body anymore and we can have face to face conversations, do you not think that wonderful Greta?”

I said, “Yes, Master, it is.”

“Good, you see? You can be a good servant! You may have Vrool now. I will take him again six hours after the sun rises and we will be on our way.” Vrool's body collapsed so fast that I almost failed to catch him. As if falling down were going hurt him any more than he was. I lay him down on the floor of the ship and waited for him to come to. It took a few minutes this time, but it was good to see his black eye again.

“Hello.” he said.

“Hello Vrool, I missed you.” I said as he attempted to sit up.

“Help me to our nest, will you? He asked.

Together we went to the nest. I had to carry him almost all the way. Getting him over the top was difficult but I managed.

“I am going to die soon Greta. I can feel my body starting to shut down. It is only the Hidden Master’s powers that are keeping me from taking flight from my body.” I set his head on some blankets I had brought.

“Do not talk Vrool, rest.” I stroked the only area on his chest that was free of wounded feathers.

“No Greta, there is something I need you to do for me, for us.” He whispered things to me and I did them. It was wonderful and sad. I had never felt that kind of pleasure before and when it was over my body heat rose, hotter than I had ever been. Vrool told me it took two months but my body would know what to do. We slept in each other’s arms for a few hours. The sunlight woke us up.

Vrool was pulling part of the nest apart. Before I could ask what he was doing he had pulled a silver wire from the side of the nest. He held it out to me.

“Listen to me Greta. Take this wire and connect one end of it to the eighth slot of the control panel on the altar. Then take this one” he pulled the wire off from around his neck, “and put it in the eighth slot of the other side of the panel, it will cause the Spirit to explode. You have to get the Master to put all the canisters of poison on the ship before he leaves. I know where they are in the temple, he had me put them there and I know that his is the only temple with the poison. The others did not want it around, they said it was too dangerous. He wanted to take the planet for himself. I think he still does!

After he gets clear of orbit you have to put these two wires in their proper slots without him noticing, and get to the little Spirit. There is only room for three people and it has a limited range. You will make it back to the planet but you only have one orbit, two at most until you have to come down. The controls are just like the ones on the Great Spirit and this one.”

I was taking in all he was saying with a hyper awareness. I could see every detail of Vrool’s body, every leaf of every twig I had used to line the nest.

Vrool went on, “Our people can survive here Greta, we will never get home but we can make a life here. If the humans do not wipe us out we can even learn to make a life with them too. In the other cities there are Spirits we can use to travel, maybe we can find a way to work together. Their Spirits are crude and ours must seem wonderful to them. The important thing is getting the poison out of the temple and blowing up the Great Spirit.”

I said, “Vrool this is too much. Is there any other way we can do this?”.

“No, this is the only way. The Hidden Master is sick and unstable. He has done things the others of his kind would not approve of. He made some bad choices. He is not dealing well with it. I can see inside of his mind when he takes mine and it is full of terrible things.” He looked over the side of the nest and pointed to an idol that was covered with rainwater and little leaves. “That is a storage unit for the oracles. You can use it to find out about our race and our world Greta. It is in the language of the Hidden Masters but I am almost positive it still has information about where we come from. It might even have information about the Hidden Master’s world. Other’s from his world may come here later.” Vrool took a deep breath and lay back, exhausted.

He said, “Are you going to be all right Greta? I am going to be taken by him soon.”

I just lay my head on his chest and said the words we only said to one another in the most intimate of moments. He said them back to me and we both fell asleep.

I awoke, startled to see Vrool jump over the side of the nest. “Vrool!” I said as I made the glide to the ground myself. He had fallen on his useless wings and one of them bent them at an obscene angle. His red eye mocked me.

“Do not be concerned little one. I do not feel anything! What? Do you want to kill him now? You can at least wait until I can thank him in person.” He walked to the ship and I followed him. The two silver wires were tucked under my neck feathers. I stole a quick glance at myself in the reflection of the ship’s hull and could not detect them.

I made the incantations and rituals and we left. The master somehow made Vrool’s body get us food and water and we ate together, only because there was no place else for me to sit.

“Did you mate with him last night? I cannot tell, the sensations are all muted even when I am inside his head.” He was pulling on one of Vrool’s feathers, tearing it out by the quill.

“Does it matter to you?” I asked.

“Oh yes it does! You are strong and smart Greta. Smarter than most of your kind. I will be looking forward to seeing your offspring. I may even let you bond with one of them.” My head went fuzzy and I almost passed out. I do not think the master noticed, his eye was twitching of its own accord and the other one was leaking a green fluid that smelled bad.

“I am sure my offspring will be happy to know that you approve of their mother.” I said.

“Oh I do. And you are so much more malleable than the humans are. Did you know that their world was in chaos when we came here? They were fighting and killing each other. They had entire industries dedicated to making weapons. You must have seen signs of this in your time with them. I was worried that they had brainwashed you but they treated you quite well, for animals.”

“How can you still speak of them as animals? You saw how they treated me. They have language and culture. They might even have souls!”

I thought he was going to hit me but Vrool’s body was too weak for that.

“Now now my dear. No need to get all agitated over talking animals. You do not know their history Greta. For thousands of years they have been killing each other. Their leaders do not get better with age. They do not become kinder to each other. Most of them do not care about their ancestor’s knowledge. They make the same mistakes over and over again. Look at the animals you were with. They have been worshiping that so called God of theirs for thousands of years, yet he allowed them to be killed in the most inventive ways. No, the planet is far better off without them. Do you know that some of us think that they are not even native to this world? How do you explain them, their presence here is an enigma. They are the only animals that can talk. They seem to have souls yet they’re bent and twisted with one another. Who would give this wonderful planet to beings so violent and bent on destruction?”

I said “The same ones who gave it to you.” The Master did not have the strength to strike me, so he said, “I will kill one of your offspring for that, little one. I will not do it with your first clutch. I will wait until you forgot we ever had this conversation. Then I will grab it by its neck and drown it in a fountain of water in front of you.” Anger boiled within me. I almost jumped up and ran my side claw though his head. I remembered my promise to Vrool.

An hour later we landed at the temple. Looking at it now I realized it did look like a fortress. Sarah had shown me images of them. We made our way to the door and went inside. Vrool came to himself all of a sudden and fell down on the ground outside. I picked him up and took him back into the ship, unconscious. I left the ship and locked the door, using the code Vrool had told me the night before, or was it this morning? Things seemed to blur together.

In the temple I went to the holy of holies. In the vestments, my skin crawled and I wanted to get out of there. I wondered if I would have to wear them on the trip to the Great Spirit.

“Ah, at last we meet face to face.” The Master was pushing a wheeled platform towards the door. There was the translation idol on top speaking his words in a tiny parody of Vrool’s voice. “Let us go, we have little time to waste.” He went to open the door to the holy place and I said, “Wait! I want you to remove all the poison from the temple and bring it up with us.” He struck me with his fist and my head snapped backwards.

“Have you learned anything yet Greta? I will just have to kill you and start over...”

He made to strike me again and I said “I disabled the fail safe of the hatch, if you try and bypass it the spirit will dump its coolant!”

He stopped with his hand raised in mid-air. His eyes narrowed and he smiled at me. “Very good Greta. You learn quickly. You do not want your little humans to die, or your friends at the monastery? So be it. Go get them. It does not matter you know, I can always kill you, and them, later.” He pushed out of the door and into the holy place. I ran around the temple where Vrool told me to go. Most of them were behind wall panels that I had to perform a ritual on to open. Unhooking them from the pipes connecting them to the temple was easy. I loaded them on a wheeled cart and brought them into the most holy place.

The master was waiting at the door to the outside with some kind of device strapped to his head. “Come Greta, this mixture will not last all day.” We left the holy place and went into the outer courts. It felt good to be outside but the Master did not like it and screamed at me to open the ship.

I said, “You go first.” He was shivering. It was cold for him.

He said, “All right all right!” I pushed my cart to the front and the Master and I changed places. When the Master got inside the Spirit he pushed me outside and said the incantation for closing the door. He screamed it a second time as he pushed me further away from the door. I let him scream the incantation a third time before I said, “It will not close unless I am inside and the gas mixture you need to breath will not fill the Spirit unless I am in there with you. So unless you can hold your breath for the trip into space you had better let me inside.” He glared at me but let me by. I was in grave danger of dying at his hand.

Before I closed the door I told him “If I die between the time we leave and the time we safely dock, all the doors will open automatically.” This was a lie but he had no way of knowing if it were true or not. He said nothing to me and commanded me to make preparations for travel.

“And remember,” he said, “I still can control the Great Spirit from here, I can still make it crash into the planet and wreak havoc where I want.”

I just said, “Then we will have to trust each other.”  It was his turn for silence although I knew that he would certainly kill me when he had the chance.

I prepared the ship for departure as the Master pumped his atmosphere into the cabin. I could smell the familiar compounds of the holy of holies, a sharp scent that made my tongue itch. The master used the altar to take a sample of the air and then removed his face covering. We were ascending above the clouds and I asked him how long it would take.

“One forty-eight of a solar day.” He said without looking at me.

I had a half-hour to live. I made the adjustments for continuous flight at the altar and the master told the ship exactly where to go. I did not know the location of the Great Spirit. He told me to monitor several oracles while he went to check the devices I had installed. “If these oracles give this symbol” he made it appear, “stop the Spirit’s ascent and get me.”

While he was gone I found the places on the altar where the wires were to be inserted. I practiced this action in my mind and felt to make sure the wires were still hidden under my feathers. The air was making my head throb with pain. The little membrane under my eyelids kept going over my eyes, protecting them from something. I wondered if his atmospheric gasses were dangerous for me, but then again, what did it matter now?

The master returned and checked the altar. “Only a few minutes now. Would you like to see the Great Spirit? It will be your home for a while.” He made the oracle on the altar show the forward view of the ship. “Forward” was actually upward. We were in near space so “up” and “down” were becoming meaningless. The Great Spirit was... big, very, very big. I was impressed despite myself.

“It is huge.” I said.

“It is the largest we make. Most of the space on it is taken up by the ion gun and the heat shields. Only one one-hundredth of it is used for living space.” He pointed to a tiny window surrounded by a square about a dozen times its size. “That is where we will be living. Do not worry, there is plenty of room little one.” As we got closer to it I was able to make out more details. A door opened up near the window he pointed out and I realized we were heading for it.

I said “We cannot go through that door, it is too small!”

He replied, “That door is twenty times the size of the Spirit. You need to upgrade your perspective, of many things.” He said pointedly.

I ignored him and pretended to be interested in the details of the Great Spirit. What I was really doing was wondering when I should blow the ship up. If I did it too soon it would not hurt the Great Spirit. I did not know when the others on board would awaken. Vrool said they were waiting for an answer from their home world, but would the master want to wait that long? If I waited until we were fully docked inside he might just kill me before I had a chance to insert both wires. I would do it just as the outer door of the Great Spirit shut, but I would have to get the master away from the altar.

The master performed a ritual and the ship was nudged into a direct path with the center of the door. It was huge. My scale of vision had adjusted and now I saw that this thing was bigger than I had ever imagined. Even if most of it was taken up by engines, the living and storage areas were ten times larger than the monastery grounds.

As we passed the edge of the door the ship suddenly lurched to the front, sending us tumbling and out of control. The master shouted something and then said, “What did you do?”

I said, “Nothing! What is happening?” We tried to get control of the ship but it was heading for a wall far ahead of us.

“It is the idol you installed, you must have missed something.” He backhanded me and I went down in a heap in front of the altar. He stalked out of the space and went to find the offending idol. Now was my chance.

I got the wires off of my neck and inserted the first one. Several lights lit up on the altar and a siren began wailing. I was just about to insert the other one when a pair of arms lifted me off my feet and flung me to the ground. I looked up.

It was Vrool.

“You thought I was dead did you?” Vrool’s eyes were red. The master had taken him. “I can do up to six things at once, you know that? That is probably why you all went mad when one of us died, though we will never know will we?” Vrool ripped the wire from my hand. A deep gash tore into my palm as I tried to grab it from him.

Vrool’s hand was infected and oozing green pus, I do not know how he even had use of his arm. He went over to the altar and removed the wire. The siren and lights stopped.

“I keep underestimating you, not for long of course. Oh do not worry, I will not kill you until you lay your eggs. I need the workers to serve me. After I wake everyone up I will take control of the project and colonize this world. That wire should not have come loose, I saw you attach it myself.” I shot my foot up and made contact with Vrool's shoulder. My side claw went through it but he did not seem to notice.

“Greta, my little one, why are still trying to hurt yourself. He pulled my foot away from his shoulder and twisted it until something snapped. I let out a screech and tried to pull it away from him even as the pain was driving me to unconsciousness. Vrool picked up the bloody wire I had dropped and held it stretched out taunt between both hands. “I am sorry little one, you are too much trouble, even with your eggs.” He bent over and got the wire around my neck. It would slice my head off. I was going to die.

Vrool tightened the wire then was jerked back violently. Sarah stood behind Vrool holding his wings and pulling them with her little bald arms. She was wearing some kind of air filtering device connected to a tank on her back. She yelled at me, I assume it was to get up. I needed no encouragement. She held Vrool while I took the bloody wire from around his hands. The other one was lying on the floor where he had ripped it out. I put the first one in and the siren started again. I was about to insert the second one when the master bounded into the room and tore the wire from the console even as I put the other one into its slot. I screeched in frustration and reached out to grab it from him. He was too strong. Sarah let go of Vrool and then grabbed the master’s arm from behind, but he knocked her aside with his fist. She fell backwards, the mask on her face slipping off. Blood came from her mouth and nose.

The master said, “Now Greta, time to die.” He held my head in his hands and was about to deliver a killing blow, when our little ship crashed into the far wall of the larger ship’s docking bay.

The master flew backwards out of the altar space with me on top of him. We hit the far wall together and he absorbed most of the impact. I kicked him with my good leg and even got a bit of my claw into his chest before he pushed me off. No one had told the ship to stop moving. It was trying to push though the wall of the bay. I heard metal grinding against metal and wondered when the hull of the ship would finally breech so we could die.

I was about to jump on the master again when strong hands pulled me back. It was Vrool again, but this time he was in control of his own body. He swung me around and backwards. I landed next to Sarah who was turning blue. I did not think this was a good thing so I put the mask back over her face and pinched her belly. I heard Vrool saying something to the master then he yelled to me.

“Get to the little Spirit, the shuttle Greta, get to it now!” I looked back and saw him holding one of the tanks of poison I had taken from the temple. He was holding it over his head and releasing a tiny rivulet of liquid into the hidden master’s face, which was melting, or on fire, or something between the two. It was gruesome. “Hurry Greta!” Vrool said. I picked up Sarah then immediately fell on my bad leg.

Her head hitting the deck must have woken her up because her eyes opened and she started coughing. I pulled her toward the hatch for the shuttle and half dropped, half pushed her in. She grabbed the first rung of the ladder and fell the rest of the way down. I heard her leg bone break and she screamed. I fell into the hatch and pulled it shut after me, managing only to break my arm in the ensuing fall.

The shuttle was so small that our arms and legs were entwined around each other at odd angles. I could see the mask slipping off of her face and adjusted it for her. There was a loud thump against the hull and I wondered if we had broken through the wall of the bay. I only had to push three buttons to get the shuttle moving. It was set to land on the planet near the Golden City. I used to oracle to find a map and told it to take us to Tel Aviv, or near there. Sarah’s leg was bent at an odd angle and I wondered if their medicine could take care of it.

The oracle showed a view of the Great spirit. It looked fine. Sarah reached over and pointed to a tiny window. I looked but did not understand. Then I saw it. It was not a window it was fire, tiny, but fire nonetheless. It was getting bigger, very slowly. Vrool and the master were dead now.

Whatever forces had given me the energy to drag Sarah through the hatch were gone. I was starting to shake. Sarah was speaking to me but I could hardly hear her through her mask even if I could fully understand her language. My last thought before blackness took over was “Sarah’s hair is beautiful. I hope she gets married and has many hatchlings.”

Then all was darkness and bliss.

Epilogue

I have only vague recollections of my time in the hospital; none at all of landing. When I did come to full consciousness I was in a room enclosed with a plastic shield. The nictitating membrane was covering my inner eye and things were a little blurry. A person in a suit of plastic with a hose attached came to check me and when he saw I was awake brought back a dozen others. I tried to sit up but gentle hands held me down. Food and water were brought and I ate and drank, greedily.

A computer and monitor were brought for me and I asked questions.

“Where is Sarah?”

“She is fine Greta. She is in the next room, anxious to see you. You are in a special atmosphere we hope will aid your recovery. Do you understand?”

I did. “Is everyone safe?” I asked.

Heads turned to each other and I saw teeth through their plastic suits. More typing ensued.

“Greta you saved us all. Everyone is fine. No poison, no plague, no explosions. Our people are safe and your people are safe. The mother ship is burning in space and somehow moving out of orbit towards Mars. Do you understand? Everything is fine.”

I asked, “When can I get out of here?” More heads looked at each other and words were exchanged all around. After ten minutes or so I asked again. This time, an answer came.

“You can leave when you feel up to it Greta. We do not understand your biology enough to know how badly you were hurt. You have a broken leg bone and a lot of cuts and scrapes. Your cuts are almost healed and your leg is set, but we do not know how long it takes for your bones to heal. We will get you a wheelchair and you can go out, ok?”

It was ok.

The chair with wheels was absurd. My wings did not fit behind me so I went back into the bed. Another chair was produced within the hour with the back removed so my wings could stick out at an odd angle and bother the person trying to push me. I did not want to be pushed so I said the chair was perfect and wheeled myself to Sarah’s room.

The crowd of doctors poured in ahead of me and there was no room for the chair. I motioned for a computer and someone put a little laptop into my hands.

I said “I appreciate your concern but I am not going to die right now.” Another conference ensued and two doctors stayed there, one in the room and one just outside the door. I wheeled myself further into the room and saw Sarah smiling at me with her arms outstretched. I wheeled over to her and just lay my head on her chest. She was crying and neither of us spoke for a long time. After a while my back was hurting so I sat up and looked at her.

Computers were brought to us and I said. “You broke your leg bone. I thought your leg bones were so much stronger than ours”

She said, “Well they might be, but our heads are softer. How do you feel Greta? Are you in any pain? They can give you stuff for the pain you know.” She was stroking my arm.

“I am fine. My leg is hot from the thing they put on it. My wings still hurt a little. My arm is sore. I thought it was broken. How is your leg and arm... and head and face?”

Sarah smiled at me and said, “In six weeks I will be able to walk again. My arm will take a little longer to heal, it was broken in three places. I may lose some mobility.”

I asked her what ‘mobility’ meant and she told me.

She said,“My face is a mess. I am so embarrassed. Papa told me I am beautiful but that is what Papa’s are for, are they not? I got bashed up because I crashed into the control panel when we landed. I was holding onto the wrong thing. Do you remember the crash landing?”

I did not. Apparently we had landed in a market in Tel Aviv. No one was there because it was their holy day. The community came out and surrounded the ship, they were armed with guns and waiting to shoot whoever came out.

“Then some of Papa’s students saw the hatch pop open and my head stick out. I must have been quite a sight. I’m glad they didn’t shoot me!”

The Kind Leader came in a few minutes later and put his hands on my head and said a lengthy prayer. Then he wrapped his arms around me and cried. There were uncomfortable looks from some of his students but Sarah was crying too. I wished I could cry like they did, just to see what it was like.

Benjamin came in and wanted to play his clarinet for me but by then the doctors had to assert their authority and escort me back to my room. Sarah kissed me on the beak. I ran my fingers through her hair, something I had wanted to do since I met her. It was so soft. I wished I had some on my head.

The next weeks went by quickly. The doctors took invisible pictures of my leg bone and told me I was healed. The white cast came off and I tried walking. It was difficult but Sarah and Benjamin clapped their hands for me every time I took a step and did not falter down. After two days I could walk, not well, but I could get around the hospital and visit Sarah whenever I wanted to. After four days I went for a glide off of one of their tall buildings. The whole city watched.

My belly also swelled. Vrool’s seed must have taken because I was growing to huge proportions. I could not see my knees and the tiny nipples that were under my chest feathers became more pronounced. I made a nest in the hospital courtyard and became defensive when anyone came near it. The hospital posted a guard around the courtyard and blocked the windows of all the rooms facing it to give me privacy. Sarah was the only one I let near me during this time and she brought me my favorite fruit every day. I ate more than I ever had.

Just when I thought my body could not get any bigger my eggs came. It was quick, all in an hour one afternoon. I felt a sharp push as each one dropped then I covered them with my wings and legs. For another month I lay there and kept them warm, turned them and ate a little less than before.

As for the hatching, no words can describe my feelings. When my chicks looked at me with their perfect little eyes I simply could not stop looking at them. I wrote to Sarah later... ”Who was bonding to whom?”

My entire world was centered on my children for those first three months. The hospital staff was very good to me. Sarah came by daily with fruit. I did not notice when they took off her casts. She was just walking all of a sudden.

My chicks were speaking well and I was constantly giving them answers to their questions. Some days I thought the questions would never end! I taught them to use the computer and taught them the language of humans, enough to communicate their needs to the hospital staff. They showed no fear of the humans, nor did they think them strange. I was not sure what kind of relationship they would have with them in future. I hoped for a peaceful one. My chicks accepted everything I said with a trust that elicited a fierce devotion on my part. I taught them everything I knew but they exhausted my knowledge by the time they were six months old.

About that time Sarah came to me when I was sitting in a park on the hospital grounds, my younglings having outgrown the courtyard. They were playing on the swings, jumping off the top and gently landing, wings extended. Other parents and their children played alongside. I learned that some parents did not want us around, others thought we were possessed of a “special blessing”. Sarah’s face was well known throughout her ancestral homeland. Mine was even more noticeable. We watched my children play for a while in silence then Sarah wanted to talk. We got the computers out.

“I am getting married Greta, Isaac is coming here next week!”

“I am so happy for you Sarah. Are you going to make babies right away?” I asked.

“I hope so. My biological clock is ticking and I do not want to have to wait long. We are going to live here and he is going to help Papa at the school. It’s Benjamin’s Bar Mitzvah and my wedding, two weeks apart! There are going to be some great parties Greta.”

“Will Benjamin still be able to play the clarinet for us?” My children loved the music he made and he had given us a portable music player with recordings of the kind of music he made.

“Oh, for a while he will be busy with school... Greta, we have not talked about what you’re going to do.”

This was the conversation I had been avoiding.

I said, “I know I need to go to the monastery. My children are growing and they need to be around our kind. I do not know if they will accept me or not. I am not sure they will believe me when I tell them what happened.” The Rebbe came over to us, surrounded by students whom he dismissed with a smile. He kissed Sarah on the head and waved at all the children. He was much loved.

“Your children are lovely Greta. I pray for their health and yours daily.” He smiled at me over the keyboard. Sarah got up and went over to the swings to talk to one of the mothers she knew.

“So... is it time for me to go Rebbe?” I asked.

“Do you think it’s time for you to go? He asked.

“Why do you always answer my most difficult questions with a question?” I said.

“So what’s wrong with a question?” He grinned.

“I do not want to go, but I need to. I know how welcome we are here, but I am an alien to this world and to your world.”

He said, “You are always welcome in our community Greta. Alien or no, you did a great Mitzvah.”

“I appreciate your care and kindness Rebbe, but my people might need me. I am the only one who can communicate with you, well... my children can. Do you think we can live on this world together, in peace?” I asked.

The Rebbe thought and then typed, “It cannot be any worse than what we had before. I think it will be better in fact. Some do not agree with me but after what you did they do not have much to say against you.” He paused and said, “I think you should know that we have been watching your people, from a distance of course. They are doing well. I do think you should bring some books about farming or hydroponics with you. Growing things in long rows is not as efficient as you were told. Maybe the Hidden Masters were not as bright as they thought they were?”

If I knew my people they would be trying to grow plants in the frozen ground, through the snow.

“We will take whatever help you can give me Rebbe.”  He nodded and made to leave but I had one more question. “Rebbe... I know this is a question you may not be able to answer. I have thought about it since the first time I met you, that day I met Benjamin. The masters answered the question without our asking it, they made it part of their control system over us. I do not know if I can believe in all of the things you do. I am from another planet after all... but we are not so different, as creatures.

Rebbe, do you believe I have a soul and that after I die, my soul will live on?”

Two years later...

“... so I completed the first part of the dictionary and if this baby doesn’t come early I’ll have a lexicon for you by the new year!” Sarah was getting bigger. She couldn’t see her toes anymore and in a week or so I wouldn’t be able to see mine.

I said, “You shouldn’t overextend yourself Sarah. Whether you get it done before or after the baby comes doesn’t matter, just take care of yourself.”

“Oh don’t worry about me. It’s amazing what you can get done between feedings and diaper changes. Papa is looking forward to being able to learn your language as well.” Sarah yelled at her children to not pull Vrill’s feathers. You come up with words so quickly. In a couple of generations your written language will be as expressive and full as your oral one.

My children were playing in the sandbox with little Isaac and Moishe. They were diligent and attentive with human children, perhaps from having grown up among them. My children seemed to suffer no ill effects at all of living on this world. The other children born to the monastery were healthy and vibrant and our small community quickly grew. We were outgrowing the monastery grounds. Our nests were growing further and further out into the countryside. With the help of some of the Rebbe’s students we were able to improve our food production and trade the surplus with the various communities in Tel Aviv, New York, Jerusalem and Boston. Since our needs are so few, the trade is tilted towards the humans, but none of our kind are troubled by it.

After I made contact with the monastery the first thing I did was get the idol Vrool told me about in Treeland. It contained a treasure of poetry and stories, recorded surreptitiously by the masters over a year. It was there for all who wanted to learn. I wondered if some of the masters were kind and compassionate. Not all of them could be as bad as the one we knew, could they? We were writing down our own stories now, though most of our people preferred to create and transmit them orally.

My sons and daughter were fully grown and about to make nests of their own. As interesting as they were as younglings I have grown to treasure my relationship with them as adults. I have a nest mate. His name is “Twiller” in the short form of human language. It is “Twiller Weaver of Wool Glider Who Laughs At Rainbows Faithful Storyteller Friend Sheep” in ours.

No one among the humans except Benjamin uses his long name. They are friends. Twiller’s coat is two shades darker blue than mine with red speckles in long rows down his wings. He is a wonderful nest mate and has helped me since we came to Italy. We mate for life like the humans do and he is looking forward to bonding with our younglings.

This will be my last clutch of eggs. I am almost “over the hill” as Sarah jokingly says. At seven, my life is more than half over. The humans live long lives, not as long as the masters, but long compared to us. I do not know how this will effect our relationships with them. I know that Sarah and Benjamin do not like to think of me as being old. I hope that when I die they will continue to be friends with my children, and my children’s children. I know I will miss seeing how little Isaac and Moishe develop, and little Rachel, growing quickly in her mothers womb.

“Oh, look, look, look!” said Sarah, pointing to the children. “Isn’t that the most!”

Vrill and Heidi were holding up Isaac and Moishe by the hips, catching the wind with their wings and lifting them off the ground a few feet, sending the little boys into fits of laughter.

THE END