"Yes. That would be good. Where did you say you were from, giant-Sand?"
"The United States," Sandy said, though he knew it would mean nothing to this beautiful, strange girl.
The girl smiled at Sandy, and the warmth of her smile enveloped him.
"The United States is-are-a place," he tried to explain. "You might say that my brother and I are representatives." -Even if inadvertent ones.
"And you have a brother, who is out with a unicorn?"
Her question made it sound as though Dennys and the unicorn had gone off cavorting someplace together.
"My brother Dennys. We"re twins. Identical twins. We do look a lot alike to people who don"t know us well. Your brother j.a.pheth is trying to find him."
"Well, he will find him, then. Do you need anything more, Grandfather Lamech?"
"No, my dear Yalith."
"I"d better go home, then. My brothers" wives are all there, and our mother likes to have me around to help keep everybody from fighting."
She smiled, turning from the old man to Sandy, who was dizzy with fever, but also with Yalith. He gazed at her as she said good night to them. For the first time in his life. Sandy had a flash of grat.i.tude that Dennys was not with him.
Then anxiety surfaced. "Dennys-"
"j.a.pheth will find him," the old man said. "Meanwhile Higgaion, see if you can find our scarab friend."
Higgaion trumpeted softly and left the tent.
After Yalith and Higgaion had gone, Sandy was a.s.sailed by a wave of feverish sleep. It was dark now, with no moonlight coming through the tent"s roof hole, and the oil lamp burned low. He closed his eyes, curled on his side to sleep and felt an emptiness.
Dennys. He was just as happy that Dennys had not seen Yalith. Nevertheless, he had never before gone to sleep without Dennys. At home he could just reach up and punch the mattress above his to get his twin"s attention. At Scout camp they had always been in the same cabin. Despite their parents" efforts to allow the twins to develop as individuals, never dressing them alike, the fact remained that they were twins. He did not know what it was like to go to sleep without Dennys.
Higgaion came in and went to Grandfather Lamech, plucking something from his ear with his trunk and holding it out to the old man. Grandfather Lamech took it on his palm, a scarab beetle, glinting bronze in the lamplight. The old man stroked it gently with a trembling forefinger, and closed his palm.
Then came a vivid flash of light, similar to that of the unicorn"s horn, and a tall presence stood in the tent, smiling at the old man, then looking quietly at Sandy. The personage had skin the same glowing apricot color as Yalith"s. Hair the color of wheat with the sun on it, brightly gold, long, and tied back, falling so that it almost concealed tightly furled wings, the light-filled gold of the hair. The eyes were an incredibly bright blue, like the sea with sunlight touching the waves.
Lamech greeted him respectfully. "Adnarel, we thank you." Then he said to Sandy, "The seraph will be able to help you. Seraphim know much about healing."
So this was a seraph. Tall, even taller than the twins. But the only resemblance was in height. Otherwise, it was totally different, beautiful, but alien. The seraph turned to Lamech. "What have we here?"
Lamech bowed, seeming more than ever like a small brown nut in comparison with the great winged one. If all the ordinary people in this strange place were as little as j.a.pheth and Lamech and Yalith, it was small wonder that Sandy and Dennys were confused with giants. Lamech said, "We have with us a stranger-"
Adnarel touched Sandy"s shoulder, pressing him back down on the skins as he started to struggle to his feet.
Lamech continued, "He is, as you can see, almost as tall as you are, but not as-not as completely formed."
"He is very young." Adnarel the seraph said, "barely hatched, as it were. But you are correct. He is not one of us. Nor of the nephilim."
"Nor of us," Lamech said. "But we think he is not to be feared."
Adnarel reached out to touch Sandy gently on the back, the long fingers delicately exploring the shoulder blades. "No wings, not even rudimentary ones."
Higgaion approached the seraph, b.u.t.ting him to get his attention, then indicated the water pitcher.
Adnarel reached down to scratch between the mammoth"s ears. "Call the pelican," he ordered.
Higgaion left the tent. Lamech looked up, up, to meet Adnarel"s startling blue eyes. "Are we doing the right thing, keeping him cool and wet to bring down the fever and heal the burning?"
Adnarel nodded, as the tent flap opened and Higgaion returned, followed by a pelican, large and white and surprising. It waddled over to the clay water pitcher, opened its great beak, and filled the pitcher.
Lamech asked anxiously, "The pelican will see to it that we have plenty of water? It will take many trips to the well, too many for me now that I am old and-"
"Fear not. Alarid will see to it," Adnarel rea.s.sured.
"A pelican in the desert?" Sandy asked, feeling that the great bird was part of a fevered dream.
"A pelican in the wilderness," Adnarel agreed. He dropped to one knee and put his hand against Sandy"s reddened cheeks. Through the fingers flowed a healing warmth, a warmth which had nothing to do with the stifling heat in the tent. Sandy had almost grown accustomed to the strong, gamy smell of the skins, but the seraph seemed to bring a lightness and a freshness to the air.
"Where, young one are you fromP" Adnarel asked.
Sandy sighed. "Planet Earth, where I hope I still am?"
The seraph smiled again, not answering the question. He touched Sandy"s forehead gently, and the touch helped him to clarify his thoughts, which seemed to lose their focus- "And from where on planet Earth do you come?"
"From the United States. The Northeast. New England."
"How did you get here?"
"I"m not sure, uh, sir." There was something about Adnarel"s presence which brought out the old-fashioned forms of respect. "Our father is working with a theory about the fifth dimension and the tesseract . . ."
"Ah." Adnarel nodded. "Did he send you?"
"No, uh, no, we-"
"We?"
"Dennys. my twin brother, and I. It was our fault. I mean, we have never before done anything so incredibly stupid as to mess with anything of Dad"s when an experiment was in progress, except we didn"t realize that an experiment was in progress."
"Where is Dennys?"
"Oh, please-" Sandy implored.
Grandfather Lamech explained, "The brother, the Dennys, went out with a unicorn, and has evidently been called back elsewhere. j.a.pheth is looking for him."
The seraph listened gravely, nodding at what Sandy felt was an insufficient and unclear explanation. "Fear not," Adnarel said to Sandy. "Your brother will be returned. Meanwhile, Grandfather Lamech and Higgaion are doing the best thing for you, in keeping your skin moistened." From a pocket deep in his gown he took out what looked like a handful of herbs and dropped them into the water jar. "This will help the healing." He smiled. "It is good that you have at least some knowledge of the Old Language."
"But I don"t-" Sandy started.
"You have been able to understand, and talk with, first j.a.pheth, and now Grandfather Lamech, have you not?"
"Well. Yes. I guess so "
"Perhaps the gift has been awakened because you have not had time to think." The seraph"s smile illumined the tent. Adnarel turned from Sandy to Lamech. "When the cool of night comes, wrap him in this." And the seraph took off his own creamy robe. His wings were visible now, as golden and shining as his long hair. He gave an effect of sunniness in the dark tent, lit only by the oil lamp. "The animal skins are too rough for his burned flesh. I wilt come by in the morning to see how he is doing. Meanwhile, I will check on j.a.pheth and see if he has found the brother."
As Adnarel talked, Sandy felt his eyes dose. j.a.pheth was looking for Dennys. Adnarel was going to help him. Sureiy, if the seraph was involved, then everything would be all right.
His thoughts drifted off into soft darkness.
3 j.a.pheth"s sister Yalith When Yalith left her grandfather"s tent, she hurried toward home, near the center of the oasis. At her side she had a small pouch of darts, similar to j.a.pheth"s, but instead of the miniature bow she carried a small blowpipe. The arrows were tipped with a solution which would temporarily stun but not kill a predator, even one as large as the manticore. The manticores were strong and bad-tempered, but not intelligent or brave. She feared the manticores less than she feared some of the young men in the town, and she kept a dart in her hand in case she needed it.
After leaving the grazing grounds around Lamech"s tent, she walked through one of his groves that led her onto the desert of white sand lapping against brown gra.s.ses. Wherever there were not enough wells to provide for irrigation, the desert took over. But she preferred walking across the desert to the dusty, dirty paths of the oasis. Stars were bright against the velvet black of sky. At her feet, a late beetle hustled to burrow itself under the sand until morning. To her right, high in the trees of Lamech"s groves, the baboons were chittering sleepily.
She looked toward the horizon, and on an outcropping of rock similar to the one the earthquake had made when Sandy and Dennys met j.a.pheth and the mammoth Higgaion, she saw the shadow of a supine form. She looked to make sure it was a lion, then called softly, "Aariel!"
The creature rose slowly, languidly, and then leapt down from the rock and loped toward her, and she saw that she had been deceived in the starlight, for it was not a lion but one of the great desert lizards, called dragons by most people, although its wings were atrophied and it could not fly.
She stood frozen with anxiety on the starlit sand, her hand holding one of the tiny arrows. As the lizard neared her, it rose straight upward to a height of at least six feet, and suddenly arms were outstretched above the head; the tail forked into two legs, and a man came running toward her, a man of extraordinary beauty, with alabaster-white skin and wings of brilliant purple. His long hair was black with purple glints, and his eyes were the color of amethysts.
"You called me, lovely one?" He bent down toward her tenderly, a questioning smile on his lips, which were deeply rosy in his white face.
"No, no," she stammered. "Not you. I thought-I thought you were Aariel."
"No. I am Eblis, not Aariel. And you called, and here I am," his voice soothed, "at your service. Is there anything you want?"
"Oh, no, thank you, no."
"No baubles for your ears, your lovely little neck?"
"Oh, no, thank you, no," she repeated. Her sisters would think her stupid for refusing his offer. The nephilim were generous. This nephil could give her everything he had offered, and more.
"And all of a sudden you have changed," he said. "You were a child, and now you are not a child any longer."
Instinctively, she folded her hands across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stammering. "B-but, I am a child. I"m not nearly a hundred years old yet. . ."
He reached out one long, pale hand and softly pushed her starlit hair back from her forehead. "Do not be afraid of growing up. There are many pleasures ahead for you to taste, and I would help you to enjoy them all."
"You?" She looked, startled, at the glorious creature by her, light shimmering like water from the purple wings.
"I, sweet little one, I, Eblis, of the nephilim." No nephil had paid attention to her before. She was too young. Then she saw, in her mind"s eye, the strange young giant in her grandfather"s tent. She was no longer a child. She did not react to the young giant as a child.
"There are many changes to come," Eblis said, "and you will need help."
Her eyes widened. "Changes? What kind of changes?"
"People are living too long. El is going to cut the life span back. How old is your father?"
"He must be, oh, close to six hundred years. Middle-aged." She looked at her fingers. Ten. That was really as far as she could count accurately- "And your Grandfather Lamech?"
"Let"s see. He was very young when he had my father, not quite two hundred years old. He, too, has lived for very long. His father, Methuselah, my great-grandfather, lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years- And his father was Enoch, who walked with El, and lived three hundred and sixty and five years, and then El took him-" Involved in the great chronologies of her fathers, she was not prepared for him to unfurl his great wings and gather her in, enveloping her in great swirls of purple touched with brilliance as with stars. She gasped in surprise.
He laughed softly. "Oh, little one, little innocent one, how much you have to learn, about men"s ways, and about El"s ways, which are not men"s ways. Will you let me teach you?"
To be taught by a nephil was an honor she had never expected. She was not sure why she was hesitant. She breathed in the strange odor of his wings, smelling of stone, of the cold, dark winds which came during the few brief weeks of winter.
Enveloped in Eblis"s wings, she did not hear the rhythmic thud as a great lion galloped toward them across the desert, roaring as it neared them. Then both Yalith and Eblis turned and saw the lion rising to its hind legs, as the lizard had done, leaping up into the sky, a great, tawny body with creamy wings, gilt-tipped, unfurling and stretching to a vast span. The great amber eyes blazed.
Eblis removed his wings from around Yalith, hunched them behind his back. "Why this untoward interruption, Aariel?"
"I ask you to leave Yalith alone."
"What"s it to you? The daughters of men mean nothing to the seraphim." Eblis smiled down at Yalith, stroking his long fingers delicately across her burnished hair.
"No?" Aariel"s voice was low.
"No, seraph. A nephil may go to a daughter of man. A nephil understands pleasure." He touched a fingertip to Yalith"s lips. "I would teach you, sweeting. I think you would like what I can give you. I will leave you now to Aariel"s tender ministries. But I will see you again." He turned away from them, toward the desert, and his nephil form dropped into that of the great dragon/lizard. He loped away into the shadows.
Yalith said, "Aariel, I don"t understand. I thought I saw you on the rock. I was sure it was you, and I called, and then it wasn"t you, it was Eblis."
"The nephilim are masters of mimicry. He wanted you to think it was I. I beg you, little one, be cautious."
Her eyes were troubled. "He was very kind to me."
Aariel put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes, clear and still childlike. "Who would not be kind to you? Are you on your way somewhere?"
"Home. I took Grandfather Lamech his night-light. But, oh, Aariel, there is a strange young giant in Grandfather Lamech"s tent. j.a.pheth carried him there. He has a terrible sunburn. He can"t be from anywhere around here. He says he is not a giant, and I have never seen anyone like him. He is as tall as you are, and his body is not hairy, it is smooth like yours, like the nephilim, and his skin, where it wasn"t burned red, was pale. Not white, like the skin of the nephilim, but pale and tender, like a baby"s."
"You seem to have observed him carefully," Aariel said.
"There"s never been anyone like him on the oasis before." She flushed, turned slightly away.
Aariel asked, "What is being done for his burn? Does he have fever?"
"Yes. Higgaion is keeping him sprayed with cool water, and they are going to ask a seraph what to do for him."
"Adnarel?"
"Yes. The scarab beetle."
"Good."
"He is not one of you, this young giant, and he is not one of the nephilim. Their skin burns white and whiter in the sun, like white ash when the fire has burned fiercely in the winter weeks."
The creamy wings trembled, the golden tips shimmering in the starlight. "If his skin burns, he is not of the nephilim."
"Nor of you."
"Does he have wings?"
"No. In that, he is like a human. He seemed very young, though he is as long as you, and thin."