“What are the acceptable names of God?”
“Almighty, All Knowing, All Wise.”
“Who were the peoples of God?”
“Ire and Iron and Voorstod.”
The great metal soldier shouted with laughter and spun a knife at the end of a tentacle. “Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ire and Iron and Voorstod. Ha, ha, ha, ha.” It leaned forward, poked Sam in the chest with a jointed, jawed extension. “Ire and Iron and Voorstod.”
“I know,” said Sam, inadequately. He did know. Phaed had told him, chained him up in the old maternity home and told him, for hours at a time. Ire and Iron and Voorstod, the three peoples who had followed Voorstod the prophet away from Manhome. Voorstod with its pastors, Ire with its priests, and Iron with its prophets: the first to rule the slaves, the second to rule the women, the last to rule the men—to rule the men, or to be used by the men, to rule. That had always been the way of men’s Gods, old men’s Gods. To use the Gods to rule.
“Ire and Iron and Voorstod,” cried the soldier, striding into the east.
Sam shivered and went on. Far to his left he saw a prophet stalking along, long legs like pistons, face hard as steel, his staff striking the ground, sending up little puffs of dust. He was too far away to see, yet Sam saw him. A prophet stalking, following the soldiers, ready to witness destruction.
“Tell me,” Sam said conversationally, “if you had no enemies, how would you live? If you had no predators abroad in the night, no fanged creatures ready to seize your lambs, how would you live? What purpose would your life have?”
“Ire,” cried a great soldier, stamping its feet to make the ground shake.
“Iron,” cried another.
The battle cry of the prophets. Sam had heard it before, that night in Scaery, when the Green-snake people and the Forest-bird people had paraded through the streets and the prophets had driven them away with trumpets and cries and quotations from the Scriptures. Old rage, never allowed to cool. Old hatred, never allowed to mend. For these were the fires from which they drew their heat. Without them, they were nothing.
Had Phaed quoted Scriptures when Sam was a child? Could he remember Phaed at all? In the kitchen among the food smells? Waking in the morning? Combing his hair? With all that hair, he must have combed it sometimes, perhaps in the warmth of rare, sunny afternoons, in the grassy plot beside the house, where the herbs grew against the wall and the hummers made soft noises in the flowers.
He could remember Maire there, combing her hair, but not Phaed. Where could he remember Phaed?
He could not find the look of the man in memory. The presence, yes, but the man, no. The presence—like Almighty, All Knowing, All Wise Himself, hovering, aware, threatening dreadful punishments—but not the man. The feel of the striking fist, the boring knuckle, but not the man.
There had been a time he had heard Phaed’s voice. There had to have been a time. Maire saying something, something about needing. And the man, unseen, saying, “A man doesn’t need anybody.” Ire, and Iron, and Voor-stod, and a man doesn’t need anybody. Anything.
The speaker not seen. A voice in the night, voices, raised, and the sound of pain. And the man, like God everywhere, but elsewhere in the dark, always elsewhere, in the dark. Old men’s religions and old men’s legends, always elsewhere, in the dark, so they could not be seen too clearly. So they could not be examined too closely. So they could go on, breeding, fulminating, burning, and rotting in the dark.
He had never thought of Phaed as living in the daytime. He was like the night creatures who came from their burrows at dusk. “Deep,” Maire had said. “Deep and black as the tomb, with the stones around and over them.”
“I was only six,” said Sam to himself, explaining to himself what that meant. What you can see when you are six is only what you can see, hands, mostly. And knees. Faces are above you if they do not kneel down. Phaed never knelt down.
Where are you, Phaed?
Far to the right the Awateh and two of his sons went by, the Awateh moving like an automaton, short steps, head trembling upon his neck, like a mechanical toy, jerk, jerk. Sam was upon the hill; they were upon the flat. He did not call to them. They did not see him, but walked on, into the east.
Why hadn’t they seen him?
Because their eyes were fixed on something else?
Sam stood, unmoving, then turned slowly around to look behind him.
Green snake and forest bird, flame fish and shelled beast, hill gant and valley slithe, purple and scarlet and mauve and blue, dancing ahead of the soldiers, ahead of the prophets, leading them on into the east, rising up out of the ground like smoke, forming in the air as from mist, shadow connecting to luminescence connecting to shadow. The Tchenka of the Gharm? The long-ago Gods of man? Marvel and mystery and joy and voices singing ecstatically between the stars.
“I know,” said a voice within Sam’s hearing. “I know what Maire knew.”
And Maire’s voice, singing as he had not heard it since he was a child. Like a prophet bird, a voice of God.
“Your Gods too, Samasnier Girat!”
And they were there, beside him, striding away, leading the prophets away, men in armor and high-crested helmets, waving swords and banners, shouting their battle cries. “Legends,” cried Theseus. “All the legends.” Battle hymns. Choruses crying war.
Theseus stooped above him, slender and strong, his hairless skin gleaming like bronze, a sword in his hand, sandals on his feet, a marble man, a monument come to life. “I raised up the stone, Sam. Beneath it were these sandals, this sword. I found my heritage. Now, I’m on my way to find my father.”
“I,” said Sam with a sob. “I, too.”
“Then the killing can begin,” cried the marble man,
