'The Girdle must be woven,' said Jasmine. 'My hands know that.'

'How?' whispered Terascouros into the terrified silence. 'By what Gateway?'

'By me,' cried Jaer in a voice not her own. 'I am the Gate for which the quest was made. Woven out of a thousand lives, male and female, stretched through time, made for this and no other reason, woven into the web of myth, given to be what I am. I have only to ... only to ...' Her voice trailed away as she turned, sought, set her eyes upon Leona, who rose, came toward her as though to speak, reached out a hand to touch Jaer's ... and blazed with incredible light and was gone. Vanished. Hazliah stared in anguished disbelief, seeming to hear from a great distance the wild, mournful howling of the great hounds.

Taniel was weeping, Jasmine wept, also, but Thewson set his hands upon her, lifting her up so that she faced Jaer at his side, Hu'ao clutched tightly between them. Jasmine cowered. Together,' she pleaded. Together, please ...' Something or these words came though. There was an instant's comprehension in Jaer's eyes, something of herself as she had been with Jasmine on the road to Byssa. She reached out to touch them both. The light flared. They were gone.

'Rhees is gone,' cried Medlo. Trees and meadows only slag and dust. Alan is dead at last. The age is embittered. What is left for me here, Jaer? You have me. Let me go!' He rushed upon her as though to seize her in his arms and was gone in that same wild flare of light.

Jaer staggered, murmured, 'Ephraim, Nathan... I only wanted to be ... Jaer.'

And where Jaer had been, where the multitude had been encompassed in one panic understanding, now was only a childish figure, slender and androgynous in the dawn light, blank-faced as a newborn, gazing with wondering incomprehension at those who remained behind. This figure dropped to the earth and lay there, fingers in its mouth, staring at the fire. Taniel wept. Hazliah clung to Terascouros in a spasm of agony too sudden to be realized in that moment. She, Terascouros, only watched, watched to remember.

The Magister stepped forward in the dawn to cradle Jaer in powerful arms. 'So we have a child now, Taniel. Yours ana mine.'

'Yours, Omburan. Not mine.'

'Ours. The child's mother, Jaera, I honoured, honouring you, Taniel. She was held in my being as no other has been held, given peace such as no other has known. She would have counted the cost not too dear, had she known the cost. Part of the price paid to her was that she never knew. And this is our child, newborn, all the past burned away in the making and breaking of the Gate.'

'It is too late for me.'

'No. You will learn. Jaer will learn. We three will make a day together to sing the name weeping of Jaera of the Isles.'

The Magister took them away, in a direction Terascouros could not see. When they had gone, she gathered up the things they had left so casually behind. The Vessel, die Sword, the Girdle, the Crown. So many, so wondrous, left with so little ceremony. Carefully she packed them away to be carried home to Gerenhodh. Hazliah would take her there. They would sing the Song of Comfort for Hazliah. Then she would go with him to Orena to see it, to meet the little people, to meet Leona's son. Busily she worked, remembered, and wondered curiously.

In the Lion Courts, a shaman planted seedling trees. New grass poked through slabs where the casde of Rhees had once stood. In Lakland, a man remembered a dancer he had once seen. In Anisfale, the heath bloomed bright about a stone which bore Fabla's name. The deep songs of earth sang on, and in that song were all of earth's creatures made whole.

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Also By Sheri S. Tepper

Land of The True Game 1. King's Blood Four (1983) 2. Necromancer Nine (1983) 3. Wizard's Eleven (1984) Marianne 1. Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore (1985) 2. Marianne, the Madame and the Momentary Gods (1988) 3. Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse (1989) Mavin Manyshaped 1. The Song of Mavin Manyshaped (1985) 2. The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped (1985) 3. The Search of Mavin Manyshaped (1985) Jinian 1. Jinian Footseer (1985) 2. Dervish Daughter (1986) 3. Jinian Star-Eye (1986) Ettison 1. Blood Heritage (1986) 2. The Bones (1987) Awakeners 1. Northshore (1987) 2. Southshore (1987) Other Novels The Revenants (1984) After Long Silence (1987) The Gate to Women's Country (1988) The Enigma Score (1989) Grass (1989) Beauty (1991) Sideshow (1992) A Plague of Angels (1993) Shadow's End (1994) Gibbon's Decline and Fall (1996) The Family Tree (1997) Six Moon Dance (1998) Singer from the Sea (1999) Raising the Stones (1990) The Fresco (2000) The Visitor (2002) The Companions (2003) The Margarets (2007)

EPILOGUE.

THEWSON AND JASMINE.

Thewson found himself among stony mountains in a wild and desolate place. The earth around him was fused, as though by a bolt of lightning, into glassy nodules. He picked up three of them, recognizing them for what they were.

When he came out of the mountains, he had the three stones in his belt pouch, smooth and dark, with a golden light dwelling deep within. He came to the town of Txibbias, not speaking one word that they understood, nor they one that he could comprehend. They were workers in gold and silver in Txibbias, exporters to the City of the Mists and to the great seaports of the east, and it was to one of the foremost among the artisans that Thewson made his needs known. He wanted the stones polished and set into a simple circlet of sea silver. He drew the circlet on a fragment of hide with a burned stick, but offered no payment.

The artisan attempted to ignore him, but Thewson was not one easily ignored. By signs he conveyed willingness to guard the premises, to hunt, to guard the caravans which went east and north along the sea. At last the artisan allowed him to sleep between the inner and outer walls of the shop, only to find him there one morning, bleeding and exhausted, sitting on a pile of what had been an armed band of robbers who had thought to steal from the artisan in the night.

From that time on, Thewson slept within the inner walls, was well fed and armed, and had the strange stones handed over to the lapidaries for polishing while the artisan drew design after design for the crown. Thewson would not have it embellished, long though the artisan pleaded for only a few simple curlicues or a delicate wreath of flowers. Only when the artisan finished, Thewson bowed deeply before the startled artist and took himself offeastward with a caravan.

He travelled with the caravan for a season, two, almost a year, crossing and recrossing the lands to the west of the great sea. There was nothing familiar: no language, no custom, no costume, no line of distant hills or river valley. Then one day he found himself staring at a child's face which peered at him from the back of a wagon, a woven lappet across its forehead in a design which Thewson knew. Though he stumbled still in die language of the place, he could ask 'where' and learn 'there,' die City of the Mists, the Temple of Our Lady.

The city was very beautiful, delicately coloured, with graceful towers softened and pillowed by trees. The veils of mist came from a great waterfall which spilled the waters of a continent across silver cliffs into the eastern sea, veils which drifted in scattered rainbows, making the city one of gardens, alive with flowers. The Temple stood beside the sea, and on its marble steps the women of the city came to offer blossoms and incense and beg to be allowed to put a stitch into the draperies of the Lady, silken garments as delicate as the mists which also clothed the graceful image within the Temple.

Among the women sat Jasmine, working intently upon a length of woven light, carrying in her needle a lacework of silver to embroider the signs of rain and cloud and sea. Thewson stood before her for a long moment before she saw him, but her look when she gave it to him was glorious and utterly unsurprised, i am almost finished,' she whispered in a tongue no other then alive could have known but he. 'See if I have done it aright.'

On her lap, new-made, lay die fringed girdle of Rhees, the Girdle of Chu-Namu not yet born for a few thousand years the belt which would bind the circles of the world together once more, the Girdle of Binding, the Girdle of Our Lady.

'It is like,' Thewson said.

'It is not like. It is! She took the last stitch, a spider's stitch. 'And, since I am priestess here, it will not be questioned.' Taking Thewson by the hand, she led him within the Temple where the filtered light fell across the marble features of the Lady, shining among her jewels and the embroideries of her gown. Jasmine drew the Girdle around the image, fastened it, stood back to look on it once more. 'I woke here, on the floor, with Hu'ao. They found me at the Lady's feet when the Temple opened in the morning. When I had learned a few words, I told them the Lady had sent for me to weave her a new Girdle. They called me blessed which is what they call pregnant women hereabouts and priestess, and cared for me and Hu'ao and for your son when he was born. He is growing big, Thewson, with skin like brown silk.'

'We can go now?' he asked, full of joy.

'Yes. I am finished. We can go now. But where?'

'To the great forest of the south were a cave is, my flower. In that cave is the stone which lives, ready for my carving. It shall be an image of Auwe, Lord of Air, set high within the clouds in that place. On his head will be the Crown of Wisdom. I have it, made for this. We will go there, you and Hu'ao, and the boy, our son.'

'Is it far? Very far?'

'It is far. Very far. But we have long to do it in. We shall live long, Jasmine. Very long and joyously.'

MEDLO.

They called themselves the people of the sunset, remembering a trek many generations in length toward the setting sun. They called themselves the sunset people, and they spoke with the gods. Often a man would wake startled from sleep to come to his fellows in hushed solemnity to say that the god had commanded him to do a thing or proclaim a thing. Often a woman would start from reverie and exclaim, 'The goddess has spoken.' They set up images in high places and went there when troubled to listen. It was not usual for them to see the god, but it happened sufficiendy often for legend to arise.

So it was that a god came to the Master Forger of Shan. The god brought a leather bag containing lumps of metal. He brought a pattern for a blade, also, drawn on parchment. These things he set before the Master Forger, the holder of mystery of the earth, the man who knows the invocations. The man looked at the god sidewise and doubtfully.

'To a god,' murmured the Master Forger, 'the making of this thing would be easy. It is your metal and your pattern, after all.' The Master Forger was looking politely at the ground, and his voice was quiet, for so was the usual conversation between men and gods properly conducted. 'It does not seem that this matter should be brought to me.'

'The invocations are needed. Firelord must be told of this and invited to participate in the making. It is customary. Necessary.'

The Master sighed. 'We work best those things we know. Metal of this kind I do not understand. It is green.'

'It is green, true. It is also necessary.'

The Master Forger sighed again. Sometimes it was useless to talk with gods because they did not explain themselves. 'As you will,' he said, picking up the metal and the pattern. Rather than explain the matter to his people, he went to the forge himself and the god plied the bellows, which was not the least surprising thing about him. He worked through the night, and when the sun rose, the metal was shaped. It lay on the anvil, green, like a blade of grass, with a curled guard and a long tang. At each step there had been invocation of Firelord and incantation of the names of the Powers and the blade had been quenched in blood and wiped on raw hides.

The god nodded, satisfied, and the Master Forger risked a question. 'What is it for?'

The god smiled. Tor me to sharpen, to make a grip for, Smith, and to take from this place to another.'

The god went away then, as they usually did, and in time the Master almost forgot about it.

And in time, far to the north, in the land of fire mountains, Medlo stood behind a stony pillar watching the place where he had laid the Sword, now sharpened to a glittering green and hiked in gold. He had not been there long. From the east a horseman was approaching, a tall man, in dented armour, his face tired and despairing, picking his way among the hot lava flows. When he stopped it was almost on top of the Sword, and he called in a hoarse voice, 'What wiliest thou, Lord of the Fire?'

Medlo curved his hands about his mouth, cried between the stones in an echoing roar. 'Strike where stone burns as thy need burns, O King!'

The horseman leaned from his mount to strike the fiery lava with the lance he held. A clot of burning stone flew up to hit him on the forehead so that he cried out. Now he saw the Sword. Medlo could see it, too, glittering, green, scarcely heated by the lava flow. The horseman dismounted, took it up to look upon it with unbelieving eyes, then rode back the way he had come.

Medlo leaned against the stone, weary beyond hope of rest. 'So,' he whispered. 'It is done. The Sword made as it was made, set as it was set, found as it was found. Done. As I am done.'

'No,' said a voice behind him. 'Not so.'

There in the fireglow stood a giant figure which Medlo thought he should recognize, except that it shifted in the shifting light. 'Northward,' the figure told him. 'Beyond the great Abyss which men call the Abyss of Souls, a kingdom waits your founding, Scion of Rhees. Even now, events so move that a people will come to you. You are not done.'

It seemed then that Medlo was led away to the north, a journey of many days which, afterward, he could scarcely remember, into a land of cleanly green, watered by many fountains. The people there were herdsmen and workers in stone. They greeted Medlo as a king foretold, and he lived there long. He was still there when Widon the Golden came out of the south to build even greater the green and meadowy land of Ris. He was yet alive, white-bearded, honoured, and as content as any man has ever been.

LEONA.

In the great forests of the north there was a tall cliff which loomed across the world, its face pocked with caves. In these caves lived a squat, strong people who hunted all the creatures of the forests and die grasslands, painting their likenesses upon the rough, curved walls of the caves. They knew the beasts of the world as they knew the feel of their own flesh, their own hands clenched around a flint knife. When they showed the children how it was that each beast lived and moved, the hunters would become the animal with each thrust of neck and head, each movement of shoulder, each stride becoming the thrust, movement, and stride of the animal. When they drew the beasts upon the rock walls, the animals breathed there as though they lived. The people were as close to the creatures of the earth as it was possible to be. They did not think of themselves in any way separate.

So it was with a feeling of strangeness but not separation that they saw one of the rare animals moving among the long grasses at the foot of the cliff. These were animals so rare that the people never learned them well enough to paint them, scarcely well enough to name them, never enough to dance their beings in the hunting dance. It looked somewhat like the great cats, which they usually avoided, but it was not one of those. It had a great, curved beak, shining and metallic, sharp as their knives, curved at the tip and knobbed like a fern frond at the base. It had forefeet clawed like those of a bird of prey, and it had mighty wings like the wings of an eagle. Its eyes were calm, like the eyes of an aurochs, yet full of understanding, and when it saw the men crouched at the cave entrance, it cried once and moved away.

The first hunter knew that the beast should not have been there, there in the grass at the foot of the cliff, but knowing it did not help matters. The cry of the beast had been the cry of the hunt, and he followed that cry, the men following him, spears dangling in their hands, unready, almost unwilling.

The beast led them three days south, down the grasslands to a place of meadows above the long, southeasterly flow of a great river. There, above the river, the beast turned toward them, crying once more. The hunt leader shuddered, his throat dry, and made a clumsy throw of his spear. It touched the beast, and the beast fell, its wings bearing once against the earth as though it might have wished, at the last, to fly.

It lay unbloodied, its eyes half closed. Around them was a flicker of summer lightning, the eyes of the beast glittering in that light. Two of the hunters took to their heels. The others watched while the first hunter cut off the strange, curled beak with his knife, grunting and sweating as though he struggled with some unseen enemy while the lightning flickered nearer in a mutter of thunder. The first hunter rose from the body of the beast, weeping, and stepped away with the brazen beak in his hands.

Wordless, he led them back as they had come. When they had returned to their own cave, he placed the beak far back on a shelf of stone in that part of the cave where they painted the animals. He never spoke of it again. Long after, one of the hunters asked if he had heard a voice in the thunder. The first hunter only shrugged, but he did not say he had not.

A strange beak it was. When the hunter people had passed away, another people came who found it where it had been hidden, and they took it with them in their wanderings. It was given to a trader, at last, who traded it to a metalsmith who made a vessel of it, plating it with silver. The Vessel was dedicated at a Temple of Earthsoul thereafter, and thereafter yet again was given to a great man, the Founding Doctor of a line of Healers.

All things are possible, and alive, and enduring, in Earthsoul.

MAGISTER JAER.

In the Outer Sea of the known world lie those verdant isles known as the Outer Islands. The largest of these is a mountainous isle, with many fertile valleys which were Separated once, in the bad time, but are now knitted together by the ancient commerce between man and myth.

Above one of these valleys is a watch tower built, so it is said, in the long ago. A stream flows nearby, plunging over the scarp into the pools of the river valley. Ow trees bloom there, and small birds sing invisibly among the mosses. The young Magister Jaer stayed often in this place while the sun rose and set, time on time, learning the way from one place to another, learning the numen of this place, greeting the numen.

'Contentment in time. Dweller.'

To this place, among others, the Serpent came. Jaer saw him out of eyes clear as dew in the morning of the world and smiled upon him which the Serpent had not expected.

'Have you sought your father yet?' the Serpent asked, sharpened somewhat by annoyance at Jaer's composure.

'Yes: The one word was all that was needed. The Serpent's body lowered until only the head was raised above the earth. Jaer reached out a hand to stroke that scaled head, whispering.

'I know your name.'

All things are possible, and alive, and enduring, in Earthsoul.

APPENDIX.

THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN WORLD.

At the end of that period which the people later called the 'First Cycle,' (FC), there was only one of the great ancient cities left on the shore of the eastern sea, In subsequent centuries that city was called 'Tharliezalor' [thar-li-AY-zah-lor] which means 'High Silver House' in the ancient tongue. What its original name may have been, none knew. It was said, however, that from this city at the end of the Cycle, and after the general destruction which encompassed much of the known world, the wizards of the first age had departed. 'The Departure' is synonymous with the end of the first age. Of the wizards some said they were high lords, others said they were devils. Whatever they had been or hoped still to be at that time, they departed the great city and went westward across the world. They rebuilt the area around Tchent, establishing a university there and a great library. They set up various places of refuge, towers and redoubts, all of which were said to be repositories of hidden, ancient knowledge. They are said to have founded the city of Orena [OH-r'nah], though some dispute this, leaving a great part of their knowledge recorded there.

At the end of this migration, this period of 'Departure,' the wizards vanished. Some said they went westward into Wasnost [WAHZ-nohst]. Some said they went 'offworld,' while others claimed that 'offworld' was only a metaphor for death. Wherever they had gone, they had left a strange heritage behind: A group of reclusive archivists in a single complex of building and tunnels at Tchent, a remote and solitary city, Orena, numerous other refuges scattered across the earth, and a few sayings. These were called, 'The sayings of the wizards.'

If half life disputes with whole life, half life wins.

If shadow disputes with light, shadow wins.

If science disputes with knowledge, science wins.

We are victorious. We depart.