Unthinking, Asach stepped forward.

“No! No further! You could be consumed by His Gaze!” Laurel pointed to something at her feet.

Exasperated—it was, after all, only rocks—Asach followed the line of Laurel’s finger. There was something carved there, in the stone. Peering, it was difficult to make out. Fist-sized, old, scuffed, weathered, it looked like—eyes, maybe, over a lopsided mouth, but highly stylized.

“Watch for the Angels,” Laurel instructed. “Do not pass His Angels. Wait here. I must bring others.”

So, it seemed there was to be more to the show. Asach sank down cross-legged next to the carving, and settled in for the duration. Another round-trip would take a fair stretch of time. Doodling aimlessly with one finger on the rock, picking away stray bits of mossy, lichenish gunk, Asach studied the amazing panorama. The crystalline structure was hauntingly flawless. It drew the eye into its depths, like staring into infinity. Like staring into space—the eyes played tricks, and it even seemed to twinkle from time to time. On careful study, the mica seemed to be under, or behind, or—well, Asach really couldn’t decide, but anyway somehow layered with the gemstone, as if looking through it to the reflecting rock.

The wind blew steadily across the rim, and eventually Asach worked out why the meerschaum seemed so polished: in a sense, it was. The prevailing wind passed over the lip at a nock, sending it into a swirl through the bowl. The heavier particles had long since piled up in the lee corner; only the lightest dust was blown across, sweeping and polishing the stone smooth before it. The rim was far from solid: Asach could see nooks and caves riddling the face. Some whistled spookily as the dust devils blew past, or in.

As the sun passed overhead, then sank, high cirrus played tricks with the light. A rosy glow suffused the dome, feathering like wisps of smoke. Abandoning the particle-picking effort, Asach stood and peered again, eyes squinted. Translucent light was dancing across the stone in milky swirls. Asach looked around in vain for a source; peered again. But the light was clearly coming from within the dome itself: swirling, pooling, blue and green for an instant, then winking out. Agitated, Asach looked to the others. They were smiling; clapping, waving: “He wakes!” they called. “Here come the Seers, now!”

As Laurel topped the crest, another singing band in tow, dusk fell with that sudden plummet of the sun felt only in the mountains. The pilgrims now stood hand-to-hand in an enormous semicircle around the rim, their Seers spaced behind them. The colors showed up stronger in the gloam, and the dome itself glowed brighter: now milky; now cloudy; now clear.

 “Now!” screamed Laurel, “Now! Avert Your Gaze! He Wakes!”

In that instant, Asach became intently aware of standing on the top of a volcano. Of the implications of a magma surge close enough, and hot enough, to excite that much meerschaum beyond playing at iridescent halos, and into emitting clear, incandescent, light. Of themselves, Asach’s eyelids clamped shut; of itself, Asach’s head snapped down. But like looking at the sun, mere eyelids were not enough to block the dazzle of brilliant green that bathed the dome, or the long green line that shot from the crater’s core straight up into the sky.

Carefully, face pointed resolutely downward, Asach opened and blinked one dazzled eye. The ghastly glow painted the little carved figure at Asach’s feet in ghoulish light. Blinking furiously to erase the retinal image, Asach opened the other eye and tried to focus. Made out the odd little noseless face, with its floppy hood and twisted grin, two arms folded across its chest and—and—and... And, Asach realized, as the enormous laser winked out, plunging the figure into darkness, a third arm stretching downward, three fingers extended, in the Motie signal for: “Halt!”

Involuntarily, still staring at the ground, Asach blurted: “Oh. My. God.”

“Yes!” shouted Laurel. “Yes! Who among us could revel in His Gaze and not believe!”

But all Asach could think was: Vacation’s over. Time to get organized.

The vermin crawled over almost every route leading into Beacon Hill, but never used this morning side face, because their cattle could not climb. From a distance, the cliff appeared to be sheer, but even one echo-chirp showed it to be a porous mix of tufa and tuff: easy to grip, and easy to climb.

Side Captain Enheduanna led the assault, with two hand of Warriors in column behind, the slight wind erasing their file of tracks even as they moved on. On crossing the final line of dunes before the base they spread in a horizontal array, so that no fall by one could take down another. The Warriors kicked, then stepped, then kicked, then stepped their sharp-toed, horny feet into the face and passed the time with a marching ditty, chanted down the rank one line per trooper.

Her song sung

With joy of heart

In the plain

With joy of heart

She sings and she

Soaks her mace

In blood and gore

And smashes heads

And butchers prey

With eater-ax

And bloodied spear

All day

They barked the final words in unison, then began again, on and on. Of course, the chant did not merely pass the time. It enabled each to know, at any moment, exactly where the others were.

It was not usual for a Master to accompany so small a Warrior detail into the field, but Lord Sargon had been quite explicit: “We would know the Enemy. Bring one to us. Unharmed.”

Enheduanna shook off a wave of disgust. The notion of vermin owning cattle was anathema. Vermin they were: they slept in the field with their cattle; they drank the fluids of their cattle; they clad themselves in the hair of their cattle; they burned the dung of their cattle, they trekked without regard to the ar of their neighbors, even as they laid waste to their own fields. Like vermin; like scavengers, that swarmed on the outskirts of Houses, fashioning bowers of baubles stolen from trash-piles, consuming the garbage carefully layered for compost by the Farmers, and stripping the ground around them to bare dirt. In such a case, absent their Master’s Voice, Warriors could hardly be expected to show restraint. They were what they were.

They cleared the softer rock, and now took greater care as they made their way up weathered laterite. A pair of Warriors flanked their Captain, each alternately driving home a chrshnar, the eater-ax, the razor-sharp and tungsten-tough Warrior’s fighting claw, to serve as living pitons for the clawless Master.

They paused on a step, where the baked surface peeled away from a crumbling granite core. This would be the tricky part: from there, they would move laterally, to a large cave mouth called Esker’s Tongue, named for the line of sand and gravel that poured from it to the plain below. There were almost no holds for the last post’s span: the Warriors would have to leapfrog where needed as a living chain for the Master. So, to prepare, they rested for a very short while.

The night was dark, but the cave was black. It would be better to have a Miner. Enheduanna did not bother to think too late now. It was what it was. The Warrior’s vision would get them most of the way. The rest, Enheduanna knew by heart.

Just shy of the exits, as a greenish glow made visible the porous walls around them, the hand leaders barked once. Enheduanna’s nictitating membranes snapped shut, as did all the others’, shielding their eyes from the dazzling glare as they sprinted out.

It was not Enheduanna’s job to get them to their prey. The hand leaders knew their mission. They hurtled up the rim, jerking to a halt just as the green beacon light winked out. They crouched among the rocks, two Warriors covering Enheduanna’s white fur with their black. The opal meerschaum glow etched the bowl with stark shadows. They listened. The vermin had begun their hideous noises again. They waited, counting silently: digit…thumb…palm…hand… Then, just before they’d counted to five side, with their third eyelids again clamped tight shut, they burst upwards over the lip, their black shapes haloed, like demons shot from within the beacon.