The Writer.

He was wading in a thick, viscous liquid which, by the Moon's light, reflected copper-tainted.
He was all-powerful, in control of the world he had made. The weapon he carried, a bow with arrow nocked, was warning to all who might dare oppose him...
Beneath his feet he trod the sundered limbs of those who had fallen to his will...
And the Moon shone over all...
He looked up at the radiant face and saw another - a dusky semblance that consumed the shining disc...
As his heart began to race with mounting fear and rage, he raised the bow and let fly the arrow - but it curved away from the visage that now overlooked him...
She observed him dispassionately, yet wept tears of blood...
Blood that dropped upon his own sanguine ocean and changed it...
Helpless, he watched as her blood cleansed the polluted waters, filling them with life inimical to his design. He looked down through the now clear water and saw as though by a lens the scattered remains of one in particular...
He cried out at this, her rebuke, letting fall the bow that was symbol of his dominance
And he was powerless beneath her gaze...
Her bloody tears fell upon him, burning - burning...
Her heat entered him and his sex stirred...

He awakened from his dream with a cry of horror and disgust, sitting up in the sleeping-bag so urgently it might have been filled with rats. He thrashed about emitting moans of despair until he discovered himself dry and unsullied, then he quietened and looked furtively at the night sky.

The near-full Moon gazed down upon him and it seemed the face of his dream still lingered, superimposed on the pearlescent disc: Leesa's face.

Leesa's face marred by bloody tear tracks.

He groaned and fell back into the form he had made in the forest floor. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the image upon his inner eye to fade - which, gradually, it did.

Unusually this was a dream he could remember without the pain such an exercise normally brought. For once he wished it otherwise. He concentrated instead upon the resinous smell of the encircling pines and the gentle sounds of the susurant branches. He dared to open his eyes so that he could make out the swaying, feather-like fronds against the sky and the flickering stars that defied the Moon, distracting him from looking too closely at that body.

***

"Simon ! For goodness sake man, you've changed it again !"

Cennad lowered the manuscript and peered over the half-lenses of his glasses at the man sitting at the desk: "This must be the sixth time ?" he said.

"The seventh," the writer admitted, glancing away as if to hide his embarrassment. He expected a remonstration from the older man but Cennad had already returned to his reading.

Simon thought about those words being absorbed from the page and the ways in which they had changed over the months. The dreamer, known to himself as the Down-comer and to the islanders by the title of Atea-dra or Skyfather, still lay in that high forest, beneath the stars, the Moon - but little else remained. Where Cennad read, the man who had once obsessively searched the sky for the resting place of his dead wife, Soroya, now had no wife, no name he could remember, no past. Once he had recalled L5., Lagrange Prime, as his birthplace, his home - now he knew only of the colony as yet another fact amongst so many.

In a previous draft, Simon had written of a man on horseback who had travelled an island rich in culture and craft, a complex society. Now the man of whom he wrote shunned contact with a people who were sophisticated only in their ability to live in harmony with nature. He had pared his story of layer upon layer to reach a basic theme as foreign to him as it was to the Downcomer - the islanders believed in magic.

The Downcomer found their philosophy abhorrent; he cleaved to his science and logic as a drowning man to a branch, convinced his sanity depended upon it. He considered the islanders mad in their collective delusion, not daring to taint his view of reality with theirs lest he lose his identity utterly.

Outside his memory of the tenets of science - a truly staggering compendium - the Downcomer recalled only the last thirteen years. His life before the island was unknown to him; therefore that part of himself he believed he could identify with who or whatever he had been, became a precious possession to be protected at all costs from the onslaught of the irrational.

The fact that the people of Haven, the Earthborn they called themselves, were the greatest empaths in human history was lost upon the Downcomer. He was convinced, however, that they could manipulate him if he lowered his guard for an instant - hence his horrified response to the myth-laden dream that had ruined his sleep.

The Downcomer feared loss of control more than he feared death, which latter he barely ever gave a thought.

Now, as Simon's story again unfolds before Cennad's eyes, the man lies on his back diverting thought in naming the stars not swamped in the Moon's light - and those he cannot see: tens, hundreds, even thousands of names and catalogue numbers cascade through his mind. Frequently he calls aloud, savouring the sound of names unknown to all but him in that backward milieu: Mizar, Alpheraz, Andromeda, Canopus, Capella, Rigel...

As the sky lightens towards dawn, sleep finally forces to give up his list. He surrenders for a brief time before he must continue his journey in search of Leesa-ma and the child she bore him. Tomorrow... today! would see him back where he started.

Had not his rational mind allowed him to calculate that the next night's full Moon would be eclipsed, they might have had their wish. But he would disrupt their full-moon games and claim his child.

***

Cennad grunted as he finished reading; he sat looking speculatively at the figure silhouetted against the window. He dangled the manuscript pages between his knees - hairy, sinewy and walnut coloured, as was the rest of his body. He was nude. "You've compressed, what - ten pages down to three ? "

Simon turned noisily, his swivel chair screeching, "You don't like it." Flatly, not a question.

"Well, I'm a bit surprised you found it necessary... but it works quite well, doesn't it." Cennad smiled archly.

"You old bugger ! Yes, I've saved two or three thousand words, which is always a good thing." Simon seemed to relax, his forced air of tired indifference lifting slightly. "I'm still not satisfied though."

Cennad went to say something but apparently thought better of it, said instead: "I'm sure you'll crack it - it just came as a shock to see you had returned to square one." He leaned forward and put the papers on the desk. He stretched, as unselfconscious as a child.

Simon caught a glimpse of the man's only adornment as his chin lifted his thick, grizzled beard from his chest. The colours of the tattoo were faded but the basic design of triangles and circles was clear enough - and the inverted silver ankh upon its chain.

Cennad sprang from his chair, his genitals jiggling. He disentangled the corded spectacle from the chain of the ankh and placed them on the table, adding to the clutter of papers and cups. "I'm sure you'll crack it soon, Simon boy - I'm sure you will!" His attention was already elsewhere. "I'm off for my swim, then we eat - see you at the house." He paused and patted the writer's shoulder, "You should oil that chair."

He was gone, off into the yellowing sunlight leaving Simon staring at the empty doorway. The chair shrieked again as he swung to the window to watch the tawny figure stride easily down the path to the sea. 'Oil it...' why didn't Cennad oil his own bloody chair, the antidiluvian object was his property - as, indeed, was the cottage and, apparently the whole island.

Not for the first time, the writer wondered if he had done himself any great favour accepting the Welshman's offer - when was it? - five and a half months ago?

Simon had been sitting over a coffee and a bun in the canteen at the top of Broadcasting House, contemplating the ruins of his career. He had just taken part in the recording of a program devoted to his own genre-Science Fiction. Some wit had commented that SF writers could disappear with the ease and finality of pop-groups;

Simon had shivered at the remark, as well he might. He had had a decade of success but in the last year he had lost his agent to a car crash and his publisher to the synergistic forces now prevailing in the world of multinationals.

Though all paled to nothing compared with the calamity hi his personal life when he lost his partner to AIDS.

Unable to work throughout the long months of Harry's decline, Simon had eaten deeply into his savings to support them. At first he had attempted to nurse his lover alone, then paid for professional help. Ultimately, Harry spent three desperate and unresigned months in a hospice that allowed Simon constant access. The whole harrowing period and its aftermath had cost Simon dear in every aspect of his life... and, although he refused to take a test, he feared he too carried his own death within him.

Yes, ruin was not too melodramatic a word for his situation. He had a little money left after selling the lease of their flat; he owned two suits and some casuals and three pairs of shoes. He had his PC and his old portable typewriter, a few books and a tatty rucksack, which latter he might well need to escape living with his aunt.

The coffee cup was half empty, the plate totally so though Simon had no memory of consuming either. He felt suddenly disoriented, thought of someone he had not seen in a long time — then had the disconcerting notion that he was mixing reality with a dream recently experienced. There was a sudden overwhelming scent of honeysuckle... he felt dizzy and wondered if he was going to faint...

"Are you all right...?"

Simon raised his eyes to see a monk standing over him. A shaft of bright spring sunlight lit the figure so that the writer's first impression was of some otherworldly being come to escort him... where?

"Ahhh...!" Simon jerked upright, became aware that the canteen was full of noise and that the 'monk' was a well-known radical and TV guru for the green lobby. He called himself Cennad - no other name. He was smiling at Simon, though concern was displayed by his raised eyebrows - famous, bushy ones.

"Are you all right?" he repeated, placing a glass of water and a plate bearing a salad sandwich on the table, drawing back a chair once his hands were free.

"Yes, thanks," Simon managed to utter though thoroughly confused. "I think it may be too much worry," he blurted quite without intending to say anything of the sort.

"Tell me about it," said Cennad, sitting. The response was almost certainly ironical, but Simon took him at his word, pouring out his story in a way that was totally out of character.

"Are you working on anything just now," the Welshman asked when Simon seemed to have finished and was staring unhappily into his cold coffee

"I am considering a novel about a truly in vitro birth — not what people call a 'test-tube baby' - but a human made from the ground up, so to speak. The trouble is, the process goes wrong and the outcome is an hermaphrodite..."

At this disclosure, Cennad had set down his glass with some force, splashing the contents about the table. He covered the moment by voicing a common complaint: "It tastes like it has really been through twenty people!"

Simon had not at the time appreciated just how interested Cennad now became. "That's a compelling concept." His voice was rich and resonant, at odds with the small frame from whence it came," I'd like very much to read the book you make."

"I hope you get the chance, not that it looks very likely."

"Why not?" In retrospect, Simon saw Cennad's particular attention.

"I was foolish enough to take a room with my late mother's sister — oh, she's kind

but she won't give me a moments peace. I think she feels I'm letting the family down — that being an author is not a proper job. She also knows I'm gay and is hell bent on finding me a 'nice girl'."

Looking back, Simon thought he must have seemed pretty pathetic. It embarrassed him anew as he re-lived it. Not that it had bothered Cennad - he had given Simon a steady look and made the suggestion that had brought the writer to Ynys Llechan, an island off the

"If you want peace and quiet to work, I think I can provide it. Would you be interested?"

"Well, it's too late to leave today - if you can put me up for the night, we'll catch the morning boat-train to Fishguard. That will give a friend of mine plenty of warning to meet us. What do you think?"

A wicked streak hi Simon warmed to the idea of returning to Ewell with this eccentric - it would infuriate Millie.

Aunt Mildred was a staunch Thatcherite - she even believed Hitler had his good points - but her reaction to the man in the rather disreputable habit of dark violet wool, his bare legs and tatty rope sandals was unexpected to say the least. She gushed and proceeded to monopolise her nephew's guest. She seemed to be in a kind of permanent blush and when she did finally leave them to prepare food, she had trouble negotiating the doorway with Cennad's staff clutched diagonally across her breast,

"A fine figure of a woman," observed Cennad, his voice vibrant. "Er... really?" Simon had replied, astounded at the concept. "I've never actually thought of her in that light."

Not that sex between them followed an inevitable course, he was too concerned with HIV to experiment with heterosexuality. Human contact, skin to skin, gave them easeful companionship. Mel seemed happy with his lack of desire and though he liked her more than he probably ought, Mel's tedious sessions of self-analysis kept him somewhat at bay.

At least he was able to write despite these distractions, hi fact, it had got to the point where he wondered if he'd ever stop. He was on the seventh draft of the story he had originally described to Cennad and was no nearer a conclusion. "I shall become the Flying Dutchman of the literary world - doomed forever to wander the pages of an unfinished novel," he muttered as he contemplated the table beside his makeshift desk where piles of paper grew ever deeper.

He could not blame anyone for his problem, not even Cennad, whose revelation after he had read the first draft had severely shaken Simon. He had had no idea of the depth of his host's interest.

Simon had settled on the term 'Androgyne' for his main character, rather than hermaphrodite. When Cennad had returned the manuscript he brought with him a thick folder which he lay before the writer:

"Behold the Androgyne," he had quoted, showing Simon a detailed diagram of the design that was tattooed upon his chest. There were three elongated triangles, coaxial, with a common vertex upon the apex of a forth. Delineated by these figures was a human shape: the Androgyne. The anatomical details were perfectly clear, exactly as Simon had described them.

Simon's first thought was that Cennad had produced the pictures in response to the novel - but the faded tattoo obviously predated his meeting with the man.

"The Androgyne is not a new concept, Simon," he said before the question was asked. "Not only are there many early beliefs and myths, the alchemists were deeply concerned with the symbolism of the figure." Cennad had flapped his hands deprecatingly, "Of course, you know all this... what you don't know is my personal involvement with the Androgyne."

Cennad had gone on to explain what he called his true vocation as the 'Herald of the Age of the Androgyne' He had the grace to blush as he spoke these portentous words.

"And I thought I was the only one obsessed with this image," Simon had said, forcing out a laugh.

and Millie. I had been on the box the night before, another ecology debate, of course. I had had enough of all the useless mouthing of platitudes and promises that aren't kept... I got into a blazing temper and slagged off the Archbishop of Canterbury for dissing my beliefs and my Philosophy of the Androgyne and the Minister for the Environment for the eyesores of wind generators!"

"I wish I'd seen that - Millie had dragged me off to one of her good works."

"Yes, well I didn't leave it at that, beating their empty heads with militarism and materialism and castigating them for the CO2 nonsense - what the media moguls could not take was my accusing 'God's Own Church' of blasphemy and immorality towards the Mother’s Earth and calling them both 'fucking idiots'. That did it."

"Swearing aside, valid points for your cause..."

"Maybe - but they were all so bloody shocked nobody really reacted until I said that Gore's damned book of Inconvenient Truth was nothing but lies." Cennad covered his hands and cowered theatrically.

"So... ?"

"So they pulled the plug and led me off the premises in case I took over Television Centre." Cennad sank back in the battered easy-chair and sighed heavily. "Now they have me down as a 'denialist' and for the Beeb that is the absolute end. When you came up with your plot that morning I nearly choked — I thought you were winding me up," he smiled, "but you were so preoccupied it was obvious you weren't."

"The thing I really castigate myself for is my loss of control. I have nurtured my argument for the recognition of a unifying philosophy for more years than I care to remember,

never making a premature statement lest I compromise the whole matter..." Cennad shook his head sadly, " and I had to go and wreck everything."

Simon did not wish to take a stance upon Cennad's disturbing admission, instead he looked back that day when they had travelled to Wales. "I wondered why so few people acknowledged you, the TV celebrity - you did get some funny looks.

"Aye - they were too embarrassed, everyone thought I had flipped." He groaned and rubbed his face as though he would rearrange his features. "I've gone off half-cocked... nobody will listen to me now."

"But you think they will listen to me ?" Simon realised his voice was suddenly shrill.

"It depends what your story tells -1 don't want to influence you." Cennad shrugged, "If my belief is correct, if its time has come, your work will speak for me."

Ever since that conversation Simon shivered when he recalled Cennad seemed to believe him inspired by something other - and as the drafts continued to evolve he really had begun to fear he was no longer in control of his creation.

As if responding to a subliminal cue, his mind turned towards the man he left sleeping In that pine forest so far in a future : The Downcomer.

* **

He dreams now of his distant past — but he will not remember when he wakes, there will only remain an aftermath of pain and disorientation. Any attempt to recapture his history will lead to disabling sickness - another focus for his irritable nature to feed upon.

But in his waking life it is the past he can remember that causes him the greatest anguish.

He remembered the shattering silence that enveloped him from the moment he switched off the motors of the craft that had brought him to Earth; his hand still lay upon the cut-out but he had no memory of placing it there - nor anything before that.

He knew the nature of the vessel, a shuttle of antique design but not the purpose of its modifications nor his place in the scheme of things. He did know he was on the planet Earth

in breach of an ancient interdict of Lagrange and that he should have been vaporized before ever his craft touched the outer reaches of the atmosphere. He realized he was some sort of fugitive - but from what ?

As he sat feeling hot, gross, clumsy and confused in the pilot's chair, the man who would be henceforth known as The Downcomer for the manner of his arrival, already understood he dare not draw attention to himself by electronic means. The man he had been moments before had acted upon that recognition and had floated the craft on vertical jets to beneath an overhang of jutting rock to conceal his presence from the sky.

The man he had been...

And so began the anguish that had cursed him ever since.

He did not move from his seat for hours; he stared forward through the now unshielded windscreen at a portion of cliff, some vegetation and some soil. Methodically and seemingly without volition, his mind itemised, categorised, identified every morsel he could see - living or dead, organic or inorganic, moving or inert. It was as if the vacuum hi his brain

would be filled whether he wished it or not. Although he could not see them, he mentally assayed every molecule of every compound within his scope. He did not think to question his ability to do so.

It was only the pain in his bladder that ultimately put an end to his runaway cerebrations.

He was halfway through emptying himself when he should not have used the inboard

toilet - the system could not purge itself without power. It also dawned upon him that the headache and muzziness he suffered were not alone due to the obsessive recital of facts still echoing around his skull. In the rapidly darkening confines of the vessel, the air was getting foul.

Without further though, he cracked the lock, operating it manually. The air that filled his lungs before he had even completed his task, before he even looked beyond the hatch, set off a new train of analysis as well as an almost convulsive bout of deep breathing. This time it

He might have reacted to these chemical signals in the same detached manner his traumatised mind had devoured the earlier data but his body had other ideas. His heart began to beat heavily, the blood surge in his head - and his humanity functioned at its most basic level as the same blood prepared him for the promise of his senses.

volatile and inconsistent person he had ever known - and the most vulnerable. Because of this latter quality he was thankful it was not in his nature to make sexual demands upon her. From the first, when Mel had come out of the night and slipped naked into his bed, Simon had been made aware of the peculiarly ambivalent nymphomaniacal urge that drove her. She had accepted his own reservations with what could only be termed relief.

Simon had been grateful for Mel's reaction — she had not regarded him as a challenge

or taken it upon herself to 'reform' him; but he did find himself drawn into a complex relationship with a disturbed young woman. Mel had the kind of personality that made him fear that she was a potential suicide. It was a fear that led him to treat her very carefully lest he be the cause of such an attempt.

Mel could also be stubborn, tough-minded and extremely bad tempered - frighten-ingly so. Namely, inconsistent.

Now Simon let out a groan of frustration as he eyed the sheet of paper already inserted

in the typewriter. It looked twice as blank as it had done when he wound it between the rollers.

The next scene bothered him; it had changed so often he could barely recall its original form. It bothered the Downcomer too for it was blatantly sexual and the amnesiac had as much trouble dealing with it as a cardinal of Rome.

Through his many drafts, Simon's characters had developed a recalcitrance more in keeping with a troupe of anarchic method actors on a film set and the Downcomer was by far the most reactionary. From being a promiscuous opportunist in earlier versions, he had become a neurotic celibate for reasons only barely apparent to the author.

Simon snorted. "Idiot!" he snapped at the typewriter, "whose bloody book - whose character is this anyway?"

Bleakly he wondered if Cennad was about to lose patience with him. Yesterday, when

the Welshman had realised that he was reading yet another rewrite, Simon believed he saw a flash of genuine irritation in his host. He had tried to tell himself he did not care, after all it was

not as if he had been commissioned. But several hours later, lying hi the dark waiting for Mel to turn up, he fell prey to all manner of doubts.

Admittedly, although Cennad had come clean regarding his vested interest in the Androgyne, he had done nothing to influence Simon's approach to the story... if story it was. In fact, last evening when Cennad chaffed him over the tardy meal, suggesting to Marged that

Simon had gone back to the beginning so that he might find the true ending, it had been the only pertinent comment he had ever delivered.

In the small hours it had assumed the proportions of a thunderous edict: 'Find the True Ending!'

Daylight had dispelled the worst pangs of paranoia but now, as he stared at the strip o

blank paper protruding from the machine, Simon found himself reconsidering the admonitory 'find the true ending' coupled with the inadvertent thought: 'if story it is'.

With a shock he realised that this was what Cennad was waiting for. He was expecting Simon to reveal the True Androgyne ! It was as if the man was in the room telling him...

"Find the True Androgyne !"

Where was all this going? When he had told Cennad he was still not satisfied, what he actually meant was that he could no longer grasp his original concept. He could not even recall when he had first had the idea other than the bare bones of a plot he had recited the first time they met.

The whole thing made him feel as uncomfortable as the Downcomer felt about the assaults upon his rationalism.

Simon swore: "You're supposed to be the bloody writer - so write !" He attacked the keys.

'The Downcomer came to the point where the path steepened down to the heart of the settlement; rough steps that took advantage of the exposed strata replaced the trodden earth. A sharp bend brought the scene in the centre of the village suddenly before him, a viewpoint that should have lent him a certain detachment from the proceedings below...'

'...the proceedings below! The phrase made it seem like a committee meeting and it was anything but. The trouble was, though Simon could see it clearly, it was not what he wanted any more than his character did.

With a groan of disgust, Simon pushed the typewriter away, swung out of the protest-ing chair and fled the cottage.

He, had enough! Perhaps he would find Mel on the cliff- she was always ready to get angry on his behalf, lend an ear so sympathetic to another's problems, she was ready to assume them as her own. She seemed to enjoy having an excuse to get mad.

Yet did he really need another session of angst and anger with Mel?

Truly, the whole island was beginning to get him down with its self-imposed introspections. It was all very well for Cennad and followers like Marged for whom earth closets, candles and a frugal diet were personal statements against materialism. Simon was a materialist and liked it that way. He was also a dyed-in-the-wool rationalist, "Even a Reductionist!" he sang out loud as he passed round a shoulder of rock, smirking defiantly.

He was suddenly exposed to the roar of the sea and the buffeting of a strong breeze. His senses reeled. The sun glittered on the broken waters in countless sharp points of light that seemed individually to pierce his skull. He sank back against the rock, overcome.

The sound of the sea, the cries of the gulls, the wind - engulfed his auditory centre with an organic white noise whilst the dancing light swamped his vision. His brain felt as though it was contracting as his sight dwindled to point of brightness and a sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes.

In so far as he could think at all, Simon thought 'migraine' as numbness followed, then pins and needles in his limbs. Unexpectedly, vision reasserted itself, the whole field of his

sight widening on those myriad coruscations and the scene gelled like a slide coming into sharp focus.

Simon stared, not quite aware what he was looking at, still much concerned that he might be on the verge of a disabling sickness - the usual outcome to such a prelude. However, his head no longer hurt and his stomach remained quiescent He felt remarkably good.

Something was not quite right though; something about the scene before him. Everything was on a larger scale — the sea was as far below as if he stood upon the summit of the island. To his right, the path led away into a hazy distance, undulating over a terrain of small heads separated by creeks... he gasped - this was scene from the novel!

It was as though his imagination had become reality.

The attack had been so rapid, Simon still remained rooted to his original spot at the edge of the drop, thankful his back was against the supportive cliff. The sight of the waves breaking violently below made his legs weak; what if he had toppled forward? He looked left to the narrow defile that restricted the path as it crossed the shoulder from the Hafen — had it always been this massive a gateway?

Movement beyond caught his attention, drawing him to retrace his steps to gain a clearer view. Against the backdrop of the bay, brilliant hi red skirts, a procession of women, several hundred, was climbing the path towards him! Despite the fresh wind blowing past him from the seaward side of the island, he could hear them sing.

Even as his logic rebelled at the sight, Simon noted the significantly larger bay and the complement of high-sterned tanui ranged at anchor...

His breathing became erratic as panic overtook him. The sun was like a hammer on the back of his head and his clothes were soaked with sweat. The pain returned distorting his sight, mashing his senses.

Simon fainted and his mind flew free to observe the man he thought his creation...

* * *

When the Downcomer awoke for the second time, the sun was well up. He had been dreaming again and if the pressive pain in his skull was any indication, it had been of his lost years; he knew that if he sought to recall order to the jumble of images now fading, he would be laid low with virtual blindness and vomiting - always the case if he gave any thought to the enigma if his past.

He turned his mind to the day that was in it and felt better at once, even if he was already late. He emptied his bladder and defecated in a hollow he made in the thick layer of pine needles - then, on covering his dung, stared at the spot as if daring it to do something. With a sigh of relief he continued to clear his campsite and finally strode away chewing on piece of dried meat as he went.

Because of his tardy rising it was well past noon before he began his descent from the pine-clad slopes of the highland to the lusher forest of the coastal strip. It grew hotter encouraging him to open his one-piece to the navel, liberating quantities of thick black hair.

It was still later when he noted the first signs of human activity that marked the proximity of Khee-Dra's village. The paths to the forest gardens were all about him but there was no-one walking them. He grunted his satisfaction - there was something going on. His surmise was reinforced when he came upon a group of travellers' shelters gaudy with fresh decorations typical of some impending rite.

The Downcomer detoured for a closer look... then wished he had not: there in the clear light of day was the image that so disturbed his sleep - the Moon bearing the face of Leesa-Ma and the bloody tears.

A storm of revulsion and fear raged through the Downcomer. Reflexively he drew his hunting knife and slashed at the fragile shelter, reducing it to ribbons, caring nothing for the

distress his senseless anger would cause the artist occupant. With a roar he leapt away from the clearing back to the track he had been following, springing along in a kind of war dance, waving the heavy blade as if to challenge and skewer the first person he met.

All this theatrical rage aimed at the least hostile humans ever. The Downcomer knew this even as he pranced down the steepening incline until, gradually, he began to wonder at himself- surely he was above such behaviour. He slowed and sheepishly replaced the knife in its sheath. With a rumbling cough as if to cover his embarrassment, he moved on at a more seemly gait.

The path became steeper and a series of steps, virtually slabs of strata exposed by both nature and human action, carried the walker's feet near an almost precipitous drop that demanded a degree of concentration if unfamiliar with the route. The Downcomer was paying more attention to his footing than the scenery as he rounded an angle that led to the first leg of a zig-zag. He took no notice of the silent village now below him, the thatched cones of the dwellings rising through a canopy of leaves. Not until he gained the shallow final slope that led directly into the heart of the community, the central gathering place, did the man look up.

They were waiting.

This was no ambush, no ill-intent was expressed in the body language of the group before him, though he barely noticed their evident expectation. The Downcomer's sight was instantly drawn to the open shutters of the sacred structure known as The House of the Moon

the women's hut of menstruation. He could see a figure sitting within the shady, never

normally exposed interior. Drawn by curiosity and something other, the traveller took

hesitant

steps towards the shrine.

Then his head was hurting again and a great weight of thick, almost unbreatheable air seemed to lie upon him. At first the figure appeared blurred by smoke, a haze of incense, perhaps - then he saw clear: this time storm of a different kind raced through him...

He knew what they were doing to him - but he was powerless at that moment. They were intent upon demonstrating their damned magic to make him defile himself- to make him face the unspeakable, the irrational - the end of reason.

Her eyes were lowered, or closed... she was naked and sat with her legs drawn up, apart, exposing her pudenda. She was bleeding...

Vainly he sought his anger, the anger that could save him this degradation. His rage was always ready to flare up, to burn off... what was it? What thing was it he feared most... ?

Her right hand was raised, forearm parallel to her vertical axis, forefinger pointing skyward... she bled...

There were images now -some ungrasped dream perhaps ? Shards of a past life... ? Yes! Yes, come to me... there is no pain...

Her left hand was also raised, somewhat to one side, palm out-turned, holding...? And yet she bled...

His anger was growing but it was no use to him - it was going elsewhere, transforming, changing - becoming a tight knot in his groin...
She held a sphere, a dark sphere... the Moon... the Dark Moon...?
She had said it - he remembered! She had said the words to him... when?
It was going to happen...
Too late now...
MOON ECLIPSED!
His erection burst from the open front of his onepiece, already flexing and shuddering
with the building spasm of an orgasm long suppressed. He sank to his knees, bowed over his straining penis, grasping it to his belly... weeping with a futile wrath emerging too late...
"NO-OO!" he bellowed as the spasm shook him, took him, throwing him back on his shoulders - and still he squeezed his member against him, shielding it... but he spurted nevertheless, pearly gouts spraying into his thick body hair, his beard — and even as he arched his body involuntarily, arms thrown back over his head, releasing the pulsing organ to fountain over his head, splashing his face...
But now he raged in earnest, liberated from the spell cast by the painted idol.

Now he struck out and spluttered his contempt at those who rushed to touch him - naked women seeking to scoop the copious semen from his body and place it deep within their vaginas; helped by

men equally keen to propel Atea-Dra's seed deeper into their wombs, even coating their erections before plunging them into the nearest available, eagerly offered yoni.

He kicked and thrashed at the bodies swarming over him heedless of the fact that he was twice a big as the largest islander and many times stronger. Not that it stopped the frenzied melee of which he was the centre. Only after he reared up and stumbled away shedding the writhing figures like so many leaves, did he break loose — and even then they followed...

But as he ran, he shed droplets of his fluid and, although the very thought brought fresh impetus to his wild career, its effect on the Earthborn halted their pursuit.

They stopped - as transfixed as he had been at the height of the spell. They stopped entranced by the sight of plants bursting from the soil to instant green life, twisting up to the light, growing in the space of moments...

He heard their cries of wonder and delight and bellowed like a wounded beast to cover the sound he despised, disgusted with them and worse, with himself.

The Downcomer ran on.

***

It was not until the vivid images of the Downcomer's misadventure in the village released Simon's mind that he was able to regain control of his body. Even so it took him a while to collect himself enough to feel like moving. The fact that his surroundings were recognisably normal did much to restore him. Fear for his mind and the onset of symptoms of ADDS filled his thoughts as he slowly returned to the cottage.

Marged and the boatman, Dai Thomas, were in animated Welsh conversation outside the cottage. The woman gasped when she looked round to greet the writer: "Simon! You look awful... what's the matter"?

"Looks like you've seen a ghost!" bellowed Dai, whose voice was always pitched to -warn shipping. He did look more concerned than amused though.

"Nothing to worry about - a sudden migraine is all. I'll be okay." He just wanted to get to his bed but Marged vetoed that hope.

"There's a letter — Dai's wailing in case you need to leave. The envelope is marked urgent... I left it on your desk."

Simon nodded distractedly, barely following Marged's words; he left them exchanging doubtful glances.

Moments later, Simon reappeared, a miraculous transformation having taken place -he was bouncing. "Dai, I must leave at once!" He waved the letter at the bemused couple,

"I've been offered a week as a course tutor... in Devon!" Then he seemed to remember himself and booked sheepishly from one to the other: I’ll have to tell Cennad, of course..."

"Oh, don't you worry - you pack, I'll tell him Dai had to whisk you away." Marged beamed, glad to see him well.

"Aye, come now. The tide's slack and the wind's fair - I'll give you an easy crossing." Dai grinned ruefully, Simon had not enjoyed the inbound trip through the tide race.

It was not until Ynys Llechan had disappeared into the always pervasive haze that Simon realised that he had left the manuscript littered about the table beside the desk. The disjointed variations of five months work were strewn in complete disarray where his uncertainties had left them. He gasped in dismay - then laughed; what did it matter - he was shot of the whole thing. Cennad could keep the old portable too. From now on he was back to the blessed pc.

"Is there a phone I can use at St. Justinian, Dai ?"

"Not here," he yelled, indicating the approaching landfall, "but I’ll run you into Saint David's - would that do? You hop ashore then I'll moor and be with you in ten minutes."

Simon agreed but somehow neither one saw the other again and he hitched a lift with a coastguard going off duty.

To Simon's relief, the course had been held open for him. He swiftly clinched the offer

with a gratitude the Centre manager might not have found excessive from an impecunious poet

like himself. He was not to know that Simon had long harboured a desire to teach at Totleigh. He could not guess at the ultimate reason for Simon's effusiveness.

Simon had escaped and his excuse was legitimate. He took in the almost sedate bustle

of child-free September tourists and the pervasive traffic noises and was elated - he was back in the real world. With a spring in his step, he went looking for transport.

In Fishguard, before boarding the train, Simon bought three news-[papers and the current issue of the New Scientist but it was not until shortly before Llanelli that he turned his attention to his favourite magazine. His stomach made a monumental flip when he saw that the lead story concerned the signing of an international agreement to build a full-scale habitat

At a stable Lagrange Point athwart the Moon. There was an artist's impression of the great

elongated drum of the main body with its calyx of reflective screens and solar panels. At one

end was a tapering boom that terminated in a spherical reactor housing; at the other

extremity, a dock. Officially, already named Lagrange Prime, the press had dubbed it The Golden Spike for its appearance and for its role as the first of many steps to the stars. A sobriquet justified by the first spike driven in the railroad that opened the American west.

Simon's euphoria evaporated. He had escaped Cennad and Ynys Llechan physically but he was still bound by ties that could not be sundered so easily. Lying upon the table beside his desk, repeated in several drafts, was the identical description of the habitat. Perhaps that particular design was easy to anticipate - but the names?

He stared vacantly out of the window as rows of distant council houses slid past. The sound of the carriage passing over a level crossing clicked in his ears... ki-duh, ki-duh... "Khee-Dra!" he blurted aloud, startling a woman opposite. Quickly retreating behind the journal, he heard again the Downcomer's cries of rage as fled the village.

No, it was not over - not by a long chalk.

* * *

Cennad received the news of Simon's precipitate departure stoically - he had feared something of the sort was in the offing. The writer had been showing signs of strain for the last month.

It was Marged's remark that she had seen nothing of Mel since before Simon left that disturbed Cennad most though he would have thought nothing of it but for the news that she had received a letter from America.

"She didn't open it immediately," Marged told him, "she does when her mother writes."

"How did she seem?"

"Not at all happy."

"How long ago...?

"About three hours now."

"All right - I'll go look for her. Does she know about Simon?"

"I shouldn't think so, though I did wonder if they'd had words earlier." She described Simon's demeanour.

Cennad left the house with his mind in a turmoil. For some absurd reason he had never

thought for a moment that there was anything between his niece and Simon - not with his preferences, surely? Five months and never an inkling?

"I must be going ga-ga," he muttered staring about for a direction before crossing the yard to the grassy edge of the steep drop to the Hafen. Perhaps Mel was visible down there.

The fact was he felt guilty for hiding himself away in his 'cell' at the far end of the island all morning. That he had been driven there by the lash of Mel's tongue was no excuse. He should have persevered with the girl, plumbed the depths of her obvious pain... No! That was mere fancy - there was no way Mel would let him, preferring to keep her anger to sustain her.

But what if her anger failed her...? What if it became despair?

Why was he thinking these thoughts?

Now he stood at the lip of the tree-covered slope to the enclosed bay below. The word "despair¹ seemed to sough in his head like the sighing of a cold wind in leafless branches...

"Despair...¹ The sense swirled about him — a tangible force...

Then he was elsewhere, elsewhen!

The air was thick with the stench of crude oil, a seething air, roaring a full gale of wind that crashed waves relentlessly against a gutted tanker as it ground against the island's western cliffs. The sea was a black carpet that heaved unnaturally - none of the waves thundered to rebound in clean white spray from the iron shore. The water looked like a foul volcanic mud moving on a noxious gas.

There was no light, only a pervasive gloom. There were no birds anywhere, the wheeling skeins absent. Even with his failing sight, he could see between the rocks, the bodies of the seals that once frequented them. Birds must have been embedded in that filth but he could not make them out; his eyes were too weak even if they had not burned with acid tears in the tainted air.

He was old, older than his years, aged by defeat and despair.

He clutched his staff for balance in the gale and wondered at the effort it cost him. Why bother? Everything was dead - as dead as his poor lost Melangell who had taken her own life on this very spot a mere eighteen months ago. Death was everywhere now, half the world

was dead or dying - hideous man-made plagues released by religious fanatics. Disasters, apparently natural but in reality the result of human stupidity. Suicide and genocide.

Ynys Llechan was dying and he blamed himself. He had been weak and vain, unable to fulfil the will of the Goddess with true moral courage. He had failed the generations.

Bitter memories weighed upon him as he watched the vessel split and sunder below him. This was the bitterest thing of all - years of ineffectually calling for a halt, his words no more audible than his sobs in this stinking wind... all for nothing. He had neglected his prime task for fugitive fame and ultimately failed in all.

He staggered and near fell, his robe plastered to his thin shanks pinioning them. He teetered on his staff, resisting the elements until he realised they were offering escape: with gratitude he felt the cliff edge crumble beneath his feet as the island delivered him from choice. With gratitude he slipped into space, falling towards the rotting sea...

The sun wanned his back and the green leaves moved gently in the soft air...

Cennad sucked in a breath such that he had never thought possible — the 'Lazarus Breath' of a revivified corpse! He staggered too and clutched at the air as if he was still falling, crying out his horror...

There was flicker of dark blue at the corner of his eye and Rhiwallon's voice in his head:

"Think, cousin... think!"

Yes, yes - there was something ... about Mel...? 'Dead Melangell... !

No! No... not that...

Cennad thought his heart would burst but with pain came knowledge... then he was already moving toward the place where he knew her to be.

She was leaning on the wind.

As though daring the airs, the up-draughts, the random eddies, to drop her or suck her to oblivion.

Mel was upon the very spot where, in his vision, he had learned would, could, be his last toe-hold on this life.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he watched her sway between the worlds - a breath of air from destruction upon the rocks below. Rocks where one future's day he could end his own bitter sham of a life in the death throes of a polluted Earth.

Mel's life, his life... everything hung balanced there on that cliff edge, on slippery grass, eroded stone, unstable soil - and tenuous air.

hi that moment, when he dared not speak or reach out to her lest she pull away and hurl herself from his interfering touch, Cennad knew she was his daughter... "Fy nghalon... Melangell... merch... ? he whispered.

He stretched out his arms , a gesture of supplication, then fearful the movement would overthrow her, pulled them back and clenched his fists against his chest, his eyes pleading as she cocked her head at the sound of his, oh so softly spoken words.

She seemed at first to be listening to the wind as though it had whispered to her -then she turned slightly on the ball of her foot, projecting a shoulder over the drop...

...then the ground began to slip away beneath her.

Her eyes dilated at the sight of him, her teeth barred in a snarl - and she was Mel to the end...

"Bastard!" she spat in a long, two syllable curse, he voice rising.

Then he had somehow snatched her out of the air and they were rolling in a screaming, sobbing tangle on the brink.

Mel was young and strong and desperate but Cennad was equally desperate -though concerned not to hurt in a way that she seemed to expect. Twice she wrenched free and twice he caught her, dragging her little-by-little from the edge by her T-shirt, which ripped - and he threw himself astride her body.

Suddenly she went limp, giving him a sly and wicked look. "Okay, go ahead, rape me again, you sonofabitch... why not..." then she screamed: "One last time... then I take you with me!"

Cennad wavered, stunned and frightened by the girls words - then her fingers were like talons in his genitals where they pressed against her belly. He gasped but gripped her wrists, driving her hands harder into his vulnerable sex:

"Go on you, child - rip them out if you must... but please don't kill yourself! You are more precious to me than any old bag of balls!"

* *

With a sense of guilty relief, Simon watched the Centre Manager drive out of the yard at Totleigh - guilty for refusing a kind offer of a meal at his home in Sheepwash, relief at having arrived. He pleaded fatigue and a headache, an urgent desire for sleep. It seemed churlish after the man had collected him from Exeter but food did not appeal - railway sandwiches lay hi his stomach like lead.

Actually, Simon's most immediate need was to write. Ever since he had read the report in New Scientist, he had been hi the grip of a feverish sensation like mental hives. For the remainder of his journey his reading had lain ignored as he tried to come to terms with what he

feared was happening to him. Bleakly, he recalled Cennad delivering a kind of benediction the

day he started writing: "May the Spirits of Prophecy guide you," he had intoned, raising his arms theatrically - then he laughed. Simon had thought it an act, now he wondered. Cennad , he realised, liked to play the eccentric as camouflage, but the fool was he who fell for it. There

was an extremely sharp mind in Cennad's head and a complexity the writer had barely touched. The Welshman exercised an influence upon him that he just did not understand — not the how and not the why.

No wonder the book was like no other he had written. Why, it wasn't even his idea, he was sure of that now...

How did Cennad do it? There was no answer easily forthcoming, not if Simon wanted to remain sane.

As the train rolled on, he squirmed in his seat trying to ignore the scrutiny of that woman opposite.

The 'why' was a little easier to understand - the Androgyne was the key to that. Then suddenly, Simon realised something crucial even if it wasn’t very rational: he could see into the

Downcomer's head... well, in a manner of speaking. He would see the whole story as long as he continued to write it, not just the Downcomer's but everyone's. He would know the future!

Simon stifled a nervous giggle at the absurdity of the notion - why, he might even discover who Atea-Dra really was! He laughed aloud and his neighbour blushed then rewarded him with a glowing smile. They both relaxed though maintained their silence.

Simon did not consider himself brave but he was curious. He was very keen to know the outcome of this story and where he fitted into the scheme. He was fairly certain now that he

did fit somewhere. Like Atea, he felt he was playing out a role at another's behest, the difference was the former's desperate need to cling to his rationality blinded him utterly. Maybe Simon was luckier - he was beginning to see the light.

Once in his quarters, Simon lost no time settling himself on the bed, a refill pad on his knees. Ballpoint raised he had a sudden sense of the incongruity of his situation; he had come to Totleigh Barton to teach writing within his genre - yet here he was about to embark upon what amounted to automatic writing!

He was sufficiently aware of himself to know that he might be surrendering to a delusion... "Ah, well," he sighed, "Jung survived - so can I."

So it was, before sleep finally overcame him, he transcribed the Downcomer's misadventure in the village and his subsequent reunion with Leesa-Ma and their child.

Simon was asleep before he dropped the pen bur roused with a start when the pad slid to the floor. In the momentary hiatus he realised that he had not given a thought to Mel since the incident on the cliff path. He slumped lower on the bed with a groan then slept -guilt would have to wait.
***

The Downcomer did not stop running until he had gained the shore; did not stop, until

skidding on his knees, he plunged his head in the tide. He scrubbed at himself as though expunging the evidence of some horrible crime and continued until he could barely breathe for the water he had inhaled.

Gulping for air, he looked up - and found himself the focus of a silent semi-circle

of serious and concerned children. He staggered to his feet looking wild and massive, a deep rumble beginning in his chest...

"Quiet, Downcomer - you will frighten them!"

The voice struck him like a lash from a whip causing him to spin about seeking the source of this new assault. The diminutive figure of an old woman confronted him, a mere wisp of bone and sinew and very little else. He recognised her instantly.

"You!" he bellowed, scattering the children like fish from a predator. Then he controlled himself taking a mighty breath and letting it out slowly. "You," he repeated, quietly

now, "you sent me on a fool's errand..." Now he hissed: "Tell me, grandmother, where is Leesa-Ma? Where is my child?"

"Nowhere you can go, Atea-Dra. You have turned from the teachings. You, who should

be many times blessed remain in your ignorance!" She spat the words at him penetrating his anger, leaving him at a loss to understand her anger, he was the angry one. Suddenly she stepped close to him, reached up and snapped her fingers under his nose, "Go to your bird and sleep!" she commanded.

The Downcomer had the extraordinary sensation of inhaling her words. Meekly he turned away and walked towards the enigma that was his home - the shuttle.

The 'bird', as the Earthborn called the craft, was huddled beneath an overhang of rock

under the great cone-like hill that backed the bay. Like Crusoe, if for different reasons, he had enclosed the vessel with a palisade - though he had a normal enough gate for entrance to his compound. The shuttle itself need no such safeguards, it was the Downcomer who needed to distance himself from his empathic neighbours.

He cast a lethargic eye over his home; he blinked hard, fighting fatigue — there was something not right. He looked harder: the main hatch was open! A rough ladder he had made, leaned upon the sill.

Years ago, he had shown Leesa how she might manually open the craft in his absence. Now he could have not had more concrete evidence of her whereabouts.

His obsession to find the child gripped him anew driving back the need for rest. With a growl, he mounted the ladder and hurled himself into the cramped living-space... there was no-one and no sign of occupation. Only that open hatch mocking him.

He began to go through the motions of removing his backpack then with a heavy sigh realised he had lost it somewhere — the village probably.

In an effort to stimulate his brain, the Downcomer searched out a flask of spirits he had distilled long ago. Gulping at the fiery liquid, he stood in the lock and looked over the bay. For the first time he noticed the shore was dotted with canoes and the placid waters with a number of sizeable twin-hulled vessels - tainui.

At last his logic began to work. As he had surmised, some festival of the Moon's eclipse was taking place. Had he not been so angered by the image on the tent and the business in the village, he would have realised sooner. The open doors of the House of the Moon could

only have meant a fertility rite of unusual import. He shuddered at the memory of his involuntary participation, but held to his reasoning: a rite that brought people to the bay in such numbers had to mean the use of the most sacred site in the island, namely the Cave of the Womb.

He realised with almost savage satisfaction, Leesa-Ma was just the other side of the hill from him and some unadmitted part of his mind also knew she wanted him aware of the fact.

The Downcomer left the shuttle and headed for the western end of the bay. At a pace that belied his earlier fatigue, he stumped up the steep flank of the hill where it extended a sheltering arm about the Haven's peaceful waters. He paused to look back at the impressive tainui and saw the children splashing about them as though the sea was their element. He saw the crone standing alone on the shore - she was watching him.

He turned away, once more leaden-footed and with an effort climbed the last few metres, passing through a natural gateway that guarded the hill's shoulder. He was instantly assailed by the roar of the open sea and the buffet of the wind.

His sense reeled. The lowering sun glittered on the broken waves like liquid flame. He

sank back against the rock, momentarily overwhelmed by confusion. A sharp pain in his head made him fear migraine as did the sudden onset of a host of false memories, an odd smell and

an aura of intense uneasiness. Hot juices rising in his throat reminded him of the spirits taken on an empty stomach. He cursed himself for a fool and sought to orient himself.

To his right was the familiar path he had walked so often. He had frequently explored the huge cave about a kilometre away across the wild cape despite the taboo all other male islanders scrupulously observed.

Unaccountably he now contemplated that short walk and what lay at the end of it with peculiar horror.

The way was a switchback of declivities and crests as the path ran over knuckle-like heads - truncated fingers as though a blade had severed digits from a hand. An image made more extreme by the red oxide-rich rock and now, the setting sun.

The Downcomer considered the route, swaying with indecision. He was afraid, he had to admit. Why? A burden of obsession years old about to be discharged? What could possibly engender this... terror?

He reacted as he so often did, for his emotions always tended to extremes of irritability - anger was never far from fear but the equation was reversible. With a wild cry that

was half sob, half challenge, the Downcomer launched himself down the slope, using his momentum to carry him up the next and so on for several promontories, then a blast of wind whirled him about and giddiness overtook him. He stumbled and rolled and sought to regain his feet by scrambling on knees and hands, but he collapsed winded upon the rise and vomited painfully, retching up the burning remnants of his unwise drink.

Minutes later - it could not have been the hours it felt like, for the sun still hung red above the horizon. He sat up; he stared at the hot disc and the sword of bloody light that lay upon the sea and seemed to lead directly to his throat. He was still conscious of fear but he was also consumed by an immense stubbornness. He hauled himself to his feet and shambled on.

There were now only two promontories left between the Downcomer and his goal but time and distance seemed to dilate, he felt as though he were at the heart of some relativistic

singularity. He moved through air that dragged at both limbs and lungs like liquid gravity. Immense pressure seemed to bear down upon him, squeezing inexorably. Somewhere around the base of his brain a focus of pain sharpened, expanded like the mad heart of a nova... then the impossible happened: the Downcomer's centre of consciousness split from his body and he hovered, a detached observer, above the shambling form that was his physical self.

But as he observed this titubating fool, the one forced to call himself 'Downcomer', was suddenly aware of an intense desire to free himself utterly from this monstrous creature. Some part of his mind - maybe that nocturnal nucleus that recalled the man he used to be — cried out for release.

hi vain.

Tugged like a captive balloon by this sweating, gasping, farting creature, the Downcomer entered the Womb of the Earthborn and the presence of the mother of his child -and of that child.

The cave was immense. The great fold of up-thrust strata that made the hill that towered over the bay, was here undercut by the collapse of softer material, hi the past, tsunamis had licked out the detritus leaving a vast space with a central tower of some twenty metres reaching for the dome far above.

The rock was red and the light was red. The sun's fiery disc seemed to press into the cavern like a distended giant close to its end.

The area before the tower was occupied by several hundred women wearing only the red skirt of their menstrual status. The tower and those who stood upon it were the focal point of all below, their uplifted faces rapt

None of the congregation showed any awareness of the man who stood just within the cave's entrance though he was a huge black silhouette casting a dense shadow towards the tower.

None save Leesa-Ma...

She was celebrant. She wore a red robe which, as if his sudden appearance was her cue, she threw off. She was naked. Leesa-Ma raised her arms in blessing then lowered her hands, caressing her breasts then her belly which, by leaning back and pushing her hips forward, she made seem gravid. Two women who flanked her took her weight as she inclined herself, bending her knees and opening her thighs to expose her womanhood.

Her labia, now visible beneath the dark pubic triangle, seemed pale in that sanguine

light. To the Downcomer's non-physical sight, the vaginal entrance appeared lit of itself, as though here was the centre and focus of all things. It was thought he did not wish to give countenance.

Dully, as if he knew what was about to happen, yet could not stop nor turn away from, he watched the radiance intensity. The phenomenon could not have been visible to him alone for the watching women reacted in unison. They commenced to give voice to multilayered tones which, to the observer's preternatural ear, held the promise of something inimical.

hi that cathedral-like space, the sound swelled awakening echoes and counter-echoes until the very air throbbed with harmonics that had their visual analogue in the pulsing light issuing from the vulva of the woman high above. The groundswell of sound melded with the overall thunder of the ocean. The red light bathing the scene - bar that expanding mandorla centred on the loins of Leesa-Ma, lent the chamber a uterine quality the watcher found hideous.

But now, he too became a participant, unwittingly.

The sun, sulking rapidly, projected his stark black shadow across the chamber towards the fecund almond. The Downcomer was appalled to see that he was so manipulated that he must play-act his own phallus in this grotesque show of light and dark. Impossibly, his shade

lay upon the mandorla as though it were a screen - as if he was entering her... "Atea! Atea!" the women cried...

Then the sun was gone and the shadows coalesced. The wind moaned about the walls of the cavern as the women fell silent and the night robbed the scene of all definition...

Only the mandorla, the vesica piscis, remained.

A silence now pressed upon the man's captive mind, a silence as intense as the radiance was becoming. The more bright the light, the more it seemed to be defined by its own

boundary; it did not light the chamber which was now utterly black save for the evanescent glimmer given off by those women in a similar state to himself. Many could see the phenomenon as well as he - another insult to his rationality for he could see their spirits!

Horrifying as this was, the implication paled into insignificance set against the realisation that he had been used - moulded as easily as a piece of soft clay.

The mandorla flickered, pulsed... and he witnessed the second birth of the one he had sought for over a decade...

A cry went up, exceeding in volume and feeling anything that had gone before -joined now by the bass voices of the island men who had followed the oblivious Downcomer to the cave. Even the children were here to witness this thing...

To witness his degradation, as he would have it.

He saw the creature he had been duped into fathering hi both the literal and figurative sense, enter the material world - his rational world - bringing from other dimensions...

NO! He would not bear it... give it credence...

Overloaded beyond endurance, oppressed by a premonitory sense of horror engendered by that rift in Time and Space, the Downcomer's mind fled back to the flesh.

He crashed to the ground unconscious.

* * *

Cennad was having trouble containing his anxiety. Mel had accepted his belief that he was her father with a curious equanimity, even docility. She had ceased to struggle at the cliff edge and calmly allowed him to lead her back to the house before becoming tearful and exhibiting a febrile excitement that bordered upon the hysterical. Nothing she said made sense, then, exhausted, she collapsed into a deep sleep.

That morning she had appeared self-possessed and business-like. "When Dai comes, I am going over to telephone mother," she said. "She and I have to talk... I hope you don't mind... ?" Cennad had the distinct impression she wanted to add 'father' but was afraid to without confirmation.

"Who am I to mind, cariad. You talk - but I think 1 had better write." He smiled ruefully, "I am a coward, you see."

Now, filled with apprehension and not a little guilt, Cennad awaited his daughter's return. He scanned the waters for a sign of Dai's boat. Though the pearly haze so prevalent about his island made an early sighting unlikely. He was turning away when a distant movement caught bis attention — another vessel was approaching Ynys Lleehan and a mighty odd one at that.

The more he stared at the shape that was materialising out of the mist, the more Cennad felt that this was an exotic fugitive from a pirate movie. Once free of the murk, the vessel began to heel, seeming to pivot beneath her massive mainsail, then she ploughed majestically with all the authority of a full-bosomed dowager towards the entrance of the Hafen. Cennad was unsurprised to see a lanky figure moving nimbly about the deck making adjustments - he looked like a perfect piece of stock casting: black skin, shock of white hair, all knees and elbows.

Cennad could not shake the sense of utter incongruity this vessel engendered.

A hefty bowsprit sporting a jib that even now the deckhand deployed more effectively

before turning his attention to the extraordinary main... "What is that," he muttered, "some sort of lateen... ?"

The great sail began to diminish a panel at a time - then it was that Cennad realised that he was looking at some sort of hybrid junk. He laughed aloud at the oddity of it - not at the superb vessel she was but at the sheer strangeness of her presence in these waters.

Then, almost suddenly, she was through the arms of the bay, her blind-like panels rattling as the airs became fitful in the sheltered harbour. He could hear her jib flap heavily. The clatter ceased as the main's final segment closed against the boom. The deckhand ran

forward to release the jib; apparently simultaneously, he knocked the brake from the windlass to give the anchor free run. Aft, beneath an awning as russet-coloured as the sails, an unseen steersman put the helm hard over to bring the junk up, pivoting upon the anchor cable even as the flukes bit the ground.

Apart from ripples striking the shore there was nothing to suggest the junk had not been floating placidly within Cennad's sight for hours — but he was suddenly unnerved by this uninvited visitation and what it might portend. The dark figure on the deck was looking up at him as if he had known his whereabouts all along. Reflexively, Cennad moved back amongst the sheltering trees, leaves forming a mosaic over the scene below. The man, who was obscurely familiar, stared on.

Wind griped in Cennad's gut, reminding him painfully of days he thought long past when every new thing was an ordeal. His hands even fluttered to conceal his bruised genitals before he stopped himself and moved them back to his hips. He gave a snort of disgust: "Has Timothy Jones come back to haunt you then, Messenger?" he asked aloud. As if in answer his gut clenched and stabbed with gathering flatus; with now small relief he emitted a fart loud enough to resonate sharply off the wall of the house on the other side of the yard. A swift mood swing and he was amused and not a little proud of his effort.

"That's a novel way to attract attention," Marged leaned buxomly over the half door of the kitchen dangling floury hands.

"Come and see, girl - we have a visitor." He waved her over, going forward again to take in the unobscured view...

...then he was gazing down once more upon that other scene...

Blessedly, there was a difference. Cennad found himself the onlooker — his consciousness did not reside within the swaying figure overseeing the wreck of his world and his life. Furthermore, Rhiwallon stood at his side; the sage touched Cennad's arm:

"Edrych, cefnder..." and with a pass of his left hand the scene grew faint, transparent - disappeared. Now Rhiwallon pointed at the alien vessel in the familiar backdrop of the Hafen. "The stream of Time has been diverted - you have saved this Hafen for the Mother's Work."

"The Mother...?" Cennad gasped as his mentor nodded. "I don't understand, Rhiwallon."

With another gesture drew back the scene of Cennad's apparent death, though the vision seemed degraded, losing definition.

"Mortals must die, cousin - even as I did. I too saw my passing in just this manner, though in happier circumstances" he banished the scene and turned to look into Cennad's eyes.

"I will tell you what my mentor told me, she said this was the 'threefold death' - you know the term well. A death upon earth, in the air and in water... where earth is the fixed past, air the never grasped present and water the shifting, mutable future."

"Are you telling me, I am dead?"

"Did you not feel your death...?"

"Oh, indeed - it seemed real enough but..."

"But... ?"

"I think there is more to it." As he tried to order his thoughts, he glanced across the yard

at the misty, almost static Marged. As ever, Rhiwallon's presence virtually halted Cennad's sense of Time. He drew his mentor's attention to the effect. "I have almost become accustomed to this sort of thing but now there is some new thing to contend with."

Rhiwallon looked pensive, more than a little worried. "Indeed, Cennad — I have no true explanation. I admit I was groping to interpret what happened to you in the fatal vision." The old man in the dark blue habit sighed and gestured uncertainly at the vessel below:

"The Mother has spoken with me... "

"She is there!" Cennad interrupted.

"Hush... let me speak." Rhiwallon seemed close to tears. "She explained this matter in simple terms - she said a stone has been cast in the Pool of Time and the ripples have barely begun to spread. He stared intently at the bay as if it were the pool in question. She also said that the ripples will rebound..." Rhiwallon fell silent as together they sombrely contemplated the scene - Cennad visualising an interference pattern of waves.

"Rhiwallon, that 'other¹ me that fell... do you know that have complete recall of his life and his world - a subtly different world to this. It is as if I can look over his shoulder at events that I can recall, yet because his responses are different from mine, they have... had... a different outcome."

The sage looked mystified then shook his head. "T fear the philosophy of your age has

overtaken my simple comprehension. I regret to say that the Mother is correct when she told me that my part in your education is at an end." He raised a finger to quell Cennad's sudden concern. "Stay now, my work is done and done well if the Mother believes you stand ready to take on the burden she will place upon your shoulders."

"Will I never see you again ?" Cennad faltered.

"Who can say we shall never meet in the Strangeness of Time? Should you have great need, you may call upon me and I may be able to respond, though it is now time for me to move on to a long delayed rebirth and make good my knowledge of the material world." Rhiwallon drew back, raising his hands hi blessing to his student and descendant. "Ffarwel, cefnder - serve our Mother well."

The figure in the dark blue robe wavered like splintered reflection on disturbed water... and was gone.

Cennad staggered, almost falling to his knees.

"Cennad!" Marged was still crossing the yard, her floury hands raised in consternation at the man's stumble, quite unaware of the interstitial meeting.

Cennad steadied himself just as she reached him, enclosing him in a powerful and caring embrace. "Are you all right ?"

"Wrth gwrs," he replied, collecting his wits as quickly as his balance. "I stubbed my

Dear Mr. Jones,

Many years ago, I read with pleasure and a great deal of optimism, your book 'Inside the Rainbow'.

Your vision of the future was like a clarion call to all who valued the planet. You pointed the way by example, there in your Welsh fastness - a way that demanded of us Westerners a commitment to change our materialist madness before it was too late.

As I said, "years ago'.The vision, both your own and that of others, has been swamped as so many of my generation grew away from their idealism as if it were acne and sought those very things we had so fervently eschewed. I have to confess that I have been no better at holding to your example; age and the demands of living and working whittled away at resolve and gave over to compromise, then surrender.

I saw your outburst of righteous indignation on TV several months ago. You You gave me a thorough jolt if not those you railed against that evening. Made me look at myself and at your book anew.

That book was exceedingly difficult to run down. Very few copies seem to be in circulation. They must, like my own, have been passed from student hand to student hand until they fell to pieces.

At last I found a copy, read again your call and succumbed once more to its spell. Perhaps I should have written to you then but I wanted to see if I could track down the publisher and the copyright you gave over to fund that Green venture that meant so much to you.

After a long search, I found the widow of the man I sought and bought the rights from her.

I would like to pass them back to you. I would also like to publish a new edition bearing witness to your current thoughts on the planet's future and that of the human race. Most particularly I would like to give you a means of expounding upon the New Religion you so briefly mentioned that night before they so abruptly cut you off.

If you find my proposal agreeable, please let me know and I will come to see you immediately.

Yours sincerely Laurence Simnell, Holly Books.

Cennad reread the letter before looking up over his specs at the two who watched him so curiously. Both Marged and Dai had sensed the sudden tension in him.

"This man wants to publish my book again!" He dropped his glasses to hang on his chest yet stared at the print in disbelief. Even as he had said the words he was aware of the temporal dichotomy...

"You wrote a book !" blurted Marged, astounded.

Cennad's face betrayed his confusion. He knew he had never written this book, but he knew who had. Somehow Simnell's lines were crossed. Playing for time he donned the glasses again and inspected the sheet of expensive paper: 'Mr. Jones'... yes, Timothy had done this thing. Somewhere, across a temporal line, Timothy was still alive - Cennad had realised the vision was set in the future, and that if he put his mind to it he would know what his twin was doing. But he did not want to subject himself to that.

"Who is this man?" roared Dai, perceiving another source of trouble to add to his own.

Still flustered, Cennad took off his glasses then held the letter at arm's length, screwing up his eyes. "Laurence Simnell of Holly Books — mean anything to you ?"

Dai shook his head distractedly but Marged nodded. "They do gardening books and big glossy science and history for children... you know the sort of thing."

Cennad was not sure he did but Dai seemed prepared to be satisfied. "Well, at least he's the real thing, I suppose." His voice was gloomy, his preoccupation evident.

Happy to divert attention, Cennad asked: "Come on, Dai — what's up?" "We've got problems, Cennad . Dai's had a letter too." Marged said getting a gruff

look from the big man.

"Take no notice, man," he said, his voice now uncharacteristically low.

"Tell me..." Cennad cleaved to their trouble as a diversion from his own turmoil. "Come on, Dai?" he repeated.

"Oh, it's the Council - they want to knock our house down!" he shrugged helplessly. "My mother's house, I ask you! For a fucking lay-by... oh, sorry girl." He looked sheepishly at the horizon. "Marged was going to move in with me when she finishes here. They'll pay, of course, but property is going mad as the English buy us up - nothing I could afford... " he tailed off dejectedly.

"Well, Dai - your hen dadcu had the cottage. You can have it too - at least I'd know where you are instead of wondering if you were coming in."

The boatman looked stunned whilst Marged squealed. "The cottage!" he havered. "I don't know what to say..."

"Well, don't say anything — there were always Thomases hi that cottage until your mamgu refused to live on the island." Marged was leaping up and down and Cennad had to grin at the moving sight. Suddenly she enveloped him hi a hug and kissed him whilst Dai looked on, blushing happily.

"Now," said Cennad, once released, "where's Melangell?"

"She leapt out of the boat as soon as we touched - didn’t she come here?" Marged glanced at the junk. "She was much taken with the visitor."

"Oh dear, what now, I wonder. How did she seem?"

"Okay, a bit quiet, perhaps." The look on the man's face took away something of her own relief. "Is something wrong ?"

"I expect I'm in hot water again... don't you worry about it but I had better go and find her." He grinned disarmingly at the couple. "Why don't you two go and make plans."

Cennad suffered a sharp pang of loneliness as he watched Marged and Dai descend the path to the cottage, arms about each other, deep hi excited conversation. He realised the letter had reawakened old, long suppressed feelings that showered his mind with a host of blurred memories and intense depression.

It was the book. How he had hoped for so much to come from it. Simnell might well say it took a while to track a copy down, he consigned at least a hundred copies to the compost after that idiot had given up trying to sell them. He grunted and stared moodily at the letter - that could go in the compost too.

Memory of that book had once again opened the wound of his hurt after Lleucu left him for America. She had nursed him subsequent to the fall that gave rise to his neurological ills and he had thought they would never part — but she had gone and married that man.

Tim had loved her and Mel was the child of that love... dead Melangell.

Dead Melangell!

Cennad gasped. He had never written that horrid book - his other self had !

Now there came stab of pain in his skull as he tried to unravel the confusion. How could he have physical knowledge of something he had never done? Yet 'Inside the Rainbow' had changed his life... no, it had not...

Cennad went to wall on the south side of the yard and sat, Ms legs shaking. 'Horrid book', he thought - why horrid ? Mentally, he reviewed this thing he had never done - and saw it was awful. The only good thing about it was the title, for the rest - the magical mumbo-jumbo and the indifferent poetry - it was horribly embarrassing. Cennad had fancied himself a poet once but had never sought publication seriously because he felt he fell short of the mark.

That Cennad - Tim - had not turned his back on the rituals he was supposed to observe as Steward of Ynys Llechan or espoused environmentalism. He wrote the book but did not live by the 'green' precepts he talked of. Cennad had given up the sterile rituals for bis

own approach to the Stewardship once he had discovered there was no compulsion other than empty tradition. He had worked hard in the environmental arena and, had he not blown it all by ranting on camera, he still would be.

That brought him back to Simnell. He could not believe the man was serious about republication... but Cennad could rewrite the whole thing and thereby give voice to his vision.

Then that other vision surfaced before his inner eye reinforcing his reluctant admission that he was in touch with another self. What price string theory, he thought wryly. Perhaps the publisher was in the wrong time-stream but that could be of advantage to his Work.

Cennad left his seat on the wall and crossed the yard to look down on the junk. Was it

not possible another hand was guiding matters? He gave an involuntary shiver - the thought was frightening and exciting.

* * *

He opened his eyes, then shut them again. For a moment he thought he had lost half his vision, then realised that lying as he was, his view of the cave entrance against the moonlit

sky presented a hemisphere bright with scudding clouds. The Downcomer sighed gustily. "You return to me at last, Atea-Dra."

He remembered the first time she used that name, though without the suffix of paternity. The realisation jolted his viscera — swiftly he sat up, twisting to look into the gloom from whence the voice had come.

"Yes, Leesa-Ma lo Callendari, I have run you to earth at last... where is our child?" He suffered a flash image of the figure stepping out of the vesica... "Where is the girl ?" "Rebis sleeps now, Downcomer."

"Where ? I must see her !"

She moved softly towards him out of the darkness. The indirect moonlight rendered her ghostly.

"Go to your bird, Atea-Dra." The words were like leaves falling to cover him, to stifle him... and he wondered at the simile his mind had produced: it did not seem like him at all. He shook the thought away with an oath and quickly gained his feet.

"I will speak with you again," he said imperiously as if dismissing her. "I go to my child."

"We shall both go - to our child." Leesa-Ma corrected him, "For this is no ordinary sleep."

He did not let her finish. He knew something untoward had happened upon that tower

of rock - the girl had fallen! He ran then and traversed the cliff path as easily as he ever had by daylight but he was far too preoccupied to notice.

Leesa-Ma smiled at the man's precipitate flight and followed quietly with less haste though with sufficient speed. She rounded the point and looked down into the bay in time to see a harsh brilliance never before seen in that place as light flooded the interior of her mate's strange vessel.

To avoid detection and his flaunting of the Interdict, in those last moments before he forgot himself, the Downcomer had shut down the vessel's system completely. Obeying a deep

rooted compulsion, he had never so much as used a hand torch. But the sight of the figure in the bunk drove all such caution to the winds. Within moments the long quiescent power cells had remembered their patient physics — light filled the cabin.

The first thing the Downcomer realised was that the face cradled on the pillow was at

peace and undamaged by any trauma. His rational intellect was obscurely offended - surely if she had fallen from that tower... he drew back the sheet to reveal her naked body. Blood there was...

The dark flow of first menstruum.

He took hold of her wrist, searching for a pulse but became instantly aware of the limbs peculiar tone. With a sharp intake of breath, he raised an eyelid, directing the bunklight upon the unresponsive pupil of a catatonic. Almost by reflex, he reached for the interface of the medical monitor and fitted the bamd about the girl's head.

Now he looked again at the torso and abdomen and noted a third condition that induced a low moan of distress to rise in his throat.

A soft fuzz of auburn hair delineated an adolescent mons veneris. Just visible between

the lower tip of the triangle and a blood-soaked pad was the object of the man's

consternation.

Not a well-developed clitoris but the obvious glans of a penis.

Before the Downcomer could pursue his examination, Leesa-Ma stooped into the cabin.

"Is this the child you bore me?" he hissed.

Leesa-Ma screwed up her eyes and looked around the brightly lit interior as though she was seeing it for the first time. It seemed as if she chose not to hear his question. She was as uniquely tall as the man - no male Earthborn could match her two metres - thus she did not

seem vulnerable in the Downcomer's huge presence. With a cool look, she finally answered him:

"That indeed is the child you fathered," then she continued to examine the cabin. An extreme pallor bleached the Downcomer's weathered face, followed by a rising flush that burst forth in a flood of perspiration.

"NO!" he bellowed, a dreadful sound in that confined space.

"Yes," she said quietly and Leesa-Ma touched her daughter's cheek gently with the back of the furled fingers of her right hand. "Rebis is our child."

The Downcomer backed away from the two as though he would put as much distance

as possible betwixt himself and them. He was stopped by the bulkhead where an unfolded bench seat pressed the back of his shins causing him to drop like a man overwhelmed by fatigue.

"Hermaphrodite..." he muttered, then raising his head with an effort added: "do you understand what we have here ? " He tried to sound as detached as a demonstrator but only managed to convey contempt.

"Oh yes, Atea-Dra - we have a miracle."

"Pah!" he retorted and dropped his head heavily into his hands.

"Rebis is the Prophesied One of Earth's Youngest Child, Atea-Dra," Leesa-Ma said going to stand before him, her long fingers seeking the angle of his jaw beneath the matted beard. He shifted like a half-wild beast, her smell disturbing him. "Fetch me water that I might clean her," she asked in a conciliatory tone.

In a daze, he complied, then watched dully as she dealt with the flow. He was aware the woman did not rebuke him for his presence nor invoke taboo. He assumed the women had performed the ritual of the first blood whilst he was unconscious in the cave. Leesa-Ma seemed to read his mind:

"There is no longer need for taboo in the realm of The Androgyne," she said. The Downcomer ignored her words, now choosing to remain detached, observing the anatomical details exposed as the woman worked. There was no mistake, once the legs were parted, the penis was even more evident - as were the labia which doubled as scrotal sacks.

"Does he... er, she... it! use that organ to micturate?"

"Yes," Leesa-Ma disregarded his tone, remained cool.

"And semen?" He did not want to give credence to her affirmative reply but was too tired to argue.

"Why don't you sleep -1 will sit with her," she said.

He did not demur, going with uncharacteristic docility to act upon her suggestion. He staggered through the lock and down the rough ladder to throw himself upon bedding more to his taste than a cramped bunk. He was asleep before he ceased moving.

High above the Downcomer's head, centuries-old sentinels were already monitoring the sudden presence of electrical activity in the erstwhile silent planet below.

* * *

The celebration of the final night of the course left Simon with a hang-over he did not believe he had earned, one that made him very quiet even for the subdued communal breakfast of that last morning. He made his head the excuse for a retreat to the garden with his coffee. A sympathetic chorus of moans made a fitting valediction.

He took a folding chair from the portch, carefully opened it and gingerly sat, Though his head was no fabricated reason, it was the sense that a reckoning with his own predicament was due that really weighed upon him. He stared fixedly at the hedge opposite and contemplated insanity as a serious career move.

"Are you all right,Simon?" The Centre Manager was standing between Simon and the hedge and the writer had not even registered the fact.

"Oh! Hello, Gerry, good morning. Sorry, I was far away - and I'm bloody tired. I guess I haven't worked so hard in years."

"Well, we are all grateful you did - the course has been a great success. Would you consider next season?"

"I'd be delighted - I'll prepare myself better next time."

"You do look a bit rough," he said, struck by Simon's greenish hue. "Why not stay on for a day or two - there are no courses for a month, so you won't be taking up space."

Simon jarred his brain nodding his assent, grateful for the offer of respite to think. He knew nothing of his own future - was he going to return to the island? The thought seemed to cue a response from his host:

"That fellow you are staying with - would this be he?" He held out a book showing a worn dust jacket and a photograph thereon. It was Cennad, younger, darker, just head and shoulders.

"That's him, but he looks odd in a shirt and tie! When was that? I didn't know he written anything." He took the proffered book - "He was Timothy Jones' when this was published..."

"Nice title - 'Inside the Rainbow'. Pity about the contents - not very good, I'm afraid. A curious mixture of hedge magic and greenish philosophy but nothing of the anti-war, anti-materialist sort of reasonable

environmentalism that brought him to our screens. Have you seen him? He's better than that would suggest." Gerry looked apologetic, "the poetry is awful."

"Well, Cennad is full of surprises," said Simon, "though I've never seen him perform. He did tell me he blotted his copybook during his last appearance. It seems the BBC can't cope with anyone who does not believe in the Gore religion."

"So I've heard." Gerry indicated the book. "You can keep that if you like. Look," he changed the subject, "get some rest, sleep it off. I'll pick you up at six and you can eat with us at Sheepwash, will that suit?"

"Admirably! Thanks, Gerry."

Alone, Simon drained his cold coffee and opened Cennad's book. He read a line or two and fell asleep. Numerous students came to make their goodbyes only to tiptoe, smiling

away.
***

Simon declined a lift back to Totleigh, opting to walk off the evening's hospitality.

Mainly, he wanted to think - and clear the residual dull headache.

The lane was dark, quiet and cool. The smells of coming autumn permiated the hedgerows and the distinctive tang of cold, fresh water rose from the flanking river.

As he walked, his mind turned to the question of his treatment of the story as it unfolded in space - at Lagrange Prime.

Throughout his various drafts, Simon had juggled with a variety of characters, a number of whom had disappeared without trace; others had changed to fit into virtually new personae - and some had remained obstinately themselves. This was particularly true of the 'cast' at Prime and most especially of one Semyon Pek whom he now knew to be a mere thirteen years of age - and blind!

Simon halted in the middle of the lane. He recognised that he had an easy empathic relationship with Pek but surely this sense of knowledge and certainty was going a bit far. The character had always been pivotal, not as a mover and shaker, but as observer or, even, as catalyst... but a blind child?

Since he had started taking dictation from the future, Simon had entertained second thoughts about his namesake, uncomfortable, entirely irrational thoughts. Now, as he once more walked, knowing he would be putting down words within the hour, he refused to allow himself a closer scrutiny of a relationship bordering upon the 'first person', thus it was with some effort that he turned his mind towards a thoroughly dispassionate appraisal of the situation at Prime.

Against all odds, the first permanent habitat in space had exceeded even the most


				*The Writer.*



	Frontispiece. \| Introduction and Commentary.. plus a Glossary. \| The Beginning... \| The Writer. \| Prime. \| Inside the Rainbow. \| Appendix.