A red ant crawled along the dragon/lizard"s wing, and held tight as it tried to shake the biting insect off. A rat, sleek and well filled, wriggled its nose and whiskers and looked at the vulture"s naked neck. -I, too, eat the filth off the streets. I eat flesh. I prefer living flesh, but I will take what I can get. I, too, help keep the world clean.

No sound was heard. Like negative light, the words cracked the desert night.

The twelve oddly a.s.sorted creatures began to position themselves into a circle.

The nephilim.

Oholibamah lay in j.a.pheth"s arms on a large, flat stone a short walk into the desert. So intent were they in each other that they did not notice the lion pacing past them, the pelican flying high in the sky, the scarab beetle coming out of the sand.

"My beloved," j.a.pheth whispered into the pearly sh.e.l.l of Oholibamah"s ear. "My mother spoke to me about it long ago. If you have nephil blood, it explains some of your healing power."

"But I don"t know-it isn"t certain-"

j.a.pheth covered her mouth with his. Then pulled back just enough to say, "You are my wife, and we are one, and that is all that matters."

And they were one. And it was good.

Yalith left the tent and went outside to wait for dawn. She had spent over an hour working at Dennys"s scabs, carefully pulling off those which were loose enough. Most of the oozing sores had healed. More and more of Dennys"s care was given over to her, as Oholibamah could trust her to do what the boy needed. Oholibamah, after all, had duties in her own tent.

Matred prepared meals for the boy, soups, and mashed fruits which were soft enough for him to swallow.

"But what do we do with him when he is well?" Noah asked his wife.

"He is our guest," Matred said. "We ask him what we can do to help him."

"He wants to go home," Yalith said.

"Yes, but where is home?" her mother asked.

Now Yalith crossed one of her father"s vineyards, went to the small grove that the women used. and relieved herself, then walked on until she came to where the desert lapped whitely against the oasis. She picked up a handful of the fine sand and rubbed it against her palms, between her fingers, to clean them.

The moon had set, and the dawn stars were low on the horizon. She would take a long nap the next day during the heat of the sun. Often, the best sleeping was done then.

In the coolness just before morning she liked to go sit on one of the great exposed rocks and rest, and listen to the slow song of the setting stars. Lamech, her grandfather, had taught her how to listen to the stars. Only Yalith and j.a.pheth, of Noah and Matred"s children, could understand the celestial language.

Matred tended to think it a waste of time. "I have too much to do, keeping tent. How else would I keep the soup pot full for the poor who come to us for food? Who would keep the manticore from eating Selah if I didn"t have boiling wine to throw in its ugly face? Who would see to it that the great auk"s eggs aren"t stolen? Who else dares to speak to the gorgons and griffins? And what with everybody"s appet.i.te, I never have a chance to get away from the hearth."

Yalith did her fair share of the work, and now she was doing most of Mahlah"s, too, but she needed time to herself, to listen to what the stars might have to say. Her father heard a Voice in the vineyards, but it seemed to Yalith that in the quiet dawn there were voices all around her, waiting to speak, waiting for her to hear. When the birds woke and started their orchestra, the other voices would be quiet. She was filled with a vague sense of foreboding, but she had to come and listen.

When she was not listening for whatever it was that was going to be spoken, she found her mind sliding to thoughts of the twins. As she spent more time with Dennys, nursing him through the chills and fever of his delirium, she saw that the twins might look alike but they were definitely not one boy in two skins.

The twins were often the topic of conversation in the big tent in the evenings-how they were alike, and how they were different. It was generally accepted that they must be some strange breed of giant, from the other side of the mountains. Although they were immensely tall, they were also unbelievably young.

"Fifteen, he told me," Matred said one evening when it was she who had taken the lamp to Grandfather Lamech, and some of her special broth to Sandy. "Fifteen," she re-peated to the others in the big tent. "At fifteen, our men are still children. The Sand and the Den are not babies. I simply do not understand."

"The Den is certainly not a baby," Yalith replied. "Now that he is getting better, he is full of questions. He wants to know what the herbs are that the pelican puts in the water, and what the salves are made of."

"The Sand," Elisheba said, "wants to know where the salves come from. They are certainly full of questions." She laughed her hearty laugh and told them that Sandy had wanted to know who ran the oasis. Was there a mayor? Or a selectman?

The words had no meaning. Elisheba had told Sandy that those who sought power were greedy, wanting gifts, and bribes, and willing to steal from the poor. "Shem hunts for us all, and I help with the winemaking," she said contentedly. "That is enough for us. We have plenty to eat, and to give to those in need. Matred is a good mother to us all, with her fine sons and daughters."

"Mahlah and Yalith are not married yet," Matred prodded.

"They are still young," Noah said.

"I thought the Voice told you-"

"Not about Mahlah and Yalith. They should have time to grow up."

"I think," Matred said pointedly, "that Mahlah is grown up."

Yalith sat on the cool, starlit stone, the echoes of the evening"s conversation still in her ears. She wondered if Matred had noticed the swelling of Mahlah"s belly- Mahlah, whose betrothal to the nephil was not yet acknowledged by her mother.

Yalith was so deep in thought that the stars had to hiss at her to get her attention.

6 Adnarel and the Quantum Leap Yalith looked up and saw a circle of strange animals. In the center of the circle stood Mahlah, looking pale and frightened. Her dark hair covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her body. Yalith started to cry out, to leap up and go to her sister, but it seemed that a firm hand came across her mouth, held her down on the rock.

The cobra uncoiled, hood spreading, swaying as though to unheard music, then stretched up and up into the loveliness of lavender wings, and amethyst eyes that reflected the starlight. "I, Ugiel, call my brothers. Naamah!"

The vulture stretched its naked neck, until great black wings and coal-black eyes in a white face were revealed.

"Rofocale!"

A shrill drone, a mosquito whine, and then there stood on the desert a nephil with wings of flaming red and eyes like garnets.

"Eisheth!"

The crocodile opened its mouth, showing its terrible teeth. It appeared to swallow itself, and vomit forth a tall, green-winged, emerald-eyed nephil.

Yalith trembled as she saw the dragon/lizard.

"Eblis!"

He burst from his scales, beautiful; awe-inspiring.

"Estael!"

The c.o.c.kroach scuttled a few inches and then burst open and dust rose, and dissipated to reveal another of the nephilim.

"Ezequen!" The skink.

"Negarsanel!" The flea.

"Rugziel!" The worm.

"Rumael!" The slug.

"Rumjal!" The red ant.

"Ertrael!" The rat.

One by one, the creatures transformed themselves into the nephilim with their white skin and brilliant, multi-colored wings.

Ugiel raised his arms- "I, Ugiel, in the presence of my brother nephilim, take to wife . Mahlah, penultimate daughter of Noah and Matred."

Mahlah slowly moved toward him, was folded in the great wings.

Yalith fought for breath. Her chest felt constricted, and she gasped for air.

Then she saw that there was another circle, outside the circle of the nephilim.

The pelican who daily brought water for her pitcher stretched himself into the tall, bright personage with silvery hairand wings- "Alarid!"

Light seemed to flash against the bronze sh.e.l.l of the scarab beetle, who rose up in a rush of golden wings and burnished skin. "Adnarel!"

A tawny lion with a great ruff of fur about its neck rose on its hind legs and stretched into its seraphic form. "Aariel!" The golden tips of his wings glimmered in the starlight.

A golden snake, as large as the cobra, but as bright as the cobra was dark, called out as it was transformed, "Abasdarhon!"

One by one, the seraphim called out their names as they changed form. A golden bat shot up into the air. "Abdiel!"

A ruffled white owl widened its round silver eyes, and the eyes were suddenly the silver eyes in a seraphim"s face, and moon-blue wings seemed to touch the sky. "Akatriel!"

A white leopard, swift as the wind, called, "Abuzohar!"

A soft, furred mouse rose, crying, "Achsah!." By the mouse a tiger moved, stood, stretched. "Adabietl" A white camel and a giraffe rose moments apart. "Admael!"

"Adnachiel!"

Lastly, a white goose flew skyward, its wings changing to snow-white. "Aalbiel!"

There seemed a healing in the calling of their names.

Although the circle of seraphim was outside that of the nephilim, when they spread their great wings to the fullest span the wing tips touched.

Likewise, the nephilim raised their wings, turning so that they faced the seraphim, and the glory of their wings brushed.

"Brothers," Alarid said. "You are still our brothers."

Ugiel touched his lavender wings to Alarid"s silver ones.

"No. We have renounced you and all that you stand for. This planet is ours. Its people are ours. We do not know why you stay."

Aiarid replied firmly, "Because, no matter how loudly you renounce us, we are still brothers, and that can never be changed."

For a fragment of a second, Ugiel seemed more cobra than nephil. Yalith choked back a scream. Mahlah, small and frail, still stood in the center of the circle, protected only by her dark hair.

Eblis, shimmering in and out of his dragon/lizard form, touched wings with Aariel. "We have made our choice. We have forsworn heaven."

"Then the earth will never be yours." Aariel was once more a lion, and with a great roar he galloped away, vanishing into the far horizon.

The two circles broke up with a great flurry of brilliant wings. Yalith blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she saw only a tall, lavender-winged nephil, with his arm tenderly about Mahlah-Mahlah, who was no smaller than any other woman of the oasis, but who came barely to Ugiel"s waist.

Yalith sat on the rock, as though frozen into motionlessness. Ugiel"s wings spread, wrapped gracefully, protectingly, about Mahlah. Yalith thought she caught a whiff of stone. Then there was a flash, not bright like the unicorns", but a flash of darkness even darker than the night, and then the desert in front of her was empty. Mahlah and Ugiel were gone.

She cried out in fear.

"Little one," a gentle voice spoke behind her. "Why are you afraid?"

She turned to see Eblis, his purple wings lifted so that they seemed to mingle with the night sky.

"Mahlah-" she said. "I am afraid for Mahlah."

"Why fear, my precious? Ugiel will take care of her. As I will take care of you. There are rumors on the oasis of fearful things to come, the volcano erupting, the mountain falling, earthquakes such as have never been felt before, terrible heavings unlike the silly little tremors you hardly notice."

She nodded. "I think my father is afraid. But what can we do? If the volcano is going to erupt, there is no way we can stop it."

"No. Nor can you run from it. But I will protect you."

"How?"

"Nephilim have powers. If you will come with me, I will keep you safe."

"Come with you? Where?"

"I will make a home for you full of lovely things. You will no longer have to steep on rough skins, still smelling of animals. I will give you food and wine such as you have never tasted. Come, my lovely little jewel, come with me."

"When-" She faltered.

"Now. Tonight."

She thought of the two circles, the seraphim and the nephilim. It was Eblis who was offering her protection, not Aariel. Mahlah had gone with Ugie., not with Alarid.

"What about my family?" she asked. "What about my twins?"

"Only you," Eblis said. "That is as far as my powers I extend."

She looked up at the stars. Shook her head. "Twin Den still needs me."

"Love is patient," Eblis said. "I will wait. But I think, that in the end you will come to me." His hand soothed her soft, burnished hair, and there was pleasure in his touch.

She blinked, looked at the brilliant pattern of stars, and it seemed that she could see Sandy bowing to her in her grandfather"s tent, could see Dennys holding her hand as the pain of his burns made him cry out.

Eblis touched her hair again. "I will wait."

j.a.pheth came to visit Dennys, examined him carefully, touching the remaining scabs, gently pulling off a flaking strip of paper-thin skin. "You are better."

"Much better." Dennys smiled at him, and the smile no longer seemed to crack the burned skin of his face. "1 go out at night with Yalith and Oholibamah, and we listen to the stars."