Ilium

On a grassy area above the beach, colorful silken tents, lounge chairs, and long tables of food had been set up. Servitors floated to and fro, sometimes bobbing above the heads of the arriving guests.

Walking behind Ada from the carriole, Daeman recognized some of the workers on the strange scaffolding: Ha

A servitor floated by and offered him a drink. Daeman accepted and went off in search of a lounge chair in the shade.

“This is the cupola,” Ha

It was after a fine di

“We’ve woven wood into a basket shape and coated the center of the furnace—the well—with refractory clay. We made this by shovel, mixing dry sand, bentonite, and some water. Then we rolled the claylike goop into balls, wrapped them in wet ferns and leaves to keep them from drying out, and lined the furnace well with the stuff. That’s what keeps the whole wooden cupola structure from catching fire.”

Daeman had no idea what the woman was going on about. Why build a big, gawky structure of wood and then set a fire at its center if you don’t want the thing to burn down? This place was an asylum.

“Mostly,” continued Ha

“Wonderful,” muttered Daeman and went in search of another drink while Ha

“And now it’s time to see if it works,” a

Suddenly the guests had to stand back on the sandy river’s edge, Daeman retreating to the grassy sward near the tables, as all the young people—and that damnable Harman—leaped into a frenzy of action. Sparks flew higher. Ha

“Tapping temp of twenty-three hundred degrees!” Harman shouted up to Ha

Suddenly there was a commotion that made Daeman look up from his drink, sure that he would see the whole structure in flames, Ha

Some of the guests surged forward, but Ha

The crudely carved and lined troughs smoked but did not burst into flame as the yellow-red metal flowed sluggishly from the cupola structure, past the ladders, spilling the last foot or two into a cross-shaped mold set in the sand.

Ha

More guests surged down the beach. Daeman wandered down, setting his drink on a passing servitor’s tray.

The air was very cool down here by the river, but the heat from the red-glowing mold in the sand struck Daeman’s face like a fiery fist.

The molten stuff was congealing into a red and gray cross-shaped mass.

“What is it?” Daeman asked loudly. “Some sort of religious symbol?”

“No,” said Ha

“Probably three times that long,” the older man said quietly.

The guests muttered and applauded.

Daeman laughed. “What good is it?” he asked.

Harman looked up at him. “Of what good is a newborn baby?” said the sweating, bare-chested man.

“Precisely my point,” said Daeman. “Loud, demanding, smelly . . . useless.”

The others ignored him as Ada gave Ha

Suddenly needing to urinate, Daeman wandered up past the tables, considered the tent-covered rest room pavilion, and decided—in the spirit of all this pagan nonsense—to respond to this call of nature al fresco. He climbed above the grassy shelf toward the dark line of trees, following a monarch butterfly that had fluttered past him. There was nothing unusual at seeing a monarch, but it was late in the day and season for it to be out and flying. He walked past the last voynix and moved under the high branches of elms and cycads.

Somebody, possibly Ada, shouted something from the river’s edge a hundred feet away, but Daeman had already unbuttoned his trousers and did not want to act the cad. Instead of turning back to respond, he moved another twenty feet or so into the concealing darkness of the forest. This would just take a minute.

“Ahhh,” he said, still watching the butterfly’s orange wings ten feet above him as the patter of his urine fell on a dark tree trunk.