Wraith

By Torrent

“Am I dead?” SG asked.

The corpulent figure on the alabaster and gold throne frowned. “What is death?” he asked.

Answering a question with a question wasn’t very helpful, thought SG. But she needed his help, so she decided to be polite.

“Death is the absence of life,” she said, like a schoolchild reciting from a lesson she had read the night before.

“Nonsense,” said the fat man. “Is this dead?” He took a ring from his finger and tossed it to her. It was made of silver, with an emerald the size of a robin’s egg.

“No,” she said.

“So, it’s alive?”

“No.”

“Then,” said the fat man in a bored and superior tone of voice, “death cannot be merely an absence of life.”

SG fell silent for a while.

“Let’s start over,” she said at last. “I confess I don’t have a precise definition of death. But can you tell me whether I am dead?”

“If you were a native-born earthling, we could dispense with all this,” he said. “Even the most irreligious earthlings have some sense that finis is not quite finis. But you . . . .” He waved his hand as if trying to brush aside an insect, or an unpleasant thought.

“Am I dead?” she asked again, more loudly and assertively than before.

“No,” he shouted, half-rising from his throne. “No, you are not dead, as much as I might wish you were. You are in a different dimension, and you have different attributes than you once had, but you are not dead.”

SG folded her arms across her chest and felt her bare shoulders. She seemed to be solid, not a mere ghost.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the fat man said with an exasperated sigh. “You’re thinking that you are still a physical, sentient being. Even a sexual one. But I must warn you that things are very different now.

“That crude contraption, Koko, didn’t kill you. I’m not sure anything can. But you have taken a new form. What once was matter is now mostly energy. What once was your little trolley car — the here and now — is now a cosmic bullet train. You will discover that you can race far into the future, or into the past. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to move through space and time at will.”

“Are you my guide?” SG asked.

“Good heavens, no,” cried the fat man. Then he giggled. “‘Good heavens’ — now there’s an interesting exclamation. Haven’t used it in years.”

“Well, if you’re not my guide, who are you?”

“Oleander, the gatekeeper,” he said.

She wondered where the gate was, then noticed for the first time that there were two arched doorways in the curved wall behind the fat man’s throne.

“Which is the gate?” she asked.

“Both are gates,” he answered. “One will take you back to that stuffy body bag in that dreary motel room, where you will await the ministrations of your boring cousin.”

“And the other?” she asked.

“The other will take you someplace else.”

“Yes, but where?”

“Anywhere but back to that motel,” he snapped. “I can’t be more specific. The choice is yours.”

It wasn’t a very hard choice, she thought. Almost anything would be better than having to return to the helpless state she was in, dependent on Kal-El to figure out how to restore her to something resembling a normal life.

“I’ll take the gate into the unknown,” she said. “Which one is it?

“In such situations, I usually don’t offer advice,” said the fat man with a sly smile. “But for some reason you provoke in me a feeling of pity. The gate you want is the one on the right.”

“Thank you,” she said, as she headed for the doorway.

“But wait,” he cried. “A gratuity is expected under such circumstances.”

“I’m sorry,” said SG. “I have no money.”

“Oh, I have no use for money,” he said. “It’s your tender flesh I want.” At that, his jaws opened obscenely, until his mouth was as wide as SG was tall.

At that moment, a sudden wind pulled her off her feet and carried her past him and through the arched doorway she had chosen.

Her “goodbye” was lost in the rush of air.

# # #

SG found herself sitting in a classroom with a dozen other young men and women. Pacing up and down in front of the class was a thin, bespectacled man not much older than his students. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt, a sleeveless sweater and khaki pants, and SG thought she had never seen anyone quite so dorky.

“It really is quite beautiful,” he was saying. “I wish you could see it. I don’t understand why artists — well, some artists — think that beauty is their exclusive domain. The world as revealed through physics, from subatomic particles to the cosmos, is more beautiful by far than anything ever created by painter or sculptor.”

“Or poet?” asked a dark-haired girl sitting next to SG. She smiled impishly.

“Yes, more beautiful even than poetry,” said the young professor. His face softened for a moment and he added, “But it really isn’t fair for you to bring up poetry, Kathy.”

Then a bell went off in a hallway, and the students started gathering their books and papers.

“Read Chapter 3,” said the professor, “and try your hand at the problems on the website. I know none of you are math majors, but they really aren’t that difficult.”

He stuffed papers into a battered leather briefcase as the students filed out. Then he looked up, saw SG, and said, “You’re new, aren’t you?
“I guess so,” she said.

He reached back into the briefcase and pulled out a sheet.

“What’s your name?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer. Finally, she decided that what had been good enough for Marston was good enough for whatever college she now found herself in.

“Sallie. Sallie Gale.”

“Sallie Gale, huh?” he said. “Well, you’re not on the list. Do you have your class schedule?”

“Not with me,” she said, which was technically truthful.

“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “Well, welcome aboard. You’ve missed two classes, but I think you can catch up. Just bring your schedule with you to class on Friday.”

Suddenly, he seemed to see her for the first time. He gave her the kind of look she was very familiar with, then he blushed and fiddled with his briefcase.

“See you Friday,“ he said, then he hurried away.

SG smiled at his awkwardness. There was something rather charming about him.

In the hall, students were walking briskly to their next classes. They weren’t dressed the way they had been in 1956 or ‘73. Some of the boys wore T-shirts, baggy pants and baseball caps turned backwards, but others were dressed in jeans and shirts with collars. The girls mostly wore jeans, too, but there was less conformity than she remembered from her last two exposures to college life.

She looked down at her own clothes. Short khaki skirt, white tennis shoes, loose silk blouse with a big floral pattern. She wondered who chose them. The ring Oleander had given her hung on a silver chain between her breasts.

“Hi.” It was Kathy, the girl who had sat beside her in class. “What do you think of him?”

“Who?” SG asked.

“Dr. Kase, of course. I think there’s something so sexy about him. And we’re so lucky. I mean how many students get to take a physics course from someone on the top ten most-promising-scientists-in-America list? And we aren’t even science majors.”

She paused and looked at SG with sudden alarm. “You aren’t majoring in math or physics, are you?”

“No,” said SG.

“Oh, thank goodness. They said this was a physics-for-dummies course, just for humanities majors. You know, to promote cross-cultural understanding and all that.”

“Right,” said SG, who had no idea what Kathy was talking about.

The two young women walked slowly toward the big door that led out into the quadrangle.

“What’s your next class?” Kathy asked.

“I don’t have one,” said SG.

“Good. Let’s go get a Coke.”

SG decided to stick with Sallie Gale as her name. It was innocuous and all-American. She added that she was a transfer student from Marston College, which was true, in a way. Kathy had never heard of Marston.

“What dorm are you in?” she asked.

SG thought quickly. “Well, I don’t have a room yet. Admissions and housing didn’t communicate. I mean, they cashed my check, but things are sort of screwed up.”

Kathy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, it’s amazing. All these geniuses on the faculty, and they can’t get a simple housing application straight. Well, you can spend at least tonight with me. My roommate barely checked in before she had to go back home. Her father had a heart attack. I guess it was when he opened the tuition bill.”

“You’re very generous,” SG said. And very pretty, she thought.

# # #

After dinner, they watched television in Kathy’s dorm room. SG had seen color TV before, but never a picture so clear. And she was astounded by the kind of shows on the air: comedies about gay men living with young women, jokes about the size of breasts and penises, crime dramas with the kind of language she had been taught to shun.

“They can say things like that?” she asked, when a street punk told a cop to “fuck off.”

Kathy looked at her in surprise. “Of course. You haven’t been watching much television have you?”

“No. Or reading the newspaper much either,” said SG, hoping to preemptively explain any inappropriate references or questions that might pop up in her conversation.

But Kathy wasn’t interested in conversation, or television. She had been sitting in a second-hand armchair, while SG was stretched out on the floor. Now Kathy joined her. They lay on their sides, face to face, their heads propped up on one hand. Kathy leaned forward and brushed her lips against SG’s.

“Do you like that?” she asked.

SG answered by rolling Kathy onto her back and kissing her passionately. In seconds, they were tearing off their clothes.

Kathy was an expert lover, with a gift for sensual teasing that SG found irresistible. When she licked SG’s pussy, it was like a concert pianist playing a charming, childish ditty.

After three orgasms, SG decided to return the favor. She slid her tongue down Kathy’s belly and into her crotch. And suddenly, she saw — knew, experienced — the last time Kathy had made love. She felt the sensations Kathy had felt, heard the voice of the man who was on top of her, smelled his body.

She sat up.

“What happened?” Kathy asked. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know,” said SG, her face registering her confusion. “It was as though . . . . I can’t explain it. I saw you with a boy. I felt it. I felt him on top of you . . . of me. His name was Eric and he had a tattoo of a horned toad on his left shoulder.”

“How the hell do you know about Eric?” Kathy demanded. “What kind of game is this?”

“It’s not a game. When I began licking your clitoris, I suddenly tapped into something. Your memory. Your experiences.”

Kathy was on her feet, furious.

“Get out of here,” she shouted. “Get out.”

SG dressed quickly. She felt devastated. But she hadn’t meant any harm.

“Is Eric fucking you, too?” Kathy asked coldly as SG prepared to leave.

“I’ve never met Eric,” SG said. “Please, do one thing for me. Think of a number while I’m kissing you. A big number, too big to guess.”

Kathy looked at her with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

“You pull this stunt and you want to kiss me?”

“Please,” said SG.

They stood far enough that they had to lean forward to kiss. Neither girl touched the other, except for their lips.

Then SG pulled away and said softly, “Fifty-three hundred and eleven.”

“Holy shit!” Kathy said.

This must be one of the “different attributes” the gatekeeper mentioned, SG thought. She now had a talent for reading other people’s minds through sexual contact. So far, it had worked with oral-genital contact and mouth-to-mouth. She wondered if there were other possibilities.

She and Kathy spent the night exploring. SG learned much about her attractive host. And Kathy learned that this lovely and strange blonde was a sexual superstar.

# # #

SG had decided, even before she and Kathy finally fell asleep, that what worked with Kathy was worth trying on Professor Kase. She didn’t know why Fate had brought her to this college campus, but she was certain it involved learning about space and time. And the dorky professor was the one to teach her — not slowly and tediously in the classroom but in an orgasmic flash.

She didn’t waste time. The next morning, she went to the administration building and found Dr. Kase’s schedule. He had that afternoon free.

At 2 o’clock, she went to his office. She had bought a special T-shirt from the shop in the student union building, and she wore it under her silk blouse.

She knocked at his door.

“Come in,” he called. He sounded irritated.

She opened the door and faced an office with a very bad case of clutter. Books and notebooks were scattered everywhere. One wall consisted of a shiny white board covered with equations written with black markers.

Kase himself was sitting in an old-fashioned swivel chair with a book and a calculator in his lap.

He looked over his glasses at SG. He gave no sign that he recognized her.

“Can I help you?” he asked, in a tone of voice that said, “Can you disappear quickly?”

“I want to learn everything you know about the relationship between time and space,” SG said. “I want to know about time travel.”

Kase sighed. “Time travel is impossible,” he said. “Teaching you everything I know about time and space may possible, but I really haven’t the time.” He smiled in spite of himself. No time to teach about time.

“Okay,” said SG, pulling off her blouse to reveal a T-shirt, several sizes too small, with a picture of Einstein and his iconic equation: E=mc² . “Let’s skip the teaching and get to what I’m really here for. I want to have sex with you. Here. Now.”

Kase put the book and calculator on his desk.

“You must really be desperate for a good grade, because I’m not exactly the studly type,” he said. “What‘s worse, I have ethics. I don’t fuck students. I don’t trade A’s for sex.”

“I’m not asking for an A,” said SG. “I’m not even enrolled in your class, as you noted the other day. In fact, I’m not enrolled as a student at this college.”

“So what exactly do you want?”

“I want to have sex with you, here in your office, right now.”

He looked at her for a long time without speaking. She really was quite lovely. And she filled that T-shirt in a way that gave new meaning to Einstein’s theory about the curvature of space.

“I really can’t . . . .”

Before he could finish his sentence, SG had wriggled out of her skirt. She wore the skimpiest of bikini bottoms.

He gulped.

“You don’t have to take the initiative,” she said softly. She moved toward him, and he almost fell over his chair.

“Just sit down and relax,” she said.

He sat, looking anything but relaxed.

She knelt before him, looked into his eyes and began unbuttoning his shirt.

“Really,” he said, “this is highly . . . .”

She kissed his chest, then ran her tongue down his belly to his belt line. It was an amazing experience for both of them. Kase had had sex only once before, with a prostitute, and it had been a quick, slam-bam-thank-you-ma’m affair, with no preliminaries. This was deliciously different.

Meanwhile, the instant her lips touched his flesh, SG was overpowered by his memories and speculations. An entire undergraduate semester of hydrology flashed through her in a nano-second. His recent paper on black holes and singularities had been stored in her brain before her tongue reached his navel.

“Let’s get those pants off, big boy,” she whispered huskily.

He raised himself in the chair, fumbled with his belt and finally slid his pants halfway down his thighs.

She finished the job, pulling down his underpants to reveal a penis of modest dimensions but filled with enthusiasm.

She sucked slowly, sensually, guided by her extensive experience. He moaned and, unsure what to do with his hands, finally placed them on her head. Then he was thrusting upward, into her mouth, and making little sobbing sounds. “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” he cried. “Oh, God, yes.”

He came in an eruption of equations.

SG was dizzy. Cum dripped from her lips, and numbers whirled through her mind. It was the most exciting sex she had ever had.

Kase lay sprawled in his chair, his head hanging over the back. He looked like a dead man — a dead man with a goofy smile on his face.

# # #

Kase wasn’t dead, but the experience was so overpowering that he spent the next three days in bed at his apartment, trying to make sense of it — to master it with reason.

SG also needed time to sort out all that she had learned. Kase’s sensual and emotional experiences, many going back to early childhood, had been transmitted to her, along with his scientific theorizing. She discovered that he had been an only child, that he had an imaginary playmate named Eustace, and that his puppy, Lex, had been killed by a delivery truck.

She also learned that he had a secret crush on Kathy, that he had written poetry when he was an undergraduate at Yale, and that Kathy had discovered some of his poems in an obscure college literary magazine.

What most interested SG, though, was Kase’s complex relationship with Dr. Pilger Altezeiten, professor of ancient history and polymath extraordinaire. Dr. Altezeiten was perhaps the university’s leading academic figure — certainly the only one with an international reputation as impressive as Kase’s.

The two men were very different. Kase was only 32. Altezeiten was over 70. Kase was a rigorous rationalist. Altezeiten had an equally keen mind but was at heart a romantic.

They admired and liked each other but disagreed on a wide range of subjects, not the least of which was the possibility of time travel.

As best SG could understand from what she had learned through her intellectual cock sucking, Altezeiten was convinced not only that time travel was possible, but that it had already occurred. Beings from the distant past and equally distant future already walked among us.

Kase thought this was New Age rubbish.

SG decided it was time to get it straight from Professor Altezeiten.

# # #

He was easy.

Altezeiten was, in fact, a dirty old man. He was delighted when a very attractive young woman rang the doorbell of his condo and asked for a private meeting with him. He was even more delighted, and not the least bit embarrassed or resistant, when she began stripping in front of him — all the while chattering about how much she admired his work and how eager she was to learn from the master.

In seconds, she was completely naked, except for her tennis shoes and her emerald pendant. With European courtliness, he suggested they retire from the entrance hall, where someone outside might see her through the beveled glass on either side of the front door. He led her to his “recreation room.”

This room was filled with exercise equipment and some chrome and leather devices SG had never seen before.

“You want to learn,” he said. “I want to teach. But I am perhaps old-fashioned. I am not a democrat when it comes to learning. I must be the master. And that leaves, for you, the role of . . . .”

“Slave?” SG suggested brightly.

“Exactly,” said Dr. Altezeiten. “You are a very bright student.”

In no time at all, SG was bent over a leather bench with her butt raised and exposed, her wrists tied behind her and her head firmly held by two padded arms of a vise.

“As they say nowadays, no pain, no gain,” said the professor. With that, he whacked her behind with a slender bamboo cane. It made a surprisingly loud noise, but SG found that the sting was not very painful. In fact, the tingle that followed was quite pleasurable.

“Shall we continue?” he asked.

“By all means,” she said. But it was difficult to speak with her head in the vise, and while whipping might be a great turn-on for the good doctor, it didn’t put her in direct physical contact with him. How would she learn what she needed to know?

Her speculation was interrupted by a much more vigorous blow, this time from a 12-tail leather flogger. It hurt. The second and third blows hurt even more. She yelped and assumed that once he heard her protest, he would release her. But he seemed to have become too involved to stop.

The blows continued, and so did her cries of pain. These he finally stopped by stuffing a ball-gage into her mouth and tightening the vise on her head.

Her muffled protests excited him even more.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure it does hurt. But we haven’t broken the skin, so I don’t think any permanent harm has been done. Let’s keep it up, shall we?”

With that, he resumed flogging her ass. He grew stronger with each blow, as if the aging process was in reverse.

At last, as tears streamed down SG’s face, he dropped his pants, put on a condom and shoved his prick into her already well lubricated pussy.

“I see you’ve been enjoying all this,” he said cheerfully. “The vagina speaks truths that the mouth will not utter.”

He fucked her with the savagery of a man half his age. SG waited for the great revelation, but it didn’t come — even though he did.

He collapsed on top of her, gasping for breath. His dick slowly shrunk but he was in no hurry to withdraw it.

“Is that all there is?” SG wondered. She could have broken her bonds at any time but had refrained for fear of sabotaging her experiment. Now it seemed she had put up with pain and indignity for nothing.

He released her slowly and methodically. The ball gag was the last restraint to be removed.

She knelt on the floor — her behind was too sore for sitting — and rubbed her wrists. Altezeiten looked down at her with an expression of concern.

“You seem sad, my dear,” he said. “Did I disappoint you?”

“No,” she lied. “Well, yes, in a way. But not sexually.”

“What other way could I have disappointed you but sexually?” he asked, mystified.

SG looked down, embarrassed. Then she screwed up her courage and said, “I was hoping to learn your thinking about time travel.”

Altezeiten stroked his chin. “Time travel? I thought from your behavior, you were interested only in fucking. I mean, you came here and stripped and . . . .”

“I know, but it’s complicated,” SG protested. “The only way I could learn your thoughts is through sex.”

“But that is absurd.”

“No. It isn’t. I’ve already found in two other cases that I could learn about a person, about his or her experiences and thoughts, by having sex with them. I can’t tell you their names, but I found out about the secret love affair of a young woman by having sex with her, and I found a huge amount about space and time and physics from a teacher.”

“My young friend, Dr. Kase?”

“No, I won’t tell you their names,” SG insisted.

“Well, you don’t have to. If the subject that interests you is time travel, then it must be young Justin Kase. No one else on campus is as well qualified, as a scientist, to discuss such matters. But I find all this incredible. Why should I believe you learned anything at all through your sexual encounters, assuming you actually had such encounters.”

“Here’s why,” said SG, and she launched into a detailed description of a conversation Kase and Altezeiten had had two weeks earlier on whether there were “worm holes” in the cosmos and, if so, could they be used to travel instantaneously from one end of the universe to the other.

“You were so excited about this that you spilled your glass of kir,” said SG. “A waitress named Karen cleaned it up. You flirted with her.”

“Ah, you must have been sitting near us in the café,” said the professor.

“Okay. How about this? Last October, you and Dr. Kase took a sailboat out on the lake. No one else was there. And you got very excited about going back in time, to the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, and learning all their secrets of embalming and mummification. And Dr. Kase laughed and said you had a morbid streak. And you said . . . .”

“Justin told you all this,” Altezeiten said sharply.

“No, he told me none of this. He gave me this knowledge unintentionally when we had sex. I was hoping to learn from you, too. But nothing happened. That’s why I look disappointed. I am disappointed.”

He began to believe her, in spite of himself. There was something about her. It was almost as though he had known her long ago.

“For the sake of argument, let’s assume all you’ve told me is true — that you somehow absorb knowledge through sex. Why, then, did this process fail with me?”

“I don’t know,” said SG. “While you were flogging me, I figured there would be no transfer because we weren’t in direct contact. But I was sure that, once you penetrated me — well, that there would be a flash of words and images and ideas. The way there was with . . . with the others.”

“Aha! I think I see the problem,” cried the professor.

“What is it?”

“I was wearing a condom,” he said triumphantly. Then he quickly added, “Not that I mistrusted you, but in this day and age — well, you understand.”

“I do,” said SG. “And all I ask is the chance to give you a blow-job, an unprotected blow-job.”

He had never before had a young woman ask permission to suck his dick. He had never even imagined such a situation, and he prided himself on having a very active imagination when it came to things sexual.

“How can I refuse?” he said. “This time, let’s go to the bedroom.”

She followed him upstairs through rooms filled with dark, antique furniture. The bed, however, was simple and modern: a futon covered with pale blue silk sheets. At the four corners were short, stout wooden posts bolted to the floor. Manacles were attached to each post.

“I will lie on my back,” he said. “I want you to attach these restraints, then do whatever you want. Within reason, of course. I am not a young man.”

“I will be careful,” said SG.

He removed his clothes, folded them and placed them neatly on top of a bureau, next to a small bronze statue. It was an Egyptian figure, of a man with a dog’s head. He held a scepter in one hand and a book in his other, clutched to his chest.

“I am naked unto mine enemies — and my friends,” Altezeiten said with a smile. For a man his age, he was in good shape, thought SG.

He lay on the futon, and SG secured him.

Then she knelt between his legs. His penis was flaccid, so this would require some work. She leaned forward and rubbed his belly, while tickling the head of his prick with her tongue. Then she began to sing, in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own and in a language she had never heard. It was a throaty, sensuous voice, and though she recognized not a single word, she knew it was a song about sexual passion.

This incantation had a powerful effect on Altezeiten’s prick, which began to rise the way a cobra rises to the song of its master’s flute.

Altezeiten began to squirm on the futon. It was as though he was in agony — or in the throes of ecstasy.

SG ceased singing and took his prick in her mouth. Words and phrases in strange languages flooded her brain. Images appeared, too, murals and sculpture and great temples and palaces.

“Time travel,” she thought. “I want to learn about time travel. Back, I want to go back, to the Middle . . . .” She stopped in mid-thought. Ages? Was it the Middle Ages that Kase and Altezeiten had talked about?

And suddenly she felt herself whirling through darkness, drawn by a force more powerful than gravity, flying to a destination far, far away.

Altezeiten gave a cry of surprise and disappointment. “You’re gone! You’re gone! You’ve abandoned me.”

He tried to sit up, but was held back by his restraints.

“The lady vanishes,” he said to himself. “And I must stay behind, waiting until Betsy comes to clean on Monday morning. Won’t she be surprised?” He laughed a deep, hearty laugh, and his eyes glistened with tears.

II

SG was cold. She wore nothing but a long brown woolen robe and sandals made of wood and rope. There were patches of snow on the ground, and she could see her breath when she exhaled.

She sat on a flat stone at the top of a small rise, next to a stone and thatch hut. In the shallow valley below, a band of adults and children were struggling through the snow and mud. One of them looked up and saw her. The figure pointed to her, and soon about two dozen faces had been turned toward her. She could hear their excited talk even from this distance.

They climbed toward her, and one child, barefoot and wearing a frock of coarse cloth, broke into the lead. She came within a few feet of SG, then halted, suddenly shy.

“Are you afraid of me?” SG asked. “I will not hurt you.”

The child was so thin, so terribly thin.

The others had caught up. They stood behind the child, gazing at SG in wonder. Their faces were gaunt. It appeared that all the adults were women.

“Who are you?” asked one of them.

“I’ve come to lead you out of this land of famine,” SG said. The words came unbidden — and unexpected.

SG rose. She was much taller than any of them, and they seemed awestruck by her size.

“Where are your men?” SG asked.

“Taken to fight for the Duke,” answered a red-faced woman who was missing most of her teeth.

“Or dead,” said another.

SG picked up the little girl who stood nearest her. The child bowed her head in shyness.

The gesture was like a stab wound to SG’s heart. If she could save anyone, she would save this little girl. She felt a strange sensation in her breasts. It was as though they were growing.

“Can you make it over the mountains?” SG asked.

“Not without food,” said the red-faced woman. “We haven’t eaten in two days.”

SG put the child down. Then she pulled the long robe over her head, revealing her beautiful naked body.

“I will feed you,” she said. She knelt and offered her breast to the little girl. The child without hesitation began sucking, and SG felt the milk surging from it.

“I have another,” she called out. “Send me another child.”

A mother pushed a little boy forward. “Go and suck,” the mother whispered loudly.

As hunger overcame his shyness, the little boy came forward and started on SG’s other tit. SG was filled with compassion, and milk.

She fed all the children first. There were 14 of them.

Then she fed the mothers and grandmothers — 11 in all. The women cried as they nursed. They said prayers of thanksgiving. God was delivering them from death by starvation. They would survive and start in a new land, beyond the mountains. This miracle-working saint would lead them.

Saint SG was experiencing feelings entirely new to her. Never before had she lactated. It was a wonderfully sensual experience. And she was happy to be helping these poor people. If only she could help more. They needed so much.

When everyone in the group had been fed, SG took a wooden staff that had been leaning against the hut and began marching toward the mountains. The group, now fortified, followed.

# # #

They walked until sundown. By some means she didn’t understand, SG knew the route they must take — a route that would take them across a mountain pass that had been used for years by marauding armies but had rarely been attempted by peasant folk.

But lactation had weakened her, and her pace was slower than she had wished. Not that any in the group could manage a faster one.

Near the end of the day, SG had to carry an old woman on her back.

They reached a patch of level ground just as the sun disappeared behind the peaks to the southwest. SG gently laid the old woman on the ground, then patted her cheek and asked how she was doing.

There was no response. The woman was dead, probably had been dead for over an hour. The woman’s daughter and two grandchildren wept and prayed beside her.

The ground was hard and cold. Burial underground was impossible. SG told the group to make a fire while she scouted for a cave in which to place the corpse. If all else failed, they could cover it with loose rock.

“Be careful, madame,” said the red-faced woman. “There are wild beasts in these mountains, and worse than beasts — thieves and killers.”

“Have no fear,” said SG. “I will return quickly.”

Using her staff for support, SG made her way up the mountainside. The light was fading, and she despaired of finding a burial place. But at last she spotted a rocky overhang that appeared to be the entrance of a cave. I will return here tomorrow morning, she thought, and the grey-haired one will have a proper funeral.

The sound of falling water in the distance called her on. She climbed another few hundred feet and found herself looking down on a long slope to a wide valley below. In the moonlight, she could see a river running through the valley. It looked like good land, a land where her charges could make a new start.

On her way back to her group, she heard the howling of wolves. She hoped her group had stuck together and built a fire. Numbers and flames would keep the beasts at bay. She didn’t worry about her own safety.

She should have. As she came around a large boulder, she found herself face to face with four gleaming grey-green eyes. The wolves had heard her coming and were crouched to spring.

She swung her staff into fighting position. But at that instant something hit her back and knocked her face forward to the ground. It was a third wolf, and when he attacked, the other two quickly joined in.

SG found herself fighting for her life. Strong jaws locked on her left arm and her right leg. Another pair lunged for her throat. She smashed the wolf’s head with her staff, then kicked away the one that had bitten her leg.

But the wolf that had her left arm refused to relax its grip, even when she smacked it on the top of the head with her staff. The other two wolves regrouped and attacked again. Their bites were painful, and in her weakened condition she feared they would eventually prevail.

She stumbled forward, carrying the weight of two wolves that had attached themselves to her arms. The third wolf leapt at her, and she was powerless to protect herself.

But the wolf did not sink its fangs into her throat, as she had expected. Instead, it gave a yelp, crashed into her and fell to the ground. The other two wolves released her and wheeled to face some danger she couldn’t see. First one, then the other cried out and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.

Before she lost consciousness, SG found an explanation for their strange behavior. The feathered shaft of an arrow extended out from the neck of the wolf that had fallen nearest her.

# # #

SG awoke to find herself lying on a flat stone ledge protected by a rocky roof. It was the cave entrance she had seen the night before.

Inside the cave, not far from her, two men were stamping out a fire. Outside, four more men were calling for those inside to join them.

“And bring the bitch,” said the tallest of their number, who had a bow and a quiver of arrows on his shoulder. It was clear in an instant that he was their leader.

The two men inside grabbed SG and pulled her roughly to her feet.

“Come on,” growled one of them, “we’re going to reunite you with your comrades.”

They had tied a rope around her neck, and they jerked it to indicate she had better move and move fast.

She followed as best she could, trying to make a mental inventory of her body. The bite wounds hurt, but she didn’t believe they were serious. She still had her robe on, which surprised her. In the past, her presence in the midst of six rough-looking men would have meant that she would be stripped in seconds. Even her emerald pendant still bounced between her milk-filled breasts. Only her sandals were gone, evidently a casualty of last night’s battle or stolen by one of these men. The ground was painfully cold.

Where were they taking her? she wondered. Then she remembered that one of the men had spoken of reuniting her with her group.

So they knew about the women and children. What a pity.

The leader of the band of thieves fell back to join her.

“Why were you traveling alone last night?” he asked.

“To find a place to bury one of our group. She was old, and she died on the road yesterday.”

The thief laughed. “Burial is impossible in these mountains. Bodies left in caves are quickly devoured, either by wolves or by cave bears. Or, if they’re fresh enough, by men like us.”

“That’s a cruel jest,” said SG.

“It is no joke. Peter, is it not true that our merry band have feasted on human flesh?”

“Indeed we have, Master Cock,” said Peter, the plumpest of the thieves. “And all in all, I prefer it to the stringy livestock in these parts. I especially enjoy babies. They are quite delicious.”

So their leader’s name, or at least nickname, was Cock. She wondered if he deserved it.

“Cannibals! You should be ashamed,” she said in disgust.

“Actually, like most men we are many things,” said Cock. “We are thieves by profession, rapists when our other wants are satisfied, and cannibals by necessity. Four of us were also at one time soldiers in the duke’s army, a poorly paid profession and one with little honor in this life or the next.”

She walked on in silence, while the men traded jokes and insults. At last they came to a ridge and saw below the women and children SG had hoped they would not find. They were huddled together around the smoldering remains of a fire. Wood was scarce in the mountains, and they had been unable to refresh it.

“Ah, little children,” said Peter. “Tonight we eat well.”

They weren’t joking, SG realized. Weakened though she was, it was up to her to protect those she had taken under her wing.

“Leave them alone, please, Master Cock,” she said. “They are a scrawny bunch, not worth butchering. And they have nothing of value to steal.”

The women and children heard her and looked up. They wanted to rush forward, but were afraid of the thieves, who were armed with clubs and knives.

“Why should we let them go?” Cock asked. “Skinny or not, they have some meat on their bones. And several of them have shoes.”

He turned to his comrades. “Okay, men, we’ll rape the women who are worth raping — starting with you, Madame — then kill the lot of them.”

“Please, Master Cock, consider this offer,” SG said with fresh urgency. “If you let them go, I will satisfy the sexual passions of each and every one of you many times over. Then I will feed you with milk from these generous breasts.” At that, SG pulled her robe over her head and revealed herself to their hungry eyes.

“Milk be damned,” cried Cock. “We are no sucklings. Those mammaries will be roasted over an open fire, and I shall have the first bite.”

He lunged at her, and she kneed him in the groin.

“Continue your journey,” SG yelled to the women and children, “as I must continue mine.”

The struggle lasted longer than the theives had expected. SG put up a valiant fight. They clubbed her, yet she battled on. They piled on top of her, yet she managed to squirm free.

During the fracas, the red-faced woman led her companions onward, across the mountain pass. They could do nothing to save their beautiful savior. All they could do is follow her instructions and save themselves.

At last the thieves gained the upper hand. Two of them held SG, while the other four took turns punching and kicking her.

“She promised sex,” said Peter sadly. “Now she’s too beat up to show us her talents.”

“True,” said Cock. “But we will have her posthumously, and there is pleasure in that, too.”

He gestured, and the men holding her let her drop to her knees, dazed and semiconscious.

Cock stepped behind her, grabbed her hair and plunged his dagger into her back. She gasped, her eyes rolled back, and she fell into fathomless blackness.

III

SG was lying on a cool stone floor, naked except for her emerald pendant. She could hear voices echoing among the tall stone columns. Somewhere there was a woman’s laughter. Then more women joined in.

She sat up. Her injuries had been healed. She felt strong and healthy. And even without a mirror, she knew she was more beautiful than ever.

A slender servant girl dressed in a gauzy gown suddenly appeared, carrying food on a brass tray. She gasped in surprise when she saw SG.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A friend of all who live here,” SG answered.

The servant girl considered this for a moment, then said, “Come with me. We will go to Her Ladyship. She will know what to do with you.”

SG followed. They went into a long, high-ceilinged hall. Oil lamps on tall iron tripods lit their way and illuminated paintings and bas-reliefs on the walls. The art was clearly Egyptian. Middle Kingdom. Eighteenth Dynasty.

She wondered how she knew this, then remembered her encounter with Dr. Altezeiten. He would be so happy to be here, she thought.

They came to a doorway guarded by two tall black men with spears.

The men eyed SG suspiciously, but the servant girl didn’t hesitate. She held the tray in one hand and knocked at the bronze door with her other.

The door was opened by another servant. They entered a wide room that opened out onto a stone terrace. Cushions were spread about the room, and lovely young women lay on them. In the middle of the room was a chair carved from blue-green stone. Sitting in it was a tall, imperious looking woman. Like the others, she was brown-skinned and had straight black hair. But her features seemed different — sharper and more severe.

The servant girl who had escorted SG bowed before the woman and said, “Your Ladyship, I found this woman near the temple entrance. She says she is a friend of all who live here.”

Her Ladyship laughed a harsh laugh that was more like a bark.

“A friend of all who live here, eh? Well, that is quite an accomplishment since so many of us who live here are enemies of each other. Have you a name, my dear?”

SG thought this over. Her original name seemed most suitable in this situation. “I am called Kara-El,” she said.

Her Ladyship frowned. “I don’t recall the name. Are you from across the Great Sea?”

“Which sea is that, my lady?” asked SG.

“Well, this is an interesting situation,” said Her Ladyship to the other women. “She is not only naked but ignorant. Nothing to clutter either body or mind.”

The women giggled and tittered, and Her Ladyship smiled at her own cleverness.

“Take her away,” she told the servant girl. “I do not know her. She is not one of us. Take her to Anubis. Perhaps he will know what to do with her.”

SG sighed. Things were not going well.

“My lady,” she said, “I really . . . .” But at this point Her Ladyship clapped her hands twice, and the guards who had stood outside came in, brandishing their spears.

The servant girl led SG to the doorway, and the guards took turns poking SG’s behind with their spear points, much to the amusement of the ladies.

Back in the great hallway, one of the guards grabbed SG roughly by the hair and dragged her toward what appeared to be an altar at the far end of the hall. The servant girl chastised the guard and apologized to SG, but she was powerless to intervene. Tearfully, she turned back.

When they reached the altar, the guards put down their spears, grabbed SG by her wrists and ankles and stretched her out on the flat stone. They used no rope or chains, yet SG discovered she could not move her arms or legs. She was pinioned by invisible bonds.

One of the guards reached out and fondled her breasts, but the other whispered a warning. They retreated back through the hall, walking backward and alert to some danger SG couldn’t imagine.

She lay on the altar for several hours. She began to wonder if she hadn’t made a terrible mistake when she chose not to return to the body bag and Kal-El. At least it was a world she had come to understand. What was she doing here, thousands of years in the past?

A shaft of sunlight, which earlier had illuminated an incense burner in the far corner of the room, had worked its way toward her. Finally, she found herself staring up directly into the sun. The light poured through a rectangular opening in the ceiling. Her pale body and blonde hair glowed.

“You are quite beautiful,” said a man’s voice. It sounded near, but when SG raised her head she saw no one.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

“It is I, Anubis,” said the voice, now much closer. Then, what had been an invisible presence took visible form. A huge man stood next to the altar, a man with a very realistic looking dog mask.

“Can you free me?” she asked.

He slipped his hands under her back and her legs and lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather. She was surprised to find that she wasn’t afraid. In fact, his strength was reassuring.

He walked toward the stone wall, then through it. She felt as though a great wind was rushing upward, and they passed through alternating patches of darkness and light. Were they falling? She couldn’t tell. She went limp in his arms. She was his possession, and that was comforting.

At last, the periods of darkness and light lengthened, and the sensation of falling ceased. They were in a large underground room lit by oil lamps attached to the ebony walls.

Anubis placed her upright on a low stone cylinder. Her face now was on the same level as his, and she could see that the mask was not a mask at all. He really did have the head of a dog. Or a jackal.

He sniffed her throat, then slid his nose down to her breasts, then her crotch. It tickled, but she stifled a giggle.

“You will do,” he said at last.

“I will do what?” she asked.

“You will do as my concubine. You will do what I tell you to do. You will do what Fate demands.” His voice was firm but calm.

“Yes, sire. And what is it you want me to do first?”

He pulled off the linen skirt that covered him from waist to knees, revealing his enormous penis.

“You will give me sexual pleasure,” he said, “and in return I will give you an honored place in my kingdom. You shall bear my pups and reign above all my other concubines.”

It sounded like an enormous responsibility, she thought, but she was confident, looking at his already rising prick, that whatever sexual pleasure she could bring him would be more than reciprocated.

She took the head of his penis in her mouth and bit it playfully. Taking the entire shaft was impossible, given its size, but she ran her tongue up and down it, then returned to the head and began to suck in earnest.

She could sense that he was almost ready to come. At that instant, he lifted her into his arms and dropped her onto his prick. She cried out as it entered her — a cry of pain and enormous pleasure.

She was impaled on his manhood, and he bounced her up and down until they both came in a chorus of moans.

He left her on his dick and reared back his head and howled triumphantly.

# # #

They made love many times that night, or what SG thought was night. There was no way to tell day from night in this underworld.

At last, she told Anubis she needed rest. She was sexually fulfilled as never before, but she was also exhausted.

Servants appeared, girls who resembled the servants above but whose skin was paler. They had grey, expressionless eyes.

They took her to her chambers, which were even more lavish of those of Her Ladyship. An owl on a golden perch stared at her, then turned away, uninterested.

She slept for many hours. When she awakened, servants filled a marble bathtub with warm water, and they sponged her gently. When she emerged from her bath, they anointed her with perfumes and fragrant oils.

She tried to engage them in conversation, but they remained silent. Later, at dinner, Anubis explained that they were all mute — a sisterhood of mutes who once had lived in a land beyond the Great Sea. They had been taken as slaves by Pharaoh navy and were put to death to amuse Her Ladyship.

“Put to death?” said SG. “But how can that be? They are here, alive.”

“Things are not what they seem, my love,” said Anubis. “You are in the kingdom of the dead. I am ruler here.”

“Does that mean that you’re dead?” she asked. Then she added quickly, “Or that I’m dead?”

He laughed. “No, I am not dead, and neither are you. My role is to weigh the souls of the dead and help decide who will go on to eternal life in the underworld and who will be fed to Ammut.”

“Who is Ammut?” SG asked, but Anubis did not answer.

Later, in her chambers, it was the owl who satisfied SG’s curiosity. As she unrolled a papyrus scroll on a marble table in her chambers and marveled at the beauty of its hieroglyphics, the owl spoke.

“You asked about Ammut, my princess,” he said. “She is a demoness who devours the souls of the unworthy. She is a monster with the head of a crocodile, the body of a leopard and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus.”

“How horrible!” said SG.

“Horrible perhaps,” said the owl. “But necessary. The souls of the unworthy must be destroyed. Ammut is as important here in the underworld as the vulture and the jackal are above.”

# # #

Though SG had vanished from the palace where Her Ladyship was such an important figure, she had not been forgotten. Her Ladyship received reports every few days of Anubis’s infatuation with this fair-haired beauty. She was his favorite concubine, it was said. That was a role Her Ladyship once envisioned for herself, and her heart was filled with envry and anger.

This blonde bitch must be destroyed. The love Anubis felt for her must somehow be transformed into hate.

Her Ladyship was expert at the very personal politics of royalty and the gods. She would find a way. It was only a matter of time.

# # #

Anubis loved SG as he had never loved before. He decided that she should attend the weighing of the hearts, at which he presided when Osiris was absent. Today, Osiris was traveling.

In a great, dimly lit hall, thousands of the dead waited for judgment. Several of the gods stood with Anubis around the scale that would determine the ultimate fate of the deceased.

Anubis had told SG to sit with a small group of dignitaries a few feet away, and to say nothing. It was a violation of tradition for a mortal to attend this ritual, but he was confident that no one would discover her identity.

One after another, the dead came forward and handed their hearts to a servant of Anubis. The heart was placed on one of the scales and the feather of Ma’at was placed on the other. If the feather weighed more than the heart, the dead soul was directed through a golden doorway, to eternal life.

But if the heart was heavy with sin, the soul was sent hurtling down a black hole in the floor, into the den of Ammut.

The cries of the damned upset SG, but she kept her composure. The others who sat with her chatted quietly and seemed unmoved by the proceedings.

One man with a face that resembled a falcon said to her, “We have not met before. I am Kebechsenef, son of Horus.”

“I am Kara-El,” she said. “I am a friend of Anubis.”

The weighing and judging went on for what seemed like hours. Anubis’s job was to make sure the scales were properly balanced between weighings.

SG was growing bored, but she felt it would be rude to get up and leave. It would be an insult to Anubis.

Then the process suddenly became interesting. Looming tall above the rest of the dead was a face she recognized. It was Louie Ungtjur, who had tormented her when she was at Marston College.

So someone finally killed the son-of-a-bitch, she thought. After several minutes, it was Louie’s turn. She had hoped his face would be twisted with fear, but he seemed resigned.

His heart was placed on the scale, and it plummeted downward.

As he was led away, he spotted SG and lost his reserve.

“Save me,” he called out. “Save me, Sallie Gale.”

Then he was pushed into the hole and his screams could be heard as he tumbled down into Ammut’s hellish domain.

“Sallie Gale,” said a woman sitting in front of SG. “Is that what he said? What does it mean? He seemed to be looking straight at me.”

“Or someone in back of us,” said a woman sitting next to her. They turned and looked at SG.

SG, blushing, turned and pretended to be looking behind her, but she was seated in the last row. The only persons behind her were servants.

# # #

News of the outburst at the weighing, and of SG’s reaction, quickly reached Her Ladyship. This was the opportunity she was waiting for.

Communicating through messages carried by servants and, in some cases, by cats, she urged her confederates below to spread the rumor that the fair-haired one had once been the whore of one of the damned. This, if proved, or if widely enough believed, would disqualify her from the role of concubine to even a lesser god, much less Anubis. Worse yet, lovers of the damned were themselves destined for damnation.

SG was in great danger, but because she was unaware, she took no steps to protect herself.

The crisis came quickly. Anubis returned from the weighing one day in a foul mood. He pushed his servants aside and rushed into SG’s chambers. She was looking into a crystal globe that showed the world she had left, the world of sunlight and songbirds and rivers and trees.

“Searching for your lovers, whore?” Anubis demanded.

She turned to face him, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had been crying because she missed the world she had grown up in, the world she belonged in.

Anubis interpreted her tears as tears of grief for her mortal lover or lovers, including the one just cast down into the jaws of Ammut.

“Why do you call me whore, my master?” she cried. “What have I done to offend you?”

With his mighty arm, he swept her off her feet and into the far wall. The servants quickly ran from the room. She tried to rise, but he was on her in an instant, stepping on the small of her back and pulling back her head by the hair.

“You were a whore of the damned,” he yelled. “You knew the tall one who was thrown into Ammut’s lair. He called out to you.”

“He did,” SG said. “He did. But he was not my lover. He raped me. He and his friends raped me.

“I don’t believe you,” Anubis roared. He lifted her up and looked deep into her eyes. “I see you approaching him, kneeling before him, sucking his cock. I see no rape. I see only a WHORE!”

He flipped her over his shoulder and strode out of the room.

“Call an assembly of the gods,” he told his chief steward. “We will have a special weighing.”

He carried her through a low, dark corridor to a cell carved into the rock wall. He dumped her into it and slammed shut an iron grill.

“Contemplate your sins,” he told her. “Contemplate your doom.”

SG wept. Never had she felt so hopeless. Her love had turned to ashes. Her victimization by Louie continued, even in the underworld. Could she never escape him?

# # #

In the scale room, the dead usually far outnumbered the gods, but on this occasion there were many gods and no dead, at least not yet. SG was tied to a stone pillar. Her head was bowed, and her long blonde hair covered her face.

“You know why I have called you here,” said Anubis. “I have taken as concubine a woman unworthy of me and of this company. I apologize for my poor judgment. I am deeply sorrowful and ashamed.”

His voice, which had been low, suddenly rose. “And I will be avenged.”

There was a chorus of approval.

“We cannot judge the living, so I have arranged for the death of Kara-El. Her Ladyship has generously offered to dispatch her.”

Her Ladyship rose from a chair in the front row and walked up to SG. She put a hand under her chin and raised her head so she would face the crowd. SG’s eyes were red and swollen, but she remained one of the loveliest mortals the gods had ever seen.

Her Lady drew a knife and plunged it into SG’s chest. Three quick twists, and her chest had been torn open. Her Ladyship grasped the still beating heart and ripped it out.

She approached the scales with blood dripping from her hands and a cruel smile on her face.

“Do we really need to weigh it, my lord? We already know her perfidy.”

“She deserves the same chance as anyone else,” said Anubis. Her Ladyship placed the heart on the right scale, and Anubis dropped the feather of Ma’at on the other.

The scales teetered back and forth, then reached perfect equilibrium. SG’s heart weighed not a fraction of an ounce more or less than the feather.

There was murmuring in the crowd. Never before had this happened.

Her Ladyship’s face was flushed with anger. “There must be some mistake,” she said. “The scale is not in balance.”

“Are you questioning my competence?” asked Anubis coldly.

“Of course not, my lord,” muttered Her Ladyship.

The gods had crowded around the scales, and no one noticed that SG’s body was no longer tied to the pillar.

Then her voice rang out. “You came not to judge me but to condemn me,” she cried. “You were convinced of my guilt. Your minds were poisoned by rumors and false witness.”

They turned to see SG standing at the edge of the hole that led down to Ammut’s den.

“You would have fed me to the beast below without a fair hearing. This is the consequence of Her Ladyship’s jealousy, and of my beloved Anubis’s foolish gullibility.”

“Seize her,” cried Her Ladyship.

“Shut up,” roared Anubis. “Let her speak.”

“I am finished, my lord. Nothing I can say will ever be as persuasive as your scales. They show that I am neither blameless nor damnable. I once thought I was a superhuman being. It turns out I am just a flawed but striving creature of my adopted planet, no better or worse than most.”

“Kara-El, be careful,” Anubis shouted. She had stepped dangerously close to the hole. One misstep could send hurtling down into Ammut’s crocodile jaws.

Her Ladyship, who had quietly stolen close to SG, gave her a little push. SG fell sideways, reached for the far edge of the hole but couldn’t grip it. They heard her screams as she hurtled downward, then the growls of Ammut. Then silence.

All eyes were on Her Ladyship.

“She didn’t belong here,” she said, defensively. “The scales did not damn her, but neither did they proclaim her innocence.”

“The judgment was not yours to make,” said Kebechsenef.

Anubis grabbed her as she tried to rush past him.

“You would have condemned Kara-El without the scales,” he said. “Now it is you who will be condemned without benefit of weighing.”

He lifted her up and sent her hurtling head-first down to Ammut.

IV

The great tripartite beast was feeling poorly. Something she had eaten disagreed with her. This had never happened before, in the 12,000 or so years she had been on the job as Devourer of Hearts. This was a title affectionately bestowed upon her by the gods of the underworld and the Egyptian people, but it was not entirely accurate, since she devoured not just hearts, but souls as well.

One of the souls she had eaten recently was causing problems. She burped a lot, and the rumbling in her tummy was keeping her awake. Her friend Anubis was the god of healing, along with embalming, but it wouldn’t be proper to ask him for help, since he was responsible for sending down those she ate. If she complained of stomachache, he would no doubt feel guilty.

Which perhaps he should feel, she thought — though her job was not to judge but to consume.

The answer came to her in a dream, after she had fallen into a fitful sleep. She had eaten one who wasn’t damned. And that soul refused to be digested and disappear, as all other souls she had eaten had done.

What’s more, the dream told her that Anubis was not responsible for this mistake. Another had done it, and she was already safely disposed of.

Ammut awoke just as a fresh load of souls came down the chute. She would eat them later, she decided. For the moment, she peered up the hole and called out, “Anubis, Anubis, I need your help.”

“I am here,” he said from behind her, and when she turned, she discovered that indeed he was.

Though he considered Ammut a friend and colleague, Anubis hated visiting her. Her lair stank like a tannery, and the floor was slippery with innards and excrement.

“What can I do for you, Ammut?” he asked.

She explained her predicament, and her dream.

Anubis was delighted at the news.

“There is a chance we can save her,” he cried. “Quick, open your mouth as wide as you can.”

He peered inside. Her breath made him feel faint, and it was too dark to see anything. But he reached down her throat and into her belly. And when he pulled out his hand, a miniature SG was in it. She wriggled and made tiny squealing sounds.

“Thank you, Ammut. You have brought joy to my heart,” he said. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.

But Anubis’s joy did not last long. He quickly discovered that neither he nor any of the other gods could restore SG to her normal size. Ammut’s powerful digestive juices hadn’t destroyed SG, but they had diminished her — perhaps permanently.

Sorrowfully, Anubis made for her a mesh cage, not so much to confine her as to protect her from cats and other predators. Then he sent her by messenger back to the land of the living, in hopes that Pharaoh’s magicians might be able to help.

But Pharaoh happened to be present when the cage was delivered, and he was enchanted by this homunculus. And when he heard her voice, which sounded like the tinkling of a music box, he decided he must have her.

He hung her cage on a terrace of his palace, where she could see sunlight and hear the songs of birds and insects. For SG, it was a vast improvement over living underground, but she wanted her freedom, and her old, woman-sized body.

She remained in Egypt for many, many years, as one pharaoh succeeded another. Then came conquerors who spoke a different language, and she was taken by ship to Byzantium. There, she entertained emperors, just as she had once entertained pharaohs.

Centuries passed. Civilizations rose and fell. Men with a new language and a new religion ruled Byzantium. One of them discovered SG in her little cage and decided she was a gift that would please the Sultan.

The Sultan was amused for a while, but eventually grew bored. He suggested she be sent by sea to Cairo, where his brother-in-law was as bored as he, and looking for novelties.

It was on that journey by ship that SG fell into the hands of Albanian pirates. The pirate captain, a man named Scar, hung her cage in his cabin. But when she became discouraged and ceased singing, he grew angry and tossed the cage into the sea.

She and her cage were swallowed by a large fish and spent days inside it. The fish was caught by a Sicilian fisherman, who was astounded when he cut it open and found a tiny woman inside a cage.

Fearing this was the work of the devil, the fisherman brought the cage to his parish priest. The priest sent it on to the bishop, who in turn sent it to Rome.

There, it was deemed a fitting addition to the Vatican Library, that vast warehouse of treasures from a dozen civilizations.

And it was in the Library that a middle-aged American college professor discovered it. He leaned close to the glass and peered at the tiny figure in the cage. She was so lovely, he thought. For all the wonders of modern technology, we can never devise something so ingenious. There was even a tiny emerald pendant hanging between her breasts.

SG looked at him. It was Dr. Altezeiten, though he looked much younger than the last time she had seen him.

Then she realized how far in time and space she had traveled. She was meeting him now years before their first encounter. Somewhere in America was another SG, the one she once had been.

She wept, and Dr. Altezeiten marveled at her tears.

The craftsmanship, he thought. How much we have lost. Then he resumed his browsing among the statues and paintings and books and mechanical devices that no Pope would ever have time to fully explore.

SG remains there still, a small and lovely figure in a wire cage. Her songs are lovely and sad, and heard only by the carved wooden dancers who sit on either side of her, gifts to a long dead Pope from an Indian tribe in the Canadian Northwest.

THE END