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it was urgently required to be somewhere out in the brush, and it suddenly started gobbling and running. Without a word, Poto swooped down from the limb and flew in front of the bird, shouting. The bird stopped, gazing stupidly at the man beating his wings in the air in front of him. Poto dropped to the ground, then jumped into the air again and, on the leap, kicked the turkey in the face. It screeched, turned around, and trotted back to the herd.

When Poto rejoined him on the limb, pTo couldn't resist. "What you just did to that turkey is what Boboi is doing to all the men."

Poto sighed. "Give me a little peace, pTo."

"What I'm saying, Poto, is that I'm going. You can tend the herd alone."

"We herd in twos because a man is needed to watch the turkeys, and another to watch the man so he isn't taken by surprise."

"Then come with me," said pTo. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm afraid to go alone."

"I'm afraid to go at all, and you should be, too."

"Then goodbye, my otherself, my bettermind. Perhaps my Iguo will marry you after I'm dead." In the old days, they would both be married to her already. Sometimes pTo wished it had not changed.

"Yes, everything's a poem to you," said Poto scornfully, but pTo was not deaf to the emotion behind his hard words.

"My death, when it comes, will be one that the poets sing of."

"Better to have a life that your children remember with joy than a death that the poets remember with song."

"Hard to believe you're not an old man, when you quote nonsense like that."

"Go if you must." pTo immediately leapt from the branch. Moments after his glide began, he rose up, circling higher than the treetops. He shouted down at Poto. "Watch your back, Obedient One!"

"No!" shouted Poto, truly angry. "I won't do your work for you!"

His words stung, but pTo flew on, down the valley. He knew that others would see him, and he knew that while Poto was high enough up the valley to be in little danger, others would say that he was so unnatural as not to love his otherself. Let them say what they would. Boboi was wrong. There was great danger in ignoring the Old Ones. pTo would study them, learn about them, perhaps enter into conversation with them. Learn their language. Become their friend. Bring back their ancient secrets. Better to bring knowledge back to the people than mere trinkets. Their trove of Old One artifacts was not large, but it had taken many generations to collect it. All of it was worthless, because none of it meant anything. It was knowledge that was needed, secrets that must be told. Not to the devils, either. To us.

It wasn't far. pTo wasn't even tired when the tower came into view. He had seen it before, from afar, and marveled at it every time. Who could shape a thing as smooth and tall as that? like sunlight on the water, it was so bright, and the trees looked like bushes bowing down to worship it.

Why had the Old Ones come to dwell among the devils, and not among the people? Was it possible that the Old Ones were hellfolk and not from the gods at all? Yet they had not burst upward from the ground. They came from the sky. How then could they be hellfolk?

They could be hellfolk because they rested their tower right beside a stand of thick, ancient trees. The signs of a devil city were all around. Dead trees here and there; depressions here and there from old tunnels that had given way; and nearby, the rocky hills that held miles of caves for their obscene cannibalistic worship. The Old Ones must have seen all this, must have known, and yet they built their own village where the devils could watch them without leaving their holes. Why would the Old Ones do this, if they didn't intend to befriend the devils? They probably already had. It was already too late.

But if it is too late, then I'll see signs of their alliance, I'll get some idea of what the danger is, and I'll come home and report. When the danger is clear enough, they'll stop listening to Boboi. But then we'll come down here for war instead of learning, and the Old Ones will probably strike us out of the sky with magic. The Old Ones live in a