it, or my descendants, or what its full legacy proved to be for the cities springing up around it. I don,t know what happened to its trading outposts. Its trading posts trafficked in a way of life as well as in livestock and slaves and goods. Yet I don,t know what became of them, of that particular way of life. I was no conscious chronicler or witness of the events that unfolded in those times. Surely you understand. You must understand. Do you look thousands of years into the future? Do you measure what,s happening to you now by what may matter a thousand years hence? I was stumbling and lurching, groping and from time to time drowning, as any man might." His voice was now heated and running smoothly. "I had no view of myself as positioned by fate or happenstance at the birthplace of a continuity that would endure for millennia. How could I? I underestimated every single force that impinged on my existence. It couldn,t have been otherwise. It,s a mere accident that I survived. That,s why I don,t like to talk of it. Talk is suspect. When we talk about our lives, long or short, brief and tragic or enduring beyond comprehension, we impose a continuity on them, and that continuity is a lie. I despise what is a lie!"
When he paused this time, no one spoke. Even Stuart was still.
"It,s enough to say I was deposed and exiled," said Margon. "My brother was behind it." He made a little gesture of disgust. "And why not? Truth is a risky proposition. It,s the nature of mediocre human beings to believe that lies are necessary, that they serve a purpose, that truth is subversive, that candor is dangerous, that the very scaffold of communal life is supported by lies - ."
Again he stopped.
He smiled suddenly at Stuart.
"That,s why you want the truth from me, isn,t it? Because people have taught you all your short life that lies are as vital to you as the air you breathe and you are hurtling full tilt into a life dependent upon the truth."
"Yes," said Stuart gravely. "That,s it, exactly." He hesitated, then said, "I,m a gay boy. I,ve been taught ever since I can remember that there were excellent reasons for me to lie about it to everybody I knew."
"I understand," said Margon. "The architects of any society depend upon lies."
"So tell me what really happened."
"Doesn,t matter, all that about gods and goddesses or exiled princes," said Margon. "But let,s go back to the narrative in which we both want to find a bit of salvageable truth."
Stuart nodded.
"Fortunately for Margon the Godless, no one was going to shed the blood of the heretic king. Margon the Godless was put outside the walls, and left to go his way like a desert drifter, with a skin of water and a staff. It is enough to say I found myself in Africa, traveling down through Egypt, and along the coast and then to this strange island where a peaceful and much despised people lived.
"They were hardly what one would call human beings. No one in those days would have thought them human. But they were a human race, a species of human, and a cohesive tribe. They took me in, fed me, clothed me insofar as they wore clothes. They looked rather more like apes than men and women. But they had language, they knew and exchanged expressions of love.
"And when they told me their enemy, shore people, were coming, when they described the shore people to me, I thought we would all die.
"They themselves lived in complete harmony with one another. But the shore people were people like me. They were Homo sapiens sapiens - fierce, armed with throwing spears and crude stone axes, and ravenous to destroy a contemptible enemy for sheer sport."
Stuart nodded.
"Well, I thought it was over as I said. The simple apelike creatures could never mount a defense against such a sophisticated and vicious invader. There was no time for me to teach them how to protect themselves.
"Well, I was wrong.
" ,You go and hide,, they said to me. ,We will know when their boats are coming., Then dancing wildly in circles as the shore people landed, they brought on the transformation. The elongated limbs, the fangs, the abundant wolfen hair - all you,ve seen yourselves, all you boys have experienced for yourselves. The tribe - male and female alike - were transformed into such monsters right