"Let us finish our meal," Emmanuel said, "and then, Zina, I will go with you." He resumed eating in his methodical way, his face impa.s.sive. "I have a surprise for you, Zina," he said.

"What?" she said. "What is it?"

"Something that you do not know." Emmanuel paused in his eating. "This was foreordained, from the start. I saw it before the universe was. My journey into your land."

"Then you know how it will end," Zina said. For the first time she seemed hesitant; she faltered. "I forget sometimes that you know everything."

"Not everything. Because of my brain damage, the accident. It has become a random variable, introducing chance."

"G.o.d plays at dice?" Zina said; she raised an eyebrow.

"If necessary," Emmanuel said. "If there is no other way."

"You planned this," Zina said. "Or did you? I can't make it out. You are impaired; you may not have known... You are using a tactic on me, Emmanuel." She laughed. "Very good. I can't be sure. Extremely good; I congratulate you."

Emmanuel said, "You must go through with it not knowing if I planned it out or not. So I have the advantage."

She shrugged. But it seemed to Herb Asher that she had not regained her poise. Emmanuel had shaken her. He thought, And that is good.

"Don't abandon me, Lord," Elias said in a trembling voice. "Take me with you."

"Okay." The boy nodded.

"What am I supposed to do?" Herb Asher said.

"Come," Zina said.

'The Secret Commonwealth,' " Elias said. "I never believed it existed." He glowered at the girl, baffled. "It doesn't exist; that's the whole point!"

"It exists," she said. "And here. Come with us, Mr. Asher. You are welcome. But there I am not as I am now. None of us is. Except you, Emmanuel."

To the boy, Elias said, "Lord-"

"There is a doorway," Emmanuel said, "to her land. It can be found anywhere that the Golden Proportion exists. Is that not true, Zina?"

"True," she said.

"Based on the Fibonacci Constant," Emmanuel said. "A ratio," he explained to Herb Asher. "l:.618034. The ancient Greeks knew it as the Golden Section and as the Golden Rectan- gle. Their architecture utilized it . . . for instance, the Parthenon. For them it was a geometric model, but Fibonacci of Pisa, in the Middle Ages, developed it in terms of pure number."

"In this room alone," Zina said, "I count several doors. The ratio," she said to Herb Asher, "is that used in playing cards: three to five. It is found in snail sh.e.l.ls and extragalactic nebulae, from the pattern formation of the hair on your head to-"

"It pervades the universe," Emmanuel said, "from the microcosms to the macrocosm. It has been called one of the names of G.o.d."

In a small spare room of Elias's house Herb Asher prepared to bed down for the night. Standing at the doorway in a heavy, somewhat rumpled robe, with great slippers on his feet, Elias said, "May I talk with you?"

Herb nodded.

"She is taking him away," Elias said. He came into the room and seated himself. "You realize that? It did not come from the direction we expected. I expected," he corrected himself. His face dark he sat clasping and unclasping his hands. "The enemy has taken a strange form."

Chilled, Herb said, "Belial?"

"I don't know, Herb. I've known the girl four years. I think a great deal of her. In some ways I love her. Even as much as I do Manny. She's been a good friend to him. Apparently he knew, maybe not right off. . . but somewhere along the line he figured it out. I checked; I used my computer terminal to research the word zina. It's Roumanian for fairy. Another world has found out Emmanuel. She approached him the first day at school. I see why, now. She was waiting. Expecting him. You see?"

"Hence the mischief I see in her," Herb Asher said. He felt weary. It had been a long day. Elias said, "She will lead and lead, and he will follow. Follow knowingly, I think. He does foresee. It's what's called a priori knowledge about the universe. Once, he foresaw everything. Not anymore. It's strange, when you think about it, that he could foresee his own inability to foresee, his forgetfulness. I'll have to trust in him, Herb; there is no way-" He gestured. "You understand."

"No one can tell him what to do."

"Herb, I don't want to lose him."

"How can he be lost?"

"There was a rupturing of the G.o.dhead. A primordial schism. That's the basis of it all, the trouble, these conditions here, Belial and the rest of it. A crisis that caused part of the G.o.dhead to fall; the G.o.dhead split and some remained transcendent and some became abased. Fell with creation, fell along with the world. The G.o.dhead has lost touch with a part of itself."

"And it could fragment further?"

"Yes," Elias said. "There could be another crisis. This may be that crisis. I don't know. I don't even know if he knows. The human part of him, the part derived from Rybys, knows fear, but the other half-that half knows no fear. For obvious reasons. Maybe that's not good."

That night as he slept, Herb Asher dreamed that a woman was singing to him. She seemed to be Linda Fox and yet she was not; he could see her and he saw terrible beauty, a wildness and light and a sweet glowing face with eyes that shone at him lovingly. He and the woman were in a car and the woman drove; he simply watched her, marveling at her beauty. She sang: You have to put your slippers on To walk toward the dawn.

But he did not have to walk, because the lovely woman was taking him there. She wore a white gown and in her tumbled hair he saw a crown. She was a very young woman, but a woman nonetheless-not, like Zina, a child. When he awoke the next morning the beauty of the woman and her singing haunted him; he could not forget it. He thought, She is more attractive than the Fox. I wouldn't have believed it. I would prefer her. Who is she?

"Good morning," Zina said, on her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth. He noticed that she wore slippers. But so, too, did Elias when he appeared. What does it mean? Herb asked himself. He did not know the answer.

CHAPTER 12.

You dance and sing all night." Emmanuel said. He thought. And it is beautiful. Show me" he said.

"Then we shall begin." Zina said.

He sat under palm trees and knew that he had entered the Garden, but it was the garden he himself had fashioned at the beginning of creation; she had not brought him to her realm. This was his own realm restored. Buildings and vehicles, but the people did not hurry. They sat here and there enjoying the sun. One young woman had unbut- toned her blouse, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shone with perspiration; the sun radiated down hot and bright.

"No," he said, "this is not the Commonwealth."

"I took you the wrong way," Zina said. 'But it doesn't mat- ter. There is nothing wrong with this place, is there? Does it lack? You know it doesn't lack; it is Paradise."

I made it so,' he said. All right," Zina said. "This is the Paradise that you created and I will show you something better. Come." She reached out and took him by the hand. 'That savings and loan building has the Golden Rectangle doorway. We can enter there; it is as good as any." Holding him by the hand she led him to the corner waited for the light to change, and then, together, they made their way down the sidewalk, past the resting people, to the savings and loan office. Pausing on the steps Emmanuel said, "I-" "This is the doorway," she said, and led him up the steps. "Your realm ends here and mine begins. From now on the laws are mine." Her grip on his hand tightened. "So be it," he said, and continued on.

The robot teller said, "Do you have your pa.s.sbook, Ms. Pal- las?"

"In my purse." Beside Emmanuel the young woman opened her mail-pouch leather purse, fumbled among keys, cosmetics, letters, a.s.sorted valuables, until her quick fingers found the pa.s.s- book. "I want to draw out-well, how much do I have?"

"Your balance appears in your pa.s.sbook," the robot teller said in its dispa.s.sionate voice.

"Yes" she agreed. Opening the pa.s.sbook she scrutinized the figures, then took a withdrawal slip and filled it out.

"You are closing your account?" the robot teller said, as she presented it with the pa.s.sbook and slip.

''That's right."

"Has our service not been-"

"It's none of your d.a.m.n business why I'm closing my ac- count," she said. Resting her sharp elbows on the counter she rocked back and forth. Emmanuel saw that she wore high heels. Now she had become older. She wore a cotton print top and jeans, and her hair pulled back with a comb. Also, he saw, she wore sungla.s.ses. She smiled at him. He said to himself, She has already changed. Presently they stood on the roof parking lot of the savings and loan building; Zina fumbled in her purse for her flycar keys.

"It's a nice day," she said. "Get in: I'll unlock the door for you." She slipped in behind the wheel of the flycar and reached for the far door's handle.

"This is a nice car," he said, and he thought, She reveals her domain by degrees. As she took me to my own garden-world first she now takes me stage by stage through the levels, the as- cending levels, of her own realm. She will strip the accretions away one by one as we penetrate deeper. This, now, is the sur- face only. This, he thought, is enchantment. Beware! "You like my car? It gets me to work-" He said, breaking in harshly, "You lie, Zina!"

"What do you mean?" The flycar rose up into the warm mid- day sky, joining the normal traffic. But her smile gave her away. "It's a beginning," she said. "I don't want to startle you.

"Here," he said, "in this world you are not a child. That was a form you took, a pose.

"This is my real shape. Honest."

"Zina; you have no real shape. I know you. For you any shape is possible. Whichever shape appeals to you at the mo- ment. You go from moment to moment, like a soap bubble."

Turning toward him, but still watching where she drove, Zina said, "You are in my world now, Yah. Take care."

"I can burst your world."

"It will simply return. It is everywhere always. We have not gone away from where we were-back there a few miles is the school that you and I attend; back there in the house Elias and Herb Asher are discussing what to do. s.p.a.cially this is not an- other place and you know that."

"But," he said, "you make the laws here."

"Belial is not here," she said. That surprised him. He had not foreseen that, and, realizing that he had not foreseen it he knew that he had not truly foreseen the total situation. To miss a single part was to miss it all.

"He never penetrated my realm," Zina said as she negotiated her way through the sky traffic over Washington, D.C. "He does not even know about it. Let's go over to the Tidal Basin and look at the j.a.panese cherry trees; they're in bloom."

"Are they?" he said; it seemed to him too early in the year.

"They are blooming now," Zina said, and steered her flycar toward the downtown center of the city.

"In your world," he said. He understood. "This is the spring," he said. He could see the leaves and blossoms on the trees below them. The expanses of bright green.

"Roll your window down," she said. "It's not cold."

He said, "The warmth in the Palm Tree Garden-"

"Blasting, withering dry heat," she said. "Scorching the world and turning it into a desert. You were always partial to arid land. Listen to me, Yahweh. I will show you things you know nothing about. You have gone from the wastelands to a frozen landscape-methane crystals, with little domes here and there, and stupid natives. You know nothing!" Her eyes blazed. "You skulk in the badlands and promise your people a refuge they never found. All your promises have failed-which is good, be- cause what you have promised them most is that you will curse them and afflict them and destroy them. Now shut up. My time and my realm have come; this is my world and it is springtime and the air does not wither the plants, nor do you. You will hurt no one here in my realm. Do you understand?"

He said, "Who are you?"

Laughing, she said, "My name is Zina. Fairy."

"I think-" Confused, he said, "You-"

"Yahweh," the woman said, "you do not know who I am and you do not know where you are. Is this the Secret Common- wealth? Or have you been tricked?"

"You have tricked me," he said.

"I am your guide," she said. "As the Sepher Yezirah says: Comprehend this great wisdom, understand this knowledge, -inquire into it and ponder it, render it evident and lead the Creator back to His throne again.

"And that," she finished, "is what I will do. But it is by a route that you will not believe. It is a route that you do not know. You will have to trust me; you will trust your guide as Dante trusted his guide, through the realms, up and up."

He said, "You are the Adversary."

"Yes," Zina said. "I am."

But, he thought, that is not all. It is not that simple. You are complex, he realized, you who drive this car. Paradox and con- tradictions, and, most of all, your love of games. Your desire to play. I must think of it that way, he realized, as play.

"I'll play," he agreed. "I am willing."

"Good." She nodded. "Could you get my cigarettes for me out of my purse? The traffic's getting heavy; I'm going to have trouble finding a parking spot."

He rummaged in her purse. Futilely.

"Can't you find them? Keep looking; they're there."

"You keep so many things in your purse." He found the pack of Salems and held it toward her.

"G.o.d doesn't light a woman's cigarette?" She took the cigarette and pressed in the dashboard lighter.

"What does a ten-year-old boy know about that?" he said.

"Strange," she said. "I'm old enough to be your mother. And yet you are older than I am. There is a paradox; you knew you would find paradoxes here. My realm abounds with them, as you were just thinking. Do you want to go back, Yahweh? To the Palm Tree Garden? It is irreal and you know it. Until you inflict decisive defeat on your Adversary it will remain irreal. That world is gone, and is now a memory."