Jack L. Chalker X 1 Lilith A Snake in the Grass

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body's symbiotes, a message to yours-or to a rock's or to anything else's. A
Master, then, could do it in more detail-could see the individual parts inside
a human body and order changes in the way those cells operated.
When something died, or if it lost its primary form-such as when a lock was
crushed-the Warden organisms died, and without them, the very structure of the
thing became unstable and collapsed. A Knight, then, I realized, could
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Lilith: A Snake in the Grass somehow keep the Warden organisms alive under
those conditions. But even then, the organism attacked and destabilized
inorganic matter from outside its environment. Somehow I thought of
antibodies, those substances in human blood that attack foreign substances
such as viruses that invade pur bodies. It seemed to me that the Warden
organism acted much like an antibody on inorganic alien matter: it attacked,
destabilized, and destroyed it.
Kreegan, then, could do the impossible-convince the Warden organism not to
attack and destroy alien inorganic matter. And each rank could also keep lower
ranks from communicating with the Warden organisms inside their own bodies,
thus protecting them.
But what tuned you to your own symbiotes, allowed you to relay commands
through them to others outside your own body? That I had yet to discover.
The mere discovery that I could sense the communication while most pawns could
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not was the best thing that could have happened to me. I no longer felt tired
or depressed. I had the talent. I needed to explore my powers, test them,
learn how to use them, learn my own limits.
Perhaps I wouldn't equal the Lord; perhaps I'd need help, a valuable ally.
For now, though, it was enough to know, finally, what was what on this mad
world-and to know, too, that my days of hauling mud for sixteen hours were
numbered.
More than enough.
Chapter Seven - Father Bronz
Over the following days my increasing sensitivity to the silent communication
absorbed me, and I tried to learn everything I could about it.
None of the pawns were any help except Ti, who could feel the power but
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Lilith: A Snake in the Grass had never learned how to control or use it
properly. Since one's position on
Lilith was dependent on mastery of the power-and since social mobility usually
led to the death of one of the contestants for a particular position-
there were, needless to say, no instruction manuals.
Although I've lived with the sensation for quite some time now, it is still
nearly impossible to describe. The best objective description I can give is a
tremendously heightened sensitivity to an energy flow. The energy is not great
and yet you can sense it, not as a static thing but as a continuous and
pulsating energy flow from all things solid. Gases and water don't seem to be
affected by the flow, although things living in the water, no matter how tiny,
possess it.
The energy itself is of the same sort-that is, there's no difference between a
flow from a blade of grass, a person, and the insects-and yet the patterns
that it forms are unique. You can tell one blade of grass from another, a
person from some other large creature; you even get different patterns from
the billions of microbes we all carry inside us.
I was still experimenting when the stranger arrived in our little village.
He'd apparently been there most of the day, walking around to different work
parties and details, but hadn't yet reached mine. Early in the evening I
finally saw him, relaxing in the common and eating some fruit. He wore a toga
of shiny white that seemed to ripple with his every move and a pair of finely
crafted sandals that marked him as a man of extreme power. Yet he was sitting
there at ease, eating with and socializing with us mere pawns. He was an
elderly man, with a fine-lined face and carefully trimmed gray beard, but he
was balding badly both in front, where only a widow's peak remained, and
around the top of his head. He looked thin and trim, however, and was in good
physical condition, as would be expected. His age could not be guessed, but he
would have to have been at least in his seventies, perhaps years older.
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Lilith: A Snake in the Grass
For a fleeting moment the idea entered my naturally suspicious head that this
might be Lord Marek Kreegan himself. Why he'd show up here at this particular
time, however, was a mystery that pushed coincidence to the limit. Besides,
Kreegan would be of standard height and build, as all the other people of the
civilized worlds and I had been. This man seemed a bit too short and too broad
to fit into that absolute category.
It was interesting to see the pawns' reaction to him. While they would not
even address a supervisor and would treat such a person with abject servility,
they freely approached this man and chatted with him, almost as equals. I
found Ti and asked her who he was.
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