They might also have seen a fluttering light, perched atop one of the larger stones, that brightened as they walked by it, and then took to the air, struggling higher and higher as if trying to keep them in view. It took on a shape vaguely patterned after that of an angel. With this came greater powers of movement. It no longer drifted, but took to sliding and darting in straight lines and compass arcs, pausing after each as if to take stock of what it had just done and to evaluate its altered view of the world. Its general track was ragged and halting but more or less followed that of Adam and Eve. Before long it was flitting in their wake. They noticed it, and saw it at first as merely one more in a seemingly endless series of accidents and curiosities. After a while, though, it became positively useful, as they had traveled far enough from the light of the Hive that darkness was making it difficult for them to find their way. Their new companion seemed to understand this. It rose a little higher and shone a little brighter, giving them a better view of the path ahead.

They saw that their surroundings had changed. No longer were they treading on rubble but on open ground covered with thick grass that grew up above their knees and obliged them either to kick through it or to press it down with each footfall.

“I believe this thing understands our speech,” said Adam, “as we were only just now complaining of the darkness, and now it is lighting the way.”

“Or it reads our thoughts without the necessity of words,” said Eve. She raised a hand to meet a wisp of aura that trailed down for a moment from the sprite flitting overhead. Then she drew her hand back.

“Anything?” Adam asked.

The look on Eve’s face was pensive. “Nothing like what is in the auras of El, or of angels. Nothing I can make sense of. But nothing of what the angel described as hazard.”

They amused themselves by getting their new friend to change the color of its light, which they did by pointing to the Red Web now setting in the west and plucking red blossoms from flowers that grew wild amid the grass. After some time, the thing did begin to glow red, and then they laughed and exclaimed, “Red!” The thing’s hum changed, as if it were trying to imitate the sound.

By the time dawn broke, it could not only be red but say “red” well enough for Adam and Eve to understand it. They moved on to “blue” (for the weather had cleared during the night, and a cloudless sky now stretched overhead) and “green” (for they were in a sea of it) and added more words such as “Adam” and “Eve,” “grass” and “water.” Their companion was less clearly visible by day, but they could sense its general direction from the sounds of its wings and see it as a disturbance in the light.