Free The Fresco by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

lined with the entryways and doors cast from an alloy of copper, one that has a lovely red-gold glow—the doors of the selectors. The stairs continue upward to another terrace, and another after that, and so on up to the final seventh terrace at the top of the hill. This apex is marked by an edifice, near ton’eros, my, home place, the edifice, the golden dome that stretches over the most sacred place of our people: the House of the Fresco.
    Here, long ago, following our departure—some say expulsion—from our spiritual home, the aged Canthorel bid the masons among our people raise up a circular wall pierced on the east by three doors, and when they had done it, he set a crew to plaster the inner walls, beginning at the right side of the middle door and moving sunwise as he followed the plasterers with paints to illustrate the revelatory episodes of our history. The resultant work, we are taught, was inspired, infallible, and miraculously completed in a single day during which, some avow, the planet slowed its turning tolengthen the light. When Canthorel laid down his brushes, daylight was no longer needed and night fell. He then commanded a dome to be reared above the whole, and when the keystone of the dome was set, Canthorel died. It is said his spirit went into the work, and it is certain his ashes lie at the center point of the sanctuary, in an earthen plot planted with fragrant vine.
    In those early times, the sanctuary was approached by means of a road that twisted back and forth across the hillside. The stairs and terraces came later, to meet the needs of a growing population. Still later came replicas of the whole structure, stairs, terraces and Fresco House—though it would have been blasphemy to copy the Fresco itself—in every region and on every world we occupy. One’s family lands are and have always been, however, in the verdant valley near the true, the only original Fresco.
    Though every child knows this story from infancy, though many of us have played follow-on or quick-ball on the green meadows at the foot of the Fresco hill, one’s first formal approach to the stairs comes as an awful, even terrifying event. I was surprised at my own tremors as we set out. I was dressed in the customary green, symbolizing a new shoot, a new stem. My inceptor was in gold, the house historian in formal brown, the receptors were draped in silver, the nootchi were clad in festive reds and yellows, the household campesi wore their leather aprons. All the younger children had been left at home. Except for celebrants, only those who have climbed the stairs are permitted to climb the stairs, and only they may escort a celebrant on the first climb.
    The choral finisi who habitually arrange themselves at the edges of the stairs all along the ascent were present in large numbers on my day. Since it was unlikely my parsimonious inceptor had paid them to sing, their presence indicated a busy day, with many candidates scheduled to ascend amid a consequent probability of largess. No matter how stingy, no inceptor would let an offspring ascend to the terrace without making some gift to the choristers, for they have jeering songs aplenty to direct at the niggardly. As itwas, they sang me upward with our own nootch joining in the responses (ke had always fancied kerself a singer) while my inceptor handed out sufficient coin to sop their esteem. Though our climb was done with measured and dignified tread, as was proper, it was completed all too soon at the first terrace.
    Inceptor and receptor gripped my arms; the proffe-historian readied licos, his, writing instrument; one nootch, one campesi marched behind as ton’i veered to the left and approached the first columned entrance out of a dozen or so, all of them surrounding massive doors leading into the mountain. My inceptor knocked, as was proper.
    â€œWho comes?” cried the brazen voice I had been warned to expect.
    â€œAn undifferentiated