Har-el-Shak, ca 3,500BCE

En-ra snapped awake to the sound of chanting and laughter. The floor was hard; the room hot, dark and totally unfamiliar. It took him a few moments to remember where he was.

The chant was one of Kha-Lil's pieces using new symbolism and verse-styles. Realisation dawned. He was in the kiln-room and his head ached from the rough roksh they'd drunk to sanctify the bowls. Shocked, he realised he had no idea how long had passed. Was everything ruined while he slept? Then Kha-Lil was by his side, with a skin of water. He drank greedily.

"Your sixth sense serves you well. Soon we should start cooling the kiln, but it's still an even colour as you showed me. I would have wakened you had there been need." The water splashed down his body as he drank his fill. Kha-Lil ran a finger down his chest and then licked it. He noticed a film of sweat between her dark breasts. "Come," she giggled "there is more wine."

No one could remember who had started the joke about putting the stars and moon onto a cup. The symbolism of stars and wine and the sexuality of the moon goddess was nothing new, but Kha-Lil's chants seemed to express it in a new way. When the temple priestesses had rejected them, she, En-Ra and others, had begun to meet outside town, in a cedar grove, and worship The Lady in their own way.

He walked over to the others. She was right, the colour was still perfect. Moving around had made him feel slightly queasy again, so he motioned for a wineskin. En-Dar, the astrologer, stood and took a draught from one of the skins, then kissed him and held the skin for him. As he drank, her breasts brushed his arm and he felt a faint stirring of desire. Astrologer, seal-maker, singer; they made a good triad, but they also had special friends and he was proud that all six of the group were here tonight. Each had toasted the pottery, each had stoked the kiln and each had kept watch.

Now, En-Ra peered round the curtain that shrouded the doorway, careful not to let light betray the unorthodox use of the building. Arcturus was a finger-width above the horizon. It was time. He propped bricks against the opening for the charcoal and waited for the top to darken to a dull red. Then he removed one brick, threw in several handfuls of salt and replaced it. Gently he worked the bellows to keep the colour even. An-Bor took over and Kha-Lil struck up a traditional blessing chant, and En-Ra reached first for the water and then for the wine again.

Then the joke had taken on a life of its own. En-Dar had arrived one night with the astrological tables stripped down to a skeleton, just the moon-points and the bare minimum of other information. The result had been a challenge no designer of cylinder-seals could resist.

By now, En-Ra knew, the salt would have worked its magic or not and bowls would break as they cooled or not. There was no point in asking Her for more. Now they would wait.

Another wineskin passed and someone started a familiar chant. They sat in a circle, alternate man and woman, soot-streaked arms around sweaty shoulders, a frisson of arousal and unrequited desire adding to the power as each in turn sang their thanks for something special, verse alternating with chorus.

It had taken him several weeks to finish the sketches, but in the end everyone had felt were just right So right that Kha-Lil had revised the chants. So right that none of them could consider them blasphemous. So right that En-Ra had spent a week of spare time making a die to shape bowls. So right that the six had "borrowed" the seal-making workshop and kiln last week to work on the pottery and again tonight to fire the bowls. This was something beautiful; the first step on a new path to the Lady - a path that might lead anywhere.

They cleared the ashes from the kiln. Gently, they removed each cup. Reverently, they set the good ones aside - of the dozen pieces, exactly half had survived with a (more or less) even black gaze. One each - surely She had smiled on their journey.