“Search the books again,” Koshmar said despairingly to Hresh. “There is some passage you have failed to find that will tell us how to reach Vengiboneeza.”
He ran his hands again and again over the pages. He sought through the dustiest and most ancient of the books, those that spoke only of the Great World. But there was nothing. Perhaps he was looking in the wrong places. Or perhaps the writers of the chronicles had not seen any need to set down the location of that great city, so famous had it been. Or possibly the information had simply been lost. These oldest chronicles were not the original texts, he knew. Those had crumbled to dust hundreds of thousands of years ago; the ones he possessed were the copies of copies of copies, made from tattered earlier versions by generations of chroniclers during the long night within the cocoon, and who knew how much of the text had been changed by error, or discarded altogether, in that constant process of recopying? Much of what they contained was impossible for him to understand; and what was there, though often quite clear, sometimes had the deceptive eerie clarity of a dream, where everything seems orderly and straightforward but in fact nothing makes sense at all.
It might be time, Hresh thought, to risk using the Barak Dayir. But he was afraid. He had never been afraid of anything before, even when he had tried to sneak out of the cocoon. No, that was a lie. He had been afraid then that Koshmar would kill him; death did frighten him, he would not deny that. But death was the only question that contained its own answer, and when you asked the question and had the answer you were gone, you were nothing. So that was the one answer he feared. The question of how to use the Wonderstone might well be the same as the question of understanding death; and the answer, if he did not protect himself properly, might also be the same. He left the Barak Dayir in its velvet pouch.
“Tell me how to reach Vengiboneeza,” Koshmar said again.
“I continue to search,” said Hresh. “Give me another few days and I’ll tell you what you wish to know.”
Harruel came to Hresh while he searched the books. He loomed above him as Harruel always did, and said, “Old man! Chronicler!”
Hresh looked up, startled. Automatically he turned the book he was reading away from Harruel, and shaded it with his hand. As though Harruel could possibly be able to read it!
“Sit down, if you want to talk to me,” Hresh said. “You stand too far above me and it hurts my neck to see you.”
Harruel laughed. “You are a bold one!”
“Is there something you want to know from me?”
Harruel laughed again. It was a harsh laugh that burst from him with a sound like that of rocks tumbling down a mountainside, but his eyes were twinkling. Indeed Hresh knew he was playing an absurd game, if not a dangerous one. A boy not yet nine years old was giving orders to the strongest man of the tribe: how could Harruel not laugh, or else hurl him angrily across the field? But I am the chronicler, Hresh thought defiantly. I am the old man. He is only a fool with muscles.
The warrior knelt down beside him and came close, too close for Hresh’s comfort. There was a sharp biting smell about Harruel, and the sheer size of him was disturbing.
In a low voice Harruel said, “I need knowledge from you.”
“Go on.”
“Tell me about the thing called kingship.”
“Kingship?” Hresh echoed. That was an ancient word, one that he had never heard spoken aloud in his life. It was strange hearing it now from Harruel. “You know of kingship?”
“Some,” he said. “I remember Thaggoran spoke of it once, when he was reading from the chronicles. You were a babe, then. He talked of Lord Fanigole and Lady Theel and Belilirion, and the other founders of the People in the time of the coming of the death-stars. They were men, all but Lady Theel, and they ruled. I asked if men had often ruled, in those old days. That day Thaggoran said that in the time of the Great World there were many kings who were men like me, and not only among the humans — the sapphire-eyes had kings too, said Thaggoran — and he told me that when the king spoke, his words were obeyed.”
“As a chieftain’s words would be today.”
“As a chieftain’s words would, yes,” said Harruel.
“Then you already know about kingship,” Hresh said. “What more can I tell you?”
“Tell me that such a thing existed.”
“That there were men who were kings in the Great World?” Hresh shrugged. He had not studied these things. And even if he had, he doubted that he should be giving information about such matters to Harruel, or to anyone but Koshmar. The chronicles were here mainly for the guidance of the chieftain, not for the amusement of the tribesfolk. “I know little about kingship,” he said. “What you have said is perhaps the extent of it.”
“You can find more about it, can’t you?”
“There may be more in the chronicles,” said Hresh cautiously.
“Search it out, and tell me, then. It seems to me that kingship is something that should not have been forgotten. The Great World will be born again; and we must know how it was in the time of the Great World if we are to bring it to life a second time. Search your books, boy. Learn about the kings, and teach them to me.”
“You must not call me boy,” Hresh said.
Harruel laughed again, and this time his eyes were not twinkling.
“Search your books on these matters,” be said. “And teach me what you learn — old man. Chronicler.”
He stalked away. Hresh looked fearfully after him, thinking that this meant nothing but trouble, and probably danger. Worriedly he fondled Thaggoran’s amulet. That day he began to search out the meaning of kingship in the casket of books, and what he found confirmed what he had guessed.
Perhaps I should tell Koshmar about this, he thought.
But he did not; nor did he report anything back to Harruel on his research. Harruel made no further inquiries just then into the matter of kingship. The conversation remained a private matter between them, secret, festering.
Koshmar felt the beginning of defeat. If only Thaggoran were here to guide her! But Thaggoran was gone and her chronicler was a boy. Hresh was quick and eager, but he lacked Thaggoran’s depth of wisdom and familiarity with all the ages that had gone before.
She was coming to face the truth that she could not hope to sustain the trek much longer. The grumbling had begun again, and this time it was more heated. Already there were those, she knew, who said they were marching to no purpose. Harruel had emerged the leader of that faction. Let us settle down in some good fertile place and build us a village: so he was saying behind Koshmar’s back. Torlyri had overheard him haranguing four or five of the other men. In the cocoon it was unthinkable that the tribe would even consider countermanding a chieftain’s word, but they were no longer in the cocoon. Koshmar began to imagine herself cast down from power: not the savior of the reborn world but merely an overthrown chieftain.
If they deposed her, would they even let her live? These were all new thoughts. There were no traditions about the deposing of chieftains, or what to do with a deposed one afterward.
Koshmar had left behind, in the cocoon, that strip of glossy black stone that contained the spirits of the chieftains who had gone before her. All she had brought with her were their names, which she recited again and again; but perhaps the names had no strength without the stone, just as the stone had no strength without the names.