But how could Hresh go outside the cocoon for the rites of his naming-day, if he was outside it to begin with?
The old rite had become meaningless. But the naming-day was important. Once again, Torlyri realized, it had fallen to her to invent a rite. There was something strange and a little troublesome about that — simply making up a rite. Was that how all the old rites had come into being? she wondered. Invented by priestesses on the spot, or the old man, to meet some sudden need? Not decreed by a god at all?
The god, she told herself, speaks through the offering-woman.
So be it. She excused herself from Koshmar and went apart, back to the lake of the water-strider, and knelt there to Dawinno and asked for guidance. And Dawinno gave her a rite. It sprang clear and bright into her mind.
The water-strider appeared once again, while she still knelt there. She looked to it fearlessly, smiling as it unfolded its vast flimsy self. You could not harm me if you wished to, she thought. But even if you could, I would smile at you this day, and you would not do me injury. The strider, weaving slowly about at its great height, studied her somberly. And then it seemed to her that the strider smiled to her, and took pleasure in her presence there.
She nodded to it.
“The Five be with you, friend,” she said. And the strider laughed; but the laugh seemed more gentle than it had been that other time.
As Torlyri returned to the camp she saw a flock overhead of the creatures that Thaggoran had named bloodbirds, which had swarmed upon them more than once far back in the plains, trying to pierce the marchers with their beaks. She remembered their frightful swoops, their screeching cries, the wounds they had inflicted. But this time she felt no cause for alarm. She looked upon them unafraid, as she had with the water-strider, and they stayed far above, circling without swooping.
This is the proper way to dwell in this place, she told herself. Meet these creatures without fear, meet them if you can with love, and they will do you no harm.
“Now, this is the rite,” she said to Koshmar. “I will go off with him into the forest, deep, far from the tribe, to a place where we are all by ourselves with only the creatures of the forest around us. That will be like leaving the safety of the cocoon in the old days. And he will make the offerings to the Five, and then he must go before some creature of the wilderness, it makes no difference which one, a snake, a bird, a water-strider, anything, so long as it is a creature not like us: and he will go to it in peace and tell that creature his new name.”
Koshmar looked troubled.
“What purpose does that have?”
“It says that we are people of the world and in the world, and that we live among its creatures again. That we come to them in love, without fear, to share their world with them now that the winter is over.”
“Ah,” said Koshmar. “I see.” But Torlyri could tell from the way she said it that she was not convinced.
Even so, it was the time of Hresh’s naming-day, and there was no cocoon for him to step out from, and this was the new rite that Torlyri had devised, and she was the only offering-woman the tribe had. So who was to say that the rite was incorrect? Torlyri gave Hresh instruction in what he was to do and they set forth together at dawn, just the two of them. He had an offering-bowl in his hand and as they walked he gathered blossoms and berries to give to the gods.
“Tell me when we are at the place,” he said.
“No, you must tell me,” said Torlyri.
His eyes were aglow with life and energy. It seemed to Torlyri that she had never known anyone so much alive as this boy, and her heart overflowed with love for him. Surely the force of the gods flowed in his veins!
“Here,” Hresh said.
It was dark in the place he had chosen, for the trees were stitched together high above by networks of vines thicker than a man’s arm. The ground was soft and damp. They could have been the only people in the world.
Hresh knelt and made his offerings.
“Now I will take my new name,” he said.
Then he searched about for a creature to be his name-creature; and after some time a beast of fair size came padding into the grove, an animal about the size of a rat-wolf, but far more appealing, with bright eyes and a long tapered head and two shovel-like golden tusks alongside its snout and a row of pale yellow stripes down its tawny back. Its legs were slender and ended in three sharp-tipped toes: a digging animal, perhaps, that fed on insects in the ground. It looked at Hresh as if it had never seen anyone of his sort before.
He went close to it.
“ Yourname is goldentusks,” Hresh said.
Torlyri smiled. How like him, to name the animal first, on his own naming-day!
The animal stared, unafraid, perhaps curious.
“And I,” Hresh went on, “I am Hresh-full-of-questions, and this is my naming-day, and I have chosen you as my naming-beast. And I tell you, goldentusks, that the name I take is — Hresh! Hresh-of-the-answers!”
Torlyri gasped. The audacity of him!
Once in a while it happened that someone chose his birth-name to be his grown-name as well, but it was rare, it was almost unheard-of, for to do such a thing spoke of an inner confidence, a security, that bordered almost on the foolhardy. Hresh who chooses to be named Hresh! Had there ever been anyone like this child?
And yet — and yet — was it the same name? Hresh-full-of-questions before, which was the name that others had come to call him; and Hresh-of-the-answers now, which was the name he had called himself.
He was talking to the goldentusks, standing close beside it, stroking it, patting it. Then he tapped its haunch and sent it padding off into the underbrush. He turned to Torlyri.
“Well?” he said. “Am I properly named?”
“You are properly named, yes.” She pulled him close to her and hugged him. “Hresh-of-the-answers, yes.” He accepted his nearness to her a little stiffly, a little reluctantly, as if uneasy with her affection. Releasing him, she said, “Come now: we must return to the camp, and tell the others what you have chosen for yourself. And then it will be time to go in search of great Vengiboneeza.”
But they could not set out for Vengiboneeza just yet, for now Nettin had been brought to childbed: a girl this time, and Hresh, presiding again, named her Tramassilu, after the girl who had been speared by the red-beaked hopping thing. It was his plan to name all the new children for those who had died on the trek, to indicate that the losses had been made up. They needed a new Hignord and a new Valmud, therefore; and then other names could be used as other children were born. Already Jalmud, whose mate had been killed by the rat-wolves, had asked leave to take the girl Sinistine to couple with, and Hresh supposed that other pairs would be forming soon, now that everyone realized they need not fear engendering new life, but must come to see it as a sacred duty.
For a few days more the tribe remained camped near the water-strider pond, until Threyne and Nettin were strong enough to move onward. It was a hard time for Koshmar, who yearned to see Vengiboneeza. It was hard for Hresh, too. More than any of the others he had some idea of what to expect at Vengiboneeza, and he boiled with eagerness.
Indeed he was the first of all of them to glimpse its towers, four days after they resumed the march. Heading westward, they came to a lake of such a deep blue that it seemed black, and then another lake, just as the water-strider had said; and then they came to a stream, which plainly meant that Vengiboneeza must be near. It was only a small stream, but swift and cold with jutting fangs of rock everywhere. Crossing it with the baggage was an intricate task that took many hours, so that even Koshmar thought it was wisest to make camp and rest on the far side. But Hresh was unable to wait. Once they were across he slipped off by himself when no one was watching, and ran quickly through the trees until sudden amazement brought him to a halt.