But to his surprise the chieftain appeared to receive his outrageous request amiably. “Chronicler, you say? That’s a task that customarily is given to the oldest man of the tribe, is it not? And you are—”
“I will be nine soon,” Hresh said staunchly.
“Nine. Something short of oldest.” Was Koshmar hiding a smile?
“The oldest man now is Anijang. He’s too stupid to be chronicler, isn’t he? Besides, what does my age matter, Koshmar? Everything is different for us out here. There are dangers on all sides. All the men must be on constant patrol. We have had the rat-wolves, the bloodbirds, the fireburs, the leather-wings, almost every day some new creature to fend off. And they will all be back again and again. I’m too small to fight well yet. But I can keep the chronicles.”
“Are you sure of that? Can you read?”
“Thaggoran taught me. I can write words and I can read them. And I can remember things, too. I have much of the chronicles by memory, already. Try me on anything. The coming of the death-stars, the building of the cocoons—”
“You’ve read the chronicles?” Koshmar asked, looking amazed.
Hresh felt his face grow hot. What a blunder! The chronicles were sealed; no one was permitted to open the chest that contained them except the chronicler himself. Indeed, even in the days of the cocoon Hresh had managed sometimes to study a few pages that Thaggoran had happened to leave open in his chamber, for the old man had been careless sometimes or indulgent, though Thaggoran had not seemed aware of what Hresh was doing. But Hresh had carried out most of his investigations of history since Thaggoran’s death, surreptitiously, while the older tribesfolk had been out foraging for food. The baggage was often left unguarded; there was no longer any chronicler to keep a special eye on his treasure; no one appeared to notice the boy slipping open the sacred casket, or to care.
Lamely Hresh said, hoping Koshmar would not see through the blatant lie, “Thaggoran let me see them. He made me promise never to say anything to anyone about that, but once in a while as a special favor he would—”
Koshmar laughed. “He did, did he? Does no one keep oaths in this tribe?”
Desperately improvising, Hresh said, “He loved to tell the old stories. And I was more interested than anyone else, so he — he and I—”
“Yes. Yes, I can see that. Well, it matters very little now what oaths were kept or broken in the time before we came forth.” Koshmar looked down at him from what seemed like an enormous height. She seemed lost in private musings for a long while. Then at last she said, “Chronicler, then? And not even nine? A strange idea!” And then, just as Hresh readied himself to slink away in shame, she said, “But go, get the books. Let me see how you write, and then we’ll decide. Go, now!”
Hresh rushed off, heart pounding. Was she serious? Did she actually take him seriously? Would she give it to him? So it seemed. Of course she might simply be playing some cruel joke on him; but Koshmar, though she could be cruel, was not one who was known to make jokes. Then she must be sincere, he thought. Chronicler! He, Hresh! He could scarcely believe it. He would be the old man, and not even nine!
This day Threyne was in charge of the sacred things. She was a small wide-eyed woman, vastly swollen by the unborn that sprouted in her belly. Hresh pounced upon her, crying out that Koshmar had told him to fetch the holy books. Threyne was skeptical of that, and would not give them to him; and in the end they went together to the chieftain, carrying the heavy casket of the chronicles between them.
“Yes,” said Koshmar. “I meant to let him bring the books.” Threyne stared at her in astonishment. Plainly such a thing was blasphemy to her; but she would not defy Koshmar, even in this. Muttering, she yielded the casket to Hresh.
“Go,” Koshmar said to Threyne, waving her away as if she were a mote of dust. When Threyne was out of sight the chieftain said to Hresh, “Open it, then, since you seem already to know the way it’s done.”
Eagerly Hresh put his hands to the casket, maneuvering its rounded bosses and interlocking seals this way and that. Though his fingers quivered nervously, he achieved the opening in just a moment. Within lay the Barak Dayir in its pouch, and the shinestones nearby it, and the books of the chronicles pried as Thaggoran liked to keep them, with the current volume on top and the Book of the Way lying just beneath it.
“Very well,” Koshmar said. “Take out Thaggoran’s book and open it to the last page, and write what I tell you.”
He drew forth the book, caressing it with awe. As he opened it he made the sign of the Destroyer: for it was Dawinno, he who leveled and scattered, who was also the god of the keeping of knowledge. Carefully Hresh turned through it until he came to the final page, where Thaggoran had begun in his elegant way to write the story of the Coming Forth on the left-hand leaf. Thaggoran’s account ended abruptly, incomplete, in midpage; the right-hand leaf was blank.
“Are you ready?” Koshmar asked.
“You want me to write in this book?” said Hresh, not believing her.
“Yes. Write.” She frowned and pursed her lips. “Write this: ‘It was decided then by Koshmar the chieftain that the tribe would seek Vengiboneeza the great city of the sapphire-eyes, for it might be possible there to find secret things that would be of value in the repeopling of the world.’”
Hresh stared at her and did nothing.
“Go on, write that down. You can write, can’t you? You haven’t wasted my time in this? Have you? Have you? Write, Hresh, or by Dawinno I’ll have you skinned and made into a pair of boots for these cold nights. Write!”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I will.”
He pressed the pads of his fingers to the page and concentrated the full force of his mind, and sent the words that Koshmar had dictated hurtling onto the sensitive sheet of pale vellum in one furious, desperate burst of thought. And to his wonderment characters began to appear almost at once, dark brown against the yellow background. Writing! He was actually writing in the Book of the Coming Forth! His writing was not as fine as Thaggoran’s, no, but it was good enough, real writing, clear and comprehensible.
“Let me see,” Koshmar said.
She leaned close, peering, nodding.
“Ah. Ah, yes. You do have it, do you not? Little mischief-maker, little question-asker, you truly can write! Ah. Ah.” She pursed her lips and gripped the edges of the book tightly and narrowed her eyes and ran her finger along the page, frowning, and murmured, after a moment, “ ‘So Koshmar the chieftain decided that the tribe would search for the great city Vengiboneeza of the sapphire-eyes—’ ”
It was close, but the words Koshmar was reading were not quite the words that she had spoken a moment before and that Hresh had written down. How could that be? He craned his neck and stared at the book in her hands. What he had written still began, “It was decided then by Koshmar the chieftain—” Was it possible that Koshmar was unable to read, that she was quoting from her own memory of what she had dictated? That was startling. But after a bit of thought Hresh saw that it was not really so surprising.
A chieftain did not need to know the art of reading. A chronicler did.
A moment later Hresh realized a second startling thing, which was that he had just been permitted to learn the identity of the goal toward which they had marched all these months. Until this moment the chieftain had been steadfast in her refusal to divulge the destination of their trek to anyone. So intent had Hresh been on the act of writing itself that he had paid no attention to the meaning of the words Koshmar had uttered. Now it sank in.