“I wasn’t holding myself back, Taniane.”
“All right. Maybe I didn’t understand.”
He pulled away, sitting up on one elbow, and looked straight at her. “If I was holding anything back,” he said, “it was the things that I’ve been discovering about the world, about the People, about the Bengs, about the Great World — things that I’m still sifting through, things that have shaken me like an earthquake, Taniane — such gigantic things that I’m only beginning to comprehend them. They’re lying right here at the edge of my soul, and maybe I didn’t want to pass them along to you when we twined, because — because — I don’t know, because I thought it might hurt you to know some of those things, and so I held them back—”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I’m not sure I—”
“Tell me.”
He studied her. After a moment he said, “That time I used the Barak Dayir to take us into the long building of dark green stone where we saw the Dream-Dreamer ghosts moving around — do you remember that, Taniane?”
“Of course.”
“What did you think that building was?”
“A temple,” she said. “A Great World temple.”
“Whose temple?”
She frowned. “The Dream-Dreamers’ temple.”
“And who were the Dream-Dreamers?” Hresh asked.
She did not reply at once. “You want to know what I really thought, that day?” she said hesitantly.
“Yes.”
“Don’t laugh at me when I tell you.”
“Absolutely not.”
She said, “I thought that the Dream-Dreamers were the humans the chronicles talk about. Not us. That it’s just as the sapphire-eyes artificials said, when we first came into Vengiboneeza — that we’re wrong to think of ourselves as humans, because all we are is some kind of clever animals. We weren’t part of the Great World at all. That’s what I’ve believed ever since we went to that building. But I know that I’m wrong. It can’t be true, can it? It’s all a lot of crazy nonsense, isn’t it, Hresh? The Dream-Dreamers are probably people who came from some other star. And we’re human beings, just as we’ve always believed we were.”
“No. We aren’t humans.”
“We aren’t?”
“I’ve seen the proof. There’s no way to hide from it. All over the Great World ruins you see statues of the Six Peoples, and we’re not among them. The Dream-Dreamers are. And there was a place in old Vengiboneeza — I’ve seen it, Taniane, once in a vision that a Great World machine gave me — where they kept all sorts of animals, not civilized beings, just wild creatures. They had one cage with our ancestors in it. Almost like us, they were — and in a cage. On display. Just animals.”
“No, Hresh.”
“Very intelligent animals. So bright that they built cocoons for us when the Long Winter came — or maybe we built the cocoons ourselves, I’m not sure of that — and left us to wait the winter out. And Dawinno changed us, and made us more intelligent, so intelligent that we misunderstood the chronicles and thought we were the humans. We weren’t. I know that. The old man of the Bengs knows it too. His people never thought for a moment that they were the same as the humans who lived in Great World times.”
“But if the humans are supposed to inherit the earth, as it says in the chronicles, now that the winter’s over—”
“No,” Hresh said. “The humans are all gone. I suppose they died in the Long Winter, except for Ryyig Dream-Dreamer, who may have been the last one. We’re supposed to inherit the earth. But in order to do that we have to make ourselves human, Taniane.”
“I don’t follow you. If we aren’t human, how can we—”
“By living like humans. We almost do, now. We have language, we have writing, we have history. We can build. We can teach our children. Those are human things, not animal things. Animals work by instinct. We work by knowledge. You see? It isn’t only the Dream-Dreamers who were human, Taniane! All the Six Peoples of the Great World were! The human humans, and the sapphire-eyes, and the vegetals—”
“The hjjks too? Human?”
Hresh hesitated. “If ‘human’ means civilized, yes. If it means possessing the ability to learn, and create things, and transform the world. Even the hjjks are human by that standard. A different kind of human, that’s all. And we’ll be human too. The new humans, the newest humans. If we continue to grow, and build, and think. We have to get ourselves away from Vengiboneeza, first, and create something that’s really ours — not just hide here in these ruins. Build a Vengiboneeza of our own, a civilization that isn’t just put together out of the rubble of the one that came before. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“Yes. I do. I think I do, Hresh. It’s almost the same thing Harruel was saying.”
“Yes. Somehow he understood, and he went off to do the thing that we have to do. However crude and rough he is, at least he’s begun to build. Which is our task too. We have to touch the past and the future both. That’s what humans are — people who continue things, who create links between what was and what is to come. That’s why it’s important for us to finish exploring these ruins, and find whatever we can from the Great World that still can be used. And take it with us when we leave Vengiboneeza, and put it to our own uses, to build what we need to build.” He was smiling now. “We haven’t gone looking much since the Bengs came, have we? But I was out by myself, the other night. I found a whole new storehouse of things, far across the city. The Bengs caught me before I could go in — I’m not sure they know what’s there themselves, but they want to keep us out anyway. We can’t allow that. Let’s go back there, you and I. Let’s see what’s in there. All right? All right, Taniane?”
“Of course,” she said. “When?”
“A day, two days. Soon.”
“Yes. Soon.”
He reached for her, and she thought it was to twine again; but all he wanted was an embrace, and then he jumped to his feet, reaching a hand to her to pull her up too. He had to find Koshmar, he told her. These matters must be discussed. And then there were other important things to do. Always things to discuss, things to do. Off he went, leaving her standing by herself, shaking her head.
Hresh, she thought. How strange you are, Hresh! But how wonderful.
Her mind was spinning. Not human — we must make ourselves human — we must build — we must touch the past and touch the future both—
She wandered into the plaza and stood by herself, trying to make herself calm. Someone came up behind her. Haniman.
“Twine with me,” he whispered.
“No.”
“You keep saying no.”
“Let me alone, Haniman.”
“Couple with me, then.”
“No!”
“Not even that?”
“Let me be, will you?”
“What’s the matter, Taniane? You sound so bothered.”
“I am.”
“Tell me what’s troubling you.”
“Go away,” she said.
“I’m trying to make you feel better. It’s an old human tradition, you know. Woman in distress, man tries to offer comfort.”
She glared at him in exasperation. “We aren’t humans!” she cried.
“What?”
“Hresh says so. He has proof. We’re just animals, the way the guardians of the gate said we are. The Dream-Dreamers were the humans, and they’re all dead. You’re just a monkey with a big brain, Haniman, and so am I. Go ask Hresh, if you don’t believe me. Now get away from me, will you? Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
Haniman stared at her, astounded.
Then he backed away from her. Taniane looked after him, one hand over her mouth.
In the darkness of the chapel, amid the smoke of the smoldering fire, Koshmar saw masked figures moving before her. This, with the terrible warlike beak, was Lirridon. This was Nialli, with the black-and-green mask armed with blood-red spikes. This was Sismoil, featureless, enigmatic. This was Thekmur. This was Yanla. This was Vork.