A high-pitched droning sound enveloped the visitors like a thick veil. There were bees everywhere overhead. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
They were in ceaseless motion, endlessly crossing and recrossing the upper reaches of their home in a bewildering airborne ballet. Prestimion was amazed by their numbers, and by the speed at which they moved, and the brilliance of the light that rebounded from their glossy sides and wings as they flitted quickly about. He stood for a long moment at the entrance, staring upward in wonder, marveling at the rapidity of the bees’ movements and the dizzying beauty of the patterns that they created.
Gradually he began to focus on individual bees instead of simply following the movements of the group, and it started to dawn on him that the bees seemed very large, as insects went. But Septach Melayn voiced the question first. Turning to the duke, he said, “Are these really bees, your grace? For as I track them about this cage with my eyes they appear as big as birds to me.”
“Your eyes are not deceiving you,” replied the duke. “As if ever they could. But bees are truly what they are. Here: let me show you.”
He walked out into the middle of the floor and took up a pose with outstretched arms and upturned hands. Within moments half a dozen of the apiary’s inhabitants had swooped down to settle on him as though they were his pets flocking to their master, and a dozen more, just after, descended and took up orbit around his head.
The duke remained motionless. Only with his eyes did he signal to his guests. “Come close, now. Look at them. Slowly—slowly—take care not to frighten them—” Prestimion carefully advanced, and Septach Melayn, and then big Gialaurys, who was most careful of all, walking as though on a carpet of eggshells.
But Maundigand-Klimd, for whom the bees seemed to hold no interest, remained by the entrance. Abrigant, likewise, stayed at the apiary’s edge, his face darkened by a perpetual scowl. Since their arrival in Bailemoona he had scarcely bothered to veil his impatience to be on his way, off to Skakkenoir somewhere to the south and east, where the metal-bearing plants supposedly were to be found. The quest for Dantirya Sambail was only an irritating distraction to him; an hour spent among flittering bees, however beautiful they might be, an unutterable waste of time.
When he was close enough to Duke Kaitinimon to have a clear view of the gleaming little entities that were crawling over his palms, Prestimion emitted a low whistle of surprise. The golden bees of Bailemoona were creatures several inches in length, with plump little bodies, very birdlike indeed.
What actually were they, he wondered, small birds or very large insects?
Insects, Prestimion decided, when he had moved another few steps nearer. Now he was able clearly to make out their three pairs of furry legs. Their bodies were segmented, head and thorax and abdomen. They were covered everywhere, wings and body both, with a sleek reflective armor that could easily be mistaken for a fine coating of gold, and which accounted for the dazzling light-effects that their movements caused.
“Even closer,” said the duke. “Close enough to see their eyes.”
Prestimion obeyed. And gasped. Their eyes!—those strange eyes!—he had never seen such eyes.
Not the cold faceted eyes of insects, no, not at all. Nor the beady glittering ones of birds, for that matter. Their eyes were disproportionately large and had an oddly mammalian look to them, the warm, soft, liquid eyes of some little creature of the forest. But there was a burning intelligence in them, also, that set these creatures apart from the chattering droles and mintuns of the woods. It was almost frightening to look into those knowing eyes.
“Stand as I’m standing,” the duke said. “Stay very still, and they’ll come to you also.”
Neither Septach Melayn nor Gialaurys cared to make the experiment. But Prestimion thrust his arms outward with his palms facing up. A moment or two went by. Then a pair of the bees came out of the air and flew inquisitive circles around his head; and, after another minute or so, one of them cautiously lit on Prestimion’s left hand.
He felt an odd tickling sensation as it moved about on him. Very slowly he turned his head toward the left for a better view, and found himself staring into the insect’s huge solemn eyes. It was watching him closely.
There was intelligence there, beyond any doubt.
A tiny mind, but keen, penetrating. To what end, though? What kind of thoughts circulated in the brains of these little creatures, the last of their kind, as they flew their endless sparkling loops around the great apiary that was their only refuge in the world?
“Our ancestors kept them in little cages as pets,” Kaitinimon said, after a time. “They’d fly around for a month or two at most, and then would sicken and die. They could not abide the cages, you see. But no one who had ever had bees even a few days could resist their beauty: when your bees died, you felt you must immediately replace them, although those would die also, just as quickly. Once there were millions of them in this province. They turned the whole sky golden when they flew overhead in great masses. Now I alone have the privilege of keeping bees in Bailemoona; and this cage, as you see, is quite large. They would never survive in anything smaller.—If you carefully turn your hands over, like this, my lord, the bees will leave you. Unless, of course, you wish to extend the experience a little longer.”
“Just a few minutes more, I think,” Prestimion said. Two more bees arrived on his left hand, and then a third, landing on the other one. He stood transfixed, unable to take his eyes from theirs, lost in contemplation of the small intelligences that now quite placidly were traversing his hands. There were five of them on him, now. Six. Seven. He must seem safe. He wondered if they were looking somehow into his mind.
Abruptly he found himself wishing most intensely that Varaile had been here to see the bees with him today.
The thought startled him: that Varaile had taken Thismet’s place in his mind already, that he should be longing for this new woman whom he barely knew, and wishing that he had her by his side as he rode on and on through the world. And he did. It amazed him that he should feel her absence so strongly. But Thismet was gone forever, and Varaile awaited him at Castle Mount. By virtue of his power and his responsibilities, he was destined to spend his life traversing the world, and suddenly, with a degree of passion that astonished him, he yearned to share it all with Varaile, to show her everything that he would be privileged to see himself, the golden bees of Bailemoona, the vanishing lake of Simbilfant, the midnight market of Bombifale, the surging colors of Gulikap Fountain, the gardens of Tolingar—everything. Everything.
“You find our bees interesting, my lord?”
Caught off guard, Prestimion gave the duke a hasty glance. “Oh, yes,” he said quickly. “Yes! How extraordinary they are! How remarkable!”
“I could send a few to you at the Castle,” Kaitinimon said. “But they would only die, like all the rest.”
That night, as they dined on delicacies of the region in the ducal palace, Prestimion’s thoughts still were fixed on the golden bees, and on the longing for Varaile that they had so unexpectedly kindled in him. The bright glow of their enigmatic eyes would not release him, nor the pretty dazzle of the myriad flitting fliers swiftly moving through the upper reaches of their immense apiary. Those knowing eyes—that look of inexplicable intelligence—that beautiful golden gleam winking on and off—