“A sad and sorry reunion this is, Prince Thu-Kimnibol. It shames me to come before you like this.”
Thu-Kimnibol sought for words and did not find any. After a moment he reached down and embraced the other in silence, doing it gingerly, for fear of opening some wound.
“Can we do anything for you?” he asked.
“Healers. Medicines. Food. What we need most of all is rest. We’ve been in retreat for — I couldn’t tell you how long. A week, two weeks? We kept no count.”
“I’m saddened to see how badly things have gone for you.”
Chham managed a momentary flare of vigor. “They went well enough at first. We beat them again and again. We killed them without mercy. My father fought like a god. Nothing could stand before his attack. But then—” He looked away. “Then the bug-folk used tricks against us. Wonderstone illusions, magical fantasies, things out of dreams. You’ll see: they’ll come at you the same way, when you next encounter them.”
“So there was a battle of dreams. And a great defeat.”
“Yes. A very great defeat.”
“And your father the king?”
Chham jerked his hand over his shoulder, toward the largest of the tents. “He lives. But not so as you’d know him. My brother Athimin was killed, and Biterulve also.”
“Ah. Biterulve too!”
“And my father was gravely wounded. But also he’s changed within, very much changed. You’ll see. We escaped by mere luck. A sudden windstorm came up. The air was full of sand. No way for the hjjks to see where we were. We crept away unnoticed. And here we are, Prince Thu-Kimnibol. Here we are.”
“Where is the king?”
“Come: I’ll take you to him.”
The withered, feeble man who lay on the pallet within the tent was not much like the Salaman that Thu-Kimnibol had known. His white fur was matted and dull. In places it had fallen out completely. His eyes too were dull, those wide-set gray eyes that had pierced once like augers. Bandages swathed his upper body, which seemed shrunken and frail. He didn’t appear to notice as Thu-Kimnibol entered. A thin old woman whom Thu-Kimnibol recognized as the chief offering-woman of the City of Yissou sat beside him, and holy talismans were piled up all around him.
“Is he awake?” Thu-Kimnibol whispered.
“He’s like this all the time.” Chham stepped forward. “Father, Prince Thu-Kimnibol has come.”
“Thu-Kimnibol?” A faint papery whisper. “Who?”
“Harruel’s son,” Thu-Kimnibol said quietly.
“Ah. Harruel’s boy. Samnibolon, that’s his name. Does he call himself something else now? Where is he? Tell him to come nearer.”
Thu-Kimnibol looked down at him. He could hardly bear to meet that burned-out gaze.
Salaman smiled. In the same faint voice he said, “And how is your father, boy? The good king, the great warrior Harruel?”
“My father is long dead, cousin,” said Thu-Kimnibol gently.
“Ah. Ah, so he is.” A flicker of brightness came into Salaman’s eyes for a moment, and he tried to sit up. “They beat us, did Chham tell you? I left two sons on the field, and thousands of others. They cut us to bits. No more than we deserved, that’s the truth. What a foolishness it was, making war on them, marching like idiots into their own land! It was madness and nothing but madness. I see that now. And perhaps you do too, Samnibolon. Eh? Eh?”
“I’ve been called Thu-Kimnibol these many years.”
“Ah. Of course. Thu-Kimnibol.” Salaman managed a kind of smile. “Will you continue the war, Thu-Kimnibol?”
“Until victory is ours, yes.”
“There’ll never be any victory. The hjjks will drive you back the way they did me. They’ll drown you in dreams.” Slowly, with obvious effort, Salaman shook his head. “The war was a mistake. We should have taken their treaty and drawn a line across the world. I see that now, but now’s too late. Too late for Biterulve, too late for Athimin, too late for me.” He laughed hollowly. “But do as you wish. For me the war’s over. All I want now is the forgiveness of the gods.”
“Forgiveness? For what?” Thu-Kimnibol said, his voice rising suddenly above a sickroom murmur for the first time.
Chham tugged at Thu-Kimnibol’s arm, as though to tell him that the king did not have the strength for such discussions. But Salaman said, his voice louder now too, “For what? For leading my warriors off to be cut to pieces in this filthy land. And for sending my Acknowledgers to their doom, and the army that followed them also, all for the sake of stirring up a war that should never have been fought. The gods didn’t mean us to strike at the hjjks. The hjjks are the gods’ creatures as much as we are. I have no doubt of that now. So I have sinned; and for that I will undertake a purification, and by the grace of Mueri and Friit I will have it before I die. I should ask the forgiveness of the Queen as well, I suppose. But how would I do that?” Salaman reached up and caught Thu-Kimnibol by the wrist with surprising strength. “Will you give me an escort home, Thu-Kimnibol? A few dozen of your troops, to help us retrace our steps across all this miserable wasteland that we’ve crossed at such cost. To bring me back to my city, so that I can go before the gods in the shrine that I built for them long ago, and pray them give me peace. That’s all I ask of you.”
“If you wish it, yes. Of course.”
“And will you pray for me, also, as you go onward toward the Nest? Pray for the repose of my spirit, Thu-Kimnibol. And I’ll do the same for yours.”
He closed his eyes. Chham gestured, beckoning Thu-Kimnibol from the tent.
Outside Chham said, “He’s beside himself with guilt for my brothers’ deaths. His soul is flooded with remorse, for that, for everything in his life that he sees now as a sin. I never knew a man could be so changed in a single moment.”
“He’ll have his escort home, you can be sure of that.”
Chham smiled sadly. “He’ll never see Yissou again. Two, three days — that’s all he has, so the healer tells me. We’ll put him to rest in hjjk country. As for those of us that remain—” He shrugged. “We’re willing to put ourselves under your command for the rest of the war. If you’ll have us, broken as we are. Or if you won’t, we’ll limp back to our city and wait to hear how you’ve fared.”
“Join us, of course,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “Join us and fight alongside us, if you have the strength to go on. Why would we refuse you? We are meant to be allies always, your city and mine.”
Darkness was coming quickly on. Nialli Apuilana knelt beside her father. Thu-Kimnibol stood well back from them, in the shadows where the glowglobes couldn’t reach.
“Take this amulet from around my throat,” Hresh whispered. “Put it on.”
Nialli Apuilana’s hands tightened into fists. She knew what must be in Hresh’s mind. He had worn that amulet all his life: she had never seen him without it. To give it to her now—
She glanced toward Thu-Kimnibol. He nodded. Do it, he said silently. Do it.
Unfastening the cord that held the amulet, she drew it gently free. It was a little thing, just a bit of smooth green glass, or so it seemed, with signs inscribed on it that were much too small for her to decipher. It seemed very old and worn. She felt an odd chill coming from it; but when she tied it around her neck she was aware of a faint tingling, and a distant warmth.
She stared at it, resting between her breasts.
“What does it do, father?”
“Very little, I think. But it was Thaggoran’s, who was chronicler before me. A piece of the Great World, is what he told me. It’s the chronicler’s badge of office, I suppose. Sometimes it summons Thaggoran for me, when I need him. You have to wear it now.”