But that Queen within her is only the shadow of the true one. It’s the Queen Herself, and not the shadow, with whom she has to deal today.
“Do you know me?” she calls. “I am Nialli Apuilana, daughter of Hresh.”
And out of the depths of the Nest of Nests comes an answer from the great motionless pallid thing that lies hidden there.
“I know you. What do you want with Me?”
“To negotiate with you.”
Derisive laughter rings down upon her like a hail of fire. “Only equals can negotiate, little one.” And from the Queen comes a storm of power that makes the air shiver and bend upon itself, so that Nialli Apuilana can see the roots of the world showing through the fabric of the atmosphere.
But she will not let herself be swayed.
“You have a Wonderstone,” Nialli Apuilana says. “I have a Wonderstone. We are equals, therefore.”
“Are we?”
“Can You harm me?”
“Can you harm Me?” the Queen says.
Bolts of blue flame arch upward from the Nest. They dance and swirl about Nialli Apuilana in frenzied weaving motions, looking for a vulnerable place. She brushes them away as though they’re gnats.
The Queen sends a storm of boulders. The Queen sends a wall of fire. The Queen sends a cloud of searing mist.
“You waste Your time. Do You think I’m a child, who can be frightened this way? What the Wonderstone sends, the Wonderstone can turn aside. We can spend all day threatening each other like this, and nothing will be achieved.”
“What is it that you hope to achieve?”
“Let me show You a vision,” says Nialli Apuilana.
From the Queen, after a moment, comes grudging assent.
From Nialli Apuilana to the Queen goes an image of the terrain that surrounds the Nest of Nests, as she knows it must be, though she had never seen it with her own eyes: hard sparse plains, broad endless grayness under an unforgiving sky. She draws it from the soul of Kundalimon that is still within her. Kundalimon had lived in the Nest of Nests. She shows the Queen the dry puckered soil, the pitiless saw-edged grass, the small vicious creatures that scrabble fiercely for their livelihoods in that remote and dreadful land.
And then she shows Her the dark mouths of the Nest gaping here and there in the plain, and the barely perceptible rise of the Nest itself, a faint humped swelling beneath the surface of the land, myriad corridors running off in every direction.
“Do You recognize this place?” Nialli Apuilana asks.
“Go on.”
Now Nialli Apuilana shows the Queen the armies of the People advancing from east and west and south: not merely the force that Thu-Kimnibol had brought with him from Dawinno, but the warriors of all the Seven Cities of the continent, from Yissou and Thisthissima and Gharb, from Ghajnsielem, from Cignoi, from Bornigrayal, every tribe of every land, all of them united here in one cataclysmic outpouring of joined strength. And there, rising above that multitude like the tallest tree of the forest, is Thu-Kimnibol of Dawinno; and in his hand is one of the weapons of the Great World. The chieftain of Gharb has a similar weapon, and that of Cignoi, and all the others; and they hold them trained on the Nest of Nests.
Hjjks come streaming now from the Nest, the finest of the Queen’s Militaries; and as they rush toward the invaders Thu-Kimnibol and the other chieftains raise their weapons high, and bright light flares and a clap like the sound of the world’s final thunder sounds, and the plains are swept by fire and the Militaries fall, crisped like twigs in a firestorm. And the armies of the Seven Cities move onward toward the Nest.
They surround it now. They peer down into each of its many mouths. They raise their weapons high once again and touch the studs that bring them to life.
And force leaps from those gleaming ancient devices, an invincible force that rips the earth apart and lifts the roof from the Nest, stripping it bare, revealing the corridors and passages and channels so painstakingly constructed over so many hundreds of thousands of years. In that terrible glare all the Egg-layers and the Life-kindlers stand revealed, and the Nest-thinkers, and the uncountable hordes of workers; and they perish in the first blasts. Then the deadly power descends into deeper, more tender places, where the Nourishment-givers are holding the newborn to their mouths to give them food; and they die also, Nourishment-givers and newborn both, in the next wave of the onslaught.
And then, deeper yet, to the deepest cavern of all—
To the place where the Queen Herself lies hidden, but hidden no longer, for a flick of force has stripped the roof of Her chamber away and Her pale immense body is exposed and defenseless, while desperate Queen-attendants cluster close about Her and frantically brandish their weapons in vain. Thu-Kimnibol looms above Her, grasping a small sphere of shining metal from which a sudden amber light comes forth. And the Queen quivers and convulses and pulls away from that hot probing pressure. But where can She go, in that close chamber? Remorselessly the amber light plays up and down the length of Her. Huge bubbles and blisters begin to appear on the charred and blackening surface of Her. Black smoke rises from Her as She sizzles and crisps under that merciless amber beam. Until—
Until—
“This could never occur,” comes the cold voice of the Queen.
“Are You so certain? Vengiboneeza lies in ashes. The dead bodies of the insect-folk litter the plains already for hundreds of leagues. And we have only begun.”
“You are small-souled creatures. You would turn away in terror long before you reached us.”
“Are You absolutely certain of that?” asks Nialli Apuilana. “Could small-souled creatures have built our cities? Could small-souled creatures have fought You as we’ve fought You thus far? I tell You: we have only begun.”
There is a silence.
The Queen says at length, “I know you. You are of the Nest, girl. You were one of us, and then I sent you from the Nest, back to your own kind: but I meant to have you serve Me there, not to oppose Me. Why these threats? How can you utter such things? Queen-love is still within you.”
“Is it?”
“I know that it is. You are mine, child. You are of the Nest, and you can never do harm to it.”
Nialli Apuilana doesn’t reply. By way of answer she looks within herself, to that secret place in her soul where the Queen had placed a part of Herself long ago. And seizes it, and draws it out as though it were no more than a shallow splinter in her flesh, and hurls it from her. Down it tumbles through the many layers of the sky. And as it nears the surface of the world it bursts into flames and is consumed.
“Do You still think I am of the Nest?” Nialli Apuilana asks.
There’s another great silence.
Once again now Nialli Apuilana shows the Queen the vision of the final war: the Nest ripped open, its inhabitants consumed by flames, the royal chamber despoiled, the vast charred body, split apart and ruined, dead in the smoking depths.
“You know nothing of what it is to die,” says Nialli Apuilana. “You know nothing of pain. You know nothing of loss. You know nothing of defeat. But You’ll learn. You’ll perish in flame and agony; and the worst agony of all will be the knowledge that there is no way You can take revenge upon those who did this to You.”
The Queen doesn’t respond.
“It will happen,” Nialli Apuilana says. “We are a determined people. The gods have shaped us to be what we are.”
Silence.
“Well?” Nialli Apuilana says. “Is that Your answer? Is this what You’d have us do? Because I tell You that we will do it, if You won’t give us what we ask.”
Silence. Silence.
The Queen says at length, “What is it, then, that you want?”
“An end to the war. A truce between our peoples. A line drawn between Your lands and ours, never to be violated.”
“These are your only terms?”
“Our only terms, yes,” says Nialli Apuilana.
“And the alternative?”