Where thought had been, there is only second sight now, operating in some automatic way, carrying information about her surroundings to her in dim pulsing pulsations. She is aware of the city far behind her, crouching on its hills like a huge many-tentacled monster made of stone and brick, sending out waves of cold baleful menace. She is aware of the swamps through which she is running, rich with hidden life both great and small. She is aware of the vastness of the continent that stretches before her. But nothing is clear, nothing is coherent. The only reality is the journey itself, the mad roaring need to run, and run, and run, and run.
A night and a day and a night and nearly another day have passed since she fled from Dawinno. She had ridden a xlendi part of the way, driving it furiously into the southern lakelands; but somewhere late on that first day she had paused to sip water at a stream, and the xlendi had wandered off, and she has gone on foot ever since. She scarcely ever stops, except to sleep, a few hours at a time. Whenever she does halt she collapses into a darkness that is the next thing to death, and when after a time it lifts from her she gets up and begins running once more, without goal, without direction. A fever is on her, so that she seems to be on fire everywhere, but it gives her strength. She is a molten thing, cutting a blazing path through this unknown domain. She eats fruits that she snatches from bushes as she runs. She stoops to pluck fungi with shining yellow caps from the ground, and crams them into her mouth without pausing. When thirst overcomes her she drinks any water she finds, fresh or still. Nothing matters. Flight is all.
Her body has long since slipped into that strange crystalline realm that lies beyond fatigue. She no longer feels the throbbings of her weary legs, no longer records the protests of her lungs or the pains that shoot upward through her back. She moves at a graceful lope, running swiftly in a kind of mindless serenity.
She must not allow her mind to regain awareness.
If it does, she will hear the lethal words again. Found in an alleyway. Dead. Strangled.
The vision of Kundalimon’s slender body will come to her, twisted, rumpled, staring sightlessly toward the gray sky. His hands outstretched. His lips slightly apart.
Found in an alleyway.
Her lover. Kundalimon. Dead. Gone forever.
They would have gone north to the Queen together. Together they would have descended hand in hand into the Nest of Nests, down into that warm sweet-smelling mysterious realm beneath those distant plains. The song of Nest-bond would have engulfed their spirits. The pull of Queen-love would have dissolved all disharmonies in their souls. Dear ones would have come up to embrace them: Nest-thinkers, Egg-makers, Life-kindlers, Militaries, every caste gathering round to welcome the newcomers to their true home.
Dead. Strangled.My only one.
Nialli Apuilana had never known that love such as theirs had been could exist. And she knows that such love can never exist for her again. She wants nothing now but to join him in whatever place it is where he has gone.
She runs, seeing nothing, thinking nothing.
It is twilight again. Shadows deepen, falling across her like cloaks. Gentle warm rain falls, on and off. Thick golden mists rise from the moist earth. Thick soft woolly clouds spiral up around her and take the forms of the gods, who have no forms, and in whose existence she does not believe. They surround her, looming higher than the towering smooth-trunked vine-tangled trees, and they speak to her in voices that tumble downward to her ears in shimmering harmonics richer than any music she has ever heard.
“I am Dawinno, child. I take all things, and transform them to make them new, and bring them forth into the world again. Without me, there would be only unchanging rock.”
“I am Friit. I bring healing and forgetfulness. Without me, there would be only pain.”
“I am Emakkis, girl. I provide nourishment. Without me, life could not sustain itself.”
“Me, child, I am Mueri. I am consolation. I am the love that abides and infuses. Without me, death would be the end of everything.”
“And I am Yissou. I am the protector who shields from harm. Without me, life would be a valley of thorns and fangs.”
Dead. Strangled. Found in an alleyway.
“There are no gods,” Nialli Apuilana murmurs. “There is only the Queen, holding us in Her love. She is our comfort, and our protection, and our nourishment, and our healing, and our transformation.”
In the deepening darkness, golden light encloses her. The jungle is ablaze with it. The lakes and pools and streams shimmer with it. Light pours from everything. The air, thick and torrid, swirls with the holy images of the Five Heavenly Ones. Nialli Apuilana holds her hand before her face to shield her eyes, so strong is that light. But then she lowers the hand, and lets the light come flooding upon her, and it is kind and loving. She draws new strength from it. She runs onward, deeper into that crystalline realm of tirelessness.
She hears the voices again. Dawinno. Friit. Emakkis. Mueri. Yissou.
Destroyer. Healer. Provider. Consoler. Protector.
“The Queen,” Nialli Apuilana murmurs. “Where is the Queen? Why does She not come to me now?”
“Ah, child, She is us, and we are She. Do you not see that?”
“You are the Queen?”
“The Queen is us.”
She considers that.
Yes, she thinks. Yes, that is so.
She is able to think again, now. Her eyes are open. She can see the stars, she can see the many worlds, she can see the shining web of Queen-love binding the worlds together. And she knows that all is one, that there are no differences, no gradations, no partitions dividing one form of reality from another. She had not realized that before. But now she sees, she hears, she accepts.
“Do you see us, child? Do you hear us? Do you feel our presence? Do you know us?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Shapes without form. Faces without features. Potent sonorities resonating through the descending shadows. Light, cascading from everything, coming from within. Density, strangeness, mystery. Godhood all about her. Beauty. Peace. Her mind is ablaze, but it is a cool white fire, burning away all dross. Out of the earth comes a roaring sound that fills all the sky, but it is a sweet roaring, enfolding her like a cloak. The Five Heavenly Ones are everywhere, and she is in their embrace.
“I understand,” she whispers. “The Queen — the Creator — Nakhaba — the Five — all the same, all just different faces of the same thing—”
“Yes. Yes.”
Night is coming on swiftly now. The heavy sky behind her is streaked with blue, with scarlet, with purple, with green. Ahead lies darkness. Lantern-trees are awakening into light. Creatures of the jungle show themselves everywhere, wings and necks and claws and scales and jaws shining on all sides of her.
She drops to her knees. She can go no farther. With the return of thought has come the reality of exhaustion. She digs her hands into the warm moist ground and clings to it.
But it seems for a moment, as she crouches there gasping and shivering in her great weariness, that she is alone once again, except for the creatures that screech and cackle and hiss and bellow all about her in the deepening night. She feels a tremor of fear. Where have the gods gone? Has she run so fast that she has left them behind?
No. She can still feel them. She need only open herself to them, and they are there.
“Here, child. I am Mueri. I will comfort you.”
“I am Yissou. I will protect you.”
“I am Emakkis. I will provide for you.”
“I am Friit. I will heal you.”
“I am Dawinno. I will transform you. I will transform you. I will transform you, child.”