“And if you all die of freezing, dancing in the plazas at night, is that going to create this wonderful new world for you?”
“We do not freeze. We will not die.”
“I see. You’re invulnerable.”
“We are very strong. You saw us, that night, at our festivals. You haven’t seen us at our training. Our spiritual exercises, our physical drills. We are warriors. We have developed immense endurance. We can march for days without sleep or food. We are unafraid of cold or privation. We have given up our individual selves, to form a new unity.”
All this was astonishing to Salaman. The philosophies of Lakkamai’s son were gibberish and lunacy; but all the same the king felt a great kinship of temperament with this man, and much affection for him. His strength, his ferocity, were evident. Secretly he had built an entire little kingdom within the kingdom. He had the true force of royalty about him. They could almost have been brothers. And yet he was crazy. It seemed an immense pity.
He said, “You must let me see you at your training.”
“This very night, if you wish, King Salaman.”
“Done. Perform your most difficult exercises for me. And then, my friend, you and your friends will need to start packing. You’ll be leaving here.”
Zechtior Lukin seemed unsurprised by that, and even indifferent, as he appeared to be toward everything that came his way.
“Where would you have us go?” he asked calmly.
“Northward. Obviously you’re unhappy here in Yissou, living amidst our contemptible softness. And I tell you truly that I have no great eagerness to have you spread your creed of inevitable destruction in the city that I love. So it’s in your interest and mine also for you to leave, wouldn’t you say? You wouldn’t want to go south, of course. Life’s too easy there. Besides, as our city expands into the lands to the south and Dawinno grows northward, we’re bound to trespass on your privacy. So go north, Zechtior Lukin. Cold doesn’t bother you, you say. Hunger is unimportant to you. And there’s plenty of land to the north where you can found a settlement that lives according to your principles and precepts. It could well be the capital of the great and pure and proper world that we of the cities have failed to create.”
“You mean, we should go into the hjjk lands?”
“I mean that, yes. Beyond Vengiboneeza, even. Deep into the cold dry northlands. Choose the territory to please yourselves. It may be that the hjjks will leave you unmolested. From what you say, your ways are very much like theirs, anyway — warriors, unafraid of discomfort, free of individual ambition. They may welcome you because you’re so much like them. Or they’ll simply ignore you. Why should a few hundred settlers matter to them, when they have half a continent? Yes: go to the hjjks. What do you say, Zechtior Lukin?”
There was a silence. Zechtior Lukin’s face was expressionless: no look of anger, no defiance, not even dismay. Something was going on in his mind, but he looked as untroubled as if the king had asked him some question about the price of meat.
“How much time will you allow us to prepare ourselves for the journey?” he asked, after a little while.
Nialli Apuilana has had all the solitude she can bear. She has been in hibernation all the winter long, like some animal that goes through a metamorphosis every year, and lies hidden away, wrapped in its own web, until the time arrives to come forth. Now the time is here. On a day in late winter when the rain is falling on Dawinno in torrents that are stupendous even for that season of merciless downpours, Nialli Apuilana leaves her room in the House of Nakhaba early in the afternoon. Now and then she has gone out late at night, but this is the first time since her recovery that she’s been out in daytime. There’s no one around to see her. The storm is so furious that the streets are deserted. Not even the guards are out. A light gleams behind every window: everyone’s indoors. But she laughs at the fury of the storm. “It’s really much too much,” she says out loud, looking upward, addressing herself to Dawinno. It is Dawinno who moves the great wheel of the seasons, now sending sun and now storms. “You’re overdoing it a little, don’t you think?” All she’s wearing is a sash. Her fur is drenched before she has taken five steps. It clings to her like a tight cloak, and water streams down her thighs.
She crosses the city to the House of Knowledge and climbs the winding stairs to the uppermost floor. She hadn’t doubted for an instant that Hresh would be there; and indeed he is, writing away in one of his huge old books.
“Nialli!” he cries. “Have you lost your wits, going out in weather like this? Here — let me dry you off—”
He swaddles her in a cloth, as if she’s a child. Passively she lets him enfold her and rub her dry, though it leaves her fur ruffled and wild.
When he’s done she says, “We should start to tell each other things, father. The time for doing that is long overdue.”
“Things? What kind of things?”
“About — the Nest—” she says hesitantly. “About — the Queen—”
He looks incredulous. “You actually want to talk about the hjjks?”
“About the hjjks, yes. The things you’ve learned, and what I have. They may not be the same things. You’ve always said you need to understand the hjjks better. You aren’t the only one. I do too, father. I do too.”
Chevkija Aim indicated an arching doorway of weather-beaten smoke-gray wood at the end of a blind alleyway just off Fishmonger Street, flanked on either side by grubby-looking commercial buildings with facades of soiled red brick. Husathirn Mueri had never been in this part of the city before. It was some sort of industrial district, more than a little disreputable. “It’s all the way down there,” the guard-captain said. “A basement room. You go in and turn left, and down the stairs.”
“And is it safe for me just to walk right in?” Husathirn Mueri asked. “They won’t recognize me and panic?”
“You’ll be all right, sir. There’s not much light in there. You can just barely make out shapes, let alone faces. Nobody’ll know who you are.” The lithe young Beng grinned and nudged Husathirn Mueri’s arm with surprising familiarity. “Go on in, sir! Go on! I tell you, you’ll be all right.”
Indeed the room, long and narrow and rich with the salty reek of dried fish, was very dark. The only sources of light were two faint glowberry clusters mounted on the wall at the far end. A boy and a girl stood there, beside a table containing fruits and aromatic boughs that was probably the altar.
Husathirn Mueri, squinting, saw only darkness. Then his eyes adapted to it and saw a congregation of perhaps fifty people seated close together on rows of rough black barrels. They were muttering and chanting and occasionally stamping their feet in response to the words of the children at the altar. Here and there a towering Beng helmet rose above the crowd, but most of them were unhelmeted. The voices he heard were deep, thick, the voices of ordinary people, working-folk. Husathirn Mueri felt a new level of uneasiness. He had never gone among working-folk much. And to spy on them now, in their own sanctuary—