“The gods,” Husathirn Mueri said softly to himself, with a little chuckle, when his sister was gone. “Yes. May the gods be with us, indeed.”
To me they are nothing at all, they are only names.Those were Nialli Apuilana’s words, that astounding time when she had raved in such frenzy before the Presidium. Our own inventions, to comfort us in our difficult times. Husathirn Mueri had never forgotten that moment, nor those words.
Nothing but names. His own view exactly. In truth he knew himself to be a worse case even than Nialli Apuilana, for he had no beliefs at all, other than that life was nonsense, a cruel joke, a series of random events, that there was no reason for our being here other than that we are here. She at least had swallowed the hjjk myth that a cosmic plan governs the world and that everything is part of a preordained pattern. He had never seen evidence of that. And so he had no moral center, and knew it; he was capable of taking any position that seemed useful to the moment, favoring war one day and opposing it the next, as circumstances required. All that mattered was attaining power and comfort in his own lifetime, for that one lifetime was all there was, and everything was a joke in any case.
Husathirn Mueri had tried once to expound on these things to Nialli Apuilana, hoping to prove to her that they shared a set of common beliefs. But she had looked at him in shock and dismay, and had said to him in the coldest voice he had ever heard, “You don’t understand me at all, Husathirn Mueri. You don’t understand a thing about me at all.”
So be it. Perhaps he didn’t.
But he did understand the implications of the astonishing tale Catiriil had brought to him this day. He was surprised to see how little surprise he felt. Of course Thu-Kimnibol had gone north to stir up a war with the hjjks; of course the bellicose Salaman would gladly conspire with him to bring it about. And doubtless Taniane would lend what was left of her waning energies and all of her still considerable power to the task of mobilizing the Presidium’s approval.
But possibly there was still a way to head them off. Just possibly, he thought. Or, if a war couldn’t be avoided, at least to expose the perfidious role Thu-Kimnibol had played in bringing it about. The city could only suffer, if it went to war against the insect-folk. The losses would be terrible, the disruption of the fabric of life perhaps irreparable. And in the aftermath, those who had fomented the war would be brought down by it, and those who had tried in vain to prevent it would rise to greatness.
Husathirn Mueri smiled.
I’ll see what I can do, he thought.
And may the gods be with me indeed.
They had marched for weeks, going northward all the time. Behind them the world was gliding happily onward once again into spring, but in these forlorn lands on the far side of Vengiboneeza an iron winter still seemed to prevail. To Zechtior Lukin that made no difference. The chill of winter and the hot blasts of summer were all the same to him. He scarcely noticed the change of seasons, except that the hours of darkness lasted longer at one time of the year than at another.
Now they were in a gray land. The ground was gray, the sky was gray, the wind itself was gray with a burden of dark sand when it came roaring out of the east. The only color came from the vegetation, which seemed to be striking back against the grayness with sullen fury. The tough sparse sawedged grass was an angry carmine; the big rigid dome-shaped fungi were a deathly yellow and exploded into clouds of brilliant green spores when they were trampled; the trees, tall and narrow, had gleaming blue leaves shaped like spines, and constantly dropped a rain of viscous pink sap that burned like acid.
Low chalky hills like stubby teeth formed chains in the distance. The open country between them was flat and dry and unpromising, no lakes, no streams, only an occasional brackish spring oozing out of some salt-crusted crack in the ground.
“Which way now?” Lisspar Moen asked. She was the daily march-herald, who transmitted Zechtior Lukin’s orders to the others.
He nodded toward the hills and indicated a continued north-northeasterly route.
“Hjjk country?” she said.
“Our country,” Zechtior Lukin told her.
Striding along behind him in the gray plain were the Acknowledgers of Yissou, three hundred forty of them now.
Of his original three hundred seventy-six followers, a dozen or so had been too old and feeble to undertake the risks of beginning a new life in the wilderness, and another few had, when the moment of departure was at hand, simply recanted their faith and refused to go. Zechtior Lukin had anticipated something of that sort. He made no attempt to coerce them.
Coercion had no part in his philosophy. He acknowledged the supremacy of the gods in all things. If the gods decreed that some of his followers would choose not to follow him, he was prepared to accept that. Zechtior Lukin, expecting nothing of the world but what the world daily presented to him, had never known a moment’s disappointment.
There had been some losses on the march, too. He accepted those calmly too. The gods would always have their way.
A raiding party of hjjks had captured five of his people as the marchers were passing the vicinity of Vengiboneeza. Knowing that the ancient sapphire-eyes capital was held now by the insect-folk, Zechtior Lukin had chosen a route cutting well to the east of it. But not far enough, it seemed. At twilight, in a mountain pass shrouded in close-hanging mist, came a sudden attack, shrieks and scuffles, great confusion, and, after a moment, the realization that whatever had happened was over. A few abandoned knapsacks lay on the ground, and one hand-cart was overturned. There was no hope of giving chase: the high country surrounding them was dark and pathless. Zechtior Lukin was grateful that the hjjks had taken as few as they had.
Natural perils took others. This was an untamed land. A scattering of loose boughs turned out to conceal the mouth of a pit, and scarlet claws and yellow fangs were waiting at its bottom. A few days later a huge low-slung beast clad in thick brown scales hard as stone burst madly out of nowhere, swinging its small dull-eyed head from side to side like a club, killing those it struck. Then there was a comic hopping creature with merry golden eyes and absurd tiny forearms; but from its tail there sprang a spike that squirted poison. And at midday once came a swarm of winged insects, as dazzling as colored jewels, that filled the air with a milky spray. Those that breathed it fell ill, and some did not recover.
“These things are to be expected,” Zechtior Lukin said.
“We acknowledge the will of the gods,” his people replied.
The survivors went on undaunted. Zechtior Lukin waited for the Five Heavenly Ones to tell him that they had come to the place where they should build their city.
On the far side of the chalky hills the grayness lifted. The land here was pale brown streaked with red, a sign perhaps of fertility, and there was a river running from east to west that was split into three forks. Along the riverbanks the vegetation had shining green foliage and some of the shrubs bore fat purplish fruits with wrinkled skins. They proved to be edible.
“Here we will stay,” Zechtior Lukin said. “I feel the presence of the Five here.”
He chose a little ridge between the two southernmost forks that seemed likely to be above the river’s floodplain, and they set up the tents that they would live in until they had constructed the first buildings. Three women who were gifted with unusually powerful second sight went some distance apart to send word to Yissou of their location; for Zechtior Lukin had promised the king that he would do that. Salaman had shown him a method, combining twining and second sight, that would allow contact to be maintained over great distances. Zechtior Lukin was skeptical. But promises were to him like sacred oaths, and he sent the women off to transmit the message.