Something is pulling at her, trying to draw her down into the heart of the little plaited star.
The temptation to yield is powerful. Return to the Nest, yes, allow the bond to be rebuilt, sit at the feet of Nest-thinker, absorb his wisdom. Be taken before the Queen to experience Her touch. Wasn’t that what she wanted? Wasn’t it what she has always wanted? And Kundalimon. The greatest temptation of all. They’d give Kundalimon back to her. Come to us and Kundalimon will be yours again. Was it so? How tempting it sounds. How easy it would be to surrender. How good to return to the nest … how comforting … how safe.
No. No. How can it be, any of it?
Nialli Apuilana resists with all the strength of her soul.
Still she is drawn inward. But then gradually, as she continues to struggle, the force of the pull recedes. Shuddering, she throws the star aside and watches it skitter into a far corner of the room, where it comes to rest against the wall, tipped up on end. But even from there it calls to her. Come to us. Come. Come.
The nightmare images refuse to leave her. The beaks and claws, the bristling mouth, the myriad cold gleaming eyes. They blaze in her mind no matter how she tries to drive them from her. She thought she had fought and won this battle already, weeks ago. But no, no, the Queen’s grip is not yet fully broken.
She fights for breath. Her heart races. Her skin breaks out in cold fiery pricklings.
Her head swims with mysteries.
The walls of her little room seem to be closing in on her. Streams of blood flow across the floor. Severed limbs arise and dance wildly about her. A baleful green light comes pulsing up from the star that lies beside the wall. Thin bristly arms reach out through its center, groping for her. Harsh whispering voices, distant but seductive, call to her.
“No,” she says. “I’m not yours any more.”
She edges backward, keeping her eyes on the star as she moves slowly toward the door, fumbling behind herself to open it, then slipping hurriedly out into the hallway. She slams the door and holds it shut, leaning against it, drawing air deep into her lungs, waiting for the dizziness to go from her, for the pounding in her chest to subside.
Free. Free.
What next, though?
There is only one person in the city she can turn to.
I’ll go to my father, she thinks.
“They want to destroy the Queen, if they can,” Husathirn Mueri said. “You have my word on it.”
He was in the chapel of Kundalimon in the alleyway just off Fishmonger Street. It wasn’t one of the regular days of communion. Only Tikharein Tourb and Chhia Kreun were with him now: the boy-priest, the girl-priestess.
Somewhat to his own surprise, Husathirn Mueri had become a regular communicant of the new creed. What had begun as spying had become — was it faith? Or spying still? He was unsure. The chapel, that dingy place reeking of dried fish where sweaty lower-class folk came four times a week to cry forth their love of the Queen, had become his special refuge in the storm that was sweeping Dawinno. To Chevkija Aim he maintained that he was still conducting an investigation. Inwardly he wasn’t so clear that that was what he was doing.
The boy said, “But are they capable of such a thing? Is anyone? It seems hard to believe.”
“That the Queen can be destroyed?”
“That they would be so evil as to attempt it.”
“They’ll kill her,” said Husathirn Mueri, “as they killed Kundalimon. There are no limits to their hatred of Nest-truth.”
“Then it was Thu-Kimnibol who killed Kundalimon?” the girl said, amazed.
Husathirn Mueri turned to her. “Surely you knew that. It was done at his orders by the guard-captain, Curabayn Bangkea. Who then was murdered also, to keep him silent.”
“You know this to be true?” asked Tikharein Tourb.
“It’s true, all right. By all the gods, it’s true!” said Husathirn Mueri.
Tikharein Tourb stared at him a long while, as if weighing and judging him. The boy’s narrowed green eyes were cold as the ice that lies at the heart of the world. Only once before had Husathirn Mueri seen eyes like those: the bleak pale ones of the emissary Kundalimon. And even Kundalimon’s gaze at its most remorseless had held some hint of compassion. These eyes were wholly icy, wholly terrifying.
The fierce roaring silence went on and on. Tikharein Tourb and the girl stood silent, statue-still. After a time Husathirn Mueri saw the boy’s sensing-organ quiver and grow rigid and steal toward the side, until its tip was touching the tip of Chhia Kreun’s. They might almost have been entering into communion right before him. Perhaps they were.
Then the boy said, “Swear to me by your love of the Queen that it was Thu-Kimnibol who had Kundalimon murdered.”
“I swear it,” said Husathirn Mueri unhesitatingly.
“And that the purpose of this war that Thu-Kimnibol has stirred up is to bring about the destruction of the Nest and the death of Her who is our comfort and our joy.”
“That’s its purpose. I swear it.”
Again Tikharein Tourb stared. What a frightening child he is, Husathirn Mueri thought. And the girl also.
“Then he will die,” said the boy finally.
Hresh was in his garden of animals, sitting with small brightly colored beasts all about him. The two purple-and-yellow ones, the caviandis, were by his side, and he was gently stroking them. He glanced up as Nialli Apuilana came rushing in.
“Father—” she cried at once. “Father, I’ve had something strange happen — something so very strange—”
He looked at her in a bland incurious way, as though she had not said anything at all. His eyes were remote and his expression was milder even than usual. There was a great sadness about him that she had never seen before: he seemed bowed down under it, a beaten man, very old and frail.
That frightened her. Her own chaotic fears and confusions receded into the background. She had come here in terror and in need; but his need, she saw, was even greater than hers.
“Is something wrong, father?”
Hresh made a little shrugging gesture and slowly moved his head from side to side like some wounded beast. He seemed terribly far away. After a time he said, “It’s certain now. There’s going to be war.”
“How do you know?”
“I felt the signal just now, coming from the north. Perhaps you felt it too. There’ll be no holding it back. Everything is in place and the word has been given to begin.”
She stared at him blankly. “I’m not sure what you mean, father.”
“You don’t know about the alliance Thu-Kimnibol brought back with him from Yissou?”
She shook her head.
“We’ve agreed to help defend Salaman if he’s ever attacked by the hjjks. Which is about to happen — an attack provoked by Salaman himself, I suspect. Perhaps with some help from my brother. Once Yissou is invaded, our army will go north, and there’ll be all-out war.”
“Which is precisely what those two have always wanted.”
Hresh nodded. Tonelessly he said, “Much blood will flow, ours and theirs. Great sins will be committed. Hjjk armies will march through our cities putting them to the torch, or we’ll destroy the Nest, or perhaps both will happen. It makes no difference what happens in the end. Whether we win or lose, everything we’ve achieved will be destroyed.”
He looked forlorn and bereft. Nialli Apuilana wanted to hold him, to comfort him.