“What’s happening to you, Nialli?”
She opened her eyes. “An awakening,” she said. “From a very long dream.”
The caviandis were close by her sides, warm and soft, nuzzling her. Gently she stroked them.
Hresh said, “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”
“Yes. Yes. I’m fine.” She smiled. “Don’t be sad, father. The gods are still watching over us. They’re still guiding us.” Taking his hand in hers, she said, “I think I’ll go now, if that’s all right with you. I want to talk to Thu-Kimnibol.”
The warriors of the Sword of Dawinno were everywhere on the stadium field, running, jumping hurdles, dueling with blunt wooden swords. Thu-Kimnibol knew he had little time left to toughen them up. Any day now, the army that Salaman had sent into hjjk territory to avenge the death of his Acknowledgers would be set upon by the defenders of the Nest. Then the period of feinting would be at an end and the war would begin in earnest. Long before news came south of the destruction of Salaman’s expeditionary force, Thu-Kimnibol knew, his own army would have to begin marching north to rendezvous with the king at Yissou.
“Jump higher, you sleepy bastards!” That was Maju Samlor. Most of Thu-Kimnibol’s drillmasters were city guardsmen. “You run like pregnant women!” came another guardsman’s voice from the far side of the stadium. “Put some wind into it!” And in another corner a huge Beng decked out in an immense seven-horned helmet laughed so loudly he could be heard clear across the field, and sent three men whirling with one great sweep of his quarterstaff.
Thu-Kimnibol rose and applauded. The warriors needed encouragement. It was just as Esperasagiot had said of his xlendis, long ago when they were first setting out for Yissou: they were city-bred, with no experience of the long haul. Even the strongest of them needed to be hardened for the battle ahead.
There was irony in that. Thu-Kimnibol remembered his father telling him that in the long sleepy days of the cocoon the warriors had had machines to work out on, to keep their muscles from rusting. All day long they grunted and toiled over devices with names like the Wheel of Dawinno, the Loom of Emakkis, the Five Gods: and yet the thousands of years of cocoon life went by and there was never an enemy to face, sealed away in the mountainside as they were. Now the People lived out in the open, where enemies abounded everywhere. But even so city life was too comfortable. It had led them to grow soft.
“Jump!” Maju Samlor called again. “Higher! Stretch those legs! Keep your sensing-organ out of the way, you idiot!”
Thu-Kimnibol laughed. Then he looked up and saw Chevkija Aim approaching him down the rows of seats. The guard-captain saluted and said, “Dumanka’s here, lordship. And Esperasagiot and his brother.”
“Good. Bring them to me.”
The three men emerged from the passageway under the stands, Dumanka first, then the two Bengs. They offered gestures of respect. Esperasagiot said, “You know my brother, prince? A good man with a xlendi, he is. His name’s Thihaliminion.”
Thu-Kimnibol looked him over. Thihaliminion was a hair taller than Esperasagiot, with pure Beng fur of the brightest gold. He seemed two or three years younger than his brother. “High praise, if Esperasagiot thinks you know how to handle xlendis. This is the first time I’ve ever heard him admit that he isn’t the only man in the world who understands those beasts.”
“Prince!” Esperasagiot cried.
Thihaliminion inclined his head. “What I know, I know from him. He has been my teacher in xlendis. Just as Dumanka here has been my teacher in obedience to the gods.”
“Acknowledgers, are you? All three?”
“All three, prince,” Dumanka said. The quartermaster slapped his hands together gleefully. “And what peace and joy it is, the faith we hold! I’ll show you our little book, sir. Which I got in Yissou, from a certain meat-cutter, Zechtior Lukin by name. When you read it you’ll attain understanding of the great truth of the world, which is that all is as it is meant to be, that there’s no use railing against fortune, because it’s the gods who send us our fortune, and what point is there—”
“Enough, good friend,” said Thu-Kimnibol, holding up a hand. “Convert me another time. We have an army to train just now. For which you’ll be very useful.”
“Whatever your lordship asks,” said Dumanka.
“I heard something of your Zechtior Lukin when we were in Yissou,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “Or of his teachings, at any rate. It was Salaman the king who told me. Death isn’t anything to lament or regret, that’s the idea. For it’s part of the divine plan of the gods. And so we have to accept it unquestioningly, no matter what form it comes to us in. Do I have it right?”
“In a nutshell, you do,” said Esperasagiot.
“Good. Good. How many are there in Dawinno now who follow these Acknowledger teachings now, would you say?”
“Some two hundred, prince, and more of us all the time.” The wagonmaster glanced over his shoulder. “I see some of our people on this field right now.”
“And you three are the chief teachers?”
“I was the one that learned the creed in Yissou,” Dumanka said, “and taught it to Esperasagiot and Thihaliminion. They’ve been spreading it fast as they can.”
“Spread it even faster. I’ll be counting on you. I want all my men to be Acknowledgers by the time we march north. I want soldiers about me who have no fear of dying.”
He dismissed them.
The dull clangor of the wooden training-swords resounded like merry music on the drill-field. A bright vision sprang into Thu-Kimnibol’s mind: the Nest ablaze, hjjks strewn dying on the ground by the thousands, their beaks clacking impotently, the Queen writhing in Her death-throes—
“Sir?” Chevkija Aim again. “Nialli Apuilana’s here to see you.”
“Nialli? Why in the name of all the gods would she—” He grinned. “Ah. Yes. To lecture me about the evils of the war, I suppose. Tell her to come some other time, Chevkija Aim. Next week. Next year.”
“Very good, lordship.”
But Nialli Apuilana had come up right behind him. Chevkija Aim’s golden fur flared in irritation.
“The Lord Prince Thu-Kimnibol is busy now with—”
“He’ll see me.”
“He instructs me to tell you—”
“And I instruct you to tell him that his kinswoman the chieftain’s daughter has urgent business with him.”
“Lady, it’s impossible for you to—”
This squabble could go on all day. “It’s all right, Chevkija Aim,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “I’ll speak with her.”
“Thank you, kinsman,” Nialli Apuilana said, not particularly graciously.
It was so long since Thu-Kimnibol had seen her — not since his departure for Yissou — that she seemed almost a stranger to him. He was astonished by how much she had changed: not so much in the way she looked as in the aura, the vibration, that surrounded her. She seemed stronger, deeper, purged of the last of her girlishness. She radiated strength and passion, and a new maturity. Her soul burned with an unmistakable luminous glow. And there was a formidable regality about her now. It enfolded her like a glittering mantle. It gave her a fiery beauty. He had never seen that in her before. It amazed him now. He felt as though he were seeing her for the first time.
They confronted each other in silence for a long moment.
He said finally, “Well, Nialli? If you’re here to do battle with me, let’s get on with it. These are busy days for me.”
“You think I’m your enemy?”
“I know you are.”
“Why is that?”
He laughed. “How could you be anything other? We have troops here, preparing for war. The enemy we’ll march against is the Nest. Surely you know that. And you’re the one who stood up in the Presidium and told us all how wonderful and wise and noble the hjjks are.”
“That was a long time ago, kinsman.”
“You said that making war on them was unthinkable, because they’re such great civilized beings.”
“Yes. I said that. And in some ways it’s true.”
“In some ways?”
“Some, yes. Not all. I put it all too simply that day at the Presidium. I was very young then.”
“Ah. Ah, yes, of course.”
“Don’t smile at me in that patronizing way, Thu-Kimnibol. You make me feel like a child.”
“I don’t mean to do that. You hardly seem like a child to me, believe me. But I don’t have to be as wise as Hresh to realize that you’ve come here today — at the urging, I suspect, of Puit Kjai and Simthala Honginda and other such peace-loving types — to denounce me and the war that I’m about to launch against your beloved hjjks. All right. Denounce me, then. And then let me get on with what I have to do.”
Her eyes sparkled defiantly. “You don’t understand me at all, do you, Thu-Kimnibol? I’ve come to you today to offer my support and help.”
“Your what?”
“I want to join you. I want to go north with you.”
“To spy on us for the Queen?”
She shot him a blazing look, and he could see her choking back some hot angry retort. Then she said, in a frosty tone, “You don’t know a thing about the beings you’re going out there to fight. I’ve experienced them at the closest possible range. I can guide you. I can explain things to you as you approach the Nest. I can help you ward off dangers you can’t even begin to imagine.”
“You give me very little credit if you think I’m such a fool, Nialli.”
“And you give me very little, if you think I’d act as traitor to my own blood.”
“Do I have any reason to think you’d be anything else?”
Her gaze was icy. Her nostrils flared and her fur rose, and he saw her biting down on her lower lip.
Then, to his complete amazement, she extended her sensing-organ toward him.
In a deadly calm voice she said, “If you doubt my loyalty, Thu-Kimnibol, I invite you to twine with me here and now. And then you can decide for yourself whether I’m a traitor or not.”