At Winter's End

  He felt ready to undertake his departure. The gods were with him, his gods, the ones he understood and loved. They would guide him and shelter him as he made his way north.

  Thu-Kimnibol had no use for the more complex theologies that had sprung up among the People. There were some who worshipped the vanished humans—who believed that the humans were gods higher than the Five. Others knelt before the Beng god Nakhaba, saying that he too held a rank in heaven above that of the Five, that he was the Interceder who could speak with the humans on the People’s behalf.

  And then there were those—mostly University people, they were, old Hresh’s crowd—who spoke of a god superior to all the rest, above the humans, and Nakhaba, and the Five. The Sixth, that one was called. The Creator-God. Of him, or it, nothing was known, and they said that nothing ever could be, that he was fundamentally unknowable.

  Thu-Kimnibol had no idea what to make of any of this profusion of gods. It seemed needless to him to have any but the Five. But he could understand a willingness to pray to these others more easily than he did the position of those few, like his impossible niece Nialli Apuilana, who seemed not to believe in any gods at all. What a bleak existence, to walk godless beneath the unfriendly sky! How could they bear it? Weren’t they paralyzed with fear, knowing that they had no protectors? To Thu-Kimnibol it seemed crazy. Nialli Apuilana, at least, had an excuse. Everyone knew that the hjjks had tampered with her mind.

  Slowly he came up out of his communion, and found himself sitting slumped at Boldirinthe’s rough wooden table, while she went puttering about, putting the gods back in her cupboard. She seemed pleased with herself. She must know the intensity of the communion she had created for him.

  Silently he embraced her. His heart overflowed with love for her. Gradually the power of the communion faded, and he made ready to go.

  “Be wary of King Salaman,” Boldirinthe said, when Thu-Kimnibol was about to leave her chamber. “Salaman’s a very clever man.”

  “I know that, Mother Boldirinthe.”

  “Cleverer than you.”

  Thu-Kimnibol smiled. “I’m not as stupid as is generally thought.”

  “Cleverer than you, all the same. As clever as Hresh, Salaman is. Believe me. Watch out for him. He’ll trick you somehow.”

  “I understand Salaman. We understand each other.”

  “They tell me he’s grown wild and dangerous in his old age. That he’s had power so long that he’s gone mad from it.”

  “No,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “Dangerous, yes. Wild, perhaps. But not a madman. I knew Salaman a long time, when I lived in Yissou. You can tell who has madness in him and who doesn’t. He’s a steady one.”

  “I coupled with him once,” Boldirinthe said. “I know things about him that you’ll never know. Fifty years, and I’ve never forgotten. Such a quiet boy, but there was fire inside him, and in fifty years the fire burns through to the surface. Be wary, Thu-Kimnibol.”

  “I thank you, Mother Boldirinthe.”

  He knelt and kissed her sash.

  “Be wary,” she said.

  As Thu-Kimnibol descended from the offering-woman’s cloister his path crossed that of Nialli Apuilana, who was coming toward him up steep cobblestoned Minbain Way. The day was bright and golden, with a perfumed wind blowing out of the west, where groves of yellow-leaved sthamis trees were blooming on the hills above the bay. Nialli Apuilana carried a tray of food and a flask of clear spicy wine for Kundalimon.

  Her mood was brighter, though still not bright enough. After her startling breakdown at the Presidium she had gone into hiding, more or less, keeping out of sight for days, going out only for the sake of making her twice-daily journeys to Mueri House and hurrying back to her room as soon as Kundalimon had had his meal. Some days she hadn’t gone at all, but left it up to the guardsmen to feed him. Yissou only knew what they brought him. Most of her time she spent alone, meditating, brooding, going over and over everything she had said there, wishing she could call half of it back, or more than half. And yet it had seemed so important finally to speak out: all that talk of the hjjks as bugs, the hjjks as cold-blooded killers, the hjjks as this, the hjjks as that. And they knew nothing. Nothing at all. So she had spoken. But she had felt edgy and exposed ever since. Only now was she starting to realize that scarcely anyone in the city had heard about her outburst at all, and most or perhaps all of those who had witnessed it had chosen to see it as nothing more than a little show of hysteria, the sort of thing that one would expect from someone like Nialli Apuilana. Not very flattering, really: but at least she didn’t need to worry about being jeered at in the streets.

  She was happy to see Thu-Kimnibol. She knew that she disagreed with him about practically everything, especially where the hjjks were concerned; but yet there was a strength about her imposing kinsman, a dignity, that she found steadying. And a certain warmth, too. Too many of these warrior princes liked to strike ostentatious poses. Thu-Kimnibol had a simpler style.

  She said, “Are you coming from Boldirinthe, kinsman?”

  “How can you tell that?”

  With a toss of her head Nialli Apuilana indicated the offering-woman’s cloister at the top of the hill. “Her house is right up there. And the light of the gods is still in your eyes.”

  “You can see that, can you?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”

  She felt a sharp pang of envy. There was such tranquility on his broad face, such a sense of self-assurance.

  Thu-Kimnibol said, grinning down at her, “I thought you were godless, girl. What do you know about the light of the gods?”

  “I don’t need to believe in Yissou and the rest of them in order to see that you’ve touched another world just now. And I’m not as godless as you think. I tell you, the light of the gods is in your eyes. Shining as brightly as the light of a lantern-tree on a night without a moon.”

  “Not godless?” Thu-Kimnibol repeated, frowning. “You say you aren’t godless, after all?”

  “I have my own sort of worship,” she said, feeling increasingly uncomfortable at this turn in the conversation. “After my own fashion, a kind of worship, yes. At least I look upon it as worship, though others around here might not. But I don’t like talking of such things. Faith’s an extremely private matter, don’t you think?” She managed a dazzling smile. “I’m happy for you, that Boldirinthe was able to give you the comfort you needed.”

  “Boldirinthe!” he said, and laughed a little. “Boldirinthe lives now with one foot in the past and the other in the next world. It wasn’t easy for me to keep her attention on the task. But finally she got to it, and I felt the presence of the gods. Indeed. They were there right in front of me, the Five were. A great comfort they’ve been to me, too, in my time of mourning. A great comfort they’ve always been to me, and always will. I wish the joy of them upon you also some day, Nialli Apuilana.” Thu-Kimnibol indicated the tray and flask she carried. “Going to visit your hjjk, are you? Bringing him some special treats?”

  “Kinsman!” she cried, chiding him. “Don’t call him a hjjk!”

  “Well, if he isn’t a hjjk, they say he sounds like one. He speaks only in gargles and spittings, or am I wrong?” In an amiable way Thu-Kimnibol made harsh rough noises far back in his throat, a crude parody of hjjk speech. “To me somebody’s a hjjk if all he speaks is hjjk. And wears hjjk talismans around his neck and thinks hjjk thoughts and carries himself hjjk-style. You know, walking around as though he’s got a long pole rammed up his rump.”

  “If living as a captive among the hjjks makes a person a hjjk, well, then I’m a hjjk too,” Nialli Apuilana said, putting some severity into it. “Anyway, Kundalimon has started to learn our language very nicely indeed. The words come back to him. He’s beginning to remember that he was once one of us. It’s wrong of you to mock him. Or me, through him.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Thu-Kimnibol, why do you hate hjjks so much?”

  “Do I?” Thu-Kimnibol said, as though
the idea were new to him. “Perhaps I do. But why is that? Let me think.” A look of irritation flickered in his eyes. “Could it be because they’d like to pen us down in a small part of the world, when we should have the whole thing? And that I resent this restraint that they put upon us? Perhaps that’s it, eh? Or is it, maybe, a simpler matter, a personal thing, having to do with the fact that one day long ago a band of hjjks came to the place where I was living, in the north, the very place I’ll be setting out for in just a little while, and fell upon the handful of innocent people who lived there, and killed some of them. My own father was one of those they killed, you know. Maybe that’s it, eh, Nialli Apuilana? A petty little grudge of mine, a simple hankering for revenge?”

  “Oh, no, Thu-Kimnibol. I didn’t mean to say—”

  Thu-Kimnibol shook his head. He reached down from his great height and let his hands rest tenderly on her shoulders for a moment. “I understand, Nialli. All that happened long before you were born. Why should you have given it a thought? But let’s keep the peace between us, shall we? We oughtn’t to bicker this way. Go to your friend, and bring him his wine and meat. And pray for me, will you? Pray to whatever god it is you pray to. I’m leaving for the northland tomorrow. I’d like to have your prayers go with me.”

  “They will,” she said. “And my love also, kinsman. A safe journey to you.”

  If she hadn’t been so laden with burdens she would have embraced him. That surprised her. She had never felt such warmth toward him before: until this moment he had been only her great robust mountain of a kinsman, half as big as a vermilion and scarcely any brighter; or so he had always seemed to her. Suddenly she saw Thu-Kimnibol now in a different way, as someone rather more complex than she had imagined, and more vulnerable. Suddenly now she feared for him and wished him well.

  It must be the god-light flowing from him that does this to me, she thought. Perhaps I should go to Boldirinthe for a communion too. I might finally find the gods speaking even to me.

  “A safe journey, yes,” she said again. “And a happy outcome, and a swift return.”

  Thu-Kimnibol thanked her, and went on his way. Nialli Apuilana continued up the hill toward Mueri House.

  The guard on duty at the gate was Curabayn Bangkea’s youngest brother, Eluthayn, a meaty flat-faced man wearing a gaudy, preposterous helmet. As Nialli Apuilana approached him he said to her, “He’s been waiting for you, the one from the hjjks. Been asking all morning why you’re so late today. At least, I think that’s what he’s been saying. Not that I can make much sense out of that arglebargle way he speaks.” Eluthayn Bangkea loomed toward her, so close that she could smell on his breath the sharp kharnigs he had had for his morning meal. Astonishingly, he leered at her in an offensively intimate way. “I can’t say I blame him. I wouldn’t mind being locked up in there all afternoon with you myself.”

  “And what could we possibly say to each other, if we had to spend a whole afternoon in each other’s company?”

  “It isn’t what we’d say, Nialli Apuilana.”

  And he leered again, more exaggeratedly than before, rolling his eyes, whipping his sensing-organ about, thrusting his face practically into hers.

  He was too much the fool to be taken seriously. This sort of ponderous unasked attention must be more of a joke than anything else. But if it was a joke, it was a coarse one. How dare he? He’d be grabbing her, next.

  Her anger rose abruptly and she spat at him with sudden ferocity, leaving a gobbet between his wide-set eyes.

  Eluthayn Bangkea gaped at her incredulously. Slowly he wiped his face. His forehead was furrowed with consternation and barely contained wrath.

  “Why did you do that? You didn’t need to do that!”

  She drew herself up. “Your kind is tiresome to me.”

  “My kind? What do you mean, my kind? I’m me. The only me there is. And I meant you no harm. There was no call for your doing that.” He lowered his voice. “Listen, would it be such a terrible thing if we went off and coupled for an hour, Lady Nialli? A guardsman can give pleasure even to a chieftain’s daughter, you know. Or don’t you think coupling’s a pleasure? Could that be it? Too proud to couple, are you? Or too frightened? Which is it?”

  “Please,” she said in disbelief. It was as though she were dreaming this. How humiliating it all was! She was angry and stunned and close to tears, all at once. But it was important to remain strong in the face of this kind of thing. She glared at him. “Enough. What a vulgar clown you are.”

  “You’ll have me punished, I know. Won’t you? But I’ll tell them you spat in my face. And I never laid a hand on you. I never did anything but wriggle my eyebrows at you.”

  “Get out of my way and let me go upstairs,” Nialli Apuilana said fiercely. “And may I never see you again!”

  Giving her a sullen bewildered stare, he opened the gate for her. She brushed past him, eyes averted, and passed within the building. Once she was safely beyond him she paused, shivering. She felt shaken, she felt soiled and violated, as though he had been the one to spit on her, and not the other way around. Her whole body was taut with fury and shock. She took a couple of deep breaths and felt her pulse begin to slow a little. In a calmer state, she ascended the stairs to Kundalimon’s third-floor room and knocked.

  Instantly the door opened. Kundalimon peered out. He smiled shyly. His green eyes, which often were so icy and remote, seemed bright and warm today; and Nialli Apuilana felt such a rush of innocence and sweetness coming from him that it went a long way in only a moment to wipe away the stain of that sorry encounter down below.

  “So you come to me at last!” Kundalimon cried, with a tremor of joy in his voice. “Good. Very good. At last you come. I miss you, Nialli Apuilana. I miss you very much. I wait the hours all the time.”

  Slipping his hand around her wrist, he drew her gently into the room and closed the door. He took the tray of food from her, and the flask of wine, and knelt to set them on the floor. When he rose, he stood in silence a moment, his eyes trained steadily on hers. Once again he put his hand on her wrist.

  There’s something different about him today, she thought. Something new, something strange.

  Hesitantly he said, “I am thinking. How I feel, you know? I am so much alone. Nest is—so far away. Nest-thinker. Queen. So far. Flesh-folk everywhere about me.”

  Compassion for his loneliness overflowed in her. Impulsively she told him, “You mustn’t worry, Kundalimon. You’ll be going back soon.”

  “I will? I will?”

  He seemed thunderstruck by her words. She was surprised by them herself. Was there any plan to release him? She had no idea. Thu-Kimnibol had talked of sending him back to the Nest carrying a rejection of the treaty, true, but Taniane had given no indication that she’d go along with that. More likely she had it in mind that Kundalimon, his captivity ended, would now simply set about living a normal life in the city of his birth, as though he had been absent only a matter of weeks or months.

  But he seemed so needy today. The consoling words had just popped from her mouth. Might as well follow through, Nialli Apuilana thought. Tell him the things he wants to hear.

  “Of course you’ll go back. You’ll be carrying a message to the Queen, from our chieftain. They’ll be sending you in just a little while. I’m sure of that.”

  Kundalimon’s hand tightened on her wrist.

  “You come with me, then?”

  She hadn’t been expecting that.

  “I?”

  “We go together. This no place for you. You have Nest-truth in you! I know this. You have felt Queen-love!” He was trembling. His sensing-organ was moving in slow arcs from side to side behind him, and his tongue flicked out again and again to moisten his lips. “You and I—you and I, Nialli Apuilana—we—we are of the Nest—oh, come close, come close—”

  Mueri guide me, she thought desperately. Does he want to twine with me?

  Perhaps so. Over the past weeks, as his command of the languag
e had grown, they had begun to enter some new phase of rapport, which today suddenly seemed to be approaching a kind of culmination. Certainly he was far more outgoing than he had ever been with her before; certainly there was an imperative need in him today, an urgency, that was new. Everything about him, the way he stood, the expression of his eyes, the movements of his sensing-organ, even the sharp bitter scent that was rising from him, argued that.

  But—twining?

  She wondered. It had aroused such fear and even horror in him, that other time early in their friendship when she had touched her sensing-organ to his and begun to lead him into the first stage of the communion. As though he couldn’t bear even the idea of the oneness that she was offering; as though the thought of such union with one who was not of the Nest was repugnant beyond any hope of acceptance.

  On the other hand, they knew each other much better now. Apparently Kundalimon had come to realize that she was indeed of the Nest: not to the same degree that he was, but Nest-touched all the same, a Nest-soul within a flesh-body, just as he. And therefore no longer saw her as alien, a member of the enemy. And in that case—