At Winter's End

  And here the Nest-thinkers hold forth, enclosed in gloomy narrow stalls, instructing the young who stand motionless before them in taut concentration. Here too are the Queen-attendants in their warm catacomb, preparing Her morning meal. Here are the Queen-guardians in close formation, arms linked tightly together, barring the way to the lower galleries where the royal chamber is. Here are processions of the young, males here, females there, awaiting their summons to the chamber, there to receive the gift of Queen-touch and be awakened to adulthood and fertility—or else to be set apart by a different designation, marked as a Warrior or a Worker or, perhaps, to become one of the chosen few, a Nest-thinker.

  The royal chamber itself is the only area of the Nest that she and Kundalimon do not enter in this vision. They may not, not yet, for she was never granted First Audience in her earlier stay in the Nest, and Kundalimon cannot bring her before the Queen now, not even this way, in a vision, in a dream. That would have to wait until its proper time. When at last she would behold the Queen, vast and inscrutable, at rest in Her secret place at the heart of the Nest.

  But everything else lies before them. Nialli Apuilana moves through it in wonder, in a rapture of Nest-love.

  Nest-thinker says, “Here they are. The flesh-child, and the flesh-child’s bride. Come, sit here with us, enter into Nest-truth with us.”

  So they aren’t invisible to the Nest-dwellers after all. Of course not. How could they be?

  She puts forth her hand, and a hard bristly claw takes it and holds it. Shining many-faceted blue-black eyes glow close by hers. Sweeping waves of force throb through her soul, the Nest-thinker’s potent emanation.

  Nest-thinker enters her spirit now and shows her the high Nest-truth, the one supreme unifying concept of the universe, the power that binds all things, which is Queen-peace. He shows her the great Pattern: the grandeur of Queen-love which embodies Egg-plan in order to bring Nest-plenty to all things. He fills her mind with it, as another Nest-thinker in another Nest had done once before, years ago.

  And, as had happened before, the simplicity and force of what he tells her enters Nialli Apuilana’s soul and takes possession of it, and she bows down to the unanswerable reality of it. She kneels there, sobbing in ecstasy, as the grand music of it roars through the channels and byways of her spirit. And gives herself up to it, in the fullest of surrenders.

  She is in her true home again.

  She will never leave it, now.

  “Nialli?”

  The sound of a voice, unexpected, numbingly intrusive. It fell upon her like a cascade of boulders roaring down an immeasurable slope.

  “Nialli, are you all right?”

  “No—yes—yes—”

  “It’s me, Kundalimon. Open your eyes. Open your eyes, Nialli!”

  “They—are—open—”

  “Please. Come back from the Nest. It’s over, Nialli, Look: look, there’s my window, there’s the door, there’s the courtyard down there.”

  She struggled. Why should she want to leave the place that was her home?

  “Nest-thinker—Queen-presence—”

  “Yes. I know.”

  He held her, stroked her, pulled her close against him. The warmth of him steadied her. She blinked a few times and her sight began to clear. She could make out the walls of his room, the little slit of a window, the clear, dazzling autumn light. She heard the sound of the dry rushing wind. Reluctantly she yielded to unanswerable reality. The Nest was gone. No Nest-light here, no Nest-scent. She could no longer feel the presence of the Queen. And yet, yet, the words of Nest-thinker still resonated through her spirit, and the powerful comfort she had taken from them still calmed and eased her soul.

  She looked at him in sudden astonishment.

  Kundalimon, she thought. I’ve twined with Kundalimon!

  “Were you there with me?” Nialli Apuilana asked. “Did you feel it too?”

  “All of it, yes.”

  “And we’ll see it again, won’t we? As often as we like.”

  “In visions, yes. And one day we’ll see it as it really is. We will go to the Nest together, when the time comes. But for now, we have the visions.”

  “Yes,” she said. She was trembling a little. “I knew we’d have to twine, if we wanted to see it together. And so we did. We did it very well.”

  “We are twining-partners now,” he said.

  “How do you know that term?”

  “I learned it from you. Just now, while we lay twined together. I was in your soul while you were in mine.” He smiled. “Twining-partners. Twining-partners. You and I.”

  “Yes.” She looked at him tenderly. “Yes, we are.”

  “It is like coupling, but much deeper. Much closer.”

  Nialli Apuilana nodded. “Anyone can couple. But it’s possible to achieve real twining only with a few. We’re very lucky people.”

  “When we are in the Nest together, there will be much twining for us?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes!”

  “I will be ready to return to the Nest very soon now,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll go with me when I leave here? We’ll go together, you and I?”

  She nodded eagerly. “Yes. I promise you that.”

  She looked toward the window. Out there all the city went about its varied occupations, her mother, her father, fat Boldirinthe, sly slippery Husathirn Mueri, filthy Curabayn Bangkea and his filthy brother, thousands of citizens moving along the hectic circles of their individual paths. And they were all blind to the truth. If they only knew, she thought. All of them, out there! But they had no idea what had happened in here. What sort of partnership had been forged in here, this day. What promises we have made. And will keep.

  The first days of Thu-Kimnibol’s visit had been the time for the entertainments, the dancers and the feastings and the lovemaking and the displays of kick-wrestling and fire-catching, and then the final exchange of gifts. Now it was time for business. Whatever thing it was that had brought him back to Yissou.

  Salaman took his place on his great throne in the Hall of State. It was carved from a single immense teardrop-shaped block of glossy black obsidian streaked with flame-colored swirls, which he had unearthed long ago while digging in the heart of the original city. The Throne of Harruel, everyone called it: one of the few tributes the city paid to its first king. Salaman didn’t mind that. A sop to the beloved founder’s memory: why not? But Harruel had never so much as seen his supposed throne, let alone sat upon it.

  People nowadays thought of Harruel, when they thought of him at all, as a great warrior, a wise far-seeing leader. A great warrior, certainly. But a leader? Wise? Salaman had his doubts about that. By now, though, scarcely anyone was still alive who remembered the true Harruel, that brooding drunkard, that beater and forcer of women, forever consumed by his own racking anguish of the spirit.

  And here now was Harruel’s son, come to Harruel’s city to stand before the Throne of Harruel as Dawinno’s ambassador to Harruel’s successor. The great wheel turned, and in its turnings brought everything to everything. Why was he here? So far he had given no inkling. It had all gone smoothly up till now, at least. In the beginning Salaman had found Thu-Kimnibol’s unexpected arrival ominous and oppressive: a mystery, a threat. But also it was an interesting challenge: can you still handle him, Salaman? Can you hold him in check?

  The king said, gesturing amiably, “Will you be seated, Thu-Kimnibol?”

  “If it pleases your majesty, I’m comfortable as I am.”

  “Whatever you prefer. Will you have wine?”

  “After we speak, maybe. It’s early in the day for me to be drinking.”

  Salaman wondered, not for the first time, whether Thu-Kimnibol was being shrewd or merely simple. The man was impossible to read. By choosing to remain standing, Thu-Kimnibol had, so it seemed, opted to dominate the room by sheer size and force; but had that been a deliberate choice, or, as he claimed, a matter of preference in comfort? An
d by refusing wine he had imposed a tension and a stiffness on the meeting that might work to his favor in any hard bargaining. Or was it just that drinking wasn’t to his taste? The sons of drunkards often want to follow a different path.

  The king felt the need of regaining the advantage that Thu-Kimnibol, by inadvertence or design, had taken from him so swiftly and easily. It was bad enough that he was so big. Salaman always felt uneasy in the presence of big men, not because he had any great regret at being short-legged himself, but because great slow lumbering fellows like Thu-Kimnibol made him feel overhasty and fevered in his motions, like some small scurrying animal. But aside from all that he could not allow Thu-Kimnibol the additional superiority of controlling the field of discussion.

  “You know my sons?” Salaman asked, as the princes began to enter the hall and take their seats.

  “I know Chham and Athimin, certainly. And Ganthiav I met when I arrived.”

  “This is Poukor. This is Biterulve. And these are Bruikkos and Char Mateh. My son Praheurt is too young to attend this meeting.” The king spread his arms in a great curve, embracing them all. Let them surround Thu-Kimnibol. Let them engulf him. He may be big, but together we can outnumber him.

  They lined the room, the seven princes, each of them a close copy of his father down to the cold gray eyes, the stockiness of frame—all but the one called Biterulve, rather less sturdy than the others, and pale of aspect, though he at least had the royal eyes. Salaman was pleased to see some shadow of dismay cross Thu-Kimnibol’s face as these replicas of him assembled. An impressive phalanx, they were. They testified to the force of his spirit: when he coupled with a woman it was his seed that made the mark, his features and form that were born again. Anyone could see that in these sons of his. He was fiercely proud of it.

  “A commendable legion you have here,” Thu-Kimnibol said.

  “Indeed. They are my great pride. Do you have sons, Thu-Kimnibol?”

  “I was never blessed that way by Mueri. And am not likely to be, now. The lady Naarinta—” His voice trailed off. His face turned bleak.

  Salaman felt a stab of shock. “Dead? No, cousin! Tell me it’s not so!”

  “You knew she was ill?”

  “I heard something about it when the merchant caravan was last here. But they said there was some hope of her recovery.”

  Thu-Kimnibol shook his head. “She lingered all winter, and weakened in the spring. Not long before I set out for Yissou she died.”

  The somber words fell like stones into the room. Salaman was caught unprepared by them. They had managed so far this evening to be purely formal with each other, rigidly playing their official roles, king and ambassador, ambassador and king, like figures on a frieze, for the sake of keeping the troublesome past that lay between them from breaking through and disturbing the niceties of their diplomatic calculations. But now an unexpected moment of mortal reality had interposed itself. “A pity. A very great pity,” Salaman said, after a moment, and sighed. “I prayed for her recovery, you know, when the merchants told me. And I grieve for you, cousin.” He offered Thu-Kimnibol a look of genuine regret. Suddenly the tone of the meeting was altered. This man here, this looming giant, this ancient rival of his, this dangerous son of the dangerous Harruel: he was vulnerable, he had suffered. It became possible to see him as something other than a puzzling and annoying intruder, suddenly. He imagined Thu-Kimnibol at his lady’s death-bed, imagined him clenching his fists and weeping, imagined him howling in rage as he himself had howled when his own first mate Weiawala had died. It made Thu-Kimnibol more real for him. And he remembered, then, how they had stood together, he and Thu-Kimnibol, at the battle against the hjjks, how Thu-Kimnibol, just a child then, still carrying his child-name, even, had fought like a hero that day. A great surge of liking and even love for this man, this man whom he had hated and had driven from his kingdom, flooded his soul. He leaned forward and said in a low hoarse tone, “No prince of your bearing should be without sons. You ought to choose another mate as soon as your mourning’s over, cousin.” Then, with a wink: “Or take two or three. That’s how I’ve done it here.”

  “In Dawinno we still allow ourselves only one at a time, cousin,” Thu-Kimnibol replied evenly. “We are very conservative that way.” To Salaman it felt like a rebuke, and some of his good will toward Thu-Kimnibol evaporated as swiftly as it had come. Thu-Kimnibol shrugged and said, “For now the thought of choosing a new mate seems very strange to me. Time will take care of that, I suppose.”

  “Time takes care of everything,” Salaman said elaborately, as though uttering oracular wisdom.

  He could see that Thu-Kimnibol was growing impatient. Perhaps this talk of sons and mates was troubling to him. Or perhaps his impatience was yet another ploy. He had begun to pace about, stalking the vast room like some ponderous beast he stalked the vast room, striding past one row of princes, whirling, coming back past the other. Their eyes followed his every movement.

  Abruptly Thu-Kimnibol settled on a divan close by the king and said, “Enough of this, cousin. Let me come to my business. Some months back a strange boy appeared in our city. A young man, rather. Riding out of the north, on a vermilion. Barely able to speak our language. Hjjk-noises was all he could manage, and maybe a People word or two. We couldn’t figure out where he had come from or what he wanted or who he was, until Hresh, using the sort of tricks that only Hresh knows, went into his mind with the Wonderstone. And discovered that he was from our city in the first place: stolen, about thirteen years back. When he was just a child.”

  “Stolen by the hjjks, you mean?”

  “Right. And raised by them in the Nest of Nests. And now they’d sent him back to us as an emissary, to offer us Queen-love and Queen-peace. So Hresh said.”

  “Ah,” said Salaman. “We had one of those come to us a little time ago. A girl, she was. She’d spit and rant at us all day in hjjk. We couldn’t make any sense out of it at all.”

  “She knew a few words of our language, father,” Chham said.

  “Yes. Yes, she did. She’d babble to us about the grandeur of the hjjk Queen, the high godly truth of her ways. Or similar nonsense. We didn’t pay much attention. How long ago was this, Chham?”

  “It was Firstmonth, I think.”

  “Firstmonth, yes. And what finally happened? Ah: I remember. She tried to escape, wasn’t it, and make her way back to the hjjks?”

  “Yes,” said Chham. “But Poukor caught up with her outside the wall and killed her.”

  “Killed her?” Thu-Kimnibol said, eyes wide, astonishment in his voice.

  Thu-Kimnibol’s show of seeming tenderness struck the king as amusing, even quaint in its sentimentality. Or did he mean it as another rebuke? Salaman wondered. He made a broad, imperiously sweeping gesture of his arms. “What else could we do? Obviously she was a spy. We couldn’t let her go back to the Nest with everything she’d learned here.”

  “Why not simply bring her back into the city? Feed her, teach her how to speak the language. She’d have shed her hjjk ways sooner or later.”

  “Would she?” the king asked. “I doubt that very much. To look at her she was a girl of the People, but her soul was the soul of a hjjk. That wouldn’t ever have changed. Once they get their poison into your head, you’re never the same again. Especially when it happens young. No, cousin, before long she’d have escaped again and gotten back to them. Better to kill her than to let that happen. It’s a terrible foulness, that a girl of the People should live in the Nest. Among those filthy creatures. The very thought of it sickens the gods themselves.”

  “So I’d say also. All the same, to butcher her that way—a girl, a young girl—” Thu-Kimnibol shrugged. “Well, it’s no affair of mine. But I think she may not have been a spy. I think she was sent to you as an envoy, just as this Kundalimon—that’s his name—was to us. Hresh says they were sent to all the Seven Cities, these envoys.”

  “Be that as it may. We’re not interested in getting messages
from the hjjks,” said Salaman indifferently. “But of course Hresh would think otherwise. Does he happen to know why the Queen is sending these envoys around?”

  “The Queen is offering us a treaty,” Thu-Kimnibol said.

  Salaman sat bolt upright. “A treaty? What kind of treaty?”

  “A peace treaty, cousin. An imaginary line is to be drawn clear across the continent from Vengiboneeza to the eastern coast. The hjjks will promise never to come across that line into our territory without an invitation, provided, of course, that we don’t go into any land of theirs. Our territory will be considered to be the region from the City of Yissou southward past Dawinno to the Southern Sea, or wherever it is that the land comes to its end. All the rest of the world is to be considered theirs, and is closed to us forever. Oh, yes, one other thing: we have to agree to let hjjk scholars live among us, so that they can teach us the truths of their religion and the wisdom of their way of life.”

  It sounded unreal. It was like something out of a dream.

  Were they serious, the hjjks, proposing such an absurdity?

  This was all so foolish that Salaman found himself suspecting some intricate trick on Taniane’s part, or Thu-Kimnibol’s. But no, no, that was just as foolish an idea.

  “What a wonderful offer,” he said, with a little laugh. “I assume that what you did was to have the ambassador skinned and send his hide back to the Queen with your answer written on it. That’s what I would have done.”

  Thu-Kimnibol’s eyes narrowed: that look of rebuke, again.

  He thinks we’re barbarians, Salaman thought.

  “The boy’s still in Dawinno. He’s under guard, but being treated well. The chieftain’s daughter herself brings him his food every day and is teaching him our language, which of course he’s forgotten, having been a captive so many years.”