At Winter's End

  This was Thu-Kimnibol’s fifth week in the City of Yissou. Real negotiations in the matter of the military alliance between Salaman and the City of Dawinno hadn’t yet begun: only the preliminaries, and sketchy ones at that. Salaman seemed in no hurry. He side-stepped Thu-Kimnibol’s attempts to get down to the harder issues. Instead the king kept him diverted with a constant round of feasts and celebrations as though he regarded him as a member of his own family; and the girl Weiawala shared his bed each night as if they were already betrothed. Very quickly he had come to accept and enjoy her eagerness, her passion. It had renewed his taste for life.

  He was untroubled by the slow pace. It was giving the wound of Naarinta’s death a chance to heal, this far from old and familiar associations. And there were even older associations here. In an odd way Thu-Kimnibol was pleased to be back in what was, after all, the city where he had spent the formative years of his life, from his third year to his nineteenth. Vengiboneeza, his birthplace, seemed like a dream to him, nothing more, and Dawinno, great as it was, somehow insubstantial and remote. His whole life there, his princely house and his mate and his pleasures and his friends, had faded until they rarely entered his mind any longer. Here, in the dark shadow of Salaman’s bizarre titanic wall, in this dense dank claustrophobic warren of a city, he was beginning to feel somehow at home. That was surprising. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t even try. As for his mission, his embassy, the less hurry the better. An alliance of the sort he had in mind was best not forged in haste.

  He went riding often in the hinterlands beyond the wall, usually with Esperasagiot and Dumanka and Simthala Honginda, sometimes with one or two of the king’s older sons. It was the king who had suggested these excursions. “Your xlendis will want exercise,” he said. “The streets of the city are too narrow and winding. The beasts won’t have room in them for stretching their legs properly.”

  “What about the chance of running into hjjks out there?” Thu-Kimnibol asked. “I get the idea that they’re crawling all over the place.”

  “If you stray very far to the northeast, yes. Otherwise you won’t be bothered.”

  “Toward Vengiboneeza, you mean?”

  “Right. That’s where the filthy bugs are. A million of them, maybe. Ten million, for all I know. Vengiboneeza boils with them,” Salaman said. “They infest it like fleas.” He gave Thu-Kimnibol a cunning look. “But even if you do meet up with a few hjjks while you’re out riding, what of it? You knew how to kill them once upon a time, so I recall.”

  “Very likely I still do,” Thu-Kimnibol said quietly.

  He was cautious outside the city, all the same. Usually he rode through the tame farming territories south of the city, and once or twice he and Esperasagiot went a short way into the unthreatening forests on the eastern side, but he never ventured toward the north. Not that the thought of running into hjjks troubled him much; and he cursed Salaman for that sly suggestion of cowardice. It would be good sport, slicing up a few hjjks. But he had a mission to carry out here, and getting himself killed in a brawl with the bugs would be worse than stupid: it would be irresponsible.

  Then Salaman himself suggested that they go for a ride. And Thu-Kimnibol was surprised to see the king leading him toward the west, across a high plateau that gave way to a rough, ravine-crossed district where their xlendis were hard pressed to manage their footing. It was a troublesome broken region. Danger might be hiding anywhere. Salaman felt a need to test his guest’s courage, perhaps. Or to demonstrate his own. Thu-Kimnibol kept his irritation out of view. “It was here,” the king said, “that we destroyed the hjjks, the day of the great battle. Do you remember? You were so young.”

  “Old enough, cousin.”

  They stood a time, staring. Thu-Kimnibol was aware of the old memories, veiled as they were by time, stirring within him. First the hjjks thrown into confusion by that device of Hresh’s, which sent their vermilions stampeding into those boulder-strewn gullies. And then the battle. How he had fought that day! Cutting them to pieces as they milled around in bewilderment! Six years old, was he? Something like that. But already twice the size of any child his age. With his own sword, and not a toy sword, either. The finest hour of his life: the child-warrior, the boy-swordsman, hacking and slashing with fury and zeal. The one and only time in his life, it was, that he had tasted the true joy of warfare. He longed to feel the wine of it on his lips again.

  On his second ride with Salaman the king was even bolder; for this time he headed into the high wooded lands east and north of the city, precisely the region he had warned Thu-Kimnibol against, and kept on going for hours without turning back. As they proceeded on and one during the day, it began to seem to Thu-Kimnibol that Salaman might have it in mind to ride all the way to Vengiboneeza, or some such insanity. Of course that was impossible, a journey that would take weeks, and certain death at the end of it. But the hjjks were supposed to be plentiful to the northeast even this close to the city. If it was so risky to take this route, why had the king chosen it now?

  They rode in silence, deep into the afternoon, along a lofty ridge that stretched as far as the eye could see. The countryside grew increasingly wild. Once a passage of bloodbirds briefly darkened the sky just overhead. On a hot sunny knoll a sinister congregation of the large pale insects called greenclaws, thick many-jointed things half the length of a man’s body, moved slowly about in the warmth. Later they rode past a place where the ground was in turmoil as though a giant auger were turning beneath it, and, looking down, Thu-Kimnibol saw scarlet eyes huge as saucers looking back at him out of the soft tumbled soil, and great yellow teeth clacking together.

  At last they halted in a quiet grassy open place atop a high point along the ridge. The sky was deepening in color. It had the color of strong wine now. Thu-Kimnibol stared eastward, into the gathering shadows. Vengiboneeza was somewhere out there, far beyond the range of sight. He barely remembered it, only scattered scraps and bits, the image of a tower, the cobbled pavement of a great boulevard, the high sweep of a vast plaza. That gleaming ancient city, thick with ghosts. And its million hjjks, swarming furiously in the hive. How the place must reek of them!

  After a time Thu-Kimnibol thought that he could see figures, angular and alien, moving about in the shallow canyon below the ridge, very far off.

  “Hjjks,” he said. “Do you see them?”

  They were very small at this distance, hardly more than specks, yellow banded with black.

  Salaman narrowed his eyes, stared closely. “Yes, by Yissou! One, two, three, four—”

  “And a fifth one, on the ground. With its belly in the air.”

  “Your eyes are younger than mine. But yes, I can make them out now. You see how near to Yissou they venture? Forever prowling closer and closer.” He took a closer look. “The two large ones are females. Warriors, they are. Among hjjks it’s the females who are stronger. Escorting the other three somewhere, I suppose. A team of spies. The one on the ground’s badly hurt, by the looks of it. Or dead. Either way, they’ll be feasting in a little while.”

  “Feasting?”

  “On the dead one. They waste nothing, the hjjks. Didn’t you know that? Not even their own dead.”

  Thu-Kimnibol laughed at the monstrous grisliness of the idea. But then, reconsidering, he felt himself shuddering. Could Salaman be serious? Yes, yes. Apparently he was. Indeed, the quartet of distant hjjks seemed to be crouching over the body of the fallen one now, methodically pulling it apart, wresting its limbs from it and splitting them open to get at whatever meat they might contain. He watched in horror, unable to look away. Disgust made his skin crawl, his guts writhe. The busy claws, the avid beaks, the steady, diligent, efficient process of feeding—how loathsome, how hateful they were—

  “Are they cannibals, then? Do they murder one another for their flesh?”

  “Cannibals, yes. They see nothing wrong with eating their own dead. A thrifty folk, they are. But murderers, no. Killing their own kind is a sin the
y don’t seem to practice, cousin. My guess is that this one ran into something even nastier than itself. Yissou knows there’s danger all over the place in this open country, wild beasts of a hundred sorts.”

  “Thrifty, you say!” Thu-Kimnibol spat. “Demons is what they are! We should exterminate them to the last one!”

  “Ah, you think so, cousin?”

  “I do.”

  Salaman smiled broadly. “Well, then we think alike. I thought you’d find this ride instructive. Do you see what we face here, now? Why my wall, which I know you all find so amusing, is of the size that it is? We journey just a short way from the city, and there they are, committing their abominations right in front of our eyes, and not caring in the slightest that we’re watching.”

  Thu-Kimnibol glared. Something throbbed in his forehead. “We should go down there and kill them as they eat. Two of us, four of them—those aren’t bad odds.”

  “There may be a hundred more behind those trees. Do you want to be their next meal, cousin?” The king tugged at Thu-Kimnibol’s arm. “Come. The sun has gone down, and we’re far from the city. We should turn back, I think.”

  Thu-Kimnibol was unable to take his eyes from the grim scene in the canyon below.

  “A vision comes to me as I stand here,” he said softly. “I see an army, thousands of us, riding out across this land. From your city and ours, and all the small settlements between. Traveling swiftly, striking quickly, slaughtering every hjjk we find. Going right on without stopping, right into the heart of the great Nest, right into the Queen’s own hiding-place. A lightning strike that they won’t be able to withstand, no matter how many of them there are. The Queen is their strength. Kill her and they’re helpless, and we’ll be able to wipe the rest of them out at our ease. What do you say, Salaman? Isn’t that a wondrous vision?”

  The king nodded. He looked pleased. “We think alike, cousin. We think alike! Do you know how long I’ve waited for someone from Dawinno to say such things to me? I had almost given up hope.”

  “You never considered launching the war on your own?”

  What might have been annoyance awoke in the king’s eyes for a moment. “There aren’t enough of us, cousin. It would be certain disaster. Your city, once it took in all those Bengs—that’s where the troops I need are. But what chance is there that I’d get them? Your city’s too comfortable, Thu-Kimnibol. Dawinno’s not a city of warriors. Yourself excepted, of course.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate us, cousin.”

  Salaman shrugged. “The Bengs were warriors once, when they were wanderers in the plains. But even they’ve grown fat and easy down there in the warm southlands. They don’t remember how much grief the hjjks gave them long ago. Dawinno’s too far from hjjk territory for anyone down there to care about them. How often do you see hjjks roaming as close to your city as these are to ours? Once every three years? We live with their presence every day. Among you there’s some little flurry of anger when a child is stolen, and then the child comes back, or is forgotten, and everything is as it was before.”

  Tightly Thu-Kimnibol said, “You make me think my mission’s pointless, cousin. You tell me to my face that I speak for a nation of cowards.”

  There has been a sudden shift in mood. The two men stare at each other in a way that is very much less friendly than it was only a little while before. The rebuke hangs in the air between them for a long silent moment. Down below, the feast is still going on: harsh sounds, sounds of rending and crunching, drift upward on the cool evening air.

  Salaman says, “It was weeks ago that you said you’re here to propose an alliance, that Dawinno wants to join forces with us and make war against the hjjks. Exterminate them like vermin, that’s what you said you’d like to do. Fine. Excellent. And now you put forth this pretty vision of our two armies joining and marching north. Splendid, cousin. But forgive me if I’m skeptical. I know what people are like in Dawinno. Alliance or no alliance, how can I be sure that your people will actually come up here and fight? What I want is a guarantee that you can deliver the army of Dawinno to me. Can you give me that guarantee, Thu-Kimnibol?”

  “I think I can.”

  “Think-you-can isn’t good enough. Take another look down there, cousin. See them gnawing and grinding their comrade’s flesh. Can you make your people see what you see now? Those are hjjks, just a few hours’ ride from my city. Every year there are more of them. Every year they get a little closer.” Salaman laughs bitterly. “What does it matter to the people of Dawinno that the hjjks are camped on our doorstep, eh? It’s the flesh of our sons and daughters, not theirs, that they’ll be feeding on one of these days, eh, cousin? Do they realize, down south, that when the hjjks are through here, they’ll go on to pounce on Dawinno? Their appetites can’t be checked. They’ll go south, sure as anything. If not right away, then twenty, thirty, fifty years from now. Are your people capable of looking that far ahead?”

  “Some of us are. Which is why I’m here.”

  “Yes. This famous alliance. But when I ask you if Dawinno will really fight, you give me no answer.”

  Salaman’s eyes are bright with fierce energy, now. They drill remorselessly into Thu-Kimnibol’s. Thu-Kimnibol’s head is beginning to ache. Diplomatic lies are on the tip of his tongue, but he forces them back. This is the moment for utter honesty. That too can sometimes be a useful tool.

  Bluntly he says, “You must have good spies in Dawinno, cousin.”

  “They do a decent job. How strong is your peace faction, will you tell me?”

  “Not strong enough to get anywhere.”

  “So you actually think your people will go to war against the hjjks when the time comes?”

  “I do.”

  “What if you overestimate them?”

  “What if you underestimate them?” Thu-Kimnibol asks. He stares down at the king from his great height atop his xlendi. “They’ll fight. I give you my own guarantee on that, cousin. One way or another, I’ll bring you an army.” He points with a jabbing finger into the canyon. “I’ll find a way of making them see what I see now. I’ll wake them up and turn them into fighters. You have my pledge on that.”

  A disheartening look of continuing skepticism flickers across Salaman’s face. But almost immediately other things seem to be mixed into it: eagerness, hope, a willingness to believe. Then the whole mixture vanishes and the king’s expression once more becomes guarded, stony, gruff.

  “This needs further discussion,” he says. “Not here. Not now. Come. Or we’ll be riding back in the dark.”

  Darkness was indeed upon them by the time they reached the city. Torches blazed atop the wall, and when Salaman’s son Chham rode out from the eastern gate to greet them the look of anxiety on his face was unmistakable.

  The king laughed it away. “I took our cousin out toward Vengiboneeza, so that he could smell the breeze that blows from that direction. But we were never in danger.”

  “The Protector be thanked,” Chham exclaimed.

  Then, turning to Thu-Kimnibol: “There’s a messenger here from your city, lord prince. He says he’s been riding day and night, and it must be true, for the xlendi he arrived on was so worn out it looked more dead than alive.”

  Thu-Kimnibol frowned. “Where is he now?”

  Chham nodded toward the gate. “Waiting in your chamber, lord prince.”

  The messenger was a Beng, one of the guardsmen of the justiciary, a younger brother of the guard-captain Curabayn Bangkea. Thu-Kimnibol recalled having seen him on duty at the Basilica now and then. Eluthayn was his name, and he looked ragged and worn indeed, a thin shadow of himself, close to the point of breaking down from fatigue. It was all he could do to stammer out his message. Which was a startling one indeed.

  Salaman came to him a little while afterward.

  “You look troubled, cousin. The news must be bad.”

  “Suddenly there seems to be an epidemic of murder in my city.”

  “Murder?”

 
“During our holy festival, no less. Two killings. One was the captain of our city guard, the older brother of this messenger. The other was the boy the hjjks sent to us carrying the terms of the treaty they were offering.”

  “The hjjk envoy? Who’d kill him? What for?”

  “Who can say?” Thu-Kimnibol shook his head. “The boy was harmless, or so it seemed to me. The other one—well, he was a fool, but if simply being a fool is reason to be murdered, the streets would run red with blood. There’s no sense to any of this.” He frowned and went to the window, and stared off into the shadowy courtyard for a time. Then he turned toward Salaman. “We may have to break off our negotiations.”

  “You’ve been recalled, have you?”

  “The messenger said nothing about that. But with things like this going on there—”

  “Things like what? A couple of murders?” Salaman chuckled. “An epidemic, you call that?”

  “You may have five killings here every day, cousin. But we aren’t used to such things.”

  “Nor are we. But two killings hardly seems—”

  “The guard-captain. The envoy. A messenger racing all this way to tell me. Why is that? Does Taniane think the hjjks will retaliate? Maybe that’s it—maybe they think there might be trouble, maybe even a hjjk raid on Dawinno—”

  “We killed the envoy that was sent to us, cousin, and we never heard a thing about it. You people are too excitable, that’s the problem.” Salaman stretched a hand toward Thu-Kimnibol. “If you haven’t been officially recalled, stay right where you are, that’s my advice. Taniane and her Presidium can take care of this murder business without you. We have work of our own to do here, and it’s barely only begun. Stay in Yissou, cousin. That’s what I think.”

  Thu-Kimnibol nodded. “You’re right. What’s been happening in Dawinno is no affair of mine. And we have work to do.”

  Alone in his chambers atop the House of Knowledge in the early hours of the night, Hresh tries to come to terms with it all. Two days have gone by since Nialli Apuilana’s disappearance. Taniane is convinced that she is somewhere close at hand, that she’s gone into seclusion until her grief has burned itself out. Squadrons of guardsmen are at work combing the city for her, and the outlying districts.