“Don’t underrate them, Nialli,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “You may be going too far in the other direction now.” Hresh made a soft sighing sound. He turned and looked at him. But Hresh seemed asleep, breathing gently and calmly. Thu-Kimnibol turned back to Nialli Apuilana. “There’s one more thing, something the Queen told me that seemed even stranger than all the rest. Were you ever taught, when you lived among them, that the hjjks believe they were created by the humans?”
Now it was her turn to look startled. “No. No, never!”
“Can it be true, do you think?”
“Why not. The humans were almost like gods. The humans may have been the gods.”
“Then if the hjjks are their chosen people—”
“No,” she said. “The hjjks were a chosen people. Chosen to survive, to endure the Long Winter, to take over the world afterward. But they didn’t work out, somehow. So the gods created us. Or the humans did, one or the other. As replacements for them.” Her eyes were bright with a fervor he had rarely seen in them before. “Someday the humans are going to come back to Earth,” she said. “I’m certain of it. They’ll want to see what’s been happening here since they left. And they won’t want to find the whole place one gigantic Nest, Thu-Kimnibol. They put us in those cocoons for a purpose, and they’ll want to know whether that purpose has been fulfilled. So we have to keep on fighting, don’t you see? We have to hold our own against the Queen. Call them gods, call them humans, whatever they are, they’re the ones who made us. And they expect that of us.”
“This is the kind of country the bug-folk love,” Salaman muttered. “Dead country, with all its bones showing.” The king brought his xlendi to a halt and looked around at his three sons. Athimin and Biterulve were riding alongside him, and Chham just a short way behind.
“You think there’s a Nest out there, father?” Chham asked.
“I’m sure of it. I feel its weight pressing on my soul. Here, I feel it. And here. And here.” He touched his breast, and his sensing-organ, and his loins.
The territory ahead had a bleached, arid look. The soil was pale and sandy and the fierce blue sky glared with whipcrack intensity. The only sign of life was a malign-looking woody low dome of a plant that looked almost like a weatherbeaten skull, from which two thick strap-like gray leaves, tattered and shredded by the wind, extended across the desert floor to an enormous length. These plants grew far apart, each presiding over its little domain like a sullen immobile emperor. Otherwise there was nothing.
Athimin said, “Shall I give the order to make camp, father?”
Salaman nodded. He stared into the distance. A sour chilly breeze struck his face, a wind of trouble. “And send scouts forward. Protected by patrols just behind them. There are hjjks out there, plenty of them. I can smell them.”
Strange uneasiness was growing in him. He had no idea why.
Until this moment Salaman had been confident that his army, and his army alone, would be able to march all the way to the great Nest and destroy it. Certainly they had met no real opposition thus far. The hjjks had numbers on their side, and they were strong and tireless warriors. But they didn’t seem to have any real idea of how to fight. It had been that way forty years ago too, Salaman remembered, when they had tried to lay siege to the newly founded City of Yissou.
What they did was come swooping down in great terrifying hordes, shrieking and waving their spears and swords. Most of them wielded two weapons at once, some of them even more than that. It was a sight that could make the blood run backward in your veins, if you let yourself be awed by their frenzy and by the frightful look of them.
But if you stood your ground, side by side in a sturdy wedge of warriors, and met them hack for hack, chop for chop, you could beat them down. The thing was not to carry the battle to them, but let them come to you. For all their wild dancing about, they were inefficient fighters, too many of them too close together. What you had to do was get your strongest and most fearless men into a phalanx up front, and slash away at any hjjk that came too near. Try to cut its breathing-tubes: that was where they were most vulnerable, the loose dangling orange breathing-tubes that hung from their heads to the sides of their chests. Snip one of those and within moments the hjjk was down, paralyzed by lack of air.
And so Salaman’s army had marched on and on and on, beyond the smoldering rubble-heap that was Vengiboneeza, into the ever more parched country to the north, eradicating the hjjks as they went. There had been four great battles so far, and each one had ended in a rout. His soul tingled with the memory of those victories—the hjjks hunted down to the last one, the severed claw-tipped limbs scattered about everywhere, the dry weightless bodies piled in stacks. Every army the Queen had sent against him had met the same fate.
Now, though, the invaders were approaching the first of the lesser Nests that rimmed the frontier of the true hjjk domain.
It was Salaman’s plan to wipe out those Nests and their Queens one by one as he passed northward, so that no enemies would remain behind him when he moved into the far side of the great emptiness to begin his assault on the central Nest. He had no clear notion yet how he was going to destroy them. Pour some sort of liquid fire into their openings, perhaps. It would all have been much easier if he’d had one or two of Thu-Kimnibol’s fancy weapons. But he was sure that he would find a way that would work, when the time came. He hadn’t had a moment’s worry on that score.
Now, though—this foul wind blowing, this sudden sense of distress, of impending disaster—
“Father!” Biterulve cried.
Out of nowhere a wall of water appeared before them, rising out of the desert like a gigantic ocean wave springing from the ground to blot out half the sky. The xlendis whinnied and reared wildly. Salaman swore and flung up his arm before his face in astonishment. Behind him he heard the panicky yelling of his men.
He needed only a moment to collect himself.
“A trick!” he bellowed. “An illusion! How can there be water in the desert?”
Indeed that titanic wave hung above them but did not descend. He saw the curling edge of white foam, the green impenetrable depths behind, the huge curve of inconceivable falling mass; but the mass did not fall.
“A trick!” Salaman roared. “The hjjks are attacking us! Form the wedge! Form the wedge!”
Chham, wild-eyed, rode up close behind him. Salaman shoved him fiercely back in the direction of the main body of the army. “Get them in formation!” he ordered. He saw Athimin already heading back, signaling, gesticulating, trying to keep the troops from scattering.
They seemed to realize that the sudden ocean wasn’t real. But now the ground itself was wavering like a blanket being shaken to free it from crumbs. Salaman, appalled, saw the earth rippling all about him. He grew dizzy and sprang down from his xlendi. An actual earthquake? Or another illusion? He couldn’t tell.
The wall of water had become a wall of fire, enclosing them on three sides. The air sizzled and crackled and blazed. He felt heat pressing inward on him. Blue-tipped flames streamed upward from the quivering earth.
And now bright bolts of shimmering light were dancing in the sky like spears running amok. Salaman, whirling to void their blinding light, saw dragons advancing from the north, breathing fire. Ravenous mouth-creatures. Birds with fangs like knives.
“Illusions!” he cried. “They’re sending Wonderstone dreams against us!”
Others saw that too. The army was rallying, trying desperately to get into fighting formation.
But then in the swirling madness he caught sight of an angular yellow-and-black figure just in front of him, clutching a short sword in one bristly claw and a spear in another. A force of hjjks had come upon them under cover of these hallucinations and was beginning an attack.
Lashing out with his blade, the king slashed a breathing-tube, and turned and saw second hjjk coming at him from the left. He caught it in its exposed knee-joint and sent it to the ground. On his other side Chham was thrustin
g away now at two other insect-warriors. One was down, the other staggering. Salaman grinned. Let them send dragons! Let them send earthquakes and oceans! When it came to hand-to-hand fighting, his troops would still slaughter them without mercy.
The illusions were continuing. Geysers of blood, fountains of coruscating light, whole mountains tumbling out of the air, sudden abysses opening a hand’s-breath away—there seemed no limit to their ingenuity. But so long as you ignore it all, Salaman thought, and simply keep your mind on the task of chopping down every hjjk that comes within reach of your weapon—
There! There! Strike, cut, kill!
The joy of battle was on him now as perhaps never before. He fought his way across the field, paying no heed to writhing serpents that floated before his face, to jeering luminous ghosts issuing from sulphurous crevices opening on every side, to disembodied eyes swirling about his head, to stampeding vermilions, to tumbling boulders. His warriors, rallied by Chham and Athimin, had formed themselves into three fighting wedges arranged in a circular pattern and were defending themselves well.
But what was this? Biterulve in the outermost arc of one of the wedges?
That was against his explicit order. The boy was never to be exposed in that way. Athimin knew that. Let him fight in the secondary line, yes, but never in the prime row of warriors. Salaman looked around in fury. Where was Athimin? He was supposed to look after his brother at all times.
There he was, yes. Five or six men down the row from Biterulve, hacking away vigorously.
Salaman called to him and pointed. “Do you see him? Get over there! Get over to him, you fool!”
Athimin gasped and nodded. Biterulve seemed heedless of his own safety. He was striking at the hjjks in front of him with a ferocity that the king hadn’t imagined he possessed. Athimin was turning now, fighting his way across the confusion, going to the boy’s defense. Salaman came rushing forward also, intending to slay the hjjk closest to Biterulve and shove the boy deeper into the phalanx of warriors.
Too late.
Salaman was still twenty paces away, struggling through a zone of phantom monsters and murky black cloud, when he saw as though by a quick flash of lightning a hjjk that seemed twice the height of Thu-Kimnibol rise up before Biterulve and drive his spear through the boy’s body from front to back.
The king let loose a terrible roar of rage. It seemed to him as though a hot bar of iron had been thrust through his forehead. In an instant he reached the spot where Biterulve lay and sent the hjjk’s head flying across the field with one swift stroke. An instant later Athimin was blurting useless apologies and explanations into his ear, and unhesitatingly Salaman, turning on him the full force of the fury that possessed him, cut him down too with the stroke of his backswing, slashing him across his chest, deep through fur and flesh and bone.
“Father—?” Athimin murmured thickly, and fell at his feet.
Salaman stared. Biterulve lay to his left, Athimin at his right. His mind was unable to absorb the sight. His soul throbbed with unanswerable torment.
What have I done? What have I done?
Everywhere about him the battle raged; and the king stood silent and still, purged in one stunning instant of all madness and blood-lust. To his ears came the sounds of sobbing wounded warriors and the moans of the dying and the savage cries of those who still lived and fought, and it was all incomprehensible to him, that he should be here in this place at this time, with two of his sons dead on the ground before him, and phantoms and monsters dancing all about, and huge-eyed shrieking insect-creatures waving swords in his face. Why? For what?
Madness. Waste.
He stood frozen, bewildered, lost in pain.
Then he felt a searing flash of pain of a different sort as a hjjk weapon went lancing through the fleshy part of his arm. It was astonishing, the agony. Sudden hot tears stung his eyes. He blinked in confusion. A heavy mist shrouded his soul. For a moment, under the shock of his wound, the years rolled away and he thought that he was the ambitious young warrior again, nearly as clever as Hresh, whose scheme it was to build a great city and a dynasty and an empire. But if that was so, why was he in this old stiff body, why did he hurt like this, why was he bleeding? Ah. The hjjks! Yes, the hjjks were attacking their little settlement. Already Harruel had fallen. Everything looked hopeless. But there was no choice but to keep on fighting—to keep on fighting—
The mist parted and his mind cleared. Biterulve and Athimin lay before him on the ground and he was about to die himself. And there came to him with complete clarity an awareness of the futility of his life, the years spent in building a wall, in hating a distant and alien enemy who might better have simply been ignored.
He turned and saw the gleaming yellow-and-black creature studying him gravely, as though it had never seen a man of the People before. It was preparing to strike again.
“Go ahead,” Salaman said. “What does it matter?”
“Father! Get back!”
Chham, that was. Salaman laughed. He pointed to his two fallen sons. “Do you see?” he said. “Biterulve was fighting in the front line. And then Athimin—Athimin—”
He felt himself being pushed aside. A sword cleaved the air in front of him. The hjjk fell back. Chham’s face was close up against his own, now. The same face as his: it was like looking into a mirror that reflected back through time.
“Father, you’ve been wounded.”
“Biterulve—Athimin—”
“Here—let me help you—”
“Biterulve—”
Thu-Kimnibol said, “What? Salaman here? And his army?”
“What’s left of them,” said Esperasagiot. “It’s a fearful sight, sir. You’d best ride out to meet them. They hardly seem to have the strength to come the rest of the way to us.”
“Can this be some sort of trick?” Nialli Apuilana asked. “Does he hate us so much that he means to draw us out of our camp and attack us?”
Esperasagiot laughed. “No, lady, there’s no hatred left in him. If you saw them, you’d know. They’re a beaten bunch. It’s a wonder any of them made it here alive.”
“How far are they?” Thu-Kimnibol asked.
“Half an hour’s ride.”
“Get my xlendi ready. You, Dumanka, Kartafirain to accompany men, and ten warriors.”
“Shall I go also?” Nialli Apuilana asked.
Thu-Kimnibol glanced at her. “You ought to stay with your father. They tell me he’s very weak this morning. One of us should be with him if the end comes.”
“Yes,” she said softly, and turned away.
What remained of the army of the City of Yissou had made camp, more or less, beside a small stream in the open country a little way north of Thu-Kimnibol’s encampment. Esperasagiot had not exaggerated: it was a fearful sight. Only a few hundred warriors, of the great horde that had set forth from Yissou, were there, and every one of them seemed to bear wounds. They were sprawled here and there like a scattering of cast-off garments on the ground, with three ragged tents behind them. As Thu-Kimnibol approached, a grim-faced man whom he recognized as Salaman’s son Chham came limping out to greet him.
“A sad and sorry reunion this is, Prince Thu-Kimnibol. It shames me to come before you like this.”
Thu-Kimnibol sought for words and did not find any. After a moment he reached down and embraced the other in silence, doing it gingerly, for fear of opening some wound.
“Can we do anything for you?” he asked.
“Healers. Medicines. Food. What we need most of all is rest. We’ve been in retreat for—I couldn’t tell you how long. A week, two weeks? We kept no count.”
“I’m saddened to see how badly things have gone for you.”
Chham managed a momentary flare of vigor. “They went well enough at first. We beat them again and again. We killed them without mercy. My father fought like a god. Nothing could stand before his attack. But then—” He looked away. “Then the bug-folk used tricks against us. Wonderstone illus
ions, magical fantasies, things out of dreams. You’ll see: they’ll come at you the same way, when you next encounter them.”
“So there was a battle of dreams. And a great defeat.”
“Yes. A very great defeat.”
“And your father the king?”
Chham jerked his hand over his shoulder, toward the largest of the tents. “He lives. But not so as you’d know him. My brother Athimin was killed, and Biterulve also.”
“Ah. Biterulve too!”
“And my father was gravely wounded. But also he’s changed within, very much changed. You’ll see. We escaped by mere luck. A sudden windstorm came up. The air was full of sand. No way for the hjjks to see where we were. We crept away unnoticed. And here we are, Prince Thu-Kimnibol. Here we are.”
“Where is the king?”
“Come: I’ll take you to him.”
The withered, feeble man who lay on the pallet within the tent was not much like the Salaman that Thu-Kimnibol had known. His white fur was matted and dull. In places it had fallen out completely. His eyes too were dull, those wide-set gray eyes that had pierced once like augers. Bandages swathed his upper body, which seemed shrunken and frail. He didn’t appear to notice as Thu-Kimnibol entered. A thin old woman whom Thu-Kimnibol recognized as the chief offering-woman of the City of Yissou sat beside him, and holy talismans were piled up all around him.
“Is he awake?” Thu-Kimnibol whispered.