And then it disappeared entirely. He was all alone.
Where had it gone? Into a hidden burrow? Had it wriggled under some impenetrable pile of brush? Or, Dekkeret wondered, maybe it had simply stepped behind some thick-trunked tree up ahead, and was at this very moment wending its way back toward him, slinking from one clump of brush to the next, moving into position for the lethal counterattack that Akbalik had said they sometimes made.
Dekkeret looked around for the mountain woman. No sign of her. Somehow in his pell-mell race through the woods he had left her behind.
Clutching his two weapons tightly, he turned in a full circle without moving from the spot, staring warily into the dimness, listening desperately for the sound of ripping underbrush, of falling saplings. Nothing. Nothing. And now thick mist had begun to rise from the snowy ground to veil everything in white. Should he call out for the woman? No. Possibly her disappearance was deliberate; perhaps it was always the custom to leave the huntsman alone with his prey in the final moments of the chase.
After a few moments he began to move cautiously off to his left, where the mist seemed a little thinner. His plan was to traverse a circular arc back to his starting point, searching for the steetmoy’s hiding-place as he went.
In the forest, all was still. It was as if he had gone into it on his own.
Then, as he came around past a copse of straight-trunked young trees that had sprouted just inches apart from one another so that they formed a tight palisade, everything changed in a hurry. On the far side of the copse he found himself looking into a little clearing. The woman stood at the center of it, peering around in all directions as though searching for the steetmoy, or, perhaps, for him. Dekkeret called out to her; and in the same instant the steetmoy came bounding out of the woods on the other side.
The gap-toothed woman, already turning toward Dekkeret, swung around swiftly to face the angry animal. The steetmoy, rising on its hind legs, swatted her aside with one swipe of its forearm. She went sprawling to the ground. Without a pause the steetmoy went pounding on past the astonished Dekkeret toward the nearest group of trees.
It took him a moment to break from his stasis. Then he too was in motion, running after the steetmoy once more, knowing only that this was his final chance, that if he let the beast get away from him a second time he would never see it again.
Knots were forming in his thighs and calves. He could feel the muscles writhing. As he made a sharp turn he stepped on a slick snow-covered slab of rock, and slipped, twisting his ankle and sending a jolt of fire running up his left leg. But he kept on going. The steetmoy no longer seemed to be trying to take evasive action; it was simply trotting ahead of him, moving now through a sector of the forest that was open enough for both of them to move readily through it. That gave an advantage to Dekkeret, who, slow runner that he was, should have been able in open terrain to move a bit faster than the steetmoy.
But he was unable to close the space between him and his prey. He had plenty of stamina left, but there appeared to be no way that he could compel the rebellious muscles of his legs to drive him onward any more quickly. It began to become clear to him that the steetmoy would elude him once more.
Not so. The beast fetched up against a thickly snarled mass of brush and vines and came to a halt there, unaccountably choosing to swing about and stand its ground instead of ripping its way through. Had it decided to halt for a showdown with its bothersome foe? Or was it simply tired of running? Those were questions that Dekkeret would never be able to answer. He had no time to pause for thought at all. Before he even realized fully what had happened, his own momentum brought him virtually up against the animal, which was standing erect with its back to the tightly woven underbrush. He heard the creature’s angry growling. A massive paw swung toward him. Instinctively Dekkeret ducked around it and brought the poniard upward and inward. The steetmoy roared in pain. Dekkeret stepped back, thrust forward again, found his target a second time. Brilliant crimson blood spurted over the soft white fur of the steetmoy’s breast.
He stepped back, breathing hard. Would a third blow be necessary? Did he need to use the machete?
No and no. The steetmoy, looking confused, remained upright for a moment, rocking slowly from side to side, as its bright red-rimmed eyes slowly began to glaze. Then it toppled. Dekkeret stood over it, hardly believing what had happened. The animal did not move.
Turning, then, he cupped his hands and yelled. “Hoy! Akbalik, where are you? I got it, Akbalik! I got it!”
A muffled reply came to him through the mist from far away. He was unable to make it out.
He tried again. “Akbalik?”
This time, no call came in return. There was no response from any of the hunters either. Where was everyone? If he left the steetmoy lying here, would scavenging beasts tear it apart before he could return to it? For that matter, would he even be able to locate it again in this mysterious misty forest?
Some minutes passed. Swirls of new snow descended. Dekkeret realized that he could not continue to remain where he was. Slowly he began to make his way back in the direction from which he thought he had come, searching for his own tracks in the snow as he went. After a time he saw the tight-grown copse again; and on the far side of it he came upon a scene that would remain in his mind to the end of his days.
Akbalik and four of the March-men hunters were standing in the middle of the clearing back of the copse. A bloody machete dangled from Akbalik’s hand and there was more blood all over the snow. The March-men, farther to the rear, stared stonily at Dekkeret as he came into view. The gap-toothed woman lay on her back, motionless, her entire mid-section torn apart, a terrible wound. Five or six feet away from her was the dead body of some squat thick-snouted beast that had been cut practically in half by Akbalik’s machete. It had bloodstains on its muzzle as well.
“Akbalik?” Dekkeret asked, bewildered. “What’s happened here? Is she—?”
“Dead? What do you think?”
“Is this the animal that killed her? What is it, anyway?”
“A tumilat, they said. A scavenger, a carrion-feeder. They live in underground burrows around here. It’ll kill, sometimes, if it finds a dying or unconscious animal. But what I can’t understand is why a scavenging animal would attack someone who isn’t—”
“Oh,” said Dekkeret, in a very small voice, and put his hand over his mouth. “Oh. Oh. Oh.”
“What is it, Dekkeret? What are you trying to say?”
“Not the tumilat,” Dekkeret murmured. “The steetmoy. It came out of nowhere and ran right into her and knocked her down with its paw. And kept on going. So did I. I went right after it and caught up with it and killed it, Akbalik. I killed it. But I didn’t stop to think about the hunter woman. She was lying here—wounded, maybe, unconscious—oh, Akbalik! I never even gave her a thought. And then, while she was lying here all alone, the scavenging animal came up to her, and—oh—” He stared into the gathering whiteness all about him, appalled at what he had done. “Oh, Akbalik,” he said again, feeling numb. “Oh!”
9
When Prestimion and his companions emerged from the Labyrinth’s southernmost mouth they saw the broad reaches of Alhanroel stretching before them like an endless ocean. The land was flat here, and the horizon was a gray hazy line that seemed to be a million miles off. Every day brought new landscapes, new kinds of vegetation, new cities. And somewhere ahead of them in that unending vastness was Dantirya Sambail, slipping steadily away.
The royal party halted first in Bailemoona, that lovely city of the fertile plain southeast of the Labyrinth where the Procurator’s man Mandralisca had had his encounter with Prince Serithorn’s gamekeeper. Kaitinimon, Bailemoona’s new young duke, Kanteverel’s son, met them outside the city’s bright claret-hued walls and gave them a royal welcome.
He had his late father’s round-faced easy-going look, and, like Kanteverel, preferred simple loose-flowing tunics to more glittery formal garb. But Kanteverel ha
d rarely been anything other than cheerful and jovial, and there was a barely hidden tension about this man, a poorly concealed rigor of spirit, that showed him to be of a different sort entirely. Still, it was a long while since a Coronal had visited Bailemoona, and Kaitinimon displayed nothing but delight at Prestimion’s arrival, staging an appropriately splashy festivity for him, a host of musicians and jugglers and cunning conjurers and a grand display of the famed cuisine of the region, with local wines to match each dish. And, of course, he provided a visit to Bailemoona’s legendary golden bees.
Nearly every city of the realm had its special item of distinction. The golden bees were Bailemoona’s. Once, long ago, in the days when only sparse bands of Shapeshifters had lived in this part of Alhanroel, such bees had been far from uncommon throughout the entire province and the adjacent territories. But the spread of human civilization had sent them into a long decline that brought them eventually to the brink of extinction, and now the only ones that remained were those that the Dukes of Bailemoona kept sacrosanct in the celebrated apiary on the grounds of the ducal palace.
“We open the apiary to the general public just three times a year,” Duke Kaitinimon said, as he led Prestimion through the palace garden to the bee-house. “On Winterday, on Summerday, and on the duke’s birthday. Admission is by lottery, a dozen visitors an hour for ten hours, and tickets change hands at high prices. At other times no one is permitted to visit them except their regular keepers and members of the ducal family. But, of course, when the Coronal comes to Bailemoona—”
The apiary was a building of startling beauty: a huge lacy structure of radiant metallic mesh, held upright by smooth tubular struts of some gleaming white wood that crossed and crossed again in an intricate way baffling to the eye, the entire thing seemingly so insubstantial that a puff of wind would hurl it into ruin. Within it Prestimion was able to make out a myriad bright bursts of light winking on and off with a rapidity that made the mind reel, like semaphore signals so swift that no one could possibly decipher their message. “What you’re seeing,” said the duke, “is sunlight glancing off the bodies of the bees as they move about. But come: come inside, if you will, my lord.”
A long entryway leading to a series of small chambers, each with a door at both ends, admitted Prestimion and his party to the apiary proper. Which was a gigantic dome four or five times the size of the Confalume throne-room, and so artfully woven that the mesh of which it was made was only faintly visible when beheld from within, a mere faint film against the open sky.
A high-pitched droning sound enveloped the visitors like a thick veil. There were bees everywhere overhead. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
They were in ceaseless motion, endlessly crossing and recrossing the upper reaches of their home in a bewildering airborne ballet. Prestimion was amazed by their numbers, and by the speed at which they moved, and the brilliance of the light that rebounded from their glossy sides and wings as they flitted quickly about. He stood for a long moment at the entrance, staring upward in wonder, marveling at the rapidity of the bees’ movements and the dizzying beauty of the patterns that they created.
Gradually he began to focus on individual bees instead of simply following the movements of the group, and it started to dawn on him that the bees seemed very large, as insects went. But Septach Melayn voiced the question first. Turning to the duke, he said, “Are these really bees, your grace? For as I track them about this cage with my eyes they appear as big as birds to me.”
“Your eyes are not deceiving you,” replied the duke. “As if ever they could. But bees are truly what they are. Here: let me show you.”
He walked out into the middle of the floor and took up a pose with outstretched arms and upturned hands. Within moments half a dozen of the apiary’s inhabitants had swooped down to settle on him as though they were his pets flocking to their master, and a dozen more, just after, descended and took up orbit around his head.
The duke remained motionless. Only with his eyes did he signal to his guests. “Come close, now. Look at them. Slowly—slowly—take care not to frighten them—” Prestimion carefully advanced, and Septach Melayn, and then big Gialaurys, who was most careful of all, walking as though on a carpet of eggshells.
But Maundigand-Klimd, for whom the bees seemed to hold no interest, remained by the entrance. Abrigant, likewise, stayed at the apiary’s edge, his face darkened by a perpetual scowl. Since their arrival in Bailemoona he had scarcely bothered to veil his impatience to be on his way, off to Skakkenoir somewhere to the south and east, where the metal-bearing plants supposedly were to be found. The quest for Dantirya Sambail was only an irritating distraction to him; an hour spent among flittering bees, however beautiful they might be, an unutterable waste of time.
When he was close enough to Duke Kaitinimon to have a clear view of the gleaming little entities that were crawling over his palms, Prestimion emitted a low whistle of surprise. The golden bees of Bailemoona were creatures several inches in length, with plump little bodies, very birdlike indeed.
What actually were they, he wondered, small birds or very large insects?
Insects, Prestimion decided, when he had moved another few steps nearer. Now he was able clearly to make out their three pairs of furry legs. Their bodies were segmented, head and thorax and abdomen. They were covered everywhere, wings and body both, with a sleek reflective armor that could easily be mistaken for a fine coating of gold, and which accounted for the dazzling light-effects that their movements caused.
“Even closer,” said the duke. “Close enough to see their eyes.”
Prestimion obeyed. And gasped. Their eyes!—those strange eyes!—he had never seen such eyes.
Not the cold faceted eyes of insects, no, not at all. Nor the beady glittering ones of birds, for that matter. Their eyes were disproportionately large and had an oddly mammalian look to them, the warm, soft, liquid eyes of some little creature of the forest. But there was a burning intelligence in them, also, that set these creatures apart from the chattering droles and mintuns of the woods. It was almost frightening to look into those knowing eyes.
“Stand as I’m standing,” the duke said. “Stay very still, and they’ll come to you also.”
Neither Septach Melayn nor Gialaurys cared to make the experiment. But Prestimion thrust his arms outward with his palms facing up. A moment or two went by. Then a pair of the bees came out of the air and flew inquisitive circles around his head; and, after another minute or so, one of them cautiously lit on Prestimion’s left hand.
He felt an odd tickling sensation as it moved about on him. Very slowly he turned his head toward the left for a better view, and found himself staring into the insect’s huge solemn eyes. It was watching him closely.
There was intelligence there, beyond any doubt.
A tiny mind, but keen, penetrating. To what end, though? What kind of thoughts circulated in the brains of these little creatures, the last of their kind, as they flew their endless sparkling loops around the great apiary that was their only refuge in the world?
“Our ancestors kept them in little cages as pets,” Kaitinimon said, after a time. “They’d fly around for a month or two at most, and then would sicken and die. They could not abide the cages, you see. But no one who had ever had bees even a few days could resist their beauty: when your bees died, you felt you must immediately replace them, although those would die also, just as quickly. Once there were millions of them in this province. They turned the whole sky golden when they flew overhead in great masses. Now I alone have the privilege of keeping bees in Bailemoona; and this cage, as you see, is quite large. They would never survive in anything smaller.—If you carefully turn your hands over, like this, my lord, the bees will leave you. Unless, of course, you wish to extend the experience a little longer.”
“Just a few minutes more, I think,” Prestimion said. Two more bees arrived on his left hand, and then a third, landing on the other one. He stood transfixed, unable to take his ey
es from theirs, lost in contemplation of the small intelligences that now quite placidly were traversing his hands. There were five of them on him, now. Six. Seven. He must seem safe. He wondered if they were looking somehow into his mind.
Abruptly he found himself wishing most intensely that Varaile had been here to see the bees with him today.
The thought startled him: that Varaile had taken Thismet’s place in his mind already, that he should be longing for this new woman whom he barely knew, and wishing that he had her by his side as he rode on and on through the world. And he did. It amazed him that he should feel her absence so strongly. But Thismet was gone forever, and Varaile awaited him at Castle Mount. By virtue of his power and his responsibilities, he was destined to spend his life traversing the world, and suddenly, with a degree of passion that astonished him, he yearned to share it all with Varaile, to show her everything that he would be privileged to see himself, the golden bees of Bailemoona, the vanishing lake of Simbilfant, the midnight market of Bombifale, the surging colors of Gulikap Fountain, the gardens of Tolingar—everything. Everything.
“You find our bees interesting, my lord?”
Caught off guard, Prestimion gave the duke a hasty glance. “Oh, yes,” he said quickly. “Yes! How extraordinary they are! How remarkable!”
“I could send a few to you at the Castle,” Kaitinimon said. “But they would only die, like all the rest.”
That night, as they dined on delicacies of the region in the ducal palace, Prestimion’s thoughts still were fixed on the golden bees, and on the longing for Varaile that they had so unexpectedly kindled in him. The bright glow of their enigmatic eyes would not release him, nor the pretty dazzle of the myriad flitting fliers swiftly moving through the upper reaches of their immense apiary. Those knowing eyes—that look of inexplicable intelligence—that beautiful golden gleam winking on and off—