But no one has seen her. And Hresh is convinced that no one will.
She has fled to the Queen: of that he’s sure. If she reaches them safely, he thought, she’ll spend the rest of her life among them. A citizen of the Nest of Nests, that’s what she’ll be. If she thinks of her native city at all, it’ll be only to curse it as the place where the man she loved was murdered. It’s the hjjks that she loves now. It’s the hjjks, Hresh tells himself, to whom she belongs. But why? Why?
What power do they have over her? What spell did they use to pull her toward them?
He feels baffled and impotent. These events have all but paralyzed him. Thought has become an immense effort. His soul seems to be encased in ice. The murders—when had there last been a violent death in Dawinno? And Nialli Apuilana’s disappearance—he must try to think—to think—
Someone had said yesterday that a girl riding a xlendi had been seen that rainy afternoon, out by the perimeter of the city. Seen only at a distance, just at a distance. There were plenty of girls in the city, plenty of xlendis. But suppose it had been Nialli. How far could she get, alone, unarmed, not knowing the route? Was she lost and close to death somewhere out there in the empty plains? Or had bands of hjjks been waiting to receive her and lead her onward to the Nest of Nests?
You can’t possibly know what it’s like, father. They live in an atmosphere of dreams, of magic, of wonder. You breathe the air of the Nest, and it fills your soul, and you can never be the same again, not after you’ve felt Nest-bond, not after you’ve understood Nest-love.
She had promised to explain all that to him before she left. But there hadn’t been time, and now she is gone. And he still understands nothing, nothing at all. Nest-bond? Nest-love? Dreams? Magic? Wonder?
He glances toward the huge heavy casket of the chronicles. He has spent his lifetime ransacking the hodgepodge of ancient half-cryptic documents in that casket. His predecessors had copied and recopied those tattered books, and copied them again, during the hundreds of thousands of years in the cocoon. Ever since he was a child staring over Thaggoran’s shoulder, he has looked to the chronicles as an inexhaustible well of knowledge.
He opens the seals and the locks and begins to draw the volumes forth and lay them out one by one on the work-tables of polished white stone that encircle the room.
Here is the Book of the Long Winter, with its tales of the coming of the death-stars. Here is the Book of the Cocoon, which tells how Lord Fanigole and Balilirion and Lady Theel led the People to safety in the time of cold and darkness. Here is the Book of the Way, containing prophecies of the New Springtime and the glorious role the People would play when they came forth again into the world. And this is the Book of the Coming Forth, which Hresh himself had written, except for the first few pages which Thaggoran who was chronicler before him had done: it tells of the winter’s end, and the return of the warmth, and the venturing of the tribe into the open plains at last.
This one is the Book of the Beasts, which describes all the animals that once had been. The Book of Hours and Days, telling of the workings of the world and the larger cosmos. This one here, with its binding hanging all in faded scraps, is the Book of the Cities, in which the names of all the capitals of the Great World are inscribed.
And these three: how sad they are! The Book of the Unhappy Dawn, the Book of the Wrongful Glow, the Book of the Cold Awakening, three pitiful tales of times when some chieftain, believing in error that the Long Winter was over, had led the People from the cocoon, only to be driven swiftly back by the icy blasts of unforgiving winds.
Concerning the hjjks, all he finds are old familiar phrases. In the dry northlands, where the hjjks dwell in their great Nest, or, And in that year the hjjks did march across the land in very great number, devouring all that lay in their path, or, That was the season when the great Queen of the hjjk-folk dispatched a horde of her people to the city of Thisthissima, and another vast horde to Tham. Mere chronicle-phrases, no real information in them.
He keeps rummaging. These books down here at the bottom have no names. They are the most ancient of all, mere elliptical fragments, written in a kind of writing so old that Hresh can perceive only the edge of its meanings. Great World texts is what they are, poems, perhaps, or dramatic works, or holy scriptures, or quite possibly all three things at once. When he touches the tips of his fingers to them, their frail vellum pages come alive with images of that glorious civilization that the death-stars had destroyed, of that splendid era when the Six Peoples had walked the glowing streets of the grand cities; but everything is murky, mysterious, deceptive, as though seen in a dream. He puts them back. He closes the casket.
Useless. The Book of the Hjjks, that’s what he needs. But he knows there’s no such thing.
“Three days,” said Taniane bleakly. “I want to know where she is. I want to know what kind of insanity came over her.”
Fury and frustration were churning her soul fearfully on this bright, windy autumn day. She hadn’t slept. Her eyes were rough and raw. She felt chills and shakes. And yet she couldn’t slow down. Restlessly she prowled the stone-floored chamber at the rear of the Basilica that she had turned into the command center for the search for Nialli Apuilana, and for the investigations of the two murders as well.
Behind her, tacked helter-skelter to a wall-board, were documents by the dozens—statements of citizens who claimed to have seen Nialli Apuilana on the fateful afternoon, wild third-hand tales of supposed murder plots overheard in taverns, vague and tentative reports from the city guards on their investigations thus far. None of it was worth a thing. She knew no more than she had on the first afternoon, which was nothing at all.
“You have to try to be calm,” Boldirinthe said.
“Calm! Yes.” Taniane laughed bitterly. “Yes, of course. Above all else I must try to be calm. Two killings, and my daughter nowhere to be found, hiding in some cellar, maybe, or more likely dead, and you want me to be calm!”
They were all staring at her. The room was full of important people just then. Hresh was there, suddenly haggard and old, and Chomrik Hamadel, the keeper of the Beng talismans, and Husathirn Mueri, and the Beng justiciar Puit Kjai, and the acting captain of the guards.
“Why would you think she’s dead?” Puit Kjai asked.
“What if it’s a general conspiracy? Murder the hjjk ambassador, murder the captain of the guards, murder the chieftain’s daughter, perhaps the chieftain herself, next—”
They were staring and staring. She saw by their expressions that they had begun to think she had cracked under the strain. They might be right about that.
Softly Boldirinthe said, “Nialli Apuilana hasn’t been murdered, Taniane. She’s alive and she’ll be found. I’ve asked the Five Heavenly Ones, and they tell me that she is safe, that she is well, that she is—”
“The Five!” Taniane said. Almost a shriek, it was. “You’ve asked the Five! We should ask Nakhaba too, I suppose. Ask all the gods we know, and some that we don’t. And the Queen of the hjjks—perhaps we ought to consult her also—”
“Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” said Hresh.
Taniane glanced at him in astonishment. “This isn’t any time for being facetious.”
“You were being facetious. I’m serious.”
“What are you talking about, Hresh?”
Diffidently he said, “It’s something that’s best discussed between you and me only, I think. Concerning the hjjks. And Nialli.”
Her hand moved in impatient circles. “If it involves the security of the city, it ought to be brought out into the open right here and now. Unless you feel Puit Kjai is unworthy of hearing it, or Husathirn Mueri, or Boldirinthe—”
He looked at her strangely. “It involves our daughter, and where I think she has gone, and why.”
“Then it’s a security matter. Out with it, Hresh!”
“Since you insist.” Hresh sighed. But he was silent until she prodded him with a quick imperious gest
ure. “They were going to run off to the Nest,” he said then, bringing the words out with difficulty. “Nialli and Kundalimon. To the Nest of Nests, the great one where the Queen lives, in the far north. You know they were lovers, and twining-partners also. And they wanted no part of life in this city, neither of them. The Nest drew them like a magnet. They came to me and babbled about Nest-bond, about Queen-love, dreams and magic, how the sweet air of the Nest fills one’s soul and transforms you forever—”
His words were blades. Taniane pressed her hand to her heart. He was right that this should never have been poured out in front of all these others. It was family business, scandalous, mortifying. But too late now.
“They told you this?” Taniane said leadenly.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day before the games. They came to me to ask my blessing.”
Taniane said, incredulous, “You knew they were going to leave, and you kept it to yourself?”
His expression darkened. In a thin voice he said, “As I told you before, we’d have done better discussing this in private. But you insisted, remember. I kept what Nialli had told me to myself, Taniane, because I knew you’d have tried to stop her from going.”
“Which you had no objection to?”
“What was I to do? Order them thrown into prison? Even that wouldn’t have accomplished anything. You know the girl. Nothing stops her. She’s like a force of nature. She told me her plans out of love, so that I’d understand it when she disappeared. She knew I wouldn’t take any steps to prevent her.”
Taniane shook her head in disbelief. At Hresh’s stupidity, at Nialli Apuilana’s willfulness. And at her own idiocy in pushing her into Kundalimon’s arms. No, not idiocy. It had been for the good of the city. There were things she had needed to learn, and only Nialli Apuilana could have discovered them for her. She would do it all again.
“So you think that’s where she’s gone? To the Nest?”
“To the Nest, yes. The Nest of Nests.”
“Even though Kundalimon is dead?”
“Because Kundalimon is dead,” Hresh said. “She sees the Nest as a place of love and wisdom. When she heard he was dead, she went running to the hjjks to take refuge.”
The room was terribly silent.
Taniane trembled with rage and disbelief. “But it would take months, or years, even, to get to them. Who knows how far it is to the great Nest? How could Nialli even think of trying to do it alone?” For a moment she felt herself teetering on the brink. It was too much. Hresh’s perfidy, Nialli Apuilana’s madness. And now a room full of wide-eyed faces and gaping mouths, everyone too amazed to speak. Pitying her. Perhaps feeling contempt for her, even. Pretends to rule the city, can’t even control her own daughter. No. No. She wasn’t going to let this overwhelm her. Fiercely she said, “You’re talking foolishness, Hresh. The girl may have been crazed with love, and maybe even some sort of hjjk insanity that the boy poured into her. But she wouldn’t ever have been crazy enough to go off on a trip like that by herself. Not Nialli. No, Hresh. I still think she’s in the city somewhere. Hiding, like a wounded animal. Until she gets over her grief.”
“Dawinno grant that you’re right,” Hresh said.
“You don’t think I am?”
“I saw her with Kundalimon the day before she vanished. I talked with her. I know how she felt about him. And about the hjjks.”
Angrily Taniane said, “Then you look for her your way, and I’ll look for her mine. You’re the one with the powers. If you think she’s heading for the hjjks, send your wonderful mind after her, and track her down, and talk her into coming home, if you can. Meanwhile I’ll keep my guardsmen out searching for her.” She looked toward Husathirn Mueri, who was in charge of the murder investigations, and to Chevkija Aim, the young Beng who was the acting captain of the guards. “I want reports every four hours, day and night. Understood? The girl’s someplace nearby. She has to be. This has gone on long enough.”
Husathirn Mueri, slick and smooth as ever, smiled as though she had asked for nothing more than an extra copy of some routine report. In his most resonant way he declared, “Lady, I’m confident we’ll have her back by nightfall. Or by tomorrow at the latest. I feel sure of it. By all the gods, I’m sure of it!”
And moved his head in a slow half-circle, looking around the room at each of the others in turn, as if defying them to contradict him. With a flourish he requested permission to withdraw and get about his task.
Taniane nodded. It was time to get away from this room herself. Her shoulders quivered. She realized suddenly that she was at the end of her endurance, on the verge of tumbling down in a sobbing heap. That was new, this weakness. She battled to control herself. She couldn’t let herself break down in front of these people, whose conflicting ambitions she had held in check so long by strength, by guile, and, when necessary, by sheer force of will. Force of will was what she needed now. But she felt so weak—so drained of the power that had always been hers—
There was someone beside her, then. She heard heavy wheezing breaths. She felt soft arms, warm comforting flesh.
Boldirinthe. The enormous bulk of the offering-woman enfolded her in a steadying embrace.
“Come with me,” Boldirinthe said gently. “You need to rest now. Come. We’ll pray together. The gods will watch over Nialli Apuilana. Come with me, Taniane.”
I could pray to Dawinno, Hresh tells himself. But he doubts it would do any good. It was Dawinno, after all, who had taken Nialli Apuilana away—not Dawinno the Destroyer, but Dawinno the Transformer, the god in his higher manifestation. Dawinno seems to want her to live with the hjjks. That was why the god had allowed her to be taken the first time, so that they could fill her mind with love for them. And now he has sent her to them again. If that is what Dawinno wants—Blessed be Dawinno! Who can know his ways?—then no amount of prayer is going to bring her back. The girl has been swept from him by the hand of the Transformer, who has uses of his own for her that go beyond mere mortal understanding.
After a time Hresh’s hand reaches for the little amulet that dangled against his breastbone, the one that he took from the body of old Thaggoran when the rat-wolves killed him in the frosty plains, long ago, just a few days after the tribe had left the cocoon. It is an oval bit of what might have been polished green glass, obviously ancient, with inscriptions in its center so faint and fine that no one can make them out. Thaggoran had said it was a Great World thing. Hresh has worn it almost constantly ever since Thaggoran’s death.
He touches it now, fondling its smooth worn surface. It has no real power that he had ever been able to discover. But it was a thing of Thaggoran’s; and in those first days when Hresh became chronicler he had touched the amulet often, hoping desperately that Thaggoran’s wisdom would descend from it to him. And perhaps it has.
“Thaggoran?” he says, looking into the dimness of the darkened room atop the House of Knowledge. “Can you hear me now, wherever you are? It’s me, Hresh.”
There is silence, a silence so profound that it roars. It deepens into a stillness deeper even than any silence could be: not only the absence of any sound, but the absence even of the possibility of it. And then a murmur as of a gentle wind comes drifting in. There is a lightness in the air, a barely perceptible glow.
Hresh feels a presence entering the chamber. It seems to him that he can see gaunt grizzled bent-backed old Thaggoran before him, eyes red-rimmed and rheumy with age, his fur pure white.
“You,” Hresh says. “You, here, old man?”
“Yes. Of course. What is it, child?”
“Help me,” Hresh says softly. “Just this one last time.”
“Why, child, I thought you always insisted only on doing things by yourself!”
“Not now. Not any longer. Help me, Thaggoran.”
“If that is what you need, yes. But wait a moment. Look there, boy. There, by the door.”
There is that all-consuming roaring silence aga
in, and then the even deeper stillness once more, and another gradual ghostly stirring in the darkness beyond the door; and then the sound of soft wind once more. A second figure has come in, just as grizzled, just as frail with age, or even more so: Hresh’s other great mentor, it is, the wise man of the Helmet People, Noum om Beng, who in the Vengiboneeza days had ordered him to call him “father,” and had taught him deep wisdom by means of oblique questions and sudden unexpected slaps in the face.
“So you’re here too, father?”
A tall gaunt figure, flimsy as a water-strider: who can it be but Noum om Beng? He nods to Thaggoran, who offers him a salute as one would to an old comrade, even though in life they had never met. They whisper together, shaking their heads and smiling knowingly, as if discussing their wayward pupil Hresh and saying to each other, “What will we do with him? The boy is so promising, and yet he can be so dense!”
Hresh smiles. To these two he would always be an unruly boy, though by now he is as old and grizzled as they, and the last tinge of color will soon be gone from his own whitening fur.
“Why do you call us?” asks Noum om Beng.
“The hjjks have taken my daughter once again,” he tells the two half-visible spectral figures who stand side by side in the shadows at the far side of the room. “The first time, they simply seized her and carried her off. She was able to escape from them, then. But now I fear something far worse. It’s her spirit they’ve captured.”
They are silent. But he feels their benign presence, sustaining him, nourishing him.
“Oh, Thaggoran, oh, father, how frightened I am, how sad and weary—”
“Nonsense!” Noum om Beng snaps.
“Nonsense, yes. You have ways, boy,” comes Thaggoran’s hoarse wispy voice. “You know that you do! The shinestones, Hresh. Now is the time at last to make use of them.”
“The shinestones? But—”