At Winter's End

11 The Dream That Would Not End

Afterward Hresh rose and stood for a time looking down on the sleeping Torlyri. She was smiling as she slept. He had feared that he might have injured her when his mind went rushing with full power into hers. But no: she would sleep a little while, and then she would awaken.

He made his way by himself up the winding ramp and out of the temple. Better that he let her awaken alone. She might be abashed when she awoke to find him still lying beside her, as if they were twining-partners. She would need some time to return to herself, to regain her equilibrium. He knew that the unexpected intensity of their communion had had great impact on her.

For his part Hresh had found his first twining a pleasure and a revelation.

A pleasure, certainly: to lie in Torlyri’s warm embrace, to feel her gentle soul mingling with his, to enter into that odd and delicious state of communion. Now at last he understood why twining was so highly regarded, why it was considered a delight more powerful even than coupling.

A revelation, too: he had known Torlyri all his life, but he saw now that until today he had known her in only the most general way. A good woman, a kindly woman, a gentle and loving presence in the tribe — she who performed the rites and spoke with the gods and gave comfort to all in need, a kind of mother to everyone. Yes: that was Torlyri. But now Hresh knew that there were other aspects to her. There was great strength in her, an astonishing toughness of spirit. He should have expected that, remembering how strong she was physically, nearly as strong as a warrior and in some ways stronger. That kind of strength usually reflected inner strength, but he had been so deceived by her warmth, her softness, her motherliness, that he had not noticed it.

Then too there were ordinary human, things about Torlyri. She was not just a doer of rites and a giver of comfort, but also a person, with a private existence, with a private person’s fears, doubts, needs, pains. He had not taken the trouble to consider that. Twining with her just now, he had detected the urgency of her desire for some warrior of the tribe — Lakkamai, he supposed; Torlyri and Lakkamai were always together these days — and the complexity of her relationship with Koshmar, and something else, an emptiness, a lonely place within her, that had to do with the fact that she had not borne a child. She was mother to all the tribe and yet not mother to anyone, and that seemed to trouble her, perhaps on such a deep level that she was not aware of it herself. Hresh saw it now, and seeing it had changed him. He was coming to realize what a difficult and intricate thing it was to be adult. There were so many aspects of life that refused to fit neatly into any compartment, but kept squirming about and causing subterranean disturbances, when you were adult. That was, perhaps, the main thing that his first twining had taught him.

A pleasure and a revelation. And had it been something of a disappointment, too? Yes, that too. It had not been as awesome an experience as he had hoped. It had fallen short of his vision of what it might be, but only because he possessed the Wonderstone. When you twined you could reach the soul of only one other person; with the Barak Dayir you could reach the soul of the world. Already in his early uncertain experiments with the Wonderstone he had risen above the clouds, he had looked across seas, he had peered into the time before the coming of the death-stars. What was twining compared with that?

He realized that he was being unfair. The Barak Dayir offered him an almost incomprehensible reach. Twining was intimate, personal, small. Yet one did not negate the other. If he had found some disappointment in twining, it was only because the Wonderstone had shown him already how to step beyond the boundaries of his own mind. Had he not had that experience, twining would probably have seemed overwhelming. The Wonderstone, it seemed, had spoiled him for that. But there was little reason, all the same, to take twining lightly. It was an extraordinary thing. It was an astonishing thing.

He wanted to twine again as soon as he could.

He wanted to twine with Taniane.

That thought, the thought of twining with Taniane, leaped into his mind with such force and such suddenness that he was stunned by it, as if he had been struck a terrible blow between the shoulders. His throat went dry, his breath came short. His heart began to pound, making a loud thumping sound like that of a drum, loud enough, he thought, for others to hear.

Twining with Taniane! What an amazing idea!

She was a mystery to him. He had long felt some sort of connection with her, some kind of attraction. But he had feared it as a distraction from his real work; and he feared also that it would lead him to something bad.

She was a woman now, a beautiful one, and one of unusual intelligence. And ambition. She dreamed of taking Koshmar’s place as chieftain one day: no question of that. Anyone with any sense could see that, just from the envious way she looked at Koshmar. Sometimes also Hresh caught her looking at him from a distance, staring in that curious way that women use when they are interested in a man. And sometimes, too, he looked closely at her from far away, when he thought she was unaware of him. Often she was giddy and flirtatious with him. She followed him about, she demanded to go with him on his explorations in the ruins, she plied him with questions whose answers seemed to be of the highest importance to her. He was not sure how to interpret that. Sometimes he suspected that she was only toying with him, that it was Haniman who really interested her.

That would be agonizing, to be rejected in favor of Haniman. That was one risk he did not care to take.

But today everything seemed changed. He had twined, now. The whole world of adult complexities lay open to him. He might be the old man of the tribe but he was a young man, too. And he wanted Taniane.

He went in search of her.

It was midafternoon, and the day had become sunny and clear. The roof of the sky appeared to be twanging back and forth as though on strings. The edges of everything Hresh saw were peculiarly sharp, with knife-keen boundaries between one object and another. Colors were vibrant and throbbing. It was as if the twining had opened his soul to a host of powerful new sensory impressions.

Orbin emerged from a nearby passageway, whistling, sauntering.

Hresh halted him. “Have you seen Taniane?”

“Over there,” said Orbin, pointing to a building where some recent finds of the Seekers were being stored. He began to saunter on. Then he paused for a second look at Hresh. “Is anything wrong?”

“Wrong? Wrong?” Hresh felt flustered. “What do you mean, anything wrong?”

“You’ve got a strange look in your eye.”

“You’re imagining things, Orbin.”

Orbin shrugged. “Maybe I am, yes.”

He began whistling again. He strolled away, smiling in a way that seemed disagreeably knowing and supercilious.

Am I that transparent? Hresh wondered. One glance at me, and Orbin can read everything that’s in my mind?

He hurried to the Seeker storehouse, where he found Konya and Praheurt and Taniane, but not Haniman, to his great relief. They all were bending over some unfamiliar piece of machinery with jutting odd-angled metal arms and legs, prodding it in a gingerly way.

“Hresh!” Praheurt called. “Come and see what Konya and Haniman brought back from—”

“Another time,” Hresh said. “Taniane, may I speak with you?”

She glanced up. “Of course. What is it, Hresh?”

“Outside?”

“Can’t we talk in here?”

“Please. Outside.”

“If you insist,” she said, looking puzzled, and signaled to Praheurt and Konya as if to say she would be right back. Hresh led her into the open.

The warm breeze was dizzying. He was astounded by the beauty of her thick fur and the shining splendor of her strange, haunting eyes. They stood for a moment in silence as he searched for a way to begin. Cautiously he peered about to make certain that Haniman was nowhere in the vicinity.

“You should have taken a moment to look at what we found today,” she said. “We aren’t sure about it, but—”

“Never mind that now,” he said tightly. “Taniane, I did my first twining today.”

She appeared surprised and perhaps even troubled by the sudden announcement. Her eyes looked hooded, guarded. Then her expression changed. A smile that did not seem entirely sincere appeared on her face and she said, perhaps too enthusiastically, “Oh, Hresh, how happy I am for you! It was a good twining, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. Somehow this was not going the right way. He fell silent again.

“What do you want to say, Hresh?”

He took a deep breath. “Twine with me, Taniane,” he blurted.

“Twine with you?”

“Yes. Right now.”

For one horrified moment Hresh thought she was going to burst into laughter. But no, no, her eyes were wide, her lips were drawn back, her throat bobbed strangely.

She looks afraid, he thought.

“Now?” she said. “Twine?”

There was no turning back for him now. “Come on. We can go deep into the city. I’ll show you a good place.”

He reached for her. She backed away.

“No — please, Hresh, no — you’re frightening me.”

“I don’t mean to. Twine with me, Taniane!”

She seemed shocked, or perhaps offended, or merely annoyed, he could not tell which.

“I’ve never seen you like this. Have you lost your mind? Yes. That must be it. You’ve gone out of your mind.”

“All I said was—”

She flashed anger at him. “If you aren’t crazy, then you must think I am. You can’t just walk up and ask someone to twine like this, Hresh! Don’t you know that? And that wild look on your face. You should see yourself.” Taniane shivered and moved her hands in a gesture of dismissal, and something more than that. “Go away. Please. Please. Just let me alone, Hresh.” There was a sob in her voice now. She moved farther from him.

Hresh stood motionless, miserable, appalled. A leaden sense of having bungled things began to take possession of him. He saw how hasty he had been, how clumsy, how foolish. And now all was lost for him, on this day which should have been a day of great joy.

What a fool I am! he thought.

There she was, ten paces away, standing as frozen as he was, staring at him as if he had been transformed into some beast of the wilderness, something ghastly with gnashing jaws and blazing eyes. He wished she would simply turn and run, and leave him alone with his shame, but no, she continued to stand there, staring at him in that strange way.

Then, while he stood there too, yearning to sink into the ground, there came a raucous outcry from far off, from the direction of the city’s entrance, that spared him from further torment just then.

“Helmet People! Here come the Helmet People! The Helmet People are coming!”

Koshmar was drowsing in her bedchamber when the cry arose. The day had been a low one for her, the lowest in a succession of low days. Not even the end of the rains and the coming of this clear dry weather had buoyed her dank clogged spirit. Her mind was full of Torlyri and Lakkamai, Lakkamai and Torlyri.

It should not change anything. She had told herself that a thousand times. Torlyri would still be her twining-partner. Twining was the true communion. If Torlyri now felt the need for coupling too, or even for mating — though who had ever heard of an offering-woman taking a mate? — why, even that should make no difference. Torlyri would still need a twining-partner. And Koshmar would be that partner.

Or would she?

Among breeding couples, it was customary for the mate also to be the twining-partner. For the rest of the tribe, one coupled or did not couple with whomever one wished, and then one also had one’s twining-partner. But that had been in the cocoon days. This was the time of the New Springtime.

Koshmar had yearned with all the force within her to be the one to lead the tribe out of the cocoon into the New Springtime. Well, now she had; and what had it brought her but confusion, doubt, misery? Here she was hunched down gloomily on her own bed in midafternoon, lost in despair, while bright shafts of sunlight danced on the towers of Vengiboneeza. Hour after hour, nothing but brooding. Brooding. The future seemed all mystery and despair to her now. She had never known such hopelessness before.

“The Helmet People! The Helmet People! Here come the Helmet People!” a hoarse voice cried outside her window.

Almost before the meaning of the words had had time to sink in, Koshmar was off her bed, heart beating fiercely, fur rising in prickles, body and mind on full alert.

A kind of savage joy arose in her. Was an enemy tribe invading? Very well. Let them come. She would deal with them. She welcomed their coming. Better to take up arms against enemies than to lie here wrapped up in absurd miserable ruminations.

From her collection of masks she chose the Mask of Nialli, the most ferocious of all. Nialli, so it was said, had been a chieftain with the soul of ten warriors. Her mask was a shining black-and-green thing half again as broad as it was long, with six sharp blood-red spikes jutting upward from it at steep angles on either side. It pressed down with awesome weight against Koshmar’s cheeks. Narrow slits provided her with access for vision.

She threw a yellow shawl of office over her shoulders. She seized her spear of chieftainship. She hurried outside into the crossroads in front of the temple tower.

People were running in all directions, wildly, madly.

“Stop!” Koshmar roared. “Everyone still! To me, to me!”

She caught young Weiawala by the wrist as she sped by. The girl seemed half berserk with terror, and Koshmar had to shake her violently to get her even a little under control. From her, finally, Koshmar extracted some fragments of the story. An army of hideous strangers, riding on frightful monstrous animals, had passed through the south gateway of the city, down by the place where the sapphire-eyes mechanicals sat. They had Sachkor with them, as a prisoner. And they were heading this way.

“Where are the warriors?” Koshmar asked.

Konya, someone said, had already gone down toward the gateway. So had Staip and Orbin. Hresh was with them too, and possibly Praheurt. Lakkamai was said to be on his way. Nobody had seen Harruel. Koshmar caught sight of Minbain and cried out to her, “Where is your mate?” But Minbain did not know. Boldirinthe said that she had seen Harruel, looking black-faced and sullen as he often did these days, trudging off alone toward the mountain early that morning.

Koshmar spat. Enemies at the gate, and her strongest warrior was sulking on the mountain! The very one who had made such ceremony over keeping watch day and night against the attack of the Helmet People, and where was he when the Helmet People came?

No matter. If she had to, she told herself, she could get along without Harruel.

She waved her spear aloft. “Women and children into the temple, and lock the sanctuary doors after you! The rest follow me. Salaman! Thhrouk! Moarn!” She looked around, wondering why Torlyri was not here. She had difficulty seeing out of the Mask of Nialli; her side vision was nearly blocked by the sharp-angled projections. But it was a fearsome mask. “Torlyri,” she said. “Who has seen Torlyri?” Torlyri could fight as well as any man.

Koshmar remembered that Torlyri had gone off to initiate Hresh in the art of twining. Yes, but Hresh supposedly was down at the gate confronting the invaders. Where was Torlyri, then? And what business did Hresh have risking his irreplaceable life at the gate? Well, there was no more time to lose. Koshmar turned to Threyne, who stood glassy-eyed with fear, clutching her child, and angrily waved her toward the temple. “Go. Hide yourself. If Torlyri’s in there, tell her she’ll find me at the south gateway. And tell her to bring her spear!”

She hastened down the grand boulevard to the plaza of the gate.

When she was less than halfway there, she caught sight of her warriors standing in a line across the boulevard from one side to the other: Orbin, Konya, Staip, Lakkamai, Praheurt. Old Anijang was with them too, and Hresh. They were facing south, standing still as statues, utterly without movement, scattered so far apart from one another that they would have been all but useless as a defensive force. Koshmar could not understand why they had arranged themselves so ineptly.

Then she came closer to them, and she too halted in her tracks and stared in wonder toward the southern gate.

A fantastic procession was slowly making its way up the boulevard toward them.

The Helmet People had indeed come: thirty, forty, fifty of them, maybe more. And they were riding the most extraordinary animals Koshmar had ever seen, or imagined. Monstrous hulking beasts, they were. Colossal monsters, like walking hills, twice as high as a man, or more, and three times as long as they were high. With every step they took the ground shook as if in an earthquake. The fur of those great animals, thick and shaggy and densely matted, was a brilliant eye-stabbing scarlet. Their high-domed heads were long and narrow, with ears like platters and cavernous nostrils rimmed with black, and fiery golden eyes of startling size. Their four huge legs, which bent oddly at the knee, ended in terrifying curved black claws, rising backward almost to the level of their great protuberant ankles. A pair of towering humps rose on their backs, with a kind of natural saddle between them, big enough for two Helmet Men to ride comfortably on each creature.

If the beasts on which the Helmet People had entered Vengiboneeza were frightful, the Helmet People themselves were the stuff of nightmare.

They all had eerie crimson eyes like the spy that Harruel and Konya had captured long ago, and fine golden fur. And each of them wore an enormous horrific helmet, and no two helmets were alike. This one was a three-sided tower of metal plates with dark jutting studs emerging everywhere on it, and a pattern of golden flames inlaid in front. This, a domed bowl of black metal with two gigantic mirror-bright metal eyes set at its upper corners. This, a bleak low-brimmed half-mask with three square shield-shaped plaques above it. One warrior wore what looked like a lacquered mountain sprinkled with silver dust; another, a startling red-and-yellow cone with mighty horns; another, a sharp-peaked gold headpiece with a pair of coiling green tails sweeping up and up and up. There was nothing human about those helmets. They seemed to have come from some other world, a dark and terrible one. It was hard to see where the man left off and the helmet began, which made the invaders seem all the more horrendous.

Sachkor rode in the middle of the group, on one of the biggest of the scarlet animals. They had given him a helmet too, smaller than any of theirs but just as strange, with curving iron plates arranged like the petals of an inverted flower, and a golden spike rising above it. His slender form seemed lost atop the vast creature, and he sat quietly, as if dreaming. His face bore no expression.

Surely this tribe is a tribe of monsters riding upon monsters, Koshmar thought. And they are through the gateway; and all is over for us. But we will die bravely before we give up Vengiboneeza to them.

She looked toward Konya, toward Staip, toward Orbin.

“Well?” she cried. “Will you just stand there and let them advance? Attack! Kill as many as you can before they kill us!”

“Attack? How can we attack?” Konya said, speaking very quietly but in a manner that would carry great distances. “Look at the size of the animals they’re sitting on. There’s no way we can reach that high. Those things would simply trample us as if we were beetles.”

“What kind of foolishness is this? Simply thrust at the legs and bellies of those beasts, and bring them down. And then slay their masters.” Koshmar brandished her spear. “Forward! Forward!”

“No,” Hresh said suddenly. “These are not enemies.”

She looked toward him, bewildered. Then she burst into harsh laughter. “Right, Hresh. They’re simply guests. Sachkor has brought them to visit us, them and their little pets, and they’ll have dinner with us and leave tomorrow. Is that what you believe?”

“They aren’t here to do battle,” Hresh said. “Put forth your second sight, Koshmar. They come in peace.”

“Peace,” Koshmar said derisively, and spat.

But there was a look on Hresh’s face that was new to her, a look of such strength and insistence that she was shaken by it. It seemed to Koshmar suddenly that it might not be wise to set herself against him in this, for Hresh, she knew, sometimes saw things that no one else was capable of seeing. With an effort she calmed herself, forcing the juices of war to subside within her soul, and sent her second sight toward the advancing horde.

And what Hresh said was true.

She could detect no enmity there, no hatred, no menace.

Yet even now Koshmar could not let herself yield to the boy. Angrily she shook her head. “A trick,” she said. “Trust me in this, Hresh. You are wise, but you are young, you know nothing of the world. These people have some way of making it seem as if they pose no threat. But took at the armor they wear. Look at the monsters they ride. They’ve come to kill us, Hresh, and take Vengiboneeza from us.”

“No.”

“I say yes! And I say we have to slay them before they slay us!” Koshmar stamped her feet in fury. “Harruel! Where’s Harruel? He would understand! He’d be up there among them already, knocking them down from their beasts!” Looking around at them all, from Orbin to Konya, from Konya to Staip, from Staip to Lakkamai, she said, “Well? Who’ll come with me? Who will fight by my side? Or must I go out there and die alone?”

“Do you see, Koshmar?” Hresh said, and pointed past her shoulder.

She turned. The thunder of those great black-clawed feet had ceased. The oncoming horde had halted, perhaps a hundred paces down the boulevard, or even less. One by one the huge red animals were beginning to kneel, bending in a bizarre way on those peculiarly constructed knees of theirs, and their helmeted riders were jumping to the ground. Already half a dozen of the invaders, with Sachkor in their midst, were coming up the center of the grand boulevard toward her as though to parley.

“Koshmar?” Sachkor called.

She held her spear in readiness. “What have they done to you? How did they capture you? Have they tortured you, Sachkor?”

“You misunderstand,” said Sachkor calmly. “They’ve done me no harm. Nor did they capture me. I left the city to go in search of them, for I thought they were somewhere nearby, and when finally I found them they received me gladly.” His voice was steady. He looked older, wiser, deeper than he had been when he had disappeared earlier that year. “These are the Beng people,” he said, “and they have been out of the cocoon longer than we have. They come from a far place on the other side of the great river where we once lived. They are different from us, but they intend us no injury.”

Hresh nodded. “He tells the truth, Koshmar.”

Koshmar still could grasp none of this. She felt as though she were adrift on the breast of a rushing torrent, carried helplessly along. War she could understand, but not this.

“They’re lying to you,” Koshmar muttered dourly. “This is some trick.”

“No. No trick, Koshmar. And no lie.”

Sachkor indicated two of the Helmet Men, who stepped forward beside him. One was old and shrewd-eyed, with a dry, wizened look about him that reminded Koshmar somewhat of Thaggoran the chronicler. His fur was a pale yellow, almost white; and he wore a tapering conical helmet that was made of richly embossed bands of different-colored metal, dwindling to a rounded top. Huge black metal ears sprouted from its sides like wings.

“This is Hamok Trei,” Sachkor said. “He is their chieftain.”

“He? A man as chieftain?”

“Yes,” said Sachkor. “And this is their wise one, what we would call their chronicler. His name is Noum om Beng.” He gestured to a wispy-bearded man nearly as old as Hamok Trei and even more withered, even more wizened. He was of astonishing height, far taller even than Harruel, but so slender and frail that he seemed to be hardly more than a reed. Noum om Beng stood bending forward in a stooping way. His helmet was a stupefying thing of black metal covered with clumps of coarse black hair, from the corners of which rose a pair of long curving purple projections, jointed and jagged, that looked something like the wings of a bat.

Noum om Beng came a step or two closer to Koshmar and made a series of signs in the air before her that might almost have been the signs of the Five, except that they were not. The gestures were different ones and they had no meaning that Koshmar could fathom. Holy signs of some kind they surely were, she thought, but they must be signs sacred to some other set of gods.

How, though, could there be other gods? The thought made no sense. She remembered how Hresh had tried to tell her, that time when they were interrogating the first Helmet Man, that the stranger might speak another language — that is, that he used words different from theirs, though his meanings were the same. Grudgingly Koshmar had accepted that possibility, bewildering though it was. But other gods? Other gods? There were no gods but the Five. These people would not worship unreal gods unless they were crazy. And Koshmar did not think they were that.

To Sachkor she said, “How do you know their names and stations? Are you able to speak with them?”

“A little,” Sachkor said. “At first it was impossible for me to understand them at all, or for them to understand me. But I applied myself to the task and a little at a time I was able to learn their speech.” He smiled. He seemed to be struggling, but not very hard, to conceal how pleased he was with himself.

“Ask this chieftain to say something to me, then.”

“The chieftain rarely speaks. Noum om Beng speaks for him.”

“Ask him, then.”

Sachkor turned to the wraithlike old man and said something that sounded to Koshmar like the barking of a beast. Noum om Beng frowned and tugged at his thin white beard. Sachkor barked again, and this time the old man nodded and barked something back. With much enthusiasm Sachkor spoke a third time. Whatever he said must have been not quite right, because Noum om Beng looked away discreetly, while the others in the group of Helmet Men burst into harsh laughter. Sachkor seemed abashed; Noum om Beng leaned to one side and whispered with the chieftain Hamok Trei.

Koshmar murmured to Hresh, “What do you think is going on?”

“It is true speech,” Hresh replied. “Sachkor understands it, though not well. I can almost understand it myself. The words are like ours, but everything is twisted and broken. With my second sight I can feel the meanings beneath, or at least the shadows of the meanings.”

Koshmar nodded. She had more faith now in Hresh’s insight into these events, and it was beginning to seem less and less likely to her that the Helmet People had come here on a mission of war. Even their helmets appeared less frightful now that she was getting accustomed to them. They were so massive and so elaborately designed to be terrifying, she thought, that they were actually more comic than anything else, though they certainly were impressive in their ridiculous way. But a residue of suspicion still remained in her. She was helpless here, unable to communicate or even to understand, and for guidance and everything else she was forced to rely on the boy who was her old man, and on this callow youth Sachkor, of all people. That was embarrassing. All in all, she felt profound discomfort.

Noum om Beng, returning his attention now to Koshmar, began to speak, in tones that seemed to Koshmar to be a mixture of barks and howls. She could not easily accommodate herself to the way these Bengs expressed themselves, and several times she was hard put not to grin. But though she comprehended nothing, she could tell that it was a solemn, florid speech, heavy, substantial.

She listened with care, shaking her head in agreement from time to time. Since there apparently was not going to be a battle, at least not immediately, it behooved her to receive these strangers in statesmanlike fashion.

“Can you understand anything?” she whispered to Sachkor, after a time.

“A little. He says that they are here in peace, for trade and friendship. He’s telling you that Nakhaba has guided his people to Vengiboneeza, that there was a prophecy that they would come here and find friends.”

“Nakhaba?”

“Their chief god,” Sachkor said.

“Ah,” said Koshmar. Noum om Beng continued to orate.

Behind her, Koshmar heard footsteps and murmurs. Others of the tribe were arriving. She looked around and saw most of the remaining men and even a few of the women — Taniane, Sinistine, Boldirinthe, Minbain.

Torlyri had arrived too. That was good, seeing Torlyri here. She looked unusually tense and weary; but even so, Torlyri’s mere presence gave much comfort. She came up to Koshmar and lightly touched her arm.

“They told me enemies had entered the city. Will there be war?”

“It doesn’t look that way. They don’t seem to be enemies.” Koshmar indicated Noum om Beng. “This is their old man. He’s making a speech. I think it’s going to go on forever.”

“And Sachkor? He’s all right?”

“He’s the one who found them. Went off by himself, tracked them down, led them back to Vengiboneeza.” Koshmar put a finger to her lips. “I’m supposed to be listening.”

“Your pardon,” Torlyri whispered.

Noum om Beng continued another few minutes more; then he ended his speech virtually in mid-howl and stepped back next to Hamok Trei. Koshmar looked inquiringly toward Sachkor.

“What was that all about?”

“In truth I couldn’t follow very much of it,” Sachkor said, with a disarming smile. “But the part right at the end was clear enough. He’s inviting us all to a feast tonight. His people will provide the meat and the wine. They’ve got big herds of meat-animals just outside the city. We have to give them a place to pitch camp, and some wood for their fire. They’ll do the rest.”

“And do you think I should trust them?”

“I do.”

“You, Hresh?”

“They’re already within the city, and there are at least as many of them as there are of us, and I think these shaggy red beasts of theirs could be terrible in a battle. Since they claim to be friendly and do in fact seem friendly, we should accept their offer of friendship at face value, until we have reason to think otherwise.”

Koshmar smiled. “Crafty Hresh!” To Sachkor she said, “What about the Helmet Man who was here last year? Do they wonder what happened to him?”

“They know he is dead.”

“And that he died at our hands?”

Sachkor said, looking edgy now, “I’m not clear about that. I think they believe that he died of some natural cause.”

“Let’s hope so,” Koshmar said.

“In any case,” said Hresh, “we didn’t kill him. He killed himself, while we were trying to ask him some questions. Once we can speak their language better, we’ll be able to explain all that to them. And until then, I think our best tactic is—”

A strange look came into Hresh’s eyes, and he fell silent.

“What is it?” Koshmar asked. “Why do you stop like that? Go on, Hresh, go on!”

“Look there,” Hresh said quietly. “There’s real trouble on the way.”

He pointed toward the east, toward the slopes just above them.

Harruel, looking baleful and immense, was coming down the road that led from the mountain.

So the invasion he had feared so long had happened at last, and no one had bothered to summon him! And Koshmar had simply opened the city to them — had handed the place away!

The stink of it had risen to Harruel’s nostrils as he sat glowering by himself in the forked tree on the sawtooth ridge that was his sentry-post. Dark furies were flickering in his soul, and his eyes were blind with rage. He stared into the dense underbrush of the mountain that loomed over him and he saw nothing at all. But then came that stink, that hideous reek of corruption and decay; and he looked back and saw shaggy red monsters shambling into the city through the southern gate, with Helmet People riding two by two on their backs.

Who would have expected the attack to come from the south? Who would have thought that the three mechanical guardians that the sapphire-eyes had left by the gateway of the pillars would simply step aside, and let these creatures enter?

That is the dung of them I smell, Harruel thought. That is the loathsome scent of their droppings, borne to me by the wind.

He rushed down the mountainside, spear in hand, hungry for war.

The road spiraled down and down, and on each turn of the descent he had a better view of what was happening below. A whole army of the strangers had come in: he could see the helmets glittering in the afternoon sun. And nearly the entire tribe, from the look of things, had gone out to meet them. There was Koshmar, there was Torlyri, there was Hresh. And most of the others, too, gathered in little knots. Koshmar had one of her war-masks on, but there was no war. They were talking.

Talking!

Look, there were two Helmet Men, perhaps the chieftains, standing with Koshmar and Hresh. A parley with the enemy, and the enemy had his war-beasts inside the gate! Was Koshmar surrendering without a blow? That must be it, Harruel realized. Koshmar is giving the city away. She is making no attempt to expel the intruders, but simply handing us over into slavery.

He would have thought better of her. There was the stuff of a warrior in Koshmar. Why this cowardice, then? Why this easy submission? She must be under the influence of Hresh, Harruel decided. He’s no fighter, that boy. And he’s so sly that he can wrap even Koshmar around his little finger.

With heavy strides Harruel took the last turns of the road and descended into the great boulevard of the gateway. They had all seen him now; they were pointing, muttering. Swiftly he strode into their midst.

“What is this?” he asked. “What are you all doing? How has the enemy managed to enter our city?”

“There is no enemy here,” Koshmar said quietly.

“No enemy? No enemy?” Harruel glared at the nearest of the Helmet People, the two old ones standing behind Koshmar. Their hard little red eyes were bleak and shifty. One of them had the look of a king about him — cold, haughty. The other was very tall — gods, was he tall! Harruel realized that for the first time in his life he was looking at someone taller than himself. But the withered, parched old body of the Helmet Man was as slight as a water-strider’s. One good breeze would break him in half. Harruel was tempted to strike both of them dead with two quick blows of his spear, the haughty one first, then the frail one. But the voice within him that attempted to keep him from rash deeds spoke to him now, warning him that that was madness, that he must not act without some deeper knowledge of the situation.

He put his face close to those of the two gaunt old Helmet Men, who were studying him with what looked like a mixture of arrogance and curiosity.

“Who are you two?” Harruel bellowed. “What do you want here?”

Koshmar said, “Step back, Harruel. There’s no need for this blustering.”

“I demand to know—”

“Make no demands on me,” Koshmar said. “I rule in this place, and you follow. Give ground, Harruel. These are the Beng folk, and they come in peace.”

“So you think,” said Harruel.

Rage still gripped him. He was nearly overwhelmed by it. His skin felt hot, his eyes throbbed, his fur thickened with sweat. He could not bear this intrusion by strangers. In anguish he looked toward those who stood nearby, toward Hresh, toward Torlyri, toward Sachkor—

Sachkor?

What was Sachkor doing here? He had vanished an age ago.

“You,” Harruel said. “Where have you come from? And why are you in the midst of this parley of leaders, as though you too are someone important now?”

“I brought the Helmet People here,” Sachkor declared loftily. There was an insolent glare in his eyes that was altogether new. He seemed like another person, nothing at all like the one Harruel remembered. “I went off to find them, and lived with them, and learned to speak their tongue. And led them to Vengiboneeza to trade with us, and to live in peace with us.”

Harruel was so astounded by what Sachkor had said and by the way he had said it that the words of his reply clotted in his throat. He longed to seize Sachkor’s grinning head between his hands and crush it like a ripe fruit. But he held himself back. He stood frozen. He made coarse rasping sounds, like a beast, for a moment; and then finally managed to say, “You led them here? You helped our enemies enter the city? I knew you were a fool, boy, but I never thought you were so—”

“Sachkor!” a new voice cried, a woman’s voice.

Kreun’s voice.

She came running up the street, breathless, stumbling now and then on the cracked places in the ancient paving-stones. There was a general stir. The other tribesfolk cleared a path for her, and she ran straight to Sachkor, embracing him with a vigor that nearly sent both of them crashing into Harruel.

Harruel, scowling, stepped back a pace or two. The sweet musk of her assailed his lungs. He had seen little of Kreun since that day when he had encountered her as he descended from the mountain after the night of rain, and he was not pleased to see her now. She could bring only trouble. During these many weeks of Sachkor’s absence from the tribe she had lurked like a broken thing in shady corners of the settlement, keeping apart, saying little to anyone, as though Harruel had worked some dark change in her spirit by forcing her that day.

Now she had eyes only for Sachkor. She held tight to him, sobbing, laughing, whispering words of endearment. They were behaving like mates who had been long separated, and not simply two young people who had played a little at coupling.

“They tried to get me to believe you were gone forever,” Kreun muttered, pressing her face close against Sachkor’s slender chest. “They said you had wandered off somewhere outside the city, or fallen from the mountain, and would never return. But I knew you’d come back, Sachkor! And now here you are.”

“Kreun — oh, Kreun, how I missed you!”

She gave him a wide-eyed look, all adoration. Harruel, watching, found it sickening and absurd. “Is it true that you discovered the Helmet People, and brought them here, Sachkor?” she asked.

“I found them, yes. I learned to speak with them. I led them to—”

“This is very touching,” Harruel broke in. “But there are matters of the tribe to deal with just now. Move away, girl. All this babbling simply wastes our time.”

“You!” Kreun cried, whirling around toward him without relinquishing her hold on Sachkor.

“What’s the matter?” asked Sachkor, as the girl began to weep and tremble. “What troubles you this way, Kreun?”

“Harruel — Harruel—” she sobbed.

“What about Harruel?”

She was shivering. Her teeth clacked and her words were thick and indistinct. “He — he — Harruel — on the mountain path — he — he made me—”

“The girl’s gone crazy,” Harruel shouted, angrily trying to wave Kreun aside.

Koshmar now came close, and Torlyri too, both of them looking perturbed. Harruel felt anger, and beneath it a deep stab of shame. This scene was becoming a disaster. Unbidden, the image of Kreun on that other day rose to his mind, the girl face down on the moist ground, her taut rump upturned and moving wantonly from side to side as she struggled in his grasp, her sensing-organ thrashing about wildly—

Warriors do not force women, Harruel told himself. A warrior should not need to force a woman.

I will deny it, he thought.

It was not I who did that thing, it was some demon acting within me.

“What’s this all about?” Koshmar demanded furiously.

“Yes, tell us, child,” said Torlyri in her softer way. “What are you trying to say? What did Harruel do, on the mountain path?”

“Threw me down,” Kreun said, barely more loudly than a whisper. “On the ground. Dropped down on top of me.”

“No!” Harruel bellowed. “Lies! Lies!”

They were all staring at him now, even the Helmet Men.

“Held me,” Kreun whispered. “Forced me.”

She turned away, shuddering, covering her face.

Sachkor bounded forward, glaring up at Harruel, seizing him roughly by the arm, insisting on knowing what had taken place between him and Kreun that day. To Harruel he was like some annoying little yapping animal, or, perhaps, some buzzing insect of the jungle. Casually Harruel swatted him away, as one would a bothersome insect. Sachkor landed hard, in a sprawl, and lay in the dust for a moment. Then he sat up, looking dazed, but seemingly gathering strength for a renewed onslaught. Harruel shook his spear at him, warning Sachkor not to trouble him further.

“Stop this fighting!” Koshmar cried. “Lower your spear, Harruel!”

“I will not. Do you see, he’s getting ready to spring again!”

Indeed Sachkor had risen to a half-crouch and knelt there, blinking, muttering. Harruel took a battle stance and waited for him to leap.

Koshmar said angrily, “Hold your temper, Sachkor. And you, Harruel, put down your spear or I’ll have it taken from you.”

Sachkor remained determined. From his crouch he said, “What is the truth of this, Harruel? Did you indeed force Kreun?”

“I did nothing to her.”

“He’s lying!” Kreun cried.

Grimly Koshmar said, “Enough of this! We have guests among us. This calls for judgment at another time. Kreun, back to the settlement. Orbin, Konya, take Harruel aside until he’s calm. We will hold an inquiry this evening into these matters.”

“I will have the truth of this,” Sachkor said, “and I will have it now.”

Harruel, staring in astonishment, felt the sudden force of Sachkor’s second sight trained upon him. That was a surprising thing, a forbidden thing, this shameful probing of his soul. Harruel felt stripped naked, down to the bone and muscle. Desperately he attempted to put up shields across the doorway of his mind to hold Sachkor back, striving to conceal any memory of that time with Kreun. But there was no hiding anything. The more he tried to hide it, the more vividly it all blazed within him: Kreun’s firm body squirming beneath him, the feel of her smooth rump against his thighs, the sudden hot delight of the thrust, the pulsing pleasure as he poured his man-fire into her.

Sachkor, roaring, rose up and sprang at Harruel in a wild frenzied lunge.

Koshmar cried out and attempted to step between them, but she was too late. Harruel, still shivering in shock from the invasion of his mind by Sachkor’s, acted instinctively, putting out his spear and allowing Sachkor to run right onto it.

Everyone shouted at once. Then there was a dreadful moment of utter quiet. Sachkor looked at the haft of the spear that jutted from his chest as though its presence puzzled him. He made a soft chuttering sound. Harruel let go of the weapon, giving it a slight push as he released it. Tottering, Sachkor glanced around, still amazed, and dropped sideways to the ground. Kreun rushed forward and fell like a discarded cloak beside him. Torlyri, kneeling, attempted to pull her away from Sachkor, but she would not be moved.

The Helmet Men, seemingly astounded by what had taken place, exchanged quiet comments in their strange barking speech, and began to draw back behind the safety of their gigantic animals.

Koshmar went to Sachkor, touched his cheeks and his chest, put her hand to the spear and tried to move it, looked for a long while into his fixed, staring eyes. Then she rose.

“He’s dead,” she said, as if wonderstruck. “Harruel, what have you done?”

Yes, Harruel thought. What have I done?

To Hresh this day was like a dream that would not end, the kind of terrible dream from which one awoke exhausted, as if one had not slept at all. A dream that began with a journey to the Great World, and then his first twining, and then his dreadful clumsy bunglings with Taniane, and the entry into Vengiboneeza of the Helmet People with their astonishing giant red beasts, and the return of Sachkor, and now this — and now this—

No. No. No. No. It was all too much, much too much.

Sachkor lay on his side, not moving at all, with Harruel’s spear running right through him. Harruel stood above him with his arms folded, enormous, icy-faced. Torlyri held the sobbing Kreun. The Helmet Men had withdrawn fifty paces toward the gateway and were staring as though they had begun to think they had marched into a den of rat-wolves.

Koshmar said, “This has never happened before, has it, Hresh? That one tribesman should take the life of another?”

Hresh shook his head. “Never. I have seen nothing in the chronicles concerning such a thing, not ever.”

“What have you done, Harruel?” said Koshmar again. “You have killed Sachkor, who was one of us. Who was a part of yourself.”

“He ran into the spear,” Harruel said numbly. “You saw it. All of you did. He cried out like a madman and ran at me. I put up my spear from habit’s sake. I’m a warrior. When I’m attacked, I defend myself. He ran into the spear. You saw it, Koshmar.”

“But you provoked him,” said Koshmar. “Kreun says that you forced her, that day when Sachkor first went away. They were to be mated. It is against custom to force a woman, Harruel. Surely you would not deny that.”

Harruel was silent. Hresh felt wave upon wave of anger, confusion, fear, defiance coming from him. He seemed almost pitiful, Hresh thought. But dangerous nevertheless.

He couldn’t have meant to kill Sachkor, Hresh decided. All the same, Sachkor was dead.

“These things must be punished,” Koshmar said.

“He ran into the spear himself,” said Harruel obstinately. “I simply defended myself.”

“And the forcing of Kreun?” asked Koshmar.

“He denies that too!” Kreun cried. “But he lies! Just as he lies when he says he didn’t mean to kill Sachkor. He hated Sachkor. He always did. Sachkor told me that, before he went away, and he told me many another thing about Harruel. He said Harruel wants to overthrow Koshmar. Harruel wants to rule the tribe. Harruel says he will be king, which is a kind of man-chieftain. Harruel—”

“Hush,” Koshmar said. “Harruel, do you deny the forcing?”

Harruel was silent.

“We have to reach the bottom of this,” said Koshmar. “Hresh, fetch the shinestones, and we will do a divination. No, better yet, fetch your Wonderstone instead. We’ll examine Harruel with that. We will find out what took place between him and Kreun, if indeed anything did, and we will—”

“No,” Harruel said suddenly. “There’s no need for this examination. I won’t allow it. As for what Kreun says, there was no forcing.”

“Liar!” Kreun wailed.

“There was no forcing,” Harruel went on, “but I will not deny coupling with her. I was on the mountain, guarding the tribe against its enemies, these enemies who now have come riding right into our midst. I sat there all night in the rain, guarding the tribe. And in the morning I descended, and I encountered Kreun, and Kreun looked pleasing to me, and the scent of her was pleasing in my nostrils, and I reached for her and took her and coupled with her, and that is the truth of it, Koshmar.”

“And you did this with her consent?” Koshmar asked.

“No!” cried Kreun. “I gave no consent! I was looking for Sachkor, and asked Harruel if he had seen him, and instead he grabbed hold of me — he was crazy, he called me Thalippa, he thought I was my own mother — he seized me, he threw me down on the grounds—”

“I am addressing Harruel,” Koshmar said. “Was there consent, Harruel? Did you ask her to couple with you as a man will ask a woman, or a woman will ask a man?”

Harruel was silent again.

“Your silence condemns you,” said Koshmar. “Even without examination by the Barak Dayir you stand condemned and accursed, for doing things hitherto unknown to this tribe, for taking Kreun without her consent and for striking down Sach—”

“Her consent wasn’t necessary,” Harruel said abruptly.

“Not necessary? Not necessary?”

“I took her because I was in need, having spent a hard and lonely night guarding the tribe. And because I desired her, since she seemed beautiful to me. And because it was my right, Koshmar.”

“Your right ? To force her?”

“My right, yes, Koshmar. Because I am king, and may do as I please.”

Gods save us, thought Hresh in horror.

Koshmar’s eyes widened until it seemed they could widen no more. They were bulging with amazement.

But she appeared to be making an effort to keep tight control over her feelings. To Hresh she said in a strained, rigid tone, “What is this word ‘king’ that I keep hearing so often these days? Will you tell me that, chronicler?”

Hresh moistened his lips. “It is a title that they had in the time of the Great World,” he said hoarsely. “A man-chieftain is what the word means, just as Kreun said a moment ago.”

“There are no man-chieftains in our tribe,” Koshmar said.

A great wave of strength and strangeness came then from Harruel. Hresh felt it with his second sight and it all but bowled him over; it was like standing in a gale that swept trees from their roots.

“The rule of women is over,” Harruel said. “From this day forth I am king.”

Calmly Koshmar signaled to Konya and Staip and Orbin.

“Surround him,” she said. “Seize him. He has taken leave of his senses and we must protect him against himself.”

“Stand back,” Harruel said. “No one touches me!”

“You may be king,” said Koshmar, “but in this city I am chieftain, and chieftain rules. Surround him!”

Harruel, turning, stared coldly at Konya, who did not move. He looked then at Staip, and at Orbin. They remained still.

Now he faced Koshmar again.

“Be chieftain all you like, Koshmar,” he said in a dark, even voice. “The city is yours. Or, rather, it belongs to the Helmet People, now. I will go from it and cease to trouble you any longer.”

He looked around. By this time the entire tribe stood gathered. Even those women and children who had locked themselves in the temple when news of the invasion had begun to spread had come forth. Harruel’s brooding eyes rested now on this one, now on that. Hresh felt that dark dreadful gaze come to bear on him, and he glanced down, unable to meet it.

Harruel said, “Who will come with me? This city is a sickness, and we must leave it! Who will join me in founding a great kingdom far from here? You, Konya? You, Staip? You? You? You?”

Still no one moved. The silence was terrible.

“Why should we huddle in this dead city any longer? Its fame ended long ago! See, the stinking dung of the enemy’s beasts already is piling high in the boulevard. There will be more of it. The city will be buried under it. Stand to this side, those of you who are weary of the rule of women! Stand to this side, those of you who want land, riches, glory! Who will go with Harruel? Who? Who?”

“I’ll go with you,” Konya said in a rough, ragged voice. “As I promised long ago.”

Hresh heard Koshmar gasp.

Konya looked across the circle of tribesfolk toward Galihine, his mate. Her belly was swelling with an unborn. After a moment she crossed the center of the circle and took up her place at Konya’s side.

“Who else?” Harruel asked.

“This is insanity,” said Koshmar. “You will perish outside the city. Without a chieftain you will suffer the hatred of the gods, and you will be devoured.”

“Who else comes with me?” Harruel asked.

“I will,” Nittin said. “And Nettin with me.”

Nettin looked dumbstruck at that, as though he had hit her with a club. But she crossed obediently beside her man, carrying her babe Tramassilu in her arms.

Harruel nodded.

“I’ll go,” Salaman said suddenly. Weiawala followed him, and the young warrior Bruikkos, and then, after a moment, the girl Thaloin, who had been pledged a few days earlier to Bruikkos as his mate. Hresh felt a chill invading his soul. He had never expected anyone to choose to follow Harruel; but this was catastrophic. The tribe was breaking in two.

“I am with you also,” said Lakkamai.

A soft half-smothered outcry came at once from Torlyri. She bit her lip and moved to one side, looking away, but not before Hresh had seen the stricken look on her face. Koshmar too looked stricken; and Hresh understood that it was a look of fear, for she must be dreading that Torlyri would follow Lakkamai out of the city. But Torlyri remained where she was.

Harruel turned now to his own mate.

“Minbain?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I will go where you go.”

“And you, Hresh?” Harruel said. “Your mother goes, and your little brother, Samnibolon. Will you stay behind?” He walked toward Hresh and stood looming over him. “Your skills will be needed in our new life. You will be our chronicler as you have been chronicler here, and anything you want will be yours, boy. Will you come?”

Hresh could make no reply. Mutely he stared at his mother, at Koshmar, at Torlyri, at Taniane.

“Well?” Harruel asked, more menacingly. “Will you?”

Hresh felt the world whirling about him.

“Well?” said Harruel again.

Hresh looked down. “No,” he said, so faintly that he could not be heard.

“What? What did you say? Speak up!”

“No,” Hresh said again, more clearly. “I mean to stay here, Harruel.” He felt his blood racing fiercely within his body, and it gave him energy and force. “We must all of us leave Vengiboneeza one day soon,” Hresh said, “but this is not the time, this is not the way. I will remain. There’s work here that I must do.”

“Miserable boy!” Harruel cried. “Flea-ridden little cheat!”

His long arm lashed out. Hresh jumped back, nearly but not quite fast enough; Harruel’s fingertips struck him across the cheek, and so great was the power even of that glancing blow that it sent him flying through the air and tumbling in a heap. He lay there quivering a moment. Torlyri came to him and lifted him and held him tenderly.

“Who else?” Harruel asked. “Who else follows me? Who else? Who else? Who else?”