The Queen of Springtime ns-2

by Robert Silverberg

  Giving Husathirn Mueri a cold, acrid look, she said, “I merely told you to stop him from preaching. Not to have him killed. What kind of beast are you, to have a man killed like that?”

  “Lady, I didn’t want him dead any more than you,” said Husathirn Mueri hoarsely.

  “Yet you sent that guard-captain of yours off to do it.”

  “No. I tell you no, lady.” Husathirn Mueri looked as worn and ragged as she felt herself. His black fur was heavy with sweat, and the white stripes that ran through it were dulled by the day’s grime. His amber eyes had the glassy gleam of extreme fatigue. He threw himself down on the stone bench facing her desk and said, “What I told Curabayn Bangkea was nothing more than you told me: that he had to shut him up, that he had to stop him from doing any more preaching. I didn’t say anything about killing. If Curabayn Bangkea killed him, it was entirely his own idea.”

  “ IfCurabayn Bangkea killed him?”

  “That can’t ever be proven, can it?”

  “The very strangling-cloth he used was wrapped around his wrist.”

  “No,” Husathirn Mueri said wearily. “There was a strangling-cloth on him when he was found, I’ll grant you. But many men of Curabayn Bangkea’s sort carry strangling-cloths, more for ornament than anything else. That there was one around his wrist proves nothing. Nor can we be sure that it was the one that was used to kill Kundalimon. And even if it was, lady, there’s always the possibility that whoever killed Kundalimon killed Curabayn Bangkea also, and then put the strangling-cloth on him to throw suspicion on him. Or let me give you yet another hypothesis: that Curabayn Bangkea had discovered the murderer, and had taken the strangling-cloth from him to offer as evidence, when he was killed. By the murderer’s accomplice, perhaps.”

  “You have an abundance of hypotheses.”

  “It’s the way my mind works,” said Husathirn Mueri. “I can’t help that.”

  “Indeed,” Taniane said sourly.

  What she longed to do was send forth her second sight and try to see just how deeply involved Husathirn Mueri actually had been in this miserable thing. It still seemed to her, knowing him as she did, that very likely he had deliberately chosen to interpret her orders as instructions to have Kundalimon removed. Kundalimon had been Husathirn Mueri’s rival, after all, for Nialli Apuilana’s affections. Had won those affections beyond question, actually. How convenient for Husathirn Mueri to misunderstand her words and send his creature Curabayn Bangkea off to murder him. And then to have the guard-captain murdered too, by way of silencing him.

  It all fit together. And an aura of guilt seemed to hover like a dull stinking cloud of marsh-gas around Husathirn Mueri even as he sat here.

  But Taniane couldn’t simply go on a fact-finding expedition in his mind with her second sight. It would be a scandalous intrusion. It was beyond all propriety. She’d have to make a formal charge first, and call him to trial, for that. And if in fact he was innocent, she would have gained nothing for herself except an unalterable enemy, who happened to be one of the shrewdest and most powerful men in the city. That wasn’t a risk worth taking.

  Was it ever in my mind without my consciously knowing it, she wondered, to have Kundalimon done away with? And did I somehow convey that to Husathirn Mueri without fully realizing what I was asking?

  No. No. No.

  She hadn’t ever meant the boy any harm. She wanted only to protect the children of the city against the madness of the hjjk-teachings that he was spreading. She was certain of that. To have ordered the death of her daughter’s first and only lover — no, that had never been in her mind at all.

  Where was Nialli now? No one had seen her since her disappearance from the stadium.

  “You still suspect me?” Husathirn Mueri asked.

  Taniane stared stonily at him. “I suspect everyone, except perhaps my mate and my daughter.”

  “What assurance can I give you, lady, that I had no part in the boy’s death?”

  Shrugging, she said, “Let it pass. But it was that underling of yours, that guard-captain, I think, who took it upon himself to have Kundalimon killed, or to kill him himself.”

  “Very likely so, I agree.”

  “How do we account for the killing of Curabayn Bangkea, though?”

  Husathirn Mueri spread his hands wide. “I have no idea. Some rowdies at the games, maybe, catching him in a dark corner. With an old score that needed settling. He was captain of the guards, after all. He threw his weight around freely. He must have had enemies.”

  “But on the very same day of Kundalimon’s murder—”

  “A coincidence that only the gods could explain. Certainly I can’t, lady. But the investigation will continue until we have the answer, if it takes a hundred years. Both deaths will be resolved. I promise you that.”

  “In a hundred years nothing of this will matter. What matters now is that an ambassador from the Queen of Queens has been murdered while in our city. While in the midst of treaty negotiations.”

  “And that troubles you, does it?’

  “I don’t want us getting embroiled in a war with the hjjks until we’re ready for such a thing. Yissou only knows what goes on in the minds of hjjks, but if I were the Queen I’d regard killing Her ambassador as a very serious provocation indeed. An act of war, in fact. And we’re very far from being ready to fight them.”

  “I agree,” said Husathirn Mueri. “But this isn’t any such provocation of that sort. Consider, lady.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “One: His embassy was finished. He had presented his message; that was all he was sent here to do. He wasn’t a negotiator, just a messenger, and not even a very competent messenger. Two: He was a citizen of this very city, returning after a long absence brought about by his having been kidnapped. He wasn’t the Queen’s subject in any way. She had him only because Her people stole him from us. What claim could she have to him? Three: There’s no sort of contact between Dawinno and the Nest, and therefore no reason to think they’ll ever find out what became of him, assuming they care in the slightest. When we make our response to their treaty proposal, if we do, we’re not obliged to say anything about where Kundalimon might happen to be at the moment. Or perhaps we won’t reply to them at all. Four—”

  “No!” Taniane snapped. “In Yissou’s name, no more hypotheses! Doesn’t your mind ever stop ticking, Husathirn Mueri?”

  “Only when I sleep, perhaps.”

  “Then go to your bed, and I’ll go to mine. You’ve convinced me. The killing of that boy isn’t going to bring the hjjks down upon us. But there’s a gaping wound in our commonwealth all the same, which can be healed only by finding these murderers.”

  “The one who killed Kundalimon, I do believe, is already dead himself.”

  “Then there’s still at least one killer loose among us. I give you the job of finding him, Husathirn Mueri.”

  “I’ll spare no effort, lady. You can count on that.”

  He bowed and left. She looked after him until he turned the corner of the hallway and was gone.

  The day was over at last. Home, now. Hresh was already there, waiting for her. The news of Kundalimon’s death had affected him more than she would have expected. Rarely had she seen him so distraught. And then, Nialli Apuilana — the girl had to be found, she had to be comforted—

  A very long day indeed.

  * * * *

  This is the deep tropical wilderness, where the air clings to your throat with every breath, and the ground is soft and resilient, like a moist sponge, beneath your feet. Nialli Apuilana has no idea how far she’s come from the city in her flight. She has no clear idea of anything. Her mind is choked and congested by grief. No thoughts pass through it.

  Where thought had been, there is only second sight now, operating in some automatic way, carrying information about her surroundings to her in dim pulsing pulsations. She is aware of the city far behind her, crouching on its hills like a huge many-tentacled monster made of stone and brick, sendi
ng out waves of cold baleful menace. She is aware of the swamps through which she is running, rich with hidden life both great and small. She is aware of the vastness of the continent that stretches before her. But nothing is clear, nothing is coherent. The only reality is the journey itself, the mad roaring need to run, and run, and run, and run.

  A night and a day and a night and nearly another day have passed since she fled from Dawinno. She had ridden a xlendi part of the way, driving it furiously into the southern lakelands; but somewhere late on that first day she had paused to sip water at a stream, and the xlendi had wandered off, and she has gone on foot ever since. She scarcely ever stops, except to sleep, a few hours at a time. Whenever she does halt she collapses into a darkness that is the next thing to death, and when after a time it lifts from her she gets up and begins running once more, without goal, without direction. A fever is on her, so that she seems to be on fire everywhere, but it gives her strength. She is a molten thing, cutting a blazing path through this unknown domain. She eats fruits that she snatches from bushes as she runs. She stoops to pluck fungi with shining yellow caps from the ground, and crams them into her mouth without pausing. When thirst overcomes her she drinks any water she finds, fresh or still. Nothing matters. Flight is all.

  Her body has long since slipped into that strange crystalline realm that lies beyond fatigue. She no longer feels the throbbings of her weary legs, no longer records the protests of her lungs or the pains that shoot upward through her back. She moves at a graceful lope, running swiftly in a kind of mindless serenity.

  She must not allow her mind to regain awareness.

  If it does, she will hear the lethal words again. Found in an alleyway. Dead. Strangled.

  The vision of Kundalimon’s slender body will come to her, twisted, rumpled, staring sightlessly toward the gray sky. His hands outstretched. His lips slightly apart.

  Found in an alleyway.

  Her lover. Kundalimon. Dead. Gone forever.

  They would have gone north to the Queen together. Together they would have descended hand in hand into the Nest of Nests, down into that warm sweet-smelling mysterious realm beneath those distant plains. The song of Nest-bond would have engulfed their spirits. The pull of Queen-love would have dissolved all disharmonies in their souls. Dear ones would have come up to embrace them: Nest-thinkers, Egg-makers, Life-kindlers, Militaries, every caste gathering round to welcome the newcomers to their true home.

  Dead. Strangled.My only one.

  Nialli Apuilana had never known that love such as theirs had been could exist. And she knows that such love can never exist for her again. She wants nothing now but to join him in whatever place it is where he has gone.

  She runs, seeing nothing, thinking nothing.

  It is twilight again. Shadows deepen, falling across her like cloaks. Gentle warm rain falls, on and off. Thick golden mists rise from the moist earth. Thick soft woolly clouds spiral up around her and take the forms of the gods, who have no forms, and in whose existence she does not believe. They surround her, looming higher than the towering smooth-trunked vine-tangled trees, and they speak to her in voices that tumble downward to her ears in shimmering harmonics richer than any music she has ever heard.

  “I am Dawinno, child. I take all things, and transform them to make them new, and bring them forth into the world again. Without me, there would be only unchanging rock.”

  “I am Friit. I bring healing and forgetfulness. Without me, there would be only pain.”

  “I am Emakkis, girl. I provide nourishment. Without me, life could not sustain itself.”

  “Me, child, I am Mueri. I am consolation. I am the love that abides and infuses. Without me, death would be the end of everything.”

  “And I am Yissou. I am the protector who shields from harm. Without me, life would be a valley of thorns and fangs.”

  Dead. Strangled. Found in an alleyway.

  “There are no gods,” Nialli Apuilana murmurs. “There is only the Queen, holding us in Her love. She is our comfort, and our protection, and our nourishment, and our healing, and our transformation.”

  In the deepening darkness, golden light encloses her. The jungle is ablaze with it. The lakes and pools and streams shimmer with it. Light pours from everything. The air, thick and torrid, swirls with the holy images of the Five Heavenly Ones. Nialli Apuilana holds her hand before her face to shield her eyes, so strong is that light. But then she lowers the hand, and lets the light come flooding upon her, and it is kind and loving. She draws new strength from it. She runs onward, deeper into that crystalline realm of tirelessness.

  She hears the voices again. Dawinno. Friit. Emakkis. Mueri. Yissou.

  Destroyer. Healer. Provider. Consoler. Protector.

  “The Queen,” Nialli Apuilana murmurs. “Where is the Queen? Why does She not come to me now?”

  “Ah, child, She is us, and we are She. Do you not see that?”

  “You are the Queen?”

  “The Queen is us.”

  She considers that.

  Yes, she thinks. Yes, that is so.

  She is able to think again, now. Her eyes are open. She can see the stars, she can see the many worlds, she can see the shining web of Queen-love binding the worlds together. And she knows that all is one, that there are no differences, no gradations, no partitions dividing one form of reality from another. She had not realized that before. But now she sees, she hears, she accepts.

  “Do you see us, child? Do you hear us? Do you feel our presence? Do you know us?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  Shapes without form. Faces without features. Potent sonorities resonating through the descending shadows. Light, cascading from everything, coming from within. Density, strangeness, mystery. Godhood all about her. Beauty. Peace. Her mind is ablaze, but it is a cool white fire, burning away all dross. Out of the earth comes a roaring sound that fills all the sky, but it is a sweet roaring, enfolding her like a cloak. The Five Heavenly Ones are everywhere, and she is in their embrace.

  “I understand,” she whispers. “The Queen — the Creator — Nakhaba — the Five — all the same, all just different faces of the same thing—”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  Night is coming on swiftly now. The heavy sky behind her is streaked with blue, with scarlet, with purple, with green. Ahead lies darkness. Lantern-trees are awakening into light. Creatures of the jungle show themselves everywhere, wings and necks and claws and scales and jaws shining on all sides of her.

  She drops to her knees. She can go no farther. With the return of thought has come the reality of exhaustion. She digs her hands into the warm moist ground and clings to it.

  But it seems for a moment, as she crouches there gasping and shivering in her great weariness, that she is alone once again, except for the creatures that screech and cackle and hiss and bellow all about her in the deepening night. She feels a tremor of fear. Where have the gods gone? Has she run so fast that she has left them behind?

  No. She can still feel them. She need only open herself to them, and they are there.

  “Here, child. I am Mueri. I will comfort you.”

  “I am Yissou. I will protect you.”

  “I am Emakkis. I will provide for you.”

  “I am Friit. I will heal you.”

  “I am Dawinno. I will transform you. I will transform you. I will transform you, child.”

  * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

  “Toward Vengiboneeza, you mean?”

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

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