The Queen of Springtime ns-2

by Robert Silverberg

  The shinestones can’t tell him that. Their warmth diminishes, the tingling ceases. The light within them seems to be flickering. The image of Nialli he has conjured up is beginning to fade. He looks toward Thaggoran, toward Noum om Beng. But he can barely find the two old ghosts. They look faint, filmy, insubstantial, in the darkness across the room.

  Fiercely Hresh puts his hands to Vingir and Hrongnir. He touches Dralmir, the largest shinestone, pressing down hard. He brings the tips of his fingers to bear on Thungvir and Nilmir, and begs the stones to give him an answer. But he gets nothing from them. They have told him all they mean to tell him this day.

  But Nialli is alive. He’s certain of that much.

  “She’s gone to the hjjks, hasn’t she?” Hresh asks. “Why? Tell me why.”

  “The answer is in your hands,” Thaggoran says.

  “I don’t understand. How—”

  “The Barak Dayir, boy,” says Noum om Beng. “Use the Barak Dayir!”

  Hresh nods. He sweeps the shinestones into their case and takes from its pouch the other and greater talisman, the one that the tribe calls the Wonderstone, a thing older even than the Great World, which is feared by all, and which only he knows how to use.

  He has come to fear it too, in these latter years. When he was a boy he thought nothing of using it to soar to the farthest realms of perception; but no longer, no longer. The Barak Dayir is too powerful now for him. Whenever he touches his sensing-organ to it now, he can feel it pulling the waning strength from him; and the visions that it gives him carry so great a freight of meaning that often they leave him dazed and stunned. In recent years he has used it only rarely.

  He places the stone before him, and looks down into its mysterious depths.

  “Go on,” Thaggoran says.

  “Yes. Yes.”

  Hresh raises his sensing-organ, coils it around the Wonderstone without actually touching it; and then, in a swift convulsive gesture, he seizes the talisman in the innermost coil and presses the tip of his sensing-organ to it.

  There is a sharp sensation of dislocation and shock, as though he is plunging down an infinite shaft. But with it comes the familiar celestial music that he associates with the device, descending about him like a falling veil, enfolding him, sustaining him. He knows there is nothing to fear. He enters that music, as he has done so often before, and allows himself to be dissolved by it and swept aloft by it, and carried upward into a world of light and color and transcendental forms where all things are possible, where the entire cosmos is within his grasp.

  Northward he soars, traversing the great breast of the planet, flying high over dark land scaled and crusted with the myriad deposits of the Earth’s long history, the rubble and debris left behind by the world that had been before the world.

  The City of Dawinno is below him, white and grand and lovely, nestling in its lush hills beside its sheltered bay. To the west he sees the immense ominous black shield of the sea lying with monstrous weight across half the Earth, concealing deep mysteries beyond his comprehension. He goes higher and higher yet, and onward, northward, over the zone where the city gives way to scattered outer settlements, and then to farms and forest.

  As he climbs he seeks the hot bright spark that is the soul of Nialli Apuilana. But he feels no trace of her.

  He is well to the north, now, looking down on tiny farming villages, bright specks of white and green against the brown of newly tilled fields, and beyond them into the land that hasn’t yet been resettled in the New Springtime, where the wild beasts of the Long Winter still roam free in the forests and the parched and eroded relics of abandoned Great World cities lie shriveling like shards of bone on the dry windy uninhabited plateaus. From them, dead as they are, the formidable resonant presence of the Six Peoples whose domain all this once had been still radiates.

  No Nialli. He is mystified. Had they come for her in a magic chariot, and carried her in the twinkling of an eye across the thousands of leagues to the Nest?

  He continues northward.

  Now the City of Yissou slides into view far to the north, huddling like a wary tortoise behind its immense wall; and then in another moment he is past it, and coming over Vengiboneeza now, its turquoise and crimson towers all aglow with swarming insect life. There is a Nest here, above the ground, sprawling like a strange gray growth over the ancient Great World structures, but no Nialli. He has reached so great an altitude that he can make out the sweeping curve of the shoreline moving sharply to his right as he advances into the north. The entire coast of the continent slants notably eastward as it goes from south to north, so that the City of Yissou can lie far to the east of Dawinno and nevertheless be near the sea, and Vengiboneeza be farther eastward still, but also have its easy access to the water.

  Onward. Beyond Vengiboneeza, into territory he has never dared enter except in imagination.

  This is the land of the hjjks. They had ruled it in Great World days and they had never relinquished command of it, not even in the brutal worst of the Long Winter, when rivers and mountains of ice covered everything. Somehow they endured; somehow they provided for themselves when all other creatures were forced to flee to the milder south.

  Now the ice is gone, laying bare the sorry barren land. Hresh looks down on red buttes and mesas, on knobby terraced promontories rising above dismal gray-brown wastes where no grass would grow, on empty riverbeds streaked with white saline outcroppings, on a chilly desolate landscape of forbidding aridity.

  And yet there is life here.

  The Barak Dayir brings him incontrovertible impulses of it. Here, here, here: the unmistakable blaze of life. No more than isolated sparks far from one another in this miserable netherworld over which he hovers; but they are sparks with a terrible intensity that nothing could quench.

  They are hjjk sparks, though, only hjjk sparks, no trace here of anything but hjjks.

  He senses insect souls by twos and threes, or tens and twenties, or a few hundreds, little bands of hjjks and some not so little, moving across the bleak face of these northlands on errands which even the Wonderstone can’t interpret for him. The scattered traveling bands move with a determination stronger than iron, less pliant than stone. Nothing, Hresh knows, would halt them, neither cold nor drought nor the wrath of the gods. They could have been planets, journeying on unswervable orbits across the sky. The strength that comes from them is terrifying.

  These, Hresh thought, are the inhuman bowelless hjjks his people have always dreaded, the invulnerable and implacable insect-men of myth and fable and chronicle.

  Is it to these monsters that his daughter has gone, seeking Nest-bond, seeking Queen-love? How could she have done it? What love, what mercy can she expect from them?

  And yet — yet—

  He tunes his perceptions, he extends and deepens the range of the Barak Dayir, and in amazement he tumbles through the net of his own preconceptions, he falls like a plummeting star into a new realm of awareness, and just as he has seen life behind the lifelessness it seems to him now that he sees souls behind the soullessness. He feels the presence of the Nest.

  Many nests, actually. Widely spaced across the land, settlements largely underground, warm snug tunnels that radiate in a dozen directions from a central core, so that they remind him of nothing so much as the cocoon in which his own people had passed the seven hundred thousand years of the Long Winter. They teem with hjjks, uncountable multitudes of them, moving with the purposefulness and singlemindedness that the People regard with such horror. But it isn’t a soulless purposefulness. There is a plan, a central organizing principle, an inner coherence; and each of those millions of creatures moves in accordance with its part in it. It is as Nialli Apuilana had said, that day she spoke before the Presidium: they are no mere vermin. Their civilization, strange though it might be, is rich and complex, even great.

  In each Nest lies a slumbering Queen, a great somnolent creature, swaddled and guarded, about whom the entire intricate life of the set
tlement revolves. Hresh, sensing the Queens now, is powerfully tempted to touch the mind of one of them with his own, to sink down into that sleeping vastness, to enter its powerful spirit and attempt to comprehend it. But he doesn’t dare. He doesn’t dare. He holds back, uneasy, uncertain, gripped by the timidities of age and fatigue, telling himself that that is not what he came here for, not now, not yet.

  His roving mind seeks his daughter. Does not find her.

  Not here? Not even here?

  Farther north, then, perhaps. These are only subordinate Nests, subordinate Queens. Seek elsewhere, then. He feels the lodestone pull of the huge capital that lies beyond them, the home of the Queen of Queens, to which these great quiescent creatures are mere handmaidens.

  Nialli? Nialli?

  On and on he goes. Still no hint of her presence. Now he feels his disembodied consciousness approaching the Nest of Nests, ablaze on the northern horizon like a second sun. A terrible irresistible warmth comes from it. From it comes the incandescent all-loving soul-embrace of the Queen of Queens, calling to him, drawing him in.

  No Nialli here. I have misled myself. She didn’t go to the Nest after all. I’ve gone in the wrong direction. Taken myself thousands of leagues away from where I should have looked.

  Hresh halts his flight. The bright radiance on the horizon grows no closer. Time for him to return. He’s traveled as far this day as he can. The Queen of Queens is calling, but he won’t answer that summons, not now. It’s a powerful temptation: to enter the Nest, to fuse his soul with Hers, to learn more of what the world within this great hjjk-hive is like. The Hresh of the old days, wild little Hresh-full-of-questions, wouldn’t have hesitated. But this Hresh knows that he has responsibilities elsewhere. Let the Queen wait a little longer for him.

  The warmth of the Nest burns in his flesh. The heat of Queen-love courses through his spirit. But with a powerful effort he makes himself turn, pulls away, begins the homeward journey.

  Southward now he flew, past the barren lands, past radiant Vengiboneeza, past Yissou, past the dry plateaus of ruined fragmentary cities. The familiar warm greenness of his own province came into view. He could see the bay, the shore, the hills, the white towers of the city that he himself had built. He saw the parapet of the tall narrow House of Knowledge, and saw himself within the building, sitting sightless at his desk, the Barak Dayir clutched in his sensing-organ. A moment later he was united with himself once more.

  “Thaggoran?” he called, looking around the room. “Noum om Beng? Are you still here?”

  No, they’re gone. He’s alone, dazed, shaken, dumb-founded by the voyage he has just made. Somehow the night has fled while he journeyed. Golden light out of the east floods the room.

  And Nialli — he has to find Nialli—

  Surely she’s somewhere nearby, as Taniane had argued all along. Certainly she lives; the shinestones wouldn’t have deceived him about that. The life-impulses he had detected had been unmistakably hers. But where, where? In exhaustion he contemplated the Barak Dayir, wondering if he could muster the energy for another excursion.

  I’ll rest a little while, he told himself. Ten minutes, half an hour—

  He became aware of the sounds of shouting in the street far below.

  An uprising? An invasion? With an effort Hresh rose and went outside, to the parapet. People were running and calling to one another down there. What were they saying? He could make nothing out — nothing—

  A gust of wind blew him a few syllables only: “Nialli! Apuilana!”

  “What is it?” Hresh called. “What’s happened?”

  His voice would not carry. No one could hear him. Fearfully he rushed down the endless winding staircase to the ground floor, and out into the street. He stood clinging to the gate of the building, gasping for breath, his legs trembling, and looked around. No one there. Whoever had been shouting had moved along. But then others came, a band of boys on their way to school, tumbling and leaping, tossing their notebooks about. When they saw him they halted, adopting a more sober demeanor as befitted an encounter with the chronicler. Their eyes, though, were bright and jubilant.

  “Is there news?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Your daughter, sir — the lady Nialli Apuilana—”

  “What of her?”

  “Found, sir. In the lakelands. The hunter Sipirod found her. They’re bringing her back right now!”

  “And is she—”

  He couldn’t get the whole question out soon enough. The boys were on their way again already, scampering and cavorting.

  “ — all right?”

  They called something back to him. Hresh was unable to make out the words. But their tone was cheerful and the sense of it was clear. All was well. Nialli lived and was returning to the city. He gave thanks to the gods.

  “You must come with me, Mother Boldirinthe,” the earnest young guardsman said. “The chieftain requires it. Her daughter is in great need of healing.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” the offering-woman said, smiling at the guardsman’s solemnity. He was a Beng, like most of the guards, blocky and thick-tongued, with a heavy manner about him. But he was very young. Much was forgivable, on that account. “Don’t you think I knew I’d be summoned? Four days lying in those vile swamps — what a shape the girl must be in! Here, boy, help me up. I’m getting as big as a vermilion.”

  She extended her arm. But the guardsman, with unexpected diligence and courtesy, rushed around behind her chair and slipped his own arm around her to lift her to her feet. She tottered a bit. He steadied her. It was hard work for him, strong though he was. Boldirinthe chuckled at her own unwieldiness. Flesh was accumulating on her with the force of an avalanche, new layers of it every day. Soon she’d be entombed within herself, virtually unable to move. Her legs were like pillars, her belly was a rippling massive mound. That was a matter of little concern to her, though. She was grateful to the gods for having let her live long enough to undergo this transformation, and for having provided her with the sustenance out of which she had created her vastness. Many others hadn’t been so fortunate.

  “Over there,” she said. “That satchel on the table — hand it to me—”

  “I can carry it for you, mother.”

  “No one must carry it but me. Hand it here. There’s a good boy. You have a wagon waiting?”

  “In the courtyard, yes.”

  “Take my arm. That’s it. What’s your name?”

  “Maju Samlor, mother.”

  She nodded. “Been in the guards long?”

  “Almost a year.”

  “Terrible thing, your captain’s murder. But it won’t go unpunished, will it?”

  “We seek the slayer day and night,” said Maju Samlor. He grunted a little as she swayed and lurched, but held her steady. At a cautious pace they proceeded into the courtyard. This was twice in two days that she had left her cloister, now, for only yesterday she had attended the meeting that Taniane had called at the Basilica. That was unusual for her, in these days, to go out so often. Movement was so difficult. Her thighs rubbed together with each step, her breasts pulled her groundward like weights. But perhaps it would do her some good, she thought, to bestir herself more frequently.

  The long satchel she carried was more of a burden to her than she had expected. She had loaded it that morning with the things she would need in caring for Nialli Apuilana — the talismans of Friit and Mueri, of course, but also the wands of healing, which were carved of heavy wood, and an array of herbs and potions in stone jars. Too many things, maybe. But she managed to hobble out to the wagon without dropping it.

  Her hillside cloister was near the head of the steep street known as Mueri Way. Just a hundred paces or so farther uphill was Mueri House. The alleyway in which Kundalimon had been murdered lay midway between Mueri House and her cloister.

  It angered Boldirinthe that blood — innocent blood — had been shed so close to her holy precinct. How could anyone, even a madman, have d
ared violate this place of healing by casting an aura of violent death over it? Each morning since the killing she had sent one of her junior priestesses to the site to perform a rite of purification. But she hadn’t gone to it herself. Now, as Maju Samlor tugged at the reins and the xlendi moved forward into the street, she turned to look toward the fatal place.

  A crowd seemed to have gathered. She saw thirty or forty people, or perhaps more, bustling about the narrow entrance to the alley. The ones going in carried string-bags bulging with fruit, and others bore bunches of flowers, or armloads of greenery of some sort — boughs pulled from trees, so it looked. The ones coming from the alley were empty-handed.

  Boldirinthe turned to Maju Samlor, frowning. “What’s going on there, do you think?”

  “They’re bringing offerings, mother.”

  “Offerings?”

  “Nature-offerings. Branches, fruits, flowers, things like that. For the one who died, you know, the boy from the hjjks. It’s been going on two or three days.”

  “They place offerings on the spot where he died?” That was strange. Her priestesses had said nothing about it to her. “Take me over there and let me see.”

  “But the chieftain’s daughter—”

  “She can wait another few minutes. Take me over.”

  The guardsman shrugged and pulled the wagon around, and drove it up the street to the mouth of the alley. At closer range, now, Boldirinthe realized that there were only a few adults in the crowd. Most were boys and girls, some of them quite young. From where she sat it was hard for her to get a good view of what was going on, nor did she want to dismount and investigate directly. But she could see that someone had set up some kind of shrine in there. At the far end where the line of offering-bearers terminated the green boughs were piled higher than a man’s head, and they were draped with bits of cloth, glittering metallic ribbons, long bright-colored paper streamers.

  For a long moment she sat there watching. Some of the children noticed her, and waved and called her name, and she smiled to them and returned their greetings. But she did not leave the wagon.