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.
“Would you like a closer look?” Maju Samlor asked. “I could help you out, and—”
“Another time,” Boldirinthe said. “Take me to Nialli Apuilana now.”
The guardsman turned the wagon and headed it down the hill.
So now they’re worshipping him, Boldirinthe thought in wonder. The one who died: they are making him a god. Or so it would appear. How strange. It’s all so very strange, everything that has happened that is in any way connected to that boy.
She found it bothersome that such things should be going on. That there should be a shrine in the alleyway, that the children should be bringing offerings to Kundalimon as though he were a god, seemed improper to her.
Perhaps it’s not so serious, though, she told herself.
She thought of all the unorthodoxies that she’d seen arise during her long life. Had any of them done any real harm? These were unstable times. The coming of the New Springtime had shaken the People out of the narrow ways of the cocoon by sending them out to face the unknown mysteries of the larger world; and it wasn’t surprising that they would grasp at new salvations when the old ones didn’t appear to be producing immediate gratification.
Some of the novelties had been short-lived. Like that odd cult of human-worship that had sprung up during the last days in Vengiboneeza, when a few of the simpler folk had met secretly to dance around a statue of a human that they had found somewhere in the old city, and had made prayers and sacrifices before it. But that had died out in the time of the second migration.
On the other hand, the worship of the alien god Nakhaba had been integrated into the life of the tribe after the union with the Bengs, and that seemed to be permanent. And other creeds had come into fashion from time to time, centering around the stars, the sun, the great ocean, and even less likely things. Boldirinthe had heard it whispered around that Nialli Apuilana was a worshipper of hjjks, and kept some holy talisman of theirs in her room in the House of Nakhaba.
Well, so be it, thought Boldirinthe. She was a godly woman, devout enough to understand that there is godliness in everything. The Five Heavenly Ones weren’t necessarily the only repositories of the sacred. They were simply the ones that she had sworn to serve. It wasn’t that they were true and the other gods false: just that to her they were the most efficacious, the ones who partook most fully of the holy. If these children wanted to make offerings to the memory of Kundalimon, so be it. So be it. Worship is worship.
“Hurry,” Boldirinthe said to the Guardsman. “Can’t you make that xlendi of yours go any faster? Nialli Apuilana is very weak, you know. She needs me urgently.”
“But you just said—”
“If you won’t use the whip, give it to me. You think I’m afraid to hit with it? Go faster, boy. Faster!”
Nialli Apuilana lay on a pallet in one of the upstairs rooms of the chieftain’s residence, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and shallow. Her fur was matted and damp. Now and then she muttered something unintelligible. She seemed lost in some realm beyond consciousness, farther than sleep but just this side of death. Seeing her thus entranced, Boldirinthe was reminded of something out of her distant youth, out of the cocoon days: the strange being—Hresh said he was a human—whom the tribe had called the Dream-Dreamer, who had lain for years deep in unending sleep, only to awaken and die on the day when the People received the omens of the Going Forth. He had slept the same way, as if he were more in another world than in this one.
A somber little group surrounded Nialli Apuilana’s bedside. Taniane was there, of course, looking taut and drawn, as though about to crack. Hresh, too, seemed to have aged years in a few days. And also Husathirn Mueri and Tramassilu the jewelry-maker, and Fashinatanda, Taniane’s blind and doddering old mother, and the architect Tisthali and the grain-merchant Sturnak Khatilifon and his mate Sipulakinain, who was ill, a mere charred ember of herself, with death’s hand practically on her shoulder. And there were still others, some of whom the offering-woman couldn’t place at all.
What such a mob as this was doing in a sickroom was beyond Boldirinthe’s comprehension. No doubt they all wanted to offer help. But they were pressing too close on the poor girl, overheating the air, draining the room of vitality. With quick impatient flutterings of her hands Boldirinthe cleared them all out, all but Taniane and Sipulakinain, whose presence seemed somehow significant. She let old Fashinatanda stay also, silent in a corner, seemingly unaware of anything that was going on.
“Where was she found?” Boldirinthe asked.
“In the lakelands,” said Taniane. “Lying on her face in the mud beside a little pond, according to Sipirod, with a bunch of animals grouped around her and watching her closely, some caviandis and stinchitoles, a little herd of scantrins, a couple of gabools. Sipirod said it was the most amazing thing she had ever seen, those animals gathering around her. It was almost as if they were guarding her. She must have been there two days or so. Burning with fever, said Sipirod. She must have been drinking the pond water. And of course she had no food.”
“Has she been conscious at all?”
“Delirious, only. She babbles sometimes—the Queen, the Nest, all of that. And calls Kundalimon’s name. They were lovers, did you know that? They were going to elope to hjjk country together, Boldirinthe!”
“Poor girl. No wonder she ran.” But then the offering-woman made a grunting sound of dismissal. None of that mattered now.
“Bring that table over here, will you? Set my satchel on it. There, where I can get at it. And give me something to sit on, beside the bed. It’s all I can do to keep myself on my feet, you know.”
She lifted Nialli Apuilana’s arm and ran her fingers along the length of it, feeling for the life-currents. They were very feeble. The girl was warm but her soul-river was flowing sluggishly, like quicksilver beginning to congeal. Boldirinthe turned her face away from Taniane, not wanting the chieftain to see the extent of her concern. Another few hours in that swamp and there’d have been a dead girl here. It was possible that they would lose her yet.
No. I won’t allow it, Boldirinthe thought.
From her satchel she drew the two great wands of healing and laid them alongside Nialli Apuilana, who barely stirred. She took out her herbs and ointments, and set them in a row on the table. She placed the talisman of Friit the healer at Nialli Apuilana’s head and that of Mueri the comforter at her feet.
To Sipulakinain she said, “Bring me that brazier. We’ll burn the leaves of Friit in it, and see to it you breathe the smoke yourself. It’ll do you some good too.”
“I’m on the mend, Boldirinthe,” said Sipulakinain.
The offering-woman gave the grain-merchant’s mate a skeptical look. “Yissou be praised for that,” she said without conviction.
Together they worked to light the aromatic herb. Taniane watched, silent, motionless. In the far corner the old woman Fashinatanda prayed in a toneless mumble, seeing nothing. Purplish smoke curled upward.
“More,” Boldirinthe said. “Another five sprigs.”
Sipulakinain’s hands trembled. But she fed the herbs to the blaze. Boldirinthe took Nialli Apuilana’s ankles and held them. She felt the congestion in the girl’s lungs, the weariness in her heart. Her soul-center was chilled and enfeebled. Nialli Apuilana was strong, though. These weaknesses could be driven from her.
The smoke grew thick in the room.
Now the gods became visible.
Boldirinthe had long had the skill of seeing the Five Heavenly Ones clearly. It was not something she ever spoke of to others, for she knew that the gods, real though they were, had never appeared to anyone else in actual manifestations, only as powerful abstract presences. It was different with her. They had forms and faces, familiar ones. Mueri the Consoler was much like Torlyri to her, a tall strong hands
ome woman whose dark fur was marked with white. Dawinno the Destroyer had the look of Harruel, a fierce red-bearded giant. Yissou was wise and remote, sparse of fur, almost like a human. The Provider, Emakkis, was fat and jolly. Friit the Healer was very serious, and frail, a little like Hresh. They stood now by her side. She indicated the sleeping girl, and they nodded, and Friit told her what must be done, and Boldirinthe, though she felt a stab of uneasiness, made ready unhesitatingly to do it.
“You have to leave the room now,” she said to Taniane.
“I—”
“There’s too much strength in you. We want only the sick and the old and the fat in here now.”
Taniane’s mouth opened, and closed again. She gave Boldirinthe a look of astonishment and, perhaps, anger. But she went out without a word.
Boldirinthe applied the ointments of healing now, one to Nialli Apuilana’s lips, another to her breasts, a third to the place between her thighs. Nialli Apuilana stirred and murmured as the heat of these herbal creams began to penetrate her skin.
“Get the old one,” she said to Sipulakinain. “I want her sitting on the bed, with her hands on the girl’s feet. You sit up there, and take her head against your bosom. I’m going to twine with her.”
Sipulakinain nodded. Though she was weak and uncertain on her feet herself, she slipped her arm around the shoulders of the trembling old grandmother and led her to the bedside, and placed her in the position Boldirinthe had requested. She lay down then and cradled Nialli Apuilana’s head.
Ponderously Boldirinthe maneuvered her cumbersome body about until her sensing-organ was within reach of Nialli Apuilana’s. There was no question of her lying down beside the girl on the pallet in the usual twining position, but twining might be accomplished in other ways. She looked up and saw Mueri smiling at her, saw Friit holding his hand high in approval. Yissou himself helped to move her into position.
Now came a moment of uncertainty and unease.
Boldirinthe was too old to feel fear, but she was not beyond apprehensiveness. She had twined with Nialli Apuilana once before, years ago, on the girl’s twining-day—on the very eve, as it had turned out, of her capture by the hjjks—when she had come to Boldirinthe for the traditional instruction in the art. Boldirinthe hadn’t forgotten what that twining had been like.
That other time Boldirinthe had been expecting nothing more than the usual childish chaos of a first twining, the soft unformed vulnerable young soul struggling painfully to focus itself amidst the embarrassment of the new intimacy; but instead Nialli Apuilana, when the union of their two souls had been achieved, had revealed herself to be strong and fierce, as hard and as firm-edged as some machine, a thing of shining metal and driving force. That was frightening, to encounter such strength in one so young. Boldirinthe had been exhausted by their twining. She hadn’t expected ever to repeat that experience. Nor was she eager to.
But the Five had commanded it. Boldirinthe touched her sensing-organ to that of the unconscious girl, and began to enter into communion with her.
The girl’s soul was remote and elusive. There were moments when Boldirinthe felt she would be unable to reach it; there were moments when she felt Nialli Apuilana’s spirit slipping away entirely, separating from the girl’s body. But Fashinatanda and Sipulakinain served as barriers to prevent her soul’s departure. They contained it. And, little by little Boldirinthe was able to surround it and take it into her capacious embrace.
Now Nialli Apuilana’s sleeping self opened gladly to her.
Her soul was infinitely deeper and stranger and richer than it had been that other time, four years earlier. Nialli Apuilana had been a girl, then; now she was a woman, with all that that implied of depths of understanding. She had coupled; she had twined; she had loved.
And she had accepted the Five Heavenly Ones.
What a surprise that was! There hadn’t been a shred of belief in Nialli Apuilana the other time. Not unusual, such godlessness, among the modern young ones. But Nialli Apuilana hadn’t simply been indifferent to the goodness of the gods before: she had sealed herself up against it, she had rejected it outright.
Now, though, to her vast amazement, Boldirinthe felt the essence of the Five within the girl’s soul. There was no doubt of their presence, new and fresh. The auras of all of them were there, Friit and Emakkis, Mueri and Dawinno, and pre-eminently Yissou the Protector, casting a glow of godliness through the corridors and channels of her soul. Boldirinthe had not remotely expected that. Their holy fire burned in her, and it was all, or almost all, that was keeping her alive. Perhaps they had come to her as she lay close to death in that swamp.
But the Nest was present within her also. The Queen was present within her.
Boldirinthe could feel the great massive alien power of the insect monarch, surrounding and infiltrating every aspect of the girl’s spirit, interpenetrating even the auras of the Five in a manner as blasphemous as it was improbable. Hjjk-light blazed like an angry fire. Hjjk-mists swathed Nialli Apuilana’s soul. Tenacious claws clung everywhere. Surely this was something that had befallen her during her captivity. The offering-woman had to struggle to keep herself from recoiling from these mysteries, or from being drawn down into them.
But she knew what to do. She was here to heal. With the help of the gods she would drive out the evil.
Unhesitatingly she set about her work. She grappled with the dark thing within the chieftain’s daughter. She hacked at it, she speared it, she slashed it to its heart. It seemed to weaken. Its claws flailed and thrashed. The offering-woman pulled one claw free, and another, and another, though they sprang back nearly as quickly as she ripped them away. The thing fought back with cold malevolent fury, lashing her with lattices of force, showering her with torrents of icy flame. She stood her ground against the onslaught. She had spent all her life in preparation for this moment. Again and again the sluggish invincible monster stirred and rose and leaped, and each time Boldirinthe fought it down, and again it leaped and again it was cast down, and the offering-woman forged new weapons and went forward, battling with all her strength.
Slowly, grudgingly, the thing retreated to the depths of the girl’s soul and crawled into the lair that it maintained there. Not that it had yielded; but it had given ground. There was hope now that Nialli Apuilana could fight the rest of the battle herself. Boldirinthe had done all she could.
To Friit the offering-woman said, “Take command of her now, I beg you, and give her strength.”
“Yes, I will do that,” the god replied.
“And you, Dawinno. Emakkis. Mueri. Yissou.”
“Yes,” said each of them in turn.
Boldirinthe made a passageway for them, and the gods entered her, uniting themselves with the auras of themselves that were already within her. They bolstered Nialli Apuilana where she was flagging, and restored her where she was weakened, and filled her where she had been drained.
Then, one by one, they departed.
The last of them to leave was Mueri, who paused and touched Boldirinthe’s own soul, embracing it most tenderly as Torlyri might have embraced her long ago. Then Mueri too was gone.
Nialli Apuilana stirred. Her eyes opened. She blinked several times, very quickly. She frowned. She smiled.
“Sleep, girl,” Boldirinthe said. “You’ll be strong again when you wake.”
Nialli Apuilana nodded dreamily. Turning to Sipulakinain, Boldirinthe said, “Send in Taniane. Only Taniane.”
The chieftain brought a cloud of worry in with her; but it dissipated the moment she saw the change in Nialli Apuilana. At once her own vigor returned, and the light flooded back into her eyes. Boldirinthe was too tired for gratitude. “Yes, the job’s done, and done well,” she said. “Keep that crowd out of here, now. Let the girl rest. Afterward, warm broths, the juice of fresh fruits. She’ll be up and around in a couple of days, good as new, I promise you.”
“Boldirinthe—”
“Not necessary,” the offering-woman said. T
he girl’s eyes were closed again. She had slipped into a deep, healthy, healing sleep. Auras glowed around her. But Boldirinthe still could see the wounded Nest-creature crouching deep behind the outer aspect, the hidden hjjk within, glowing like an angry red sore, and she shivered a little.
She knew, though, that she had dealt it a terrible blow. The rest was up to Nialli Apuilana. And to the Five.
“Help me up,” she said, wheezing a little, patting her brow. “Or get one or two of the others, if you can’t do it alone.”
Taniane laughed. And raised her easily from her bench, as though Boldirinthe were no bigger than a child.
Outside, in the gray stone hallway where green glowglobes flickered, Husathirn Mueri approached her and took her by the arm. He looked edgy and forlorn.
“Will she live, Boldirinthe?”
“Of course she’ll live. Never any doubt about that.”
She tried to move on. This day she had gone down into the deepest abyss and returned from it, a costly business, hard on the soul. She had no wish to stand here chattering with Husathirn Mueri now.
But he was holding her. Wouldn’t let her go. A warm insincere grin starting to spread across his face.
“You’re too modest,” he said. “I know a little of the healing arts myself. That girl was dying until you came here to treat her.”
“Well, she’s not dying now.”
“You have my deepest gratitude.”
“I’m sure that I do.”
She stared at him a long moment, trying to see behind his words. There were always meanings behind his meanings. Even when he sneezed it seemed somehow devious.
Finding Husathirn Mueri likable was something Boldirinthe had never managed to do, which troubled her, for she disliked disliking anyone; and he was Torlyri’s son, which made the matter worse. She had loved Torlyri as she loved her own mother. And here was Husathirn Mueri, quick and clever and handsome, and warm-hearted, after a fashion, and looking a good deal like Torlyri with those brilliant white stripes running through his black fur; and Boldirinthe couldn’t like him at all. It was his slyness, she thought, and his unbridled ambition. Where had those traits come from? Not from Torlyri, certainly. Nor from his father, that hard and austere Beng warrior. Well, she told herself, the gods have their mysteries. Each one of us is a special mystery of the god.