He wandered wonderstruck through all these chambers, astounded by the abundance and complexity. A deep sadness came over him at the thought that all these beasts probably were gone from the world now, unless somehow they had been set aside in some cocoon to wait out the cold centuries. He doubted that. They all were gone, gone with the sapphire-eyes.
In a chamber near the uttermost tip of the Tree of Life he came to something that took him totally by surprise: a group of what seemed to be people of his kind, going about their lives in what appeared to be a miniature version of his old tribal cocoon.
They were not exactly like him. At first glance they seemed the same; but when Hresh looked more carefully he saw that their sensing-organs were thinner and hung at a different angle, that their ears were large and set back on their heads in a way that looked very odd to him, that their fur was exceptionally dense and very coarse. The adults were shorter than the adults of his tribe and their bodies were not as stocky. Their hands joined their wrists at a strange angle and had fingers that were long and black and palms that were bright red, not pink as Hresh’s were.
He felt his chest constrict. This was a devastating revelation.
It was as though they were an earlier version of the People, a first attempt. They were as much unlike him as they were like. But he could not deny the similarities. The kinship. These were people of his own kind. They had to be. But they were ancient. This was the way the People had looked in the time of the Great World.
It said in the Book of the Beasts that Dawinno the Destroyer constantly altered the forms of all the creatures of the world. The changes were so small that from one generation to the next they could scarcely be observed, but over the great span of time they mounted up into significant differences. Now Hresh saw the proof of that. The race that had emerged from the cocoons at the end of the Long Winter was much different from the one that had entered them seven hundred thousand years before.
A deeper and more staggering truth lay behind that one. He would have hidden from it if he could. But it was inescapable.
Beyond much doubt the Tree of Life was nothing more than a collection of animals, assembled here, perhaps, for the amusement of the citizens of Vengiboneeza. There were no sea-lords here, no hjjks, no vegetals, none of any of the civilized peoples of the Great World: only simple beasts. And his own ancestors were here among those beasts.
Hresh’s muscles writhed in angry protest. But there was no way he could reject the evidence. Step by step, this city had forced him to admit the thing that he had been struggling to deny since the People first had come to Vengiboneeza: that in the time of the Great World his own race had not been considered human at all, but mere beasts, not to be ranked with the Six Peoples. Superior beasts, perhaps. But beasts nevertheless, that could be kept on display like this, one exhibit among many in this place where all the animals of the ancient world had been displayed.
He felt stunned and shaken and crushed. For a long time he stood in numb silence, staring. The people in the chamber — the creatures in the chamber — those beasts who were his kin — ignored him. Perhaps none of the animals on exhibit in the Tree of Life were able to see those who came to see them.
He waved to them. He drummed on the clear wall of their chamber. In a hoarse, ragged, defiant voice he called to them, “I am Hresh your brother! I have come to tell you good tidings, that your children’s children’s children will inherit the world!” But the words came out in a jumble, and the creatures in the chamber never once looked up.
After a time he crept away and wandered outside to the boulevard. He saw the green Citadel of the Dream-Dreamer folk crouching above him on the hill. Somber as it was, it blazed at him now with the fury of a thousand suns. He turned away from it, flinching. That was a place for humans. He knew that beyond question now. Their temple, their hostelry, their special headquarters, whatever. Their place, he thought. Not ours. A place for humans. And whatever we may think we are, we are not that.
Once more he imagined that he heard the awful hissing laughter of the guardians of the city gate.
Little monkey. Little monkey. Never confuse yourselves with humans, child.
He let the vision fade, and came up out of old Vengiboneeza like a drowning man flailing his way to the surface of the water.
When he returned to the settlement be said nothing to anyone, not even Taniane, about what he had seen. But he felt strangely transparent to her. She stared at him from a distance in a remote, veiled way, as though telling him, There’s a terrible secret that you don’t dare share with me, but I know it anyway. In his confusion and grief he kept his distance from her for several days, and when they spoke again it was of trivial things only, a vague and carefully circumscribed conversation. He was unable to bear anything else just now, and she appeared to know that.
A few days later the wild monkeys of the jungle swept through the settlement again, howling and shrieking, smashing windows, hurling gobbets of mud and dung and more of the nests of the stinging insects. Hresh glared at the intruders with loathing and fury. Everything within his soul cried out against the idea that the People and these dirty screaming animals could possibly be close kin, as the sapphire-eyes artificials had claimed. But when Staip and Konya went to a rooftop and speared half a dozen of them Hresh turned away, shivering in shock, fighting back tears. He could not bear to see them killed like that. It seemed like murder. He did not know what to think. It seemed to him that he was unable to understand anything any more.
Minbain was at work in the fields, setting out the new season’s young flameseed plants, when Torlyri came up to her and said, “I’m trying to find Hresh. Do you have any idea where he might be?”
Minbain laughed. “On the moon, maybe. Or swimming from one star to the next. Who knows where Hresh takes himself? Not me, Torlyri.”
“I suppose he’s wandering around in the ruins again.”
“I suppose. I haven’t laid eyes on him in two or three days.” Minbain had long since ceased to think of Hresh as any child of hers. He was a being beyond her comprehension, as swift and strange and unpredictable as the lightning. She returned her attention to the flameseed bed. After a moment she looked up again and said, “You haven’t seen Harruel, by any chance, have you? It’s been a while since I’ve laid eyes on him, too.”
“Doesn’t he spend a lot of time patrolling in the hills?”
“Too much,” Minbain said. “If he’s with me one night out of five, that’s a lot. There’s something bad brewing in that man.”
“Shall I speak with him? If I can help him in any way—”
“Be wary if you try it. He frightens me these days. Anger comes boiling out of him when you’re least expecting it. And stranger things. He moans in his sleep, he thrashes about, he calls out to the gods. I tell you, Torlyri, he frightens me. And yet I wish he’d spend more of his nights at home.” With a grin she said, “There are some things about him I miss very much.”
“I think I know what you mean,” said Torlyri, smiling.
“Why do you want Hresh? Has he done something wrong again?”
“It’s his twining-day,” Torlyri said.
“His twining-day!” Minbain looked up, astonished. “Imagine that! So Hresh is old enough to twine already! How time moves along! And I paid no attention.” Then she shook her head. “Ah, Torlyri, Torlyri — if Hresh is old enough to twine, how old I must be getting, then!”