Since the tribe had lived in Vengiboneeza the old custom of maintaining distinct twining-chambers had fallen into disuse. One could always twine privately in one’s own chambers, or in some abandoned building of the city. The chances were slight that anyone would intrude. But a first twining was a delicate thing, and Torlyri kept a chamber of her own for that, in a gallery below the temple, where there was no possibility of an accidental interruption. She led Hresh toward it now.
As they entered the main level of the temple, the tall slender figure of Kreun stepped from the shadows of the Mueri chapel. When she was close she halted and turned to Torlyri as though about to speak; but all that came from her lips was a sort of sob, and then she moved hurriedly onward. In a moment she was out of sight.
Torlyri shook her head. The girl had become very strange in the past few weeks. Of course she was deeply disturbed by the disappearance of Sachkor, who was to have been her mate: gone off into thin air, was Sachkor, and no one could find him anywhere in the city. Hresh, using his Wonderstone, had determined that Sachkor must still be alive. But even Hresh had no idea where Sachkor might be. That was odd; but the degree to which Kreun had retreated into herself seemed even more peculiar. Grief alone did not seem enough to account for it. She was a different person now, edgy, silent, brooding. She kept to herself, and wept a great deal. This had gone on much too long. Torlyri resolved to draw her aside and try, if she could, to ease whatever burden lay upon her.
But not today. This day belonged to Hresh.
A broad, winding stone ramp of the sort so often favored by the sapphire-eyes architects led down to Torlyri’s twining-chamber. Bunches of glowberries set in sconces lit the way with pale orange light.
As they began to descend the ramp Hresh said abruptly, “I’ve been thinking about the gods, Torlyri.”
She was taken by surprise by that. He should have twining on his mind now, and not such things as this. But her surprise did not surprise her. Many of the things Hresh said took her by surprise. Hresh rarely did as anyone expected.
“Have you?” she asked mildly.
“I saw a thing in my exploring,” he said, “a machine of the ancients, that showed me animals which lived in the time of the Great World. Some of them were very much like animals of today, and yet they were different. In little ways or great, the animals that have survived down through the ages since Great World times have undergone many changes.”
“Perhaps so,” said Torlyri, wondering where any of this might be leading.
“I asked myself which god it is who brings about such changes,” Hresh went on. “It’s Dawinno who has changed them. He’s the one, isn’t he, Torlyri, who transforms all kinds of beings as the years pass? Dawinno makes new forms out of old.”
Torlyri paused on the ramp, studying Hresh in puzzlement. To be only a boy, just becoming a man today, and to have such thoughts swarming in his head — surely there was no one rise like Hresh, and surely there had never been another like him!
“Dawinno takes away the old, yes,” Torlyri said cautiously. “He makes room for the new.”
“He brings forth the new out of the old.”
“Is that your understanding of it, Hresh?”
“Yes. Yes. Dawinno is the transformer of forms!”
“Very well,” Torlyri said, feeling more and more lost.
“But transformation is only transformation,” said Hresh. “It isn’t creation.”
“I suppose that that’s so.”
His eyes were bright, almost feverish-looking, now.
“Where does it all start, then? Consider, Torlyri, the gods we worship. We worship the Provider, and the Consoler, and the Healer. And the Protector and the Destroyer. But there’s no god that we call the Creator. Who do we owe our lives to, Torlyri? Who is the maker of the world? Is it Yissou?”
Torlyri had been troubled since the beginning of this discussion; but now her uneasiness began swiftly to deepen.
“Yissou is the Protector,” she said.
“Exactly. But not the Creator. We don’t know who the Creator is. We never even think about that. Have you ever thought on these things, Torlyri? Have you?”
“I perform the rites. I serve the Five.”
“And the Five must serve a Sixth! But who is he? Why do we have no name for him? Why are there no rites to honor him? He made the world and everything in it. Dawinno merely reshapes that world. Seeing the evidence of his reshaping, I began to wonder about the first shaping, do you see? There’s a higher god than Dawinno, and we know nothing of him. Do you see, Torlyri? Do you see? He keeps himself hidden from us. But his is the greatest power. He has the power of creation. He can make something out of nothing. And he can transform anything into anything else. Why, it might be that he’s capable of taking beasts as stupid and nasty as these monkeys that have been plaguing us and turning them into something that’s almost human. He can do anything, Torlyri. He is the Creator! Why, he might even have made the Five themselves!”
She stared at Hresh in shock.
She was not an unintelligent woman, but there were certain areas that she did not choose to explore. No one did. One did not speculate on the nature of the gods; one simply did their bidding. All her life that was what she had done, faithfully and well. The Five ruled the world; the Five were sufficient.
Now here was Hresh proposing things that were profoundly disturbing to her. A Creator, he said. Well, obviously there must have been a beginning to all things, now that she stopped to think about it, but it must have happened a long time ago, and what bearing could it have on those who lived today? It was folly to think about such matters. The notion that there might have been a time when the Five themselves did not exist, that they could have been summoned into existence by someone else, made Torlyri dizzy. If the Five had had a Creator, then the Creator might have had one too, and that Creator might have been created by some god even higher up the scale, and — and—
There was no end to it. Her head was spinning.
And then this business of turning monkeys into humans. What sense did that make?
Oh, Hresh, Hresh, Hresh!
Quietly but firmly she said, “Let’s put our minds to twining, Hresh.”
“If you wish.”
“Not just because I wish it. But because it’s why we are here.”
“All right,” he said. “Today we twine, Torlyri.”
He smiled tenderly and took both of her hands in his. Now it seemed to her suddenly that she was the novice and he the one who would give instruction. She found it eternally bewildering to deal with this boy. Torlyri reminded herself that a boy was all that he was, that he was only thirteen and stood barely breast-high next to her, that what they had come here for was his first twining, not hers.
Together they proceeded on downward until they came to the low stone-walled gallery with the pointed arch that led to her little twining-chamber. As they made their way through the narrow passageway, she stooping a little to clear its roof, Torlyri became aware of a change in his scent, and knew that another subtle shifting of the situation was taking place. From the moment they had entered this place he had taken command. But at last, she realized, it might be starting to sink in that he was actually about to twine for the first time. The event was becoming real for him. That was the scent of apprehension about him. Hresh the chronicler he might be, Hresh the wise, but he was also only a mere boy, and he was beginning to remember that now.
The twining-chamber had twelve sides, each set off by a rib of blue stone; the ribs met overhead in a complex groined vault that was half hidden by shadows. It was a small room, perhaps once a storeroom for the sapphire-eyes; surely it must have been too tiny for such bulky folk as they had been. But there was space enough in it for her purposes. She had fashioned a couch of piled furs, and there were niches in the walls in which she had placed certain holy objects. Glowberry sconces cast a flickering greenish-yellow light, faint but sufficient.