“Lie down and make your calmness,” Torlyri told him. “I have observances to perform.”
She went from niche to niche, invoking each of the Five in turn. The holy amulets and talismans in the niches were old and familiar ones, things she had brought from the cocoon, greasy and smooth with much handling. It was essential to obtain the favor of the gods for a first twining: the novice would be wide open to forces from without, and if the gods did not enter him, then other powers might. Torlyri had no idea what those powers might be, but she took care to leave no opportunity for them.
So she moved about the room, making the signs, murmuring the words. She asked Yissou to protect Hresh from harm when his soul lay open. She called upon Mueri to take from the boy the anguish that seemed to trouble his spirit, and Friit to heal whatever scars his turmoil might have left upon him, and Emakkis to give him strength and resilience. She paused a long while at the altar of Dawinno, for she knew that the Destroyer was a god to whom Hresh had specially consecrated himself; and if indeed Dawinno was the Transformer, as Hresh had argued, then it would be good to summon his particular grace for the transformation about to take place.
The niches had been carved in every other facet of the twelve-sided chamber, and so there were six in all. Torlyri, having never found a use for the sixth one, had left it empty. But as she completed the circuit of the room she halted before it now, and to her astonishment she found herself invoking a god she did not know, the mysterious Sixth of whom Hresh had spoken a little while before.
“Whoever you may be,” she whispered, “if indeed you exist at all, hear the words of Torlyri. I ask you to watch over this strange boy who loves you, and to make him strong, and to preserve him for all that he must do upon the face of this your world. That is what Torlyri wishes of you, in the name of the Five who are yours. Amen.”
And she stared, amazed at what she had done, into the shadowy recess of the sixth niche.
She turned, then, and knelt beside Hresh on the furs. He was watching her, wide-eyed, intent.
“Have you made your calmness?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“You aren’t sure?”
“I have made my calmness, yes.”
Torlyri doubted that very much. The dreaminess that should have been in his eyes was not there. Probably he had not even studied the technique, though she had instructed him in it and told him to practice. But perhaps the mind of Hresh was equal to entering into twining even when not fully calm. There was never any telling about anything, when you were dealing with Hresh.
She had taken a sacred object from the niche of Dawinno, a smooth white stone tied round its middle with a wisp of tough green fiber. Now she pressed it into Hresh’s left hand for a talisman, and folded his fingers about it. It would serve to focus his concentration. He was already holding the amulet that once had been Thaggoran’s in his other hand.
Formally she said, “This is the deepest joy of our people. This is the union of souls that is our special gift. We approach our twining with reverence and awe. We approach it with eagerness and delight.”
Torlyri felt tension rising within her.
How many times she had done this, with so many of the tribe! She had instructed nearly half in their first twining; but never had she faced the prospect of joining her soul with someone like Hresh. To enter his mind, to have his mind enter hers — it filled her with unexpected disquietude. Here at the last moment she found it necessary to make a calmness herself, going through the simple exercises that ordinarily only novices would need to practice. Hresh seemed aware that she was unusually ill at ease: she saw his gleaming eyes peering at her worriedly, as if once again the balance had shifted and he was the master, she the young initiate.
The moment passed. She was calm.
She put her arms about him and they lay close together.
“Rejoice with me,” she said softly. “Rest with me.”
Their sensing-organs touched. He hesitated — she could feel it, that sudden quick rigidity of the muscles — but then he relaxed, and they began the twining.
He was awkward at first, as they always were, but in a little while he caught on to the movements, and after that it became easy. Torlyri felt the first tinglings of a communion and knew there would be no difficulty. Hresh was entering her. She was entering Hresh. The joining was unmistakable. She felt the unique texture of his soul, the color of it, the music of it.
He was even stranger than she had thought. She had expected to find great loneliness in him, and that was there, yes. But his soul had a depth and a richness and a fullness that she had never encountered before. The power of his second sight was overwhelming, even here in the first levels of the twining. And already she could sense the might he held in reserve. The force of his mind was like that of a river in full spate plunging over a titanic precipice. Could it harm her, she wondered, to join with such a mind?
No. No. No harm could ever come from Hresh.
“Twine with me,” Torlyri said, and opened fully to him.
11
The Dream That Would Not End
Afterward Hresh rose and stood for a time looking down on the sleeping Torlyri. She was smiling as she slept. He had feared that he might have injured her when his mind went rushing with full power into hers. But no: she would sleep a little while, and then she would awaken.
He made his way by himself up the winding ramp and out of the temple. Better that he let her awaken alone. She might be abashed when she awoke to find him still lying beside her, as if they were twining-partners. She would need some time to return to herself, to regain her equilibrium. He knew that the unexpected intensity of their communion had had great impact on her.
For his part Hresh had found his first twining a pleasure and a revelation.
A pleasure, certainly: to lie in Torlyri’s warm embrace, to feel her gentle soul mingling with his, to enter into that odd and delicious state of communion. Now at last he understood why twining was so highly regarded, why it was considered a delight more powerful even than coupling.
A revelation, too: he had known Torlyri all his life, but he saw now that until today he had known her in only the most general way. A good woman, a kindly woman, a gentle and loving presence in the tribe — she who performed the rites and spoke with the gods and gave comfort to all in need, a kind of mother to everyone. Yes: that was Torlyri. But now Hresh knew that there were other aspects to her. There was great strength in her, an astonishing toughness of spirit. He should have expected that, remembering how strong she was physically, nearly as strong as a warrior and in some ways stronger. That kind of strength usually reflected inner strength, but he had been so deceived by her warmth, her softness, her motherliness, that he had not noticed it.
Then too there were ordinary human, things about Torlyri. She was not just a doer of rites and a giver of comfort, but also a person, with a private existence, with a private person’s fears, doubts, needs, pains. He had not taken the trouble to consider that. Twining with her just now, he had detected the urgency of her desire for some warrior of the tribe — Lakkamai, he supposed; Torlyri and Lakkamai were always together these days — and the complexity of her relationship with Koshmar, and something else, an emptiness, a lonely place within her, that had to do with the fact that she had not borne a child. She was mother to all the tribe and yet not mother to anyone, and that seemed to trouble her, perhaps on such a deep level that she was not aware of it herself. Hresh saw it now, and seeing it had changed him. He was coming to realize what a difficult and intricate thing it was to be adult. There were so many aspects of life that refused to fit neatly into any compartment, but kept squirming about and causing subterranean disturbances, when you were adult. That was, perhaps, the main thing that his first twining had taught him.