Gallen got up, paced in the darkness, gazed off south toward Moree. The windows in the aircar showed only the mountains. He rubbed his hands together as if to warm them with the friction. “Moree is a hive worse than the city of Indallian, and its keepers are more fearsome than any tribe of Derrits. Do we even have an idea where to find the Harvester in that maze?”
Ceravanne went to her pack again. “Traders have been to Moree often enough, and some of them have been to the old king’s throne room. It is well defended, and we believe that the Harvester is there. I have some intelligence on the place.” She brought out a large map on thick gray paper. It showed three routes into the city, and from each route it displayed the number of doorways and chambers to the Harvester’s throne room.
Gallen studied it for a moment, and his brow furrowed in dismay. Much of the map consisted of blank spaces, unknowable regions of the city that could easily house warriors. But what the map did show was that with each route, there were several guarded entrances, fortified gates. The Tekkar were a fierce race, created for a harsh world where survival seemed improbable, and their inborn need for a strong defense showed in the design of their city. It made for an impossible journey through the warrens of the Tekkar.
* * *
Chapter 30
That evening, Gallen was relieved to find that instead of another sleepless night sitting among cold stones, he was able to enjoy the company of the Riallna in their temple at the Vale of the Bock.
The Riallna devotees were all women, with cream-colored complexions and hair that was long and as soft and golden brown as corn silk, and though he knew that they were each hundreds of years old, they looked as if they were only handsome women of middle years. Their lives were simple and peaceful, and in their own way they were as devoted to making the world a place of beauty as any of the Makers.
On the outside, the temple seemed to be only a large blockish building of ivory-colored stone with a row of four fluted-stone columns that rose in front to form a large porch. It was a variation on a theme common in this rainy region, and it was a simple design, and graceful.
But inside, the temple was a masterpiece of functionality and comfort. The walls were covered over in some gold cloth and decorated with large wooden panels of ash, carved with delicate scenes of the suns rising over mountain fields.
On the main floor, low beds were laid out on rich carpets around a central fireplace that was shaped into a tall cone, with perhaps a dozen small holes near the bottom so that heat and light could escape the fire, while the smoke would be drawn up the chimney.
Various oil lamps burned around the room, keeping the place bright inside, but the soft wine-colored sofas and the forest-green carpets muted the brightness, creating a lighting that reminded Gallen of a forest glen at dusk, rampant with earth tones.
Evidence that the Riallna had a strong sense of smell was also abundant. Gallen noted a cleanness, a freshness to the room that had seldom been duplicated among other cultures. The scents of lightly seasoned foods were evident, but no harsh perfumes, and perhaps it was the scent more than anything else that gave the room a sense of wide spaces, an openness that size alone did not account for.
In moments, the Riallna began serving them silently, bringing in warm water to wash with first, followed by plates heaping with food. Some of the priestesses played flutes and cymbals at the far side of the great hall, so that the music of woodwinds floated dreamily through the air, and Ceravanne’s friend Alna sat quietly with them, anticipating their needs, willing to let them steer the conversation in any direction they desired.
After a while, it became evident that the priestesses were seeking to serve their every whim, to give themselves completely in a manner that Gallen had seldom seen, even among the many lives the Inhuman had shown him, and he was pleased by the effect. He knew that this night, he was free to do whatever he pleased-whether it be to eat, sleep, listen to others, or talk quietly, and he realized suddenly how shallow the Inhuman’s training had been.
Among the lives that he’d been shown, none of the peoples he’d met had been as generous as the Riallna. Instead, they’d often been grasping and outright selfish. Perhaps not overtly so, but it ran like a strong current beneath all of their actions. Even the best of the people he recalled had been … unconcerned about anyone beyond their own kin.
And as Gallen considered where he most would like to be this night-home in Tihrglas listening to some old hand playing the violin, or among the Suluuth listening to the piping song of the winged people, or on the plains singing at the stars with the Roamers, he realized that he was most content to be here.
Almost effortlessly, he fell asleep beside Maggie upon one of the couches, unaware of when the music ended.
Shortly after dawn, Gallen woke to the sounds of women cooking. Orick was asleep on one couch, lying on his back, his paws in the air. Maggie slept beside Gallen, and he gently disentangled himself from her arms. Ceravanne was no place to be seen, and Gallen imagined that she might be out bathing in the pool again.
He got up, wanting to plan for the day’s coming battle, so headed out to the transport.
The suns were just rising in a soft violet haze over the mountains, and down the slope below the temple, the Bock had gathered near the pool, where they were dipping their feet into the pool’s edge.
Ceravanne was sitting down with them, dressed in a clean green tunic that one of the priestesses must have given her. She was talking energetically to the same Bock that Gallen had met before, though something odd was happening. When they’d first met a few weeks before, the Bock had been a dark green in color, but now the color of its skin was tinted with a grayish-brown, like the stalk of a plant that is dying. Gallen walked toward them.
The Bock spoke back to Ceravanne, slowly, in dreamy tones, telling her, “Too late, too late for me to come now. Winter is upon us … task falls to you!” Gallen stopped beside them for a moment, looked up at the green man, with his knobby joints, his long fingers splayed up toward the sun.
“Is everything all right?” Gallen asked Ceravanne.
She looked up at him. “The Bock are not awake yet. They have trouble this time of year. When the sun rises a bit more, and the blood warms in his veins, he will understand me more.”
“Can’t … can’t go,” the Bock said dreamily, the voice of an old man, long senile.
“I’ll leave you two, then,” Gallen said. He went to the transport, got Ceravanne’s map out for further study, laid it out on the floor, trying to imagine alternate routes into the Tekkar warren that might exist somewhere in the gray unknown spaces the map did not show.
In a few minutes, Maggie came to join him. “The Riallna are making breakfast for us,” she whispered, kneeling behind him. “I told them we’d be there in a while.” She too was wearing her mantle and a new green tunic, and she knelt over the map just behind him to his right. Gallen inhaled her clean scent, tasted her exotic perfumes from Fate, and was very conscious of the way her left breast pressed against his arm. He felt somehow old. I should be rutting with her, celebrating with her, instead of making plans for war, he considered, but he put the stray thought from his mind.
Maggie stroked him quickly up the spine with the back of her hand-an act that made the nerves tingle all along his body. It was an odd caress, one that the Worren women used to good effect in their lovemaking. They were a lusty people and Gallen smiled at some of his memories.