“Boldly spoken, Thu-Kimnibol,” said Puit Kjai with deep contempt. “We’ll make rafts of their dead bodies, and paddle ourselves across the sea to the other continents.”
Thu-Kimnibol shot him a murderous glance. “I hold the floor now, Puit Kjai.”
Puit Kjai threw up his hands in a comic gesture of surrender.
“I yield. I yield.”
“Here is what I say,” Thu-Kimnibol went on. “Send the hjjk messenger back with our rejection of the treaty stitched to his hide. At the same time, send word to our cousin Salaman of Yissou that we will do what he has long implored us to do, which is to join forces with him and launch a war of extermination against the roving bands of hjjks who threaten his borders. Then let us send our army north, every able-bodied man and woman we have — you needn’t trouble yourself to go, Puit Kjai — and together with King Salaman we’ll smash our way into the great Nest of Nests before the hjjks understand what is happening to them, and slay their Queen of Queens like the loathsome thing She is, and scatter their forces on the winds. That is how I say we should reply to this offer of love and peace from the hjjks.”
And with those words Thu-Kimnibol resumed his seat.
There was a stunned silence in the chamber.
Then, as though in a dream, Husathirn Mueri found himself rising and making his way toward the podium. He was not at all sure what he meant to say. He had not prepared a clear position. But he knew that if he failed to speak now, in the aftermath of Thu-Kimnibol’s astonishing outburst, he would spend all the rest of his days in the shadow of the other man, and it would be Thu-Kimnibol and not Husathirn Mueri who came to rule the city when Taniane’s time was done.
As he took his stance before the Presidium he asked the gods in whom he did not believe to give him words; and the gods were generous with him, and the words were there.
Quietly he said, looking out at the still astounded faces before him, “Prince Thu-Kimnibol has spoken just now with great force and vision. Permit me to say that I share his view of the ultimate destiny of our race. And I tell you also that I agree with Prince Thu-Kimnibol’s belief that we cannot avoid, sooner or later, an apocalyptic confrontation with the hjjks. It is the warrior within me who responds to Thu-Kimnibol’s stirring words, for I am Trei Husathirn’s son, whom some of you remember. But my mother Torlyri, whom you may also remember, and who was beloved by all, instilled in me a hatred of strife where strife was not needed. And in this instance I think strife is not only uncalled for, but profoundly dangerous to our purposes.”
Husathirn Mueri took a deep breath. His mind was suddenly awhirl with ideas.
“I offer you a position midway between those of Puit Kjai and Prince Thu-Kimnibol. Let us accept this treaty with the hjjks, as Puit Kjai suggests, in order to buy ourselves some time. But let us also send an envoy to King Salaman of Yissou, yes, and enter into an alliance with him, so that we will be all the stronger when the time to make war against the hjjks finally is at hand.”
“And when will that time be?” Thu-Kimnibol demanded.
Husathirn Mueri smiled. “The hjjks fight with swords and spears and beaks and claws,” he said. “Although they are an ancient race, actual survivors of the Great World, that is the best they can do. They have fallen away from whatever greatness must have been theirs in those ancient times, because the sapphire-eyes and the humans are no longer here to teach them what to do. Today they have no science. They have no machinery. They have only the most primitive of weapons. And why is that? Because they are nothing but insects! Because they are mere mindless soulless bugs!”
He heard an angry intake of breath from somewhere directly in front of him. Nialli Apuilana, of course.
“We are different,” he said. “We are discovering — or rediscovering,” he amended, with a diplomatic glance toward Hresh — “new things every day, new devices, new secrets of the ancient world. You have already seen, those of you who remember the battle of the City of Yissou, how vulnerable the hjjks are to such scientific weapons. There will be others. We will bide our time, yes; and in that time, we will devise some means of slaying a thousand hjjks at a single stroke — ten thousand, a hundred thousand! And then at last we will carry the war to them. When that day finally comes, we will hold the lightning in our hands. And how then can they stand against us, no matter how much greater than ours their numbers may be? Sign the treaty now, I say — and make war later!”
There was another uproar. Everyone was standing, shouting, gesticulating.
“A vote!” Husathirn Mueri shouted. “I call for a vote!”
“A vote, yes!” This from Thu-Kimnibol. And Puit Kjai, too, was calling out for a decision.
“There will be one more speaker, first,” said Taniane, her voice cutting through the clamor like a blade.
Husathirn Mueri stared at her, amazed. Somewhere in the last few moments Taniane had actually placed the Mask of Lirridon over her head; and now the chieftain stood beside him at the high table like some figure out of nightmare, stiff and solemn and erect, with that appalling hjjk-face commanding the attention of everyone. She looked both foolish and frightening, all at once: but rather more frightening than foolish, a weary aging woman no longer but now some supernal being of tremendous imperious force.
For a moment, though he had no more to say, Husathirn Mueri held his place at the podium as though he were rooted to the floor. Then Taniane gestured commandingly, a gesture that could hardly be disobeyed. With that mask on, she was unanswerable, a fount of power. He went numbly from the speaker’s platform to resume his seat beside Thu-Kimnibol.
Nialli Apuilana came forward to take his place.
She stood stock-still, staring at the blur of faces before her. At first everyone was indistinct; but then a few individual figures stood out. She looked toward Taniane, hidden behind the startling mask. Toward Hresh. Toward the stolid massive figure of Thu-Kimnibol, sitting front and center, odious little Husathirn Mueri beside him. A swirl of conflicting thoughts ran through her head.
That morning she had gone to Taniane to confess failure: she hadn’t been able to find out any more about the hjjk treaty than Hresh had already learned with the Barak Dayir. Not that she was holding anything back: communicating with Kundalimon had proven more difficult than she — or Taniane — had expected. And so she had been a poor spy. On the subject of the treaty, she had nothing useful to report. It was the truth. And Taniane seemed to accept it as the truth.
That should have been the end of it, her vital mission fizzling away in anticlimax. But instead of dismissing her, Taniane had waited, as though expecting something more. And then there was something more. Nialli Apuilana listened, astonished, as words broke loose inside her and leaped unexpectedly to her own tongue.
Let me speak to the Presidium anyway, mother. Let me tell them about the hjjks. About the Queen, about the Nest. Things I’ve never been able to say. Things I can’t keep to myself any longer.
Bewilderment. You want to speak to the Presidium?
The Presidium, yes. During the debate over the treaty.
She could see the turmoil in Taniane. It was craziness, what she was proposing. Send a girl like her up to the podium? Allow her to contaminate the high legislative body of the city with her capricious, erratic, impulsive flights of fantasy? But it was tempting. The moody Nialli Apuilana finally breaks her silence. Speaks at last, reveals the mysteries of the Nest. Pours forth the awful details. In Taniane’s eyes temptation gleams. To know, at last, a little of what’s in her daughter’s mind. Even if it has to be spilled forth in the Presidium itself. Let me, mother. Let me, let me, please let me. And the chieftain nods.