Lanefenuu looked for some sign of weakness or doubt in Vaintè’s words or stance — but there were none.
“Can this be done, Vaintè?” Lanefenuu asked.
“It can be done.”
“When the cold winds come to Ikhalmenets, can Ikhalmenets go to Gendasi?”
“The warm world there awaits them. You will take Ikhalmenets there, Lanefenuu, for I see that you have the strength. I ask only to aid you. When we are there I ask only to be permitted to kill the ustuzou that are killing us. Let me serve you.”
Vaintè and Ukhereb turned away as politeness dictated when Lanefenuu dropped into the immobility of deep thought. But each kept one eye to the rear awaiting any movements she might make. It took a very long time for there was much for Lanefenuu to consider. The clouds opened and the sun moved across the sky, yet all three remained as immobile as though carved of stone, as only Yilanè can.
When Lanefenuu finally stirred they faced her and waited attentively.
“There is a decision here that must be made. But it is too important a decision to be made at once. Ukhereb must first tell me more of what the scientists in the north tell her. Vaintè must tell me of this other matter that cannot be spoken of in public. Does it relate to warm Gendasi?”
“Indirectly it could have the greatest bearing upon it.”
“Attend me then and we will talk.”
Lanefenuu walked slowly, the gravity of the decisions that must be made weighing her down. Her sleeping chamber was small and dark and had been designed to be more like the interior of an uruketo. than a room in a city. The light came from phosphorescent patches and there was a round, transparent port in one wall that looked out onto a cunningly lit design of a seascape. Lanefenuu seized up a water-fruit and half drained it, then settled back onto her resting board. There were two other boards for visitors, one against the rear wall, one near the entrance. Lanefenuu signed Vaintè to use the one at the entrance.
“Speak,” Lanefenuu ordered.
“I shall. I shall speak of the Daughters of Death. Do you know of them?”
Lanefenuu’s great sigh was not one of despair but of unhappy awareness. “I know of them. And from what Erafnais told me, I was sure they were her other passengers. And they are now free to spread the poison of their thoughts in warm Yebèisk. What are your feelings about these creatures?”
This simple question opened the well of hatred that Vaintè kept sealed within her, let loose the flood. She could not stop it or control it. Her body and her limbs writhed with all the shapes of disgust and loathing, while only inarticulate sounds emerged from her throat as her teeth ground together with enfoamed rage. It took long moments to get her body back under control and only when it was still and motionless again did she dare to speak.
“I find it hard to express my hatred of these creatures in any rational manner. I feel shame at my display of uncontrolled rage. But they are the reason I am here. I have come to tell you of their perversions, to warn you of their danger if you did not know already, to ask you if they and their mind-venom have reached sea-girt Ikhalmenets yet.”
“They have — and then they haven’t.” Although Lanefenuu sat solid and firm, there was more than a suggestion of dissolution and death in the way she spoke. “I learned of these creatures long ago. I determined then that their sickness would not spread here. Ikhalmenets is called sea-girt with a reason, for our young are born here and stay here and no fargi come from other cities. Our uruketo are our only contact with the world. And what they bring here I know of at once. Some of these Daughters of Death have come and have been returned without touching a foot on land. This can be done with those of no rank.”
“Yet a Yilanè goes where a Yilanè goes,” Vaintè said, wondering, for free passage was like the air one breathed, the water one swam in, and she could consider no other possibility.
“That is true,” Lanefenuu said, speaking with immense difficulty for some strong emotion had locked her muscles. “When I first saw you, Vaintè, I sensed one who felt as I did, who trod the same path. What you have told me has only deepened that feeling. I see a future shared, so I now tell you what no others know. Yes, Yilanè have come to sea-girt Ikhalmenets, and among them were those who spoke well of the Daughters of Death. All those whom I suspected might be capable of subversion I have had brought to me here in this chamber and they have talked to me and I have listened.”
Lanefenuu paused for a long time, her eyes peering inward, backward in time, seeing events long past that only she knew of.
“Those who were determined to speak their subversion, despite my requests for them to leave Ikhalmenets, these and only these, I have dealt with here. After we talked I instructed them to be seated, just as I instructed you. But on that other board. If you examine it in the light you will see a shining area in the middle. A living creature that contains one of the glands from the hèsotsan. Do you understand what I am saying? They never left this chamber, Vaintè. Do you know what that means? They are all in there,” she gestured toward a small door in the wall. “They nurture the roots of this city with their bodies, not their ideas, and that is as it should be.”
When the import of what Lanefenuu had said penetrated Vaintè’s numbed senses she dropped forward in the position of lowest to highest, then spoke with this same relationship.
“Let me serve you, Lanefenuu, for all my days. For you have the strength that has been denied me, the strength to act as you know best, irrespective of what others may think, the strength to pit yourself against the custom of ages in the defense of your city. I will be your fargi and obey your commands and will serve you always.”
Lanefenuu reached down and touched her thumbs lightly to Vaintè’s crest, in the gesture that means shared happiness. When she spoke there were overtones of burdens cast down in what she said.
“Serve me, strong Vaintè, as I will serve you. We have the same journey to make — it is just that we have taken different paths. But I see that our paths have now been joined. We will journey on together now. Neither ustuzou nor Daughters of Death will prevail before us. All will be swept away. Tomorrow’s tomorrow will be as yesterday’s yesterday — with no memory of these unspeakable creatures in between.”
CHAPTER TEN
Uveigil as nep, as rath at stakkiz — markiz fallar ey to marni.
No matter how long and hot the summer — winter always awaits at its end.
Winter had come again to Deifoben. The rains were heavy this year and a north wind that whistled through the branches of the trees sent dead leaves tumbling before it. This morning Kerrick had been woken in the darkness by the drumming of the rain on the translucent coverings above. He had not fallen asleep again. At the first grayness of dawn he had taken his hèsotsan and fed it, pushing into its tiny mouth the fragments of meat that he had saved from his evening meal the night before. The weapon was at his side most of the time now. He had issued firm orders that anyone going out of the confines of the city must be armed. There were no exceptions — himself included. When it had fed he went out, walking as he did almost every day now, along the paths that led between the fields to the north of the city, to the last grove where the nenitesk tore at the leaves, loudly crunching great mouthfuls. The clinging vines that the Yilanè had planted to block the path still stretched from side to side and he stepped over them carefully. But the poison thorn bushes had been cleared away since they were there to trap humans, not animals. He kept his weapon ready, wary of the many predators that prowled the city’s fringes. Looking and listening carefully. But he was alone, the path to the north was open.