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Haniman hesitated. “Willingly,” he said.
Hresh reached out his hand. “We’ll need you, you know. You and Orbin and Staip — you’re our strong ones, now. And we have plenty of work ahead. We’re going to build a world, Haniman.”
“ Rebuild a world, you mean.”
“No. Build one from scratch. Everything’s starting over. There’s nothing left of the old one except ruins. But for millions of years humans have been building new worlds on the ruins of the old. That’s what we’ll have to do, if we want to think of ourselves as humans.”
“If we want to think of ourselves as humans ?”
“As humans, yes,” said Hresh.
The first red glow of dawnlight appeared suddenly over the crest of the mountain wall.
“Ready to march!” Taniane called. “Shape it up! Hold your places! Everyone ready?”
Haniman trotted back to his place. Taniane and Hresh stood at the front of the line, with the warriors behind them, and then the workers and the children, and to the rear were the heavily laden wagons that the huge docile vermilions would pull. Hresh glanced back at the great mist-shrouded towers of Vengiboneeza to the rear, and the vast shoulder of the mountain behind them. A few Bengs stood near the edge of the settlement, looking on in silence. Torlyri was with them. She wore a helmet, a small graceful one of red metal, gleaming mirror-bright. How strange that was, Torlyri in a helmet! Hresh saw her lift her hand in holy signs: the blessing of Mueri, the blessing of Friit, the blessing of Emakkis. The blessing of Yissou. He waited, and as she made the final blessing, that of Dawi
“Sing!” Taniane cried. “Everyone sing! Here we go. Sing!”
That had been weeks ago. Now glorious Vengiboneeza seemed but a fading memory, and Hresh no longer mourned having left its wondrous treasures behind. He had not adapted as well to the heavy double loss of Koshmar and Torlyri. Torlyri’s warmth and Koshmar’s vigor both had been cut away as if by some dire surgery, and a great open place in the tribe remained where they had been. Hresh still sensed Torlyri’s faint presence hovering over the tribe as it moved west and south from Vengiboneeza; but Koshmar was gone, gone, utterly gone, and that was very hard.
No one questioned Taniane’s leadership, or his. They marched at the head of the tribe. Taniane gave the orders, but she consulted frequently with Hresh, who chose the line of march each day. It was easy enough for him to find the route, for, even though some four full cycles of the seasons had gone by since Harruel’s little band had passed this way, the echoes of their souls still remained in the forest, and Hresh, with only the slightest aid of the Barak Dayir, heard them without difficulty and followed their signal. Now that they were emerging from the forest he had no need of the Wonderstone to guide him to Harruel. The king’s dark soul, down there in the meadow, was sending out a strident, inescapable music.
“Only a little while longer,” Hresh said. “I feel their presence all around me.”
“The hjjks?” Taniane asked. “Or Harruel and his people?”
“Both. The hjjks in infinite numbers, to our north. And Harruel’s city straight ahead, and below us, in that circular formation on the meadow. At the center, where it’s dark with vegetation.”
Taniane stared, as though without seeing. After a time she said, “Can this succeed, Hresh? Or will we all be swallowed up by those million insects?”
“The gods will protect us.”
“Ah, and will they?”
Hresh smiled. “I have asked each one individually. Even Nakhaba.”
“Nakhaba!”
“I would ask the god of the hjjks to be kind to us too, if I knew his name. The god of the vermilions. The god of the water-striders, Taniane. The gods of the Great World. The unknown and unknowable Creator-god. One can never have too many gods on one’s side.” He caught her by the fleshy part of the arm, and pulled her close to him, so that she could see the conviction that glowed in his eyes. In a low voice he said, “All the gods will defend us today, for what we do is their bidding. But especially will we be defended by Dawi
“You seem so certain of that, Hresh. I wish I could be as certain as you are.”
Certain? For one wild moment he felt swept with doubt, and he wondered if he believed any of what he was saying. The reality of what they had chosen to undertake seemed suddenly now to be coming home to him, and his will, which had carried them this far, seemed to be weakening. Perhaps it was the emanations of those numberless far-off hjjks that were battering his soul. Or perhaps it was simply the awareness of the unending work that must be done to create all that which he hoped to create.
He shook his head. They would prevail today, and in all the days that followed. He thought of his mother Minbain down in that meadow, and of Samnibolon his brother by Harruel, who was carrying the name of Hresh’s long-dead father into a new era. He would not let them die this day.
“Here we should make camp,” he told Taniane. “Then you and I go on alone, and set up the defensive measures.”
“And if some enemy finds us and we perish while we’re out there by ourselves, who will lead the tribe then?”
“The tribe had leaders before us. The tribe will find leaders after us. In any case, nothing will harm us while we do what must be done.” Hresh took her by the arms, as she had taken him that day of Koshmar’s death, and sent strength to her. Taniane’s shoulders straightened, her chest rose to her deepened breath. She smiled and nodded. Turning, she gave the signal to halt for the night.
It took an hour to get everything settled down. Then, leaving Boldirinthe and Staip in command, Hresh and Taniane slipped away a little to the west and from there moved to their right, edging around in a northward way toward the shovel-shaped plain that lay between the hjjk-folk and the settlement that Harruel had founded. The shadows were lengthening by the time Hresh came to the place that seemed best, where they could look down into that circular-walled place where Harruel had chosen to dwell. From this distance Hresh saw that that circular formation was a crater of some sort, very likely formed by the impact of something massive falling from a great height. In all probability, this was a place where a death-star had landed. Hresh pondered that, wondering if the substance of the death-star might even still be buried there. But he had no time to investigate that now.
They had brought with them a thing of the Great World, Hresh carrying one end and Taniane the other: that hollow tube of metal, hooded at one end, with a region of incomprehensible blackness held captive within that hood, and brilliant light sizzling and hissing at its entrance. Hresh held it by the hooded end, Taniane by the other. The metal was warm to the touch. Hresh wondered what magics were locked within this thing, and how he could ever explore them without being carried away to whatever place it was the tube sent those who approached it.
“Here, do you think?” Hresh asked.
“A little closer to the settlement,” said Taniane. “Then if this plan of yours succeeds and the hjjks are cast into confusion we can fall upon them from one side and Harruel and his warriors from the other.”
“Good,” Hresh said. “We’ll go a little closer. And the plan will succeed, Taniane. I know it will.”
They went on a short way. Now darkness was coming on. Taniane indicated a place a little higher than the rest, where there was a flat rock on which they could mount the tube, and other rocks around to prop it upright. Hresh guided it into position. The moment it was upright it came alive, crackling with light and mystery. He felt once again the insidious temptation of the thing, its artful pull. But he was ready for it and he shrugged it away. Stepping back, he tested the device by tossing a stone toward its hood. The circlet of lights flashed blue and red and wild purple, and the stone vanished in midair.