At Winter's End

But we will get used to it, Hresh thought. We will have to get used to it.

He knew how lucky he was. Lifetime after lifetime had gone by, thousands of generations of lifetimes, and all that while the People had huddled in their snug cocoon like mice in a hole, telling each other tales of the wondrous beautiful world from which the death-stars had driven their ancestors.

He turned to Orbin beside him. “I never thought I’d be seeing this, did you?”

Orbin shook his head — a tiny stiff movement, as though his neck had become a rigid stalk. “No. No, never.”

“I can’t believe we’re outside,” Taniane whispered. “Yissou, it’s cold! Are we going to freeze?”

“We’ll be all right,” Hresh said.

He stared into the gray distance. How he had yearned for even a single glimpse of the outside world! But he had resigned himself to his fate, knowing that he was surely destined to live and die in the cocoon, like everyone else who had existed since the begi

Haniman said, “I don’t like this. I wish we were still inside.”

“You would,” said Hresh scornfully.

“Only someone crazy like you would want to be out here.”

“Yes,” Hresh said. “That’s right. And now I’m getting my wish.”

From old Thaggoran he had learned the names of all the ancient lost cities: Valirian, Thisthissima, Vengiboneeza, Tham, Mikkimord, Ba

Hresh had always thought of himself as gifted with unusual luck. He never spoke of it to anyone, but he believed he was under the special protection of the gods, all of them, not just Yissou, who protected everyone, or Mueri, who consoled the sorrowful, but also Emakkis, Friit, Dawi

Still, it surely had seemed to Hresh as if he had run out of luck that day of his attempt to go outside. If they had pushed him out the hatch into the world he so much yearned to see — and they would have, Torlyri or no, he was certain of that, the law was the law and Koshmar was a hard one — what would have become of him? Once outside, Hresh suspected, he wouldn’t have survived half a day on his own. Maybe three quarters of a day if his luck held out. But nobody’s luck was good enough to let him live long by himself in the outside world. Only Torlyri’s quickness had spared him — that and the mercy of Koshmar.

His playmates had mocked him when they learned of what he had done. Orbin, Taniane, Haniman — they couldn’t understand why he would have wanted to go outside, nor why Koshmar had not punished him for it. They had thought he was trying to kill himself. “Can’t you wait for your death-day?” Haniman asked. “It’s only another twenty-seven years.” And he laughed, and Taniane laughed with him, and even Orbin, who had always been such a good friend, made a jeering face and punched him in the arm. Hresh-full-of-questions, Hresh-who-wants-to-freeze, they called him.

No matter. They forgot about his little exploit in a few days. And everything was altered now. The tribe was truly going forth. For the second time in just a few weeks Hresh was seeing the sky, and not just a glimpse this time. He would see the mountains and the oceans. He would see Vengiboneeza and Mikkimord. All the world would be his.

Now comes the warm time.

Now is our hour.

“Is that the sky?” Orbin asked.

“That’s the sky, yes,” said Hresh, proud of having been out here before, if only for a few minutes. Orbin, stocky and very strong, with bright eyes and a quick, shining smile, was Hresh’s age exactly, and his closest friend in the cocoon. But Orbin would never have dared to try to slip outside with him. “And that’s the river down there. That green stuff is grass. The red stuff is grass of another kind.”

“The air tastes fu

“That’s because it’s cold,” Hresh told her. “You won’t mind it after a while.”

“Why is it cold, if winter is over?” she asked.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Hresh said. But he found himself troubled about that too, all the same.

Up ahead, by the offering-stone, Torlyri was busy performing some sort of rite: the last one, Hresh hoped, before the march got really under way. It seemed to him that they had been doing almost nothing but rites and ceremonies these past weeks since that day when the Dream-Dreamer awakened and Koshmar a

“Are we going to cross the river?” Taniane asked.

“I don’t think so,” Hresh said. “The sun’s in that direction, and if we go toward it we can get burned. I think we’re going to go the other way.”

He was simply guessing, but he turned out to be right, at least about the direction of the march. Koshmar — wearing now the Mask of Lirridon that had hung so long on the dwelling-chamber wall, yellow and black with a great beak that made her look like some sort of huge insect — raised her spear and called out the Five Names. Then she stepped forward on a narrow track that led up from the ledge to the top of the hill, and from there over the far side and down the western slope toward a broad bare valley beyond. One by one the others fell into line behind her, moving slowly under the burdens of their heavy packs.

They were outside. They were on their way.

They marched down the long slope and into the valley in steady formation, following the same sequence in which they had emerged from the cocoon: Koshmar and Torlyri up front, then Thaggoran, then the warriors, then the workers, then the breeders, and Hresh bringing up the rear with the other children. The valley was much farther away than it seemed, and sometimes appeared to be retreating before them as they marched. Koshmar set a cautious pace. Even the strongest of the marchers, the ones who were up front, seemed to grow weary quickly; and for some of the others, the breeding-women especially, and poor fat Haniman, and the smaller children, it was a struggle almost from the begi