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He was struck by a deep awareness of the hugeness of the world, of the greatness and heaviness of the immense globe across whose face he was moving.
It seemed to him that every hand’s-breadth of it that he covered was entering into him, becoming part of him: that he was engulfing it, devouring it, incorporating it within himself for all time to come. And it made him all the more eager to go onward, on and on and on across the face of it. He knew himself to be different in this way from those of the People who were old enough to have been born in the tribal cocoon, who still harbored some urge, he suspected, to crawl back into a small, warm, safe place and close the hatch behind them. Not him. Not him. More deeply, perhaps than ever before, he understood his brother Hresh’s hunger to know, to discover, to experience.
Thu-Kimnibol had been through here once before: when he was eighteen, going southward then, in his flight from Yissou to the City of Dawi
They were past the halfway point now, in territory subject to Salaman. Mostly his mood was dark these days. The turning point had come at that Great World ruin, summoning memories of Naarinta as it did, and bleak thoughts of the remote past. Now the bygone days of his own life had begun to press heavily on him: lost opportunities, false paths taken, the beloved mate snatched away.
He did what he could to conceal his state of mind. But as the caravan was descending from the hills into a fertile plain cut by a host of swift streams and rivers Simthala Honginda said abruptly, “Is it the thought of seeing Salaman again that troubles you so much, prince?”
Thu-Kimnibol looked up, startled. Was he that transparent?
“Why do you say that?”
“You and he were bitter enemies once. Everyone knows that.”
“We were never friends, I suppose. And for a time things were bad between us. But that was long ago.”
“You still hate him, I think.”
“I’ve scarcely given him a thought in fifteen years. Salaman’s ancient history to me.”
“Yes. Yes, of course he must be.” Then, delicately: “But the closer we get to Yissou, the deeper you drift into gloom.”
“Gloom?” Thu-Kimnibol forced a laugh. “You think I’ve turned gloomy, Simthala Honginda?”
“A blind man could see it.”
“Well, if I am, it has nothing to do with Salaman. I’ve suffered a great loss lately. Or have you forgotten?”
Simthala Honginda seemed abashed. “Yes, yes, of course. Forgive me, prince. The lady Naarinta, may the gods give her rest!” He made the sign of Mueri the consoler.
Thu-Kimnibol said, after a time, “It’ll be strange, I suppose, seeing Salaman again after so long. But there’ll be no problems. However angry we may have been at each other once, what does it matter now? What matters is the hjjks. And we think alike on that subject, Salaman and I. From the begi
He turned again to the window, and let the conversation lapse into silence. After a time he reached out and signaled to Esperasagiot to halt the caravan. The xlendis would want watering here; and it was a good place to stop for the evening meal, besides.
The land before them was green and rich. A maze of streams, reflecting the late afternoon light, gleamed like cha
How like Salaman it was, he thought in contempt, to let this rich land lie fallow. To turn inward this way, pulling back from expansion and holing up behind his preposterous wall.
Simthala Honginda’s right, he told himself. You do still hate him, don’t you?
No. No, hate was too strong a term. But despite all he had said to Simthala Honginda he suspected that the old resentments still were simmering somewhere within him.
The conventional notion in Dawi
Which Salaman had given him, for a time. Until the king in his middle years began to change, until he started to grow fretful and unquiet of soul, a new dark Salaman, harsh and suspicious.
It was then, only then, that Salaman had decided Thu-Kimnibol was scheming against him. Thu-Kimnibol had offered him no cause for thinking that. Perhaps some enemy of his had whispered fabrications in the king’s ear. Whatever the reason, things quickly had begun going sour. Thu-Kimnibol hadn’t minded Salaman’s favoring his son Chham at his expense: that was only to be expected. But then the second son was placed above him at the royal table, and the third; and when Thu-Kimnibol asked to have one of the king’s daughters as his mate he was refused; and after that came other slights. He was a king’s son. He deserved better of Salaman. The last straw had been a minor point of precedence, so minor that Thu-Kimnibol could no longer remember what it was. They fell to shouting over it; Thu-Kimnibol threatened the king with his fist; he came close to striking him. He knew he was finished, then, in the City of Yissou. That night he left, and he had never been back.
To Simthala Honginda he said, “Look there, Dumanka’s been hunting up something for our di
The quartermaster had left his wagon. Down below, on the bank of a stream just south of the route, he had speared some animal and was casting for a second one.
Thu-Kimnibol was glad of the distraction. His conversation with Simthala Honginda had been an oppressive one, stirring up difficult old days, and impaling him in contradictions. He saw now that although he could put aside his quarrel with Salaman, forgiving and forgetting were harder, however he pretended otherwise.
Cupping his hand to his mouth, he called out, “What are you after there, Dumanka?”
“Caviandis, prince!” The quartermaster, a brawny, irreverent man of Koshmar ancestry who wore a battered and dented Beng-style helmet slung casually across his shoulders, had killed a second one, now. Proudly he held the pair of purple-and-yellow bodies up, one in each hand. They dangled limply, plump little arms lolling, trickles of crimson blood dripping through their sleek fur. “Fresh meat, for a change!”
At Thu-Kimnibol’s side Pelithhrouk, a young highborn officer who was a protйgй of Simthala Honginda, said, “Is it right for us to kill them, do you think, prince?”
“Why not? They’re only animals. Meat, that’s all they are.”