Queen of Springtime Read online

  Thu-Kimnibol’s voice echoed resonantly through the hall. He leaned across the podium and looked around with a swaggering, defiant glare.

  “This treaty,” he continued after a moment, “is nothing but a trap. This treaty is a measure of the contempt with which the hjjks regard us. And Puit Kjai urges us to sign it! Puit Kjai pines for peace! Break the treaty some other time when it is more convenient for us, the honorable Puit Kjai tells us! But for now, let us crawl on our bellies before the hjjks, because they are many and we are few, and peace is more important than anything else. Is this not so, Puit Kjai? Am I not stating your point of view fairly?”

  Around the room there were murmurs again: of surprise, this time, for this was a new Thu-Kimnibol they were hearing. He had never spoken in the Presidium with such eloquence before, such flash and fury. Of course Thu-Kimnibol was a great warrior, almost godlike in his size and energy, a fiery giant, warlike, flamboyantly belligerent. His name itself proclaimed it: for although, as he had just said, he had been born Samnibolon, on his naming-day at the age of nine when the time came under Koshmar custom to choose his adult name, he had renamed himself Thu-Kimnibol, which meant, “Sword of the Gods.” Other men flocked around him, eager for his advice and approval. But some—like Husathirn Mueri, who saw Thu-Kimnibol as his great rival for power in the city—tended to credit his powers of leadership to his immense physical strength alone, thinking there was no wit or subtlety to his soul. Now they found themselves unexpectedly forced to revise that appraisal.

  “Let me tell you what I believe, now,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “I believe the world is rightfully ours—the entire world—by virtue of our descent from the humans who once ruled it. I believe it is our destiny to go forth, ever farther afield, until we have mastered every horizon. And I think that the hjjks, those ghastly and hideous survivors from a former world, must be eradicated like the vermin that they are.”

  “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.

  And, unreal as it may seem, here she is. At the high table, all eyes upon her. The real story at last. The great revelation, after nearly four years. Did she dare? How would they respond? For a moment she was unable to find her voice. They were waiting. She felt their impatience, their hostility. To most of them she was nothing but a freak. Would they laugh? Would they jeer? She was the chieftain’s daughter. That would restrain them, she hoped. But it was so very hard to begin. Turn and run? No. No. Speak to them. Get the show started, Nialli.

  And at last she did, speaking quietly, so quietly that she wondered if she could be heard even in the front row.

  “I thank you all for this privilege. I stand before you now because there are things you must know, which I alone can tell you, before you decide how to respond to the message of the Queen.”

  Her heart was racing. Her tongue was thick with fright. She forced herself to be calm.

  “Unlike any of you,” she went on, “I have actually lived among the hjjks. As you are aware. You haven’t forgotten that I was a captive. Certainly I can never forget it. I know them at first hand—these vermin of which you speak, these hideous bugs, whom you think are fit only for extermination. And I tell you this: that they are nothing at all like the mindless hateful monsters you make them out to be.”

  “They came to kill us when we founded Yissou,” Thu-Kimnibol burst in. “There were only eleven of us, and a few children. A scruffy little village, hundreds of leagues from their territory. Not exactly a serious threat. But they came by the thousands to destroy us. And would have wiped us out if we hadn’t—”

  Calmly Nialli Apuilana overrode his full resonant voice. “No. They hadn’t come to kill you.”

  “It certainly looked that way to us, an army like that, screeching, waving their spears around. Well, anyone can make a mistake, I suppose. It was just a little social visit.”

  The great room echoed with laughter.

  Nialli Apuilana gripped the edge of the podium. In a crackling voice she said, “Yes, kinsman, it was a mistake. But how could you have known what they were doing there? Do you have the slightest understanding of why they do the things they do? Do you have the least bit of insight into their minds?”

  “Their minds?” said Puit Kjai, with heavy scorn.

  “Their minds, yes. Their thoughts. Their wisdom. No, let me finish! Let me finish!” All fear was gone from her. Nialli Apuilana was defiant now. There was passion burning in her. “You know me, I think. You think of me as a rebel, a godless one, a wild child. Maybe you’re right. Certainly I’ve been unconventional. I won’t deny that I have no feeling for the Five Heavenly Ones, or for Nakhaba, or for the Five and the One, or any other combination of those gods you might want to name. To me they are nothing at all, they are only—”

  “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!”

  She scowled, smacked the podium, shot fierce glances here and there. This was her moment: she wouldn’t let them deprive her of it. This must be what Taniane feels like when she’s being grand and chieftainly, Nialli Apuilana thought.

  Grandly and buoyantly she said, “Spare me these outcries, if you please. I am speaking now. The Five Names are just that to me: names. Our own inventions, to comfort us in our difficult times. Forgive me, father, mother, all of you. This is what I believe. Once I believed other things, the same as you. But when I went among the hjjks—when they took me—I shared their lives, I shared their thoughts. And I came to understand, as I could never have understood when I lived here, the true meaning of the Divine.”

  “Do we need to listen to your daughter’s nonsense much longer, Taniane?” someone called from the rear. “Are you going to let her mock the gods right to our faces?”

  But the masked chieftain made no reply.

  Inexorably Nialli Apuilana said, “This Queen, whom Thu-Kimnibol wants to chop in pieces—you know nothing of her greatness and wisdom, none of you. You have no inkling of it. The Nest-thinkers—have you ever even heard the term?” She was hitting her stride, and loving it. “What can you tell me of the philosophies of the Nest? What can you say of Queen-love, of Nest-bond? You know nothing! Nothing! And I tell you that these vermin of yours, these bugs, are far from deserving of your contempt. They are not vermin at all, not monsters, not hateful, not repellent, none of those things. What they are, in fact, is a great civilization of human beings!”

  “What? What? The hjjks human? She’s lost her mind!”

  Into the incredulous outcry that came from all sides Nialli Apuilana retorted, shouting now, almost bellowing, “Yes, human! Human!”

  “What is she saying?” old Staip asked muddledly. “The hjjks are insects, not humans! The Dream-Dreamers were the humans. The hairless pink ones, with no sensing-organs.”

  “The Dream-Dreamers were one kind of human, yes! But not the only kind. Listen to me! Listen!” She gripped the podium and sent her words surging out to them with the force of second sight. The full spate now, the whole pent-up surge coming out all at once. “The truth is,” she declared in a high, ringing tone, “that all the Six Peoples of the Great World must be considered humans, whatever shape their bodies might have had. The Dream-Dreamers, and the sapphire-eyes, and the vegetals, and the mechanicals, and the sea-lords. And the hjjks! Yes, the hjjks! They were all human: six civilized peoples, able to live together in peace, and learn, and grow, and build. That is what it means to be human. My father taught me that when I was a child, and he should have taught you that too. And I learned it again in the Nest.”

  “What about us?” someone called. “You say the hjjks are human. Do you think we are? Is everything that lives and thinks human?”

  “We weren’t human in the time of the Great World, no. We were only animals then. But now we’re beginning finally to become human ourselves, now that we’ve left the cocoon. The hjjks, though—they crossed the threshold of humanity a million years ago. Or more. How can we think of making war on them? They aren’t our enemies! The only enemies we have are ourselves!”

  “The girl’s insane,” she heard Thu-Kimnibol murmur, and saw him sadly shake his head.

  “If you don’t like the treaty,” Nialli Apuilana cried, “then reject the treaty! Reject it! But reject war, too. The Queen is sincere. She offers us love and peace. Her embrace is our greatest hope. She will wait for us all to grow up—to attain full humanity, to become worthy of her people—and then we will be free to join with them in a new companionship, the wa
y the Six Peoples of the Great World once were joined, before the death-stars fell! And then—and then—”

  She was gasping and sobbing, suddenly. All strength left her in a moment. She had expended herself beyond her endurance. Her eyes were frantic, her body was racked by tremors.

  “Get her down from there,” said someone—Staip? Boldirinthe?—sitting behind Husathirn Mueri.

  Everyone was shouting and calling out. Nialli Apuilana clung to the podium, shivering, trembling violently. She thought she might be at the edge of some sort of convulsion. She knew she had gone too far, much too far. She had said the unsayable, the thing she had held back from them all these years. They all thought she was mad, now. Perhaps she was.

  The room swayed about her. Below her, Thu-Kimnibol’s bright red mourning mantle seemed to be pulsing and throbbing like a sun gone berserk. At the high table Hresh appeared frozen, dazed. She looked toward Taniane, but the chieftain was unreadable behind her mask, standing motionless in the midst of the chaos that swept the room.

  Nialli Apuilana felt herself beginning to topple.

  A terrible scene, Husathirn Mueri thought. Shocking, frightening, pitiful.

  He had listened to her with growing amazement and dismay. Her appearance here, young, mysterious, heartachingly beautiful, had had a tremendous impact on him. He had never imagined that Nialli Apuilana would address the Presidium. Certainly he hadn’t expected her to say any of the things she had, or to say them so boldly. To hear her speak in such a fierce and powerful way had made her all the more desirable to him: had made her irresistible, in fact.

  But then what she was saying had degenerated into chaotic babble, and Nialli Apuilana herself had veered toward hysteria and collapse before them all.

  Now she was plainly about to fall.

  Without hesitating, almost without thinking, Husathirn Mueri rushed forward, vaulted to the platform, and caught her by both elbows, lifting her, steadying her.