“These are lies,” Thu-Kimnibol muttered hoarsely. “By the Five, I was there! There was no magic in our victory. We fought like heroes. I killed more hjjks that day than he’s ever seen, and I was only a child. Samnibolon was my name then, my child-name. Who will deny that Samnibolon son of Harruel was at that battle?”

Puit Kjai brushed the outburst aside with a grand sweep of his arm. “The hjjks number in the millions. We are only thousands, even now. And I have experienced more of hjjk aggression than most of you. I am Beng, you know. I was among those who lived in Vengiboneeza after the Koshmar folk left it. I ask you to recall that we had the city to ourselves ten years, and then the hjjks came in, first fifty, then a hundred and fifty, and then many hundreds. And then we couldn’t count them at all, there were so many. There were hjjks everywhere we turned. They never raised a hand against us, but they pushed us out all the same, by sheer force of numbers. So it is when the hjjks are peaceful. And when they aren’t … Well, you who fought at Yissou saw the hjjks in more warlike mode. You drove them off, yes. But the next time they choose to make war against us, we may not have Hresh’s Great World weapons to serve us.”

“What are you saying?” Taniane asked. “That we should beg them to let us keep our own lands?”

“I say that we should sign this treaty, and bide our time,” said Puit Kjai. “By signing it we win ourselves a guarantee against hjjk interference in the territories we presently have, until we are stronger, strong enough to defend ourselves against any hjjk army, no matter how large. We can always think about expanding our territory at that time. We can give some thought then to these other continents and the wonders they may hold, which at present we have no means of reaching in any case. Treaties can always be broken, you know. We aren’t signing anything away forever. This treaty buys time for us — it keeps the hjjks away from our frontier—”

“Pah!” Thu-Kimnibol bellowed. “Let me have the floor, will you? Let me say a thing or two!”

“Are you done, Puit Kjai?” Taniane asked. “Will you yield?”

Puit Kjai shrugged and gave Thu-Kimnibol a contemptuous look.

“I may as well. I relinquish my place to the God of War.”

“Let me get by,” said Thu-Kimnibol, pushing brusquely toward the aisle and nearly stumbling over Husathirn Mueri’s legs as he went past. He advanced in quick angry strides to the front of the room and stood hunched over the podium, grasping it with both his hands. So huge was he that he made it seem to be no more than a child’s toy table.

His mourning mantle encompassed his great shoulders like a corona of fire. This was his first appearance in public since Naarinta’s death. He seemed vastly changed, more aloof, more somber, much less the easy lighthearted warrior. Many that day had remarked on it. He visibly bore the weight of his position as one of the princes of the city. His eyes seemed darker and more deeply set now, and he studied the assembly with a slow, searching gaze.

When he began to speak it was in a ponderously sardonic manner.

“Puit Kjai says he is no coward. Puit Kjai says that what he advocates is mere prudence. But who can believe that? We all know what Puit Kjai is really saying: that he shivers with dread at the very thought of the hjjks. That he imagines them lurking outside our walls in enormous swarms, poised to burst into the city and tear him — him,the unique and irreplaceable Puit Kjai, never mind the rest of us — to tiny shreds. He awakens in cold sweats, seeing hjjk warriors hovering above his bed eager to rip chunks of his flesh loose from his body and devour them. That’s all that matters to Puit Kjai. To sign a paper, any paper, that will keep the terrible hjjks at a safe distance while he is still alive. Is that not so? I ask you? Is that not so?”

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.”