“Here is Nest-truth,” Kundalimon says to her, and she to him. “Here is Queen-light.”

They drift onward, unhindered, here, there, everywhere.

Without a sound the myriad dwellers of the Nest go about their tasks. Each one knows its place, each its responsibility. That is Nest-bond: harmony, unity, pattern. Nothing like it exists in the chaotic random world outside; but nothing is chaotic or random here. A profound silence prevails in these corridors, and yet there is purposeful activity everywhere.

Here, bands of Militaries come trooping in from their latest forays, and Workers go to them to collect and clean their weapons, and to carry off for cleaning and storage the food-stuffs they have brought back. Here, in this place where the light is a dark purple, a smoldering smoky color, troops of Egg-layers rest in their stalls. Long lines of Life-kindlers move steadily past them, each pausing by this one or by that to perform the act of fertilization. Here, Nourishment-givers hover over eggs as they hatch, and bend to offer food to the newborn.

And here the Nest-thinkers hold forth, enclosed in gloomy narrow stalls, instructing the young who stand motionless before them in taut concentration. Here too are the Queen-attendants in their warm catacomb, preparing Her morning meal. Here are the Queen-guardians in close formation, arms linked tightly together, barring the way to the lower galleries where the royal chamber is. Here are processions of the young, males here, females there, awaiting their summons to the chamber, there to receive the gift of Queen-touch and be awakened to adulthood and fertility — or else to be set apart by a different designation, marked as a Warrior or a Worker or, perhaps, to become one of the chosen few, a Nest-thinker.

The royal chamber itself is the only area of the Nest that she and Kundalimon do not enter in this vision. They may not, not yet, for she was never granted First Audience in her earlier stay in the Nest, and Kundalimon cannot bring her before the Queen now, not even this way, in a vision, in a dream. That would have to wait until its proper time. When at last she would behold the Queen, vast and inscrutable, at rest in Her secret place at the heart of the Nest.

But everything else lies before them. Nialli Apuilana moves through it in wonder, in a rapture of Nest-love.

Nest-thinker says, “Here they are. The flesh-child, and the flesh-child’s bride. Come, sit here with us, enter into Nest-truth with us.”

So they aren’t invisible to the Nest-dwellers after all. Of course not. How could they be?

She puts forth her hand, and a hard bristly claw takes it and holds it. Shining many-faceted blue-black eyes glow close by hers. Sweeping waves of force throb through her soul, the Nest-thinker’s potent emanation.

Nest-thinker enters her spirit now and shows her the high Nest-truth, the one supreme unifying concept of the universe, the power that binds all things, which is Queen-peace. He shows her the great Pattern: the grandeur of Queen-love which embodies Egg-plan in order to bring Nest-plenty to all things. He fills her mind with it, as another Nest-thinker in another Nest had done once before, years ago.

And, as had happened before, the simplicity and force of what he tells her enters Nialli Apuilana’s soul and takes possession of it, and she bows down to the unanswerable reality of it. She kneels then, sobbing in ecstasy, as the grand music of it roars through the channels and byways of her spirit. And gives herself up to it, in the fullest of surrenders.

She is in her true home again.

She will never leave it, now.

“Nialli?”

The sound of a voice, unexpected, numbingly intrusive. It fell upon her like a cascade of boulders roaring down an immeasurable slope.

“Nialli, are you all right?”

“No — yes — yes—”

“It’s me, Kundalimon. Open your eyes. Open your eyes, Nialli!”

“They — are — open—”

“Please. Come back from the Nest. It’s over, Nialli. Look: look, there’s my window, there’s the door, there’s the courtyard down there.”

She struggled. Why should she want to leave the place that was her home?

“Nest-thinker — Queen-presence—”

“Yes. I know.”

He held her, stroked her, pulled her close against him. The warmth of him steadied her. She blinked a few times and her sight began to clear. She could make out the walls of his room, the little slit of a window, the clear, dazzling autumn light. She heard the sound of the dry rushing wind. Reluctantly she yielded to unanswerable reality. The Nest was gone. No Nest-light here, no Nest-scent. She could no longer feel the presence of the Queen. And yet, yet, the words of Nest-thinker still resonated through her spirit, and the powerful comfort she had taken from them still calmed and eased her soul.

She looked at him in sudden astonishment.

Kundalimon, she thought. I’ve twined with Kundalimon!

“Were you there with me?” Nialli Apuilana asked. “Did you feel it too?”

“All of it, yes.”

“And we’ll see it again, won’t we? As often as we like.”

“In visions, yes. And one day we’ll see it as it really is. We will go to the Nest together, when the time comes. But for now, we have the visions.”

“Yes,” she said. She was trembling a little. “I knew we’d have to twine, if we wanted to see it together. And so we did. We did it very well.”

“We are twining-partners now,” he said.

“How do you know that term?”

“I learned it from you. Just now, while we lay twined together. I was in your soul while you were in mine.” He smiled. “Twining-partners. Twining-partners. You and I.”

“Yes.” She looked at him tenderly. “Yes, we are.”

“It is like coupling, but much deeper. Much closer.”

Nialli Apuilana nodded. “Anyone can couple. But it’s possible to achieve real twining only with a few. We’re very lucky people.”

“When we are in the Nest together, there will be much twining for us?”

“Yes. Oh, yes!”

“I will be ready to return to the Nest very soon now,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And you’ll go with me when I leave here? We’ll go together, you and I?”

She nodded eagerly. “Yes. I promise you that.”

She looked toward the window. Out there all the city went about its varied occupations, her mother, her father, fat Boldirinthe, sly slippery Husathirn Mueri, filthy Curabayn Bangkea and his filthy brother, thousands of citizens moving along the hectic circles of their individual paths. And they were all blind to the truth. If they only knew, she thought. All of them, out there! But they had no idea what had happened in here. What sort of partnership had been forged in here, this day. What promises we have made. And will keep.

The first days of Thu-Kimnibol’s visit had been the time for the entertainments, the dancers and the feastings and the lovemaking and the displays of kick-wrestling and fire-catching, and then the final exchange of gifts. Now it was time for business. Whatever thing it was that had brought him back to Yissou.

Salaman took his place on his great throne in the Hall of State. It was carved from a single immense teardrop-shaped block of glossy black obsidian streaked with flame-colored swirls, which he had unearthed long ago while digging in the heart of the original city. The Throne of Harruel, everyone called it: one of the few tributes the city paid to its first king. Salaman didn’t mind that. A sop to the beloved founder’s memory: why not? But Harruel had never so much as seen his supposed throne, let alone sat upon it.

People nowadays thought of Harruel, when they thought of him at all, as a great warrior, a wise far-seeing leader. A great warrior, certainly. But a leader? Wise? Salaman had his doubts about that. By now, though, scarcely anyone was still alive who remembered the true Harruel, that brooding drunkard, that beater and forcer of women, forever consumed by his own racking anguish of the spirit.