He feels baffled and impotent. These events have all but paralyzed him. Thought has become an immense effort. His soul seems to be encased in ice. The murders — when had there last been a violent death in Dawinno? And Nialli Apuilana’s disappearance — he must try to think — to think—

Someone had said yesterday that a girl riding a xlendi had been seen that rainy afternoon, out by the perimeter of the city. Seen only at a distance, just at a distance. There were plenty of girls in the city, plenty of xlendis. But suppose it had been Nialli. How far could she get, alone, unarmed, not knowing the route? Was she lost and close to death somewhere out there in the empty plains? Or had bands of hjjks been waiting to receive her and lead her onward to the Nest of Nests?

You can’t possibly know what it’s like, father. They live in an atmosphere of dreams, of magic, of wonder. You breathe the air of the Nest, and it fills your soul, and you can never be the same again, not after you’ve felt Nest-bond, not after you’ve understood Nest-love.

She had promised to explain all that to him before she left. But there hadn’t been time, and now she is gone. And he still understands nothing, nothing at all. Nest-bond? Nest-love? Dreams? Magic? Wonder?

He glances toward the huge heavy casket of the chronicles. He has spent his lifetime ransacking the hodgepodge of ancient half-cryptic documents in that casket. His predecessors had copied and recopied those tattered books, and copied them again, during the hundreds of thousands of years in the cocoon. Ever since he was a child staring over Thaggoran’s shoulder, he has looked to the chronicles as an inexhaustible well of knowledge.

He opens the seals and the locks and begins to draw the volumes forth and lay them out one by one on the worktables of polished white stone that encircle the room.

Here is the Book of the Long Winter, with its tales of the coming of the death-stars. Here is the Book of the Cocoon, which tells how Lord Fanigole and Balilirion and Lady Theel led the People to safety in the time of cold and darkness. Here is the Book of the Way, containing prophecies of the New Springtime and the glorious role the People would play when they came forth again into the world. And this is the Book of the Coming Forth, which Hresh himself had written, except for the first few pages which Thaggoran who was chronicler before him had done: it tells of the winter’s end, and the return of the warmth, and the venturing of the tribe into the open plains at last.

This one is the Book of the Beasts, which describes all the animals that once had been. The Book of Hours and Days, telling of the workings of the world and the larger cosmos. This one here, with its binding hanging all in faded scraps, is the Book of the Cities, in which the names of all the capitals of the Great World are inscribed.

And these three: how sad they are! The Book of the Unhappy Dawn, the Book of the Wrongful Glow, the Book of the Cold Awakening, three pitiful tales of times when some chieftain, believing in error that the Long Winter was over, had led the People from the cocoon, only to be driven swiftly back by the icy blasts of unforgiving winds.

Concerning the hjjks, all he finds are old familiar phrases. In the dry northlands, where the hjjks dwell in their great Nest, or, And in that year the hjjks did march across the land. in very great number, devouring all that lay in their path, or, That was the season when the great Queen of the hjjk-folk despatched a horde of her people to the City of Thisthissima, and another vast horde to Tham. Mere chronicle-phrases, no real information in them.

He keeps rummaging. These books down here at the bottom have no names. They are the most ancient of all, mere elliptical fragments, written in a kind of writing so old that Hresh can perceive only the edge of its meanings. Great World texts is what they are, poems, perhaps, or dramatic works, or holy scriptures, or quite possibly all three things at once. When he touches the tips of his fingers to them, their frail vellum pages come alive with images of that glorious civilization that the death-stars had destroyed, of that splendid era when the Six Peoples had walked the glowing streets of the grand cities; but everything is murky, mysterious, deceptive, as though seen in a dream. He puts them back. He closes the casket.

Useless. The Book of the Hjjks, that’s what he needs. But he knows there’s no such thing.

“Three days,” said Taniane bleakly. “I want to know where she is. I want to know what kind of insanity came over her.”

Fury and frustration were churning her soul fearfully on this bright, windy autumn day. She hadn’t slept. Her eyes were rough and raw. She felt chills and shakes. And yet she couldn’t slow down. Restlessly she prowled the stone-floored chamber at the rear of the Basilica that she had turned into the command center for the search for Nialli Apuilana, and for the investigations of the two murders as well.

Behind her, tacked helter-skelter to a wall-board, were documents by the dozens — statements of citizens who claimed to have seen Nialli Apuilana on the fateful afternoon, wild third-hand tales of supposed murder plots overheard in taverns, vague and tentative reports from the city guards on their investigations thus far. None of it was worth a thing. She knew no more than she had on the first afternoon, which was nothing at all.

“You have to try to be calm,” Boldirinthe said.

“Calm! Yes.” Taniane laughed bitterly. “Yes, of course. Above all else I must try to be calm. Two killings, and my daughter nowhere to be found, hiding in some cellar, maybe, or more likely dead, and you want me to be calm!”

They were all staring at her. The room was full of important people just then. Hresh was there, suddenly haggard and old, and Chomrik Hamadel, the keeper of the Beng talismans, and Husathirn Mueri, and the Beng justiciar Puit Kjai, and the acting captain of the guards.

“Why would you think she’s dead?” Puit Kjai asked.

“What if it’s a general conspiracy? Murder the hjjk ambassador, murder the captain of the guards, murder the chieftain’s daughter, perhaps the chieftain herself, next—”

They were staring and staring. She saw by their expressions that they had begun to think she had cracked under the strain. They might be right about that.

Softly Boldirinthe said, “Nialli Apuilana hasn’t been murdered, Taniane. She’s alive and she’ll be found. I’ve asked the Five Heavenly Ones, and they tell me that she is safe, that she is well, that she is—”

“The Five!” Taniane said. Almost a shriek, it was. “You’ve asked the Five! We should ask Nakhaba too, I suppose. Ask all the gods we know, and some that we don’t. And the Queen of the hjjks — perhaps we ought to consult Her also—”

“Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” said Hresh.

Taniane glanced at him in astonishment. “This isn’t any time for being facetious.”

“You were being facetious. I’m serious.”

“What are you talking about, Hresh?”

Diffidently he said, “It’s something that’s best discussed between you and me only, I think. Concerning the hjjks. And Nialli.”

Her hand moved in impatient circles. “If it involves the security of the city, it ought to be brought out into the open right here and now. Unless you feel Puit Kjai is unworthy of hearing it, or Husathirn Mueri, or Boldirinthe—”

He looked at her strangely. “It involves our daughter, and where I think she has gone, and why.”

“Then it’s a security matter. Out with it, Hresh!”

“Since you insist.” Hresh sighed. But he was silent until she prodded him with a quick imperious gesture. “They were going to run off to the Nest,” he said then, bringing the words out with difficulty. “Nialli and Kundalimon. To the Nest of Nests, the great one where the Queen lives, in the far north. You know they were lovers, and twining-partners also. And they wanted no part of life in this city, neither of them. The Nest drew them like a magnet. They came to me and babbled about Nest-bond, about Queen-love, dreams and magic, how the sweet air of the Nest fills one’s soul and transforms you forever—”