“Some of it, yes. The sense of pattern, of universal order. I saw that. But I looked so quickly, and then I fled. Nest-bond — Queen-light — no, those terms are just words to me. They have no real substance in my mind.”

“I think you understand more than you suspect.”

“Only the beginning of the beginning of understanding.”

“That’s a beginning, at least.”

“Yes. Yes. At least I know what the hjjks are not.”

“Not demons, you mean? Not monsters?”

“Not enemies.”

“Not enemies, no,” Nialli Apuilana said. “Adversaries, maybe. But not enemies.”

“A very subtle shade of difference.”

“Yet a real one, father.”

Thu-Kimnibol was home at last. The journey south had been swift, though not nearly swift enough for him, and uneventful. Now he walked the grand, lonely halls of his great villa in Dawinno, rediscovering it, reacquainting himself with his own home, his own possessions, after his long absence. It seemed to him that he had been away ten thousand years. He was alone as he went from one echoing room to another, pausing here and there to examine the objects in the display cases.

There were phantoms and spectres everywhere. These were Naarinta’s things, really: she was the one who had collected most of the ancient treasures that filled these rooms, the bits of Great World sculpture and architectural fragments and strange twisted metallic things whose purpose would probably never be known. As he looked at them his sensing-organ began to tingle and he felt the immense antiquity of these battered artifacts come crowding in about him, alive and vital, jigging and throbbing with strange energy, making the villa itself seem a dead place, though it had been built only a dozen years before.

It was still early in the day, just hours after his return from Yissou. But he had lost no time setting in motion his preparations for war. He was due to see Taniane in the afternoon; but first, messengers had gone out to Si-Belimnion, to Kartafirain, to Maliton Diveri, to Lespar Thone: men of power, men he could trust. He waited impatiently for their arrival. It was not good, being here by himself. He hadn’t expected that, how painful it would be to come back to an empty house.

“Your grace?” His majordomo, Gyv Hawoodin, an old Mortiril who had been with him for years. “Your grace, Kartafirain and Si-Belimnion are here.”

“Send them up. And then set out some wine for us.”

Solemnly Thu-Kimnibol embraced his friends. Solemnity seemed the appropriate mood of the day: Si-Belimnion wore a dark mantle that emanated a bleak funereal glow, and even the ebullient Kartafirain was somber and subdued. Thu-Kimnibol offered them wine and they drained their cups as though it were water.

“You won’t believe what has happened here while you were away,” Kartafirain began. “The common folk sing hymns to the Queen of the hjjks. They gather in cellars and children lead them in nonsensical catechisms.”

“This is the heritage of the envoy Kundalimon,” muttered Si-Belimnion, peering moodily into his cup. “Husathirn Mueri warned us that he was corrupting the young, and indeed he was. A pity he wasn’t killed even sooner.”

“It was Curabayn Bangkea that did it?” Thu-Kimnibol asked.

Kartafirain replied, with a shrug, “The guard-captain, yes. So everyone says, at any rate. Someone killed him too, the same day.”

“I heard about that up north. And who was it that killed him, do you suppose?”

“Very likely whoever it was that hired him to kill Kundalimon,” said Si-Belimnion. “To silence him, no doubt. No one knows who it might have been. I’ve heard twenty different guesses, all of them absurd. In any case the investigation’s just about forgotten, now. The new religion’s the only thing that anyone thinks about.”

Thu-Kimnibol stared. “But isn’t Taniane attempting to stamp it out? That’s what I heard.”

“Easier to stamp out wildfire in the dry season,” said Kartafirain. “It was spreading faster than the guards could close the chapels. Eventually Taniane decided that trying to eradicate it was too risky. There might have been an uprising. The common folk profess to see great blessings in the teachings of the Queen. She is their comfort and their joy, the prayer goes. She is the light and the way. They think everything will be love and peace here, once the kindly hjjks are among us.”

“Unbelievable,” Thu-Kimnibol murmured. “Utterly unbelievable.”

“There was love and peace aplenty in the days when our parents lived in the cocoon!” cried Maliton Diveri, who had just entered the room. “Perhaps that’s what they really want. To give up all this city life, and go back into the cocoon, and spend their days sleeping, or kick-wrestling, or munching on velvetberries. Pah! What this city has become disgusts me, Thu-Kimnibol. And it’ll disgust you too.”

“The war will put an end to all this foolishness,” Thu-Kimnibol said brusquely.

“The war?”

“I’ve spent these months speaking with Salaman. I sense that he believes the hjjks are restless and angry, that our failure to accept their treaty has offended them, that they’re going to launch war against us all. The first move will be to attack Yissou, within the year. If the Presidium ratifies, we’ll be pledged by treaty to go to his aid in that case.”

Maliton Diveri chuckled. “Salaman’s been having nightmares of a hjjk invasion for thirty years. Isn’t that why he’s hidden Yissou behind that preposterous wall? But the invasion never comes. What makes him think it’ll happen now? And why do you believe he’s right?”

“I have good reason to think he is,” Thu-Kimnibol said.

“And then?” Si-Belimnion asked. “Is this city of sudden hjjk-lovers that we have here going to lift so much as a finger to save far-off Yissou?”

“We have to help them to see the importance of honoring our new alliance,” said Thu-Kimnibol quietly. “If there’s an attack and Salaman beats the hjjks without our help, he’ll lay claim to Vengiboneeza and everything north of it. Can we allow him to grab all that? On the other hand, if Yissou falls to the hjjks, it won’t be long before we see armies of the bug-folk marching through our own lands. Which is even less acceptable. We’ll make the citizens here understand that. They’ll have to realize that a hjjk invasion of Yissou is an act of war against all the People of every city. Surely not everybody in this city has become a worshiper of the Queen. We’ll find enough who are loyal. The rest, if they like, can stay behind and pray to their new goddess. While we’re marching north to destroy the Nest.”

“To destroy the Nest?” Lespar Thone asked. He was the most cautious of these princes, a man of great property and slow, wary ways. “Will that be so easy, do you think? The hjjks are ten to our one, or perhaps a hundred to one. They’ll fight like the demons they are to keep us from getting anywhere near the Nest. How are we going to overcome such numbers?”

“I remind you that I’ve faced those numbers before,” said Thu-Kimnibol. “We routed the hjjks long ago at the battle of Yissou, and we’ll rout them again now.”

“At the battle of Yissou the People had the aid of some Great World weapon, wasn’t that so?” Lespar Thone observed.

Thu-Kimnibol gave him a sour look. “You sound like Puit Kjai. Or Staip. We won that battle by our own valor.”

“Yet Hresh had some ancient thing that was of great help, so I understand,” Lespar Thone insisted. “Sometimes valor alone isn’t enough, Thu-Kimnibol. And against such an immense horde of hjjks, desperately determined to defend their Queen—”

“What are you trying to say?”

“The same thing Husathirn Mueri did, when we discussed all this at the Presidium. Before we can attack the hjjks with impunity we need to have some new weapons.”