The boy said, “But are they capable of such a thing? Is anyone? It seems hard to believe.”

“That the Queen can be destroyed?”

“That they would be so evil as to attempt it.”

“They’ll kill her,” said Husathirn Mueri, “as they killed Kundalimon. There are no limits to their hatred of Nest-truth.”

“Then it was Thu-Kimnibol who killed Kundalimon?” the girl said, amazed.

Husathirn Mueri turned to her. “Surely you knew that. It was done at his orders by the guard-captain, Curabayn Bangkea. Who then was murdered also, to keep him silent.”

“You know this to be true?” asked Tikharein Tourb.

“It’s true, all right. By all the gods, it’s true!” said Husathirn Mueri.

Tikharein Tourb stared at him a long while, as if weighing and judging him. The boy’s narrowed green eyes were cold as the ice that lies at the heart of the world. Only once before had Husathirn Mueri seen eyes like those: the bleak pale ones of the emissary Kundalimon. And even Kundalimon’s gaze at its most remorseless had held some hint of compassion. These eyes were wholly icy, wholly terrifying.

The fierce roaring silence went on and on. Tikharein Tourb and the girl stood silent, statue-still. After a time Husathirn Mueri saw the boy’s sensing-organ quiver and grow rigid and steal toward the side, until its tip was touching the tip of Chhia Kreun’s. They might almost have been entering into communion right before him. Perhaps they were.

Then the boy said, “Swear to me by your love of the Queen that it was Thu-Kimnibol who had Kundalimon murdered.”

“I swear it,” said Husathirn Mueri unhesitatingly.

“And that the purpose of this war that Thu-Kimnibol has stirred up is to bring about the destruction of the Nest and the death of Her who is our comfort and our joy.”

“That’s its purpose. I swear it.”

Again Tikharein Tourb stared. What a frightening child he is, Husathirn Mueri thought. And the girl also.

“Then he will die,” said the boy finally.

Hresh was in his garden of animals, sitting with small brightly colored beasts all about him. The two purple-and-yellow ones, the caviandis, were by his side, and he was gently stroking them. He glanced up as Nialli Apuilana came rushing in.

“Father—” she cried at once. “Father, I’ve had something strange happen — something so very strange—”

He looked at her in a bland incurious way, as though she had not said anything at all. His eyes were remote and his expression was milder even than usual. There was a great sadness about him that she had never seen before: he seemed bowed down under it, a beaten man, very old and frail.

That frightened her. Her own chaotic fears and confusions receded into the background. She had come here in terror and in need; but his need, she saw, was even greater than hers.

“Is something wrong, father?”

Hresh made a little shrugging gesture and slowly moved his head from side to side like some wounded beast. He seemed terribly far away. After a time he said, “It’s certain now. There’s going to be war.”

“How do you know?”

“I felt the signal just now, coming from the north. Perhaps you felt it too. There’ll be no holding it back. Everything is in place and the word has been given to begin.”

She stared at him blankly. “I’m not sure what you mean, father.”

“You don’t know about the alliance Thu-Kimnibol brought back with him from Yissou?”

She shook her head.

“We’ve agreed to help defend Salaman if he’s ever attacked by the hjjks. Which is about to happen — an attack provoked by Salaman himself, I suspect. Perhaps with some help from my brother. Once Yissou is invaded, our army will go north, and there’ll be all-out war.”

“Which is precisely what those two have always wanted.”

Hresh nodded. Tonelessly he said, “Much blood will flow, ours and theirs. Great sins will be committed. Hjjk armies will march through our cities putting them to the torch, or we’ll destroy the Nest, or perhaps both will happen. It makes no difference what happens in the end. Whether we win or lose, everything we’ve achieved will be destroyed.”

He looked forlorn and bereft. Nialli Apuilana wanted to hold him, to comfort him.

She said softly, “You mustn’t worry yourself like this, father. Salaman is dreaming. The hjjks won’t attack Yissou and there isn’t going to be any all-out war.”

“They invaded Yissou once,” Hresh said.

“That was different. Yissou was right on the path of a hjjk swarming-drive.”

“A what?”

“A swarming-drive. The Nest, great as it is, can hold only so many. A time arrives when the population has to divide. And then they come bursting out, thousands of them, millions sometimes, carrying a young Queen with them. And they march. For a thousand leagues if they have to, or sometimes more, until they reach the place where they mean to go. The gods only know how they decide where that place is. But they let nothing stop them until they’re there. And then they build a new Nest.”

Hresh looked up, his eyes alive for an instant with sudden interest in the old Hresh manner.

“And is this what was happening when they attacked Harruel’s settlement?”

“Yes. They probably didn’t have any specific intention of harming the settlement. But when they swarm they go marching blindly straight ahead, and nothing will turn them. Nothing.”

“Well, and if they swarm in the same direction again?”

“It won’t happen. They never swarm twice in the same direction. I know how eager Thu-Kimnibol is to have a war, and Salaman too. But they’ll be disappointed.”

“Let’s pray that they are.”

“Unless a war with the hjjks is something that the Five intend for us to have,” Nialli Apuilana said. “In which case, may Dawinno help us all. I tell you, though, father, that there’ll be no war.”

He stared at her, smiling in that strange new sad way of his. The caviandis turned also to look at her. There was a curious bright glow of — what? Sadness also? Compassion? — in their big gleaming violet eyes.

Hresh said, in a voice so soft she could barely hear him, “Despite all you say, I feel the war rushing toward us like a great storm, Nialli. Who can stop a storm?”

“I’ve lived in the Nest, father. I know the hjjks won’t ever arbitrarily launch a war against us. That isn’t their way.”

“And if we begin the war? We have an army now, do you know that?”

She caught her breath. “Since when?”

“It’s brand-new. Thu-Kimnibol organized it. They’re at the stadium right now, marching and drilling. Once armies exist, wars are easy to bring about.”

“Does Taniane know about this?”

“Yes. And approves of it.” Hresh smiled ruefully. “They have Great World weapons, taken from the House of Knowledge without my awareness or consent. Taniane finds that acceptable also.”

“She wants war?”

“She expects it, at least. Is resigned to it. Will give her wholehearted support to it.”

Nialli Apuilana stared at Hresh, horrified.

She could see the People’s armies streaming northward into the land of the hjjks, and hordes of hjjk Militaries coming forth to meet them.

A terrible clash, frightful carnage. Thu-Kimnibol unleashing his purloined Great World weapons and working great devastation. Whole legions of Militaries blown into vapor at the touch of a button. The hjjk forces, vast though they were, driven back, ever back, the invaders advancing triumphantly into the dark northern territories. Swarm after swarm of Militaries sent to meet them, called in from every Nest of the north, each in turn destroyed by the inexorable drive of the attackers.

The Nest in danger! The Queen!

Yes, the Nest of Nests besieged. Everything in confusion there, Nest-plenty lost, Nest-truth denied, Egg-plan set awry, the wise Nest-thinkers scurrying to take cover in the dust, Egg-makers and Life-kindlers trying to flee and hacked down as they ran, and at last, the most terrible assault of all, even the Queen of Queens Herself rooted out of Her deep chamber and put to death—