“Hresh—” she said softly, taking him against her breast.

“I want to learn things, Torlyri. To learn everything about everything that ever was. But sometimes — sometimes the things that I find—”

He slipped free of her embrace and moved a few steps away, and stood with his back to her, staring toward the mountain.

“Maybe we should let your first twining wait for another time,” she said after a while.

“No. Today is the proper day.”

“Your soul is deeply troubled today.”

“Still, we should do it on the proper day.”

“If you’re so distracted by other things that you’re unable to enter the twining state—”

“I feel myself growing calmer already,” Hresh said. “Simply from being near you. Talking with you.” He swung around to face her. His back straightened. Abruptly he spoke in a deeper voice, quivering with determination. “Come. Come, Torlyri. It’s growing late, and we have important things to do.”

“You truly think we should?”

“Absolutely!”

“Ah, but have you done the preparations? Everything you were supposed to do?”

“Enough of it,” said Hresh. He offered her a quick flashing smile. He looked suddenly eager, alert, animated. “So, now, Torlyri, we should go to your chamber. This is my twining-day! Will you forgive me for letting it slip my mind? You know I have many things to think about. But who could overlook his own twining-day? Come, now, teach me the art, Torlyri! I’ve waited all my life for this day to arrive!”

It was as though he had awakened between one moment and the next from a sleep, or risen from an illness. In an instant all his gloom and confusion seemed gone from him. Was it so, she wondered, or was this only a pretense? In truth he appeared swiftly restored to his usual self, the ebullient, impatient Hresh, Hresh-full-of-questions, hungry as ever for new experiences. Perhaps this morning among the mysteries of old Vengiboneeza he had had one experience too many; but whatever cloud had settled upon him there seemingly had lifted from him just now.

Still, she was uneasy about him.

“There’s no harm in waiting another day,” she said.

“Today, Torlyri. Today is the day.”

She smiled and embraced him again. Hresh was irrepressible. How could she refuse him?

“Well, then, come. So be it: today is the day.”

In the cocoon, twining had always been performed in special small chambers, set a little way apart from the main dwelling-chamber. It was a private thing, the most intimate act there was. Even coupling might be done in view of others without occasioning surprise, but never twining, no.

Since the tribe had lived in Vengiboneeza the old custom of maintaining distinct twining-chambers had fallen into disuse. One could always twine privately in one’s own chambers, or in some abandoned building of the city. The chances were slight that anyone would intrude. But a first twining was a delicate thing, and Torlyri kept a chamber of her own for that, in a gallery below the temple, where there was no possibility of an accidental interruption. She led Hresh toward it now.

As they entered the main level of the temple, the tall slender figure of Kreun stepped from the shadows of the Mueri chapel. When she was close she halted and turned to Torlyri as though about to speak; but all that came from her lips was a sort of sob, and then she moved hurriedly onward. In a moment she was out of sight.

Torlyri shook her head. The girl had become very strange in the past few weeks. Of course she was deeply disturbed by the disappearance of Sachkor, who was to have been her mate: gone off into thin air, was Sachkor, and no one could find him anywhere in the city. Hresh, using his Wonderstone, had determined that Sachkor must still be alive. But even Hresh had no idea where Sachkor might be. That was odd; but the degree to which Kreun had retreated into herself seemed even more peculiar. Grief alone did not seem enough to account for it. She was a different person now, edgy, silent, brooding. She kept to herself, and wept a great deal. This had gone on much too long. Torlyri resolved to draw her aside and try, if she could, to ease whatever burden lay upon her.

But not today. This day belonged to Hresh.

A broad, winding stone ramp of the sort so often favored by the sapphire-eyes architects led down to Torlyri’s twining-chamber. Bunches of glowberries set in sconces lit the way with pale orange light.

As they began to descend the ramp Hresh said abruptly, “I’ve been thinking about the gods, Torlyri.”

She was taken by surprise by that. He should have twining on his mind now, and not such things as this. But her surprise did not surprise her. Many of the things Hresh said took her by surprise. Hresh rarely did as anyone expected.

“Have you?” she asked mildly.

“I saw a thing in my exploring,” he said, “a machine of the ancients, that showed me animals which lived in the time of the Great World. Some of them were very much like animals of today, and yet they were different. In little ways or great, the animals that have survived down through the ages since Great World times have undergone many changes.”

“Perhaps so,” said Torlyri, wondering where any of this might be leading.

“I asked myself which god it is who brings about such changes,” Hresh went on. “It’s Dawinno who has changed them. He’s the one, isn’t he, Torlyri, who transforms all kinds of beings as the years pass? Dawinno makes new forms out of old.”

Torlyri paused on the ramp, studying Hresh in puzzlement. To be only a boy, just becoming a man today, and to have such thoughts swarming in his head — surely there was no one rise like Hresh, and surely there had never been another like him!

“Dawinno takes away the old, yes,” Torlyri said cautiously. “He makes room for the new.”

“He brings forth the new out of the old.”

“Is that your understanding of it, Hresh?”

“Yes. Yes. Dawinno is the transformer of forms!”

“Very well,” Torlyri said, feeling more and more lost.

“But transformation is only transformation,” said Hresh. “It isn’t creation.”

“I suppose that that’s so.”

His eyes were bright, almost feverish-looking, now.

“Where does it all start, then? Consider, Torlyri, the gods we worship. We worship the Provider, and the Consoler, and the Healer. And the Protector and the Destroyer. But there’s no god that we call the Creator. Who do we owe our lives to, Torlyri? Who is the maker of the world? Is it Yissou?”

Torlyri had been troubled since the beginning of this discussion; but now her uneasiness began swiftly to deepen.

“Yissou is the Protector,” she said.

“Exactly. But not the Creator. We don’t know who the Creator is. We never even think about that. Have you ever thought on these things, Torlyri? Have you?”

“I perform the rites. I serve the Five.”

“And the Five must serve a Sixth! But who is he? Why do we have no name for him? Why are there no rites to honor him? He made the world and everything in it. Dawinno merely reshapes that world. Seeing the evidence of his reshaping, I began to wonder about the first shaping, do you see? There’s a higher god than Dawinno, and we know nothing of him. Do you see, Torlyri? Do you see? He keeps himself hidden from us. But his is the greatest power. He has the power of creation. He can make something out of nothing. And he can transform anything into anything else. Why, it might be that he’s capable of taking beasts as stupid and nasty as these monkeys that have been plaguing us and turning them into something that’s almost human. He can do anything, Torlyri. He is the Creator! Why, he might even have made the Five themselves!”

She stared at Hresh in shock.

She was not an unintelligent woman, but there were certain areas that she did not choose to explore. No one did. One did not speculate on the nature of the gods; one simply did their bidding. All her life that was what she had done, faithfully and well. The Five ruled the world; the Five were sufficient.