“If you insist,” she said, looking puzzled, and signaled to Praheurt and Konya as if to say she would be right back. Hresh led her into the open.

The warm breeze was dizzying. He was astounded by the beauty of her thick fur and the shining splendor of her strange, haunting eyes. They stood for a moment in silence as he searched for a way to begin. Cautiously he peered about to make certain that Haniman was nowhere in the vicinity.

“You should have taken a moment to look at what we found today,” she said. “We aren’t sure about it, but—”

“Never mind that now,” he said tightly. “Taniane, I did my first twining today.”

She appeared surprised and perhaps even troubled by the sudden announcement. Her eyes looked hooded, guarded. Then her expression changed. A smile that did not seem entirely sincere appeared on her face and she said, perhaps too enthusiastically, “Oh, Hresh, how happy I am for you! It was a good twining, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. Somehow this was not going the right way. He fell silent again.

“What do you want to say, Hresh?”

He took a deep breath. “Twine with me, Taniane,” he blurted.

“Twine with you?”

“Yes. Right now.”

For one horrified moment Hresh thought she was going to burst into laughter. But no, no, her eyes were wide, her lips were drawn back, her throat bobbed strangely.

She looks afraid, he thought.

“Now?” she said. “Twine?”

There was no turning back for him now. “Come on. We can go deep into the city. I’ll show you a good place.”

He reached for her. She backed away.

“No — please, Hresh, no — you’re frightening me.”

“I don’t mean to. Twine with me, Taniane!”

She seemed shocked, or perhaps offended, or merely annoyed, he could not tell which.

“I’ve never seen you like this. Have you lost your mind? Yes. That must be it. You’ve gone out of your mind.”

“All I said was—”

She flashed anger at him. “If you aren’t crazy, then you must think I am. You can’t just walk up and ask someone to twine like this, Hresh! Don’t you know that? And that wild look on your face. You should see yourself.” Taniane shivered and moved her hands in a gesture of dismissal, and something more than that. “Go away. Please. Please. Just let me alone, Hresh.” There was a sob in her voice now. She moved farther from him.

Hresh stood motionless, miserable, appalled. A leaden sense of having bungled things began to take possession of him. He saw how hasty he had been, how clumsy, how foolish. And now all was lost for him, on this day which should have been a day of great joy.

What a fool I am! he thought.

There she was, ten paces away, standing as frozen as he was, staring at him as if he had been transformed into some beast of the wilderness, something ghastly with gnashing jaws and blazing eyes. He wished she would simply turn and run, and leave him alone with his shame, but no, she continued to stand there, staring at him in that strange way.

Then, while he stood there too, yearning to sink into the ground, there came a raucous outcry from far off, from the direction of the city’s entrance, that spared him from further torment just then.

“Helmet People! Here come the Helmet People! The Helmet People are coming!”

Koshmar was drowsing in her bedchamber when the cry arose. The day had been a low one for her, the lowest in a succession of low days. Not even the end of the rains and the coming of this clear dry weather had buoyed her dank clogged spirit. Her mind was full of Torlyri and Lakkamai, Lakkamai and Torlyri.

It should not change anything. She had told herself that a thousand times. Torlyri would still be her twining-partner. Twining was the true communion. If Torlyri now felt the need for coupling too, or even for mating — though who had ever heard of an offering-woman taking a mate? — why, even that should make no difference. Torlyri would still need a twining-partner. And Koshmar would be that partner.

Or would she?

Among breeding couples, it was customary for the mate also to be the twining-partner. For the rest of the tribe, one coupled or did not couple with whomever one wished, and then one also had one’s twining-partner. But that had been in the cocoon days. This was the time of the New Springtime.

Koshmar had yearned with all the force within her to be the one to lead the tribe out of the cocoon into the New Springtime. Well, now she had; and what had it brought her but confusion, doubt, misery? Here she was hunched down gloomily on her own bed in midafternoon, lost in despair, while bright shafts of sunlight danced on the towers of Vengiboneeza. Hour after hour, nothing but brooding. Brooding. The future seemed all mystery and despair to her now. She had never known such hopelessness before.

“The Helmet People! The Helmet People! Here come the Helmet People!” a hoarse voice cried outside her window.

Almost before the meaning of the words had had time to sink in, Koshmar was off her bed, heart beating fiercely, fur rising in prickles, body and mind on full alert.

A kind of savage joy arose in her. Was an enemy tribe invading? Very well. Let them come. She would deal with them. She welcomed their coming. Better to take up arms against enemies than to lie here wrapped up in absurd miserable ruminations.

From her collection of masks she chose the Mask of Nialli, the most ferocious of all. Nialli, so it was said, had been a chieftain with the soul of ten warriors. Her mask was a shining black-and-green thing half again as broad as it was long, with six sharp blood-red spikes jutting upward from it at steep angles on either side. It pressed down with awesome weight against Koshmar’s cheeks. Narrow slits provided her with access for vision.

She threw a yellow shawl of office over her shoulders. She seized her spear of chieftainship. She hurried outside into the crossroads in front of the temple tower.

People were running in all directions, wildly, madly.

“Stop!” Koshmar roared. “Everyone still! To me, to me!”

She caught young Weiawala by the wrist as she sped by. The girl seemed half berserk with terror, and Koshmar had to shake her violently to get her even a little under control. From her, finally, Koshmar extracted some fragments of the story. An army of hideous strangers, riding on frightful monstrous animals, had passed through the south gateway of the city, down by the place where the sapphire-eyes mechanicals sat. They had Sachkor with them, as a prisoner. And they were heading this way.

“Where are the warriors?” Koshmar asked.

Konya, someone said, had already gone down toward the gateway. So had Staip and Orbin. Hresh was with them too, and possibly Praheurt. Lakkamai was said to be on his way. Nobody had seen Harruel. Koshmar caught sight of Minbain and cried out to her, “Where is your mate?” But Minbain did not know. Boldirinthe said that she had seen Harruel, looking black-faced and sullen as he often did these days, trudging off alone toward the mountain early that morning.

Koshmar spat. Enemies at the gate, and her strongest warrior was sulking on the mountain! The very one who had made such ceremony over keeping watch day and night against the attack of the Helmet People, and where was he when the Helmet People came?

No matter. If she had to, she told herself, she could get along without Harruel.

She waved her spear aloft. “Women and children into the temple, and lock the sanctuary doors after you! The rest follow me. Salaman! Thhrouk! Moarn!” She looked around, wondering why Torlyri was not here. She had difficulty seeing out of the Mask of Nialli; her side vision was nearly blocked by the sharp-angled projections. But it was a fearsome mask. “Torlyri,” she said. “Who has seen Torlyri?” Torlyri could fight as well as any man.

Koshmar remembered that Torlyri had gone off to initiate Hresh in the art of twining. Yes, but Hresh supposedly was down at the gate confronting the invaders. Where was Torlyri, then? And what business did Hresh have risking his irreplaceable life at the gate? Well, there was no more time to lose. Koshmar turned to Threyne, who stood glassy-eyed with fear, clutching her child, and angrily waved her toward the temple. “Go. Hide yourself. If Torlyri’s in there, tell her she’ll find me at the south gateway. And tell her to bring her spear!”