“No, Hresh.”

“Very intelligent animals. So bright that they built cocoons for us when the Long Winter came — or maybe we built the cocoons ourselves, I’m not sure of that — and left us to wait the winter out. And Dawinno changed us, and made us more intelligent, so intelligent that we misunderstood the chronicles and thought we were the humans. We weren’t. I know that. The old man of the Bengs knows it too. His people never thought for a moment that they were the same as the humans who lived in Great World times.”

“But if the humans are supposed to inherit the earth, as it says in the chronicles, now that the winter’s over—”

“No,” Hresh said. “The humans are all gone. I suppose they died in the Long Winter, except for Ryyig Dream-Dreamer, who may have been the last one. We’re supposed to inherit the earth. But in order to do that we have to make ourselves human, Taniane.”

“I don’t follow you. If we aren’t human, how can we—”

“By living like humans. We almost do, now. We have language, we have writing, we have history. We can build. We can teach our children. Those are human things, not animal things. Animals work by instinct. We work by knowledge. You see? It isn’t only the Dream-Dreamers who were human, Taniane! All the Six Peoples of the Great World were! The human humans, and the sapphire-eyes, and the vegetals—”

“The hjjks too? Human?”

Hresh hesitated. “If ‘human’ means civilized, yes. If it means possessing the ability to learn, and create things, and transform the world. Even the hjjks are human by that standard. A different kind of human, that’s all. And we’ll be human too. The new humans, the newest humans. If we continue to grow, and build, and think. We have to get ourselves away from Vengiboneeza, first, and create something that’s really ours — not just hide here in these ruins. Build a Vengiboneeza of our own, a civilization that isn’t just put together out of the rubble of the one that came before. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“Yes. I do. I think I do, Hresh. It’s almost the same thing Harruel was saying.”

“Yes. Somehow he understood, and he went off to do the thing that we have to do. However crude and rough he is, at least he’s begun to build. Which is our task too. We have to touch the past and the future both. That’s what humans are — people who continue things, who create links between what was and what is to come. That’s why it’s important for us to finish exploring these ruins, and find whatever we can from the Great World that still can be used. And take it with us when we leave Vengiboneeza, and put it to our own uses, to build what we need to build.” He was smiling now. “We haven’t gone looking much since the Bengs came, have we? But I was out by myself, the other night. I found a whole new storehouse of things, far across the city. The Bengs caught me before I could go in — I’m not sure they know what’s there themselves, but they want to keep us out anyway. We can’t allow that. Let’s go back there, you and I. Let’s see what’s in there. All right? All right, Taniane?”

“Of course,” she said. “When?”

“A day, two days. Soon.”

“Yes. Soon.”

He reached for her, and she thought it was to twine again; but all he wanted was an embrace, and then he jumped to his feet, reaching a hand to her to pull her up too. He had to find Koshmar, he told her. These matters must be discussed. And then there were other important things to do. Always things to discuss, things to do. Off he went, leaving her standing by herself, shaking her head.

Hresh, she thought. How strange you are, Hresh! But how wonderful.

Her mind was spinning. Not human — we must make ourselves human — we must build — we must touch the past and touch the future both—

She wandered into the plaza and stood by herself, trying to make herself calm. Someone came up behind her. Haniman.

“Twine with me,” he whispered.

“No.”

“You keep saying no.”

“Let me alone, Haniman.”

“Couple with me, then.”

“No!”

“Not even that?”

“Let me be, will you?”

“What’s the matter, Taniane? You sound so bothered.”

“I am.”

“Tell me what’s troubling you.”

“Go away,” she said.

“I’m trying to make you feel better. It’s an old human tradition, you know. Woman in distress, man tries to offer comfort.”

She glared at him in exasperation. “We aren’t humans!” she cried.

“What?”

“Hresh says so. He has proof. We’re just animals, the way the guardians of the gate said we are. The Dream-Dreamers were the humans, and they’re all dead. You’re just a monkey with a big brain, Haniman, and so am I. Go ask Hresh, if you don’t believe me. Now get away from me, will you? Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

Haniman stared at her, astounded.

Then he backed away from her. Taniane looked after him, one hand over her mouth.

In the darkness of the chapel, amid the smoke of the smoldering fire, Koshmar saw masked figures moving before her. This, with the terrible warlike beak, was Lirridon. This was Nialli, with the black-and-green mask armed with blood-red spikes. This was Sismoil, featureless, enigmatic. This was Thekmur. This was Yanla. This was Vork.

She gripped the sides of the altar so that she would not lose her balance. A cold sweat had broken out on her, and there was a fiery pain behind her breastbone. Her throat was dry and she knew that an ocean could never quench that thirst.

“Koshmar,” Thekmur said. “Poor sad Koshmar.”

“Poor pitiful Koshmar,” said Lirridon.

“We weep for you, Koshmar,” Nialli said.

She stared at the haughty figures stalking about in front of her and shook her head angrily. The last thing she wanted was the pity of her dead predecessors.

“No,” she said, and her voice held back within her, a husky hollow rasp. “You must not say these things to me!”

“Come to us, Koshmar,” said Yanla, who had been chieftain so many years ago that nothing but her name and her mask remained to keep her memory alive. “Come lie in our arms. You have been chieftain long enough.”

“No!”

“Rest with us,” said Vork. “Sleep in our bosom and know the joy of unending peace.”

“No!”

Thekmur, who had been like a mother to her, knelt down beside her and softly said, “We reached our death-days and we went forth into the cold place and lay down to die. Why do you cling so fiercely to your life, Koshmar? You are past the limit-age. You are terribly weary. Rest now, Koshmar.”

“The winter is over. There is no longer any cold place. The limit-age is not observed here in the time of the New Springtime.”

“The New Springtime?” Sismoil said. “Has it really come, do you think? The New Springtime, really?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Sleep, Koshmar. Let another woman rule. You have lost half your tribe—”

“Not half! Only a few!”

“The Bengs encroach upon your settlement.”

“I will slaughter the Bengs!”

“A younger woman readies herself for power. Give it to her, Koshmar.”

“When her time comes and not before.”

“Her time has come.”

“No. No. No.”

“Sleep, Koshmar.”

“Not yet. Dawinno take you, I’m still alive, can’t you see? I rule! I lead!”

Rising, Koshmar waved her arms furiously about, clearing the fumes that filled the little room. The gesture was costly to her: the pain beneath her breastbone grew startlingly more intense, striking deep into her in a hard stabbing way. But she would not let her discomfort show. Flinging open the chapel’s pivoted stone door, she allowed fresh air to come rushing in, and the dim figures of the dead chieftains grew thin, grew transparent, vanished altogether. Coughing, choking, Koshmar staggered out into the daylight. She caught hold of a battered ancient cornice and hung tight to it until the spasms of dizziness passed.

I will never go to this chapel again, she told herself. Let the dead remain dead. I have no need of their wisdom.