“To take their own lives.”

Taniane gasped as though he had struck her.

“To take their lives ? Why would they do that?”

“I can’t imagine. But I saw them doing it. That glowing opening at the top — it’s capable of absorbing anything that comes near it, no matter how big. There’s a blackness inside that’s some sort of gate to another place, or perhaps to no place at all. They would walk up to it and practically stick their noses inside it, and suddenly it would swoop them up, I don’t begin to know how, and they’d be gone. It’s an eerie thing, and very seductive. In my vision I walked up to it myself and it would have had me too, except I was only seeing it in a vision. But this is a real one.”

He released her wrist and walked slowly toward it.

“Hresh — no, don’t—”

He laughed. “I only want to test it.”

Picking up a small chunk of broken statuary, he hefted it a couple of times and tossed it underhand toward the glowing hood. It hovered an instant as if suspended in the air just outside the zone of flickering, hissing light; and then it disappeared. Hresh stood expectantly, waiting to hear the thump of the stone fragment falling to the floor. But the thump never came.

“It works! It still works!”

“Try it again.”

“Right.” He found another piece of stone, a slender one as long as his arm, and in a gingerly way he held it up to the mouth of the device. There was a tingling sensation in his hand and forearm, and abruptly he was holding nothing at all. He stared at his fingers.

He went closer.

What if I poke my hand inside it? he asked himself.

He hovered in place before the metal column, leaning forward on the balls of his feet, frowning, considering it. It was an astonishingly powerful temptation. The thing was insidious. He remembered those immense booming mouth-things, long ago on the great sandy plain, drawing him toward them with their inexorable drumming. This was like that. He could feel it pulling him inward. He was half willing to let it. More than half, perhaps. The thing might offer him … answers. It might offer him … peace. It might …

Taniane must have guessed what was passing through his mind, for she came up to him quickly and caught him by the shoulder, drawing him back.

“What were you thinking just then?” she asked.

Hresh shuddered. “Just being curious. Maybe too curious.”

“Let’s get out of here, Hresh. One of these days you’ll be much too curious for your own good.”

“Wait,” he said. “Let me check just one more thing.”

“It’s deadly, Hresh.”

“I know that. Wait. Wait.”

“Hresh—”

“I’ll be more careful this time.”

He shuffled forward in a half-crouch, averting his eyes from the zone of brightness at the summit of the column. Bending forward, he slipped his arm around the middle of the metal tube and, as he had somehow expected, lifted it easily from its platform of green stone. It was warm to the touch, and it was hollow; he could probably have crushed it with a light pressure of his arm. Without difficulty he carried it across the room and set it down against the wall. The flickering lights of the hood, which had gone out when he lifted the thing, immediately returned.

“What are you doing, Hresh?”

“It’s portable, do you see?” he said. “We can take it with us.”

“No! Let it be. Hresh, it frightens me.”

“It frightens me, too. But I want to know more about it.”

“You always want to know more about everything. This one will kill you. Leave it, Hresh.”

“Not this. It may be the only one of its kind that remains in all the world. Do you want the Bengs to get it?”

“If it would eat them the way it ate the stone you fed it, that might not be so bad an idea.”

“And if they didn’t let it harm them, and found some use for it?”

“It has no use except to destroy, Hresh. If you’re worried about the Bengs getting it, then drop a heavy rock on it and maybe it’ll smash. But let’s clear out of here.”

He gave her a long searching look.

“I promise you, Taniane, that I’ll take care with this thing. But I mean to bring it along.”

She sighed.

“Hresh,” she said, shaking her head in resignation. “Oh, Hresh! Oh, you!”

Harruel lay dreaming, lost in rapture. The world was carpeted in flowers of a hundred subtle colors, and their soft perfume filled the air like music. He was lying in a smooth stone tub with Weiawala in one arm and Thaloin in the other, and warm sweet golden wine covered all three of them, lapping at his chin. All about him stood the sons of his flesh, a dozen of them, tall splendid warriors identical to him in face and virtue, singing his praises with lusty voices.

“Harruel!” they cried. “Harruel, Harruel, Harruel!”

And then somehow a discordant note crept in, someone singing in a creaky rusty screech of a voice:

“ Harruel! Harruel!”

“No, not you,” he said thickly. “You’re spoiling everything. Who are you, anyway? No son of mine, with a voice like that! Get away! Get away!”

“Harruel, wake up!”

“Stop bothering me. I’m the king.”

“Harruel!”

There was a hand at his throat, fingers digging in deep. He sat up instantly, roaring in rage, as the dream dissolved in shards about him. Weiawala gone, Thaloin gone, the lusty chorus of tall sons all gone, gone, gone. A gray, gritty film of wine covered his brain and shrouded his spirit. He ached in ten places, and someone had been eating turds with his mouth. Minbain stood above him. She had grasped him not by the throat but by the side of his neck: he could still feel the imprint of her fingers. She looked wild and fluttery with some urgent matter.

Angrily he rumbled, “How dare you disturb me when—”

“Harruel, the city is under attack.”

“—I’m trying to rest after—” He caught his breath. “What? Attack? Who? Koshmar? I’ll kill her! I’ll roast her and eat her!” Harruel struggled to his feet, bellowing. “Where is she? Bring me my spear! Call Konya! Salaman!”

“They’re already out there,” Minbain said, fretfully wringing her hands. “It isn’t Koshmar. Here, Harruel. Your spear, your shield. The hjjk-men, Harruel! That’s who it is. The hjjk-men?”

He rose and went stumbling toward the door. From without came the sounds of clamor, cutting through the fog that blanketed his perceptions.

Hjjk-men? Here?

Salaman had said something the other day about fearing an attack of an army of hjjk-men. Some vision he had had, some wild dream. Harruel had been able to make little sense of it. But it seemed to him that Salaman had said the invasion was far away, not to come for many months. That will teach him to trust visions, Harruel thought.

His head ached. The situation demanded clarity of mind. Pausing by the door, he scooped up the bowl of wine that always stood there and put it to his lips. It was more than half full, but he drained it in four robust gulps.

Better. Much better.

He stepped outside.

There was chaos out there. For a moment he had difficulty focusing his eyes. Then the wine took hold and he saw that the city was in the greatest peril. A building was on fire. The animals from the enclosure were loose, dashing in all directions, whinnying and baying. He heard shouts, screams, the cries of children. Just beyond the perimeter of the settled area was a swarm of hjjk-men, ten, fifteen, two dozen of them, armed with weapons that were too short to be swords, too long to be knives. Each tall, angular, many-armed hjjk-man held at least two blades, some three or even four, with which they flailed the air in ominous stabbing gestures. They danced ‘round and ‘round, making the dry chuttering sounds that gave them their name. Harruel saw a dead child lying in a pitiful heap, bloodied animals nearby, tribal possessions scattered everywhere.

“Harruel!” he shouted, running into the midst of the fray. “Harruel! Harruel! Harruel!”