Slowly, it began to make sense. Her overloaded mind cleared, the fog lifting.
She’d seen the Quintaglios removed from prominence twice in her own lifetime. First, Afsan had taken them from the center of the universe. Then Toroca had shown they weren’t divinely created from the hands of God. And now — this.
A total of thirty-one different worlds had been seeded with life from the home planet. And, if the numbering was in the order in which the life was transplanted, then the Quintaglios had been moved not first, nor last, but twenty-seventh — twenty-seventh out of thirty-one. No pride of place, just one of many.
Floating there in the vast chamber, she watched, fascinated, as the strange lifeforms were paraded by her. Red globs. Stilt-legged creatures. Intelligent reptiles. Tailless bipeds. Flying things. Crawling things. Things that had twenty arms. Things that had none.
Windows cycling from world to world, the light of alien suns raying across her face.
She tried to absorb as much of it as she could.
But eventually she was left numb by it all, unable to take in anything further. The windows became a blur again, just nine colored squares.
She needed to take a break, needed to let her mind sort it all out. She decided to explore, to look at other parts of the vast structure at the top of the tower. And that presented a problem.
She was too far away from any wall or from the floor or ceiling to reach out and touch it, and so she just floated there in the middle of the cube-shaped room. She tried flapping her arms, like a wingfinger, but that didn’t seem to do any good. She soon realized she was in quite a predicament: she could starve to death floating here in midair, unable to make it back to the lifeboat, which held her food supplies.
But, after a moment, she calmed down, undid the chain that helped hold her sash in place and bit through the leather of the sash so that she had one long piece of green and black material. Cracking it like a whip against the wall containing the bank of windows, she was able to start herself tumbling slowly across the room. She made her way out into a corridor and continued along, kicking gently off walls. Most of what she saw was baffling, but at last she came to something she recognized: one of the ark-maker’s doors, just like the one on the outside of the ark itself. It was a panel twice as tall as it was wide, with an incised orange rectangle with bold black markings on it set into the door’s center. Novato floated toward it…
— and the door opened. Of its own volition, the door slid aside. Incredible. She’d long suspected this was how such doors were supposed to work, having seen the gears and other equipment inside the ones down below. But they were all dead; the Quintaglios had had to remove orange faceplates from the center of the ark’s door panels, exposing metal handles that could be cranked around by hand. Novato was sure now that those manual handles were for emergencies, when no power was available. That’s why they were kept out of the way behind the orange
panels.
Novato’s inertia had carried her right through the door, but to her surprise she found herself hitting a wall almost at once. No … it wasn’t a wall. It was a second door. This was another one of those confounded double-doored rooms.
But surely this door should have opened on its own, too. Oh, well; she’d operated enough of these things manually down below. She extended her claws and flicked back the little clips that held the orange panel in place. It popped forward, revealing the handle.
Novato reached for the handle and began to crank it around…
Suddenly, the door behind her began to slide shut, but her tail was sticking out through it. The door pushed against her tail, but before the pressure got too great it reversed itself and slid open again.
Novato heard — or perhaps felt was a better word — a sound. It was very high pitched, making her teeth rattle in their sockets and her claws itch. The door behind her had reversed again, touching her tail once more.
The sound was cycling back and forth, like a repetitive call.
Novato pulled again on the handle.
And then…
A sliver of blackness down the right side of the door.
A torrent of wind…
Incredible pain in her ears.
Her hands went to the sides of her head, completely covering her earholes.
Blood spurted from her nostrils.
Stars were visible down the black gap.
Stars.
Her skin tingled.
She slammed her eyes shut, inner and outer lids crunched tightly against the pressure mounting within her orbs.
Like a vast storm, air rushed through the opening.
Blood was leaking from her anus and her genital folds.
The evacuating air was pulling her toward the partially open joor, but the opening was too small for her to be carried outside.
There was great pain, searing pain, claw-sharp pain…
And then the pain began to subside.
Everything began to subside.
Novato’s consciousness ebbed away…
*23*
Afsan came at once to the ruling room. The Emperor read the leather strip containing Toroca’ s message to him. Afsan had Dybo repeat the text twice. Finally, he shook his head. “We don’t stand a chance.”
“Why not?” said Dybo. “My imperial guards are well trained; our hunters have great prowess. Granted, victory will be difficult, but I don’t see why it should be impossible. Besides, if these … these Others are coming here, we have the advantage of fighting on terrain familiar to us.”
“That’s irrelevant.” Afsan’s tail swished. “Consider this: our people are constrained by territoriality. Toroca says the Others are not. We might be able to bring ten or fifteen hunters together, but they can bring a hundred or even a thousand.”
“They’re only bringing forty boats,” said Dybo. “Even a big ship like the
Dasheter
carries less than twenty people.”
“That’s territoriality again,” said Afsan. “The
Dasheter
could carry a hundred people if they could be crowded together in multi-bunk rooms like those aboard the alien ark. Those forty ships could contain more people than in all of Capital City. If what Toroca says is correct, they could swarm over us, like insects over dead meat. We will be hopelessly outnumbered.”
“Ah, but we are still true hunters, Afsan. Toroca says these Others need tools to kill animals. We kill with claws and teeth. We don’t need tools.”
Afsan nodded as if Dybo had just made his point for him. “The First Edict of Lubal: ’A Quintaglio kills with tooth and claw; only such killing makes us strong and pure.’”
“That’s right,” said Dybo.
“Don’t you see, though? The use of tools gives the Others advantages. We have to physically connect with our prey, putting ourselves at risk. They may have God knows what to aid them. Pointed sticks launched through the air, perhaps — when I was battling Kal-ta-goot aboard the
Dasheter
, I wished for such a thing. Or perhaps they use knives not just to strip and cut hides but actually to perform the kill.”
“I’ve never heard of such things,” said Dybo.
“No. Our religion forbids them. But they may use them. And these tools and weapons could amplify their individual abilities, too.”
“We must learn to do the same, then.”
“Easier said than done. Recall the twenty-third scroll: ’Take not a weapon with you on the hunt, for that is the coward’s way.’ Your brave imperial guards will find it difficult to adopt what they’ve always been taught is a craven approach.”
“So they will outnumber us and be better — what is the word? — equipped?” Dybo looked at Afsan. “Is there nothing in our advantage?”
Afsan leaned back on his tail, thinking. “Well, in his polemic on battles, Keladax once said that the most important thing you on have on your side is moral rectitude: being right in the eyes of God. But even that, I’m afraid, falls to the Others. If I understand Toroca’s note properly, we attacked them first, and…”
“Nothing supersedes my people’s right to survive,” snapped Dybo. “I’d be a poor leader if I didn’t hold that as a sacred truth.” The Emperor’s tail moved left and right. “We are killers to our very core, Afsan. That’s our biggest advantage. That’s why we will be victorious. We kill gladly. We kill easily. We kill for fun. The Others, judging by Toroca’s missive, do not have that trait.” Dybo had a faraway expression, as if visualizing the coming battle. “It’s not often that I can say this, but you are wrong, good Afsan — totally and completely wrong. I know the Quintaglio people.” His voice was determined. “The Others won’t know what hit them.”
Peace. Incredible peace. Calmness, like a still lake. Novato felt no pain, no angst, no guilt, no fear. Just tranquillity, a sense of halcyon simplicity.
And then an image. Like the space tower, with the sun at the top, but not quite. Something similar, yet different. A — a tunnel, with a pure white light at its end, purer and whiter and brighter than the sun itself, but visible without squinting, without pain.
Drifting, as she had within the lifeboat, without weight. Effortless movement. Drifting toward the light, the beautiful, perfect light.
She wasn’t alone; Novato knew that. There were others here, others whom she knew. Familiar presences. Lub-Kaden, the hunt leader from her home Pack of Gelbo. And Irb-Falpom, first director of the Geological Survey of Land. And, and, why, yes, it was! Haldan. Dear sweet Haldan, one of her children by Afsan. And there, a youngster … why, could it be?
And then it came to her, softly, gently, a thought surprising, but not really, a thought that should have been disturbing, but wasn’t disturbing at all.
Lub-Kaden had died on the hunt.
Irb-Falpom, huge and ancient, had passed peacefully in her sleep.
And Haldan — Haldan’s passage had been hastened by her insane brother.
And the child … surely this was little Helbark. Helbark, who had died of fever. Dead.
All of them. Dead.
Just like me.
But then another form appeared, a familiar form. Why, it was Karshirl, her daughter by Garios. She was all but lost in the glare of the strange white light. Ah, then this was a dream, surely, for Karshirl was still alive, was waiting for her down at the base of the tower. Strange, though, the way the younger female stood there, as if now, at last, she wanted to talk, to spend time with Novato, to know her mother.
Such beautiful light.
The dream didn’t frighten Novato. Nothing, she thought, could frighten her so long as she was in the presence of that hypnotic, wondrous light.
The light’s edges were diffuse and yet she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could discern a shape in that light, a form in the illumination.
A Quintaglio. A giant Quintaglio, bigger than the biggest thunderbeast. Maybe, just maybe … It was in profile now, this glowing Quintaglio. It had no arms. It was God.
But then the periphery of the light shifted, shimmered, and whatever form she’d thought she’d seen there was gone, lost in the glorious whiteness.
She wanted to approach closer, to be with the light, but new images were crowding her mind, a cascade of images, images blowing in the wind.
Her first pilgrimage voyage. The Face of God at the zenith, a magnificent banded crescent…
Getting her hunter’s tattoo, holding her jaw firmly shut, determined not to yelp as the metal lance repeatedly pierced the skin on the side of her head…
She and her creche-mate, Daldar, running through the forest together…
A culling — surely not her own! One she must have seen at some other point. A group of eight hatchlings half-running, half-stumbling across the birthing sands, while a giant male Quintaglio — a bloodpriest — gave chase, his purple robes billowing about him. One after another, hatchlings were caught in his gaping maw and then slid down his distended throat…
A happier sight: her first meeting with gruff old Var-Keenir, when the master mariner had sought her out to acquire one of ner far-seers. She’d beamed with pride at that, and all of Pack Gelbo had treated her with new respect…
The sight of Kevpel through the big far-seer she’d set up at the summit of the dormant Osbkay volcano. Kevpel’s glorious rings, its retinue of moons, its beautiful banded cloud tops…
That first glorious time she’d beat her teaching master at a game of
lastoontal
…
Being there, aboard the
Dasheter
, to see her first clutch of eggs hatch, the eight babies using their little birthing horns to break through their shells, then tumbling out onto the wooden deck of tbe ship…
Soaring through the air during that incredible first flight aboard the
Tak-Saleed
…
And that time, long ago, with Afsan. Dear, wonderful Afsan. He’d seemed so awkward and gawky — just a skinny adolescent, really — when he’d shown up at her workplace in the old temple of Hoog. But what a mind he had! And what wonderful and startling truths they’d found by pooling their observations. And that night, when she suddenly found herself receptive, suddenly found herself with him inside her. That wonderful night…
Mokleb had co-opted Pettit, Afsan’s apprentice, to do some research for her. Pettit knew what time Afsan’s usual appointment with Mokleb was, and so she waited for Mokleb along the path that led to Rockscape. The young apprentice stood in plain sight, in the middle of the path, so that Mokleb would be sure to see her well in advance. After ritual greetings were exchanged, Pettit spoke: “I have that information you requested.”
“Ah, good,” said Mokleb. “Tell me.”
“Empress Sar-Sardon arrived in Pack Carno on the nineteenth day of Dargo in kiloday 7096.”
Mokleb’s inner eyelids fluttered. “The nineteenth? Are you certain?”
“Oh, yes,” said Pettit. “There’s a commemorative stone in Carno’s territory. There’s a fine etching of it in the archives here; the date was easy to read.”