'Surrounded by enemy troops. You've seen the garuda reports, I think. Huge numbers currently pouring across Tineag'l. The journey there would be too reckless, especially since we'd have to cut right through their invasion force.'
'So we must just sit and wait for them to attack – either us or a city further up the coast, who knows,' Nelum said, not a question, just a statement of what they both realized. Theirs was a waiting game. 'Bohr, we might die before we find out what it all means.'
One of the Okun suddenly began to cackle. Brynd crouched to take a better look at it. There was a mouthpiece, a jaw resembling that of a rabid dog, equipped with several incisor teeth that glinted metallically.
Brynd glanced askew at Nelum. 'Is it trying to talk?'
'Well, I think it might be – who would have thought it? Now, what do you suppose it's aiming to say precisely?'
The sounds it made were more like staccato coughs than anything resembling a voice, and even though he listened for a while, Brynd knew any communication was unlikely.
'If only we had some way of knowing what the hell it was going on about,' Brynd said.
'You know, I suppose there's always Jurro…' Nelum offered.
'Could be worth a go.'
*
The Dawnir progressed thunderously through the hallway leading the small cell which housed the Okun. He was already so excited! How often had any new creatures come to his attention? Possibly never – or, at least, not after the discovery of his own existence in the Boreal Archipelago. Thousands of years spent trying to find a memory of his own, yet he was once so fresh to this world that he might have been a baby. He needed to learn a language from scratch – and had now mastered over fifty of them.
He had been told he was found wandering through the tundra outside of Villjamur, and assumed to be some kind of prophet at first, then even a god of the creator race, the Dawnir. And when everyone finally realized he knew nothing of the world, that he could give them nothing, they lost interest in him, such was life. He had been kept as an imprisoned guest of the Council ever since, and they had been reluctant to let him outside, for his own good, in case disaffected types hailed him as a religious leader.
Rotting away in his chambers, he had all his books, and had made the most of them, turning nearly every printed page available in a quest to discover who he was and where he came from. The recent opportunity to leave his dark retreat inside the Imperial residence of Balmacara had been a godsend. And now the opportunity to investigate a new-found race… well, that was something to be utterly delighted about. For the first time in centuries had come an opportunity to discover his own origins, for if these shell-creatures came from somewhere else, some other world entirely, then they might bring with them pertinent information.
Information was his life. There might now be some answers.
He had to hunch to fit into the room, but still very nearly caught his tusks in the door frame. More than once he had scraped them in these cramped stone shells of his new home. He brushed a hand across his thick body fur as a cobweb smothered his ear, then he lowered his head to focus on Brynd, dominating much of the available space.
'Commander Brynd Lathraea and Lieutenant Nelum Valore. A pleasure, no? I hear our little malacostraca friends are no longer slumbering like cherubs?'
'Sele of Jamur, Jurro,' the commander greeted him, apparently amused, as so often, by the words issuing from Jurro's lips. The Dawnir estimated Brynd highly. He was a sound man, a philosopher as well as a warrior – just as much a warrior, even. The two had conversed during many years in his forgotten chamber in Villjamur.
'Let's show you these things, then.'
Jurro felt the gaze of a few Night Guard soldiers fixed on him, as they stood aside to let him through. They always moved so quickly, these humans, as if there was an urgency to all their actions.
It was not easy being the only one of a kind. Even these two Okun outnumbered his own race at the moment. Brynd soon brought him up to speed on their analysis of the situation. They led him over to the Okun, the two creatures now quivering perceptibly on the tiled floor.
They froze as soon as they registered the presence of the Dawnir in the room. Then, as one, both the creatures shambled to something resembling a standing position, though awkwardly, in such an unlikely connection of movements. Together they fell to their knees, as if in the presence of some Jorsalir priest.
The commander turned to his lieutenant. 'Well, they've never behaved like that before.'
'Intriguing,' Jurro mumbled, then crouched until he was at eye-level with the humans surrounding him. These Okun were unyielding as they were inspected by the Dawnir. They began clicking again, something quite incoherent at first, and then he began to understand the noises they made on some level. Not understand perhaps, merely recognize? After all, he had been cursed or blessed with spending all those centuries reading the texts within the confines of his chamber in Villjamur. The knowledge he had accumulated was only useful once he was out here, in the real world. It was a relief, finally, that he might serve some function other than as a curiosity.
'You comprehend these sounds?' the albino commander enquired.
Jurro turned to face the humans in the room. They all seemed to him the same at first, and it was only the commander's red eyes that singled him out. 'I know only that they are asking me for my forgiveness or pardon. Something along those lines, I believe. Yet, I don't understand quite how I know that. Such random knowledge! I might have read it in a text, you see. Or I have learned it at some other earlier time. I cannot quite tell. How can we trust memory, when it is not accurately documented, when it is perhaps only the shadow of something I remember. My mental vaults have grown vast.'
There were no expressions evident on their faces that he could recognize, nothing to give away their emotion as the expressions of humans or rumel so often did – so easy to read, and childlike. These Okun were something altogether different. It was truly baffling!
'I think I sense it, rather than know it, but they see me as some threat. Yes, that is so. They know who I am!' The realization almost stung him, he was so used to appearing as nothing but a myth to those he encountered.
'Or what you are,' Brynd suggested. 'Do you suppose there are more of your kind where they come from? And that, in that other place, whoever your kind are actually frighten them?'
Jurro muttered, 'It may well be.'
He knew for sure that he must ascertain more about them. Although their communication was one way, this was the first time in his long life where he had the opportunity to find out who he was. For so long he had remained an enigma not only to the officials of Villjamur but, more importantly, to himself. He had watched the lives of countless rulers and the general populace come and go, had watched the ice encroaching in recent times. None of it mattered to him, because the pattern just repeated itself: humans and rumel alike making the same mistakes for decade after decade. He himself aged hardly at all, and for all that time he had wanted to know his origins.
'I must, of course, discover from whence these two little specimens came,' Jurro announced.
The albino studied him with empathy. He had always been unusually smart, Jurro reflected, this pale thing. 'I understand,' the commander replied. 'You think their invasion force might let you through its ranks?'
Jurro held out his hands to either side, and shrugged. 'I may need assistance, but before I leave I want to interrogate them as thoroughly as possible. I understand a great deal about forms of language. Perhaps I could gain crucial intelligence.'
'That would be deeply helpful,' the commander agreed. 'Although if you want to leave here you might have to progress on your own. We have to commit all of our numbers to protecting the city.'
Jurro acquiesced, studying the Okun once more. They had risen to their feet again, still focusing their eyes on him, still unmoving apart from their mouthpieces. 'They seem to fear me greatly, so I doubt very much that their kind will offer me much in the way of hindrance. I shall make plans, and I will need some maps, and your advice, commander, on the routes to follow to find the location of these so-called gates through which these little fellows crawled. And I will need you to allow me some time with them in a cell so that I can press for information.'
With that, he departed.
TWENTY
