—
Duwan watched from a hill as Kooh burned again. He had come to a half-dead city to find only a few Devourers. Below him, moving south, there was a large group of females and young, for he had been merciful, giving orders to spare those who did not fight against Drinkers. He had had to be firm with that order until a Drinker leader, from the ranks of those who had led the last uprising in Kooh, smiled and said, 'I see your plan, Master. Dead, the females, the young, the weak and the ill are a burden to no one. Alive, they will strain the resources of the city of Tshou, where they will surely go.'
Duwan was content to let them believe that he had motives other than mercy. But Tambol understood, for he had studied the writings that Duwan had dictated to a former temple slave. And there were others, too, for Duwan spent much time in teaching, and those he taught multiplied his efforts.
Even as he watched the Devourers move to the south he saw them passed by a smaller group of Drinkers, and to his sadness there was killing and maltreatment until a unit of his army arrived and stopped the violence. He did not know how they found him, the ex-slaves who flocked to his army with each passing day. The horde that he had led out of the western hills had almost doubled, with ex-slaves from almost all of the Devourer cities, and they reported hardship among the former masters, and resistance to the order by Elnice of Arutan for total mobilization. Nevertheless, there was a Devourer army before the coastal city of Tshou. The climactic battle was fought on the beaches, and the receding waves carried with them severed limbs and white foam turned green with blood.
Now, behind him, lay Tshou, walls dismantled stone by stone, buildings laid waste. Already the creeping green things were climbing, growing, covering the mound that had been a city.
'Where will we live, Master, when we destroy all the buildings, all the huts, all the homes?' it was asked.
He set the few remaining valley Drinkers to searching out the think vines that grew wild all over the Land of Many Brothers, then to teaching their cultivation and their control. Some learned quickly, and began to teach others. All along the route from Tshou to the south Duwan left growing villages, peopled largely by females, young, and the old. Before Arutan, Duwan said farewell to Dagner, whose hardening was so severe that he had to be carried. He was returned to earth with ceremony, with noble words spoken by Tambol, and there was gladness, for now it was known that Dagner joined those who lived on, waiting for Du's call to paradise.
Arutan fell only after long siege, and it was discovered that the High Mistress, Elnice of Arutan, had fled to the south upon the approach of Duwan's army.
To the credit of the Devourers, few males survived, choosing to fight to the death. And from the growing horde of Devourer females Drinkers took mates. This disturbed Duwan, at first, until he reread his own testament to find the words, 'All life is a oneness.' Could that not be applied to Devourer females, so long as they choose to abide by the teachings? To his relief, all offspring of Drinker-Devourer matings had the pores of the Drinkers on their feet.
Now, one by one, the remaining Devourer cities fell, and were returned to the earth. Survivors marched to the south and were escorted into the heated, jungly lands from whence they had come, although many chose to stay, to adopt Drinker ways, once they were given the choice at Duwan's orders. Nor was there any slavery, although many clamored for it as a revenge for their generations of oppression.
Five years from the time that Duwan lived after being dead, he marched toward the north, accompanied only by one, a sleekly beautiful Jai. From the great mountains of the west to the sea, and south to the sodden, fever-ridden jungles the Land of Many Brothers was Drinker, and he was tired.
Although it had been a long time, he found the canyon without problem. Once they had made bough beds and built a fire in the cave he fell asleep immediately and slept through the night and into the next day until the sun had already sunk below the rim of the canyon. He roused himself, washed in the stream that had long since purified itself of the carnage of battle, and with Jai at his side sat in the center of the grove of his grandmother. The trees had grown impressively in the years since the plantings. As darkness fell he mused and listened to the whisperers. No word was distinguishable.
'I have returned, Grandmother,' he said, aloud. The whisperings did not change.
'Does she hear?' Jai asked.
'I believe she does, but she is nearer to Du than we, and not concerned with the things of our lives now.'
'Do you think she knows how things are?'
'Yes. When I was in the earth, and she and the others sent tendrils to nourish me with their own substance there where times when I was almost wakeful and could sense, or feel, events at a great distance.'
'Tell her, Duwan,' Jai said.
'Yes.' He nodded, and it seemed, as his head dropped, that he was sleeping. He did not speak, but Jai heard, and was frightened, at first, for she had not experienced that form of closeness to such an extent, having heard only a few distinct whispers from ancestors, never the thoughts of the living, but then she was not surprised, for he was Duwan, and she was his.
