‘They are waiting for something,’ one of the Gerenhodh Sisters said. ‘We can hear them, see them, sense their apprehension of someone or something coming – something we cannot see.’
‘How much warning will we have?’
‘The things which live and breathe will not move any faster than their feet can bring them. The Gahlians with their Tharnel worms and their other monsters – well, we may have a few hours, at best, before they reach the ramparts.’ This was Hazliah, conferring with others as he spoke. ‘The mists can come over the cliffs in an instant. It is useless to oppose them. They can flow into the valley and across the valley to the city. The Sisters want to know what they are to do, try to hold the valley or merely the city? Are they to try and sing quiet upon every mountain, or upon some, or upon none?’
They agreed to defend the city only, since it seemed useless to try and hold the valley with all its little fortresses. Once the mists had surrounded them, then the defenders would be lost, so all might as well be brought into the city. They set up a rotation of the Choirs so that some were awake and available at all times.
‘Where are we to sing?’ demanded one of the Choir Sisters. ‘There is no place large enough for more than one or two of the Choirs. Orena is not much given to public assembly.’
For this question an answer was in Leona’s mind even as she spoke. ‘Have Hazliah take you into the Temple,’ she said. ‘In the very centre is a high hall beneath that place where the Remnant were. Set up dormitories in the armouries beneath so that none of you need leave the vicinity. Have the Temple entry and the ways below doubly closed and guarded. This will be our final fastness, our last redoubt.’
This was set into motion while Leona wandered about the city and onto the cliffs again and again. The hordes gathered but did not attack. On the northern cliffs they were building something, but what it was, what its purpose was, no one could tell. From there she went into the Temple and up the shining core of it to the high place where the Remnant had been. Each time she saw Taniel, pale and silent, sitting motionless beside the parapet and peering into the northeast as though desire could overcome distance to show her what transpired there. Leona spoke to her, a few words. Taniel seemed to find it increasingly difficult to answer. On the fifth day after the departure, Leona touched the woman’s shoulder to find it cold, the face cold, the eyes unwinkingly directed to the north, the animating spirit fled away. She fetched Hazliah to query him as they stood beside the still body which seemed to shrink even as they watched.
‘How could she live so long, so very long, and go all at once? It is as though the life flowed out of her.’
‘It is said, Leona, that this Taniel was created–made by Urlasthes, called into being for his comfort, a symbol of his lost tie to all that lived.’
‘Not born? Made?’
‘Perhaps both born and made, perhaps neither. Perhaps dreamed into being. See. She fades to dust.’
It was true. There before them on the spire the body crumbled and was gone, dust whirling away on the little wind. Leona found her eyes wet. ‘So long,’ she murmured. ‘To live so very long and to fade like a flower.’
She went down into the city once more, sought out Bombaroba in order to touch the living and familiar.
‘They are going to let us become people of Orena, did you know that?’ die boy asked her. ‘They are going to give us parent-beads and all. Each of us must have five, Lady. Five who will be our parents for all our years of growing, to teach us and keep us safe and let us learn all of the old things. We are to find our parents, Lady, each of us.’ He did not say anything more but looked at her with such anxious inquiry that she could not refuse him.
‘Will you have me for a parent, Bomba? I would think it a great honour, a great gift. All the years in which I should have had children, you see, were used up in finding and guarding the wild places of the world. If you will not be my child, it is not likely I will have a child in this life.’
He said little after that, but his smile was one of enormous satisfaction when he confessed that Leona was first and he must find four more. Gravely, Leona nominated Hazliah and Systrys and the loyal scout of the southern journey, Eriden. ‘If they seem good to you, Bomba. And perhaps one of the Sifters you know well?’
‘I would like it to be Teraspelion,’ he said. ‘Because she is the one I know best. But she did not come with us.’
‘Why?’ Leona asked him. ‘Why did they not come? At the time I did not question it, but now – now it makes me wonder.’
‘Doesn’t the Crown tell you, Lady?’
‘Oh, Bomba.’ She laughed. ‘The. Crown tells me nothing. When I know all
