The following night they progressed further. Not only did the singer keep strongly to the melody, but the harmony was picked up by other voices in the woods. By the end of the evening Queynt was sure he heard one flutelike voice in an original harmonic line high above the rest.
On the third night they sang and Queynt listened ruefully, wondering if he would ever touch his own instrument again. When they had finished, he felt a small hand tugging at his own to put something in it.
There were half a dozen jewels there, bright blue and faceted. He held them, admiring them, surprised when the same tiny hand took one from him and pressed it to his lips. His sucking reflex took it in, fondling it with his tongue.
When he came to himself again, the fire was burnt to ashes, only a few coals blinking at him from slow, basilisk eyes. Nothing was left of the jewel. It had dissolved into him, permeated him. He could feel it moving in his veins, a flow of quiet certainty. Beside the dead fire crouched the singer. When it saw he was awake, it pointed to the pouch at his belt, to his hand.
The jewels he had held had been put away. Finger on lips, the creature shushed him. Secret. Secret gift. Not to be mentioned. Then it summoned him with flickering fingers. Queynt packed up his few belongings and followed.
Though he was an experienced woodsman, a good tracker, an excellent navigator, he was never able to find the place again. Sometimes, remembering it, he felt there had been some large, brilliant curved structure in the background. Other times he remembered only forest and rock. Whatever the setting may have been, he was sure of one thing. The Eesties.
“The singers call us Eesties or Eeties, which in their language means “bone music” or “bone song” or some other such phrase. Call us something similar if you like.” The star stood to speak with him, tall upon two of its points, the other three moving as though blown by a harsh wind. Later he recalled it as having had a face painted at its upper end, but the voice spoke as much inside Queynt’s head as in his ears. He did not find this surprising. What he did find surprising was the tone of irritation, of an angry contempt that hid something deeper and more vital.
“Why did your like come to this world?”
Queynt spoke of several ships that had fled to this world in recent centuries, his own group only one among many, and of the wars and destruction they had fled from.
“You have fled from destruction, yet brought it with you? Like a beast which flees from the plague it carries?” Since this was what Queynt himself had thought many times, he could only agree.
“We try to flee. We, some of us, do not want such violent things, do not want conflict. So we try to run. But I suppose we do bring some of it with us.”
“Like the little singers, the Shadowpeople. They, too, desire holiness. They, too, have little talent for it.” The creature’s irritation seemed exacerbated by this, a scarcely veiled hostility that did not at first threaten force, but rather seemed to imply anathema, a casting out. It was as though the Eesty tolerated Queynt’s presence at all only with difficulty, and now the mention of his yearnings for peace infuriated it. It was then Queynt thought he identified what lay beneath the anger, beneath the contempt. Guilt. This being, whatever it truly was, was guilty of something, and that guilt ate at it like a cancer. He did not know how he knew this. Later, he realized the crystal he had taken had enlightened him in ways he was scarcely aware of.
“We want you to go hence,” the creature told him. “Go away, to some other world. This one does not need you. You do an evil thing here.” It moved away in a flutter of ribbons, leaving a stink of hatred behind it.
Queynt could not understand what the evil was they were trying to communicate. The concepts swam in his head, half-formed, vertiginous edges of ideas which touched and darted away, only partly seen. A word.
“Bao.” Or maybe “Bah-ho.” It had no meaning for him. In it there were Eesties, Shadowpeople, birds, beasts, trees, long white roads under a scarlet sun, stars spinning upon them in a constant glittering flow. Disruption. He tried to explain that the ships were gone, disassembled, that mankind could not leave. The Eesty went angrily away.
It tried again later. “Badness is being done. (Most desirable of all things) is being destroyed.” Again he struggled with the concept. Humans were doing something wrong. He could not tell what it was. Not a matter of breaking a taboo, not a matter of destroying some holy site. More than that. They were doing this (had done this?) evil by merely existing.
Then why did the creature feel guilt? What was it hiding?
Then there were three of the Eesties, not now merely questioning him but examining him as well, looking into him as though digging some root crop, plunging through him to leave disruptive pain behind.
One of them had his pouch, was looking through it.
They saw the blue gems.
Fury. Anger. Hot, hideous, destructive. The air blazed around him, fire hot, making him fear for his life until a great cry came from somewhere, from some other Eesty, perhaps, a warning, a threat? The creatures were all around him, whirling in a frenzy of hatred, frustrated hostility, desire to kill. Queynt fell to the ground, covered his neck with his hands, curled upon himself knowing he was to die
