injury. Hear me. Rejoin the others. You will be bound with them when you are brought ashore. But not for long. As soon as this vessel leaves I’ll have you away from them, free, working with me. This Alpeasak will be my destiny and I need your help. Extend it. You know what terrible things are happening, the cold winds blow more strongly from the north. Two cities are dead — and there is no doubt that Inegban* will be next. It is the foresight of our city’s leaders that before that happens a new and greater city will be grown on this distant shore. When Inegban* dies Alpeasak will be waiting. I have fought hard for the privilege of being Eistaa of the new city . I will shape its growth and ready it for the day when our people come. I will need help to do that. Friends around me who will work hard and rise with me. I ask you to join with me, Enge, aid me in this great work. You are my efensele. We entered the sea together, grew together, emerged together as comrades in the same efenburu. This is a bond that is not easily broken. Join with me, rise with me, stay at my right hand. You cannot refuse. Do you agree?”
Enge had her head lowered, her wrists crossed to show that she was bound, lifting her joined hands before her face before she raised her eyes.
“I cannot. I am bound to my companions, the Daughters of Life, with a bond even stronger than that of my efenburu. They follow where I have led…”
“You have led them into wilderness and exile — and certain death.”
“I hope not. I have only spoke what is right. I have spoken of the truth revealed by Ugunenapsa, that gave her eternal life. To her, to me, to us all. It is you and the other Yilane who are too blind to see. Only one thing can restore sight to you and to them. Awareness of the knowledge of death that will give you the knowledge of life.”
Vainte was beside herself with anger, unable for the moment to speak, raising her hands to Enge like an infant so she could see the inflamed red of her palms, pushing them before her face in the most insulting of gestures. Growing more angry still when Enge was unmoved, ignoring her rage and speaking to her with tenderness.
“It need not be, Vainte. You can join us, discover that which is larger than personal desires, greater than allegiance to efenburu…”
“Greater than allegiance to your city?”
“Perhaps — because it transcends everything.”
“There is no word for that which you are speaking. It is a betrayal of everything we live by and I feel only a great repulsion. Yilane live as Yilane, since the egg of time. Then into this order, like a parasite boring into living flesh, your despicable Farneksei appeared preaching this rebellious nonsense. Great patience was shown to her, yet she persisted and was warned, and persisted still — until there was no recourse but to expel her from her city. And she did not die, the first of the living-dead. Were it not for Olpesaag the salvationer, she might be living and preaching dissension still.”
“Ugunenapsa was her name because through her this great truth was revealed. Olpesaag was the destroyer who destroyed her flesh but not her revelation.”
“A name is what you are given, and she was Farneksei, inquirer-past-prudence, and she died for that crime. That is where it will end, this childish belief of yours, dirty thoughts that belong down among the corals and the kelp.” She took a deep and shuddering breath, fighting hard to get her temper under control. “Don’t you understand what I am offering you? One last chance. Life instead of death. Join with me and you will climb high. If this unsavory belief is important to you keep it, but speak to me not of it, or to any other Yilane, keep it beneath your cloak where none can see. You will do it.”
“I cannot. The truth is there and must be spoken aloud…”
Roaring with rage, Vainte seized Enge by the neck, her thumbs twisting cruelly at her crest, pushing her down and grinding her face into the unyielding surface of the fin.
“There is the truth!” she shouted, pulling Enge’s face about so she would understand every word clearly. “The birdshit that I grind your stupid moon-face into, that is reality and the truth. Out there is the truth of the new city at the edge of the wild jungle, hard work and filth and none of the comforts you have known. That is your fate, and certain death, I promise you if you do not abandon your superior attitude, your weak mewling…”
Vainte spun about when she heard the tiny choking sound, to see the commander climbing up to join them, now trying to draw back out of sight.
“Get up here,” Vainte shouted, hurling Enge down onto the ledge. “What does this interference, this spying mean?”
“I did not mean… there was no intent, Highest, I will leave.” Erafnais spoke simply, without subtlety or embellishment, so great was her embarrassment.
“What brought you here then?”
“The beaches. I just wanted to point out the white beaches, the birth beaches. Just around the point of land you see ahead.”
Vainte was happy for the excuse to turn away from this distasteful scene. Distasteful to her because she had lost her temper. Something she rarely did because she knew that it placed weapons in others’ hands. This commander now, she would bear tales, nothing good could come of it. It was Enge’s fault, ungrateful and stupid Enge. She would be her own destiny now, get exactly the fate she deserved. Vainte clutched hard to the edge as her anger faded, her breathing slowed, looking at the green shore so close to hand. Aware of Enge climbing to her feet, eager as they all were to see the beach.
“We will get as close as we can,” Erafnais said, “close inshore.”
Our future, Vainte thought, the first glorious topping of the males, the first eggs laid, the first births, the first efenburu growing in the sea. Her anger was gone now and she almost smiled at the thought of the fat and torpid males lolling stupidly in the sun, the young happily secure in their tail pouches. The first births, a memorable moment for this new city .
Under the guidance of the crew the uruketo was being urged even closer inshore, almost among the breaking waves. The shore moved by, the beaches came into view. The beautiful beaches.
Enge and the commander were struck dumb by what they saw. It was Vainte who cried aloud, a sound of terrible tortured pain.
It was drawn from deep inside her by the sight of the torn and dismembered corpses that littered the smooth sand.
CHAPTER THREE
Vainte’s cry of pain ended abruptly. When she spoke next all complexity was gone from her words, all subtlety and form. Just the bare bones of meaning were left, a graceless and harsh urgency.
“Commander. You will lead ten of your strongest crewmembers ashore at once. Armed with hesotsan. You will have the uruketo stand by here.” She pulled herself up and over the edge of the fin then stopped, pointing to Enge. “You will come with me.”
Vainte kicked her toeclaws into the uruketo’s hide, her fingers found creases in the skin as she climbed down to its back and dived into the transparent sea. Enge was just behind her.
They surged up out of the surf beside the slaughtered corpse of a male. Flies were thick about the gaping wounds, covering the flesh and congealed blood. Enge swayed at the sight, as though moved by an invisible wind, winding her thumbs and fingers together, all unknowing, in infantile patterns of pain.
Not so Vainte. Rock-hard and firm she stood, expressionless, with only her eyes moving over the scene of slaughter before her.
“I want to find the creatures that did this,” she said, her words betraying no emotion, stepping forward and bending low over the body. “They killed but did not eat. They are clawed or tusked or horned — look at those slashes. Do you see? And not only the males, but their attendants are dead too, killed the same way. Where are the guards?” She turned about to face the commander who was just emerging from the sea with the armed crewmembers, waving them forwards.
“Spread out in a line, keep your weapons ready, sweep the beach. Find the guards who should have been here — and follow those tracks and see where they lead. Go.” She watched them move out, turning about only
