At Winter's End

by Robert Silverberg

  Si-Belimnion gave him a melancholy smile. “A bizarre new kind of belief sweeps through the populace. Her own daughter is lost in incomprehensible fantasies. Threats are made against her in the streets by people calling for her abdication—hotheaded members of my own tribe, mostly, I’m ashamed to say. The rain goes on and on as has never been seen here before. She thinks the gods have turned against us and that her own end can’t be far off.”

  Thu-Kimnibol looked toward Kartafirain. “Is this true?”

  “She’s greatly transformed, I think. And not for the better.”

  “Incredible. Incredible. There was never anyone with as much vitality as that woman. But I’ll speak with her. I’ll show her how the war will redeem us. She’ll feel young again once we go marching off to smash the hjjks!”

  “She may oppose you on the war,” Maliton Diveri said.

  “You think so?”

  “Husathirn Mueri is very close with her now. And you know, Thu-Kimnibol, he’ll always take any position that stands against your own beliefs. If you’re for war, he’ll be against it. He’s still in favor of watching and waiting, taking no action, gathering our strength. And he’s certain to speak in the Presidium against your alliance with Salaman.”

  Thu-Kimnibol spat. “Husathirn Mueri! That slippery ghost! How can Taniane possibly trust him?”

  “Who said she trusts him? She’s smarter than that. But she listens to him. And I guarantee it, he’ll advise against any kind of military action that you support. May well be able to sway her, too.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Thu-Kimnibol.

  Despite everything they had told him he was still unprepared for the transformation Taniane had undergone since summer. She seemed a hundred years old. It was hard to believe that this dull-eyed lusterless woman was the fiery chieftain who had ruled this city so vigorously for so many decades. The fierce masks of the former chieftains, hanging on the wall behind her, made a mockery of her fatigue. Thu-Kimnibol felt almost apologetic for his own vigor and strength.

  “At last,” she said. “I thought you’d never return.”

  “There was a great deal to discuss with Salaman. It had to be done carefully. And he went out of his way to make me feel welcome.”

  “A strange man, Salaman. I’d have expected him still to hate you.”

  “So would I. But all that’s ancient history now. He was very loving.”

  “Salaman? Loving?” Taniane managed a faint smile. “Well, it may be. Even the hjjks are loving, so I’m told.” She leaned back in her chair. In a voice that seemed to come from some deep crypt she said, “There’s been madness here, Thu-Kimnibol. Things are almost beyond my control. I’m in need of all the help you can give.”

  “I’ve never heard you so despondent, sister.”

  “You know of the new religion? This Kundalimon-worship?”

  “Hjjk-worship, you mean.”

  “Yes. In truth, that’s what it is.”

  “News of it came north with the autumn caravan.”

  “Those who believe it—and there are hundreds of them, Thu-Kimnibol, perhaps thousands!—are pushing me to accept the treaty with the Queen. I get petitions every day. They march outside the Presidium. They cry out at me in the streets. I tell you, that boy spread some kind of poison in the minds of the children during just the few weeks he was among us. By the gods, Thu-Kimnibol, I tell you I wish he’d been killed sooner!”

  Uneasily Thu-Kimnibol said, “Surely you didn’t have anything to do with his death, Taniane!”

  For a moment there was a flash of the old fire in her eyes. “No. No, not at all. Am I a murderer? I had no idea the boy could do such harm. And he was Nialli’s lover. What do you think, that I’d have wanted him removed because of that? No, brother, I had nothing to do with it. I wish I knew who did.”

  “Her lover?” Thu-Kimnibol said, shaken.

  “You didn’t know? They were coupling-partners, and twining-partners also. I thought everyone knew that by now.”

  “I’ve been away many months, sister.”

  “You seem to know of everything else that’s gone on here.”

  “Her lover,” Thu-Kimnibol said again, still struggling with the idea. “I never thought of that. But how obvious it seems now! Small wonder she went out of her mind when he was killed, then.” He shook his head. It was strange to think of his brother’s daughter having taken a lover of any sort, after the way she’d always kept herself aloof. But to have chosen that dreamy hjjk-reared lad—how much like her that was, he thought. And then for him to be killed. How sad. “The gods have been unkind to that girl,” he said. “One shouldn’t have to have so much turmoil so young. I suppose she’s involved with the new religion, now?”

  “Not so far as I’ve heard. By all rights she should be, yes. But I’m told that she stays in her room at the House of Nakhaba and hardly ever goes out. I don’t see her very often, you understand.” Taniane laughed bitterly. “You see how it is? My one child is as foreign to me as a hjjk. My mate hides himself as usual in the House of Knowledge, and busies himself with important matters ten million years old. My people cry out to me to sign a treaty that means the end of us. There have been calls for my abdication, do you know that, Thu-Kimnibol? ‘You stay much too long,’ they tell me, practically to my face. ‘It’s time you stepped aside.’ By the gods, Thu-Kimnibol, I wish I could! I wish I could!”

  “Taniane—my poor Taniane—” he began, in his gentlest tone.

  Her eyes flared wildly. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that! I don’t want your pity! Or anyone’s! Pity isn’t what I need.” In a softer tone she said, “What I need is help. Do you see how isolated I am? How helpless? And do you see what troubles are upon us? What can you offer me beside pity, Thu-Kimnibol?”

  “I can offer you a war,” he said.

  “A war?”

  “We’re in alliance now with the City of Yissou, if the Presidium will ratify it. It binds us to go to Salaman’s aid if his city is attacked by hjjks; and I tell you, no doubt of it, Yissou and the hjjks will be at war very soon. So, then, will we. And then it’ll be treason in this city to speak favorably of hjjks, for they’ll officially be our enemies. And so there’ll be an end to any talk of our accepting the Queen’s treaty, and an end also to this poisonous religion that has sprung up in our midst, and to all the rest of your troubles, sister. What do you say to that? Now, what do you say?”

  “Tell me more,” said Taniane, and it seemed to Thu-Kimnibol that years had dropped from her in a single moment.

  “All of us finally together again,” Boldirinthe cried. “You were gone so long, Simthala Honginda! How good it is to have you here with us at last!”

  It was a joyous day for the old offering-woman, the day of her eldest son’s return from the north. Even the interminable rain had relented for once. For the first time in months her whole family was gathered about her in the warm pleasant hilltop lodgings she shared with Staip: her three sons and their mates, and her daughter and hers, and the whole horde of her grandchildren. Boldirinthe sat enfolded complacently in her own massiveness, contained by her vast body as though by a mound of blankets, and they came to her one by one to be embraced. Afterward they lifted her and led her to the dining-table, and brought the food and the wine. There were grilled scantrins, first, the fleshy-legged little creatures of the bay, not quite fish, and not quite lizard but something midway between, and then heaping bowls of steamed kivvinfruit, and finally a roasted haunch of vimbor in shells of pastry, with plenty of good strong black Emakkis wine to wash it down. When they had eaten they sang and told old tales, and Staip, as he always did, reminisced about the People’s privations during the journeys from the cocoon to Vengiboneeza and from Vengiboneeza to the southland, and one of her grandsons recited a poem he had composed, and a granddaughter played a tinkling little tune on the serilingion, and the wine flowed freely and there was much laughter. But Boldirinthe noticed that in the midst of all this joy her son Simthala Hongin
da, in whose honor the gathering was being held, sat silently, smiling infrequently, seemingly forcing himself by supreme effort to pay even slight attention to what was taking place about him.

  To her son’s mate Catiriil, sitting beside her, she said quietly, “He says so little. What troubles him, do you think?”

  “Perhaps he’s finding it strange to be home again, after so long a journey.”

  Boldirinthe frowned. “Strange? To be home? How can that be, girl? He’s with his kin again, his mate, his son, his daughter—he is here in his own splendid Dawinno, and not in Salaman’s miserable dank Yissou. But where is his spirit? Where is his spark? This isn’t the Simthala Honginda I remember.”

  “Nor I,” whispered Catiriil. “He seems still to be in some distant land.”

  “Has he been like this all day?”

  “From the first, when the caravan arrived at dawn. Oh, we embraced—warmly enough, he told me how much he had missed me, he brought out gifts for me and for the children, he told us of the disagreeable place he had been and remarked on the beauty of Dawinno, even in the rain. It was all just words, though. There was no feeling in them.” Then, with a smile, Catiriil said, “It must be only that Thu-Kimnibol kept him up there in the north so long that the chill of Salaman’s city entered his soul. But give me a day or two to warm him up, Mother Boldirinthe. That’s all it’ll take!”

  “Go to him now,” Boldirinthe said. “Sit with him. Serve him with wine, and see to it that his cup is never empty. Eh, girl? You know what I mean.”

  Catiriil nodded and crossed the room to take the seat beside her mate. Boldirinthe watched approvingly. Catiriil was so gentle, so good, such a graceful person in every way, a splendid mate for her sharp-edged son. And beautiful, too, as her mother Torlyri had been, that same rich black fur startlingly banded with white spirals, the same dark warm eyes. Torlyri had been very tall, and Catiriil was small and delicate, but sometimes, seeing her son’s mate from the corner of her eye, Boldirinthe imagined she was seeing Torlyri returned from the dead, and it gave her a start. And also Catiriil had Torlyri’s mild and loving nature. How odd, Boldirinthe thought, that Catiriil was so pleasing in so many ways, and her brother Husathirn Mueri so difficult to like.

  Catiriil was doing her best to cheer Simthala Honginda up. She had gathered a little group around him—his brother Nikilain, and Nikilain’s mate Pultha, who was an absolute well of laughter and high spirits, and Timofon, his close friend and hunting companion, the mate of Simthala Honginda’s sister Leesnai. They were joking with him, teasing him a little, centering all their attention and love on him. If a group like that couldn’t lift Simthala Honginda from his bleakness, Boldirinthe thought, then no one could. But it seemed to be working.

  Abruptly Simthala Honginda’s voice rose clearly over the sounds of singing and merriment.

  “Shall I tell you a story?” he said, in an oddly strained tone. “You have all told stories: now I’ll tell you one, or several.” He gulped the last of his wine and said without waiting for a response, “At one time in the hills east of Vengiboneeza there lived a bird with one body and two heads. You never saw it, did you, father? I didn’t think so. But this is a tale. It seems that one of the heads once noticed the other head eating some sweet fruit with great enjoyment, and became envious, and it said to itself, ‘I will eat poison fruit, then.’ And so it did; and the whole bird died.”

  The room was completely quiet. There were some awkward attempts at laughter when Simthala Honginda was done speaking, but they died away as quickly as they were born.

  “You liked that story, eh?” he cried. “Another one, then? Wait. Wait, let me have some wine.”

  Catiriil said, “Perhaps you’re tired, love. We could—”

  “No,” said Simthala Honginda, refilling and draining his cup almost at once. “Another story. The story of the serpent whose head and tail quarreled with each other as to which should be the front. The tail said, ‘You’re always in the lead. That isn’t fair. Let me lead once in a while.’ And the head replied, ‘How can I change places with you? The gods have decreed that I am the head.’ But the quarrel went on and on, until the tail, in anger, wrapped itself around a tree, and the serpent could not proceed. Finally the head relented, and allowed the tail to go first, whereupon the serpent fell into a pit of flame and perished. Which is to say that there is a natural order to things, and when that order is disturbed, everything will go to ruin.”

  The silence this time was even more tense.

  Staip, half rising from his seat, looked toward his son and said, “I think perhaps you should put your wine-cup away now, boy. What do you say?”

  “I say that I haven’t had nearly enough, father! But you don’t like my stories, I take it. I thought you would, but it seems that I’m wrong. Well, then. No more stories. Only straightforward speech will it be, then. Direct and plain. Do you want to hear about my journey to the north? Do you want to know what our embassy achieved in Salaman’s kingdom?”

  Softly Catiriil said, “You’re upsetting your mother, you know. You don’t want to do that, do you? Look how pale she’s become. Perhaps we should go out for a little fresh air, love. The rain has stopped, and—”

  “No,” Simthala Honginda said fiercely. “No, she should hear this too. She’s still the offering-woman, isn’t she? She’s a high official of the tribe, is she not? Well, then. She must hear it.” His hand trembled as he reached for yet another cup of wine. “What I have to tell you is that there will be a war soon,” he cried. “With the hjjks, it’ll be. Salaman and Thu-Kimnibol have arranged it between them, some provocation, some pretext that’ll touch it off, and we’ll be plunged into the full fury of it, like it or not. This I know from what I heard, and what I overheard, and what I found by prowling about. There will be war! Thu-Kimnibol and Salaman will have it no other way! And we’ll all blindly follow them over the edge of the cliff!” He took a deep draught of the wine. More moderately he said, “They’re mad, those two. And their madness will infect all the world. Or perhaps it’s the world’s madness that has infected them. Perhaps we’ve already gone so far down the wrong road that this is the inevitable outcome, that Thu-Kimnibol and Salaman are the appropriate leaders for our time.”

  Boldirinthe stared, horror-stricken. She felt her heart beating furiously in the depths of her immense body.

  Catiriil rose now and took the cup from Simthala Honginda, and whispered in his ear, trying desperately to calm him down. He responded angrily at first, but something she said appeared to reach him, and he nodded and shrugged, and spoke more gently to her, and after a moment she slipped her arm through his and led him quietly from the room.

  Quietly Boldirinthe said to Staip, “Can what he said be true? Will there be war, do you think?”

  “I’m no confidant of Thu-Kimnibol’s,” said Staip impassively. “I know no more than you do of any of this.”

  “There must be no war,” she said. “Who will speak for peace in the Presidium? Husathirn Mueri will, I know. And Puit Kjai. And Hresh, perhaps. And certainly I will, if they give me a chance. And you? Will you speak?”

  “If Thu-Kimnibol wants war, there will be war,” said Staip, sounding as though he spoke from the other side of the grave. “What of it? Will you have to go to battle? Will I? No, no, no, this is no affair of ours. The gods determine everything. This is no affair of ours, Boldirinthe. If there is to be war, I say, let it come.”

  “War?” Husathirn Mueri said. He looked at his sister in astonishment. “A secret understanding with Salaman? A trumped-up provocation?”

  “So Simthala Honginda insisted,” said Catiriil. “So he said, in front of Staip, in front of Boldirinthe, in front of the whole family. It was bubbling inside him all day, and finally it came out. He’d been drinking heavily, you understand.”

  “Would he say the same things to me, if I went to see him?”

  “He’s never been really close to you, you know.”

  Husathirn Mueri laughed. “
How kind you are! What you mean, but aren’t willing to say, is that he dislikes me intensely. Eh, Catiriil?”

  She shrugged almost imperceptibly. “I’m aware that you and he have never been friendly. What he said at dinner is something he really had no right to reveal. It’s almost treasonable, isn’t it, blurting out state secrets like that? He may not want to take you into his confidence.”

  “No right to reveal that we’re being tricked into fighting a war that’ll ruin us, simply to gratify Thu-Kimnibol’s lust for battle? You call that treasonable? It’s Thu-Kimnibol who’s committed the treason, Catiriil.”

  “Yes. So I think also. That’s why I’ve brought this to you.”

  “But you doubt that I can get Simthala Honginda to give me the details of it himself.”

  “I doubt it very much, brother.”

  “All right. All right. This is valuable enough for now, simply knowing what Thu-Kimnibol and Salaman have cooked up together. I’ll take it from there.”

  “And may the gods be with us, whatever may come,” Catiriil said.

  “The gods,” Husathirn Mueri said softly to himself, with a little chuckle, when his sister was gone. “Yes. May the gods be with us, indeed.”

  To me they are nothing at all, they are only names. Those were Nialli Apuilana’s words, that astounding time when she had raved in such frenzy before the Presidium. Our own inventions, to comfort us in our difficult times. Husathirn Mueri had never forgotten that moment, nor those words.

  Nothing but names. His own view exactly. In truth he knew himself to be a worse case even than Nialli Apuilana, for he had no beliefs at all, other than that life was nonsense, a cruel joke, a series of random events, that there was no reason for our being here other than that we are here. She at least had swallowed the hjjk myth that a cosmic plan governs the world and that everything is part of a preordained pattern. He had never seen evidence of that. And so he had no moral center, and knew it; he was capable of taking any position that seemed useful to the moment, favoring war one day and opposing it the next, as circumstances required. All that mattered was attaining power and comfort in his own lifetime, for that one lifetime was all there was, and everything was a joke in any case.