Robert Silverberg - The Queen of Springtime

“Join us, of course,” Thu-Kimnibol said. “Join us and fight alongside us, if you have the strength to go on. Why would we refuse you? We are meant to be allies always, your city and mine.”

Darkness was coming quickly on. Nialli Apuilana knelt beside her father. Thu-Kimnibol stood well back from them, in the shadows where the glowglobes couldn’t reach.

“Take this amulet from around my throat,” Hresh whispered. “Put it on.”

Nialli Apuilana’s hands tightened into fists. She knew what must be in Hresh’s mind. He had worn that amulet all his life: she had never seen him without it. To give it to her now—

She glanced toward Thu-Kimnibol. He nodded. Do it, he said silently. Do it.

Unfastening the cord that held the amulet, she drew it gently free. It was a little thing, just a bit of smooth green glass, or so it seemed, with signs inscribed on it that were much too small for her to decipher. It seemed very old and worn. She felt an odd chill coming from it; but when she tied it around her neck she was aware of a faint tingling, and a distant warmth.

She stared at it, resting between her breasts.

“What does it do, father?”

“Very little, I think. But it was Thaggoran’s, who was chronicler before me. A piece of the Great World, is what he told me. It’s the chronicler’s badge of office, I suppose. Sometimes it summons Thaggoran for me, when I need him. You have to wear it now.”

“But I—”

“You are chronicler now,” Hresh said.

“What? Father, I have no training! And the chronicler has never been a woman.”

Hresh managed the bare outlines of a smile. “All that’s changing now. Everything is. Chupitain Stuld will work with you. And Io Sangrais and Plor Killivash, if they live through the war. The chronicles must stay in our family.” He reached for her hand and clutched it tightly. His fingers seemed tiny, she thought. He was becoming a child again. He opened his eyes for a moment and said, “I never expected to have a daughter, you know. To have any child at all.”

“And to think, father, how much grief I’ve caused you!”

“Never. Only joy, child. You must believe that.” His hand grew even tighter on hers. “I’ve always loved you, Nialli. And I always will. You’ll send my love to Taniane, won’t you? My partner all these years. My mate. How sad she’ll be. But she mustn’t be. I’ll be sitting beside Dawinno, asking him so many things.” He paused. “Is my brother here?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he was. Send him to me.”

But Thu-Kimnibol was already on his way to Hresh’s side. He knelt and reached out his hand, and Hresh touched it, very lightly, fingertips to fingertips. “Brother,” he murmured. “I’ll carry your love to Minbain for you. And now you must go out. What follows must be just for Nialli and me. She can tell you afterward, if she likes.”

Thu-Kimnibol nodded. Lightly, lovingly, he let his hand rest a moment on Hresh’s forehead, as though he hoped the wisdom would pass into him at a touch. Then he rose, and left the tent without looking back.

Hresh said, “At my side, under my sash, you’ll find a little velvet pouch.”

“Father—”

“Take it. Open it.”

She let the small piece of polished stone tumble into her palm and stared at it in wonder. She had never handled it before. No one, so far as she knew, was permitted to touch it but Hresh. She had hardly ever been allowed even to see it. In some ways it was like the amulet he had just given her, for it was very smooth, and along its edges a pattern of lines had been carved into it, lines so fine that she couldn’t clearly make out the pattern. It gave off a barely perceptible warmth. But the amulet had little mass or weight, and seemed only a flimsy thing. The Wonderstone, though scarcely any larger, felt as weighty as a world to Nialli Apuilana. It made her uneasy to hold it. The power that it contained was frightening.

Hresh said, “Do you know what that is?”

“The Barak Dayir, father.”

“Yes. The Barak Dayir. But what the Barak Dayir is, not even I can say. The old Beng prophet told me that it is an amplifier, which means that which makes something greater than it is. As I told you once, it was the humans who once ruled the Earth that made it, before the Great World ever was. And gave it to us, to protect us when they would no longer be here. That’s all I know of it. You must keep it, now. And master the art of using it.”

“But how will I—”

“Twine with me, Nialli.”

Her eyes widened. “Twine — with — you, father?”

“You must. No harm can come of it, and much good. And when we are joined, take the Barak Dayir and place it by the tip of your sensing-organ, and seize it and grasp it tightly. You’ll hear a music, then. And I’ll help you after that. Will you do that, Nialli?”

“Of course I will.”

“Come closer, then.”

She cradled him in her arms. He weighs almost nothing now, she thought. All that remains of him now is the husk, and the mind that burns within it.

“Your sensing-organ, close to mine—”

“Yes. Yes.”

It was a communion Nialli Apuilana had never expected to have. But the moment her sensing-organ touched his, all fear and uncertainty went from her; and it was with almost unimaginable joy that she felt the rich torrent of his spirit come flooding into hers. It was a joy so great that it dizzied her and for a moment it swept her away; but then she remembered the Wonderstone, and carefully she curled the tip of her sensing-organ around it and gripped it with all her strength. The world turned to mist. A column of music rose beneath her. A great overwhelming chord of love buoyed her upward, carrying her soul toward the sky.

But Hresh was beside her, smiling at her tenderly, serenely, holding her, steadying her, guiding her. Together they soared across the vault of the heavens. A great golden glow was streaming from the west, a brilliant outpouring of dazzling radiance, darkening now into a stunning crimson, and then into rich deep scarlet, and then to silky purple. The darkness was beginning to reach out for him. But as they journeyed toward that waiting realm, he offered her a final sharing, the girl of his light, his love, his wisdom. He told her in a single unbroken flow all that she must know, until he could tell her no more.

So now it begins, Hresh thinks. The last journey of all. The world is growing dark around him.

Nialli, he thinks. Minbain. Taniane.

The vortex comes whirling up to claim him. He stares into it.

Is that where I’m going? What will it be like? Will I feel anything? Will I be able to taste and smell? If only I could see a little more clearly—

Ah. That’s better, now. But how strange it looks in there. Is that you, Torlyri? Thaggoran? How strange it all is!

Mother. Nialli. Taniane.

Oh, look, Taniane! Look!

When she emerged from the tent she found Thu-Kimnibol with Chham. The two men broke off their conversation as she approached, and looked at her strangely, as though she had been transformed into some unworldly creature of a kind they had never before beheld.

“How is it with your father?” Thu-Kimnibol asked.

“He’s with Dawinno now.” She was dry-eyed and oddly calm.

“Ah.” A shiver passed through Thu-Kimnibol’s massive frame, and he made the Five Heavenly Signs, slowly and deliberately, twice through, and Dawinno’s sign a third time afterward. “There was no one like him ever,” he said after a while, in a splintered voice. “We had the same mother, but I tell you I never truly felt myself his brother, because he was what he was. His mind was almost like a god’s. How will it be for us without him, I wonder?”