Robert Silverberg - The Queen of Springtime

She must set it all down, these wondrous bewildering events. What shall she say? She can barely comprehend it. Is this where she has been heading all along, all through this difficult voyage of hers? What shall she say, what shall she say?

Lightly she touches the amulet at her breast. A flicker of faint warmth goes through her hand. And it seems to her that a slight ghostly figure has passed swiftly through the room at that moment, one who is lithe and wiry, with great dark eyes in which luminous intelligence blazes forth, and that in the moment of his passage he turned to her, and smiled, and nodded, and shaped the word “queen” with his lips. The Queen of Springtime, yes. Yes. To whom will fall the task her father had begun, of attempting to discover who we really are, and what it is we must do to fulfill the intentions of the gods, how it is that we are meant to conduct ourselves in the world into which we came forth when the Long Winter ended. She smiles. She puts her fingers to the page at last, and the letters begin to form. She is entering it in the chronicles, finally, on the topmost blank page, that on the day such-and-such in the year such-and-such of the Coming Forth great changes came about, for on that day the revered chieftain Taniane resigned her office and with her the chieftainship of ancient days at last was brought to an end for all time, and the first of the kings and queens of the city were chosen, who would preside over all that must be done in the aftermath of the great and terrible war with the hjjks. In which the People had acquitted themselves honorably and won a mighty victory.

She pauses. Looks up. Searches through the room by the faint glow of lamplight, seeking Hresh. But now she is alone. She glances back at what she has written. The chieftain, the king, the queen, the victory. She must say something about the change of chroniclers now, too. Another great change.

Many great changes, yes. With greater ones no doubt yet to come. For we are deep into the New Springtime now, and the springtime is the season of unfolding and growth. In springtime the world is born anew.