Robert Silverberg: At Winter's End

“What are you doing?” Weiawala called. “You aren’t supposed to be out there, Salaman!”

“I have to see — one last look—”

She called out something else to him, but her voice was taken by the wind. He was past the barricade now, and running toward his high place. Breathless, stumbling, he scrambled to it.

Everything lay visible to him from here.

To the south were rounded green hills. To the west was the distant sea, a golden streak in the early afternoon sun. And to the north, where a high broad plateau stretched on and on toward the horizon, he saw the invaders. They were still perhaps an hour’s march away, maybe two, but there was no question of their direction: they were heading straight for the great meadow in which the crater lay. And they were innumerable. Vermilions and hjjks, hjjks and vermilions, an astonishing parade poured out of the north, a line of them that went beyond Salaman’s ability to see. There was a central column of vermilions, packed close together, nose of one up against the tail of the one before it; a wide column of hjjks flanked the beasts on either side; and then two more columns of vermilions made up the outer edges of the advancing force. Both the insect-beings and the giant shaggy beasts moved in rigid formation and at a steady pace.

Salaman raised his sensing-organ and reached out with second sight to enhance his perception of the oncoming force. At once it gave him the full oppressive power of the enemy, the immense weight of the numbers.

But what was this? He sensed something unanticipated, something discordant, cutting across the massive emanations coming from the invading army. He frowned. He looked to his right, into the thick forest that separated this district from the land where Vengiboneeza lay.

Someone was coming from that direction.

He strained to stretch the range of his second sight. Bewildered, astonished, he searched for the source of that unexpected sensation. He reached out — farther — farther—

Touched something radiant and powerful that he knew to be the soul of Hresh-of-the-answers.

Touched Taniane. Touched Orbin. Touched Staip. Touched Haniman. Touched Boldirinthe.

Praheurt. Moarn. Kreun.

Gods! Were they all there? The whole tribe of them, coming from Vengiboneeza this day? Marching onward toward the City of Yissou? He could not detect Torlyri, he could not detect Koshmar, and that puzzled him; but now he felt the others, dozens of them, everyone who had come from the cocoon with him at the Time of Going Forth. All of them here, all of them approaching.

Unbelievable. They are just in time, he thought, to be swept away with us by the hjjks. We all came forth together; and now we will all die together.

Gods! Why had they come? Why today ?

The day of departure from Vengiboneeza had finally arrived, weeks after the decision to go had been proclaimed; like a thunderclap coming long after a devastating bolt of lightning. After all the weeks of grueling toil, when it had begun to seem that the dismantling of the settlement would go on forever without end, the time of leaving was at last at hand; what was yet undone must now remain forever undone; once again the People would be making a great Going Forth.

Taniane wore the new mask that the craftsman Striinin had made, the Mask of Koshmar: powerful jaw, heavy lips, great outcurving cheeks, dark gleaming surface of burnished black wood, a likeness not of the late chieftain’s face but of her indomitable soul, through which the somber, penetrating eyes of Taniane came shining like windows that opened into a vista of windows. In her left hand Taniane held the Wand of Coming Forth, which Boldirinthe had unearthed among the relics of the trek from the cocoon; in her right was Koshmar’s obsidian-tipped spear. She turned toward Hresh.

“How much longer until sunrise?”

“Just another few minutes now.”

“The instant we see the light, I’ll raise the wand. If anyone looks hesitant, send Orbin to give them a prod.”

“He’s already back there, checking everybody over.”

“Where’s Haniman?”

“With Orbin,” said Hresh.

“Send him to me.”

Hresh beckoned down the line toward Orbin, and pointed to Haniman and nodded. The two warriors spoke briefly; then Haniman came jogging up to the front in his strangely heavy-footed way.

“You want me, Hresh?”

“Only for a moment.” Hresh’s eyes met Haniman’s and held there. “I’m aware that you aren’t eager to be going with us.”

“Hresh, I never—”

“No. Please, Haniman. It’s no secret to me that you’ve been grumbling about the Going Forth ever since Koshmar made the proclamation.”

Haniman looked uncomfortable. “But have I ever said I didn’t plan to go?”

“You haven’t said it, no. But what’s in your heart hasn’t been much of a secret. We don’t need any malcontents on this trek, Haniman. I want you to know that if you’d prefer to stay behind, then stay.”

“And live among the Bengs?”

“And live among the Bengs, yes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hresh. Wherever the People go, I’ll go too.”

“Willingly?”

Haniman hesitated. “Willingly,” he said.

Hresh reached out his hand. “We’ll need you, you know. You and Orbin and Staip — you’re our strong ones, now. And we have plenty of work ahead. We’re going to build a world, Haniman.”

“ Re build a world, you mean.”

“No. Build one from scratch. Everything’s starting over. There’s nothing left of the old one except ruins. But for millions of years humans have been building new worlds on the ruins of the old. That’s what we’ll have to do, if we want to think of ourselves as humans.”

“If we want to think of ourselves as humans ?”

“As humans, yes,” said Hresh.

The first red glow of dawnlight appeared suddenly over the crest of the mountain wall.

“Ready to march!” Taniane called. “Shape it up! Hold your places! Everyone ready?”

Haniman trotted back to his place. Taniane and Hresh stood at the front of the line, with the warriors behind them, and then the workers and the children, and to the rear were the heavily laden wagons that the huge docile vermilions would pull. Hresh glanced back at the great mist-shrouded towers of Vengiboneeza to the rear, and the vast shoulder of the mountain behind them. A few Bengs stood near the edge of the settlement, looking on in silence. Torlyri was with them. She wore a helmet, a small graceful one of red metal, gleaming mirror-bright. How strange that was, Torlyri in a helmet! Hresh saw her lift her hand in holy signs: the blessing of Mueri, the blessing of Friit, the blessing of Emakkis. The blessing of Yissou. He waited, and as she made the final blessing, that of Dawinno, their eyes met, and she sent him a warm smile of love. Then he saw tears flood her eyes, and she turned away, moving behind the helmeted Bengs and passing from sight.

“Sing!” Taniane cried. “Everyone sing! Here we go. Sing! ”

That had been weeks ago. Now glorious Vengiboneeza seemed but a fading memory, and Hresh no longer mourned having left its wondrous treasures behind. He had not adapted as well to the heavy double loss of Koshmar and Torlyri. Torlyri’s warmth and Koshmar’s vigor both had been cut away as if by some dire surgery, and a great open place in the tribe remained where they had been. Hresh still sensed Torlyri’s faint presence hovering over the tribe as it moved west and south from Vengiboneeza; but Koshmar was gone, gone, utterly gone, and that was very hard.

No one questioned Taniane’s leadership, or his. They marched at the head of the tribe. Taniane gave the orders, but she consulted frequently with Hresh, who chose the line of march each day. It was easy enough for him to find the route, for, even though some four full cycles of the seasons had gone by since Harruel’s little band had passed this way, the echoes of their souls still remained in the forest, and Hresh, with only the slightest aid of the Barak Dayir, heard them without difficulty and followed their signal. Now that they were emerging from the forest he had no need of the Wonderstone to guide him to Harruel. The king’s dark soul, down there in the meadow, was sending out a strident, inescapable music.