The next morning Brokols helped Amaadio build work tables and shelves. At noon Juliassa and Torissia arrived, followed by a hawk-eyed Jonkka with two pack kaabors in tow. The women wore rough clothes. Juliassa seemed quiet, for her, and businesslike, almost ignoring Brokols when she arrived. She gave Reeno a paper of some sort and he put her right to work. Climbing a ladder, she began to help the building crew tear old thatch from another building, a heavy, dirty, even somewhat hazardous job. Meanwhile Torissia led their kaabors back up the draw to the pasture the engineers had fenced, and left them to graze, then put baggage away in a separate hut that could be reroofed later. Jonkka had climbed another hut, where he squatted on the ridgepole, spying the country round.
During a rain break, a man arrived with a cartload of covered baskets—the guano. Reeno called Juliassa down from the roof, and Amaadio had her sweep the floor of a shed and empty the baskets so he could see if the guano was dry. That done, Reeno gave her a pitchfork and a great, deep-bellied wheelbarrow, to haul away old roof thatch and burn it.
Brokols wondered what was going on; why they were giving a namirrna orders like that, and why she was obeying them.
They worked till the sun was low, then bathed briefly in the inlet before supper. When they'd eaten, Juliassa slipped away from Torissia in the dusk, to the beach again. Jonkka saw her leave, and followed. She walked along it to the skiffs and dragged them into the water, filling them and weighing them down with rocks so the seams would swell shut.
When she'd finished, she sensed a movement in the dusk, or perhaps a sound, and looked up. Thirty yards offshore, a very large old sea serpent watched her, its head half a dozen feet above the water. On an impulse she called to it in sullsi.
"Hello! I am called Juliassa. What are you called?"
The answer came in sullsit as atrocious as her own—differently atrocious, full of hisses and sonorities—sullsit spoken slowly, accommodated to different vocal equipment. "Hello, Suliassa. I am called K'sthuump. You must be the human told about, friend of the sellsu Sleekit."
"I am! I am! Do you know Sleekit?"
"I know of Sleekit, and of you. Sullsi love to tell stories. His, of you, are new and widely told now. Excites to think of talking with land people! How wonderful that I meet you! People say Sleekit ssould have gotten more stories from you. Land people must have stransse and marvelous things to tell."
"I'm afraid he spent most of our time teaching me to speak. It wasn't easy. I had to spend so much of my time with him, to master it, that I did hardly any duties."
A resonant grunting issued from reptilian lungs, and she realized K'sthuump was laughing. "You do well. K'sthuump loves you. And it would not be easy to tell sullsi of land things, things they have never seen or dreamed of. They would have no picsures for them. It is easier for me than for Sleekit to receive your stories. I will see your mind picsures beneath them. I would love to spend time talking with you."
"And I with you!" Juliassa said. "But I have many duties here, my pack and I. My tribe prepares for great death fight with another. I must help it prepare. I can talk with you mainly at night."
"Ah!" The exclamation was a sort of laryngeal grunt. "At night is my main time of duty. I am the old mother, old beyond breeding. At night I patrol outside, listen for sarrkas. Very soon I must go. When light leaves the sky."
"Can we talk other times when the light is dimming?" Juliassa asked.
"I will be here every time. If you are here also, we will talk. I wiss to know more of this great death fight."
"A question," Juliassa said. "Have you heard that the big-ship people killed two of the Vrronnkiess?"
"All of the Vrronnkiess know it."
"The big-ship people are one tribe which my tribe will fight. We do not know how we can beat them, but we will try, and maybe Hrum, the Great Sea Lord, will help us."
A sound resonated from the serpentine throat, like the Hrum uttered by monks at meditation. Juliassa wasn't sure what to make of it. "One of the Vrronnkiess killed a big-ship person yesterday," she went on. "Did that clear half the blood debt?"
"Vrronnkiess are different from sullsi. Recognise no blood debts. It was that . . . to kill the big-ssip person seemed the correct act."
"You know about it then. Did you see it?"
"Not as you mean. I was not there. It is known."
"How is it known?" the girl persisted.
"Humans are like the sullsi; one human does not know what other humans know. Every Vrronnkiess knows what every other knows."
The voice stopped, as if K'sthuump was contemplating Juliassa. Or her pictures. Then the serpent spoke again. "If one of us learns something, we all know it. If it is important to all Vrronnkiess, then we are aware that we know it. And the coming of big-ssip people is very important." The old serpent floated quiet for a moment, then went on. "Stransser things will happen than human and sullsi talking, serpent and human talking. A time of testing is coming, has come, to the world."
Neither said anything more for a minute. "I must go to duty now," the serpent said finally. "K'sdiuump loves Suliassa." She began to swim away, holding her head high above the water.
"Juliassa loves K'sthuump!" the girl called after her.
There was no answer. The serpent receded into the thickening darkness, till at a hundred yards she could scarcely be seen. Then she dove, disappeared, Juliassa staring after her, feeling loss at the departure. I'll learn to be an adept, she told herself. I'll get Panni Vempravvo to teach me, so I can see K'sthuump's pictures, and I can learn the stories the serpents tell. Right after I marry Elver. But she felt no confidence. Not even all the masters had adept powers, and she'd never shown the slightest talent for them.
Thoughtfully, unsmiling, she turned to walk back to the hamlet. She didn't remember Jonkka until she almost ran into him where he squatted in the dark.
"I saw the serpent," he said. "It sounded like you were talking with him."
"With her," Juliassa corrected. "She speaks sullsit. K'sthuump is an old mother of her pod. Like a grandmother, I guess. She has to stand sentry duty now, outside the inlet. To listen for sarrkas."
"Hmm. Juliassa Hanorissia, you are an unusual person." Jonkka got up and they started for the hamlet. Before they got there, they met several of the others going to the shore: Brokols, Reeno, and Torissia. Juliassa and Jonkka turned back and went with them. The men gathered dead branches from shrubs at the foot of the cliff, and with a match, Reeno lit a small fire on the beach.
They sat around it talking, and Juliassa began to tell about K'sthuump.
"Really?" Brokols was impressed, not skeptical. "You talked with a serpent? What did he say?"
"She. K'sthuump is a she." Juliassa described the conversation.
Knowing at a distance, from one mind to another. It bothered Brokols to hear her accept such superstition so uncritically. "I find that hard to believe," he said cautiously. "That the serpents can know what each other knows—without talking about it, that is. There's no medium for direct thought transfer." He paused thoughtfully. "Unless it's done through water somehow."
She stared at his face, lit by flickering firelight. "Do you mean," she said, "that you've spent all these days with Reeno Venreeno and don't believe that one person can read another's thoughts and see their pictures?"
Brokols peered at her. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that such powers exist? And that Reeno . . ."
"Of course," she said. "And Allbarin and . . ." She stopped, suddenly chagrined, realizing she shouldn't have told him, that undoubtedly he wasn't to know, and turned to Reeno.
Chills washed over Brokols in long waves almost painfully intense, as ambiguities, mysteries, scores of unfitted data began falling into place. Everyone felt it a little. Reeno watched intently, and when Brokols had settled out somewhat, spoke to him.
"That's right, Elver. You needn't wonder any longer."
There was another silence before Brokols said anything. "And Eltrienn?"
"No, not Eltrienn. And not Juliassa or the amirr. Fewer than one of us in a thousand. The sages, most masters, all adepts. And almost no others."
Brokols sat a moment longer, seemingly lost in thought, then stood up and looked around. "Excuse me," he said, "I have to go away. To be alone." He started off, began to jog.
"Elver?" Juliassa called tentatively. Reeno stilled her with a gesture.
Brokols stopped, looked back. "From how far away can you—look into someone else's mind?" he asked.
"If I can see you, and if there aren't many other people around, perhaps a hundred feet. In a crowd not more than—twenty perhaps. In an excited crowd I might have to touch you." He shrugged. "Apparently serpents are much more able than human adepts. But then, they're the Messengers of Hrum.
"And if it's any help to you, I can't read you freely now, because you know about us, about adepts. When a person knows he can be read, or suspects it, his mind curtains itself automatically. To read you at all now, I'd have to question you. Questions can bring things to the surface of the mind, or near it—not necessarily the things we're interested in—and lets them be seen.
"The exception is emotions. Those we can always get."
"Thank you," Brokols said quietly, then walked away and disappeared.
* * *
Reaching the plateau top, Brokols stopped. The sky seemed infinitely deep, its stars myriad and sharp, but though he was aware of them, he found neither awe at the sight nor joy in its beauty. Facing north toward Theedalit, he spoke aloud. "I trusted you people. I trusted you and came to—to love you. I'd never loved my own people, never knew it was possible, and I came to love you. And you fooled me, and used me, maybe laughed at me."
He began to run, ran hard, stumbling occasionally on stones and clumps of grass. He slipped in gleebor shit and fell heavily, jarring himself, got up limping and ran again, though only trotting now, until after a few minutes he flopped down exhausted and rolled over on his back, breathing hard.
So what now, Elver Brokols? he thought wryly. Do you go away somewhere? Find your way north to Djez Gorrbul to throw yourself on the mercy of General Vendel Kryger? Steal a rowboat and cross the ocean to Almeon?
Less than one in a thousand. And the rest were exposed to the few. No, not so, not broadly. Mainly their emotions. He grimaced. He wasn't proud of all his emotions.
What would it be like to have such an ability? To be exposed to everyone's emotions. Undoubtedly it was a matter of getting used to it. And the others were used to them.
And I prefer these people to my own. Even now. The realization didn't surprise him at all. I never did fit in well at home. Kryger knew that. He knew I wasn't a proper Almite. He knew me better than I knew myself.
And Reeno knew him better yet! Much better. Reeno had browsed his thoughts, breathed in his feelings—and had never visibly shown distaste or amusement at them. And Allbarin. Allbarin had manipulated him with questions, picked his brain, harvested his memories, but always with courtesy, somehow with seeming respect.
And Vessto, and Panni. And Panni! Brokols stood up. "Panni!" he called aloud, though not loudly. Somewhere in the darkness a gleebor snorted, startled at his voice. "Panniii!"
Chills flowed over Brokols again, wave after wave, the short hairs on his neck bristling, and he felt his face grinning. "Panni!" He barely breathed it that time.
He stood there until the chills stopped. It seemed to him he could almost see the sage sitting straight-backed in the grass on his hill, his mountain, skinny legs folded under him.
After a few minutes, Elver Brokols started trotting again. Great Liilia had just risen, swollen, lopsided, lighting the plateau. Liilia! Brokols chuckled wryly in his mind. Almost the same name as Lerrlia! He threw the moon a salute as he jogged.
* * *
He returned to the hamlet, rolled out his pallet and lay down. It took him very little time to go to sleep.