“Inegban* is a real city,” Esetta* said, in the abrupt, breathless fashion that all the males used. “There we could sit high up among the leaves and watch everything that happened in the crowded walkways below. We were not forever trapped in boredom as we are here, with little to do other than to think of the fate of the beaches. Tell me. . .”

“I will. But first send for Alipol. I want to tell him too.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

Esetta* took a perverse pleasure in his answer. “Why can’t I? You want to know why I can’t? I will tell you why I can’t.” He hesitated over the answer, flicking his tongue between his teeth to dampen his lips before he spoke.

“You cannot speak to him because Alipol is dead.”

Kerrick was shocked by this news. Sturdy Alipol, as solid as a treetrunk. It did not seem possible.

“He was taken ill—an accident?”

“Worse. He was taken, taken by force. He who has been to the beaches twice before. And they knew, those crude beasts, they knew, he told them, pleaded with them, showed them the lovely things he makes but they just laughed at that. Some of them turned away, but the hideous one with the scars and that rough voice, the one who leads the hunters, she found the protests exciting and seized Alipol and stifled his cries with her ugly body. All day they were there, she made sure, all day, I saw it. Sure of the eggs.”

Kerrick understood that something terrible had happened to his friend, but did not know what. Esetta* had forgotten him for the moment, was swaying with his eyes closed. He hummed a dirge-like tone, then began to sing a hoarse song that brimmed with dread.

Young I go, once to the beach,

and I return.

Twice I go, no longer young,

will I return?

But not a third, please not a third,

for few return.

Not I, not I. For if I go, I know,

I’ll not return.

Esetta* grew silent then. He had forgotten that Kerrick was to tell him about Inegban*, or perhaps no longer cared to hear about that distant city. He turned, ignoring Kerrick’s questions, and shuffled back down the hall. Even though Kerrick called out loudly after that no one else appeared. In the end he let himself out, pulling the door shut so it sealed behind him. What had Esetta* meant? What had killed Alipol on the beach? He could not understand at all. Inlènu* was asleep in the sun, leaning against the wall, and he jerked cruelly on the leash until she blinked vacantly up at him, yawned, and climbed slowly to her feet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR