“This is true!” Kalaleq called out excitedly, then covered his mouth with his hand when Angajorqaq and Kukujuk both turned to look in his direction. He was silent until they looked away again, then went on in a whisper. “I thought perhaps, because of the way he talks, but did not think that it could be true. How happy you must be.”

“Happy? What can you mean?”

“To have such good fortune. To have your own hunter who has been spoken to by the spirits of the ocean and the wind. They talk to very few—and very rarely. And those who can hear their voices can then speak with the rest of us. That is how everything is learned. That is how we learn to make the things that we do. They told us how to build the ikkergaks so we can catch the ularuaq and grow fat. Now they talk to Kerrick and he will tell us what they say.”

Armun did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Don’t you know what they say? They say only one thing over and over. Go south to the island. That is all that they say.”

Kalaleq nodded and chewed at his lip. “That is what they say? Well then, that is the way it must be. We shall just have to go south to the island.”

Armun could only shake her head in complete disbelief.

yilanèhesn farigi nindasigi ninban*

YILANÈ APOTHEGM

Until a fargi is yilanè she has no city.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The new city had to come first, Ambalasi knew that, but she regretted every moment not spent studying the Sorogetso. That was what she had named these close relations of the Yilanè, the silent ones, for though they could communicate it appeared that they could do so on only the simplest of terms, as though they were still young elininyil in the sea. Even this was only an assumption made after her first contact with them; this success had not been repeated. The Sorogetso did not come near the wasteland of the peninsula but stayed hidden in the jungle beyond. And she was too occupied with the endless problems of growing a city, with the indifferent help of the Daughters of Desperation, to have any opportunity to seek them out. She was also feeling her age.

Now she lay in the shade of a quick-growing shrub and examined the culture specimens in her sanduu. The eyelens of the greatly mutated creature was in the sunlight, the projected image clear in the shadow. Most of the microscopic life was familiar to her. There were no pathogens to see, nor had any harmful fungi grown in the sterilized soil. Good.

“Send for Enge,” she ordered her assistant Setèssei, who had been changing specimens for her.